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Review Vision Video Ltd. / Steve Coogan - The Man Who Thinks He's It [1998]
Actors & Directors
  • Geoff Posner
  • Julia Davis
  • Simon Pegg
  • David Tyler
  • Steve Coogan
Release date: 1998-11-09
Run time: 86 min.
RRP: £14.99
Price: £0.95

Review Steve Coogan - The Man Who Thinks He's It [1998] / Vision Video Ltd.:


Review Pearson New Entertainment / Two Men And A Football - Fantasy Football League 3 [1996]
Actors & Directors
  • David Baddiel
  • Frank Skinner
Release date: 1996-06-03
Run time: 70 min.
RRP: £12.99
Price: £9.94

Review Two Men And A Football - Fantasy Football League 3 [1996] / Pearson New Entertainment:


Review 4 Front Video / Abbott And Costello In Buck Privates [1941]
Actors & Directors
  • Bud Abbott
  • Lou Costello
  • Arthur Lubin
Release date: 2003-01-27
RRP: £5.99
Price: £3.99

Review Abbott And Costello In Buck Privates [1941] / 4 Front Video:


Actors & Directors
  • Jamie Kennedy
  • Christine Baranski
  • Eddie Murphy
  • Steve Martin
  • Frank Oz
  • Heather Graham
Release date: 2001-12-27
Run time: 197 min.
RRP: £9.99
Price: £0.39

Review Bowfinger / Life [1999] / 4 Front Video:

Film-makers often remark that it's just so hard to make a bad picture that few would take on the challenge if they weren't so naive. Steve Martin's Bobby Bowfinger is cut from that pattern, one of those sweet, indomitable operators of Hollywood who seem to be descended directly from Ed Wood (of Plan 9 from Outer Space infamy). To resurrect his ramshackle existence, Bowfinger opts to film his accountant's sci-fi spectacular,Chubby Rain, about aliens invading in raindrops. The snag is he needs to attach action megastar Kit Ramsey (Eddie Murphy), an actor so paranoid he counts the occurrences of the letter "k" in scripts to uncover possible Ku Klux Klan influences. When his effort fails, Bowfinger hits on an ingenious scheme to film Ramsey without his knowledge, throwing his actors at the hapless star whenever he appears in public. Only Kit begins to believe he's being hounded by aliens for real, and runs hysterically to his guru (Terence Stamp) at a Scientology-clone group called MindHead, where people walk around in fine suits wearing white pyramids on their heads. Deprived of his star, yet not to be undone, Bowfinger hires a look-alike, Jiff (also Eddie Murphy), to fill in. The tone of the picture is sometimes flat, rather than deadpan, but that's nitpicking. The farce is quick and engrossing, and populated with terrific performances, especially by Eddie Murphy, whose dual role as Kit and Jiff showcases his character-building gift, and by Martin, whose Bowfinger, part con man and part would-be visionary, manages to capture your sympathies. Heather Graham's would-be actress cheerfully sleeps her way to the top like she knows she's supposed to, and Christine Baranski plays her shopworn method actor with myopic self-absorption. [+]
-Jim Gay, Amazon. com.

Review Warner Home Video / South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut [1999]
Actors & Directors
  • George Clooney
  • Trey Parker
  • Trey Parker
  • Eric Idle
  • Matt Stone
  • Minnie Driver
Release date: 2000-03-27
Run time: 78 min.
RRP: £6.99
Price: £0.01

Review South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut [1999] / Warner Home Video:

Ok, let's get all the disclaimers out of the way first. Despite its colourful (if crude) animation, South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut is in no way meant for kids. It is chock full of profanity that might even make Quentin Tarantino blanch and has blasphemous references to God, Satan, Saddam Hussein (who's sleeping with Satan, literally), and Canada. It's rife with scatological humour, suggestive sexual situations, political incorrectness and gleeful, rampant vulgarity. And it's probably one of the most brilliant satires ever made. The plot: flatulent Canadian gross-meisters Terrance and Philip hit the big screen, and the South Park quartet of third graders-Stan, Kyle, Kenny, and Cartman-begin repeating their profane one-liners ad infinitum. The parents of South Park, led by Kyle's overbearing mom, form "Mothers Against Canada", blaming their neighbours to the north for their children's corruption and taking Terrance and Philip as war prisoners. It's up to the kids then to rescue their heroes from execution, not mention a brooding Satan, who's planning to take over the world. To give away any more of the plot would destroy the fun, but this feature-length version of Trey Parker and Matt Stone's Comedy Central hit is a dead-on and hilarious send-up of pop culture. And did we mention it's a musical? From the opening production number "Mountain Town" to the cheerful anti-profanity sing-along "It's Easy, MMMKay" to Satan's faux-Disney ballad "Up There", Parker (who wrote or cowrote all the songs) brilliantly shoots down every earnest musical from Beauty and the Beast to Les Misérables. [+]
And in advocating free speech and satirising well-meaning but misguided parental censorship groups, Bigger, Longer & Uncut hits home against adult paranoia and hypocrisy with a vengeance. And the jokes, while indeed vulgar and gross, are hysterical; we can't repeat them here, especially the lyrics to Terrance and Philip's hit song, but you'll be rolling on the floor. Don't worry, though-to paraphrase Cartman, this movie won't warp your fragile little mind. -Mark Englehart.

