Actors & Directors
- John Hughes|James Belushi|Kelly Lynch|Alisan Porter
Release date: 1994-08-01 Run time: 97 min. RRP: £9.99 Price: £14.75
Review Curly Sue [1991] / Warner Home Video:
Actors & Directors
- Lewis Gilbert
- Michael Williams
- Maureen Lipman
- Michael Caine
- Jeananne Crowley
- Julie Walters
Release date: 1992-04-06 Run time: 106 min. Creator: Willy Russell RRP: £5.99 Price: £2.49
Review Educating Rita [1984] / ITV DVD:Michael Caine and the knockout Julie Walters deliver a pair of wonderful performances in this endearingly bittersweet tale of a boozily burnt-out professor's tutoring of (and subsequent tutoring by) a free-spirited cockney hairdresser determined to improve her lot in life. The basic plot won't exactly surprise anyone who's ever seen a movie before, but the ace cast (particularly Caine, who's rarely this subtle) continually finds new directions to spin off from the rather rote path. Although the end result is perhaps just a little too convinced of its own adorability to attain classic status, this remains a rarity in the genre-a feel-good film that earns its emotions honestly. A nice change of pace for director Lewis Gilbert, who is perhaps better known for his contributions to the James Bond series. -Andrew Wright.
Actors & Directors
- James Nesbitt
- Paul Kousoulides
- Ciaran Donnelly
- John Thompson
- Tim Whitby
- Fay Ripley
- Helen Baxendale
- Robert Bathurst
Release date: 2002-11-25 Run time: 405 min. RRP: £19.99 Price: £11.85
Review Cold Feet - The Complete 4th Series / 2 Entertain Video:The fourth series of Cold Feet marks something of a watershed for the six friends from Manchester. Previous series, punctuated with drunken bachelordom, mindless flings and wild stag weekends, give way to themes of alcoholism, broken families and divorce. It's also part-way through the fourth series that Jenny leaves Manchester for pastures new, thus departing Fay Ripley's hugely popular and instantly missable character. As fans have come to expect, however, such dramatic shifts are handled with assurance, finesse and sensitivity by writer Mike Bullen. Everything from the script to the acting is in tune with the exceptional comic and dramatic standards set by previous episodes. Hermione Norris as Karen delivers a remarkable performance as her world tumbles around her while James Nesbitt maintains his perfect portrayal of Adam, suitably moving and hilarious by turns. There's also room for a new character: Rachel's bubbly Australian workmate Jo seamlessly enters the circle of friends, providing Pete with a new love interest. As ever, we're left eagerly anticipating the next instalment, impatient for Bullen and company to tie up the numerous loose ends. Series 4 ends in a whirlwind of matrimony, marital dysfunction, a new arrival and all the indications that there's plenty to look forward to in the final series. -David Thwaites.
Actors & Directors
- Alejandro Jodorowsky|Axel Jodorowsky|Blanca Guerra|Guy Stockwell
Release date: 1995-05-22 Run time: 118 min. Price: £10.99
Review Santa Sangre [1990] / Fabulous Films Ltd.:
Actors & Directors
- Piper Laurie
- Paul Newman
- Myron McCormick
- George C. Scott
- Robert Rossen
- Jackie Gleason
Release date: 1990-09-27 Run time: 129 min. Creator: Walter Tevis RRP: £5.99 Price: £0.85
Review The Hustler [1961] / 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment:
Actors & Directors
- Franco Zeffirelli|Jon Voight|Faye Dunaway|Rick Schroder
Release date: 1998-04-20 Run time: 118 min. RRP: £5.99 Price: £18.94
Review The Champ [1979] / MGM Entertainment:
Actors & Directors
- David Hoflin
- Sam Neill
- Jason Reason
- Fred Schepisi
- Meryl Streep
- Dale Reeves
Release date: 1994-01-10 Run time: 116 min. Creator: Robert Caswell RRP: £6.99 Price: £11.99
Review A Cry In The Dark [1989] / MGM Entertainment:
Actors & Directors
