Actors & Directors
- Deborah Harry
- Pia Zadora
- Ricki Lake
- John Waters
- Michael St. Gerard
- Divine
Run time: 88 min.
RRP: £5.99
Price: £5.49
Review Hairspray [1987] / Castlevision:
![Review Vision Video Ltd. / Bottom - Live - The Stage Show [1993]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51E6F8R564L._SL160_.jpg)
Actors & Directors
- Adrian Edmondson
- Rik Mayall
- Marcus Mortimer
Run time: 105 min.
RRP: £14.99
Price: £2.27
Review Bottom - Live - The Stage Show [1993] / Vision Video Ltd.:Bottom Live 2003: Weapons Grade Y-Fronts Tour is reputedly the swan song for Adrian Edmondson and Rik Mayall's Eddie Hitler and Richie Richard. If so, it's a mixed blessing, for while much of it is funny, it's also a long way from the original BBC Bottom series. The TV incarnation was always crude, but worked hilariously because it balanced real characterisation and comically absurd ingenuity with the vulgarity. Here Edmundson and Mayall spend 90 minutes swearing as loudly and repulsively as possible and indulging in cartoon violence, which can never-for reasons of self-preservation and the legal ramifications of killing people on stage-be as insanely inventive as on television. With no other characters (where are you Spudgun and Dave Hedgehog when you're most needed?) and a barely existent story involving a device that inserts a sofa in a part of Richie where no sofa should fit, and a time machine that takes our heroes on a quest to reach the bar before the audience, the material is thinly stretched. Nevertheless, the theatre audience at the Cliffs Pavilion, Southend-on-Sea seem to have had a fantastic time being roundly abused by the stars. Probably, you just had to be there. On the DVD: Bottom Live 2003 is presented with, for a live theatre show, a strong, anamorphically enhanced 16:9 image and perfectly serviceable, clear stereo sound. It's far from special, but notably better than the technical quality of previous Bottom live videos. The only extra is a slideshow of backstage images, which runs for a minute-and-a-half. [+]-Gary S Dalkin.
Actors & Directors
- Michael Crawford|Michele Dotrice
Run time: 84 min.
Price: £9.99
Review Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em - The Job Interview / Second Sight Films Ltd.:
Actors & Directors
- Joanne Whalley
- Julie Walters
- Victoria Hamilton
- John Hannah
- Patricia Hodge
RRP: £5.99
Price: £1.35
Review Before You Go (2002) / Eiv:It's hard to call Detroit Rock City a "coming of age" movie-since it's hard to argue that any of the characters do any genuine growing up. But even though it's about four young metalheads trying to get to a Kiss concert, the movie actually has more in common with sincere portraits of adolescence than it does with raucous teen comedies. The four heroes are members of a teen metal band called Mystery (written in the same font as the letters of Kiss, lest anyone mistake their source of inspiration). After the drummer's religiously zealous mother burns their tickets to a long-awaited concert in nearby Detroit, the boys go anyway and try to get tickets through theft, skullduggery, and entering a male stripper contest. The jokes are broad and the movie culminates in an orgy of male adolescent wish-fulfilment, but here and there some loving attention is paid to the details of 1970s teenage life-the haircuts, clothes, and toys the film-makers probably had when they were kids. Edward Furlong (John Connor from Terminator 2, now grown up) as the band's singer exudes his particular lopsided charm; the rest of the cast play their parts with similar high spirits. Though Detroit Rock City was probably meant to be a no-holds-barred comedy in the vein of American Pie, the end result is curiously wistful; no one's going to mistake it for The Last Picture Show, but something sincere and elegiac lurks in those bang-covered eyes. -Bret Fetzer, Amazon. com:On the DVD: Director Adam Rifkin gives a chaotic but funny commentary about a subject clearly dear to his heart; Gene Simmons is more level-headed but no less fascinating in his own commentary as he talks about his transition from a naive nine-year-old immigrant from Israel to the extravagant showman of Kiss. Hardcore Kiss fans will also appreciate another commentary track in which the other members of the band are interviewed on the telephone by associate producer Tim Sullivan. [+]There's a good "making of" featurette with contributions from all involved. Four deleted scenes show how certain sections were cut for length, and you can also watch the complete "Detroit Rock City" concert footage. Also included are two original music videos: Everclear's cover of "The Boys Are Back in Town", and "Strutter" by The Donnas. The movie's trailer and cast and crew biographies round off a good DVD package. -Mark Walker.
