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Review Entertainment in Video / Swing [1999]
Actors & Directors
  • Lisa Stansfield
  • Rita Tushingham
  • Paul Usher
  • Hugo Speer
  • Tom Bell
  • Nick Mead
Release date: 2000-05-15
Run time: 94 min.
Price: £5.99

Review Swing [1999] / Entertainment in Video:

Swing is the good-natured tale of a Liverpudlian ex-con who decides to make a new life for himself as the leader of a swing band. When we are first introduced to Martin (The Full Monty's Hugo Speer), he is being released from prison, where he did time out of loyalty to his wayward brother, Liam. His cellmate, Jack, a shell suit-wearing, dreadlocked sax player who looks suspiciously like Clarence Clemons (because he is), inspired Martin to make swing his vocation and serves as his conscience throughout the film. This is a good thing, because nobody else seems to think he can pull it off, including his ex-girlfriend, Joan (Lisa Stansfield), now married to the cop that put him away and his own parents (nicely played by veteran British actors Rita Tushingham and Tom Bell). Joan has missed singing, however and eventually decides to join Martin's band, along with a soccer-loving bass player, skinhead drummer, and horn section of Orange Brigades led by The Young Ones' Alexei Sayle. Speer isn't the most dynamic actor but generates the appropriate degree of sympathy and works well with pop vocalist Stansfield, who acquits herself nicely in her feature film debut. She also sings several numbers, including "Mack the Knife" and "Baby, I Need Your Loving" both of which can be found on the motion picture soundtrack. If Swing doesn't ever hit the heights of The Blues Brothers or The Commitments, it keeps the beat more often than not. -Kathleen C Fennessy, Amazon. com.

Review Connoisseur Video / Medea [1975]
Actors & Directors
  • Margareth Clémenti
  • Giuseppe Gentile
  • Pier Paolo Pasolini
  • Laurent Terzieff
  • Maria Callas
  • Massimo Girotti
Release date: 2000-01-24
Run time: 105 min.
RRP: £15.99
Price: £29.95

Review Medea [1975] / Connoisseur Video:


Review 2 Entertain Video / The Scold's Bridle - By Minette Walters [1998]
Actors & Directors
  • Miranda Richardson
  • Trudie Styler
  • David Thacker
  • Bob Peck
  • Douglas Hodge
  • Siân Phillips
Release date: 1998-03-30
Run time: 147 min.
RRP: £14.99
Price: £15.75

Review The Scold's Bridle - By Minette Walters [1998] / 2 Entertain Video:


Review Entertainment in Video / Switch Back [1997]
Actors & Directors
  • Dennis Quaid
  • Jared Leto
  • Jeb Stuart
  • Danny Glover
  • R. Lee Ermey
  • Ted Levine
Release date: 1998-11-16
Run time: 113 min.
Price: £5.99

Review Switch Back [1997] / Entertainment in Video:


Actors & Directors
  • Robert Altman
  • Karen Black
  • Sudie Bond
  • Kathy Bates
  • Cher
  • Sandy Dennis
Release date: 1992-02-24
Run time: 109 min.
RRP: £5.99
Price: £24.99

Review Come Back To The Five And Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean [1982] / Castlevision:


Review 2 Entertain Video / I Claudius - Parts 3 And 4 [1976]
Actors & Directors
  • Derek Jacobi
  • Herbert Wise
  • George Baker
  • John Hurt
  • Siân Phillips
  • Brian Blessed
Release date: 1991-09-02
Run time: 324 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £2.45

Review I Claudius - Parts 3 And 4 [1976] / 2 Entertain Video:

Herbert Wise, who had previously directed part of Elizabeth R (1971), and who would helm the BBC Television Shakespeare Julius Caesar (1979), concludes his study of the ruthless conflicts of Rome's First Family. Events become increasingly frenzied as Caligula bloodily slaughters his way to power, making a senator of his favourite horse along the way. Fresh from The Naked Civil Servant (1975), John Hurt plays the tyrant with psychotic fury, a role reworked for the big screen by Malcolm McDowell in the world's first, and last, hardcore pornographic epic, Caligula (1979). This is fortunately more subtle, with the drama seeing Claudius effectively age from youth to old age, eventually becoming Emperor. Derek Jacobi is simply magnificent in the intensely moving finale, which is not to overlook the rest of a fine cast, including George Baker, Ian Ogilvy, Christopher Guard, Stratford Johns, John Rhys-Davies and Bernard Hepton. Patrick Stewart meanwhile moves through the ages, from the murderous Praetorian Guard Captain Sejanus, to the rather more heroic Captain Picard of Star Trek: The Next Generation (1986-93). I Claudius was abortively filmed in 1937 by Charles Laughton, and it might be supposed the original novels at least partly inspired Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast, serialised by the BBC in 2000. -Gary S. Dalkin A truly epic saga of dynastic conflict at the heart of Imperial Rome, I Claudius was the landmark BBC drama series of the 1970s. Originally transmitted as 13 50-minute episodes, the series dramatises the human face of ancient Rome as interpreted by Robert Graves in his two enormously complex novels, I, Claudius and Claudius The God. [+]
Derek Jacobi gives one of the greatest television performances ever as Claudius, the appalled chronicler of the decadence, corruption, intrigue and carnage which comes with the absolute power of his ruling family. Augustus (Brian Blessed) is Emperor and Livia (Sian Phillips) his scheming, ambitious wife, Claudius' aunt. By virtue of his stammer and uncontrollable twitches, Claudius passes for a fool, thus escaping the poisonous machinations of Livia, all the while recording the comings and goings of the Imperial household. Events become increasingly frenzied as Caligula (John Hurt playing the tyrant with psychotic fury) bloodily slaughters his way to power, making a senator of his favourite horse along the way. Claudius eventually becomes Emperor himself, and Jacobi is simply magnificent in the intensely moving finale, which is not to overlook the rest of a fine cast, including George Baker, Ian Ogilvy, Christopher Guard, Stratford Johns, John Rhys-Davies, Bernard Hepton and Patrick Stewart as the murderous Praetorian Guard Captain Sejanus. Inevitably lacking the visual scale of cinematic features such as Ben-Hur, and today looking more studio-bound than ever, I, Claudius remains a television masterpiece of intelligently written and rivetingly intense character drama. -Gary S. Dalkin.

Review Granada Media / Lillie - The Jersey Lily - Episodes 1 To 6 - A Life Of Scandal, Notoriety And Romance [1978]
Actors & Directors
  • Anton Rodgers
  • John Gorrie
  • Peter Egan
  • Jennie Linden
  • Denis Lill
  • Christopher Hodson
  • Francesca Annis
  • Tony Wharmby
Release date: 1999-08-16
Run time: 312 min.
RRP: £14.99
Price: £1.95

Review Lillie - The Jersey Lily - Episodes 1 To 6 - A Life Of Scandal, Notoriety And Romance [1978] / Granada Media:


Review Entertainment in Video / Suicide Kings (1997)
Actors & Directors
  • Jay Mohr
  • Christopher Walken
  • Henry Thomas
  • Peter O'Fallon
  • Denis Leary
  • Sean Patrick Flanery
Release date: 1999-09-27
Run time: 102 min.
Price: £5.99

Review Suicide Kings (1997) / Entertainment in Video:

Inspired script, great cast-what could be a better recipe for a true classic amid the soul-sapping morass of straight-to-tape? Storywise, Suicide Kings goes something like this: when wealthy straight-arrow college kid Max (Sean Patrick Flanery) learns his girlfriend has been kidnapped for a $2 million ransom, he panics big-time. Roping in his friends-T. K. (Jeremy Sisto); a strangely steely medical student named Brett (Jay Mohr from Go), a loud-mouthed ball of machismo; and Avery (Henry Thomas), the elder brother of the girl in peril-Max organises another kidnapping to raise the ransom, this time of neighbourhood ganglord Christopher Bartlett (Christopher Walken). Bartlett is understandably is rather piqued about the whole business, particularly when he's inadvertently shot while being spirited back to the summer home of the Ira (Johnny Galecki), another pal of Max's, much of whose time is spent fretting about his parents' soft furnishings. But the real intrigue has only just started. Much to his credit and the film's benefit, first-time director Peter O'Fallon avoids the Tarantino-like excesses of violence his storyline could have fallen back on. Instead, he summons up a blackly comic tone which veers masterfully between understated farce and noir-ish melodrama without once losing its footing. Remarkably, the maze of plot twists which could have capsized the entire project actually work, while the innumerable one-liners which pepper the script stay snappy and vital throughout. ("I'm not asking for dinner and dancing", remarks an avuncular Walken, having asked to be momentarily cut free to use the bathroom. [+]
"I'm not asking for commitment. "). But it's the uniformly astute performances which elevate Suicide Kings above the herd: Mohr and Thomas, in particular, are impressively supple, and it's a relief and a pleasure to see Walken giving a role his full attention even though he spends the majority of his screen time tied to a chair. -Danny Leigh.

