DVD Find the Perfect Gift    Send a Gift Certificate
Search 
Home › Comedy
Review Paramount Home Entertainment / Some Kind Of Wonderful [1987]
Actors & Directors
  • Craig Sheffer
  • Howard Deutch
  • Eric Stoltz
  • John Ashton
  • Lea Thompson
  • Mary Stuart Masterson
Release date: 2002-11-04
Run time: 91 min.
Creator: Ronald Colby
RRP: £12.99
Price: £3.07

Review Some Kind Of Wonderful [1987] / Paramount Home Entertainment:

In Some Kind of Wonderful, John Hughes crystallises, for good and ill, much of the stock material of the modern high-school romantic comedy. There is the outsider boy Keith (Eric Stolz) with artistic talent and sexual ambitions above his lowly status in a hierarchy based on wealth and popularity. There is Watts, (Mary Stuart Masterson) the tomboy next door, whose good looks and love for him he has somehow always failed to notice. And, most interestingly, there is Amanda Jones (Lea Thompson), who has parlayed her looks into running with the rich kids, but is starting to realise she has the worst of the bargain. There are some odd ambiguities here-all three take passive-aggressive behaviour to a level that is not entirely sympathetic-as well as some slick plotting: Keith's attempt to befriend Amanda by following her into detention brings him into contact with delinquents like Duncan, a terrifying skinhead who is more than he seems. In the end, there is just enough edge and invention here to keep it from being as crass and sentimental as films which have imitated its formula. On the DVD: Some Kind of Wonderful is presented in 1. 78:1 visual aspect ratio and has Dolby 5:1 sound in English, surround sound in Italian and mono in German and Italian-it also has subtitles in those languages and Danish, Dutch, French, Norwegian, Swedish and Turkish and no other special features whatever. -Roz Kaveney.

Review Warner Home Video / Scooby Doo 2 - Monsters Unleashed [2004]
Actors & Directors
  • Neil Fanning
  • Freddie Prinze Jr.
  • Linda Cardellini
  • Matthew Lillard
  • Raja Gosnell
  • Sarah Michelle Gellar
Release date: 2004-08-23
Run time: 93 min.
Creator: William Hanna
RRP: £13.99
Price: £2.58

Review Scooby Doo 2 - Monsters Unleashed [2004] / Warner Home Video:

The animated pooch detective returns in Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed, which packs a wealth of ghostly villains from the Saturday morning cartoon into one movie. When Mystery Inc. opens a museum exhibit of costumes of their old foes, a new masked foe appears and steals everything-and before you know it, all the costumes come to life, chasing Fred (Freddie Prinze Jr. ), Daphne (Sarah Michelle Gellar), Velma (Linda Cardellini), Shaggy (Matthew Lillard), and the computer-animated Scooby Doo all over Coolsville. It's no better or worse than the first Scooby Doo movie. Watching live-action scenes that you've previously seen in two dimensions is vaguely uncanny; it's like deja vu turned inside out. Also featuring the weirdly unsynchronized lips of Alicia Silverstone, Seth Green, and Peter Boyle. -Bret Fetzer.

Review 2 Entertain / The Detectives - Series 4 [1993]
Actors & Directors
  • Steven Knight
  • Tony Matthews
  • Adam Godley
  • Graeme Harper
  • Robert Powell
  • Frank Windsor
  • Jasper Carrott
Release date: 2007-02-12
Run time: 143 min.
Creator: Mike Whitehill
RRP: £15.99
Price: £6.20

Review The Detectives - Series 4 [1993] / 2 Entertain:


Review 4dvd / Skins - Series 2 - Complete [2007]
Actors & Directors
  • April Pearson
  • Harry Enfield
  • Minkie Spiro
  • Joseph Dempsie
  • Aysha Rafaele
  • Adam Smith
  • Paul Gay
  • Mitch Hewer
  • Larissa Wilson
Release date: 2008-05-05
Run time: 350 min.
RRP: £24.99
Price: £11.02

