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Review Rab C. Nesbitt / Rab C Nesbitt - Series 6-8 Box Set
Release date: 2007-10-15
Run time: 510 min.
RRP: £34.99
Price: £24.48

Review Rab C Nesbitt - Series 6-8 Box Set / Rab C. Nesbitt:


Review 2 Entertain Video / The Worst Week Of My Life : Complete BBC Collection
Actors & Directors
  • Janine Duvitski
  • Sarah Alexander
  • Justin Sbresni
  • Mark Bussell
  • Ben Miller
  • Geoffrey Whitehead
Release date: 2007-11-26
Run time: 400 min.
RRP: £34.99
Price: £23.49

Review The Worst Week Of My Life : Complete BBC Collection / 2 Entertain Video:


Review 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment / Edward Scissorhands [1991]
Actors & Directors
  • Kathy Baker
  • Johnny Depp
  • Tim Burton
  • Anthony Michael Hall
  • Winona Ryder
  • Dianne Wiest
Release date: 2000-11-27
Run time: 103 min.
RRP: £9.99
Price: £2.62

Review Edward Scissorhands [1991] / 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment:

Edward Scissorhands achieves the nearly impossible feat of capturing the delicate flavour of a fable or fairy tale in a live-action movie. The story follows a young man named Edward (Johnny Depp), who was created by an inventor (Vincent Price, in one of his last roles) who died before he could give the poor creature a pair of human hands. Edward lives alone in a ruined Gothic castle that just happens to be perched above a pastel-coloured suburb inhabited by breadwinning husbands and frustrated housewives straight out of the 1950s. One day, Peg (Dianne Wiest), the local Avon lady, comes calling. Finding Edward alone, she kindly invites him to come home with her, where she hopes to help him with his pasty complexion and those nasty nicks he's given himself with his razor-sharp fingers. Soon Edward's skill with topiary sculpture and hair design make him popular in the neighbourhood-but the mood turns just as swiftly against the outsider when he starts to feel his own desires, particularly for Peg's daughter Kim (Winona Ryder). Most of director Tim Burton's movies (such as Pee Wee's Big Adventure, Beetlejuice and Batman) are visual spectacles with elements of fantasy but Edward Scissorhands is more tender and personal than the others. Edward's wild black hair is much like Burton's, suggesting that the character represents the director's own feelings of estrangement and co-option. Johnny Depp, making his first successful leap from TV to film, captures Edward's child-like vulnerability even while his physical posture evokes horror icons like the vampire in Nosferatu and the sleepwalker in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. [+]
Classic horror films, at their heart, feel a deep sympathy for the monsters they portray; simply and affectingly, Edward Scissorhands lays that heart bare. -Bret Fetzer On the DVD: Tim Burton is famed for his visual style not his ability as a raconteur, so it's no surprise to find that his directorial commentary is a little sparse. When he does open up it is to confirm that Edward Scissorhands remains his most personal and deeply felt project. The second audio commentary is by composer and regular Burton collaborator Danny Elfman, whose enchanting, balletic score gets an isolated music track all to itself with his remarks in-between cues. Again, for Elfman this movie remains one of his most cherished works, and it is a real musical treat to hear the entire score uninterrupted by dialogue and sound effects but illuminated by Elfman's lucid interstitial remarks. Also on the disc are some brief interview clips, a "making of" featurette and a gallery of conceptual artwork. The anamorphic widescreen print looks simply gorgeous. -Mark Walker.

Review Paramount Home Entertainment (UK) / Frasier - Season 6
Actors & Directors
  • Kelsey Grammer
  • Jane Leeves
  • John Mahoney
  • Peri Gilpin
  • David Hyde Pierce
Release date: 2007-05-14
Run time: 507 min.
RRP: £34.99
Price: £17.99

Review Frasier - Season 6 / Paramount Home Entertainment (UK):


Review Uca / Love, Honour And Obey [1999]
Actors & Directors
  • Ray Winstone
  • Sean Pertwee
  • Jonny Lee Miller
  • Jude Law
  • Sadie Frost
  • Dominic Anciano
  • Ray Burdis
Release date: 2008-05-05
Run time: 94 min.
RRP: £9.99
Price: £3.72

