Review, buy Crime, Thrillers & Mystery: James Bond - Goldfinger (Ultimate Edition 2 Disc Set) [1964], Rear Window [1954], Signs [DTS] [2002], Nick Of Time [1996], CSI: Crime Scene Investigation - New York - Season 1 Part 2, Harsh Times [2006], Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil [1998], Dead Of Night [1945], Agatha Christie's Poirot - Collection 3, Ocean's Twelve [HD DVD], Juice [1992] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Rear Window [1954], Dead Of Night [1945], Psycho (2 Disc Special Edition) [1960], Signs [DTS] [2002], Don't Say A Word [2002], Harsh Times [2006], Psycho (2 Disc Special Edition) [1960], Fatal Attraction [1987], Juice [1992] (REGION 1) (NTSC)

Like the Greenwich Village courtyard view from its titular portal, Alfred Hitchcock's classic Rear Window is both confined and multileveled: its story and visual perspective are dictated by its protagonist's imprisonment in his apartment, convalescing in a wheelchair, from which both he and the audience observe the lives of his neighbours. Cheerful voyeurism, as well as the behaviour glimpsed among the various tenants, affords a droll comic atmosphere that gradually darkens when he sees clues to what may be a murder. Photographer LB "Jeff" Jeffries (James Stewart) is, in fact, a voyeur by trade, a professional photographer sidelined by an accident while on assignment. His immersion in the human drama (and comedy) visible from his window is a by-product of boredom, underlined by the disapproval of his girlfriend, Lisa (Grace Kelly), and a wisecracking visiting nurse (Thelma Ritter). Yet when the invalid wife of Lars Thorwald (Raymond Burr) disappears, Jeff enlists the two women to help him to determine whether she's really left town, as Thorwald insists, or been murdered. Hitchcock scholar Donald Spoto convincingly argues that the crime at the centre of this mystery is the MacGuffin-a mere pretext-in a film that's more interested in the implications of Jeff's sentinel perspective. We actually learn more about the lives of the other neighbours (given generic names by Jeff, even as he's drawn into their lives) he, and we, watch undetected than we do the putative murderer and his victim. Jeff's evident fear of intimacy and commitment with the elegant, adoring Lisa provides the other vital thread to the script, one woven not only into the couple's own relationship, but reflected and even commented upon through the various neighbours' lives. At a minimum, Hitchcock's skill at making us accomplices to Jeff's spying, coupled with an ingenious escalation of suspense as the teasingly vague evidence coalesces into ominous proof, deliver a superb thriller spiked with droll humour, right up to its nail-biting, nightmarish climax. At deeper levels, however, Rear Window plumbs issues of moral responsibility and emotional honesty, while offering further proof (were any needed) of the director's brilliance as a visual storyteller. [+]

Director-writer M Night Shyamalan brings his distinctive, oblique approach to aliens in Signs after tackling ghosts (The Sixth Sense) and superheroes (Unbreakable). With Mel Gibson replacing Bruce Willis as the traditional Shyamalan hero-a family man traumatised by loss-and leaving urban Philadelphia for the Pennsylvania sticks, the film starts with crop circles showing up on the property Gibson shares with his ex-ballplayer brother (Joaquin Phoenix) and his two troubled pre-teen kids (pay attention-all these character quirks turn out to be important). Though the world outside is undergoing a crisis of Independence Day-sized proportions, Shyamalan limits the focus to this family, who retreat into their cellar when "intruders" arrive from lights in the sky and set out to "harvest" them. Just as Unbreakable slowly revealed itself to be Superman re-thought as an intense personal drama, this is The Birds redone as a religious drama of faith lost and perhaps regained. The tone is less certain than the earlier films-some of the laughs seem unintentional and Gibson's performance isn't quite on a level with Willis's commitment-but Shyamalan still directs the suspense and shock dramas better than anyone else. On the DVD: Signs has THX-certified Dolby Digital Surround Sound which reproduces in the home exactly as the scary sounds that creeped you out in the cinema. A selection of deleted scenes are mostly tiny, but there's a self-reflexive joke (wisely dropped but worth preserving) as Gibson wishes his dead wife were here in the crisis because she was so smart: "She always knew how movies would end. " A six-part making-of goes deeper than the usual puff-piece, including an interesting alternative to a commentary track as Shyamalan talks through a précis of clips and on-set snippets. A tradition continued from the Sixth Sense and Unbreakable DVDs is an extract from Pictures, "Night's first alien film". It's a teenage camcorder effort in which the future A-list Hollywoodian is menaced by a tiny Halloween-masked robot. [+]

