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Review Sony Pictures Home Entertainment / The Man From Laramie [1955]
Actors & Directors
  • Alex Nicol
  • Donald Crisp
  • Cathy O'Donnell
  • Anthony Mann
  • Arthur Kennedy
  • James Stewart
Release date: 2001-10-01
Run time: 98 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £5.38

Review The Man From Laramie [1955] / Sony Pictures Home Entertainment:

The Man from Laramie is the last of five remarkable Westerns Anthony Mann made with James Stewart (starting with Winchester '73 and peaking with The Naked Spur). Only John Ford excelled Mann as a purveyor of eye-filling Western imagery, and Mann's best films are second to no one's when it comes to the fusion of dynamic action, rugged landscapes and fierce psychological intensity. This collaboration marked virtually a whole new career for Stewart, whose characters are all haunted by the past and driven by obsession-here, to find whoever set his cavalry-officer brother in the path of warlike Indians. The Man from Laramie aspires to an epic grandeur beyond its predecessors. It's the only one in CinemaScope, and Stewart's personal quest is subsumed in a larger drama-nothing less than a sagebrush version of King Lear, with a range baron on the verge of blindness (Donald Crisp), his weak and therefore vicious son (Alex Nicol) and another, apparently more solid "son", his Edmund-like foreman (Arthur Kennedy). There are a few too many subsidiary characters, and the reach for thematic complexity occasionally diminishes the impact. But no one will ever forget the scene on the salt flats between Nicol and Stewart-climaxing in the single most shocking act of violence in 50s cinema-or the final, mountain-top confrontation. For decades, the film has been seen only in washed-out, pan-and-scan videos, with the characters playing visual hopscotch from one panel of the original composition to another. It's great to have this glorious DVD-razor-sharp, fully saturated (or as saturated as 50s Eastmancolor could be) and breathtaking in its CinemaScope sweep. -Richard T Jameson, Amazon. [+]
com.

Review Sony Pictures Home Entertainment / Once Upon a Time in Mexico [2003]
Actors & Directors
  • Antonio Banderas|Salma Hayek|Johnny Depp
  • Robert Rodriguez
Release date: 2004-03-08
Run time: 101 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £3.85

Review Once Upon a Time in Mexico [2003] / Sony Pictures Home Entertainment:

There's plenty of guns and a few explosions as bodies fly through the air and crash into tables and fruit stands. Once Upon a Time in Mexico, like all Robert Rodriguez movies, is all about the kinetic kick of high-velocity action. Johnny Depp, blasé and whimsical, plays a CIA agent who's drawn guitar-playing gun-slinger Antonio Banderas (long black hair flopping over his face like the ears of a Labrador puppy) into a ridiculously convoluted plot to overthrow the Mexican government. Along for the ride are a craggy-faced rogue's gallery including Willem Dafoe, Mickey Rourke, Danny Trejo, Ruben Blades, and (to balance things out) the smooth, tantalising complexions of Eva Mendes and Salma Hayek. For sheer trashy fun, Once Upon a Time in Mexico is a step down from its predecessor, but Desperado set the bar pretty high. For coherent storytelling, look elsewhere, but for action razzle-dazzle, this is your movie. Rodriguez's complete trilogy-El Mariachi, Desperado and Once Upon a Time in Mexico-can also be found in one DVD box set-Bret Fetzer.

Review 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment / Aliens [1986]
Actors & Directors
  • Lance Henriksen
  • Sigourney Weaver
  • Paul Reiser
  • James Cameron
  • Michael Biehn
  • Carrie Henn
Release date: 2000-05-15
Run time: 148 min.
RRP: £17.99
Price: £1.43

Review Aliens [1986] / 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment:

James Cameron's Aliens digests all the virtues of Alien and regurgitates them bigger, louder and brasher than before. By the simple expedient of turning the singular beast of the original into a plural, Cameron transforms the franchise's focus from horror to all-out action. Sigourney Weaver's Ripley-one of the strongest roles for a female lead in mainstream cinema-is centre-stage throughout, more than able to hold her own either among the butch Marines and insectoid aliens. Although the director later revealed that there were only ever six alien costumes in any one shot, rapid-fire editing makes it seem like hundreds. Aliens is one of the most dynamic, viscerally exciting movies of the decade and, as a bug-fest, remained unsurpassed until the glorious Starship Troopers in 1997. On the DVD: The Director's Cut reinstates 17 crucial minutes of footage deleted from the theatrical release. It reveals how the colony on LV-426 encountered the aliens, and more importantly why Ripley's maternal bond with Newt is so strong, which adds an extra dimension to the film's climax. Also included is a short, fairly bland interview with James Cameron, recorded at the time of the cinema release, as well as some background explanation on how specific special effects were created. Unlike the Alien disc, there is no directorial commentary. -Mark Walker Aliens is one of the few cases of a sequel that far surpassed the original. [+]
Sigourney Weaver returns as Ripley, who awakens on Earth only to discover that she has been hibernating in space so long that everyone she knows is dead. Then she is talked into travelling (along with a squad of Marines) to a planet under assault by the same aliens that nearly killed her. Once she gets there, she finds a lost little girl who triggers her maternal instincts-and she discovers that the company has once again double-crossed her, in hopes of capturing one of the aliens to study as a military weapon. Directed and written by James Cameron, this is one of the most intensely exciting (not to mention intensely frightening) action films ever, with a large ensemble cast that includes Bill Paxton, Lance Henriksen, Paul Reiser, and Michael Biehn. Weaver defined the action woman in this film and walked away with an Oscar nomination for her trouble. -Marshall Fine.

Review Paramount Home Entertainment / Death Wish [1974]
Actors & Directors
  • Charles Bronson
  • Vincent Gardenia
  • Michael Winner
  • William Redfield
  • Jack Wallace
  • Bobby Roberts
Release date: 2006-09-04
Run time: 93 min.
RRP: £15.99
Price: £2.82

Review Death Wish [1974] / Paramount Home Entertainment:


Review Universal Pictures UK / Jaws 2 [1978]
Actors & Directors
  • Jeannot Szwarc
  • Murray Hamilton
  • Jeffrey Kramer
  • Joseph Mascolo
  • Lorraine Gary
  • Roy Scheider
Release date: 2001-07-30
Run time: 111 min.
RRP: £9.99
Price: £2.56

Review Jaws 2 [1978] / Universal Pictures UK:

Judged entirely on its own merits, Jaws 2 isn't a bad film. It even has some passably scary moments (Brody discovering a charred body in the waves; the swimming boy racing the shark back to his dinghy). But it's absolutely impossible to judge this movie on its own merits. Despite being given a great big Panavision camera to play with director Jeannot Szwarc can't hide his TV-movie origins, nor can the script, both of which spend far too long landlocked with the bickering inhabitants of Amity Island. Where the original film boldly set out to sea with Robert Shaw's Ahab-like Quint, in a misplaced desire to attract a teenage audience this movie dwells at interminable length on the courting rituals of the local youth; where Spielberg's original is a masterpiece of pacing and carefully timed tension-building, Jaws 2 sags terribly whenever the plastic shark swims out of sight. Roy Scheider comes off best, reprising his role as Chief Brody, while Lorraine Gary's role as his wife is expanded (she must be a glutton for punishment: she also starred in Jaws 4: The Revenge). Taken as a sequel Jaws 2 is inferior in every way; taken as an unassuming TV movie it's a respectable, workmanlike effort; but looking forward at what was to follow, it begins to look like a minor masterpiece. -Mark Walker.

Review Warner Home Video / Conagher [1991]
Actors & Directors
  • Sam Elliott
  • Katharine Ross
  • Reynaldo Villalobos
Release date: 2005-07-25
Run time: 112 min.
RRP: £18.99
Price: £3.93

Review Conagher [1991] / Warner Home Video:


Review Universal Pictures UK / Fearless [HD DVD] [2006]
Actors & Directors
  • Ronny Yu
  • Jet Li
  • Nathan Jones
Release date: 2007-11-26
Run time: 103 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £4.12

Review Fearless [HD DVD] [2006] / Universal Pictures UK:


Review Universal Studios / The Last Starfighter [Collector's Edition] (REGION 1) (NTSC) [1984]
Actors & Directors
  • Kay E. Kuter
  • Lance Guest
  • Nick Castle
  • Catherine Mary Stewart
  • Dan Mason (III)
  • Dan O'Herlihy
Release date: 1999-06-08
Run time: 101 min.
Price: £4.49

Review The Last Starfighter [Collector's Edition] (REGION 1) (NTSC) [1984] / Universal Studios:


Review Network / Dempsey and Makepeace - Series 3 - Complete
Actors & Directors
  • Michael Brandon
  • Glynis Barber
Release date: 2006-10-23
Run time: 500 min.
RRP: £24.99
Price: £7.50

Review Dempsey and Makepeace - Series 3 - Complete / Network:


Review Entertainment In Video / Snakes on a Plane [2006]
Actors & Directors
  • Rachel Blanchard
  • Kenan Thompson
  • Byron Lawson
  • Flex Alexander
  • David R. Ellis
  • Samuel L. Jackson
Release date: 2006-12-26
Run time: 102 min.
RRP: £24.99
Price: £1.43

Review Snakes on a Plane [2006] / Entertainment In Video:

Snakes on a Plane knows exactly what kind of movie it is, knows exactly what moviegoers expect from a title like Snakes on a Plane, and delivers the exact pleasures of a movie in which poisonous snakes are unleashed on a plane to kill an eyewitness to murder. Samuel L. Jackson (Pulp Fiction, The Long Kiss Goodnight) knows exactly what he's doing in this movie and knows exactly when to pull out the superbad Samuel L. Jackson stare and deliver the infuriated Samuel L. Jackson bellow. The rest of the cast-including Julianna Margulies (ER), Rachel Blanchard (the TV series Clueless), Kenan Thompson (Fat Albert), David Koechner (Anchorman), Bobby Canavale (The Station Agent), and Sunny Mabrey (One Last Thing. )-play their parts with admirably straight faces and deadpan humor. Director David R. [+]
Ellis (Final Destination 2, Cellular) gives the movie the much-needed headlong momentum you would expect from a former stunt coordinator. In summation: A perfect piece of self-aware but not self-conscious high camp entertainment, blending comedy and thrills in perfect proportion. -Bret Fetzer.

Review Universal Pictures UK / Wagon Master [1950]
Actors & Directors
  • Alan Mowbray
  • Harry Carey
  • Ward Bond
  • John Ford
  • Charles Kemper
  • Ben Johnson
Release date: 2008-05-05
Run time: 86 min.
RRP: £9.99
Price: £4.93

Review Wagon Master [1950] / Universal Pictures UK:

How is it that John Ford's greatest film remains largely unknown? All right, let's not kick sand on The Searchers, or The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, or Ford's many other masterworks. But the director himself numbered Wagon Master among his personal favorites, and it's an utterly unique and original film no one else could have made. This crusty, eccentric production, slipped in between installments of Ford's Cavalry trilogy, doesn't really star anybody. Ward Bond plays a Mormon elder, a reformed sinner still given to "the words of wrath" who asks a slightly larcenous young horse trader to lead a wagon train through the desert to a valley "the Lord has reserved" for them. The newly anointed wagon master is played by Ben Johnson, an amazing horseman Ford had been bringing along in character roles; at this point Johnson was still getting used to delivering lines, though that's part of his charm and serves his character beautifully. A transcendent allegory of the opening of the frontier, Wagon Master follows no conventional, linear itinerary. The Lord moves in mysterious ways and so does the movie, which begins before it begins (that is, before the opening credits) and ends a few luminous seconds after THE END has come and gone. Storytelling takes a backseat to poetry, with long passages consecrated to savoring faces, landscapes, and raw sunlight. Some of these passages are supported by songs, and sometimes music rises faintly like an auditory mirage borne in from a great distance. The musicality extends to communal dancing, and to the demonic jingling of spurs that signals the appearances of "Uncle" Shiloh Cleggs (Charles Kemper), patriarch of an inbred outlaw clan whose dog-legged journey eventually intersects the wagon train's. [+]
In keeping with Ford's vision of civilization and its discontents, Wagon Master is populated mostly by pariahs. Besides the deservedly outcast Cleggses, there are the Mormons, the vagabond horse traders played by Johnson and Harry Carey Jr. , a medicine-show troupe, and the first people on the land, the Navajo. As individuals and groups drift and coalesce, then separate and coalesce again in fresh configurations, a new nation gets its footing while marching west-"out across the backlands, where the dust has lain so long. " This is the heart's-core of American cinema. -Richard T. Jameson.

Review MGM Entertainment / James Bond - The World Is Not Enough (Ultimate Edition 2 Disc Set) [1999]
Actors & Directors
  • Goldie
  • Maria Grazia Cucinotta
  • Sophie Marceau
  • Denise Richards
  • Michael Apted
  • Pierce Brosnan
Release date: 2006-07-17
Run time: 123 min.
RRP: £16.99
Price: £3.82

Review James Bond - The World Is Not Enough (Ultimate Edition 2 Disc Set) [1999] / MGM Entertainment:


Review Paramount / Mission Impossible 3 (Single Disc) [2006]
Actors & Directors
  • Billy Crudup
  • Tom Cruise
  • Sasha Alexander
  • Jeffrey Abrams
  • Laurence Fishburne
  • Ving Rhames
Release date: 2006-11-06
Run time: 125 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £1.88

Review Mission Impossible 3 (Single Disc) [2006] / Paramount:


Review Warner Home Video / Bullitt (2 Disc Special Edition) [1968]
Actors & Directors
  • Peter Yates
  • Robert Vaughn
  • Robert Duvall
  • Simon Oakland
  • Jacqueline Bisset
  • Steve McQueen
Release date: 2006-08-07
Run time: 109 min.
RRP: £8.99
Price: £5.96

Review Bullitt (2 Disc Special Edition) [1968] / Warner Home Video:


Review Momentum Pictures / Reservoir Dogs (2 Disc Special Edition) [1993]
Actors & Directors
  • Lawrence Tierney
  • Harvey Keitel
  • Christopher Penn
  • Tim Roth
  • Quentin Tarantino
  • Steve Buscemi
Release date: 2004-06-07
Run time: 95 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £4.36

Review Reservoir Dogs (2 Disc Special Edition) [1993] / Momentum Pictures:

Quentin Tarantino came out of nowhere (i. e. a video store in Manhattan Beach, California) and turned Hollywood on its ear in 1992 with his explosive first feature, Reservoir Dogs. Like Tarantino's mainstream breakthrough Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs has an unconventional structure, cleverly shuffling back and forth in time to reveal details about the characters, experienced criminals who know next to nothing about each other. Joe (Lawrence Tierney) has assembled them to pull off a simple heist, and has gruffly assigned them colour-coded aliases (Mr Orange, Mr Pink, Mr White) to conceal their identities even from each other. But something has gone wrong, and the plan has blown up in their faces. One by one, the surviving robbers find their way back to their prearranged warehouse hideout. There, they try to piece together the chronology of this bloody fiasco-and to identify the traitor among them who tipped off the police. Pressure mounts, blood flows, accusations and bullets fly. In the combustible atmosphere these men are forced to confront life-and-death questions of trust, loyalty, professionalism, deception and betrayal. [+]
As many critics have observed, it is a movie about "honor among thieves" (just as Pulp Fiction is about redemption, and Jackie Brown is about survival). Along with everything else, the movie provides a showcase for a terrific ensemble of actors: Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Steve Buscemi, Michael Madsen, Christopher Penn and Tarantino himself, offering a fervent dissection of Madonna's "Like a Virgin" over breakfast. Reservoir Dogs is violent (though the violence is implied rather than explicit), clever, gabby, harrowing, funny, suspenseful and even-in the end-unexpectedly moving. (Don't forget that "Super Sounds of the Seventies" soundtrack, either. ) Reservoir Dogs deserves just as much acclaim and attention as its follow-up, Pulp Fiction, would receive two years later. -Jim Emerson.

Review Sony Pictures Home Entertainment / The Covenant [2006]
Actors & Directors
  • Renny Harlin
  • Jessica Lucas
  • Chace Crawford
  • Toby Hemingway
  • Laura Ramsey
  • Steven Strait
Release date: 2007-04-09
Run time: 97 min.
RRP: £15.99
Price: £2.73

Review The Covenant [2006] / Sony Pictures Home Entertainment:


Review Universal Pictures UK / Van Helsing [HD DVD] [2004]
Actors & Directors
  • Kate Beckinsale
  • David Wenham
  • Stephen Sommers
  • Richard Roxburgh
  • Will Kemp
  • Hugh Jackman
Release date: 2006-12-04
Run time: 126 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £8.74

Review Van Helsing [HD DVD] [2004] / Universal Pictures UK:


Review 7th Voyage of Sinbad/Golden Voyage... / 7th Voyage of Sinbad/Golden Voyage/Eye of the Tiger
Release date: 2007-02-19
RRP: £14.99
Price: £7.30

Review 7th Voyage of Sinbad/Golden Voyage/Eye of the Tiger / 7th Voyage of Sinbad/Golden Voyage...:


Review 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment / Die Hard 4.0 (2 Disc Special Edition) [2007]
Actors & Directors
  • Bruce Willis
  • Mary Elizabeth Winstead
  • Len Wiseman
  • Maggie Q
  • Timothy Olyphant
  • Justin Long
Release date: 2007-10-29
Run time: 123 min.
RRP: £24.99
Price: £8.33

Review Die Hard 4.0 (2 Disc Special Edition) [2007] / 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment:

Twelve years after Die Hard with a Vengeance, the third and previous film in the Die Hard franchise, Die Hard 4. 0 finds John McClane (Bruce Willis) a few years older, not any happier, and just as kick-ass as ever. Right after he has a fight with his college-age daughter (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), a call comes in to pick up a hacker (Justin Long, Dodgeball) who might help the FBI learn something about a brief security blip in their systems. Now any Die Hard fan knows that this is when the assassins with foreign accents and high-powered weaponry show up, telling McClane that once again he's stumbled into an assignment that's anything but routine. Once that wreckage has cleared, it is revealed that the hacker is only one of many hackers who are being targeted for extermination after they helped set up a "fire sale," a three-pronged cyberattack designed to bring down the entire country by crippling its transportation, finances, and utilities. That plan is now being put into action by a mysterious team (Timothy Olyphant, Deadwood, and Maggie Q, Mission: Impossible 3) that seems to be operating under the government's noses. Die Hard 4. 0 uses some of the cat-and-mouse elements of Die Hard with a Vengeance along with some of the pick-'em-off-one-by-one elements of the now-classic original movie. And it's the most consistently enjoyable installment of the franchise since the original, with eye-popping stunts (directed by Len Wiseman of the Underworld franchise), good humour, and Willis's ability to toss off a quip while barely alive. Yippee-ki-ay! -David Horiuchi.

Review MGM Entertainment / The Magnificent Seven - Series 2 - Complete [1999]
Actors & Directors
  • Michael Biehn
  • Eric Close
  • Laurie Holden
  • Ron Perlman
Release date: 2007-08-13
Run time: 599 min.
RRP: £24.99
Price: £10.77

Review The Magnificent Seven - Series 2 - Complete [1999] / MGM Entertainment:


Browse Action & Adventure:

Models & Brands:
The Man From Laramie [1955], Once Upon a Time in Mexico [2003], Aliens [1986], Death Wish [1974], Jaws 2 [1978], Conagher [1991], Fearless [HD DVD] [2006], The Last Starfighter [Collector's Edition] (REGION 1) (NTSC) [1984], Dempsey and Makepeace - Series 3 - Complete, Snakes on a Plane [2006], Wagon Master [1950], James Bond - The World Is Not Enough (Ultimate Edition 2 Disc Set) [1999], Mission Impossible 3 (Single Disc) [2006], Bullitt (2 Disc Special Edition) [1968], Reservoir Dogs (2 Disc Special Edition) [1993], The Covenant [2006], Van Helsing [HD DVD] [2004], 7th Voyage of Sinbad/Golden Voyage/Eye of the Tiger, Die Hard 4.0 (2 Disc Special Edition) [2007], The Magnificent Seven - Series 2 - Complete [1999]

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