- Sue Johnston
- Sarah White
- Gabrielle Glaister
- Sandra Maitland
- Irene Marot
Release date: 1997-11-10 Run time: 88 min. RRP: £12.99 Price: £10.75
Review Brookside-The Women / Channel 4 Video:
Actors & Directors
- Susan Sarandon
- Harvey Keitel
- Michael Madsen
- Ridley Scott
- Christopher McDonald
- Geena Davis
Release date: 2000-03-20 Run time: 124 min. Creator: Mimi Polk Gitlin RRP: £5.99 Price: £0.50
Review Thelma And Louise [1991] / MGM Entertainment:Thelma & Louise is a feminist manifesto writ large on the big screen, a smart and funny gender reversal of the standard Hollywood buddy formula, a road movie extraordinaire, with characters who became instant cultural icons. No matter how you define it, Ridley Scott's 1991 box-office hit pinched a nerve and made the cover of national news magazines for tweaking gender politics like no movie before or since. Callie Khouri's screenplay overhauls the buddy formula with its story about two best friends (Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis) who embark on a liberating adventure that turns into an interstate police chase after a traumatic incident makes both women into fugitives; they are en route to a destiny they could never have imagined. The perfect casting of Sarandon and Davis makes Thelma & Louise a movie for the ages and Brad Pitt became an overnight star after his appearance as the con-artist cowboy who gives Davis a memorable (but costly) night in a roadside motel. -Jeff Shannon.
Actors & Directors
- Larry Peerce
- Kyle Chandler
- Chris Burke
- Clay Boss
- Jerry Biggs
- Philip Casnoff
Release date: 1997-03-03 Run time: 261 min. Creator: Suzanne Clauser Price: £24.99
Review North And South - Book 3 / Warner Home Video:
Actors & Directors
- Jane Evers
- Susanna Best
- Polly Adams
- Ellis Dale
- John Elmes
Release date: 2003-04-14 Run time: 262 min. Creator: Peter Ansorge RRP: £9.99 Price: £35.99
Review The Camomile Lawn [1992] / Cinema Club:Adapted from the novel by Mary Wesley, The Camomile Lawn proved one of Channel Four's most successful dramas, telling an intricate story set during World War II and over two days in 1984. In this portrait of the Home Front in Cornwall and London in the Blitz, the titular lawn becomes a symbol for halcyon pre-war days, and also for a lost innocence on a personal level. For this is very much about growing up and sex, including rape and child abuse (both handled tactfully, mainly in dialogue), adulatory, ménage á trois, bisexuality and rampant promiscuity. The attitudes, from the war-damaged, nihilistic Oliver, (a powerfully charismatic Toby Stephens) to the mercenary Calypso (an incendiary Jennifer Ehle), and some individual scenes, shock in their very matter-of-factness. What could be salacious soap is leavened by a comic touch, intensified by tragedy and elevated to intensely moving drama during its final half hour set around a funeral in 1984. Generally excellent production values make the best of the television budget, and there are outstanding performances by a large cast including Felicity Kendal and Paul Eddington (reunited from The Good Life), Tara Fitzgerald in her first starring role, and especially Rebecca Hall as Sophy. On the DVD: The four episodes are presented on two discs, with a total running time of approximately four hours 22 minutes. There are no special features of any sort. The picture is standard television 4:3, and while marginally better than VHS has a slight softness, with occasional after-images to shots with moving lights betraying that the series was made on video rather than film. Some scenes are rather grainy and there is the occasion brief instance of MPEG artifacting. [+]
The sound is stereo and appears to have been remixed from mono, some elements such as the music remaining in mono, while some sound effects are stereo. -Gary S Dalkin.
