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Review Network / Robin Of Sherwood - The Complete Series 1 [1984]
Actors & Directors
  • Michael Praed
  • Nicholas Grace
  • Judi Trott
Release date: 2005-07-21
Run time: 300 min.
RRP: £29.99
Price: £6.90

Review Robin Of Sherwood - The Complete Series 1 [1984] / Network:

The 1984 incarnation of Robin of Sherwood had a crucial ingredient that the traditional tale previously lacked: magic. Creator Richard Carpenter combined his knowledge of Medieval England with a rich store of Arthurian-style folklore to create a world where wizards and witches rub shoulders with Norman knights and Anglo-Saxon peasants. Michael Praed's enthusiastic performance in the lead is matched by the sheer energy of all involved. There may be pauses for a spiritual tête á tête with forest demi-god Herne the Hunter, but swordplay and archery are never far behind. Wrapped in the forest's gorgeous greens and pools of shadow the show maintained a perfectly believable look, supported by what should have been (but wasn't) glaringly anachronistic music from Clannad. Best of all, however, is the crackling dialogue that still makes for compelling (and magical) viewing, especially when it comes from guest actors such as John Rhys-Davies as King Richard. On the DVD: Contained here are all six episodes of Season One. The two-part pilot is a terrific introduction to the familiar characters such as Ray Winstone's roughhouse Will Scarlet and unexpected new ones such as Mark Ryan as Nasir, "the Boba Fett of Sherwood". Camaraderie on-screen and off was legendary. It's rare to see a cast having so much fun. [+]
This exceptional three-disc box set features one of the best extras packages any TV show has been given. The original 4:3 picture is enhanced for 16:9, but the new Dolby Surround track is the real delight (the show was broadcast in mono). Quickie fare includes key cast biographies, Clannad's promo video, 175 photos and eight minutes of genuinely hilarious outtakes. The real meat comes from the misty-eyed yet fact-filled commentaries from creator Richard Carpenter and director Ian Sharp on four of the episodes. They're only just eclipsed by a brand-new hour-long documentary interviewing everyone involved. Finally, the 1983 Electric Theatre Show 25-minute documentary on the making of the show explores the character's origins and previous screen incarnations. The third disc includes everything shot for that documentary, adding up to several hours of raw footage. -Paul Tonks.

Review MGM Entertainment / Live And Let Die [Blu-ray] [1973]
Actors & Directors
  • Clifton James
  • Jane Seymour
  • Guy Hamilton
  • Yaphet Kotto
  • Roger Moore
  • Bernard Lee
Release date: 2008-10-20
Run time: 121 min.
RRP: £22.99
Price: £12.99

Review Live And Let Die [Blu-ray] [1973] / MGM Entertainment:


Review Prism Leisure Corporation / Who Dares Wins [1982]
Actors & Directors
  • Ian Sharp
  • Lewis Collins; Judy Davis; Richard Widmark; Edward Woodward; Robert Webber; Tony Doyle; John Duttine; Kenneth Griffith; Rosalind Lloyd; Ingrid Pitt; Norman Rodway; Maurice Roëves; Bob Sherman; Albert Fortell; Mark Ryan
Release date: 2003-01-06
Run time: 120 min.
RRP: £5.99
Price: £8.99

Review Who Dares Wins [1982] / Prism Leisure Corporation:

In an uncanny piece of art imitating life, Who Dares Wins came out in 1982 just after the infamous storming of the Iranian Embassy by the legendary British Special Air Services (SAS) unit. The plot builds up to that unshakeable image of black-clad troops abseiling the front of a stately home and smashing through the windows, and pays off expectations with a thrilling finale. Anyone expecting two hours of military instruction will be disappointed however. After the opening 10 minutes with the troops, the almost James-Bond-like story follows Lewis Collins (riding high in those days after TV's The Professionals) as he infiltrates a radical anti-Nuclear society. Operation: Destroy requires him to go undercover with their potentially insane leader Frankie (Judy Davis), ignoring his wife and child. The period detail is often the film's most entertaining feature as Collins tours across 1980s London constantly eluding spies on his tail. Apart from the endless permed hairdos and the fact that the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament hasn't got much to demonstrate about these days, there's the fashions and low-tech gadgetry to enjoy. In the US the film was called The Final Option. The DVD includes a photo gallery, and a history of the SAS. -Paul Tonks.