Review Warner Vision International / The Fortunes And Misfortunes Of Moll Flanders [1996]
Actors & Directors
  • Alex Kingston
  • Nicola Kingston
  • Geoffrey Beevers
  • Lucy Evans
  • David Attwood
  • James Bowers
Release date: 1996-12-10
Run time: 196 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £9.73

Review The Fortunes And Misfortunes Of Moll Flanders [1996] / Warner Vision International:


Review MGM Entertainment / Desperately Seeking Susan [1985]
Actors & Directors
  • Aidan Quinn
  • Madonna
  • Robert Joy
  • Susan Seidelman
  • Mark Blum
  • Rosanna Arquette
Release date: 2000-10-23
Run time: 119 min.
RRP: £5.99
Price: £5.99

Review Desperately Seeking Susan [1985] / MGM Entertainment:

This likeable, feminist screwball comedy about several incidents of mistaken identity is remembered more as the film that made Madonna a movie star. She's flip, hip and energetic as Susan, the wild tramp with whom bored, suburban New Jersey housewife Roberta Glass (Rosanna Arquette) becomes obsessed after reading of her sexual conquests in the personal ads. Of course, since Madonna essentially played herself, the role's hardly a stretch. Director Susan Seidelmen presents a series of zany incidents too complicated to recount, but the result is that Roberta swaps lifestyles with her fixation to explore New Wave culture on New York's Lower East Side. It's territory Seidelmen knew well as her more offbeat, indie debut, Smithereens, revelled in the same setting. But where Smithereens took a more edgy approach to its characters, Susan is a fairy tale romantic comedy, and eventually becomes as conventional as the suburban characters it mocks by settling conflicts with predictable Hollywood formulae. Still, there's much to be enjoyed. The film's at its funniest when juxtaposing New York hip and New Jersey suburbia, like when Arquette's straight, suit-and-tie husband dances with Madonna in a punk club. The performances, too, are engaging, especially Arquette and Aidan Quinn, playing a romantic film projectionist who becomes her grubby Prince Charming. -Dave McCoy, Amazon. [+]
com -This text refers to the VHS edition of this video.

Review Pathe Distribution / Une Femme Francaise [1996]
Actors & Directors
  • Jean-Claude Brialy
  • Régis Wargnier
  • Emmanuelle Béart
  • Daniel Auteuil
  • Geneviève Casile
  • Gabriel Barylli
Release date: 1996-11-04
Run time: 95 min.
RRP: £5.99
Price: £14.75

Review Une Femme Francaise [1996] / Pathe Distribution:


Actors & Directors
  • Dana Hill
  • Diane Keaton
  • Peter Weller
  • Karen Allen
  • Albert Finney
  • Alan Parker
Release date: 1993-06-21
Run time: 118 min.
RRP: £9.99
Price: £13.99

Review Shoot The Moon [1981] / MGM Entertainment:


Review Icon Home Entertainment / Y Tu Mama Tambien [2001]
Actors & Directors
  • Alfonso Cuaron
  • Diego Luna
  • Maribel Verdu
  • Gael Garcia Bernal
Release date: 2002-10-07
Run time: 101 min.
RRP: £14.99
Price: £5.90

Review Y Tu Mama Tambien [2001] / Icon Home Entertainment:

If you're in need of a teen road movie that's more than a collection of "tit-n-bum" jokes, then look no further than Y Tu Mama Tambien ("And Your Mother Too"). Alfonso Cuaron (yes, the director signed up for Harry Potter 3) has managed to create a sexy road movie without a single cheerleader popping up in anyone's bed. Instead he brings together a strong cast of Spanish/Mexican actors-including the rising star Gael García Bernal and the enigmatic Maribel Verdú-with a heady mixture of dusty roads and raging hormones. Leaving the poverty and grim reality of Amores Perros (the other hit Mexican movie of recent times, also starring Bernal) far behind, Y Tu Mama Tambien is set among the upper classes where two teenage friends, Julio and Tenoch, are left in a state of limbo when their girlfriends take a trip to Europe. But rather than resting on their laurels, they choose to chase a much bigger prize: Tenoch's cousin's wife, Luisa. When she takes up their offer to go on a trip to a mystical beach, the boys can't believe their luck; little do they know that Luisa is using them as a means to run away and forget. Here begins the boys' trip towards adulthood as they learn to control their hormones, jealousies and selfishness. Y Tu Mama Tambien's explicit scenes are more than mere titillation, just as the plot is more than a simple sex comedy. -Nikki Disney.