Actors & Directors
- Elizabeth Berridge
- Simon Callow
- Milos Forman
- Tom Hulce
- Roy Dotrice
- F. Murray Abraham
Release date: 2000-03-20 Run time: 153 min. Creator: Peter Shaffer RRP: £9.99 Price: £1.05
Review Amadeus [1985] / Warner Home Video:The satirical sensibilities of writer Peter Shaffer and director Milos Forman (One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest) were ideally matched in this Oscar-winning movie adaptation of Shaffer's hit play about the rivalry between two composers in the court of Austrian Emperor Joseph II-official royal composer Antonio Salieri (F. Murray Abraham), and the younger but superior prodigy Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Tom Hulce). The conceit is absolutely delicious: Salieri secretly loathes Mozart's crude and bratty personality but is astounded by the beauty of his music. That's the heart of Salieri's torment-although he's in a unique position to recognise and cultivate both Mozart's talent and career, he's also consumed with envy and insecurity in the face of such genius. That such magnificent music should come from such a vulgar little creature strikes Salieri as one of God's cruellest jokes, and it drives him insane. Amadeus creates peculiar and delightful contrasts between the impeccably re-created details of its lavish period setting and the jarring (but humorously refreshing and unstuffy) modern tone of its dialogue and performances-all of which serve to remind us that these were people before they became enshrined in historical and artistic legend. Jeffrey Jones, best-known as Ferris Bueller's principal, is particularly wonderful as the bumbling emperor (with the voice of a modern mid-level businessman). The film's eight Oscars include statuettes for Best Director Forman, Best Actor Abraham (Hulce was also nominated), Best Screenplay and Best Picture. -Jim Emerson Note: this region two DVD is a "flipper" with a break between sides A and B. A note-perfect cinematic event whose immortality was assured from its opening night, Amadeus is an unlikely candidate for the Director's Cut treatment. [+]
Like one of Mozart's operas, the multiple Oscar-winning theatrical version seemed perfectly formed from the outset-ideal casting, costumes, sets, cinematography, lighting, screenplay, music, music, music-so the reinstatement of an extra 20 minutes simply risks adding "too many notes". Yet though this extended cut can hardly be said to improve a picture that needed no improvement, it does at least flesh out a couple of small subplots and shed new light on certain key scenes. Here we learn why Constanze Mozart bears such ill-will towards Salieri when she discovers him at her husband's deathbed: he has insulted and degraded her after she came to him for help. We also see deeper into the reasons why Mozart has no pupils: not only has Salieri poisoned the Emperor's mind against him, but the only promisingly lucrative teaching job he can find ends disastrously when he realises that the master of the house just wants music to quiet his barking dogs. In a humiliating coda to that episode, a drunk and desperate Wolfgang returns later to beg for money only to be coldly rejected. The structure of the picture is otherwise unaltered. On the DVD: Amadeus-The Director's Cut finally accords this masterful work the DVD treatment it deserves. The handsome anamorphic widescreen picture is accompanied by a choice of Dolby 5. 1 or Dolby stereo sound options, and it's all contained on one side of the disc (the original single-disc DVD release was that crime against the format, a "flipper"). Director Milos Forman and writer Peter Shaffer provide a chatty though sporadic commentary, but they're obviously still too mesmerised by the movie to do much more than offer the odd anecdote. Disc 2 contains an excellent new hour-long "making of" documentary, with contributions from Forman, Shaffer, Sir Neville Marriner and all the main actors, taking in the scriptwriting, choice of music, casting and problems involved in filming in Communist Czechoslovakia with half the crew and extras working for the Secret Police. -Mark Walker.
Actors & Directors
- Stephanie Beacham
- Alexander Butler
- Armand Assante
- Jacqueline Bisset
Release date: 1996-05-06 Run time: 262 min. RRP: £14.99 Price: £64.99
Review Napoleon & Josephine [1987] / Warner Home Video:
Actors & Directors
- Rachel Herbert
- Ian Carmichael
- Glyn Houston
- David Langton
- Mark Eden
Release date: 2000-04-03 Run time: 225 min. Creator: John McGlashan RRP: £16.99 Price: £17.89
Review Lord Peter Wimsey - Clouds Of Witness / Acorn Media:Ah, there's nothing quite like settling in and getting cosy with a complicated British country-estate murder. In the BBC adaptation of Dorothy Sayers's detective novel, the brilliant Lord Peter Wimsey brings his investigative talents to use close to home. His future brother-in-law is slain during a country retreat, and while there seems to be no shortage of possible suspects, the investigation quickly centres on Wimsey's brother Gerald, the Duke of Denver. The five-tape adaptation takes its delicious time in delving deeper into the psyche of the unhappy circle around the deceased, as Wimsey tries to avert a full trial of a peer of the realm. Ian Carmichael shines as Wimsey, one of English detective fiction's most memorable heroes-more nimble than Miss Marple, more wilful than Poirot, more upbeat than Adam Dalgliesh. All mystery fans need for a lovely and satisfying afternoon is this series and a couple of strong pots of tea. -Anne Hurley, Amazon. com.