Review Love, Honour And Obey [1999] / Uca:

It must have seemed like fun at the time: a group of mates got together to play gangsters, ran around London's streets waving guns, dishing out beatings and shouting profanities at the top of their mockney lungs. It's the kind of game that any group of lads with a camcorder and a six-pack might indulge in on a Sunday afternoon. Unfortunately, these particular mates happen to be famous, so the result-Love, Honour and Obey-actually saw the dark of cinemas. Ray Winstone is Ray, head honcho of a North London crime outfit; Sean Pertwee is Sean, leader of the South London pack. Their organisations co-exist with a minimum of fuss, based on respect for each other's turf. Then Ray's nephew, Jude (Jude Law), introduces his mate, Jonny (Jonny Lee Miller), into the firm and the equilibrium goes up in gun smoke. Jonny's a hothead who disrespects Ray's rules and instigates a private feud with Matthew (Rhys Ifans), his opposite number in Sean's gang, and soon there are gun battles raging through the capital. Perhaps directors Dominic Anciano and Ray Burdis regard their work as avant-garde, a deconstruction of the movie-making myth or a dissection of genre-or maybe they are just having a laugh at our expense. Either way the result is tortuous, egotistical film making. To be fair, Love, Honour and Obey is at least a step up from their last effort, Final Cut, in which much the same cast again paraded under their own names and made utter fools of themselves, but that's like saying the Zeebrugge ferry disaster wasn't as bad as the Titanic. [+]
Still, at least it's not all boys playing with their penis extensions: there's also Sadie Frost and Denise Van Outen. -Jamie Graham.

Review Universal Pictures UK / Hot Fuzz [HD DVD] [2007]
Actors & Directors
  • Paddy Considine
  • Martin Freeman
  • Simon Pegg
  • Anne Reid
  • Edgar Wright
  • Edward Woodward
Release date: 2007-08-06
Run time: 116 min.
RRP: £24.99
Price: £4.99

Review Hot Fuzz [HD DVD] [2007] / Universal Pictures UK:

A major British hit, a lorryload of laughs and some sparkling action? We'll have some of that. It's fair to say that Hot Fuzz proves that Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright's brilliant Shaun Of The Dead was no one-off, serving up a superbly crafted British homage to the Hollywood action movie. Deliberately set in the midst of a sleepy, quaint English village of Sandford, Pegg's Nicholas Angel is sent there because, bluntly, he's too good at his job, and he's making his city colleagues look bad. The proverbial fish out of water, Angel soon discovers that not everything in Sandford is quite as it seems, and joins forces with Nick Frost's lumbering Danny Butterman to find out what's what. Hot Fuzz then proceeds to have a rollicking good time in both tipping its hat to the genre films that are clearly its loving inspiration, and coming up with a few tricks of its own. It does comedy better than action, with plenty of genuine laugh-out-loud moments, but it's no slouch either when the tempo needs raising. One of the many strong cards it plays is its terrific cast, which includes former 007 Timothy Dalton, Bill Nighy, Bill Bailey, Paddy Considine, Edward Woodward and Jim Broadbent. Hot Fuzz, ultimately, just falls short of Shaun Of The Dead, but more than does enough to warrant many, many repeat viewings. It's terrific fun, and in the true hit action movie style, all-but-demands some form of sequel. That said, with Pegg and Wright now with two excellent, and suitably different, genres ticked off, it'll be interesting to see what they do next. [+]
A period drama, perhaps…? -Simon Brew.

