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Review Miramax / My Son the Fanatic [1998] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Gopi Desai
  • Om Puri
  • Udayan Prasad
  • Akbar Kurtha
  • Stellan Skarsgård
  • Rachel Griffiths
Release date: 2000-01-25
Run time: 87 min.
Price: £2.80

Review My Son the Fanatic [1998] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Miramax:


Review 20th Century Fox / Fight Club [1999] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Brad Pitt
  • Edward Norton
  • Helena Bonham Carter
  • David Fincher
  • Meat Loaf
  • Zach Grenier
Release date: 2003-10-14
Run time: 139 min.
Price: £11.66

Review Fight Club [1999] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / 20th Century Fox:

All films require a certain suspension of disbelief, Fight Club perhaps more than others; but if you're willing to let yourself get caught up in the anarchy, this film, based on the novel by Chuck Palahniuk, is a modern-day morality play warning of the decay of society. Edward Norton is the unnamed protagonist, a man going through life on cruise control, feeling nothing. To fill his hours, he begins attending support groups and 12-step meetings. True, he isn't actually afflicted with the problems, but he finds solace in the groups. This is destroyed, however, when he meets Marla (Helena Bonham Carter), also faking her way through groups. Spiralling back into insomnia, Norton finds his life is changed once again, by a chance encounter with Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), whose forthright style and no-nonsense way of taking what he wants appeal to our narrator. Tyler and the protagonist find a new way to feel release: they fight. They fight each other, and then as others are attracted to their ways, they fight the men who come to join their newly formed Fight Club. Marla begins a destructive affair with Tyler, and things fly out of control, as Fight Club is transformed into a nationwide fascist group. The depiction of violence in Fight Club is unflinching, but director David Fincher's film is captivating and beautifully shot, with camerawork and effects that are almost as startling as the script. [+]
The movie is packed with provocative ideas and images-from the satirical look at the emptiness of modern consumerism to quasi-Nietzschean concepts of "beyond good and evil"-that will leave the viewer with much food for thought to take away. Pitt and Norton are an unbeatable duo, and the film has a great sense of humour too. Even if it leaves you with a sense of profound discomfort this is a movie that you'll have to see again and again, if for no other reason than to just to take it all in. -Jenny Brown, Amazon. com.

Review Universal Studios / Man on the Moon [1999] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Gerry Becker
  • Paul Giamatti
  • Danny DeVito
  • Marilu Henner
  • Jim Carrey
  • Milos Forman
Release date: 2000-05-30
Run time: 119 min.
Creator: Anastas Michos
Price: £2.82

Review Man on the Moon [1999] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Universal Studios:

The vexed question of comedian Andy Kaufman's reality is always at issue in Milos Forman's under-appreciated Man on the Moon. "There is no real you," jokes Lynn Margulies (Courtney Love) to boyfriend Kaufman (Jim Carrey), as he grows more contemplative during his final battle with cancer. "Oh yeah, I forgot," he says. The story of Kaufman's quick rise to fame through early appearances on Saturday Night Live and the conceptual stunts that made his club and concert appearances an instant legend in the irony-fuelled 1970s and early 1980s, Man on the Moon never makes the mistake of artificially demarkating comic Andy and private Andy. True, we get to see something of his private interest in meditation and some of the flakier extremes of alternative medicine, but even these interludes suggest the presence of an ultimate con behind apparent miracles of transformation. Screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski (The People vs. Larry Flynt) allege that transformation was Kaufman's purpose-more than a shtick but less than a predestiny. As we see him constantly up the ante on the credibility of his performance personae (the obnoxious nightclub comic Tony Clifton; the insulting, misogynistic professional wrestler), Forman makes it harder and harder to detect Kaufman's sleight of hand. But it's there, always there, always the transcendent Andy watching the havoc he creates and the emotions he stirs. Carrey is magnificent as Kaufman, re-creating uncannily detailed comedy pieces etched in the memory of anyone who remembers the real Andy. [+]
But while Carrey's mimicry of Kaufman is flawless and funny, the actor probes much deeper into an enigmatic character who, in life, was often a moving target even for those closest to him. -Tom Keogh, Amazon. com.

Review Walt Disney Video / Like Water for Chocolate [1993] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Lumi Cavazos
  • Alfonso Arau
  • Regina Torné
  • Marco Leonardi
  • Ada Carrasco
  • Mario Iván Martínez
Release date: 2000-03-14
Run time: 105 min.
Price: £3.39

Review Like Water for Chocolate [1993] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Walt Disney Video:

Expect to be very hungry (and perhaps amorous) after watching this contemporary classic in the small genre of food movies that includes Babette's Feast and Big Night. Director Alfonso Arau (A Walk in the Clouds), adapting a novel by his former wife, Laura Esquivel, tells the story of a young woman (Lumi Cavazos) who learns to suppress her passions under the eye of a stern mother, but channels them into her cooking. The result is a steady stream of cuisine so delicious as to be an almost erotic experience for those lucky enough to have a bite. The film's quotient of magic realism feels a little stock, but the story line is good and Arau's affinity for the sensuality of food (and of nature) is sublime. You might want to rush off to a good Mexican restaurant afterward, but that's a good thing. -Tom Keogh, Amazon. com.