Actors & Directors
- Elliott Gould
- Sam Waterston
- O.J. Simpson
- Brenda Vaccaro
- Peter Hyams
- James Brolin
Release date: 2000-05-22 Run time: 107 min. Creator: Paul Lazarus III RRP: £5.99 Price: £1.99
Review Capricorn One [1976] / ITV DVD:Thanks to repeated showings on cable television and home video, this speculative thriller has built quite a loyal following since its release in 1978. The provocative "what if?" scenario still packs a punch, even if it is not always believable. James Brolin, Sam Waterston and O J Simpson star as three astronauts who agree to spare the government embarrassment by faking their historic landing on Mars after their spacecraft is determined to be unsafe for blastoff. When a scheming mission controller (Hal Holbrook) plots to kill the astronauts in a staged capsule fire, the trio embarks on a dangerous mission to expose the truth. Elliott Gould costars as the journalist determined to crack the conspiracy, and director Peter Hyams turns up the tension with an exciting chase sequence involving Telly Savalas as an eccentric barnstormer who comes to Gould's aid in his attempt rescue the hoax mission's sole survivor. -Jeff Shannon.
Actors & Directors
- Judd Nelson
- Anthony Michael Hall
- Emilio Estevez
- John Hughes
- Ally Sheedy
- Molly Ringwald
Release date: 2000-05-08 Run time: 94 min. Creator: Ned Tanen RRP: £5.99 Price: £2.21
Review The Breakfast Club [1985] / 4 Front Video:John Hughes's popular 1985 teen drama finds a diverse group of high school students-a jock (Emilio Estevez), a metalhead (Judd Nelson), a weirdo (Ally Sheedy), a princess (Molly Ringwald), and a nerd (Anthony Michael Hall)-sharing a Saturday in detention at their high school for one minor infraction or another. Over the course of a day, they talk through the social barriers that ordinarily keep them apart, and new alliances are born, though not without a lot of pain first. Hughes (Ferris Bueller's Day Off), who wrote and directed, is heavy on dialogue but he also thoughtfully refreshes the look of the film every few minutes with different settings and original viewpoints on action. The movie deals with such fundamentals as the human tendency toward bias and hurting the weak, and because the characters are caught somewhere between childhood and adulthood, it's easy to get emotionally involved in hope for their redemption. Preteen and teenage kids love this film, incidentally. -Tom Keogh, Amazon. com.
Actors & Directors
- John Travolta
- Paul Pape
- Barry Miller
- John Badham
- Karen Lynn Gorney
- Joseph Cali
Run time: 118 min. Creator: Norman Wexler
Review Saturday Night Fever:The years have endowed Saturday Night Fever with a powerful, elegiac quality since its explosive release in 1977. It was the must-see movie for a whole generation of adolescents, sparking controversy for rough language and clumsily realistic sex scenes which took teen cinema irrevocably into a new age. And of course, it revived the career of the Bee Gees to stratospheric heights, thanks to a justifiably legendary soundtrack which now embodies the disco age. But Saturday Night Fever was always more than a disco movie. Tony Manero is an Italian youth from Brooklyn straining at the leash to escape a life defined by his family, blue collar job and his gang. Disco provides the medium for him to break free. It was the snake-hipped dance routines which made John Travolta an immediate sex symbol. But seen today, his performance as Tony is compelling: rough-hewn, certainly, but complex and true, anticipating the fine screen actor he would be recognised as 20 years later. Scenes of the Manhattan skyline and the Brooklyn Bridge, representing Tony's route to a bigger world, now have an added poignancy, adding to Saturday Night Fever's evocative power. It's a bittersweet classic. [+]
On the DVD: Saturday Night Fever is presented in 2. 35:1 anamorphic widescreen with a Dolby Digital 5. 1 surround soundtrack, both of which help to recapture the unique atmosphere of the late 1970s. The main extra is a director's commentary from John Badham, with detailed descriptions of casting and the improvisation behind many of the scenes, plus the unsavoury reality behind Travolta's iconic white disco suit. -Piers Ford.
