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Review Entertainment in Video / Boxing Helena [VHS] [1993]
Actors & Directors
  • Kurtwood Smith
  • Sherilyn Fenn
  • Jennifer Chambers Lynch
  • Bill Paxton
  • Julian Sands
  • Art Garfunkel
Release date: 1994-03-23
Run time: 100 min.
Creator: Philippe Caland
RRP: £12.99
Price: £13.99

Review Boxing Helena [VHS] [1993] / Entertainment in Video:


Review 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment / Sheltering Sky [VHS] [1990]
Actors & Directors
  • Bernardo Bertolucci
  • Debra Winger
  • John Malkovich
  • Timothy Spall
  • Jill Bennett
  • Campbell Scott
Release date: 1997-01-27
Run time: 132 min.
Creator: Paul Bowles
RRP: £9.99
Price: £5.95

Review Sheltering Sky [VHS] [1990] / 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment:

Master filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci applies his considerable talent to this haunting adaptation of the Paul Bowles novel. John Malkovich and Debra Winger play Port and Kit Moresby, characters loosely based on Bowles and his wife Jane, who flee New York for North Africa, where they hope to find mystical truths that will reignite the spark of their marriage. But instead they lose their moral bearings (with help from a friend, played by Campbell Scott, who has an affair with Kit) while travelling deeper and deeper into the Sahara. Before long, what started as a vacation at exotic lodgings has descended into a tour of hell, as they stumble farther and farther into an unknowable spiritual territory. Though long and at times slow-moving, The Sheltering Sky features marvellously nuanced acting by Malkovich and Winger and visionary filmmaking that makes the landscape at once picturesque and threatening. -Marshall Fine.

Review Artificial Eye / La Belle Noiseuse - Divertimento [VHS] [1991]
Actors & Directors
  • Marianne Denicourt
  • Jane Birkin
  • Michel Piccoli
  • David Bursztein
  • Emmanuelle Béart
  • Jacques Rivette
Release date: 1992-09-07
Run time: 125 min.
Creator: Pascal Bonitzer
RRP: £15.99
Price: £12.94

Review La Belle Noiseuse - Divertimento [VHS] [1991] / Artificial Eye:


Review 4 Front Video / The Day Of The Dolphin [VHS] [1973]
Actors & Directors
  • Fritz Weaver
  • George C. Scott
  • Paul Sorvino
  • Mike Nichols
  • Trish Van Devere
  • Jon Korkes
Release date: 2000-08-21
Run time: 100 min.
Creator: Robert Merle
Price: £5.99

Review The Day Of The Dolphin [VHS] [1973] / 4 Front Video:


Actors & Directors
  • Jenny Seagrove
  • Edward Hardwicke
  • Ronald Lacey
  • Jeremy Brett
  • John Thaw
Release date: 2002-08-05
Run time: 103 min.
Creator: Edward Hardwicke
RRP: £5.99
Price: £5.83

Review Sherlock Holmes - The Sign Of Four (1987) [VHS] [1968] / Cinema Club:


Review ITV DVD / The Guinea Pig [VHS] [1948]
Actors & Directors
  • Richard Attenborough
  • Sheila Sim
  • Bernard Miles
  • Robert Flemyng
  • Cecil Trouncer
  • Roy Boulting
Release date: 2001-03-19
Run time: 93 min.
Creator: Sheila Sim
Price: £5.99

Review The Guinea Pig [VHS] [1948] / ITV DVD:


Review Eclipse / First Man Into Space [VHS] [1958]
Actors & Directors
  • Marla Landi
  • Robert Ayres
  • Bill Nagy
  • Marshall Thompson
  • Robert Day
  • Bill Edwards
Release date: 1999-09-27
Run time: 73 min.
Creator: Wyott Ordung
Price: £5.99

Review First Man Into Space [VHS] [1958] / Eclipse:

The early reels of First Man into Space should delight fans of the Mercury/Sputnik era in rocket technology-though it may delight fans of low-budget 1950s sci-fi even more. A small manned rocket, launched from a jet cruising at high altitude, manages to poke its nose up about 250 miles above the Earth-thus making its cocky, reckless pilot the (you guessed it) first man into space. Unfortunately, weird cosmic debris clings to the spacecraft when it crash-lands, and also to the astronaut: he's now covered with a layer of scaly, sparkly space rock. To put it in technical terms, the returned pilot is categorised as "a great big lumbering deformed monster". Lumbering around a rocket facility in New Mexico, the monster-pilot's brother (Marshall Thompson) must find him before he kills again. Oddly enough, once the cheesy space-flight FX wear off, First Man into Space turns into a competent and surprisingly thoughtful thriller giving this movie some points for at least trying to emphasise the science in its fiction. -Robert Horton, Amazon. com.

Review Warner Home Video / The Third Man [1949] [VHS]
Actors & Directors
  • Carol Reed|Joseph Cotten|Alida Valli|Orson Welles
Release date: 1997-04-28
Run time: 99 min.
Creator: Carol Reed|Joseph Cotten|Alida Valli|Orson Welles
RRP: £10.99
Price: £9.99

Review The Third Man [1949] [VHS] / Warner Home Video:

The fractured Europe post-World War II is perfectly captured in Carol Reed's masterpiece thriller, set in a Vienna still shell-shocked from battle. Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten) is an alcoholic pulp writer come to visit his old friend Harry Lime (Orson Welles). But when Cotton first arrives in Vienna, Lime's funeral is under way. From Lime's girlfriend and an occupying British officer, Martins learns of allegations of Lime's involvement in racketeering, which Martins vows to clear from his friend's reputation. As he is drawn deeper into post-war intrigue, Martins finds layer upon layer of deception, which he desperately tries to sort out. Welles' long-delayed entrance in the film has become one of the hallmarks of modern cinematography and it is just one of dozens of cockeyed camera angles that seem to mirror the off-kilter post-war society. Cotten and Welles give career-making performances and the Anton Karas zither theme will haunt you. -Anne Hurley.

Actors & Directors
  • Richard Erdman
  • Jack Webb
  • Teresa Wright
  • Fred Zinnemann
  • Everett Sloane
  • Marlon Brando
Release date: 1997-04-14
Run time: 85 min.
Creator: Carl Foreman
RRP: £5.99
Price: £1.81

Review The Men [1950] [VHS] / 4 Front Video:


Review Granada Media / Upstairs Downstairs - The Second Series - Episodes 8 To 13 [VHS] [1971]
Actors & Directors
  • Gordon Jackson
  • Jean Marsh
  • Christopher Beeny
  • Bill Bain
  • David Langton
  • Christopher Hodson
  • Angela Baddeley
  • Derek Bennett
  • Raymond Menmuir
Release date: 2000-05-01
Run time: 303 min.
Creator: Rosemary Anne Sisson
RRP: £14.99
Price: £14.94

Review Upstairs Downstairs - The Second Series - Episodes 8 To 13 [VHS] [1971] / Granada Media:


Review Warner Home Video / THX 1138 [VHS] [1970]
Actors & Directors
  • George Lucas
  • Robert Duvall
  • Donald Pleasence
  • Ian Wolfe
  • Don Pedro Colley
  • Maggie McOmie
Release date: 1995-09-18
Run time: 82 min.
Creator: Walter Murch
RRP: £5.99
Price: £3.81

Review THX 1138 [VHS] [1970] / Warner Home Video:

George Lucas's enigmatic feature film debut expands on a student film he made at USC. Created under the wing of producer Francis Ford Coppola, this movie is a bleak vision of a world in which technology, not man, is the ultimate dictator. Efficiency overrides every other aspect of human life, as people are reduced to code names and their lives are contained, monitored and manipulated for the sake of the system. Featuring unsettling performances by Robert Duvall, Donald Pleasance and Maggie McOmie, THX 1138 does not attempt to explain how things became this way; rather, it utilises the alienation of its characters, the stifling white-on-white imagery of its sterilised society, and the claustrophobic, droning sound design to emphasise the dangers of a world reliant on soulless technology. Even though this is not a film one will want to take in repeatedly, THX 1138 merits attention because it is that rare film that uses images and sounds-rather than relying heavily on dialogue-to communicate its dark prophecy. -Bryan Reesman.

Review Paramount Home Entertainment / Witness [VHS] [1985]
Actors & Directors
  • Harrison Ford
  • Peter Weir
  • Lukas Haas
  • Kelly McGillis
  • Jan Rubes
  • Josef Sommer
Release date: 2001-04-09
Run time: 108 min.
Creator: William Kelley
RRP: £5.99
Price: £6.94

Review Witness [VHS] [1985] / Paramount Home Entertainment:

When Samuel (Lukas Haas), a young Amish boy travelling with his mother Rachel (Kelly McGillis), witnesses the murder of a police officer in a public restroom, he and his mother become the temporary wards of John Book (Harrison Ford), a detective who's been assigned to solve the crime. After suspect line-ups and mug-shot books yield nothing, Samuel, in the most memorable scene of the film, recognises the murderer as a narcotics agent whose picture he sees in the precinct. Once Book realizes that the police chief is in on it, too, he whisks Samuel and Rachel back home to Amish country, where he himself goes into hiding as a plain Amish man. The juxtaposition between the life of the Amish and the violence of inner-city police corruption work surprisingly well for the story, and Kelly McGillis as the falling in love widow gives an almost perfect performance. Directed by Peter Weir, the film is extremely successful in drawing the viewer into its world and, accordingly, is immensely entertaining. The only thing that mars its polish is the one-dimensional, almost cartoonish handling of the upper-echelon police corruption-a subtler, more realistic treatment of this aspect of the story would have rendered the film near perfect. -James McGrath, Amazon. com.

Review Warner Home Video / Roots - The Next Generation - Vol. 2 [VHS] [1978]
Actors & Directors
  • John Erman
  • Paul Koslo
  • Georg Stanford Brown
  • Avon Long
  • Charles S. Dubin
  • Lloyd Richards
  • Olivia de Havilland
  • Henry Fonda
  • Georg Stanford Brown
Release date: 1997-03-03
Run time: 283 min.
Creator: John McGreevey
RRP: £20.99
Price: £19.99

Review Roots - The Next Generation - Vol. 2 [VHS] [1978] / Warner Home Video:


Review Sullivan Entertainment Europe Ltd / Anne Of Green Gables - The Continuing Story [VHS]
Actors & Directors
  • Patricia Hamilton
  • Schuyler Grant
  • Stefan Scaini
  • Megan Follows
  • Greg Spottiswood
  • Jonathan Crombie
Release date: 2004-05-26
Run time: 185 min.
Creator: Lucy Maud Montgomery
RRP: £15.99
Price: £14.99

Review Anne Of Green Gables - The Continuing Story [VHS] / Sullivan Entertainment Europe Ltd:

In a departure from the LM Montgomery book series, the third television instalment, Anne Of Green Gables, The Continuing Story, jumps ahead to World War I and puts Anne and her beloved Gilbert smack in the middle of it. Instead of marrying Gilbert after her teaching days, as she does in the books, the couple spends a disillusioning year in New York City and then quickly marry before the good doctor ships out to France. (In the book Rilla of Ingleside, Anne's sons go to war and her youngest daughter is separated from her sweetheart. ) Impetuous as ever, Anne joins the Red Cross and crosses the pond to track down her husband when his letters are returned unread. What follows is an adventure that takes her through battle zones-where the bodies pile up faster than you can say Saving Private Ryan-and on to London with a half-orphaned baby, her best friend's injured husband and a tangle of international intrigue. Fans of the 10-book series may balk at the divergences and the fact that very little time is spent on Prince Edward Island. But the book's unrestrained romanticism and unapologetic sentimentality remain intact, as well as the surviving cast of the prior two films, most notably Megan Follows as Anne and Jonathan Crombie as Gilbert. This film, produced in 2000, clocks in at 185 minutes and is suitable for ages nine and up. -Kimberly Heinrichs, Amazon. com.

Review 4 Front Video / Living Free [VHS] [1972]
Actors & Directors
  • Susan Hampshire
  • Peter Lukoye
  • Geoffrey Keen
  • Shane De Louvre
  • Nigel Davenport
  • Jack Couffer
Release date: 2003-02-03
Run time: 87 min.
Creator: Millard Kaufman
RRP: £5.99
Price: £9.95

Review Living Free [VHS] [1972] / 4 Front Video:

Born Free is a bona fide family classic. The tale of how Kenya game warden George Adamson and his wife Joy (on whose book the film is based, with Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers in the principal roles) adopted and raised three orphaned lion cubs, taking a particular shine to the one they call Elsa before helping her return to the wild, is familiar by now; so is John Barry's Oscar-winning title song. And while the movie has its flaws (it contains references to "Bwana George" and such that would be considered frightfully un-PC nowadays), the animal footage, especially that of the lions in their various stages of development, is extraordinary and timelessly entertaining. The 1972 sequel doesn't quite measure up to its predecessor but, in an era when most "family entertainment" tends toward the insipid at best, Living Free is still a worthwhile venture. Susan Hampshire and Nigel Davenport take over the roles of Joy and George Adamson, the British couple who, while stationed in Kenya, adopted three orphaned lion cubs. Living Free finds the dying Elsa, their favourite of the original three and now a mother herself, returning to the Adamsons, who must figure out what to do with Elsa's three cubs, who develop an unfortunate appetite for domestic livestock. The film is on the slow side, but once again it's the animals who steal the show; the footage of the young lions interacting with other beasts, from wild giraffes and rhinos to a pet dog, is remarkable. -Sam Graham.

Review 4 Front Video / Catholic Boys [VHS] [1984]
Actors & Directors
  • Mary Stuart Masterson
  • John Heard
  • Michael Dinner
  • Donald Sutherland
  • Andrew McCarthy
  • Kevin Dillon
Release date: 2002-02-04
Run time: 99 min.
Creator: Charles Purpura
RRP: £5.99
Price: £29.95

Review Catholic Boys [VHS] [1984] / 4 Front Video:


Review Acorn Media / Lord Peter Wimsey - Clouds Of Witness [VHS]
Actors & Directors
  • Rachel Herbert
  • Ian Carmichael
  • Mark Eden
  • David Langton
  • Glyn Houston
Release date: 2000-04-03
Run time: 225 min.
Creator: John McGlashan
RRP: £16.99
Price: £9.83

Review Lord Peter Wimsey - Clouds Of Witness [VHS] / 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.

Review Walt Disney Home Video / The Adventures Of Huck Finn (Disney) [VHS] [1994]
Actors & Directors
  • Robbie Coltrane
  • Elijah Wood
  • Courtney B. Vance
  • Ron Perlman
  • Stephen Sommers
  • Jason Robards
Release date: 1995-10-24
Run time: 104 min.
Creator: Mark Twain
RRP: £10.99
Price: £11.98

Review The Adventures Of Huck Finn (Disney) [VHS] [1994] / Walt Disney Home Video:

Huckleberry Finn's age has been scaled down in this 1993 Disney film in order to accommodate star Elijah Wood's young years at the time. But that is not the only concession Mark Twain's great American novel must make to Disney revisionism. Wood's Huck, as adapted for the screen by writer-director Stephen Sommers, is all rascal and only nominally a philosopher, which takes a lot of the soul out of Twain's extraordinary story about Huck's enlightenment while travelling with the slave Jim (Courtney B. Vance) along the Mississippi river. Big chunks of the journey are also minimised in significance, and not just for the sake of storytelling economy. Jason Robards Jr and Robbie Coltrane brighten things up, but overall this is an unnecessarily simplified version of a literary classic. -Tom Keogh.

Review 2 Entertain Video / Poliakoff Box Set [VHS]
Actors & Directors
  • Billie Whitelaw
  • Stephen Poliakoff
  • Michael Kitchen
  • Peggy Ashcroft
  • Timothy Spall
Release date: 2000-09-04
Creator: Billie Whitelaw
RRP: £24.99
Price: £19.98

Review Poliakoff Box Set [VHS] / 2 Entertain Video:


Review Uca / Maid In Manhattan [VHS] [2003]
Actors & Directors
  • Ralph Fiennes
  • Natasha Richardson
  • Stanley Tucci
  • Tyler Posey
  • Wayne Wang
  • Jennifer Lopez
Release date: 2004-09-13
Run time: 101 min.
Creator: Kevin Wade
RRP: £5.99
Price: £1.89

Review Maid In Manhattan [VHS] [2003] / Uca:

In the breezy Maid in Manhattan, a maid in a top-flight hotel (Jennifer Lopez) chances to dress in a guest's clothes just when a handsome political candidate (Ralph Fiennes) walks in. Naturally, he's bowled over and pursues her; he's initially drawn to her gorgeous good looks but soon comes to appreciate her honesty and common sense. Of course, she can't let him know that she's only a maid, and various high jinks ensue-it's all pretty formulaic, but lurking in the edges of this glossy, brainless romance are a wealth of sly turns by Natasha Richardson and Amy Sedaris (as callow socialites), Bob Hoskins (as a dignified butler), Stanley Tucci (as Fiennes' exasperated campaign manager), and many less familiar faces. All help to give Maid in Manhattan the life and texture that has been processed out of the main characters. -Bret Fetzer.

Models & Brands:
Boxing Helena [VHS] [1993], Sheltering Sky [VHS] [1990], La Belle Noiseuse - Divertimento [VHS] [1991], The Day Of The Dolphin [VHS] [1973], Sherlock Holmes - The Sign Of Four (1987) [VHS] [1968], The Guinea Pig [VHS] [1948], First Man Into Space [VHS] [1958], The Third Man [1949] [VHS], The Men [1950] [VHS], Upstairs Downstairs - The Second Series - Episodes 8 To 13 [VHS] [1971], THX 1138 [VHS] [1970], Witness [VHS] [1985], Roots - The Next Generation - Vol. 2 [VHS] [1978], Anne Of Green Gables - The Continuing Story [VHS], Living Free [VHS] [1972], Catholic Boys [VHS] [1984], Lord Peter Wimsey - Clouds Of Witness [VHS], The Adventures Of Huck Finn (Disney) [VHS] [1994], Poliakoff Box Set [VHS], Maid In Manhattan [VHS] [2003]

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