Review Skins - Series 2 - Complete [2007] / 4dvd:


Review 2 Entertain Video / Steve Coogan in ... Coogan's Run [1995]
Actors & Directors
  • Steve Coogan
  • Geoffrey Posner
Release date: 2003-04-28
Run time: 172 min.
RRP: £15.99
Price: £4.84

Review Steve Coogan in ... Coogan's Run [1995] / 2 Entertain Video:

The six 30-minute episodes of Coogan's Run, originally broadcast in 1995, serve as a reminder that there's more to Steve Coogan than just Alan Partridge. Most Partridge-like here is the horrendous Gareth Cheeseman, the Ford Probe-driving sales rep in "Dearth of a Salesman", whose empty life unravels as spectacularly as his Norwich-based counterpart. Familiar from Coogan's stage act are handyman Ernest Moss, here accompanied by John ("Eccles Cakes!") Thomson, and Paul and Pauline Calf, whose "Get Calf" is the series highlight. Perhaps because the other instalments venture into less familiar territory they tend to feel less successful, though both the writing and the characterisations are always strong. Paired with cowriter Patrick Marber in "Natural Born Quizzers", Coogan is a quiz nerd bent on revenge; in "Thursday Night Fever" saddo DJ Mike Crystal finds empowerment in a brash alter ego; while "The Curator" heads towards the spoof-horror territory later served up so disappointingly in Dr Terrible's House of Horrible. -Mark Walker.

Review Network / At Home With The Braithwaites - Series 4 - Complete
Actors & Directors
  • Peter Davison
  • Amanda Redman
  • Roger Golby
  • Julie Graham
  • Ishia Bennison
Release date: 2008-10-27
Run time: 300 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £12.98

Review At Home With The Braithwaites - Series 4 - Complete / Network:


Review Universal Pictures UK / Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels [1998]
Actors & Directors
  • Steven Mackintosh
  • Jason Statham
  • Nick Moran
  • Dexter Fletcher
  • Jason Flemyng
  • Guy Ritchie
Release date: 2004-11-02
Run time: 107 min.
Creator: Peter Morton
RRP: £17.99
Price: £2.55

Review Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels [1998] / Universal Pictures UK:

Cockney boys Tom, Soap, Eddie and Bacon are in a bind; they owe seedy criminal and porn king "Hatchet" Harry a sizeable amount of cash after Eddie loses half a million in a rigged game of poker. Hot on their tails is a thug named Big Chris who intends to send them all to the hospital if they don't come up with the cash in the allotted time. Add into the mix an incompetent set of ganja cultivators, two dimwitted robbers, a "madman" with an afro, and a ruthless band of drug dealers and you have an astonishing movie called Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Before the boys can blink, they are caught up in a labyrinth of double-crosses that lead to a multitude of dead bodies, copious amounts of drugs, and two antique rifles. Written and directed by talented newcomer Guy Ritchie, this is one of those movies that was destined to become an instant cult classic à la Reservoir Dogs. Although some comparisons were drawn between Ritchie and Quentin Tarantino, it would be unfair to discount the brilliant wit of the story and the innovative camerawork that the director brings to his debut feature. Not since The Krays has there been such an accurate depiction of the East End and its more colourful characters. Indicative of the social stratosphere in London, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels is a hilarious and at times touching account of friendships and loyalty. The director and his mates (who make up most of the cast) clearly are enjoying themselves here. This comes across in some shining performances, in particular from ex-footballer Vinnie Jones (Big Chris) and an over-the-top Vas Blackwood (as Rory Breaker), who very nearly steals the show. [+]
Full of quirky vernacular and clever tension-packed action sequences, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels is a triumph-a perfect blend of intelligence, humour and suspense. -Jeremy Storey.