Review Delta Visual Entertainment / The Rescue Of Jessica McClure [1989]
Actors & Directors
  • Beau Bridges
  • Pat Hingle
  • Mel Damski
  • Roxana Zal
  • Patty Duke Astin
Release date: 2002-09-09
Run time: 90 min.
RRP: £4.99
Price: £4.80

Review The Rescue Of Jessica McClure [1989] / Delta Visual Entertainment:


Review 2 Entertain Video / The Onedin Line - Series 2 - Part 1 [1972]
Actors & Directors
  • Ben Rea
  • Anne Stallybrass
  • Roger Jenkins
  • Peter Graham Scott
  • Peter Gilmore
  • Jane Seymour
Release date: 1995-03-06
Run time: 135 min.
RRP: £10.99
Price: £6.95

Review The Onedin Line - Series 2 - Part 1 [1972] / 2 Entertain Video:


Review Warner Home Video / Julius Caesar [1953]
Actors & Directors
  • Marlon Brando
  • Edmond O'Brien
  • Louis Calhern
  • James Mason
  • Joseph L. Mankiewicz
  • John Gielgud
Release date: 2001-02-19
Run time: 116 min.
RRP: £9.99
Price: £6.29

Review Julius Caesar [1953] / Warner Home Video:

An examination of the relationship between political power and personal conscience, Joseph Mankiewicz's Julius Caesar is a solidly acted spectacle presented in classical, traditional form. Julius Caesar reveals its characters to be divided, complex, and contradictory-and therefore all the more human. The acting here is a veritable masterclass for aspiring thesps. As the opportunistic Marc Antony, Marlon Brando delivers the famous funeral speech with pure conviction, elsewhere casting an intense physicality that recalls his work as Stan in A Streetcar Named Desire. James Mason suggests a latent Hamlet in his turn as the honourable Brutus, while John Gielgud is positively serpentine as the lean, hungry Cassius. Louis Calhern invests Caesar with intelligence and edgy noir echoes carried over from his performance in The Asphalt Jungle (1950). Director Mankiewicz astutely balances the Renaissance view of Caesar as a power-obsessed, corrupt tyrant destined for punishment with modern suggestions that his murder may have been ill-advised. With its dark alleyways and complex hues of grey, this Julius Caesar at times owes more to Double Indemnity than Laurence Olivier. The director's scrupulous, pellucid pacing-supported in no small measure by Miklos Rozsa's stunning score-is the perfect complement for the screenplay's sophisticated, frieze-like structure. At film's end, power itself is without a master, and the spirit of Caesar has been left unrevived: and to Mankiewicz's credit, the latter is revealed to be the true tragedy of Julius Caesar. [+]
-Kevin Mulhall.

Review 4 Front Video / Betrayal [1982]
Actors & Directors
  • Patricia Hodge
  • Ben Kingsley
  • David Jones
  • Jeremy Irons
Release date: 1998-08-10
Run time: 91 min.
Price: £5.99

Review Betrayal [1982] / 4 Front Video:


Review Warner Home Video / Treasure of Sierra Madre (1948)
Actors & Directors
  • Tim Holt
  • John Huston
  • Bruce Bennett
  • Humphrey Bogart
  • Water Huston
  • Barton MacLane
Release date: 2001-02-19
Run time: 121 min.
RRP: £9.99
Price: £4.27

Review Treasure of Sierra Madre (1948) / Warner Home Video:


Actors & Directors
  • Virginie Thévenet
  • Christophe Malavoy
  • Claude Chabrol
  • Jean-Pierre Kalfon
  • Jacques Penot
  • Mathilda May
Release date: 1995-01-30
Run time: 104 min.
RRP: £14.99
Price: £9.99

Review Le Cri Du Hibou [1987] / Lumiere Pictures:


Review First Independent Video / Poldark [1996]
Actors & Directors
  • Michael Attwell
  • John Bowe
  • Richard Laxton
  • Mel Martin
  • Ioan Gruffudd
  • Kelly Reilly
Run time: 102 min.
RRP: £10.99
Price: £8.98

Review Poldark [1996] / First Independent Video:


Browse Drama:

Models & Brands:
Swing [1999], Medea [1975], The Scold's Bridle - By Minette Walters [1998], Switch Back [1997], Come Back To The Five And Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean [1982], I Claudius - Parts 3 And 4 [1976], Lillie - The Jersey Lily - Episodes 1 To 6 - A Life Of Scandal, Notoriety And Romance [1978], Suicide Kings (1997), The Fortunes And Misfortunes Of Moll Flanders [1996], Desperately Seeking Susan [1985], Une Femme Francaise [1996], Shoot The Moon [1981], Y Tu Mama Tambien [2001], The Rescue Of Jessica McClure [1989], The Onedin Line - Series 2 - Part 1 [1972], Julius Caesar [1953], Betrayal [1982], Treasure of Sierra Madre (1948), Le Cri Du Hibou [1987], Poldark [1996]

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