There’s a satisfying sense of closure to the definitive noir kick achieved in The Big Heat: its director, Fritz Lang, had forged early links from German expressionism to the emergence of film noir, so it’s entirely logical that the expatriate director would help codify the genre with this brutal 1953 film. Visually, his scenes exemplify the bold contrasts, deep shadows, and heightened compositions that define the look of noir, and he matches that success with the darkly pessimistic themes of this revenge melodrama.

The story coheres around the suicide of a crooked cop, and the subsequent struggle of an honest detective, Dave Bannion (Glenn Ford), to navigate between a corrupt city government and a ruthless mobster to uncover the truth. Initially, the violence here seems almost timid by comparison to the more explicit carnage now commonplace in films, yet the story accelerates as its plot arcs toward Bannion’s showdown with kingpin Lagana (Alexander Scourby) and his psychotic henchman, the sadistic Vince Stone, given an indelible nastiness by Lee Marvin. When Bannion’s wife is killed by a car bomb intended for the detective, both the hero and the story go ballistic: suspended from the force, he embarks on a crusade of revenge that suggests a template for Charles Bronson’s Death Wish films, each step pushing Lagana and Stone toward a showdown. Bodies drop, dominoes tumbled by the escalating war between the obsessed Bannion and his increasingly vicious adversaries.

Lang’s disciplined visual design and the performances (especially those of Ford, Marvin, Jeanette Nolan as the dead cop’s scheming widow, and Gloria Grahame as Marvin’s girlfriend) enable the film to transcend formula, as do several memorable action scenes–when an enraged Marvin hurls scalding coffee at the feisty Debby (Grahame), we’re both shattered by the violence of his attack, and aware that he’s shifted the balance of power. –Sam Sutherland

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A book on the British horror movie to detect and analyse the roots of British horror, identifying it as ‘the only staple cinematic myth which Britain can properly claim as its own.’ It has revised author’s original work, bringing the story into the 21st century.

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Director Billy Wilder (Sunset Boulevard) and writer Raymond Chandler (The Big Sleep) adapted James M. Cain’s hard-boiled novel into this wildly thrilling story of insurance man Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray), who schemes the perfect murder with the beautiful dame Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck: kill Dietrichson’s husband and make off with the insurance money. But, of course, in these plots things never quite go as planned, and Barton Keyes (Edward G. Robinson) is the wily insurance investigator who must sort things out. From the opening scene you know Neff is doomed, as the story is told in flashback; yet, to the film’s credit, this doesn’t diminish any of the tension of the movie. This early film noir flick is wonderfully campy by today’s standards, and the dialogue is snappy (“I thought you were smarter than the rest, Walter. But I was wrong. You’re not smarter, just a little taller”), filled with lots of “dame”s and “baby”s. Stanwyck is the ultimate femme fatale, and MacMurray, despite a career largely defined by roles as a softy (notably in the TV series My Three Sons and the movie The Shaggy Dog), is convincingly cast against type as the hapless, love-struck sap. –Jenny Brown

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Seventeen-year-old Savannah ‘Little Eagle’ Mcleod has always felt something from her life was missing, despite a normal upbringing. At the end of her junior year her adoptive parents move her from her beloved hometown of Roswell, Georgia into the heart of Atlanta’s Inman Park. That summer she encounters a love interest she did not ask for. Magical powers are bestowed upon her that will fulfill a Cherokee tribal prophecy; they believe Savannah is the only one powerful enough to stop the world from ending in 2012. Along with all of this, a group of mysterious teens are hell-bent on entangling her into their Legion of Darkness. In October of 2011, Savannah, the lead singer/rhythm guitarist of the band, V.A.M.P.S. ~ ATL, vanishes right before her band goes onstage during a gig at The Masquerade club in Atlanta, Georgia. All that was found of Savannah that fateful night were her bloodied dress and slashed silicone wristbands wadded up in the back of the band van.

Follow the alternating points of view of the five teens who are her best friends and band mates as they weave the loving yet intriguing story of Savannah. Will any information learned help find their friend in time? After all, the planets are aligned, and 2012 is just around the corner. Will Savannah live to fulfill the prophesy?

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Collectors Edition includes:

• Additional CD with the games music and 5 additional bonus sound tracks
•  Booklet including never seen before concept art
• A3 Poster
• A printed walkthrough

Machinarium is a puzzle video game developed by Amanita Design. The goal of Machinarium is to solve a series of puzzles and brain teasers. The puzzles are linked together by an overworld consisting of a traditional and click” adventure story.

The overworld most radical departure is that only objects within the player character reach can be clicked on. Machinarium is notable in that it contains no dialogue, neither spoken nor written. The game instead uses a system of animated thought bubbles.

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