![Review Cinema Club / Trouble In Store [1953]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51JSR8XKAXL._SL160_.jpg)
Actors & Directors
- Megs Jenkins
- Norman Wisdom
- Moira Lister
- Jerry Desmonde
- Margaret Rutherford
- John Paddy Carstairs
Run time: 82 min.
RRP: £5.99
Price: £2.48
Review Trouble In Store [1953] / Cinema Club:Perhaps surprisingly, the British comedy legend Norman Wisdom has made just 20 films, from his debut in Date With a Dream (1948) to the thriller Double-X (1992). From 1948 on he had his own TV series, Wit and Wisdom, but 1953 was the real turning point. Not only was his son Nicholas born, but he became an instant movie star with the release of Trouble in Store. Playing a character called Norman he brought his familiar stage and television personality to the big screen as a young man with the ambition to become a window dresser in a major department store. Ever loveable victim of his own clumsiness, all Norman's efforts to improve himself result in chaos. That is, until he meets Sally (Lana Morris), the girl of his dreams. Then things turn disastrous. Co-starring Margaret Rutherford, Trouble in Store introduced Wisdom's self-penned song which would become his theme, "Don't laugh at Me ('Cause I'm a Fool)". The film became a massive box-office hit and won Wisdom a BAFTA Award. Very much of its time, yet still highly entertaining, this video release provides the opportunity to nostalgically revisit and reassess one of Britain's greatest stars. [+]Wisdom's follow-up was another substantial hit, One Good Turn (1954). -Gary S. Dalkin.
Actors & Directors
- Michael Crawford|Michele Dotrice
Run time: 88 min.
Price: £9.99
Review Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em - Have A Break, Take A Husband / Second Sight Films Ltd.:
Actors & Directors
- Buster Merryfield
- Nicholas Lyndhurst
- Tony Dow
- David Jason
Run time: 149 min.
RRP: £12.99
Price: £1.45
Review Only Fools And Horses - Chain Gang / Little Problems / Stage Fright / 2 Entertain Video:
![Review 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment / All About Eve [1950]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/517HHF3XTDL._SL160_.jpg)
Actors & Directors
- Anne Baxter
- George Sanders
- Joseph L. Mankiewicz
- Gary Merrill
- Celeste Holm
- Bette Davis
Run time: 134 min.
RRP: £5.99
Price: £3.35
Review All About Eve [1950] / 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment:Alfred Hitchcock famously observed that movies should be more than just picture postcards of people talking. Sometimes, though, dialogue is all that's needed. Joseph L. Mankiewicz's immaculately scripted All About Eve is a case in point. There are no special effects (unless one considers Marilyn Monroe's wiggle or a scene in which a car breaks down). What the movie offers instead is some of the most coruscating one-liners ever committed to celluloid. The top-name cast certainly know how to put Mankiewicz's words across. Anne Baxter is all doe-eyed charm as Eve, the ruthless aspiring actress who passes herself off as a little girl lost. George Sanders (eminent character actor and the voice of Shere Khan the tiger in The Jungle Book) shows his customary mellowness of sneer as Addison De Witt, theatre critic and professional cynic ("a venomous foot louse" as he's characterised) who helps push Eve up the greasy pole toward success, if not happiness. Best of all is Bette Davis, a soured but still resplendent stage diva, who takes Eve under her wing. [+]("I'll admit I've seen better days but I'm still not to be had for the price of a cocktail-like a salted peanut", she tells her lover. ) The plotting and double-dealing on the screen, described in Sam Staggs' All About All About Eve: The Complete Behind-the-Scenes Story of the Bitchiest Film Ever Made, were matched by what went on behind the scenes. Davis heartily loathed fellow actress Celeste Holm who-ironically enough-plays her best friend. She fell in love with another co-star, the handsome, good-looking Gary Merrill, whom she later married. Backstage dramas are often self-indulgent and stagy affairs, but this one dazzles. -Geoffrey Macnab.
