What a singular and wonderful film is Nicolas Roeg’s feature debut, 1971’s Walkabout (he had previously co-directed Performance with Donald Cammell and had worked as a cinematographer since the early ’60s on a variety of films including Fahrenheit 451 and some uncredited work on Doctor Zhivago).

Jenny Agutter and Roeg’s son Luc (credited as “Lucien John”) play a brother and sister left to fend for themselves in the outback when their father drives them into the middle of nowhere and kills himself. They survive with the help of an Aboriginal teenager (David Gulpilil), who’s on the “walkabout” of the title: a coming-of-age ritual where the young man spends months alone in the wilderness, fending for himself.

A beautiful, confident and masterfully controlled film, Walkabout has just been restored and re-issued by Criterion (who previously issued a non-anamorphic version over a decade ago). It’s gorgeous, and extras include interviews with the grown-up kids (Luc Roeg in particular, now a producer, looks exactly the same). Highly recommended.

And speaking of Dr. Zhivago and restorations, David Lean’s 1965 epic Russian Revolution romance, starring Omar Sharif and Julie Christie, has been put together in a juicy three-disc Blu-Ray edition. There’s commentary by Sharif, Rod Steiger and Sandra Lean, a couple of documentaries and vintage featurettes, and a CD “sampler” of Maurice Jarre’s soundtrack. (You’d think they’d just throw the whole thing in there).

VAMPIRE WEAKENED

Vampire pop culture seems about as immortal as the blood-suckers themselves, and the success of the horrible Twilight franchise has opened the doors to some other interesting treatments of the enduring legend. A new pre-occupation seems to be seeing how it plays out as vampires try to integrate into normal society. In Daybreakers, now out on video, they are normal society: so many people have “turned” that they’re now the majority, and the world has been shaped to their needs: underground walkways, cars with videocameras on top and blacked-out windows, surviving humans milked for blood. It’s a cool premise, but the story—featuring Ethan Hawke as a vampire scientist who joins forces with surviving humans, including Willem Dafoe—doesn’t really go anywhere. I guess it’s a warning sign when the director(s) (the “Spierig Brothers”) are also credited with the special effects.

Worst of all, Daybreakers is lacking in both sexiness and humour, which go a long way to breaking up the inherent sombreness of the vampire genre. Fortunately, that cannot be said about the trashy and awesome True Blood, starring Anna Paquin as a saucy Southern psychic in a world where vamps have “come out of the coffin.” The second season of the HBO series is now out on video, and it’s as fun as the first.

ISLAND PORN AND INTERGALACTIC ADVENTURES

I’ve always had a bit of an obsession with the South Pacific (the place, not the musical), and I love BBC’s Planet Earth series, so when I found out the Beebs had a new Hi-Def nature series called South Pacific I was stoked. The six-part series follows very much in Planet Earth’s footsteps: insanely pretty cinematography, fascinating critters, magnificent scenery. The super-slow-mo shots from inside the curls of massive waves are particularly mind-blowing—you see surfers riding them in silhouette from inside the wave. It’s total island porn. I loved it.

California-dwelling Montreal natives and Concordia grads Robert Brousseau and Rhonda Smiley have put together a totally self-financed animated sci-fi adventure called Race, and man, it sure is impressive what people can do with graphics and animation tools these days. A Star Wars-esque space opera, it looks about as pro as anything on TV, with some nifty, Battlestar-esque subjective “camera” techniques (hand-held shots, zooms) that add to the verisimilitude. It’s not really in my wheelhouse, but it’s certainly impressive and I’d rather watch Race than whatever else George Lucas has up his sleeve these days. Now out on DVD, you can find more info at www.racethemovie.net.