Price: £14.99

Review Jim Davidson:


Review Cinema Club / Doctor At Large [1957]
Actors & Directors
  • Dirk Bogarde
  • Ralph Thomas
  • James Robertson Justice
  • Donald Sinden
  • Muriel Pavlow
  • Shirley Eaton
Release date: 1996-06-03
Run time: 94 min.
RRP: £5.99
Price: £9.88

Review Doctor At Large [1957] / Cinema Club:


Release date: 1993-04-05
Run time: 90 min.
Price: £10.99

Review Frankie Howerd - Titter Ye Not! [1991] / Universal Pictures UK:


Review Cinema Club / Doctor At Sea [1955]
Actors & Directors
  • Brigitte Bardot
  • James Robertson Justice
  • Dirk Bogarde
  • Michael Medwin
  • Ralph Thomas
  • Maurice Denham
Release date: 1996-06-03
Run time: 89 min.
RRP: £5.99
Price: £4.45

Review Doctor At Sea [1955] / Cinema Club:


Review Cinema Club / As Good As It Gets/A Few Good Men [1993]
Actors & Directors
  • Rob Reiner
  • Kiefer Sutherland
  • Tom Cruise
  • Demi Moore
  • Jack Nicholson
  • Kevin Bacon
Release date: 2001-12-17
Run time: 266 min.
RRP: £9.99
Price: £1.45

Review As Good As It Gets/A Few Good Men [1993] / Cinema Club:

As Good as it Gets is one of the sharpest Hollywood comedies of the 1990s, for all of its conventional plotting about an obsessive-compulsive curmudgeon (Jack Nicholson) who improves his personality at the urging of his gay neighbour (Greg Kinnear) and particularly a waitress (Helen Hunt) who inspires his best behaviour. It's questionable whether a romance between Hunt and the much older Nicholson is entirely believable, but this movie's smart enough-and charmingly funny enough-to make it seem endearingly possible. -Jeff Shannon, Amazon. com Astonishingly, Jack Nicholson's legendary performance as a military tough guy in A Few Good Men really amounts to a glorified cameo: he's only in a few scenes. But they're killer scenes, and the film has much more to offer. Cruise also shines as a lazy lawyer who rises to the occasion, and Demi Moore gives a command performance. Director Rob Reiner poses important questions about the rights of the powerful and the responsibilities of those just following orders in this classic courtroom drama. -Alan Smithee, Amazon. com.

Review 2 Entertain Video / Hancock: The Poison Pen Letters
Actors & Directors
  • Duncan Wood
  • Tony Hancock
  • Sid James
Release date: 1997-04-07
Run time: 89 min.
RRP: £10.99
Price: £10.48

Review Hancock: The Poison Pen Letters / 2 Entertain Video:


Review Revelation Films / Vital Spark 2-The Quarrel
Actors & Directors
  • Roddy McMillan
  • Walter Carr
  • John Grieve
  • Russell Hunter
  • Alex McAvory
Release date: 1996-11-18
Run time: 46 min.
Price: £5.99

Review Vital Spark 2-The Quarrel / Revelation Films:


Actors & Directors
  • Shelley Long
  • James Burrows
  • Rhea Perlman
  • John Ratzenberger
  • Ted Danson
  • Nicholas Colasanto
Release date: 1992-06-08
Run time: 70 min.
Price: £9.99

Review Cheers - Vol. 8 [1983] / Paramount Home Entertainment:


Review Touchstone Home Video / The Waterboy [1999]
Actors & Directors
  • Kathy Bates
  • Frank Coraci
  • Jerry Reed
  • Adam Sandler
  • Fairuza Balk
  • Henry Winkler
Release date: 2000-06-12
Run time: 86 min.
RRP: £12.99
Price: £1.95

Review The Waterboy [1999] / Touchstone Home Video:

Adam Sandler vaulted into the US$20-million-salary stratosphere with this, his second US$100-million hit in 1998-a movie that further shows just how deeply embedded he is in the Jerry Lewis tradition of idiot comedy. He plays Bobby Boucher, a backwoods Cajun and a mentally challenged individual with a fixation on water: specifically, on serving the coolest, most refreshing H2O available to the college football team he has served since he was an adolescent. But when he's fired from his position, he takes up a similar job with a lowlier college team coached by neurotic Henry Winkler. One day at practice, Bobby loses his temper and delivers a bone-shaking tackle to the starting quarterback; before he can say, "blackened crawdads", he's the star of the team and leading it to a bowl game. But it's all against the wishes of his overprotective mother (Kathy Bates), who wants to keep her Bobby to herself-and that includes keeping him away from the floozy girlfriend (Fairuza Balk) who's sweet on him. There are two kinds of people in this world: People who find Sandler funny and people who view him as a neon-lit symbol of the decline of popular taste. You know who you are and, based on that, you can decide whether this is a movie for you. -Marshall Fine.

Review 4 Front Video / The Frighteners [1997]
Actors & Directors
  • Trini Alvarado
  • Jeffrey Combs
  • Peter Jackson
  • Michael J. Fox
  • John Astin
Release date: 2000-03-06
Run time: 105 min.
RRP: £5.99
Price: £2.94

Review The Frighteners [1997] / 4 Front Video:

One movie-lover's nightmare is another's raucous joyride, and this special effects-laden horror comedy is bound to split both camps right down the middle. Michael J Fox plays a psychic investigator who can actually see ghosts, and lives with a trio of spirits who scare people to promote Fox's ghost-busting business. In a town infamous for serial killings, a new series of deaths prompts Fox to induce his own out-of-body experience so he can battle death in a spirit-plagued netherworld where evil reigns supreme-or something like that. So much happens in this chaotic film that you might feel like you're watching several movies at once-a slasher pic, a supernatural thriller, and a black comedy all rolled into one non-stop showcase for grisly makeup and a dozen varieties of special effects. It's an odd but wildly inventive film from New Zealand director Peter Jackson, who earned critical acclaim for his previous film Heavenly Creatures and would later create the ingenious pseudo-documentary Forgotten Silver. -Jeff Shannon, Amazon. com.

Review Dd Home Entertainment / Those Were The Days [1934]
Actors & Directors
  • Angela Baddeley
  • Claud Allister
  • Iris Hoey
  • Will Hay
  • George Graves
  • Thomas Bentley
Release date: 2000-08-07
Run time: 77 min.
Price: £10.99

Review Those Were The Days [1934] / Dd Home Entertainment:


Review 2 Entertain Video / Hancock: The Blood Donor / The Missing Page / Twelve Angry Men [1961]
Actors & Directors
  • Duncan Wood
  • Mario Fabrizi
  • James Bulloch
  • Alec Bregonzi
  • John Vere
  • Alan Tarrant
  • Ivor Raymonde
Release date: 2000-01-24
Run time: 90 min.
RRP: £10.99
Price: £4.59

Review Hancock: The Blood Donor / The Missing Page / Twelve Angry Men [1961] / 2 Entertain Video:

An unhappy clown, Tony Hancock once claimed that "The only happiness I could achieve is to perfect the talent I have, however small it may be. If the time came when I found out that I had come to the end of what I could develop out of my own ability, I wouldn't want to do it anymore. " He had reached that stage by 1968, when he died, alone and miserable, in a Sydney hotel room; but by then he'd already established himself as one of Britain's most gifted and beloved comedians-so popular that, at the height of his fame, publicans and shopkeepers protested to the BBC because their businesses were empty while Hancock's Half Hour went to air. First broadcast in June 1961, "The Blood Donor" was one of his most acclaimed TV appearances: a showcase for the neurotic, self-obsessed character he perfected-British masculinity at its most innately conservative. Intending to give blood "so that others might live", he soon finds his public spirit waning once the possibility of physical discomfort sets in. ("A pint? Why that's very nearly an armful!") As if that wasn't enough the tape also includes "The Missing Page"-in which Hancock embarks on a desperate bid to solve a whodunnit entitled "Lady, Don't Fall Backwards"-and the brilliant spoof of Sidney Lumet's 1957 courtroom drama, Twelve Angry Men, where Sid and Hancock spin out jury duty to make the most of their 30 bob a day. The writing-by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson-is peerless, and Hancock's own performances are extraordinary, investing this pompous, petty little man with a real sympathy and humour. All three episodes are genuine classics. [+]
-Andrew McGuire.

