MEMENTO 15

Emotion sickness…

2000 ★★★★★ OUT 25 SEPTEMBER BD

EXTRAS ★★★★★ Chronological cut, Commentary, Featurettes, Booklets, Art cards

Released in 2000, Christopher Nolan’s second feature announced the arrival of a true cinematic perfectionist. A fiendishly fragmented neo-noir told partly in reverse, it introduces Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce), an insurance investigator hunting his wife’s murderer. Because Leonard has retrograde amnesia, he can’t make new memories, which means he can’t trust anyone – even himself.

Instead, he’s turned his life into a thriller-without-end of which he is both director and star, scrawling ‘facts’ on his body like the loglines of a screenplay and snapping anxious Polaroids as if for continuity. Even Nolan’s biggest fans will be surprised at the depth of feeling here, something he attributes to Pearce and the excellent supporting cast. But that’s not wholly fair. Based on a short story by his brother Jonah, Nolan’s screenplay digs into what really makes us human, how we lie to ourselves to be happy.

‘I wanted it to be not just a puzzle box, but relatable and emotional,’ says Nolan in the extras accompanying this stunning SteelBook. Alongside interviews with all the major players (bar Pearce), it includes a commentary, the original short story, even replicas of Polaroid photographs and props. The result is an overachieving package of which the master would surely approve.

THE VERDICT A dizzying and disorientating thriller from one of cinema’s most dazzling talents.

‘I’ll just stare at this square bit of shiny plastic and see what develops’

DAZED AND CONFUSED/ SCHOOL OF ROCK 15/12A

We salute you…

1993 ★★★★★ OUT 15 SEPTEMBER CINEMAS

2003 ★★★★✩ OUT NOW CINEMAS 25 SEPTEMBER BD

EXTRAS ★★★✩✩ Commentaries, Featurettes, Diaries, Music video

If you wanna rock,’ says Dewey Finn, ‘you gotta break the rules.’ And if there’s one thing Richard Linklater knows about, it’s bucking convention. In two films made ten years apart, the Texas indie auteur effectively re-authored youth movies, teasing sharp-eyed takes on growing up into genial, music-driven frameworks.

Following break-out movie Slacker (1990), Linklater went to school circa 1976 with Dazed and Confused. As seniors brutally initiate freshmen and formative experiences mount, teenage tensions are lightly, lucidly articulated over a day’s drinking, smoking and hanging/making out. But this film is sharper than its flyaway hair and flares suggest, tapping into transitional anxieties with lived-in precision.

The music rocks too, though School… went one better by securing Led Zep for the soundtrack curriculum. With the tale of a failed rocker stealing his quieter roommate’s teaching gig, Linklater proved Jack Black could carry a movie and that inspirational family films needn’t be mawkish. Supporting actors Joan Cusack and Mike White add to the film’s character, while Linklater aces the transition to Hollywood with breezy-going charm and indie spirit intact.

THE VERDICT Linklater’s rock classics are all killer, no filler: witty, amiable, beautifully played and endlessly rewatchable.