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Review MGM Entertainment / The January Man [1988]
Actors & Directors
  • Kevin Kline
  • Danny Aiello
  • Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio
  • Susan Sarandon
  • Pat O'Connor
  • Harvey Keitel
Release date: 2002-08-12
Run time: 97 min.
Creator: John Patrick Shanley
RRP: £12.99
Price: £2.98

Review The January Man [1988] / MGM Entertainment:

The January Man is an odd comedy-thriller about the hunt for a serial killer that could just be a case of too many stars spoil the movie. The screenplay is by John Patrick Shanley, who won an Oscar for Moonstruck. The plot goes like this: a serial killer is terrorising Manhattan, targeting one woman a month, much to the horror of the mayor (a rabid Rod Steiger, more foam than substance) and the police commissioner Frank Starkey (Harvey Keitel). There's only one man to save their bacon: enter Nick Starkey (Kevin Kline), brother of Frank, who had been a cop but was kicked out of the force for his unorthodox ways. Being a heroic kind of guy, his next career move was as a firefighter and we first see him leaping out of a burning building, carrying a child under his arm. Kline agrees to go back on one condition: that he cooks dinner for his brother's wife (the fantastically haughty Susan Sarandon), a former girlfriend for whom he still holds a candle. The pace hots up, Nick finds himself a new girlfriend, the mayor's daughter Bernadette (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio), whose main claim to fame is that her best friend was murdered by the serial killer. Oh, and of course he gets the guy, in the nick of time (literally). Confused? You won't be. The plot is an improbable potion of coincidences and divine inspiration but it's not complicated. [+]
Kline overcomes the shortcomings of the script with a charmer of a performance, but the real star is the funny, sly Alan Rickman. The January Man is worth seeing for some very fine individual turns (Sarandon is terrific), but in all honesty, it doesn't add up to a great movie, mainly because it can't quite decide what it wants to be, genre-wise, settling on an uneasy compromise of comedy and thriller. On the DVD: The January Man disc has absolutely no-frills. Picture and sound are perfectly adequate without being anything to write home about. And if you're looking for extra goodies, you'll be disappointed: there's the original theatrical trailer and a wide array of subtitle languages, but that's it. -Harriet Smith.

Review Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainm / Snake Eyes [1998]
Actors & Directors
  • Carla Gugino
  • Brian De Palma
  • Gary Sinise
  • John Heard
  • Nicolas Cage
  • Stan Shaw
Release date: 2006-06-15
Run time: 94 min.
Creator: David Koepp
RRP: £15.99
Price: £1.00

Review Snake Eyes [1998] / Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainm:

Brian De Palma's 1998 thriller is largely an exercise in airing out his orchestral, oversized visual style (think of his Blowout, Body Double or Raising Cain) for the heck of it. The far-fetched story featuresNicolasCage as a crooked police detective attending a championship boxing match at which the Secretary of Defence is assassinated. The unfortunate Secretary's right-hand man (Gary Sinise) happens to be Cage's old friend, a fact that complicates the cop's efforts to reconstruct the crime from conflicting accounts-a directorial strategy bearing similarities to Kurosawa's Rashomon. The outrageousness of the scenario essentially gives DePalma permission to construct a baroque cathedral of spectacular camera stunts, which (he well knows) are inevitably more interesting than the hoary conspiracy plot. (The opening scene alone, which runs on for a number of minutes and consists of one, unbroken shot that moves in from the street, following Cage up and down stairs and in and out of rooms until finally ending ringside at the match, is breathtaking. ) The shifting points of view-based on the contradictory statements of witnesses-also give De Palma licence to get creative with camera angles and scene rearrangements. The script bogs down in the third act but De Palma is just revving up for a big, operatic finish that is absolutely gratuitous but undeniably impressive. Yes, it's style over substance in Snake Eyes but what style you're talking about. -Tom Keogh.

