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Review Tartan Video / Cinema Paradiso (Subtitled) [1989]
Actors & Directors
  • Salvatore Cascio
  • Marco Leonardi
  • Jacques Perrin
  • Brigitte Fossey
  • Philippe Noiret
Release date: 1995-10-02
Run time: 167 min.
RRP: £15.99
Price: £6.48

Review Cinema Paradiso (Subtitled) [1989] / Tartan Video:

Giuseppe Tornatore's beautiful 1988 film about a little boy's love affair with the movies deservedly won an Oscar for Best Foreign Film and a Special Jury Prize at Cannes. Philippe Noiret plays a grizzled old projectionist who takes pride in his presentation of screen dreams for a town still recovering from World War II. When a child (Jacques Perrin) demonstrates fascination not only for movies but also for the process of showing them to an audience, a lifelong friendship is struck. This isn't just one of those films for people who are already in love with the cinema. But if you are one of those folks, the emotional resonance between the action in Tornatore's world and the images on Noiret's screen will seem all the greater-and the finale all the more powerful. -Tom Keogh.

Review Clear Vision Ltd / Never The Twain - The Complete Series 1
Release date: 2001-06-04
Creator: Johnnie Mortimer
RRP: £9.99
Price: £2.50

Review Never The Twain - The Complete Series 1 / Clear Vision Ltd:

Remarkably, the Johnny Mortimer-scripted series Never the Twain ran to over 50 episodes between 1981 and 1984 on ITV. It starred Donald Sinden as Simon Peel, a stuffy, upper-middle class antiques dealer who lives next door to Oliver Smallbridge (Windsor Davies of It Ain't Half Hot, Mum fame), a working-class lad made good, also in the antiques trade. As the first series establishes, theirs is a prickly relationship, not just because they're rivals in trade but also rivals for the affections of the middle-aged, comely Veronica. They are aghast when they discover their respective son and daughter plan to marry, coming on like the Capulets and Montagues of Middle England. Never the Twain is a pleasantly predictable antique of the sitcom variety, redeemed by Sinden and Davies' gruff, blustery and persistent antagonism. It depicts a cosy, never-never world of "dirty weekends", huge suburban houses, borderline homophobic mirth and reliable puns on "genes" and "jeans"-the sort of series in which characters greet surprising news by spraying a mouthful of tea halfway across the room. Some will find it barely endurable, others a welcome reminder of a bygone televisual era before alternative comedy became the ubiquitous norm. This DVD contains an episode guide and picture gallery. -David Stubbs.

Review Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainm / Three Men And A Little Lady [1991]
Actors & Directors
  • Robin Weisman
  • Steve Guttenberg
  • Tom Selleck
  • Nancy Travis
  • Emile Ardolino
  • Ted Danson
Release date: 2003-02-03
Run time: 99 min.
Creator: Sara Parriott
RRP: £9.99
Price: £4.24

Review Three Men And A Little Lady [1991] / Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainm:


Review Entertainment in Video / Baps [1997]
Actors & Directors
  • Robert Townsend
  • Ian Richardson
  • Natalie Desselle
  • Troy Beyer
  • Halle Berry
  • Martin Landau
Release date: 1998-06-22
Run time: 88 min.
Creator: Michael De Luca
Price: £5.99

Review Baps [1997] / Entertainment in Video:

What was director Robert Townsend thinking? His movies, such as The Five Heartbeats and The Hollywood Shuffle, are sweet, enjoyable little pictures. But this "comedy" about two flashy Georgia women hoping to find money and men in Los Angeles is stereotypical, unfunny, embarrassing and boring. Halle Berry and newcomer Natalie Desselle are trapped in pitiful roles playing against the distinguished but miscast Martin Landau and a wasted Ian Richardson. B. A. P. S. , by the way, stands for black American princesses. There are better urban comedies out there, the badly named Booty Call for one. -Rochelle O'Gorman.