Review Warner Home Video / The Goodbye Girl [2004] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Jeff Daniels
  • Patricia Heaton
  • Alan Cumming
  • Lynda Boyd
  • Richard Benjamin
  • Hallie Kate Eisenberg
Release date: 2004-07-20
Run time: 103 min.
Creator: Jacqueline Cambas
Price: £7.65

Review The Goodbye Girl [2004] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Warner Home Video:


Review Miramax / My Life So Far [1999] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Irène Jacob
  • Hugh Hudson
  • Colin Firth
  • Malcolm McDowell
  • Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio
  • Rosemary Harris
Release date: 2000-01-25
Run time: 95 min.
Price: £4.36

Review My Life So Far [1999] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Miramax:


Review Bluebell Films / Love On The Ground [1984] [English subtitles]
Actors & Directors
  • Facundo Bo
  • Geraldine Chaplin
  • Jane Birkin
  • Jean-Pierre Kalfon
  • Jacques Rivette
  • Andre Dussollier
Release date: 2008-02-25
Run time: 169 min.
RRP: £14.99
Price: £9.88

Review Love On The Ground [1984] [English subtitles] / Bluebell Films:


Review New Line Home Video / The Players Club [1998] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Monica Calhoun
  • John Amos
  • Jamie Foxx
  • Ice Cube
  • Adele Givens
  • Terrence Howard
Release date: 1999-09-14
Run time: 103 min.
Creator: Hidden Faces
Price: £3.94

Review The Players Club [1998] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / New Line Home Video:


Review The Definitive Ealing Studios Collection / The Definitive Ealing Studios Collection - Volume 3
Release date: 2006-10-16
Run time: 351 min.
RRP: £29.99
Price: £11.18

Review The Definitive Ealing Studios Collection - Volume 3 / The Definitive Ealing Studios Collection:


Review HBO Home Video / Sex and the City Essentials: Lust [1999] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Release date: 2006-02-07
Run time: 90 min.
Creator: Kristin Davis
Price: £2.39

Review Sex and the City Essentials: Lust [1999] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / HBO Home Video:


Review United Artists / The Day of the Outlaw [1959] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Tina Louise
  • André De Toth
  • Alan Marshal
  • Venetia Stevenson
  • Burl Ives
  • Robert Ryan
Release date: 2008-05-13
Run time: 92 min.
Price: £4.89

Review The Day of the Outlaw [1959] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / United Artists:


Review Porchlight Home / Outsourced [2007] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • John Jeffcoat
  • Josh Hamilton
  • Asif Basra
  • Matt Smith
  • Ayesha Dharker
  • Larry Pine
Release date: 2008-09-02
Run time: 103 min.
Price: £8.45

Review Outsourced [2007] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Porchlight Home:


Review Warner Home Video / The New Adventures of Old Christine: The Complete First Season (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Release date: 2008-01-15
Run time: 278 min.
Creator: Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Price: £13.36

Review The New Adventures of Old Christine: The Complete First Season (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Warner Home Video:


Review DreamWorks 85382 / American Beauty [1999] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Sam Mendes
  • Scott Bakula
  • Peter Gallagher
  • Chris Cooper
  • Thora Birch
  • Annette Bening
Release date: 2000-10-24
Run time: 122 min.
Creator: Thomas Newman
Price: £4.65

Review American Beauty [1999] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / DreamWorks 85382:

From its first gliding aerial shot of a generic suburban street, American Beauty moves with a mesmerising confidence and acuity epitomised by Kevin Spacey's calm narration. Spacey is Lester Burnham, a harried Everyman whose midlife awakening is the spine of the story, and his very first lines hook us with their teasing fatalism-like Sunset Boulevard's Joe Gillis, Burnham tells us his story from beyond the grave. It's an audacious start for a film that justifies that audacity. Weaving social satire, domestic tragedy and whodunit into a single package, Alan Ball's first theatrical script dares to blur generic lines and keep us off balance, winking seamlessly from dark, scabrous comedy to deeply moving drama. The Burnham family joins the cinematic short-list of great dysfunctional American families, as Lester is pitted against his manic, materialistic realtor wife, Carolyn (Annette Bening, making the most of a mostly unsympathetic role) and his sullen, contemptuous teenaged daughter, Jane (Thora Birch, utterly convincing in her edgy balance of self-absorption and wistful longing). Into their lives come two catalytic outsiders. A young cheerleader (Mena Suvari) jolts Lester into a sexual epiphany that blooms into a second adolescence. And an eerily calm young neighbour (Wes Bentley) transforms both Lester and Jane with his canny influence. Credit another big-screen newcomer, English theatrical director Sam Mendes, with expertly juggling these potentially disjunctive elements into a superb ensemble piece that achieves a stylised pace without lapsing into transparent self-indulgence. Mendes has shrewdly insured his success with a solid crew of stage veterans, yet he has also made an inspired discovery in Bentley, whose Ricky Fitts becomes a fulcrum for both plot and theme. [+]
Cinematographer Conrad Hall's sumptuous visual design further elevates the film, infusing the beige interiors of the Burnhams' lives with vivid bursts of deep crimson, the colour of roses-and of blood. -Sam Sutherland.