Review Metrodome Distribution / Transformers - Season 2 - Vol. 2
Actors & Directors
  • Peter Wallach
  • Steve Bulen
  • Roger Behr
  • Jered Barclay
  • Philip L. Clarke
  • Marshall Efron
Release date: 2004-05-03
Run time: 550 min.
Creator: Roger Slifer
RRP: £24.99
Price: £6.98

Review Transformers - Season 2 - Vol. 2 / Metrodome Distribution:

The Transformers series (Tatakae Cho Robot Seimetai Transformers, or Fight Super Living Robots Transformers) was written in America, but animated in Japan. Based on a line of robots from Takara that was licensed to Hasbro, Transformers sparked a craze for metamorphic toys in the mid-80s. Each robot-character could be reconfigured to form a car, a tank, a plane, and so on. The 24 episodes in this collection, which ran between 1985 and 1986, conclude the second season and lead up to Transformers 2006. Each episode forms a self-contained story, with little in the way of larger character arcs or plot developments tying them together. Although the cast has expanded, the Autobots remain the good guys who defeat the bad guy Decepticons, and no-one expects anything else. Although the character designs and animation are Japanese, the direction is pure American saturday morning: instead of creating effective transitions, the filmmakers just cut to a shot of the logo-a standard practice in Hanna-Barbera kidvid. Websites, role-playing games, fan fiction, and a brisk commerce in the original toys have kept Transformers alive in the hearts of their fans. But like Robotech, Transformers will appeal most strongly to nostalgic adults who watched the show as kids. -Charles Solomon.

Review Momentum Pictures / Stephen King's Cat's Eye [1985]
Actors & Directors
  • James Woods
  • Lewis Teague
  • Kenneth McMillan
  • Robert Hays
  • Drew Barrymore
  • Alan King
Release date: 2002-10-21
Run time: 90 min.
Creator: Stephen King
RRP: £15.99
Price: £10.99

Review Stephen King's Cat's Eye [1985] / Momentum Pictures:


Review Odeon Entertainment / Time Without Pity [1957]
Actors & Directors
  • Michael Redgrave and Leo McKern
  • Joseph Losey
Release date: 2008-04-21
Run time: 85 min.
RRP: £9.99
Price: £5.98

Review Time Without Pity [1957] / Odeon Entertainment:


Review Optimum Home Entertainment / Stormy Monday
Actors & Directors
  • Melanie Griffith
  • Tommy Lee Jones
  • Sting
  • Sean Bean
Release date: 2006-04-10
Run time: 93 min.
RRP: £15.99
Price: £5.97

Review Stormy Monday / Optimum Home Entertainment:


Review Universal Studios / The Big Lebowski [1998] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Julianne Moore
  • Ethan Coen
  • David Huddleston
  • Joel Coen
  • John Goodman
  • Steve Buscemi
  • Jeff Bridges
Release date: 2008-09-09
Run time: 117 min.
Creator: John Cameron
Price: £16.38

Review The Big Lebowski [1998] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Universal Studios:

The Big Lebowski, a casually amusing follow-up from the prolifically inventive Coen brothers (Ethan and Joel), seems like a bit of a lark and the result was a box-office disappointment. It's lazy plot is part of its laidback charm. After all, how many movies can claim as their hero a pot-bellied, pot-smoking loser named Jeff "The Dude" Lebowski (Jeff Bridges) who spends most of his time bowling and getting stoned? And where else could you find a hair-netted Latino bowler named Jesus (John Turturro) who sports dazzling purple footgear, or an erotic artist (Julianne Moore) whose creativity consists of covering her naked body in paint, flying through the air in a leather harness, and splatting herself against a giant canvas? Who else but the Coens would think of showing you a camera view from inside the holes of a bowling ball, or an elaborate Busby Berkely-styled musical dream sequence involving a Viking goddess and giant bowling pins? The plot-which finds Lebowski involved in a kidnapping scheme after he's mistaken for a rich guy with the same name-is almost beside the point. What counts here is a steady cascade of hilarious dialogue, great work from Coen regulars John Goodman and Steve Buscemi, and the kind of cinematic ingenuity that puts the Coens in a class all their own. -Jeff Shannon.