Review Entertainment in Video / Wedding Crashers - Uncorked [2005]
Actors & Directors
  • Rachel McAdams
  • Christopher Walken
  • Isla Fisher
  • David Dobkin
  • Owen Wilson
  • Vince Vaughn
Release date: 2005-12-26
Run time: 247 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £2.50

Review Wedding Crashers - Uncorked [2005] / Entertainment in Video:

The surprise comedy smash of 2005, Wedding Crashers has a resolutely simple set up. You take Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson, cast them as a pair of thirtysomethings who spend their weekends gatecrashing weddings, and put them in search of female company while they're there. The clue really is in the title. Yet there are several elements that make the film a little bit special. First and foremost, there's the cast. Vaughn and Wilson are clearly having a whale of a time here, and it's on screen for all to see. Even in the moments where the script doesn't quite measure up, the duo have the energy and presence to keep the film ticking over. It's great too to see them backed up well by the likes of Jane Seymour and Christopher Walken, both of whom are on fine form here. The film is also not shy of significant belly laughs, with plenty of comedic moments of note to enjoy. Granted, you'd be hard-pushed to call it high brow comedy, but that's missing the point. [+]
Wedding Crashers is an accessible, highly entertaining way to spend a couple of hours, and has no pretensions otherwise. And that's its strength. In short, good, funny, energetic entertainment, and it's got healthy rewatch potential too. -Simon Brew.

Review Entertainment in Video / Over Her Dead Body [2007]
Actors & Directors
  • Lake Bell
  • Eva Longoria
  • Jason Biggs
  • Lindsay Sloane
  • Paul Rudd
Release date: 2008-06-09
Run time: 90 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £7.99

Review Over Her Dead Body [2007] / Entertainment in Video:


Review Dreamworks Home Entertainment / Mouse-Hunt [1998]
Actors & Directors
  • Maury Chaykin
  • Lee Evans
  • Nathan Lane
  • Eric Christmas
  • Vicki Lewis
  • Gore Verbinski
Release date: 2005-07-04
Run time: 98 min.
RRP: £5.99
Price: £3.31

Review Mouse-Hunt [1998] / Dreamworks Home Entertainment:

What might have been a one-note family comedy becomes something more thanks to the comic brilliance of co-stars Nathan Lane and Lee Evans, as well as the distinctive, dark-fable look given the film by a little-known director named Gore Verbinksi (could he be the next Tim Burton?). Lane and Evans play idiotic brothers who inherit a house and all but destroy it in pursuit of one small, pesky mouse. The guys are always the butt of the sight gags-most of which are very funny-but their considerable powers as slapstick artists are also at play. The climactic scene at an auction was the funniest scene in any American movie in 1997, the year of Mouse Hunt's release. -Tom Keogh.

Review MGM Entertainment / The Birdcage [1996]
Actors & Directors
  • Nathan Lane
  • Gene Hackman
  • Dianne Wiest
  • Mike Nichols
  • Robin Williams
  • Dan Futterman
Release date: 2000-02-01
Run time: 114 min.
RRP: £15.99
Price: £4.43

Review The Birdcage [1996] / MGM Entertainment:

The great improvisational comedy team of Mike Nichols and Elaine May reunited to (respectively) direct and write this update of the French comedy La Cage Aux Folles. Robin Williams stars as a gay Miami nightclub owner who is forced to play it straight and ask his drag-queen partner (Nathan Lane) to hide out when Williams's son invites his prospective-and highly conservative-in-laws and fiancée to a meet-and-greet dinner party. Gene Hackman and Dianne Wiest play the straight-laced senator and his wife, and Calista Flockhart (from television's Ally McBeal) plays their daughter in a culture-clash with outrageous consequences. May's witty screenplay incorporates some pointed observations about the political landscape of the 1990s and takes a sensitive approach to the comedy's underlying drama. Topping off the action is Hank Azaria in a scene-stealing role as Williams's and Lane's flamboyant housekeeper, "Agador Spartacus. " -Jeff Shannon.

Review Warner Home Video / Marx Brothers Collection: A Night At The Opera / A Day At The Races / At The Circus / Go West / The Big Store / A Night In Casablanca [1935]
Actors & Directors
  • Edward Buzzell
  • Kitty Carlisle
  • Charles Reisner
  • Archie Mayo
  • Diana Lewis
  • The Marx Brothers
  • Maureen O'Sullivan
  • Allan Jones
Release date: 2004-08-23
Run time: 529 min.
RRP: £61.99
Price: £17.97

Review Marx Brothers Collection: A Night At The Opera / A Day At The Races / At The Circus / Go West / The Big Store / A Night In Casablanca [1935] / Warner Home Video:


Review Contender Entertainment Group / That Mitchell & Webb Look - Series 1 [2007]
Actors & Directors
  • Robert Webb
  • David Mitchell
Release date: 2007-10-29
Run time: 180 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £3.84

Review That Mitchell & Webb Look - Series 1 [2007] / Contender Entertainment Group:


Review Warner Home Video / Two And A Half Men - Series 2 [2006]
Actors & Directors
  • Angus T. Jones
  • Holland Taylor
  • Marin Hinkler
  • Jon Cryer
  • Charlie Sheen
Release date: 2006-08-28
Run time: 490 min.
RRP: £39.99
Price: £13.00

Review Two And A Half Men - Series 2 [2006] / Warner Home Video:


Review 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment / The Full Monty [1997]
Actors & Directors
  • Steve Huison
  • Robert Carlyle
  • Tom Wilkinson
  • William Snape
  • Mark Addy
  • Peter Cattaneo
Release date: 2003-06-30
Run time: 88 min.
RRP: £5.99
Price: £2.11

Review The Full Monty [1997] / 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment:

Overtaking Jurassic Park as the UK's biggest box office attraction of 1998, and winning one of its four Academy Award nominations, The Full Monty was the surprise world-wide smash of the year, it's unexpected success reflecting the underdog inspiring message of the film itself. Leading a strong cast, it was Robert Carlyle's appearance here which propelled him to sex-symbol superstardom and brought him high-profile Hollywood roles in Angela's Ashes, The World is Not Enough and The Beach among others. The story revolves around the attempts of five unemployed grafters from the recession-hit industrial North to reclaim some of their dignity, which they attempt to do by the unlikely expedient of becoming male strippers. The film follows their struggle to become The Chippendales for real women, from their shambolic beginnings to their euphoric debut appearance in front of 300 hungry lasses! Saucy and spicy with a rocking soundtrack, The Full Monty tells of the triumph of spirit over adversity, reminding us that everyone can be special, no matter what their shape. or size. This is British independent film making at its very best, exhibiting the heart-warming truthfulness captured by many UK directors, yet eschewing their often gloomy negativity for an altogether more optimistic outlook: it's a modern fairy tale in which all five Cinderellas get to go to the ball. -Paul Eisinger.

Review 2 Entertain Video / Dad's Army: The BBC Christmas Specials
Actors & Directors
  • Clive Dunn
  • John le Mesurier
  • Arthur Lowe
Release date: 2007-11-12
RRP: £15.99
Price: £9.98

Review Dad's Army: The BBC Christmas Specials / 2 Entertain Video:


Review 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment / My Name Is Earl: Complete Season 2 [2006]
Release date: 2008-01-28
Run time: 574 min.
RRP: £34.99
Price: £22.00

Review My Name Is Earl: Complete Season 2 [2006] / 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment:

After cooking up a winning formula for the first season, this karmic comedy could afford to shake things up. In Earl's equally successful second, there's an episode incorporating clay animation ("Robbed a Stoner Blind" with Christian Slater), an homage to Cops ("Our 'Cops' Is On!" with Kathy Kinney), a two-parter set in Latin America ("South of the Border" with John Leguizamo), and a Tarantino-style whodunnit with narration split between Earl, Randy, Joy, and Crab Man ("Buried Treasure"). As before, Earl (Jason Lee), in cahoots with brother Randy (Ethan Suplee), continues in his quest to become "a better person. " He starts by turning to Camden County strip club owner Richard Chubby (Burt Reynolds) to get ex-wife Joy out of a jam involving stolen merchandise ("Jump for Joy"). Joy's struggle to evade prison will last all year, during which Earl falls for her "hot professional" lawyer (Marlee Matlin). Other highlights include "Sticks & Stones," in which Earl gives a bearded lady (Judy Greer) back her confidence, and "Larceny of a Kitty Cat," in which the allergic Randy dates a feline fancier (Amy Sedaris). When that comes to an end, he finally works up the nerve to tell motel maid Catalina (Nadine Velazquez) how he really feels about her ("Foreign Exchange Student'). From the start, Earl attracted a colourful array of talent. That trend continues with Roseanne Barr as a nun ("Made a Lady Think I Was God") and John Waters as a funeral director ("Kept a Guy Locked in a Truck"). Emmy nominees Giovanni Ribisi and Beau Bridges also return for a few episodes, along with other first-season favourites, like Patty, the Daytime Hooker (Dale Dickey). [+]
As with the previous set, there's a bushel of extras, including deleted scenes, commentary, and a blooper reel. -Kathleen C. Fennessy, Amazon. com.