![Review 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment / Sex Kittens Go To College [1960]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41ACV0GJ8RL._SL160_.jpg)
Actors & Directors
- Mijanou Bardot
- Mickey Shaughnessy
- Louis Nye
- Tuesday Weld
- Mamie Van Doren
- Albert Zugsmith
Price: £10.99
Review Sex Kittens Go To College [1960] / 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment:
RRP: £9.99
Price: £3.99
Review The Simpsons Collection - Call The Simpsons / 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment:
![Review 4 Front Video / The Grass Is Greener [1960]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41TT840FDJL._SL160_.jpg)
Actors & Directors
- Cary Grant
- Robert Mitchum
- Deborah Kerr
- Stanley Donen
- Moray Watson
- Jean Simmons
Run time: 100 min.
RRP: £5.99
Price: £2.95
Review The Grass Is Greener [1960] / 4 Front Video:Cary Grant is the befuddled English Earl in The Grass is Greener, casually puttering around his tourist attraction of a grand old English estate in casual dress while a bull of an American millionaire (Robert Mitchum) crashes into his life and seduces Grant's sophisticated lady (Deborah Kerr). It's pure fantasy, of course, with its cool, cultured lovers swapping witty banter with the same calm they swap gunshots in an old-fashioned duel. Has adultery and jealousy ever been so civilised? Stanley Donen never shakes this very British drawing room comedy of manners free of its talky, stage-bound source or its deliberate snail's pace, but he does manages to bring a lightness that softens the wit with an American lilt. Ultimately, though, it's all about a crack cast in fine form: Mitchum's sleepy-eyed insolence, Kerr's easy elegance, Jean Simmons' flighty outrageousness, and especially the charm and measured grace that is Cary Grant. -Sean Axmaker, Amazon. com.
Actors & Directors
- Michael Crawford|Michele Dotrice
Run time: 88 min.
Price: £9.99
Review Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em - Have A Break, Take A Husband / Second Sight Films Ltd.:
![Review Arrow Films / Eating Raoul [1982]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51QZM217BYL._SL160_.jpg)
Actors & Directors
- Mary Woronov
- Robert Beltran
- Paul Bartel
- Buck Henry
- Paul Bartel
- Ed Begley Jr.
Run time: 79 min.
RRP: £9.99
Price: £6.95
Review Eating Raoul [1982] / Arrow Films:You'd think a black comedy about murder, tackiness, and sexual perversion would quickly become dated, but Eating Raoul (1982) feels surprisingly fresh and delightful. When Mary Bland (Mary Woronov) gets assaulted by one of the repulsive swingers from the neighbouring apartment, her husband Paul (Paul Bartel) rescues her with a swift blow from a frying pan-only to discover a substantial wad of cash in the swinger's wallet. A lure-and-kill scheme follows, which nicely fills their nest egg until a slippery thief named Raoul (Robert Beltran of Star Trek: Voyager, making his film debut) stumbles onto the truth and insists on getting a share. When Raoul starts demanding a share of Mary as well, Paul has to take drastic steps. The key to Eating Raoul isn't the sensational content, but the blithe, matter-of-fact attitude Bartel and Woronov take to it; their sly underplaying makes the movie sparkle with wicked wit. -Bret Fetzer.
Actors & Directors
- Elizabeth Perkins
- Maurice Phillips
- Judge Reinhold
Review Over Her Dead Body / First Independent VA 20137:Enid is horrible, her husband and younger sister are having an affair. When Enid walks in on them 'enjoying' themselves, she is furious. A fight develops and Enid is hit over the head with a heavy object. One disaster after another ensues, as they attempt to make Enid's death look like an accident.