Review Paramount Home Entertainment / Monty Python Live at The Hollywood Bowl [1982]
Actors & Directors
  • Ian MacNaughton
  • Terry Jones
  • Eric Idle
  • Terry Hughes
  • Michael Palin
  • John Cleese
  • Graham Chapman
Release date: 2001-07-02
Run time: 78 min.
Creator: Tim Brooke-Taylor
Price: £5.99

Review Monty Python Live at The Hollywood Bowl [1982] / Paramount Home Entertainment:

Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl (1982) serves up the Python lads' finest, funniest and foulest work. Culled from their four-night stand at the Hollywood Bowl in 1980, this selection of sketches and songs includes some of the most recognisable material from the TV series. Numbers include the sexually confused lumberjack, the Ministry of Silly Walks, the Argument Clinic and the exploding balladeer. Some of the group's funnier short-film pieces are featured as well, including the International Philosophy Match (Germany vs. Greece) and Terry Gilliam's animated pieces. Monty Python aficionados will enjoy seeing the lads do their thing for a live crowd, and there's a fantastic rapport with the audience. The sketches are looser and less hermetic than those in the Monty Python show or films. Aside from the unusual setting, there's nothing particularly revelatory about Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl. But for Python fans and fanatics-and they are legion-this won't matter a jot. -Nick Poppy, Amazon. [+]
com.

Review 2 Entertain Video / Monty Python's Flying Circus - The Best Of Monty Python's Flying Circus - Vol. 1 [1969]
Actors & Directors
  • Terry Jones
  • Terry Gilliam
  • Graham Chapman
  • Eric Idle
  • John Cleese
Release date: 1999-10-04
Run time: 90 min.
Creator: John Howard Davies
RRP: £12.99
Price: £4.88

Review Monty Python's Flying Circus - The Best Of Monty Python's Flying Circus - Vol. 1 [1969] / 2 Entertain Video:

The coming together of the Python team is regarded as the birth of modern comedy, though each of the six members had been doing similar sketch work prior to this first, 1969 series, of whose highlights this video consists. The most revolutionary aspect of Python was its eschewal of punch lines, preferring as they did bizarre, surreal links and quantum leaps into the imagination of animator Terry Gilliam. Inevitably, Python has dated. Sketches such as the Upper Class Twit of the year and the "Wink-wink, nudge nudge" man are worn down by familiarity. There's some clunky stereotyping and "Oo, ducky"-style gay references. That said, much of this still stands up. Hells Grannies and the race to find the World's Funniest Joke are fine, idle-driven documentary spoofs while the Batley Townswomen's Guild's re-enactment of Pearl Harbour is intelligently ridiculous. John Cleese, however, stands literally and metaphorically head and shoulders above the rest. His and Chapman's sketches, involving a mountaineering expedition leader with double vision and an arts TV interviewer who can't get past the etiquette of how to refer to his guest ("Eddie baby. [+]
") are pursued to their absurd non-conclusions with the remorseless logic of a top-drawer barrister. -David Stubbs.

Review Universal Pictures UK / Jethro - Rule Britannia [2001]
Actors & Directors
  • Jethro
Release date: 2001-11-05
Run time: 60 min.
RRP: £15.99
Price: £9.99

Review Jethro - Rule Britannia [2001] / Universal Pictures UK:


Review Bfi Video / Playtime [1967]
Actors & Directors
  • Jacques Tati
  • France Rumilly
  • France Delahalle
  • Jacques Tati
  • Rita Maiden
  • Barbara Dennek
Release date: 2004-09-06
Run time: 125 min.
Creator: Jacques Lagrange
RRP: £12.99
Price: £7.99

Review Playtime [1967] / Bfi Video:


Review 2 Entertain Video / Father Ted - Series 2 Part 2 [1995]
Actors & Directors
  • Ardal O'Hanlon
  • Frank Kelly
  • Pauline McLynn
  • Dermot Morgan
Release date: 2002-02-25
Run time: 119 min.
Price: £12.99

Review Father Ted - Series 2 Part 2 [1995] / 2 Entertain Video:

Among the five episodes collected here are two of Father Ted's finest half-hours. "Rock-A-Hula Ted" was one of the few episodes in which the writers of the show abandoned any concern for their largely British audience and stacked the script with explicitly Irish references: Craggy Island's "Lovely Girls" festival is a burlesque of the all-too-genuine "Rose Of Tralee" pageant, and fire-breathing pop singer Niamh Connolly-played with aplomb by Clare Grogan-an obvious enough Sinead O'Connor manqué. "New Jack City", meanwhile is the classic episode in which the choleric Father Jack is finally despatched to an old folks' loony bin only to be replaced by the mesmerisingly appalling ragga-fixated chain-smoker Father Fintan Stack. As one of the high points of the Father Ted series this episode is also one of the high points of television comedy. There isn't much wrong with the other three episodes here, either. On the DVD: an interactive menu allows the selection of individual episodes, and segments within those episodes. The only extra feature is the option of watching the episodes with the dialogue replaced with a commentary by co-writer Graham Linehan and actor Ardal O'Hanlon, who plays Father Dougal Maguire. Occasionally interesting and revealing though this is, it gets rapidly wearing in this form, and would have worked much better if transcribed in an accompanying booklet. The disc is presented in 4:3 aspect ratio with English subtitles available. -Andrew Mueller.

Review Screen Edge / Alferd Packer - The Musical [1993]
Actors & Directors
  • Trey Parker
Release date: 1995-09-25
Run time: 97 min.
Price: £12.99

Review Alferd Packer - The Musical [1993] / Screen Edge:

Alferd Packer was the only man in the United States ever convicted of cannibalism-what better hero for fellow Coloradan and future South Park creator Trey Parker to celebrate in music? Blue-eyed and boyish Parker was still in college when he wrote, directed, composed the songs for and took the starring role as the innocent young Packer in this film, giving a gee-whiz performance as an ambitious pioneer who joins an ill-fated trek west that ends up stranded in the mountains. At times resembling a perverse community theatre parody of Rodgers and Hammerstein ("My heart's as full as a baked po-ta-to!"), Parker bounces back and forth between cheery production numbers and goony songs ("Let's build a snowman", sings one starving-mad hiker) and grotesque gore (bloody body parts, festering sores, human hors d'oeuvres). It lacks in style and consistency and the juvenile gags and fart jokes wear thin over the course of a feature film, but Parker's sheer energy and inventiveness carry the overlong picture to a rousing conclusion. Regular Parker collaborators Matt Stone and Dian Bachar co-star in this tuneful barbecue. -Sean Axmaker.

Review Sony Pictures Home Entertainment / Ghostbusters 2 [1989]
Actors & Directors
  • Harold Ramis
  • Dan Aykroyd
  • Bill Murray
  • Ivan Reitman
  • Rick Moranis
  • Sigourney Weaver
Release date: 1998-06-01
Run time: 104 min.
Creator: Michael C. Gross
RRP: £10.99
Price: £1.98

Review Ghostbusters 2 [1989] / Sony Pictures Home Entertainment:

Much less fun than its predecessor, this 1989 sequel starts off on a bleak note by telling us our heroes from Ghostbusters have been on the skids for five years and Bill Murray's lead character never did hook up with Sigourney Weaver's lovely symphony-musician character. What's more, she has a kid by somebody else. Everybody's on an uphill climb, and Ghostbusters II never soars the way the first film did, despite having the same director, Ivan Reitman (Dave, Kindergarten Cop). The lame plot finds the boys attempting to prevent a disaster on New York City caused by too many bad vibes in the Big Apple. Yikes! Fortunately, screenwriters Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis have penned enough good one-liners to keep Murray busy, and if the ghostly special effects no longer surprise as they did in Ghostbusters, they're at least inventive. - Tom Keogh, Amazon. com.

Review / Trick [2000]
Actors & Directors
  • Christian Campbell
  • John Paul Pitoc
  • Lacey Kohl
  • Brad Beyer
  • Jim Fall
  • Tori Spelling
Run time: 89 min.
Creator: Jason Schafer
Price: £1.39

Review Trick [2000]:


Review Vision Video Ltd. / Your Friends And Neighbors (1998) [1999]
Actors & Directors
  • Amy Brenneman
  • Aaron Eckhart
  • Neil LaBute
  • Catherine Keener
  • Ben Stiller
  • Nastassja Kinski
Release date: 2002-01-05
Run time: 95 min.
Creator: Steve Golin
Price: £14.99

Review Your Friends And Neighbors (1998) [1999] / Vision Video Ltd.:


Actors & Directors
  • Eli Danker
  • Mark Harelik
  • Anthony Michael Hall
  • Jerry Orbach
  • Stan Winston
  • Claudia Christian
Release date: 1991-10-07
Run time: 88 min.
Creator: Pen Densham
Price: £10.99

Review Upworld [1990] / First Independent Video:


Review 4 Front Video / Base Ketball
Actors & Directors
  • Al Michaels
  • Trey Parker
  • Bob Costas
  • David Zucker
  • Matt Stone
  • Kenny Mayne
Release date: 2001-08-06
Run time: 91 min.
RRP: £5.99
Price: £2.21

Review Base Ketball / 4 Front Video:


Review Dd Home Entertainment / The Amorous Prawn [1962]
Actors & Directors
  • Cecil Parker
  • Joan Greenwood
  • Robert Beatty
  • Ian Carmichael
  • Anthony Kimmins
  • Dennis Price
Release date: 2001-11-19
Run time: 85 min.
Creator: Nicholas Phipps
RRP: £10.99
Price: £19.59

Review The Amorous Prawn [1962] / Dd Home Entertainment:


Review 2 Entertain Video / Father Ted - Series 3 [1995]
Actors & Directors
  • Dermot Morgan
  • Frank Kelly
  • Pauline McLynn
  • Andy DeEmmony
  • Ardal O'Hanlon
Release date: 2002-05-20
Run time: 193 min.
Price: £12.99

Review Father Ted - Series 3 [1995] / 2 Entertain Video:

This set contains the final series of Father Ted, which ended abruptly in 1998 with the death of its talented comic star, Dermot Morgan. The eight episodes here are a little uneven, but the best stuff is classic, laugh-out-loud satire, including "Are You Right There, Father Ted", in which Morgan's titular Catholic priest is re-banished to Ireland's Craggy Island, a green rock replete with paranoid sheep, randy milkmen, Nazi memorabilia collectors and an inexplicably large community of Chinese immigrants. Outstanding, too, is "Speed 3", in which Ted discovers that a number of babies recently born on Craggy all look like a self-made swinger named Pat Mustard. "Kicking Bishop Brennan Up the Arse" speaks for itself, and "The Mainland" gives supporting actor Ardal O'Hanlon (as idiotic fellow cleric Dougal) a great showcase. -Tom Keogh.

Review 4 Front Video / Babe / Babe - Pig In The City [1995]
Actors & Directors
  • Chris Noonan
  • George Miller
  • Micheline Presle
  • Mickey Rooney
  • Magda Szubanski
  • James Cromwell
Release date: 2001-08-20
Run time: 181 min.
RRP: £9.99
Price: £3.20

Review Babe / Babe - Pig In The City [1995] / 4 Front Video:


Review Arrow Films / Superman 3 [1983]
Actors & Directors
  • Christopher Reeve
  • Margot Kidder
  • Marc McClure
  • Jackie Cooper
  • Richard Lester
  • Richard Pryor
Release date: 1993-10-04
Run time: 119 min.
Creator: Leslie Newman
RRP: £5.99
Price: £6.85

Review Superman 3 [1983] / Arrow Films:


Review Universal Pictures UK / Dave Spikey - Overnight Success Tour [2003]
Actors & Directors
  • Dave Spikey
Release date: 2003-11-17
Run time: 72 min.
RRP: £15.99
Price: £1.49

Review Dave Spikey - Overnight Success Tour [2003] / Universal Pictures UK:


Models & Brands:
Cinema Paradiso (Subtitled) [1989], Never The Twain - The Complete Series 1, Three Men And A Little Lady [1991], Baps [1997], Monty Python Live at The Hollywood Bowl [1982], Monty Python's Flying Circus - The Best Of Monty Python's Flying Circus - Vol. 1 [1969], Jethro - Rule Britannia [2001], Playtime [1967], Father Ted - Series 2 Part 2 [1995], Alferd Packer - The Musical [1993], Ghostbusters 2 [1989], Trick [2000], Your Friends And Neighbors (1998) [1999], Upworld [1990], Base Ketball, The Amorous Prawn [1962], Father Ted - Series 3 [1995], Babe / Babe - Pig In The City [1995], Superman 3 [1983], Dave Spikey - Overnight Success Tour [2003]

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