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Review Warner Home Video / The Magic Sword - Quest For Camelot [DVD] [1998]
Actors & Directors
  • Frederik Du Chau
  • Bryan White
  • Cary Elwes
  • Gary Oldman
  • Jessalyn Gilsig
  • Andrea Corr
Release date: 1999-09-27
Run time: 82 min.
Creator: William Schifrin
RRP: £13.99
Price: £0.01

Review The Magic Sword - Quest For Camelot [DVD] [1998] / Warner Home Video:

Following their animated/live action hit Space Jam, Warner Bros. jumped into the fully animated feature competition by playing it safe, giving the Arthurian legend a conspicuously Disneyesque facelift. Ingredients from Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid and Pocahontas are evident in the tale of a girl named Kayley (Jessalyn Gilsig) whose father, a Knight of the Round Table, is killed by Sir Ruber (Gary Oldman), a maniacal brute who steals Excalibur and threatens to seize King Arthur's Camelot. Kayley enlists the blind, reclusive knight-aspirant Garrett (Cary Elwes) to brave the Enchanted Forest and retrieve the magic sword, and their adventure is (of course) fraught with danger. Adding extra punch to the movie's commercial appeal, the soundtrack songs are performed by big names like LeeAnn Rimes and Celine Dion. And if that's not enough to hold a kid's attention, there's a two-headed dragon ("we're the reason cousins shouldn't marry") voiced by Eric Idle and Don Rickles. With so much talent involved, it's entertaining but uninspired, although cleverly harmless riffs from Dirty Harry, Taxi Driver and other movies spice up the adventure with enjoyable pop-culture references. -Jeff Shannon.

Review Warner Home Video / The Bucket List [Blu-ray] [2008]
Actors & Directors
  • Sean Hayes
  • Morgan Freeman
  • Beverly Todd
  • Rob Reiner
  • Jack Nicholson
Release date: 2008-07-07
Run time: 93 min.
Creator: Jack Nicholson
RRP: £27.99
Price: £9.83

Review The Bucket List [Blu-ray] [2008] / Warner Home Video:

Jack Nicholson, Morgan Freeman, Sean Hayes Director: Rob Reiner "You measure yourself by the people who measure themselves by you," says the quietly wise Carter Chambers, played with gravitas and grace by a Morgan Freeman. In Rob Reiner's moving, often hilarious film The Bucket List, all sorts of people measure themselves against the two heroes, Chambers and his hospital suitemate, Edward Cole (Jack Nicholson). But as Cole finds, having spent his entire life building a Fortune 500 company, none of that much matters when cancer, the great equalizer, pays a visit. The film traces the adventures of the two unlikely friends, who meet in a hospital cancer ward, each given six months to live. The "bucket list" of the title refers to a lifelong list of goals that a teacher of Chambers once advised him to compile-and achieve-"before you kick the bucket. " Soon the two are off on what may be the last grand adventure of their life, vowing to tick off as many goals (skydiving, race-car driving, seeing the wonders of the world) as they can in the time they have left. What starts as a medical melodrama becomes a road trip, yet the men's mortality realities are never far from thought. The two leads give impressive performances, and remind the viewer of just how few American films focus on the lives and loves of senior citizens. Nicholson even manages to lose his persona in his character, much as he did in About Schmidt. There's a lovely John Mayer tune, "Say (What You Need to Say)", that's perfectly matched to the film's clear-eyed view of life: What does one person leave behind as his true legacy? -A. [+]
T. Hurley.

Review Pathe Distribution / Love Etc. [DVD] [1998]
Actors & Directors
  • Thibault de Montalembert
  • Marion Vernoux
  • Yvan Attal
  • Charles Berling
  • Élodie Navarre
  • Charlotte Gainsbourg
Release date: 2005-09-26
Run time: 105 min.
Creator: Julian Barnes
RRP: £15.99
Price: £3.58

Review Love Etc. [DVD] [1998] / Pathe Distribution:


Review MGM Entertainment / Igby Goes Down [DVD] [2003]
Actors & Directors
  • Burr Steers
  • Jared Harris
  • Kieran Culkin
  • Claire Danes
  • Susan Sarandon
  • Jeff Goldblum
Release date: 2003-10-20
Run time: 96 min.
Creator: Marco Weber
RRP: £19.99
Price: £1.60

Review Igby Goes Down [DVD] [2003] / MGM Entertainment:


Review Fabulous Films Ltd. / High Hopes [DVD] [1988]
Actors & Directors
  • Philip Davis
  • Philip Jackson
  • Ruth Sheen
  • Heather Tobias
  • Edna Doré
  • Mike Leigh
Release date: 2007-09-03
Run time: 108 min.
Creator: Victor Glynn
RRP: £15.99
Price: £4.50

Review High Hopes [DVD] [1988] / Fabulous Films Ltd.:


Review 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment / Broadcast News [DVD] [1988]
Actors & Directors
  • Albert Brooks
  • Robert Prosky
  • Lois Chiles
  • James L. Brooks
  • William Hurt
  • Holly Hunter
Release date: 2004-04-19
Run time: 127 min.
Creator: Susan Zirinsky
RRP: £12.99
Price: £2.75

Review Broadcast News [DVD] [1988] / 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment:

Holly Hunter plays a network news producer who, much to her chagrin, finds herself falling for pretty-boy anchorman William Hurt. He is all glamour without substance and represents a hated shift from hard news toward packaged "infotainment", which Hunter despises. Completing the triangle is Albert Brooks, who provides contrast as the gifted reporter with almost no presence on camera. He carries a torch for Hunter; she sees merely a friend. Written and directed by James L. Brooks, Broadcast News shows remarkable insight into the people who make television. On the surface the film is about that love triangle. If you look a little deeper, however, you will see that this behind-the-scenes comedy is a very revealing look at obsessive behaviour and the heightened emotions that accompany adrenaline addiction. It is for good reason this was nominated for seven Academy Awards (though it did not win any). There are scenes in this movie you cannot shake, such as Hunter's scheduled mini-breakdowns, or Brooks' furious "flop sweat" during his tryout as a national anchor. [+]
Watch for an uncredited Jack Nicholson as a senior newscaster. -Rochelle O'Gorman.

Review Meridian Entertainment / Nuts In May [DVD] [1976]
Actors & Directors
  • Anthony O'Donnell
  • Sheila Kelley
  • Roger Sloman
  • Stephen Bill
  • Eric Allan
  • Mike Leigh
Release date: 2000-03-06
Run time: 82 min.
Creator: David Rose
RRP: £19.99
Price: £22.06

Review Nuts In May [DVD] [1976] / Meridian Entertainment:

An early masterpiece from Mike Leigh, Nuts in May is a filmed-for-TV adaptation of an earlier stage play. The cast is small (only five characters who matter), but the acting is impeccable, and the mix of wicked humour and social observation make this one of Leigh's best works. Keith Pratt, a man who fully earns his surname due to his nit-picking obsessions with order and detail, takes his partner Candice-Marie, a well-meaning but irritating hippie, on a camping trip. There they meet Trevor, a shy teacher who finds their enforced friendship intrusive but is too polite to extricate himself, and a brash young couple of bikers, Honky and Finger, whose loud and chaotic personalities lead them into conflict with the repressed and dogmatic Keith. Plot isn't the issue here, since Leigh is far more interested in teasing out the subtleties of human behaviour, which he does with forensic skill in several unforgettable scenes. Funny and painful at the same time, like all Leigh's successes, Nuts in May is brilliantly acted by all concerned, though special mention must go to Roger Sloman, for bringing to life the appalling but ultimately pitiable Keith, and Alison Steadman, whose portrayal of fey, goofy and tragi-comic Candice-Marie is every bit as memorable and nuanced as her more famous turn as Beverley in Leigh's Abigail's Party. -Andy Medhurst.

Review MGM Entertainment / The Singing Detective [DVD] [2003]
Actors & Directors
  • Robin Wright Penn
  • Mel Gibson
  • Robert Downey Jr.
  • Keith Gordon
  • Katie Holmes
  • Jeremy Northam
Release date: 2004-07-19
Run time: 109 min.
Creator: Dennis Potter
RRP: £15.99
Price: £1.97

Review The Singing Detective [DVD] [2003] / MGM Entertainment:

If you can pull the 2003 film version of The Singing Detective out from under the long shadow cast by the acclaimed 1986 miniseries, Keith Gordon's 109-minute film version achieves its own distinction. It was a daring (and some might say foolhardy) assignment to film Dennis Potter's screenplay, written out of Potter's desire to see his semi-autobiographical drama in feature-length form, but Gordon rose to the occasion with a superlative cast led by Robert Downey Jr, intense as ever as Potter's on-screen alter ego. Bedridden with an excruciating case of skin-rotting psoriasis, pulp novelist Dan Dark (Downey) escapes into his vivid imagination, where gunmen and gumshoes pursue their pulpy agenda, casting himself as the titular "warbler" whose pain and anger is focused like a laser on his cheating wife (Robin Wright Penn) and anyone else who's made his real and imaginary worlds unbearable. Coproducer Mel Gibson appears under heavy makeup as Dark's condescending psychiatrist, and supporting roles are played with stylish flair by Adrien Brody, Katie Holmes, Jeremy Northam, Carla Gugino and others. While many critics called this a noble failure, The Singing Detective captures the essence of Potter's story, offering a welcome alternative to the acknowledged superiority of the miniseries. -Jeff Shannon.

Review Universal Pictures UK / Sullivan's Travels [DVD] [1941]
Actors & Directors
  • Joel McCrea
  • Robert Warwick
  • Franklin Pangborn
  • William Demarest
  • Veronica Lake
  • Preston Sturges
Release date: 2006-10-02
Run time: 87 min.
Creator: Paul Jones
RRP: £9.99
Price: £3.54

Review Sullivan's Travels [DVD] [1941] / Universal Pictures UK:

Writer-director Preston Sturges's third feature, 1941's Sullivan's Travels, remains the antic auteur's most ambitious screen effort. Having added the producer's stripe to his duties, Sturges combines breezy romantic comedy, arch Hollywood satire, and social essay into a single, screwball story line. The titular pilgrim is John L. Sullivan (Joel McCrea), an Ivy League grad who's enjoyed a meteoric rise as the director behind escapist movies like Ants in Your Pants of 1938, but is now determined to raise his sights toward more exalted, serious-minded cinematic art. His proposed breakthrough, portentously titled O Brother, Where Art Thou?, elicits a studio response closer to "Oh, brother," given the director's utter lack of first-hand experience on the wrong side of the tracks. Instead of capitulating, Sullivan sets off disguised as a tramp, ready to meet life's crueler lessons face-to-face-albeit followed at a discreet distance by a motor home filled with studio handlers and reporters. His ludicrous odyssey may give the boy director no real insight, but it gives Sturges the chance to inject some reliably fine gags and a romantic subplot featuring the luminous Veronica Lake. It's at this juncture that Sturges the writer's darker objective throws a jolting shift in tone. Suffice it to say that just when a comic, upbeat denouement seems imminent, Sullivan travels instead from the sunlit California of the comedy's early reels toward a darker, relentlessly downbeat world influenced more by the social realism of the movies the hero desperately wants to make. By the final reel, Sturges has flirted with real tragedy, turning his conclusion into a meditation on his own seemingly carefree, dizzily comic art. [+]
-Sam Sutherland.

Review Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainm / Mystery Alaska [DVD] [1999]
Actors & Directors
  • Mary McCormack
  • Colm Meaney
  • Russell Crowe
  • Burt Reynolds
  • Jay Roach
  • Hank Azaria
Release date: 2004-07-05
Run time: 119 min.
Creator: Sean O'Byrne
RRP: £14.99
Price: £3.28

Review Mystery Alaska [DVD] [1999] / Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainm:

David E Kelley's script for Mystery, Alaska (co-authored by Sean O'Byrne) takes his Ally McBeal level of eccentricity to a geographical and spiritual extreme. The film revives the hackneyed Rocky formula, setting a lopsided hockey match within a remote, self-contained hamlet where the members of a tiny population all have to wear multiple hats and still keep neighbourly ties intact. The story concerns the town's chief source of identity and pride: so-called "Saturday games", in which local men divide into teams and play pond hockey for the locals. When a prodigal son (Hank Azaria) of Mystery shows up with a television network offer to bring the New York Rangers in for a televised match against the homegrown team, the town fathers agree. Coaching falls to the town sheriff, John Biebe (Russell Crowe), an admirable man and a long-time player recently bumped from the team. John, however, doesn't want the job: everyone knows the real coach in those parts is Judge Burns (Burt Reynolds), but he wants no part of it either. All of that changes after a sad tragedy forces everyone to revaluate their positions and pull together in order to beat the Rangers. Following the success of Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, Jay Roach proves to be an able director of drama, swift action and low-key, character-driven comedy not unlike that in Benton's Nobody's Fool. He has to deal with some pure corn at the end, but Roach pulls it off and guides the actors to and through far better moments. -Tom Keogh, Amazon. [+]
com.