Review 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment / How To Steal A Million [1966]
Actors & Directors
  • Charles Boyer
  • Peter O'Toole
  • Eli Wallach
  • Audrey Hepburn
  • Hugh Griffith
  • William Wyler
Release date: 2005-04-18
Run time: 118 min.
RRP: £12.99
Price: £4.98

Review How To Steal A Million [1966] / 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment:


Review Paramount / Tropic Thunder - Single Disc [2008]
Actors & Directors
  • Robert Downey Jr.
  • Jay Baruchel
  • Jack Black
  • Steve Coogan
  • Ben Stiller
  • Ben Stiller
Release date: 2009-01-26
Run time: 122 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £9.98

Review Tropic Thunder - Single Disc [2008] / Paramount:

It's not really a knock to say that nothing in Tropic Thunder is funnier than its first five minutes, so sly that-especially for people watching in theaters-you don't realise right away they are the opening minutes of the movie. This outrageous comedy begins with a series of fake previews, each introducing one of the main characters in the film-proper (not that there's anything proper about this film) and each bearing the familiar logo of a different motion picture studio: Universal, DreamWorks SKG, et al. Such playing fast and loose with corporate talismans verges on sacrilege, but it's an index of how much le tout Tinseltown endorses the movie as a demented valentine to itself. The premise is that the cast of a would-be "Son of Rambo" movie shooting in some Southeast Asian jungle get into a real shooting war with drug-smuggling montagnards. Don't ask-though the movie does have an answer-why such highly paid, usually ultra-pampered personnel as superhero Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller), Mozart of fart comedy Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black), hip-hop artist Alpa Chino (Brandon T. Jackson), and five-time Oscar-winner Kirk Lazarus from Aus-try-leeah (Robert Downey Jr. ) should be running through the jungle unattended and very vulnerable. It matters only that the real-life cast has a high time kidding their own profession and flexing their comedic muscles. Bonus points go to Stiller for co-writing the script (with Justin Theroux) and directing, and to Downey, brilliant as a white actor surgically turned black actor for his role and utterly committed to staying in character no matter what ("I don't drop character till I done the DVD commentary"). Be warned: The movie, too, is committed-to being an equal-opportunity offender. [+]
Its political incorrectness extends not only to Lazarus's black-like-me posturing but also Speedman's recent, Sean Penn–style Oscar bid playing a cognitively challenged farmboy-or, in Lazarus's deathless phrase, "going the full retard. " Others in the cast include Steve Coogan as a director out of his depth, Nick Nolte as the Viet-vet novelist whose book inspired the film-within-the-film, Matthew McConaughey as Speedman's sun-blissed agent back home, and Tom Cruise-bald, fat-suited, and profane-as an epically repulsive studio head. Two hours running time is a mite excessive, but otherwise, what's not to like? -Richard T. Jameson.

Review Paramount / Frasier - Season 4
Actors & Directors
  • Jane Leeves
  • Kelsey Grammer
  • John Mahoney
  • David Hyde Pierce
  • Peri Gilpin
Release date: 2005-07-18
Run time: 480 min.
RRP: £34.99
Price: £16.97

Review Frasier - Season 4 / Paramount:

Frasier's fourth season was mostly about relationships. Niles (David Hyde Pierce), now separated from Maris, is back on the market like his bachelor brother, Frasier (Kelsey Grammer). That's great when the pair goes to a cabin with a pair of fetching women (Megan Mullaly, later of Will and Grace, and Lisa Darr), but Niles is never able to completely dispel his attachment to his suffocating wife. or to Daphne (Jane Leeves). His obsession with the latter gets an immediate burst in the season's first episode, in which he has to masquerade as Daphne's husband, then later comes to a head when she appears at his apartment door asking to stay the night. The boys have the usual disputes with their father (John Mahoney), including their disdain for the former cop's new girlfriend, Sherry (Marsha Mason), the boisterous, banjo-twangin', "gotcha"-playing bartender who would remain a regular cast member through the end of the series. Ex-wife Lilith (Bebe Neuwirth) makes her annual appearance, this time when she and Frasier try to get Frederick into an exclusive prep school. And the title character? As much as Frasier teases his producer Roz (Peri Gilpin) about her dating habits, he himself is lonely, leading him to a memorable airport encounter with guest star Linda Hamilton and a season finale that proves a kind of a harbinger to the series' final episode. [+]
This season made Frasier a perfect four-for-four at the Emmys, winning its fourth consecutive award for Outstanding Comedy Series. Unlike previous seasons, this DVD set has no bonus features. -David Horiuchi Synopsis A pompous psychiatrist has a radio advice show; his curmudgeonly father lives with him and his equally pompous psychiatrist brother visits often.