Review Universal Studios / Heroes: Season 1 (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Allan Arkush
  • Noah Gray-Cabey
  • Tawny Cypress
  • Santiago Cabrera
  • Ernest R. Dickerson
  • Adam Kane
  • Ali Larter
  • Donna Deitch
  • Greg Grunberg
  • David Semel
Release date: 2007-08-28
Run time: 1009 min.
Price: £30.00

Review Heroes: Season 1 (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Universal Studios:


Review ITV DVD / Margaret Lockwood Collection [1938]
Actors & Directors
  • Roy William Neill
  • John Lodge
  • Michael Redgrave
  • Stewart Granger
  • Alfred Hitchcock
  • Carol Reed
  • Leslie Arliss
  • Val Guest
  • Margaret Lockwood
  • Jean Simmons
Release date: 2008-06-16
Run time: 578 min.
RRP: £34.99
Price: £24.98

Review Margaret Lockwood Collection [1938] / ITV DVD:


Review Sony Pictures Home Entertainment / On The Waterfront [1954]
Actors & Directors
  • Elia Kazan
  • Pat Henning
  • Karl Malden
  • Lee J. Cobb
  • Marlon Brando
  • Rod Steiger
Release date: 2001-12-10
Run time: 103 min.
Creator: Malcolm Johnson
RRP: £19.99
Price: £3.42

Review On The Waterfront [1954] / Sony Pictures Home Entertainment:

Marlon Brando's famous "I coulda been a contenda" speech in On the Water Front is such a war horse by now that a lot of people probably feel they've seen the film already, even if they haven't. And many of those who have seen it may have forgotten how flat-out thrilling it is. For all its great dramatic and cinematic qualities, and its fiery social criticism, Elia Kazan's has created one of the most gripping melodramas of political corruption and individual heroism ever made in the United States, a five-star gut-grabber. Shot on location around the docks of Hoboken, New Jersey, in the mid-1950s, it tells the fact-based story of a longshoreman (Brando's Terry Malloy) who is blackballed and savagely beaten for informing against the mobsters who have taken over his union and sold it out to the bosses. (Karl Malden has a more conventional stalwart-hero role, as an idealistic priest who nurtures Terry's pangs of conscience. ) Lee J Cobb, who created the role of Willy Loman in Death of Salesman under Kazan's direction on Broadway, makes a formidable foe as a greedy union leader. -David Chute, Amazon. com.

Review Entertainment in Video / Deception [Blu-ray] [2008]
Actors & Directors
  • Hugh Jackman
  • Marcel Langenegger
  • Ewan McGregor
  • Michelle Williams
Release date: 2008-10-27
Run time: 107 min.
RRP: £17.99
Price: £11.98

Review Deception [Blu-ray] [2008] / Entertainment in Video:


Review Momentum Pictures / Flash Gordon [1980]
Actors & Directors
  • Mike Hodges
  • Ornella Muti
  • Melody Anderson
  • Sam J. Jones
  • Max von Sydow
  • Topol
Release date: 2002-03-25
Run time: 106 min.
Creator: Michael Allin
RRP: £15.99
Price: £4.99

Review Flash Gordon [1980] / Momentum Pictures:

When the totalitarian planet of Mongo decides on a whim to obliterate Earth, it's up to the quarterback Flash Gordon and his oddball companions to make the universe safe for democracy. Based on the classic (and infinitely more reputable) comic strip and its 1930s screen serialisation, this candy-coloured trash classic deserves immortality for Queen's unforgettably pulsating soundtrack alone. The legendary Max von Sydow appears to be having a blast as the evil Ming the Merciless, while Ornella Muti, as his daughter, is the living embodiment of what attracts adolescent boys to comics in the first place. (She makes Barbarella look mundane. ) One of the most shamelessly entertaining movies ever made, this is a knowingly absurd sensory freak-out that'll have the viewer blissfully checking the sky afterward for signs of Hawkmen. -Andrew Wright When the totalitarian planet of Mongo decides on a whim to obliterate Earth, it's up to the lunk-headed quarterback Flash Gordon and his oddball companions to make the universe safe for democracy. Flash Gordon is based on the classic (and infinitely more reputable) comic strip and its 30s screen serialisation, this cotton-candy-coloured trash classic deserves immortality for Queen's unforgettably pulsating soundtrack alone. The legendary Max von Sydow appears to be having a blast as the evil Ming the Merciless, while Ornella Muti, as his daughter, is the living embodiment of what attracts adolescent boys to comics in the first place. (She makes Barbarella look mundane. ) One of the most shamelessly entertaining movies ever made, this is a knowingly absurd sensory freak-out that'll have the viewer blissfully checking the sky afterward for signs of Hawkmen. [+]
-Andrew Wright, Amazon. com.