Bleak as its South Central Los Angeles setting, Harsh Times is like a suicidal vortex swallowing men who ought to know better but can't stop their self-destruction. Christian Bale stars as Jim Davis, a stressed-out, former Army Ranger who becomes a very bad influence on his weak-willed buddy, Mike Alvarez (Freddy Rodriguez of Six Feet Under). Together the two meander through streets at night, getting drunk and stoned, finding trouble for its own sake and inviting danger as a ritual of machismo bonding. Mike's wife, Sylvia (Eva Longoria), a lawyer whom Mike, working as a telemarketer, put through school, is repelled by Jim and watches in pain as her spouse chooses a downward spiral over renewal and redemption with her. When Jim's application to join the L. A. police is turned down, he leads Mike into pure anarchy. An impractical change of fortune doesn't help any, and first-time director David Ayer, who wrote the screenplay for Harsh Times years before his script for Training Day, goes to some lengths, dramatically and visually, to convey Jim's unhinged condition. The dreariness of it all, and a sense that Bale has constructed-but not exactly lived in-another in his gallery of lost, misfit souls, makes it hard to connect with this film. Still, it is hard to turn away from these desperate and dangerous characters. [+]

Readers of John Berendt's bestselling novel, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, were bound to be at least somewhat disappointed by this big-screen adaptation, but despite mixed reaction from critics and audiences, there's still plenty to admire about director Clint Eastwood's take on the material. Readers will surely miss the rich atmosphere and societal detail that Berendt brought to his "Savannah story," and the movie can only scratch the surface of Georgian history, tradition and wealthy decadence underlying Berendt's fact-based murder mystery. Still, Eastwood maintains an assured focus on the wonderful eccentrics of Savannah, most notably a gay Savannah antiques dealer (superbly played by Kevin Spacey), who may or may not have killed his friend and alleged lover (Jude Law). John Cusack plays the Town & Country journalist who arrives in Savannah to find much more than he bargained for-including the city's legendary drag queen Lady Chablis (playing "herself")-and John Lee Hancock's smoothly adapted screenplay succeeds in bringing Berendt's characters vividly to life with plenty of flavourful dialogue. -Jeff Shannon.

While horror conventions may change from generation to generation, there are ideas that will scare us no matter what time period we inhabit. Dead of Night is a classic horror anthology that effectively plays on those timeless fears. Mervyn Johns stars as a man who has been summoned to a house with a group of strangers he has never met but has seen in his dreams. As they convene, he predicts certain events will happen as they do in his dreams and when they do, the other guests relate their own experiences with the supernatural, including tales of a possessed mirror, a sinister ventriloquist's dummy and an eerie premonition of death. Throughout the group meeting, the protagonist fears something horrible will happen to him and we are left to wonder what it might be. The film's final, revelatory sequence offers an unexpectedly horrific surprise. It may have been made in 1945 but Dead of Night is still spooky. -Bryan Reesman The Ealing Classics Collection presents four films from the great British studio, which, unlike the two sets devoted to Ealing Comedy, have at first glance little in common. Apart from many of the same names before and behind the cameras, what really connects Went the Day Well? (1942), Dead of Night (1945), Nicholas Nickleby (1947) and Scott of the Antarctic (1948) is Ealing's commitment to well-written, high-quality drama realised with the best possible production values. British patriotism at its best links Went the Day Well? with Scott of the Antarctic. [+]

