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Review Cinema Club / Tough Guys [1987]
Actors & Directors
  • Charles Durning
  • Jeff Kanew
  • Kirk Douglas
  • Alexis Smith
  • Burt Lancaster
  • Dana Carvey
Release date: 2002-10-21
Run time: 100 min.
RRP: £5.99
Price: £7.95

Review Tough Guys [1987] / Cinema Club:


Review 2 Entertain Video / Absolutely Fabulous - Series 1 - Fashion / Fat / France [1992]
Actors & Directors
  • Benjamin Soames
Release date: 1993-10-04
Run time: 86 min.
RRP: £12.99
Price: £2.97

Review Absolutely Fabulous - Series 1 - Fashion / Fat / France [1992] / 2 Entertain Video:

Absolutely Fabulous was first broadcast in 1992 and became an instant hit. Originally a sketch on the French and Saunders Show, Jennifer Saunders saw its potential and created one of the most ground-breaking and debauched comedies on British TV. Centred around the hip London fashion scene the series follows Edina (Saunders) and Patsy (Joanna Lumley), two women who refuse to grow up and are constantly on a mission to lose weight, gorging themselves with cocaine and/or champagne, endlessly throwing parties (or throwing up at parties), and sporting outrageous outfits which were the height of fashion at the time-honestly sweetie! The superb comic performances offered star status to Julia Sawalha as Edina's straight-laced daughter and Jane Horrocks as the sublimely dippy Bubble, and re-invented the careers of Joanna Lumley and June Whitfield. Saunders meanwhile secured her status as one of the top female comedians Britain has ever produced. Although its consciously chic clothing looks a little dated now, its mad characterisations endure and the jokes remain as hilariously slick and apt as ever. Ab Fab remains a landmark in TV since it was the first time that female comedians and writers had had the freedom and exposure to satirise problems close to their own heart, from their own perspective. With Feminist writers claiming that the ideals of feminism were dead in the 1990s and that female concerns were moving in the wrong direction-towards the "Laddette Culture"-and reports claiming that careers were taking a central role, forcing motherhood onto the back-burner, the series sought to embody and satirise these new supposedly "female" characteristics. As the show continued to grow in popularity both in Britain and the States, plans were made to transfer the formula to America. However, as with many other great British series, the content was considered too risky for American audiences due to the amount of sex and drug references. Thus domestic audiences breathed a sigh of release that their beloved Ab Fab would forever stay British to the core. [+]
-Nikki Disney.

Review Second Sight Films Ltd. / Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead [1990] [1991]
Actors & Directors
  • Ian Richardson
  • Gary Oldman
  • Iain Glen
  • Tim Roth
  • Richard Dreyfuss
Release date: 2000-01-07
Run time: 113 min.
RRP: £12.99
Price: £11.00

Review Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead [1990] [1991] / Second Sight Films Ltd.:

Tom Stoppard's modern stage classic finds a pair of film actors worthy of its verbal japery and existential bewilderment: Gary Oldman and Tim Roth are deliciously locked in as the title characters of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. And yet it remains difficult to tell which one is Rosencrantz and which Guildenstern-even they seem unsure-a clever part of Stoppard's ingenious design. Focusing on a pair of unremarkable characters from Hamlet, Stoppard sees the great play from their confused perspective. Now and again the action of Hamlet sweeps them up, but most of the time R&G are left wondering where they are, what they have been sent for, and why they can't remember anything that happened before the beginning of the play. Richard Dreyfuss (fittingly grandiloquent) is the Player King, who seems to know more about the ominous workings of fiction and tragedy than the heroes do. Stoppard's first outing as a film director is handsomely shot but uncertainly paced-although any time Oldman and Roth go into one of their tennis-match debates on probability, identity, or death, the movie crackles. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern may be the "indifferent children of the earth," but for this brief moment they deserve center stage. -Robert Horton.

Review 2 Entertain Video / Rab C. Nesbitt - The Complete Rab C. Nesbitt Series One - [1990]
Actors & Directors
  • John Kazek
  • David McKay (II)
  • Ron Bain
  • Colin Gilbert (II)
  • Nicola Park
Release date: 1993-09-20
Run time: 172 min.
Price: £16.99

Review Rab C. Nesbitt - The Complete Rab C. Nesbitt Series One - [1990] / 2 Entertain Video:


Review 2 Entertain Video / Golden Years Of TV Comedy - 1971: Morcambe & Wise/The Liver Birds/Dad's Army
Actors & Directors
  • Eric Morecambe
  • Nerys Hughes
  • Polly James
  • Ernie Wise
  • Arthur Lowe
Release date: 1996-02-05
Run time: 146 min.
Price: £10.99