Review 2 Entertain Video / Red Dwarf: Just The Shows (Vol. 1) (Series 1-4) [1988]
Actors & Directors
  • Ed Bye
  • Norman Lovett
  • Chris Barrie
  • Craig Charles
  • Robert Llewelyn
  • Danny John-Jules
Release date: 2004-10-18
Run time: 720 min.
RRP: £34.99
Price: £23.49

Review Red Dwarf: Just The Shows (Vol. 1) (Series 1-4) [1988] / 2 Entertain Video:

Notoriously, and entirely appropriately, the original outline for Doug Naylor and Rob Grant's comedy sci-fi series Red Dwarf was sketched on the back of a beer mat. When it finally appeared on our television screens in 1988 the show had clearly stayed true to its roots, mixing jokes about excessive curry consumption with affectionate parodies of classic SF. Indeed, one of the show's most endearing and enduring features is its obvious respect for the conventions of SF, even as it gleefully subverts them. The scenario owes something to Douglas Adams's satirical Hitch-Hiker's Guide, something to The Odd Couple and a lot more to the slacker SF of John Carpenter's Dark Star. Behind the crew's constant bickering there lurks an impending sense that life, the universe and everything are all someone's idea of a terrible joke. Later series broadened the show's horizons until at last its premise was so diluted as to be unrecognisable, but in the earlier episodes contained in this box set the comedy is witty and intimate, focusing on characters and not special effects. Slob Dave Lister (Craig Charles) is the last human alive after a radiation leak wipes out the crew of the vast mining vessel Red Dwarf (episode 1, "The End"). He bums around the spaceship with the perpetually uptight and annoyed hologram of his dead bunkmate, Arnold Rimmer (Chris Barrie, the show's greatest comedy asset) and a creature evolved from a cat (dapper Danny John Jules). They are guided rather haphazardly by Holly, the worryingly thick ship's computer (lugubrious Norman Lovett). -Mark Walker.

Review Pathe Distribution / Dog Soldiers [2002]
Actors & Directors
  • Sean Pertwee
  • Kevin McKidd
  • Neil Marshall
  • Liam Cunningham
  • Thomas Lockyer
  • Emma Cleasby
Release date: 2003-02-17
Run time: 101 min.
RRP: £17.99
Price: £2.40

Review Dog Soldiers [2002] / Pathe Distribution:

An enjoyable low-concept monster movie, Dog Soldiers is basically Night of the Living Dead with werewolves. A platoon on a training exercise in Scotland, already fed up because they are missing a vital England-Germany match, come across the wounded survivor of a special ops team (Liam Cunningham) that has been attacked by monsters. There's a confused conspiracy angle, with a scheme to sacrifice the squaddies in order to capture a werewolf for military uses, but it's mostly a lost patrol picture with the soldiers besieged in a mysteriously abandoned house in the woods, complete with "pork" stew on the boil. The hardman sergeant (Sean Pertwee) is disembowelled early but gruesomely patched up with superglue, letting the sensitive Scot (Kevin McKidd) play hero. A pack of effectively glimpsed Howling-style bipedal werewolves make repeated attacks on the house, whittling the cast down with each invasion. The soldier characterisations are solid cliché, albeit of a British variety rarely seen in horror movies (a highlight of the use of Brit slang is the Geordie shouting "Come on if you think you're hard enough"). The monsters are okay, but writer-director Neil Marshall's strongest suit is his third, as editor, covering for the old-fashioned monster suit effects and making the suspense and action mechanics work. On the DVD: Dog Soldiers is an excellent DVD package complete with two commentary tracks, a British one with Marshall and the cast and an American one with a couple of producers. Both are interesting and rarely overlap, and there's an amusing contradiction between the Brits who rush over script changes they didn't want to make and the Yanks who imposed a sub-plot they feel saved the picture. Also, a bunch of trailers that amusingly spoof a recent army recruitment ad, deleted scenes and outtakes with optional Marshall commentary, a standard making-of featurette, storyboards and Marshall's short film, Combat. [+]
-Kim Newman.