The former is a wartime propaganda morale-booster that doesn't shirk from showing the cost of the conflict, but provides genuine excitement as a small German advance force take over a Midlands village-a plot later reworked in The Eagle Has Landed (1977). Director Alberto Cavalcanti handles events with neo-documentary efficiency and William Walton's score cannot fail to stir. No less a composer than Vaughan Williams scored Scott, delivering one of the finest in film history, while Ealing spared no expense on Technicolor location filming. The result is occasionally too tableau-like and historically inaccurate-the mini-series Shackleton (2002) is more commendable in this respect-but remains a gripping and ultimately very moving drama. The darker side of life is explored by Cavalcanti in a suitably stark version of Charles Dickens' Nicholas Nickleby, a film unfortunately overshadowed by David Lean's double whammy of Great Expectations (1946) and Oliver Twist (1948). Here Derek Bond is fine as Nicholas and a superb supporting cast, including Cedric Hardwicke and Stanley Holloway, ensure this is a first-rate production. Dead of Night offers one of the earliest examples of the anthology horror film, all wrapped in a decades-ahead-of-its-time framing narrative that nightmarishly twists reality inside-out. Most famous is the sequence with Michael Redgrave as a ventriloquist possessed by his own dummy, an idea later expanded to feature length with Anthony Hopkins in Magic (1978). Still unsettling six decades on, this all-time horror classic is only marred by a terrible comedy golf skit. On the DVD Ealing Classics presents each film on its own DVD without extras. All four are in the original 4:3 ratio, in black and white, apart from Scott of the Antarctic. The audio is functional mono, and, while dialogue and sound effects are very clear, the music tracks are often distorted. Picture quality is very variable, with Went the Day Well? being taken from an excellent print. Dead of Night, though, is constantly beset by small sparkles, with much more serious print damage being in evidence, making this a very below-par presentation for such a classic film. Nicholas Nickleby ranks somewhere in between, with a print showing various forms of constant but minor damage and offering a rather indistinct image in the darker scenes. The big budget Technicolor of Scott of the Antarctic is a little muted and the many snow scenes show a considerable amount of grain, but otherwise the print is in very good condition. -Gary S Dalkin.

Like its predecessor Ocean's Eleven, Ocean's Twelve has a preposterous plot given juice and vitality by the combination of movie star glamour and the exuberant filmmaking skill of director Steven Soderbergh (Out of Sight, The Limey). The heist hijinks of the first film come to roost for a team of eleven thieves (including the glossy mugs of Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Bernie Mac, and Don Cheadle), who find themselves pursued not only by the guy they robbed (silky Andy Garcia), but also by a top-notch detective (plush Catherine Zeta-Jones) and a jealous master thief (well-oiled Vincent Cassel) who wants to prove that team leader Danny Ocean (dapper George Clooney) isn't the best in the field. As if all that star power weren't enough-and the eternally coltish Julia Roberts also returns as Ocean's wife-one movie star cameo raises the movie's combined wattage to absurd proportions. But all these handsome faces are matched by Soderbergh's visual flash, cunning editing, and excellent use of Amsterdam, Paris, and Rome, among other highly decorative locations. The whole affair should collapse under the weight of its own silliness, but somehow it doesn't-the movie's raffish spirit and offhand wit soar along, providing lightweight but undeniably enjoyable entertainment. -Bret Fetzer.

For all the slasher pictures that have ripped off Psycho (and particularly its classic set piece, the "shower scene"), nothing has ever matched the impact of the real thing. More than just a first-rate shocker full of thrills and suspense, Psycho is also an engrossing character study in which director Alfred Hitchcock skillfully seduces you into identifying with the main characters-then pulls the rug (or the bathmat) out from under you. Anthony Perkins is unforgettable as Norman Bates, the mama's boy proprietor of the Bates Motel; and so is Janet Leigh as Marion Crane, who makes an impulsive decision and becomes a fugitive from the law, hiding out at Norman's roadside inn for one fateful night. Psycho gets the masterpiece treatment it deserves on DVD. -Jim Emerson.