Review ITV DVD / The Wicked Lady [1945]
Actors & Directors
  • Leslie Arliss
  • Griffith Jones
  • James Mason
  • Margaret Lockwood
  • Michael Rennie
  • Patricia Roc
Release date: 2004-03-15
Run time: 99 min.
Creator: Magdalen King-Hall
RRP: £9.99
Price: £3.04

Review The Wicked Lady [1945] / ITV DVD:

An extraordinarily racy movie for its time, The Wicked Lady was and still is as notable for its acres of heaving bosom as for its radical challenge to female stereotypes. This bodice-ripper about a bored aristocratic woman who turns highwayman just for kicks became a huge box-office success in post-war Britain, but Margaret Lockwood's eloquent bust proved a bit too expressive for Hollywood, so the film was expensively reshot for a sanitised US release. (From 1945 right up to Janet Jackson at the 2004 Superbowl, American audiences apparently have an enduring problem with those prominent parts of the female anatomy). This is the definitive Gainsborough picture, a period romp crammed with cads, in which the camera gazes lasciviously down (it's all shot from a male eyelevel) at the low-cut ladies' dresses. But this time the female anti-heroine gives as good as she gets. and then some. Lockwood's Lady Barbara Skelton is quite gleefully amoral-more so even than Thackeray's arch-manipulator Becky Sharp from Vanity Fair-failing even to pay lip service to the moral standards of the 1940s, let alone those of the 17th century. It is she who wears the trousers (quite literally, in her highwayman guise) while the weak-chinned and weak-willed men around her crumble under the weight of their conventionality. [+]
Only James Mason's handsome dandy highwayman can keep up with her, but even he has to draw the line somewhere. Ultimately, social mores reassert their grip and Lady Barbara gets her comeuppance, but not before she's overturned every contemporary movie convention about femininity. "She was the wickedest woman ever seen on the screen", trumpets the original theatrical trailer on this otherwise bare-bones DVD release: it's still probably true even today. -Mark Walker.

Review Warner Home Video / Troy (2-Disc Edition) [2004]
Actors & Directors
  • Orlando Bloom
  • Eric Bana
  • Brad Pitt
  • Julian Glover
  • Brian Cox
  • Wolfgang Petersen
Release date: 2004-10-25
Run time: 156 min.
Creator: Homer
RRP: £15.99
Price: £2.39

Review Troy (2-Disc Edition) [2004] / Warner Home Video:

There are many reasons to recommend Troy as a good ol' fashioned Hollywood epic, especially if you've never read Homer's The Iliad. Dispensing with Greek gods altogether, this earnestly massive production (budgeted at upwards of $200 million) will surely offend historians and devoted students of the classics. But there's politics aplenty in the grand-scale war that erupts when Trojan prince Paris (Orlando Bloom) makes off with Helen (blandly beautiful German model Diane Kruger), wife of Spartan ruler Menelaus (Brendan Gleeson), whose brother, the Greek king Agamemnon (Brian Cox) prods him into enraged retaliation. Greek warrior Achilles (Brad Pitt) brings lethal force to his battles (and there are many of them, mostly impressive), and his Trojan counterpart, Paris's brother Hector (Eric Bana), adds even more buffed-up beefcake to a film so chock-full o' hunks that there's barely room for Peter O'Toole (doing fine work as Trojan king Priam) and even less for Julie Christie, appearing ever-so-briefly as Achilles's melancholy mother. The drama is nearly as arid as the sun-baked locations (Mexico and Malta) that stand in for the Aegean coast, and many critics suggested that Pitt (who valiantly tries to give Achilles some tormented dimension) was simply miscast. But when you consider that Wolfgang Petersen also made The Perfect Storm, there's nothing wrong with enjoying Troy as a semi-guilty pleasure with a touch of ancient class. -Jeff Shannon.