![Review MGM Entertainment / Crimes And Misdemeanors [1990]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41P17K6CEML._SL160_.jpg)
Actors & Directors
- Claire Bloom
- Woody Allen
- Caroline Aaron
- Anjelica Huston
- Martin Landau
- Sam Waterston
Run time: 100 min.
RRP: £5.99
Price: £1.95
Review Crimes And Misdemeanors [1990] / MGM Entertainment:Along with Deconstructing Harry which would follow seven years later, this is Woody Allen's most sombre comedy-drama, as well as his most ambitious film of the 1980s. Allen weaves together two central stories about very different groups of Manhattanites, linking them through a mutual friend, a rabbi (Sam Waterston) who's going blind. This image is key to the sometimes ponderous, often clever musings on faith, morals, and vision (or lack thereof) that obsess his deeply troubled and unhappy characters. At its centre, the film explores people who, through lack of religious conviction or arrogance, rationalise their awful, selfish acts by presuming that God couldn't possibly be watching. The central story-a neo-noir of sorts-follows a fortuitous ophthalmologist (Martin Landau, all sweat and grimaces) who faces the prospect of his obsessed mistress (Anjelica Huston) ruining his life by telling his family of their affair. Desperate, the doctor hires his slimy criminal brother (Jerry Orbach) to eliminate the situation, and then suffers overwhelming regret afterwards. The flip tale is more typical Allen. Funnier and lighter, it focuses on an impossible romance between Allen's character and Halley Reed, a film producer played by Mia Farrow. Between Allen and his Hollywood fantasy stands his brother-in-law (Alan Alda, perfectly cast as an obnoxious, successful sitcom producer), who also desires Halley. Allen is Landau's opposite: an honest, struggling documentarian who cares nothing about fortune, suffers in a loveless marriage, and is surrounded by triumphant phonies. [+]The nice-guys-finish-last moral may be as contrived as it is devastating. Yet, when Landau and Allen finally share a final scene during a wedding, their faces, subtle body movements, and contrasting fortunes somehow suggest that indeed God may be blind, and if not, the deity has a very sick sense of humour. -Dave McCoy.
![Review Cinema Club / On The Beat [1962]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/71MFXCMC5DL._SL160_.gif)
Actors & Directors
- Esma Cannon
- Norman Wisdom
- David Lodge
- Raymond Huntley
- Robert Asher
- Jennifer Jayne
Run time: 101 min.
RRP: £5.99
Price: £7.95
Review On The Beat [1962] / Cinema Club:Having proved himself a war hero in The Square Peg (1958), Norman Pitkin, Norman Wisdom's most famous incarnation of his riotous buffoon character, is here demobbed and, as usual for a Wisdom movie, dreaming of something better. Norman wants to follow in his father's footsteps and become a policeman, but being decidedly on the short side, has to settle for washing police cars. Of course it's not long before Norman is impersonating an officer of the law. As in The Square Peg, Wisdom also plays his nemesis here, the German General Schreiber, as well as the chief suspect in a series of jewel robberies which only Pitkin's chaotic antics can solve. In fact, as if emphasising that On the Beat really is The Square Peg with different uniforms, Terence Alexander, who later found fame as Charlie Hungerford in the long running BBC series Bergerac, also returns, albeit playing a different character. Wisdom film-regular David Lodge, previously seen co-starring in The Bulldog Breed (1960) is also on hand, though otherwise the supporting cast is less stellar than before. Solid if very predictable feel-good entertainment, Wisdom's particular brand of charming anarchy proves again his box-office formula could withstand endless variations. -Gary S Dalkin.
Actors & Directors
- Genevieve Page
- Tamara Toumanova
- Colin Blakely
- Christopher Lee
- Billy Wilder
- Robert Stephens
Review The Private Life Of Sherlock Holmes (1970) / Warner Home Video:Billy Wilder's comedy take on the great detective is flawed by the removal od the third story but still enjoyable if youlike spoof.
![Review Cinema Club / Minder - On The Orient Express [1985]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41E9BG9BRCL._SL160_.jpg)
Actors & Directors
- George Cole
- Francis Megahy
- Honor Blackman
- Adam Faith
- Dennis Waterman
Run time: 106 min.
RRP: £5.99
Price: £7.99
Review Minder - On The Orient Express [1985] / Cinema Club:The one thing everyone wanted to watch on Christmas Day 1985 was this special film-length Minder On the Orient Express. It was the end of Season 6 (of 10), and the show had never been more popular. It drew a star-studded cast that in turn drew audiences: Honor Blackman, Adam Faith, Ralph Bates and Amanda Pays feature prominently in a surprisingly complex story concerning millions in lost gangland money. Terry is given a pair of tickets for the Orient Express ("no, it's not a Chinese takeaway, Arthur") when he rescues Nikki South (Pays) from a mugging. So it is that the train sets off with Arthur having lied his way aboard, poor beleaguered DS Chisholm working with an Interpol Detective (Bates), several gang thugs led by Jimmy Crane (Faith, who doesn't sing!) and several gold diggers such as the flirtatious Helen (Blackman). An all-important paper envelope passes hands endlessly, while the action progresses into the realms of French farce as cabin doors rapidly open and close. A couple of explosions of fisticuffs seem to threaten the end of Croydon's finest second-hand car dealership, but all it'll take is a couple of "large VATs" to restore the Daley entrepreneurial spirit. -Paul Tonks.
![Review MGM Entertainment / It's a Mad,Mad,Mad,Mad World [1963]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51B54Y9YKPL._SL160_.jpg)
Actors & Directors
- Milton Berle
- Buddy Hackett
- Ethel Merman
- Spencer Tracy
- Stanley Kramer
- Sid Caesar
Run time: 148 min.
RRP: £5.99
Price: £5.00
Review It's a Mad,Mad,Mad,Mad World [1963] / MGM Entertainment:Stanley Kramer's 1963 It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World is a sprawling comedy about a search for buried treasure by at least a dozen people-all played by well-known entertainers of their day-is the kind of mass comedy that has recently come back to the for-front of Hollywood with the film Rat Race. After a number of strangers (including Milton Berle, Jonathan Winters, Sid Caesar, Phil Silvers and others) witness a dying stranger (Jimmy Durante) identify the location of hidden money, a conflict-ridden hunt begins, watched over carefully by a suspicious cop (Spencer Tracy). The ensuing two and a half hours of mayhem has its ups and downs-some sketches and performers are certainly funnier than others. But Kramer, who is better known for socially conscious, serious cinema (Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?), is in a mood for broad comic characterization, and some of his jokes are so intentionally obvious (Durante literally kicks a bucket when he dies), they could have derived from the Airplane! reject bin. Watch for lots of cameo appearances, including Jerry Lewis. -Tom Keogh, Amazon. com.
Actors & Directors
- KIETH DAVID
- DANIEL DAY LEWIS
- JOAN CUSACK
- PAT O'CONNOR
- HARRY DEAN STANTON
Creator: SANDY LIEBERSON
Price: £5.99
Review Stars and Bars / HOLLYWOOD:
| Models & Brands:
Hairspray [1987], Bottom - Live - The Stage Show [1993], Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em - The Job Interview, Before You Go (2002), Trouble In Store [1953], Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em - Have A Break, Take A Husband, Only Fools And Horses - Chain Gang / Little Problems / Stage Fright, All About Eve [1950], Sex Kittens Go To College [1960], The Simpsons Collection - Call The Simpsons, The Grass Is Greener [1960], Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em - Have A Break, Take A Husband, Eating Raoul [1982], Over Her Dead Body, Crimes And Misdemeanors [1990], On The Beat [1962], The Private Life Of Sherlock Holmes (1970), Minder - On The Orient Express [1985], It's a Mad,Mad,Mad,Mad World [1963], Stars and Bars |
