It's a great week to revisit our podcasts, as 2 new DVDs out today have been featured at GreenCine Daily: Heartbeats and Life During Wartime. We've also got some fun summer cult films and docs, sci fi, and more. 

We've got a nicely ecclectic mix of new releases this week, with 2 biographical docs, a seminal work by Bengali director Satyajit Ray, and strange (to say the least) comedy that tanked when it came out in the 70's, but is worth a look with fresh eyes on the release of it (Skidoo) in DVD format. 

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Rating (out of five): * * * *

The Queen and her Corgis, Churchill and his bulldog, J.R. Ackerley and Tulip.  If that last one doesn't ring the bell, no matter: a gong may sound in perpetuity once you've seen the new animated film My Dog Tulip, the newest from husband-wife filmmaking team Paul and Sandra Fierlinger.  J.R Ackerly, a British literary editor and writer, had his book of the same title (a reminiscence about the relationship between him and his dog) published in 1956 in England and later here in America. Reissued by New York Review Books in its Classic Series, Tulip is currently that series' best-seller.

While all this may sound a bit like the Brit version of Marley and Me, be assured that it is not.  For one thing, Tulip is not a film for children. One of the first things to greet us on-screen are the book author Ackerley's words: "Unable to love each other, the English turn to dogs."  Sad, ironic, rather nastily funny -- and definitely not for kids. The story that unfolds thereafter tells of a quiet, highly intelligent and lonely man who has never had a committed relationship with another person.  Into his life comes the dog Tulip.

Reviewer: Vadim Rizov
Rating (out of 5): **½

Takashi Miike chooses the strangest times to assert himself. By IMDB's count, since 1991 he's directed or is wrapping up some 85 titles; if he's no longer cranking out five films a year, inconsistency is still his hallmark. Miike's best known for both Audition — Ozu meets torture porn — and a series of films that alternate between inspiration and filler with very little warning. If Miike was a band, he'd have an awesome greatest-hits disc that would make you get rid of all the albums proper.