Review Sony Pictures Home Entertainment / Hanover Street [1975]
Actors & Directors
  • Christopher Plummer
  • Lesley-Anne Down
  • Alec McCowen
  • Harrison Ford
  • Peter Hyams
  • Richard Masur
Release date: 2002-09-16
Run time: 104 min.
Creator: Paul Lazarus III
RRP: £12.99
Price: £3.50

Review Hanover Street [1975] / Sony Pictures Home Entertainment:


Review Warner Home Video / The Great Race [1965] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Tony Curtis
  • Keenan Wynn
  • Blake Edwards
  • Jack Lemmon
  • Natalie Wood
  • Peter Falk
Release date: 2002-06-04
Run time: 160 min.
Creator: Martin Jurow
Price: £8.96

Review The Great Race [1965] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Warner Home Video:


Review Network / The League Of Gentlemen - Special Edition [1960]
Actors & Directors
  • Jack Hawkins
  • Nigel Patrick
  • Basil Dearden
  • Roger Livesey
  • Richard Attenborough
  • Bryan Forbes
Release date: 2007-01-29
Run time: 115 min.
Creator: John Boland
RRP: £14.99
Price: £6.46

Review The League Of Gentlemen - Special Edition [1960] / Network:

The League of Gentlemen is a sardonic crime drama in which Jack Hawkins plays an embittered retired army officer who recruits seven fellow ex-soldiers to carry out a bank raid with military precision. The film presents an England between post-war austerity and the more liberated 1960s where traditional moral certainties were rapidly being discarded; a London where ex-officers left on the scrapheap at war's end could justify turning their military experience to armed robbery. Unfortunately the tale is neither particularly amusing or thrilling, with an overlong central detour via an army camp prefacing the exciting heist and a largely anti-climactic ending. Nevertheless Hawkins effectively subverts his heroic officer type from The Cruel Sea (1953) and The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), and there's excellent support from a great cast including Nigel Patrick, Richard Attenborough and Roger Livesey. Bryan Forbes not only wrote the cynical screenplay but costarred with wife Nanette Newman in her first significant screen role. More influential than truly classic, The League of Gentlemen has lent its name to a modern BBC comedy, an "Extraordinary" comic strip-turned-movie, and proved the template for heist films ever since, including both versions of The Italian Job (1969 and 2003). On the DVD:The League of Gentlemen is presented in an anamorphically enhanced 16:9 transfer from an excellent condition print and mostly looks and sounds fine. There's minimal print damage, though sadly Philip Green's ironically patriotic main title music suffers from significant distortion. The only extra is the original trailer, which is now something of a period piece itself. -Gary S Dalkin.

Review MGM Entertainment / Windtalkers [2002]
Actors & Directors
  • John Woo
  • Nicolas Cage|Adam Beach|Christian Slater|Peter Stormare
Release date: 2003-02-10
Run time: 128 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £2.39

Review Windtalkers [2002] / MGM Entertainment:

John Woo's reputation as the world's best action director hits a major breakdown with Windtalkers, an overlong, over-silly, overwritten and overacted entry in the current American craze for war movies that combine extreme patriotism with hordes of Yankee extras getting bloodily cut to pieces until a final uplifting victory. US Marine Nicolas Cage-with a scarred ear and a fed-up look-is given the job of looking after Navajo Adam Beach, whose complex language is the basis of a code being used to fool the Japanese in the Pacific during World War II. His orders are to protect not Beach but the code, (including orders to kill Beach if it looks like capture is imminent) which makes for an uneasy progress from hatred-at-first-sight through growing respect to agonised male bonding. From an interesting historical footnote, Woo and his collaborators spin out an unlikely and repetitive platoon story, with an all-cliché bunch of grunts spitting out hardboiled dialogue between the noise and violence. The Woo touch is evident; from the astonishing pullback from a butterfly over bloodied waters to the thick of hand-to-hand fighting, but too many of the battle scenes are just more explosions-and-body-parts along the same lines of Saving Private Ryan and Black Hawk Down. On the DVD: Windtalkers contains an 11-minute TV filler making-of featurette; footage of the entire cast (except Cage) romping through the research process at Actors' Bootcamp; plus on-set diaries, i. e. , B-roll footage of the crew working on four big action scenes. Of the two commentary tracks, the first offers a lot of mutual stroking with the occasional insight from Cage and Slater, the other offers Navajo actor Roger Willie and real-life codetalker/technical advisor Albert Smith. The language options, for soundtrack and subtitles, are English and (oddly) Czech. [+]
-Kim Newman.

Review MGM Entertainment / Red River [1949]
Actors & Directors
  • Walter Brennan
  • Coleen Gray
  • Arthur Rosson
  • Montgomery Clift
  • Joanne Dru
  • John Wayne
  • Howard Hawks
Release date: 2000-06-12
Run time: 133 min.
Creator: Charles Schnee
RRP: £12.99
Price: £2.79

Review Red River [1949] / MGM Entertainment:

Any short list of the all-time greatest Westerns is bound to include this 1948 Howard Hawks classic about an epic cattle drive. Red River features one of John Wayne's greatest performances. Like his Ethan Edwards in John Ford's 1956 masterpiece The Searchers, the Duke plays an isolated and unsympathetic man who is possessed by bitterness. Wayne is Texas rancher Tom Dunson, who adopts a young boy orphaned in an Indian massacre. That boy, Matthew Garth (played as an adult by Montgomery Clift in his screen debut), becomes Dunson's assistant and heir apparent-until Dunson's temper gets out of control during a long cattle drive and Matt intervenes to stop him. From that moment on, Dunson swears he will kill Matt. Red River has everything a great Western ought to have: a sweeping sense of history, spectacular landscapes, stampedes, gunfights, Indian attacks, and, of course, Walter Brennan as Dunson's crusty old cook and comic sidekick, Nadine Groot. As a special bonus, the film also features the legendary Harry Carey (upon whom Wayne would base some of his gestures in The Searchers) and his son Harry Carey Jr, who became a fixture in Ford and Hawks' Westerns. Red River is essential for anyone who loves Westerns, or movies in general. This one's a real beaut. [+]
-Jim Emerson, Amazon. com.

Review Paramount Home Entertainment / The Shootist [1976]
Actors & Directors
  • Ron Howard
  • Lauren Bacall
  • James Stewart
  • Don Siegel
  • John Wayne
  • Richard Boone
Release date: 2005-06-06
Run time: 95 min.
Creator: Scott Hale
RRP: £12.99
Price: £3.56

Review The Shootist [1976] / Paramount Home Entertainment:

The last film of John Wayne, The Shootist, could not have been more fitting, full of details that can't help but make one reflect upon his legacy in the movies and his life as a star. Wayne plays a career gunfighter in the autumn of his life, trying to hang up his pistols after he discovers he's dying of cancer. Boarding in the house of an attractive widow (Lauren Bacall) and her son (Ron Howard), Wayne's character opts for peace in his final days but is dogged by his reputation when a handful of killers seeks him out for a final fight. Howard is fine as a fatherless boy who needs the strong mentor the hero represents, and James Stewart-who costarred with Wayne in the great Man Who Shot Liberty Valance-plays the doctor who gives the big man the bad news. Don Siegel (Invasion of the Body Snatchers) thoughtfully directs a very special and sensitive production. -Tom Keogh John Wayne's last film The Shootist could not have been more fitting; it's full of details that can't help but make one reflect upon his legacy in the movies and his life as a star. Wayne plays a career gunfighter in the autumn of his life, trying to hang up his pistols after he discovers he's dying of cancer. Boarding in the house of an attractive widow (Lauren Bacall) and her son (Ron Howard), Wayne's character opts for peace in his final days but is dogged by his reputation when a handful of killers seeks him out for a final fight. Howard is fine as a fatherless boy who needs the strong mentor the hero represents and James Stewart-who costarred with Wayne in the great Man Who Shot Liberty Valance-plays the doctor who gives the big man the bad news. Don Siegel (Invasion of the Body Snatchers) thoughtfully directs a very special and sensitive production. [+]
-Tom Keogh.