Review Lions Gate / Diary of a Mad Black Woman [2005] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Lisa Marcos
  • Shemar Moore
  • Darren Grant (II)
  • Tamara Taylor
  • Kimberly Elise
  • Steve Harris
Release date: 2005-06-28
Run time: 116 min.
Price: £5.09

Review Diary of a Mad Black Woman [2005] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Lions Gate:


Review Warner Home Video / Kissin' Cousins [1964] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Jack Albertson
  • Arthur O'Connell
  • Glenda Farrell
  • Pamela Austin
  • Elvis Presley
  • Gene Nelson
Release date: 2007-08-07
Run time: 96 min.
Price: £3.90

Review Kissin' Cousins [1964] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Warner Home Video:


Review Image Entertainment / Simple Men [1992] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Karen Sillas
  • Robert John Burke
  • Hal Hartley
  • Martin Donovan (II)
  • Elina Löwensohn
  • Bill Sage
Release date: 2004-01-27
Run time: 105 min.
Price: £6.25

Review Simple Men [1992] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Image Entertainment:

Simple Men opens with small-time hood Bill (Robert Burke from RoboCop 3) asking a bound and blindfolded security guard if he can have the guard's Virgin Mary medallion; "Be good to her and she'll be good to you", says the guard. Immediately after, Bill is double-crossed by his girlfriend and his partner. From there, the plot goes off in a completely different direction: Bill and his younger brother Dennis (William Sage, High Art), a philosophy student, go off in search of their father, a former star shortstop who may have committed a bombing many years ago. Their only clue is a phone number on Long Island; they end up at a cafe run by Kate (Karen Sillas, Female Perversions), which is also the hang-out for Elina Loewensohn (Nadja) and Martin Donovan (Hollow Reed, The Opposite of Sex). Plot is never the point in Hal Hartley movies (Trust, Amateur, Henry Fool); it's just a clothesline on which to hang odd, quirky scenes-moments like Donovan and Sage trying to imitate Loewensohn's dance movements to a Sonic Youth song or a half-drunken conversation about pop music and self-exploitation. Hartley's deliberately stilted dialogue and stylised performances actually play better on video; the movie feels more intimate, making the humour more relaxed and fluid. Hartley is the kind of idiosyncratic filmmaker who provokes love-him-or-hate-him responses, but there's a deep sincerity to his artifices that goes beyond mere posing. Against all commercial wisdom, he's struggling to find his own cinematic poetry. Such an uncommon aspiration is worth checking out. -Bret Fetzer.

Review 20th Century Fox / Find Me Guilty [2006] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Vin Diesel
  • Sidney Lumet
  • Jerry Grayson
  • Frank Pietrangolare
  • Alex Rocco
  • Richard DeDomenico
Release date: 2006-06-27
Run time: 124 min.
Price: £4.43

Review Find Me Guilty [2006] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / 20th Century Fox:


Review Peccadillo Pictures / The Iron Ladies [2001]
Actors & Directors
  • Youngyooth Thongkonthun
  • Jesdaporn Pholdee; Sahaphap Tor; Ekachai Buranapanit; Giorgio Maiocchi; Chaicharn Nimpulsawasdi; Kokkorn Benjathikoon; Shiriohana Hongsopon; Phomsit Sitthijamroenkhun; Sutthipong Sitthijamroenkhun; Anucha Chatkaew
Release date: 2004-01-12
Run time: 104 min.
RRP: £12.99
Price: £4.79

Review The Iron Ladies [2001] / Peccadillo Pictures:


Review Eureka Entertainment / The Horses Mouth [1958]
Actors & Directors
  • Alec Guinness
  • Ronald Neame
Release date: 2008-10-20
Run time: 93 min.
RRP: £15.99
Price: £12.00

Review The Horses Mouth [1958] / Eureka Entertainment:


Models & Brands:
My Son the Fanatic [1998] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Fight Club [1999] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Man on the Moon [1999] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Like Water for Chocolate [1993] (REGION 1) (NTSC), The Goodbye Girl [2004] (REGION 1) (NTSC), My Life So Far [1999] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Love On The Ground [1984] [English subtitles], The Players Club [1998] (REGION 1) (NTSC), The Definitive Ealing Studios Collection - Volume 3, Sex and the City Essentials: Lust [1999] (REGION 1) (NTSC), The Day of the Outlaw [1959] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Outsourced [2007] (REGION 1) (NTSC), The New Adventures of Old Christine: The Complete First Season (REGION 1) (NTSC), American Beauty [1999] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Diary of a Mad Black Woman [2005] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Kissin' Cousins [1964] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Simple Men [1992] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Find Me Guilty [2006] (REGION 1) (NTSC), The Iron Ladies [2001], The Horses Mouth [1958]

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