Review Momentum Pictures Home Ent / Doc Martin : Complete Series 1 - 3
Actors & Directors
  • Joe Absolom
  • Lucy Punch
  • Minkie Spiro
  • Stephanie Cole
  • Ben Bolt
  • Martin Clunes
  • Ian McNeice
Release date: 2008-09-27
RRP: £24.99
Price: £15.98

Review Doc Martin : Complete Series 1 - 3 / Momentum Pictures Home Ent:


Review South Park / South Park - Series 7
Release date: 2008-06-16
Run time: 317 min.
RRP: £24.99
Price: £15.93

Review South Park - Series 7 / South Park:

There is nothing in South Park's seventh season to offend Tom Cruise (nothing about Scientology, at any rate; that will come in season 9). However, Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck, Rob Reiner, the Queer Eye guys, Christopher Reeve (!), war supporters and anti-war protesters, and Mormons, do not get off so easy. But, "Who cares?" as the townspeople sing in "I'm a Little Bit Country. " What matters is that with this particular episode, South Park attained the precious, syndication-ready 100-episode mark! Another milestone: "Raisins," in which Wendy breaks up with Stan, who falls under the influence of the "Goth kids" ("If you want to be one of the non-comformists, all you have to do is dress just like us and listen to the same music we do"). Even by South Park standards, season 7 is pretty hardcore. In "Christian Rock Hard," Cartman is so determined to attain platinum album status before Kyle and his band that he forms a Christian rock group. The band's repertoire makes Tom Lehrer's once-scandalous "Vatican Rag" sound like "Oh, Happy Day. " But mostly, South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone take Cheney-like potshots at pop-culture notables. In "South Park Is Gay!", we discover what is really behind the "metrosexual" phenomenon and the true identity of the Queer Eye for the Straight Guy quartet. In "Butt Out," Rob Reiner is portrayed as a corpulent goo-filled "fascist" willing to the sanction murder (of Cartman) to further his anti-"Big Tobacco" agenda. [+]
As you can guess from the title, "Fat Butt and Pancake Head" is a merciless deconstruction of "Bennifer," as Cartman's Jennifer Lopez hand puppet dethrones the real thing, and attracts the amorous attention of Ben Affleck. "All About Mormons" anticipates the Scientology episode, "Trapped in the Closet" (not included here, and if lawyers have anything to say about it, might not be included in a season 9 set, either) with a straight-faced musical dramatization of the Joseph Smith story. "Everyone thought we were making stuff up to be funny," Parker and Stone relate in their mini commentary (optional for each episode). "But we're not. We're not making this stuff up in this show. " Which is perhaps why the episode "Cancelled," which posits that Earth exists only as reality-TV fodder for aliens, doesn't seem so farfetched. -Donald Liebenson.

Browse Comedy:

Models & Brands:
Rab C Nesbitt - Series 6-8 Box Set, The Worst Week Of My Life : Complete BBC Collection, Edward Scissorhands [1991], Frasier - Season 6, Love, Honour And Obey [1999], Hot Fuzz [HD DVD] [2007], Wedding Crashers - Uncorked [2005], Over Her Dead Body [2007], Mouse-Hunt [1998], The Birdcage [1996], Marx Brothers Collection: A Night At The Opera / A Day At The Races / At The Circus / Go West / The Big Store / A Night In Casablanca [1935], That Mitchell & Webb Look - Series 1 [2007], Two And A Half Men - Series 2 [2006], The Full Monty [1997], Dad's Army: The BBC Christmas Specials, My Name Is Earl: Complete Season 2 [2006], Red Dwarf: Just The Shows (Vol. 1) (Series 1-4) [1988], Dog Soldiers [2002], Doc Martin : Complete Series 1 - 3, South Park - Series 7

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