Review Contender Entertainment Group / Will and Grace: Complete Series 1 [2001]
Actors & Directors
  • Debra Messing
  • Eric McCormack
Release date: 2006-04-03
Run time: 455 min.
Creator: Max Mutchnick
RRP: £49.99
Price: £10.94

Review Will and Grace: Complete Series 1 [2001] / Contender Entertainment Group:

Will & Grace debuted with a controversial splash because one of its two lead characters is gay-but smart writing and topnotch performances, not politics, have made the show a hit. Two neurotic and sharp-tongued urbanites-gay lawyer Will (Eric McCormack) and straight interior designer Grace (Debra Messing)-delight in their volatile but enduring friendship as they share a sumptuous New York apartment. Sweeping into the mix are Will's unapologetically queeny friend Jack (Sean Hayes) and Grace's wildly eccentric assistant Karen (Megan Mullally). Much like Seinfeld, the humour on Will & Grace springs from self-obsession, petty jealousy, and compulsive interfering in each other's lives-basically, the building blocks of human nature. The show's writers apparently feel compelled to keep the lead characters warm and likeable in the usual sitcom mode (which hardly seems necessary, as McCormack and Messing are naturally engaging). As a result, it's Jack and Karen who get free reign to be truly obnoxious and ridiculous-which, of course, makes them incredibly funny and charismatic. Hayes and Mullally rise to the occasion, ripping through absurd situations and arias of narcissistic wit with dazzling panache. Will & Grace's plots routinely center around scenarios that could feature a married couple or two same-sex roommates: Will and Grace bicker over buying a dog, find their relationship tested by apartment renovations, or discover they're both pursuing the same guy-standard sitcom material that the gay factor gives a clever spin. Though their relationship gets in the way of their sex lives, the two take so much pleasure in each other's company that they can't help but stick together-a surprisingly chaste theme for such a culturally groundbreaking show, but one that Will & Grace's addicted audience undoubtedly appreciates. -Bret Fetzer.

Review 2 Entertain Video / Steve Coogan - The Complete Collection
Actors & Directors
  • Steve Coogan
Release date: 2008-12-01
Run time: 1580 min.
RRP: £69.99
Price: £47.83

Review Steve Coogan - The Complete Collection / 2 Entertain Video:


Review 2 Entertain Video / Auf Wiedersehen Pet: The Special [1983]
Actors & Directors
  • Christopher Fairbank
  • Noel Clarke
  • Anthony Garner
  • Tim Healy
  • Timothy Spall
  • Jimmy Nail
  • Sandy Johnson
  • Baz Taylor
Release date: 2005-01-10
Run time: 114 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £4.77

Review Auf Wiedersehen Pet: The Special [1983] / 2 Entertain Video:


Review MGM Entertainment / The Beatles - Yellow Submarine [1968]
Actors & Directors
  • John Lennon
  • The Beatles
  • Paul McCartney
  • Ringo Starr
  • George Dunning
  • George Harrison
Release date: 2000-02-01
Run time: 90 min.
Creator: Roger McGough
RRP: £19.99
Price: £21.99

Review The Beatles - Yellow Submarine [1968] / MGM Entertainment:

This restored, animated valentine to the Beatles offers viewers the rare chance to see a work that's been substantially improved by its technical facelift, not just super-sized with extra footage. Recognising that its song-studded soundtrack alone makes Yellow Submarine a video annuity, United Artists has lavished a frame-by-frame refurbishment of the original feature, while replacing its original monaural audio tracks with a meticulously reconstructed stereo mix that actually refines legendary original album versions. What emerges is a vivid time capsule of the late 1960s and a minor milestone in animation. The music represents the quartet's zenith-Rubber Soul, Revolver and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The story line, cobbled together by producer Al Brodax and a committee of writers, is a broad, feather-light allegory set in idyllic Pepperland, where the gentle citizens are threatened by the nasty, music-hating Blue Meanies and their surreal arsenal of henchmen, with the Beatles enlisted to thwart the bad guys. Visually, designer Heinz Edelmann mixes the biomorphic squiggles, day-glo palette and Beardsley-esque portraits of Peter Max with rotoscoped still photographs and film; Edelmann's animated collages also nod to Andy Warhol and Magritte in properly psychedelic fashion, which works wonderfully with such terrific songs. High-orthodox Beatlemaniacs can still grouse that the animated Fab Four are (literally) flat archetypes, but that's missing the sheer bloom of the music or the giddy, campy fun of the visuals. Making sense of the story is second to submerging blissfully in the sights and sounds of this video treat. -Sam Sutherland.

Review 20th Century Fox / Severance [2006]
Actors & Directors
  • Tim McInnerny
  • Laura Harris
  • Toby Stephens
  • Danny Dyer
  • Claudie Blakley
Release date: 2007-01-08
Run time: 90 min.
RRP: £15.99
Price: £3.00

Review Severance [2006] / 20th Century Fox:

If a weekend of team building exercises in the woods sounds like your personal idea of torture, spare a thought for the poor pen pushers of Severance. As if the obligatory paintball and trust exercises weren't enough, there's a killer lurking outside their cabin-a killer holding a grudge against the unsuspecting employees of Palisade Defense. Severance is one of the best British horror movies to come out of the last couple of years. It's smarter than it has any right to be; screenwriter James Moran neatly sidesteps the numerous clichés littering the genre, balancing eye-watering gore with almost surreal humour, while Creep helmer Chris Smith's assured direction sells even the daftest (and cruellest) moments. Smith also draws great performances from a talented cast, including Dead Like Me's Laura Harris, Black Adder's Darling Tim McInnerny, and Danny Dyer of Mean Machine and The Football Factory. Horror fans will lap this up; those lacking an iron stomach might watch some scenes from behind laced fingers, but will appreciate the fast-paced action and black humour nonetheless. -Sarah Dobbs.

Review Sony Pictures Home Entertainment / Bewitched - Series 6 - Complete
Actors & Directors
  • Elizabeth Montgomery
  • Dick Sargent
  • Richard Michaels
  • Agnes Moorehead
  • William Asher
Release date: 2008-03-24
Run time: 729 min.
RRP: £34.99
Price: £12.99

Review Bewitched - Series 6 - Complete / Sony Pictures Home Entertainment:


Review Russell Brand / Russell Brand - Live
Release date: 2006-11-20
Run time: 76 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £6.86

Review Russell Brand - Live / Russell Brand:


Review Acorn / As Time Goes By - The Reunion Specials
Actors & Directors
  • Philip Bretherton
  • Moira Brooker
  • Jenny Funnell
  • Geoffrey Palmer
  • Judi Dench
  • Sydney Lotterby
Release date: 2005-10-24
Run time: 90 min.
RRP: £16.99
Price: £4.12

Review As Time Goes By - The Reunion Specials / Acorn:


Review Uca / Being John Malkovich [2000]
Actors & Directors
  • John Malkovich
  • Catherine Keener
  • Cameron Diaz
  • Spike Jonze
  • Ned Bellamy
  • John Cusack
Release date: 2006-05-08
Run time: 112 min.
Creator: Vincent Landay
RRP: £9.99
Price: £2.24

Review Being John Malkovich [2000] / Uca:

While too many films suffer the fate of creative bankruptcy, Being John Malkovich is a refreshing study in contrast, so bracingly original that you'll want to send director Spike Jonze and screenwriter Charlie Kaufman a thank-you note for restoring your faith in the enchantment of film. Even if it ultimately serves little purpose beyond the thrill of comedic invention, this demented romance is gloriously entertaining, spilling over with ideas that tickle the brain and even touch the heart. That's to be expected in a movie that dares to ponder the existential dilemma of a forlorn puppeteer (John Cusack) who discovers a metaphysical portal into the brain of actor John Malkovich. The puppeteer takes a job working as a file clerk on the seventh-and-a-half floor of a Manhattan office building; this idea alone might serve as the comedic basis for an entire film, but Jonze and Kaufman are just getting started. Add a devious co-worker (Catherine Keener), Cusack's dowdy wife (a barely recognisable Cameron Diaz), and a business scheme to capitalise on the thrill of being John Malkovich, and you've got a movie that just gets crazier as it plays by its own outrageous rules. Malkovich himself is the film's pièce de résistance, playing on his own persona with obvious delight and-when he enters his own brain via the portal-appearing with multiple versions of himself in a tour-de-force use of digital trickery. Does it add up to much? Not really. But for 112 liberating minutes, Being John Malkovich is a wild place to visit. -Jeff Shannon.

Review Starz Home Entertainment / Withnail And I : 20th Anniversary Edition (3 Disc Digitally Remastered Special Edition) [1988]
Actors & Directors
  • Richard Griffiths
  • Bruce Robinson
  • Paul McGann
  • Richard E. Grant
  • Michael Elphick
  • Ralph Brown
Release date: 2006-10-02
Run time: 107 min.
Creator: Paul M. Heller
RRP: £15.99
Price: £4.29

Review Withnail And I : 20th Anniversary Edition (3 Disc Digitally Remastered Special Edition) [1988] / Starz Home Entertainment:

Set in 1969, the year in which the hippy dreams of so many young Englishmen went sour, 1986's Bruce Robinson's Withnail and I is an enduring British cult. Fellow enthusiasts cry immortal phrases from the endlessly brilliant script to one another like mating calls; "Scrubbers!", "We want the finest wines known to humanity and we want them now!" Withnail is played by the emaciated but defiantly effete Richard E Grant, "I" (i. e. , Marwood) by Paul McGann. Out-of-work actors living in desperate penury in a rancid London flat, their lives are a continual struggle to keep warm, alive and in Marwood's case sane, until the pubs open. A sojourn in the country cottage of Withnail's gay Uncle Monty only redoubles their privations-they have to kill a live chicken to eat. The arrival of Monty spells further misery for Marwood as he must fend off his attentions. This borderline homophobic interlude apart, Withnail and I is a delight, enhanced by an aimless but appallingly eventful plot. Popular among students, it strikes a chord with anyone who has undergone a period of debauchery and impoverished squalor prior to finding their way onto life's straight and narrow. -David Stubbs.

Browse Comedy:

Models & Brands:
Some Kind Of Wonderful [1987], Scooby Doo 2 - Monsters Unleashed [2004], The Detectives - Series 4 [1993], Skins - Series 2 - Complete [2007], Steve Coogan in ... Coogan's Run [1995], At Home With The Braithwaites - Series 4 - Complete, Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels [1998], How To Steal A Million [1966], Tropic Thunder - Single Disc [2008], Frasier - Season 4, Will and Grace: Complete Series 1 [2001], Steve Coogan - The Complete Collection, Auf Wiedersehen Pet: The Special [1983], The Beatles - Yellow Submarine [1968], Severance [2006], Bewitched - Series 6 - Complete, Russell Brand - Live, As Time Goes By - The Reunion Specials, Being John Malkovich [2000], Withnail And I : 20th Anniversary Edition (3 Disc Digitally Remastered Special Edition) [1988]

Top headlines:
Search 
DVD Rental: try it for free