Review Tla Releasing / Regular Guys [1996] [DVD]
Actors & Directors
  • Rudolf Kowalski
  • Rolf Silber
  • Carin C. Tietze
  • Oliver Stokowski
  • Tim Bergmann
  • Christoph M. Ohrt
Release date: 2005-10-24
Run time: 102 min.
Creator: Rudolf Bergmann
RRP: £19.99
Price: £5.26

Review Regular Guys [1996] [DVD] / Tla Releasing:


Review Paramount Home Entertainment / Leap Of Faith [DVD] [1993]
Actors & Directors
  • Liam Neeson
  • Steve Martin
  • Lolita Davidovich
  • Lukas Haas
  • Richard Pearce
  • Debra Winger
Release date: 2004-08-16
Run time: 103 min.
Creator: Roger Joseph Pugliese
RRP: £15.99
Price: £2.75

Review Leap Of Faith [DVD] [1993] / Paramount Home Entertainment:


Review Warner Home Video / Exit Wounds [DVD] [2001]
Actors & Directors
  • Steven Seagal
  • Andrzej Bartkowiak
  • Michael Jai White
  • DMX
  • Isaiah Washington
  • Anthony Anderson
Release date: 2001-09-24
Run time: 97 min.
Creator: Richard D'Ovidio
RRP: £13.99
Price: £1.75

Review Exit Wounds [DVD] [2001] / Warner Home Video:


Review Lionsgate / The Tyler Perry's The Family That Preys [DVD] [2008] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]
Actors & Directors
  • Tyler Perry
  • Kathy Bates
  • Rockmond Dunbar
  • KaDee Strickland
  • Sanaa Lathan
  • Alfre Woodard
Release date: 2009-01-13
Run time: 111 min.
Creator: Roger M. Bobb
Price: £12.45

Review The Tyler Perry's The Family That Preys [DVD] [2008] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC] / Lionsgate:


Review Uca / The Sting [DVD] [1973]
Actors & Directors
  • Paul Newman
  • Robert Redford
  • Robert Shaw
  • George Roy Hill
  • Ray Walston
  • Charles Durning
Release date: 2003-08-11
Run time: 124 min.
Creator: David S. Ward
RRP: £9.99
Price: £3.86

Review The Sting [DVD] [1973] / Uca:

Winner of seven Academy Awards including Best Picture, Director, and Screenplay, this critical and box-office hit from 1973 provided a perfect reunion for director George Roy Hill and stars Paul Newman and Robert Redford, who had previously delighted audiences with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in 1969. Set in 1936, The Sting features a pair of Chicago con artists (Newman and Redford) who find themselves in a high-stakes game against the master of all cheating mobsters (Robert Shaw) when they set out to avenge the murder of a mutual friend and partner. Using a bogus bookie joint as a front for their con of all cons, the two feel the heat from the Chicago Mob on one side and encroaching police on the other. But in a plot that contains more twists than a treacherous mountain road, the ultimate scam is pulled off with consummate style and panache. It's an added bonus that Newman and Redford were box-office kings at the top of their game, and while Shaw broods intensely as the Runyon-esque villain, The Sting is further blessed by a host of great supporting players including Dana Elcar, Eileen Brennan, Ray Walston, Charles Durning, and Harold Gould. Thanks to the flavourful music score by Marvin Hamlisch, this was also the movie that sparked a nationwide revival of Scott Joplin's ragtime jazz, which is featured prominently on the soundtrack. One of the most entertaining movies of the early 1970s, The Sting is a welcome throwback to Hollywood's golden age of the 30s that hasn't lost any of its popular charm. -Jeff Shannon, Amazon. com.

Review Paramount Home Entertainment / Tommy Boy [DVD] [1995]
Actors & Directors
  • Bo Derek
  • Dan Aykroyd
  • Chris Farley
  • David Spade
  • Brian Dennehy
  • Peter Segal
Release date: 2002-11-04
Run time: 93 min.
Creator: Terry Turner
RRP: £12.99
Price: £2.67

Review Tommy Boy [DVD] [1995] / Paramount Home Entertainment:


Review Uca / Accidental Hero [DVD] [1993]
Actors & Directors
  • Joan Cusack
  • Kevin J. O'Connor
  • Andy Garcia
  • Stephen Frears
  • Geena Davis
  • Dustin Hoffman
Release date: 2005-07-04
Run time: 113 min.
Creator: David Webb Peoples
RRP: £5.99
Price: £2.46