Review Warner Home Video / The Man Who Knew Too Little [1998] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Peter Gallagher
  • Alfred Molina
  • Bill Murray
  • Richard Wilson (II)
  • Jon Amiel
  • Joanne Whalley
Release date: 1998-03-25
Run time: 94 min.
Price: £3.09

Review The Man Who Knew Too Little [1998] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Warner Home Video:


Review MGM Entertainment / For Your Eyes Only [1981]
Actors & Directors
  • Julian Glover
  • Topol
  • John Glen
  • Lynn-Holly Johnson
  • Carole Bouquet
  • Roger Moore
Release date: 2003-11-03
Run time: 121 min.
Creator: Richard Maibaum
RRP: £19.99
Price: £11.95

Review For Your Eyes Only [1981] / MGM Entertainment:

After the lavish, effects-heavy splash of Moonraker, the twelfth Bond film and the seventh with Roger Moore concentrates more on core car-chase-and-crumpet values, evoking an almost retro feel that harks back to the first pressings of the Bond vintage in the 1960s. Starting to look a little wrinkly around the edges by this point, Roger Moore toughens his usually smarmy act up here with a gratuitous bit of killing, casually kicking a baddie and his car over a precipice, reviving memories of the ruthless streak with which Sean Connery made his name. Good old-fashioned Cold War politics lie at the heart of the plot, concerning a weapons system hijacked in the Mediterranean Bond must rescue. He's assisted by the exquisite Carole Bouquet, the only actress in history who can claim to have been both a 'Bond girl' and the star of a Luis Buñuel movie (That Obscure Object of Desire). Sadly, this is the first film to lack Bernard Lee's spymaster M, the actor having died beforehand, although British comedienne Janet Brown is on hand for an amusing Margaret Thatcher impersonation. -Leslie FelperinOn the DVD: The first audio commentary here is another one of those edited selections of interviews with sundry cast and crew members, tied together by an over-earnest host. Producer Michael G Wilson and others provide a somewhat more illuminating second commentary track. Once again the best extra feature is the "making of" documentary, which gives an almost scene-by-scene breakdown of the movie. The animated storyboard sequences will appeal to filmmaking aficionados. Avoid, if at all possible, the Sheena Easton video of arguably the most forgettable Bond song of all time (both song and score were perpetrated by series newcomer Bill Conti, not the estimable John Barry). [+]
-Mark Walker.

Review Momentum Pictures Home Ent / CSI: Crime Scene Investigation - Season 5 Complete
Release date: 2007-04-16
RRP: £59.99
Price: £39.37

Review CSI: Crime Scene Investigation - Season 5 Complete / Momentum Pictures Home Ent:


Review Guerilla Films / Nine Dead Gay Guys [2003]
Actors & Directors
  • Brendan Mackey
  • Steven Berkoff
  • Michael Praed
  • Glen Mulhern
  • Vas Blackwood
  • Lab Ky Mo
Release date: 2004-11-08
Run time: 90 min.
Creator: Lamia Nayeb-St. Hilaire
RRP: £12.99
Price: £3.97

Review Nine Dead Gay Guys [2003] / Guerilla Films:


Review Odeon Entertainment / Case Of The Frightened Lady
Actors & Directors
  • William Fox
  • George Cross
  • Kenneth Eaves
  • John Frasher
  • Terence de Marney
  • Edgar Wallace
Release date: 2008-02-25
Run time: 75 min.
RRP: £9.99
Price: £6.96