Review Golden Years Of TV Comedy - 1971: Morcambe & Wise/The Liver Birds/Dad's Army / 2 Entertain Video:


Review Warner Home Video / Carry On Spying [1964]
Actors & Directors
  • Bernard Cribbins
  • Eric Barker
  • Charles Hawtrey
  • Kenneth Williams
  • Barbara Windsor
  • Gerald Thomas
Release date: 1997-08-18
Run time: 84 min.
RRP: £5.99
Price: £2.99

Review Carry On Spying [1964] / Warner Home Video:

While the later chapters of the Carry On series have received fairly constant exposure, some earlier examples such as 1964's Spying remain relatively unseen. Given the brash production and ensemble playing of the more well-known films, this black and white version of the Carry On world seems oddly low-key in comparison. Four of the soon-to-be-regular cast are in attendance-Barbara Windsor, Kenneth Williams, Jim Dale, Charles Hawtrey-and there are many signs of a formula in development (the double entrendres, bad puns, Windsor's ill-fitting clothing). Of course, with its obsession with sex and bodily functions it's all very English and parts have dated horribly, not least the casual racism of some of the secondary characters, but fans of this most unique of genres will find much to tickle their fancy. And don't they look so young?On the DVD: Given the long history and colourful characters of the series, there must be scope for much behind the scenes and documentary footage, but this disc is totally bereft of any extras bar scene selection. There is also little to add to the original black and white film stock, although the soundtrack, chock full of humorous instrumentation, sounds pretty good. -Phil Udell.

Review Oh Doctor Beeching! / Oh Doctor Beeching - Complete Series 2
Release date: 2005-10-24
Run time: 286 min.
RRP: £16.99
Price: £10.00

Review Oh Doctor Beeching - Complete Series 2 / Oh Doctor Beeching!:


Review 2 Entertain Video / Last Of The Summer Wine - The Complete Last Of The Summer Wine - Series One [1973]
Actors & Directors
  • Danny O'Dea
  • Jean Alexander
  • Riky Ash
  • Stephen Lewis
  • Alan J.W. Bell
Run time: 174 min.
RRP: £16.99
Price: £7.95

Review Last Of The Summer Wine - The Complete Last Of The Summer Wine - Series One [1973] / 2 Entertain Video:

"It's destiny, fate that brings us together. Redundancy. They just don't care that your mother used to eat insurance men and that yours was struggling to bring you up nicely as a little poof". So says Clegg (Peter Sallis) addressing his companions, Compo (Bill Owen) and Blamire (Michael Bates), three fellows getting on in years reunited by unemployment after knowing each other all their lives in a small Yorkshire town. There's no real story to Last of the Summer Wine, simply the well-observed banter of the central trio and a gallery of eccentric supporting characters. Compo, the irreverent and scruffy "village idiot" and Clegg, the amiable working man are well-loved figures, but the middle-class Conservative Blamire, a nicely rounded portrayal by Bates, may surprise fans expecting to see Foggy (Brian Wilde), who didn't join the series until 1976. This double-video presents the six episodes of the first series, from 1973, of the longest-running comedy in British television history. It's a shame the pilot episode which introduced the characters has not been included, and that the credits have been edited out, but this is a reminder of how good Last of the Summer Wine once was, when it was new, fresh and laugh-out-loud funny. -Gary S. Dalkin.

Review Warner Home Video / Something's Gotta Give [2004]
Actors & Directors
  • Keanu Reeves
  • Nancy Meyers
  • Amanda Peet
  • Jack Nicholson
  • Frances McDormand
  • Diane Keaton
Release date: 2004-06-14
RRP: £13.99
Price: £8.96

Review Something's Gotta Give [2004] / Warner Home Video:

As upscale sitcoms go, Something's Gotta Give has more to offer than most romantic comedies. Obviously working through some semi-autobiographical issues regarding "women of a certain age", writer-director Nancy Meyers brings adequate credibility and above-average intelligence to what is essentially (but not exclusively) a fantasy premise, in which an ageing lothario who's always dated younger women (Jack Nicholson, more or less playing himself) falls for a successful middle-aged playwright (Diane Keaton) who's convinced she's past the age of romance, much less sexual reawakening. As long as old pals Nicholson and Keaton are on screen discussing their dilemma or discovering their mutual desire, Something's Gotta Give is terrific, proving (in case anyone had forgotten) that Hollywood can and should aim for an older demographic. Meyers falls short with the sitcom device of a younger lover (Keanu Reeves) who wants Keaton as much as Nicholson does; it's believable but shallow and too easily dismissed. She also skimps on supporting roles for Frances McDormand, Amanda Peet and Jon Favreau, but thankfully this is one romantic comedy that doesn't pander to youth. Mature viewers, rejoice! -Jeff Shannon.

Review Vision Video Ltd. / Laurel And Hardy - The Hoose- Gow / The Second Hundred Years / Call Of The Cuckoos [1929]
Actors & Directors
  • Norbert Schiller
  • Bridget Hanley
  • Kay Reynolds
  • John Erman
  • Majel Barrett
  • Russ Mayberry
  • Karen Black
  • Jud Taylor
  • R. Robert Rosenbaum
  • Bob Claver
Release date: 2000-04-17
Run time: 58 min.
RRP: £10.99
Price: £9.94

Review Laurel And Hardy - The Hoose- Gow / The Second Hundred Years / Call Of The Cuckoos [1929] / Vision Video Ltd.:


Review Imc Vision / Jim Carrey - The Duck Factory - Vol. 1
Actors & Directors
  • Jim Carrey
Release date: 1997-08-11
Run time: 92 min.
Price: £9.99

Review Jim Carrey - The Duck Factory - Vol. 1 / Imc Vision:


Review 2 Entertain Video / Only Fools And Horses - The Frog's Legacy [1981]
Actors & Directors
  • Pete Chesterfield
  • Roger Liddement
  • Grant Stevens
  • Mandie Fletcher
  • Patrick McManus
Release date: 1996-03-04
Run time: 59 min.
RRP: £12.99
Price: £1.71

Review Only Fools And Horses - The Frog's Legacy [1981] / 2 Entertain Video:


Review Paramount Home Entertainment / The Castle [1998]
Actors & Directors
  • Sophie Lee
  • Stephen Curry
  • Anthony Simcoe
  • Rob Sitch
  • Anne Tenney
  • Michael Caton
Release date: 2002-09-02
Run time: 82 min.
Price: £5.99

Review The Castle [1998] / Paramount Home Entertainment:

The title of The Castle refers to a ramshackle suburban tract house so close to an airport that planes fly mere yards above the roof. Worse than that, it's built on a toxic landfill and right beside humming high-power lines. But to patriarch Darryl Kerrigan (Michael Caton) and his dim-witted but cheerful brood it's home. Darryl has devoted himself to constantly improving it with modifications like a false chimney that, as he brags to a man sent to estimate the value of the property, makes the house look more picturesque. When the owners of the airport serve Darryl notice that his home is being compulsorily purchased, Darryl hires a small-time lawyer and pursues his case all the way to the Australian Supreme Court. This Australian box-office smash wasn't as successful as The Full Monty at the British box-office, but it has something of the same buoyant spirit. The Castle actually plays better on the small screen; its relationship with its characters is much like the farcical intimacy of classic sitcoms like Fawlty Towers, in which crazed behaviour is balanced by the genuine warmth of the whole cast. Caton in particular is a sweet, engaging presence; Darryl Kerrigan is a fool, but a fool with dignity, and he carries you through the movie. -Bret Fetzer.

Review Marquee Pictures / Oh, What A Night [1992]
Actors & Directors
  • Eric Till|Corey Haim|Barbara Williams|Keir Dullea
Release date: 1998-09-07
Run time: 88 min.
Price: £4.99

Review Oh, What A Night [1992] / Marquee Pictures:


Actors & Directors
  • Mike Genovese
  • Jay Underwood
  • Nicolas De Toth
  • Wallace Langham
  • Chynna Phillips
  • Avery Crounse
Release date: 1993-05-24
Run time: 92 min.
Price: £5.99

Review The Invisible Kid [1987] / Braveworld Ltd. (Defunct):


Review Entertainment in Video / This Year's Love [1999]
Actors & Directors
  • Matt Costello
  • Billy McElhaney
  • Gregg Prentice
  • David Kane
  • Angela Douglas
  • Annabelle Apsion
Release date: 2000-01-24
Run time: 104 min.
RRP: £5.99
Price: £0.99

Review This Year's Love [1999] / Entertainment in Video:

An unpretentious Brit-flick distinguished by a great cast, This Year's Love is writer-director David Kane's wry, funny study of six singletons in search of something-possibly love, possibly just sex-that will help them make sense of an untidy world. Aside from the acting, the film's strongest feature is its unflinching realism. The setting is North London's Camden Lock, an area that is in equal parts ultra-trendy and horrendously squalid. The characters reflect the locale: a circle of youthful drop-outs, wannabes and never-have-beens united in their common desire to surmount loneliness and find that elusive "perfect match". The central figures are newlyweds Danny and Hannah (the wonderful Douglas Henshall and Catherine McCormack) and the film in essence concerns itself with the fallout from the spectacular and rapid disintegration of their marriage. Danny first hooks up with cleaner-cum-nightclub singer Mary (a marvellously self-deprecating Kathy Burke), while Hannah finds lecherous womaniser Cameron (an unwashed Dougray Scott). Cameron's flatmate Liam (Ian Hart) fails to impress posh single mum Sophie (Jennifer Ehle in dreadlocks), who goes on to reject Danny and Cameron in turn, while Liam becomes dangerously obsessed by Hannah then Mary. So the merry-go-round of relationship swapping, unlikely coincidences and bittersweet life-lessons turns full circle. David Kane's comic dialogue is witheringly sharp, the situations (aside from all the coincidental meetings) are well-observed and the characters sympathetically three-dimensional (helped in no small part by the quality of the ensemble cast). The frequently hilarious comedy is tempered by an underlying despair: if it's not exactly Brassed Off or The Full Monty for neurotic, self-obsessed metropolitans, it's a film that's at least happy to exist in the same genre and achieves the same poignant empathy with its characters. [+]
The soundtrack is great, too. Imagine that the cast of Trainspotting gate-crashed Four Weddings and a Funeral and the result would be This Year's Love. On the DVD: Short on-set interviews with the principals and a promotional featurette are supplemented by a sequence of unedited behind-the-scenes footage. The film itself is presented in a good-looking anamorphic (16:9) print. -Mark Walker.

Review 3k Media Ltd / Sean Hughes Is 30 Somehow
Actors & Directors
  • Sean Hughes
Release date: 2000-01-24
Run time: 51 min.
RRP: £12.99
Price: £11.77

Review Sean Hughes Is 30 Somehow / 3k Media Ltd:


Review 2 Entertain Video / Only Fools And Horses - Fatal Extraction [1981]
Actors & Directors
  • Patrick McManus
  • Mandie Fletcher
  • Pete Chesterfield
  • Roger Liddement
  • Grant Stevens
Release date: 1999-06-07
Run time: 83 min.
RRP: £12.99
Price: £3.57

Review Only Fools And Horses - Fatal Extraction [1981] / 2 Entertain Video:


Actors & Directors
  • Victoria Wood
Release date: 1997-07-07
Run time: 64 min.
RRP: £5.99
Price: £5.90

Review Victoria Wood - Sold Out [1991] / 4 Front Video:


Review Pathe Distribution / Gazon Maudit [1996]
Actors & Directors
  • Josiane Balasko
  • Victoria Abril
  • Alain Chabat
  • Josiane Balasko
Release date: 1996-09-23
Run time: 103 min.
RRP: £5.99
Price: £24.95

Review Gazon Maudit [1996] / Pathe Distribution:

The very French plot device of ménage-à-trois is given a thoroughly modern update here as beautiful repressed housewife Loli (Victoria Abril, she of several Pedro Almodóvar films) falls in love with a butch, cigar-chomping visitor named Marijo (director Josiane Balasko), much to the distress of Loli's macho, philandering husband (Alain Chabat). Hubby nonetheless comes to accept the situation (how very civilised), even if it means a certain amount of negotiating over his conjugal rights. Balasko keeps the farce bubbling under nicely until events erupt to a nice boil by the climax. -Leslie Felperin.

Models & Brands:
Tough Guys [1987], Absolutely Fabulous - Series 1 - Fashion / Fat / France [1992], Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead [1990] [1991], Rab C. Nesbitt - The Complete Rab C. Nesbitt Series One - [1990], Golden Years Of TV Comedy - 1971: Morcambe & Wise/The Liver Birds/Dad's Army, Carry On Spying [1964], Oh Doctor Beeching - Complete Series 2, Last Of The Summer Wine - The Complete Last Of The Summer Wine - Series One [1973], Something's Gotta Give [2004], Laurel And Hardy - The Hoose- Gow / The Second Hundred Years / Call Of The Cuckoos [1929], Jim Carrey - The Duck Factory - Vol. 1, Only Fools And Horses - The Frog's Legacy [1981], The Castle [1998], Oh, What A Night [1992], The Invisible Kid [1987], This Year's Love [1999], Sean Hughes Is 30 Somehow, Only Fools And Horses - Fatal Extraction [1981], Victoria Wood - Sold Out [1991], Gazon Maudit [1996]

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