Review Accidental Hero [DVD] [1993] / Uca:

Dustin Hoffman plays a lowlife who happens upon a plane crash and rescues the passengers, but doesn't really care about the value of his deed or the attendant publicity when the media starts searching for the hero. Another fellow (Andy Garcia) steps into the gap and claims credit, and as his life changes for the better he takes on a Messianic glow. Geena Davis is the cynical television reporter who pushes the latter's fame in order to keep her story alive, and this film, directed by Stephen Frears (Prick Up Your Ears), takes a few familiar jabs at a manipulative and voyeuristic press. This is essentially an unofficial remake of Meet John Doe, though it is less dramatic and forceful in the end than Frank Capra's classic. Chevy Chase has an oddly anachronistic part as Davis' editor (maybe he thought he really was in Meet John Doe), but the film belongs to Hoffman, who makes his character a slightly cleaned-up version of the actor's own Ratso Rizzo in Midnight Cowboy. -Tom Keogh.

Review Universal Pictures UK / Holiday Inn (Special Edition) [1942] [DVD]
Actors & Directors
  • Marjorie Reynolds
  • Fred Astaire
  • Walter Abel
  • Mark Sandrich
  • Virginia Dale
  • Bing Crosby
Release date: 2007-11-26
Run time: 100 min.
Creator: Zion Myers
RRP: £12.99
Price: £6.49

Review Holiday Inn (Special Edition) [1942] [DVD] / Universal Pictures UK:

Holiday Inn is a perennial, Christmas-season favourite from 1942 teamed Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire as entertainers (and rival suitors of Marjorie Reynolds) running an inn that is only open on holidays. It's a great excuse for lots of singing and dancing, seamlessly wrapped in a catchy story, and Astaire's frequent director Mark Sandrich (Top Hat, Shall We Dance?) doesn't let us down. The Irving Berlin numbers (each one connected to a different holiday) are winners. Crosby's warm performance of "White Christmas" is a movie touchstone. -Tom Keogh Holiday Inn is the perennial Christmas-season favourite from 1942 that teams Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire as entertainers (and rival suitors of Marjorie Reynolds) running an inn that is only open on holidays. It's a great excuse for lots of singing and dancing, seamlessly wrapped in a catchy story, and Astaire's frequent director Mark Sandrich (Top Hat, Shall We Dance) doesn't let us down. The Irving Berlin numbers (each one connected to a different holiday) are winners, with Crosby's warm performance of "White Christmas" a movie touchstone. -Tom Keogh.

Review Touchstone Home Video / Tin Men [DVD] [1987]
Actors & Directors
  • Barry Levinson
  • John Mahoney
  • Danny DeVito
  • Barbara Hershey
  • Jackie Gayle
  • Richard Dreyfuss
Release date: 2004-08-23
Run time: 108 min.
Creator: Mark Johnson
RRP: £14.99
Price: £3.01

Review Tin Men [DVD] [1987] / Touchstone Home Video:


Review Criterion / Sweet Movie [DVD] [1974] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]
Actors & Directors
  • Pierre Clémenti
  • Dusan Makavejev
  • Anna Prucnal
  • Carole Laure
  • Sami Frey
  • Jane Mallett
Release date: 2007-06-19
Run time: 98 min.
Creator: Richard Hellman
Price: £13.15

Review Sweet Movie [DVD] [1974] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC] / Criterion:


Models & Brands:
The Magic Sword - Quest For Camelot [DVD] [1998], The Bucket List [Blu-ray] [2008], Love Etc. [DVD] [1998], Igby Goes Down [DVD] [2003], High Hopes [DVD] [1988], Broadcast News [DVD] [1988], Nuts In May [DVD] [1976], The Singing Detective [DVD] [2003], Sullivan's Travels [DVD] [1941], Mystery Alaska [DVD] [1999], Regular Guys [1996] [DVD], Leap Of Faith [DVD] [1993], Exit Wounds [DVD] [2001], The Tyler Perry's The Family That Preys [DVD] [2008] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC], The Sting [DVD] [1973], Tommy Boy [DVD] [1995], Accidental Hero [DVD] [1993], Holiday Inn (Special Edition) [1942] [DVD], Tin Men [DVD] [1987], Sweet Movie [DVD] [1974] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]

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