Review Case Of The Frightened Lady / Odeon Entertainment:


Review ITV DVD / A Town Like Alice [1956]
Actors & Directors
  • Jack Lee
  • Jean Anderson
  • Kenji Takaki
  • Peter Finch
  • Tran Van Khe
  • Virginia McKenna
Release date: 1999-10-11
Run time: 111 min.
Creator: W.P. Lipscomb
RRP: £9.99
Price: £3.99

Review A Town Like Alice [1956] / ITV DVD:

Although made in 1956, A Town Like Alice has remained enduringly effective and affecting. Based on Nevil Shute's novel the story revolves around a romance set against the unlikely backdrop of a forced march through the jungles of Malaysia by British prisoners-mostly women and children-captured by the invading forces of Japan. The title is a reference to the homesick yearnings of Australian soldier Joe Harman, played by Peter Finch. He forms a bond with one of the female prisoners, Jean Paget (Virginia McKenna), and their travails are depicted with a remarkable subtlety and commendable lack of corniness. It's a minor classic. On the DVD: The black-and-white picture is presented in 4:3 format, with English subtitles if required. Extra features include a 25-minute "making of" documentary, a collection of behind-the-scenes photographs, potted biographies of the cast and crew and the original trailer. -Andrew Mueller.

Review MGM / The Night Stalker/The Night Strangler (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Carol Lynley
  • Ralph Meeker
  • Darren McGavin
  • Jo Ann Pflug
  • Dan Curtis
  • John Llewellyn Moxey
  • Simon Oakland
Release date: 2004-08-24
Run time: 164 min.
Creator: Richard Matheson
Price: £6.00

Review The Night Stalker/The Night Strangler (REGION 1) (NTSC) / MGM:


Review Paramount Home Entertainment / War Of The Worlds - Dvd [1954]
Actors & Directors
  • Byron Haskin
  • Robert Cornthwaite
  • Ann Robinson
  • Gene Barry
  • Sandro Giglio
  • Les Tremayne
Release date: 2005-07-04
Run time: 82 min.
Creator: H.G. Wells
RRP: £19.99
Price: £3.01

Review War Of The Worlds - Dvd [1954] / Paramount Home Entertainment:

After the success of 1950's Destination Moon and 1951's When Worlds Collide, visionary producer George Pal brought the classic HG Wells story of a Martian invasion to the big screen, and it instantly became a science-fiction classic and winner of the 1953 Academy Award for Best Special Effects. It's a work of frightening imagination, with its manta-ray spaceships armed with cobra-like probes that shoot a white-hot disintegration ray. As formations of alien ships continue to wreak destruction around the globe, the military is helpless to stop this enemy while scientists race to find an effective weapon. Gene Barry and Ann Robinson play the hero and heroine roles that werede rigueur for movies like this in the 50s, and their encounter with one of the Martians is as creepy today as it was in 1953. It finally takes an unseen threat-simple Earth bacteria-to conquer the alien invaders, but not before War of the Worlds has provided a dazzling display of impressive visual and sound effects. This is a movie for the ages, the kind of spectacle that inspired little kids such as Steven Spielberg (not to mention Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin, whose Independence Day is a remake in all but name) and still packs a punch. -Jeff Shannon, Amazon. com.

Browse Crime, Thrillers & Mystery:

Models & Brands:
The January Man [1988], Snake Eyes [1998], Transformers - Season 2 - Vol. 2, Stephen King's Cat's Eye [1985], Time Without Pity [1957], Stormy Monday, The Big Lebowski [1998] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Heroes: Season 1 (REGION 1) (NTSC), Margaret Lockwood Collection [1938], On The Waterfront [1954], Deception [Blu-ray] [2008], Flash Gordon [1980], The Man Who Knew Too Little [1998] (REGION 1) (NTSC), For Your Eyes Only [1981], CSI: Crime Scene Investigation - Season 5 Complete, Nine Dead Gay Guys [2003], Case Of The Frightened Lady, A Town Like Alice [1956], The Night Stalker/The Night Strangler (REGION 1) (NTSC), War Of The Worlds - Dvd [1954]

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