Review Universal Pictures UK / The Six Million Dollar Man - Series 1 - Complete
Actors & Directors
  • Lee Majors
  • Richard Anderson
  • Lindsay Wagner
  • Farrah Fawcett
Release date: 2005-09-26
Run time: 914 min.
RRP: £34.99
Price: £10.88

Review The Six Million Dollar Man - Series 1 - Complete / Universal Pictures UK:


Review Optimum Home Entertainment / Cliffhanger [Blu-ray] [1992]
Actors & Directors
  • Max Perlich
  • Renny Harlin
  • Caroline Goodall
  • Sylvester Stallone
  • Vyto Ruginis
  • Craig Fairbrass
Release date: 2008-08-04
Run time: 108 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £10.57

Review Cliffhanger [Blu-ray] [1992] / Optimum Home Entertainment:

Sylvester Stallone, John Lithgow, Michael Rooker, Ralph Waite, Craig Fairbrass

Review Sony Pictures Home Entertainment / Welcome To The Jungle - Director's Cut [2004]
Actors & Directors
  • Christopher Walken
  • Peter Berg
  • Seann William Scott
  • Dwayne Johnson
  • Rosario Dawson
  • Ewen Bremner
Release date: 2004-07-26
Run time: 100 min.
Creator: R.J. Stewart
RRP: £19.99
Price: £1.13

Review Welcome To The Jungle - Director's Cut [2004] / Sony Pictures Home Entertainment:


Review Network / Regan - The Original Sweeney Pilot Movie
Actors & Directors
  • Tom Clegg
  • Dennis Waterman
  • John Thaw
Release date: 2005-09-12
Run time: 77 min.
RRP: £14.99
Price: £6.70

Review Regan - The Original Sweeney Pilot Movie / Network:


Review Universal Pictures UK / Judgment Night [1993]
Actors & Directors
  • Denis Leary
  • Stephen Dorff
  • Emilio Estevez
  • Jeremy Piven
  • Cuba Gooding Jr.
  • Stephen Hopkins
Release date: 2007-04-02
Run time: 105 min.
RRP: £9.99
Price: £4.10

Review Judgment Night [1993] / Universal Pictures UK:


Review 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment / Flight Of The Phoenix [2004]
Actors & Directors
  • John Moore
  • Giovanni Ribisi
  • Sticky Fingaz
  • Miranda Otto
  • Tyrese Gibson
  • Dennis Quaid
Release date: 2005-06-27
Run time: 108 min.
RRP: £15.99
Price: £1.00

Review Flight Of The Phoenix [2004] / 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment:


Review FUNimation Entertainment Ltd. / DragonBall Z: Season Three (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Stephanie Nadonly
  • Chris R Sabat
  • Sonny Strait
  • Daisuke Nishio
  • Sean Schemmel
  • Linda Young
Release date: 2007-09-18
Run time: 800 min.
Price: £21.67

Review DragonBall Z: Season Three (REGION 1) (NTSC) / FUNimation Entertainment Ltd.:


Review Warner Home Video / Errol Flynn Western Collection [1945]
Actors & Directors
  • Errol Flynn
Release date: 2008-09-29
Run time: 257 min.
RRP: £15.99
Price: £9.75

Review Errol Flynn Western Collection [1945] / Warner Home Video:


Review MGM Entertainment / Rocky 4 [1986]
Actors & Directors
  • Brigitte Nielsen
  • Sylvester Stallone
  • Dolph Lundgren
  • Talia Shire
  • Burt Young
  • Sylvester Stallone
Release date: 2007-01-15
Run time: 88 min.
RRP: £12.99
Price: £2.55

Review Rocky 4 [1986] / MGM Entertainment:


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Models & Brands:
Robin Of Sherwood - The Complete Series 1 [1984], Live And Let Die [Blu-ray] [1973], Who Dares Wins [1982], The Wicked Lady [1945], Troy (2-Disc Edition) [2004], Hanover Street [1975], The Great Race [1965] (REGION 1) (NTSC), The League Of Gentlemen - Special Edition [1960], Windtalkers [2002], Red River [1949], The Shootist [1976], The Six Million Dollar Man - Series 1 - Complete, Cliffhanger [Blu-ray] [1992], Welcome To The Jungle - Director's Cut [2004], Regan - The Original Sweeney Pilot Movie, Judgment Night [1993], Flight Of The Phoenix [2004], DragonBall Z: Season Three (REGION 1) (NTSC), Errol Flynn Western Collection [1945], Rocky 4 [1986]

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