Review 4 Front Video / Fast Times At Ridgemont High [1982]
Actors & Directors
  • Amy Heckerling
  • Robert Romanus
  • Jennifer Jason Leigh
  • Brian Backer
  • Judge Reinhold
  • Sean Penn
Release date: 2000-05-08
Run time: 86 min.
RRP: £5.99
Price: £6.69

Review Fast Times At Ridgemont High [1982] / 4 Front Video:

The script for Fast Times at Ridgemont High is based on filmmaker Cameron (Jerry Maguire, Almost Famous) Crowe's time as a reporter for Rolling Stone. He was so youthful looking that he was able to go undercover for a year at a California high school and write a book about it. The film launched the careers of several young actors, including Jennifer Jason Leigh, Judge Reinhold, Phoebe Cates and, above all, Sean Penn. The story line is episodic, dealing with the lives of iconic teen types: one of the school's cool kids, a nerd, a teen queen and, most enjoyably, the class stoner (Penn), who finds himself at odds with a strict history teacher (a wonderfully spiky Ray Walston). This is not a great film but very entertaining and, for a certain age group, a seminal film experience. -Marshall Fine, Amazon. com On the DVD: Amy (Clueless) Heckerling and Cameron Crowe's commentary is revealing and indicative of a time where nudity on celluloid was shocking rather than the norm as they talk about the issues which contributed to the film's original X-rating, as well as all the actors who originally auditioned for the roles. The transfer quality is high with little grain, and although the soundtrack is in mono rather than Dolby 5. 1 it is not detrimental to the film. There's a retrospective documentary called "Reliving Our Fast Times at Ridgemont High" featuring new interviews with most of the cast and crew, plus a highly original feature about the locations used in the film, how they looked in 1982 and how they look now. [+]
For fact buffs there's the usual mix of biographies, theatrical trailer and production notes. -Kristen Bowditch.

Review Warner Home Video / Friends - Series 10 - Vol. 5 [1995]
Actors & Directors
  • Lisa Kudrow
  • David Schwimmer
  • Matthew Perry
  • Jennifer Aniston
  • Courteney Cox
Release date: 2004-06-07
RRP: £12.99
Price: £14.98

Review Friends - Series 10 - Vol. 5 [1995] / Warner Home Video:


Review Paramount Home Entertainment / Sex And The City - Series 2 [1999]
Actors & Directors
  • Sarah Jessica Parker
Release date: 2001-11-05
Run time: 471 min.
RRP: £29.99
Price: £10.75

Review Sex And The City - Series 2 [1999] / Paramount Home Entertainment:

Much like the novels of Fanny Burney or Jane Austen 200 years before, Sex and the City tackles that perennial female conundrum, how to maintain independence from men (intellectual, sexual, financial) while seeking the ideal life-partner for whom that much-cherished independence can safely be sacrificed. So it is that Carrie, Charlotte, Miranda and Samantha prowl relentlessly the canyons of Manhattan in search of mates, all of whom fall woefully short of their needs in one crucial way or another. Yet, with biological clocks ticking and suppressed nesting instincts fighting back, the foursome occasionally find themselves dangerously close to despair. The dating game can be deadly serious sometimes. Which is why Sex and the City is not just good TV, it's great TV: for all its refreshingly cynical wit and superficial vivaciousness, the show has at its heart a streak of pathos and painful truth that resonates deeply with its audience. In the show's second season, the scrutiny falls more on the women than their succession of useless dates. Carrie has to learn the painful truth about Big all over again; Miranda has panic attacks about being alone for the rest of her life; Sam is humiliated by the ladies who lunch into confessing that she's a whore; and Charlotte is reduced to trading kinky foot massages for free shoes. Savage love, indeed. On the DVD: Sex and the City, Season 2 has all 18 episodes on three discs. Frustratingly, the menus have no "Play All" facility so you can't just sit back and enjoy-each episode requires navigation from the main menu to an episode list to a redundant preview screen before the play selection is offered. [+]
There are mini trailers for each episode and a short (eight-minute) promo featurette. The picture is a little fuzzy in places, doubtless the result of transfer from NTSC format, but is still an improvement over the first season. -Mark Walker.

Models & Brands:
Steve Coogan - The Man Who Thinks He's It [1998], Two Men And A Football - Fantasy Football League 3 [1996], Abbott And Costello In Buck Privates [1941], Bowfinger / Life [1999], South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut [1999], Jim Davidson, Doctor At Large [1957], Frankie Howerd - Titter Ye Not! [1991], Doctor At Sea [1955], As Good As It Gets/A Few Good Men [1993], Hancock: The Poison Pen Letters, Vital Spark 2-The Quarrel, Cheers - Vol. 8 [1983], The Waterboy [1999], The Frighteners [1997], Those Were The Days [1934], Hancock: The Blood Donor / The Missing Page / Twelve Angry Men [1961], Fast Times At Ridgemont High [1982], Friends - Series 10 - Vol. 5 [1995], Sex And The City - Series 2 [1999]

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