Adapted from Andrew Klavan's bestselling suspense novel, Don't Say a Word is a suitable companion to director Gary Fleder's earlier hit Kiss the Girls, with solid performances serving a plot that begins promisingly. The tension starts when the daughter of a top-notch New York psychiatrist (Michael Douglas) is kidnapped by a bitter ex-con (Sean Bean) with an old score to settle. Aided by an unwitting colleague (Oliver Platt), Douglas can save his daughter by extracting crucial information from a traumatised patient (Brittany Murphy), while his bedridden wife (Famke Janssen) and a tenacious detective (Jennifer Esposito) do their part to solve the mystery. Fleder pushes all the routine buttons with effectively sombre style and Don't Say a Word will satisfy anyone with a preference for high-anxiety thrillers. Even as it grows increasingly conventional, it's still entertaining without being particularly original. As a by-the-book programmer, it's just right for rainy-day viewing. -Jeff Shannon.

Fatal Attraction was the most controversial hit of 1987, a film nominated for six Oscars that launched a whole up-market psycho sub-genre. In an elaboration of Play Misty for Me (1971), Michael Douglas plays a married middle-class everyman who has an opportunistic weekend affair with New York publishing executive, Glenn Close. The twist is that Close's Alex is a borderline psychotic. She won't let go, and the film moves from a study of modern sexual mores to an increasingly tense thriller about neurotic obsession. The performances are exceptional and two set-pieces, one which gave us the term "Bunny Boiler" and another in a fairground, provide metaphorical and literal rollercoaster rides. Only a laughable sex scene-in a sink, anyone?-and a melodramatic finale shamelessly ripping-off the 1955 French classic Les Diaboliques and Psycho (1960) prevent a good thriller being a great one. Even so, Fatal Attraction is still a film worth seeing again, even if it's hard to wonder what all the fuss was about in 1987. On the DVD: Fatal Attraction on disc has a new 28-minute documentary featuring the principal players explaining how wonderful each other are. More substantial is a 19-minute feature on creating the visual look, with sections on cinematography, costume and make-up design. A worthwhile 10-minute piece examines the social impact of the movie and the controversy it generated. [+]

Seven minutes of the three stars in rehearsal is intriguing, but more interesting is the opportunity to see the original, low-key ending, rejected after test screenings. Much of the best documentary material focuses on how the finally released ending came about, while Lyne's commentary is thoughtful and illuminating. The original trailer is included and there are 16 sets of subtitles, including English for the hard of hearing, as well as an alternative German dub. The sound has been remixed from stereo into a subtly involving Dolby Digital 5. 1, and the 1. 78:1 anamorphic transfer looks fine, though there is some very minor print damage. -Gary S Dalkin.

Review James Bond - Goldfinger (Ultimate Edition 2 Disc Set) [1964] / Mgm Home Ent. (Europe) Ltd.:

Review Rear Window [1954] / Universal Pictures UK:

Review Signs [DTS] [2002] / Touchstone Home Video:

Review Nick Of Time [1996] / Paramount Home Entertainment:

Review CSI: Crime Scene Investigation - New York - Season 1 Part 2 / Momentum Pictures:

Review Harsh Times [2006] / Pathe Distribution Ltd:

Review Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil [1998] / Warner Home Video:

Review Dead Of Night [1945] / Optimum Home Entertainment:

Review Agatha Christie's Poirot - Collection 3 / ITV DVD:

Review Ocean's Twelve [HD DVD] / Warner Home Video:

Review Juice [1992] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Paramount:

Review Rear Window [1954] / Universal Pictures UK:

Review Dead Of Night [1945] / Optimum Home Entertainment:

Review Psycho (2 Disc Special Edition) [1960] / Universal Pictures UK:

Review Signs [DTS] [2002] / Touchstone Home Video:

Review Don't Say A Word [2002] / 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment:

Review Harsh Times [2006] / Pathe Distribution Ltd:

Review Psycho (2 Disc Special Edition) [1960] / Universal Pictures UK:

Review Fatal Attraction [1987] / Paramount Home Entertainment:

Review Juice [1992] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Paramount: