Carnage (15)
From the title and the subject matter – two uptown New York couples meeting to discuss what caused their children to fight – you'd expect an excrutiatingly painful dissection of middle-class mores. Roman Polanski handles his adaptation of Yasmin Reza's play with a little more guile than that: sure, things are said that shouldn't be, but the tone is more black comedy than Who's Afraid Of Virginia Wolf-style marital tragedy. Jodie Foster and John C Reilly play one couple, but it's Kate Winslet and Christopher Waltz as glossy, bickering Mr and Mrs Cowans who steal the show.
The Belly Of An Architect (15)
Was there ever a more Marmite-y director than Peter Greenaway, with his eccentric, painterly films and his obsession with architecture and numbering systems? This critic loves his work so it's a resounding "Hurrah!" to the BFI for bringing Greenaway's beguiling 1987 feature to DVD and Blu-Ray. No Michael Nyman soundtrack on this one, though you can hear him on one of the extras, Greenaway's short documentary about Terence Conran. Brian Dennehy is the architect of the title, visiting Rome with his young wife (Chloe Webb).
The Woman In Black (12)
Adapted from Susan Hill's novel by Kick-Ass writer Jane Goldman (aka Mrs Jonathan Ross), this horror-thriller is directed by James Watkins and gives Daniel Radcliffe his first proper post-Harry Potter outing. He plays Arthur Kipps, an Edwardian solicitor sent to wrap up the affairs of a dead client in a lonely, fenland house. But a spate of deaths and glimpses of a mysterious woman dressed in black make this job a little out of the ordinary ...
A Bronx Tale (15)
First time on Blu-Ray for Robert De Niro's 1993 directorial debut, a story about a hard-working bus driver in 1960s New York (De Niro) whose young son witnesses a mob killing. After refusing to identify the culprit (played by Chazz Palminteri, who also wrote the play the film is based on), the boy is gradually drawn into the criminal underworld.
Barry Didcock
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