Actors & Directors
- Charlton Heston
- Gregory Peck
- Jean Simmons
- Carroll Baker
- Burl Ives
- William Wyler
Release date: 2000-02-01 Run time: 160 min. Creator: Sy Bartlett RRP: £5.99 Price: £22.98
Review The Big Country [1958] / MGM Entertainment:William Wyler directed this epic Western, about the clash of East and West, intellect and action. Gregory Peck stars as a sea captain who moves way out West to marry Carroll Baker and become part of the ranch owned by her father (Charles Bickford). But he discovers that daddy's top hand (Charlton Heston) carries a torch for Baker and doesn't particularly like Peck stepping into his place. Peck also finds himself caught in the midst of a power struggle between Bickford and his surly neighbour, Burl Ives (and his reprehensibly bullying son, Chuck Connors). The Big Country is a long, sprawling tale that works because its characters are played by movie stars who know how to command the big screen in a big story. -Marshall Fine.
Actors & Directors
- Patricia Ross
- Andrew Flanagan
- Dawn Steele
- Jennifer Black
- Kate Dickie
Release date: 2000-09-18 Run time: 155 min. Creator: Martin McCardie RRP: £14.99 Price: £9.99
Review Tinseltown Volume 1 [2000] / 2 Entertain Video:Tinsel Town is further proof of the BBC's fervent, unwavering belief that the formula of hip, adult-themed, twenty-something drama of 1990s hit This Life is worth recycling. Tinsel Town scores with its heady, emotionally (and drug) charged world of clubs in Glasgow. Boasting an eclectic group of characters, the writers have steered away from caricatures, favouring vivid yet realistic people in this hedonistic and dangerous world. Laced with decidedly adult themes and set against a pulsating backdrop, Tinsel Town doesn't shy away from potentially controversial issues (including a gay relationship between a Policeman and a teenager) but skilfully adds them to a rich tapestry of human experience. In the opening four episodes writer Martin McCardie introduces a quartet of intriguing (if obvious) situations, including a potentially dangerous lust triangle between drug dealer Coutts, his partner Brady and opportunistic girlfriend Theresa; and club DJ Lex, who seems poised to ditch her hard work to escape a secret past. Stylistically, the show's club-set scenes, replete with jaunty camerawork and colour bleeds, come off as headache-inducing in the confines of your living room. That aside, it boasts an excellent soundtrack (with a theme by The Blue Nile), and while not for everyone, clubbers and fans of confrontational and fast-paced drama will get a buzz from Tinsel Town's energetic beat. -Danny Graydon.
Actors & Directors
- Roy Scheider
- Alan J. Pakula
- Donald Sutherland
- Rita Gam
- Jane Fonda
Release date: 2000-05-15 Run time: 108 min. RRP: £5.99 Price: £16.85
Review Klute [1971] / Warner Home Video:
| Models & Brands: Curly Sue [1991], Educating Rita [1984], Cold Feet - The Complete 4th Series, Santa Sangre [1990], The Hustler [1961], The Champ [1979], A Cry In The Dark [1989], Brookside-The Women, Thelma And Louise [1991], North And South - Book 3, The Camomile Lawn [1992], Amadeus [1985], Napoleon & Josephine [1987], Lord Peter Wimsey - Clouds Of Witness, Capricorn One [1976], The Breakfast Club [1985], Saturday Night Fever, The Big Country [1958], Tinseltown Volume 1 [2000], Klute [1971] |