Actors & Directors
- Martin Campbell
- Pierce Brosnan
- Izabella Scorupco
- Famke Janssen
- Sean Bean
- Joe Don Baker
Release date: 2003-11-03 Run time: 124 min. Creator: Michael France RRP: £19.99 Price: £5.00
Review Goldeneye [1995] / MGM Entertainment:Pierce Brosnan assumed the role of James Bond for the first time in Goldeneye, the 17th entry in the series. Brosnan looks a little light on the big screen under any circumstances, and he does take some getting used to as 007. But this busy film keeps him hopping as freelance terrorists from the former Soviet Union get their hands on super-high-tech weapons. The film's challenge is to bring free-spirited Bond up to date in the age of AIDS and in the aftermath of the cold war: director Martin Campbell (The Mask of Zorro) succeeds on both counts with a cheeky hint of irony. The best moment in the film is a chase scene that finds Bond tearing up the streets of Moscow in a tank. But Brosnan's most interesting contributions are reminiscent of the dark streak that occasionally showed up in Sean Connery's Bond. -Tom Keogh.
Actors & Directors
- Senta Berger
- Michael Anderson
- Max Von Sydow
- Alec Guinness
- Robert Flemyng
- George Segal
Release date: 2006-05-08 Run time: 107 min. RRP: £9.99 Price: £6.80
Review The Quiller Memorandum [1966] / Network:
Actors & Directors
- Jake Gyllenhaal
- Dennis Quaid
- Dash Mihok
- Roland Emmerich
- Emmy Rossum
- Jay O. Sanders
Release date: 2004-10-18 Run time: 124 min. Creator: Jeffrey Nachmanoff RRP: £24.99 Price: £2.98
Review The Day After Tomorrow - Two Disc Edition [2004] / 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment:Turning pressing environmental issues into the theme of a big summer blockbuster, you can't say that director Roland Emmerich isn't willing to take his chances. And while The Day After Tomorrow does ask you to suspend fair chunks of disbelief, it is both a spectacle and a worthwhile blockbuster to expend your time in front of. Starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Dennis Quaid, The Day After Tomorrow is the silly-but-fun story of a new ice age arriving pretty much overnight. In the midst of it all is a father-saving-son tale, that takes little time to be reduced to the background in favour of an all-out special effects assault. And what an assault. Criticise the story all you like, but as spectacle, The Day After Tomorrow has few equals. From extreme weather effects to the site of familiar landmarks under mountains of ice, the budget was clearly high, and it's all there on the screen. This is, of course, where the joy of high definition kicks in. The Blu-ray-driven, 1080p picture is simply stunning, and The Day After Tomorrow benefits heavily from it. As a film, it still has its flaws, but it's still good fun, and it's one mighty workout for your home cinema rig too. [+]
-Jon Foster.
Actors & Directors
- Clifton Collins Jr.
- Renny Harlin
- LL Cool J
- Kathryn Morris
- Jonny Lee Miller
- Patricia Velasquez
Release date: 2005-10-17 Run time: 101 min. RRP: £19.99 Price: £0.97
Review Mindhunters [2005] / Sony Pictures Home Entertainment:Creepy, tense and enigmatic, Renny Harlin's Mindhunters is a grizzly cross between Agatha Christie's whodunnit classic And Then There Were None and Jonathan Demme's horrifying The Silence of the Lambs. An interesting ensemble cast including Christian Slater (Windtalkers), Jonny Lee Miller (Trainspotting), L. L. Cool J (Harlin's Deep Blue Sea)and Kathryn Morris (television's Cold Case) portray promising FBI profilers-in-training. Val Kilmer plays their ambiguous instructor putting the candidates through their paces and leaving them for a weekend on a spooky island, where those who survive a terrifying exercise-penetrating the mind of a serial killer via elaborate clues-will go to the head of the class. But the rules change when the students themselves turn out to be victims, bumped off one after another, the survivors half-mad with suspicion and paranoia that the murderer is one of their own. The film's concept is sound even if the execution (so to speak) gets out of hand with problems of logic. Among other things, none of these characters could possibly find time to pull off some of the psychopath's more complicated killing rituals. Quibbles aside, however, Mindhunters is particularly watchable if one is in the mood for a movie that plays mind games. -Tom Keogh.
Actors & Directors
- Jenny Agutter
- John Lafia
- Jack Bender
- Brad Dourif
- Alex Vincent
- Don Mancini
- Jennifer Tilly
- John Waters
- Ronny Yu
Release date: 2006-09-19 Run time: 350 min. Creator: David Kirschner Price: £8.58
Review Chucky - The Killer DVD Collection [1991] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Universal Studios:
Actors & Directors
- Paul Giamatti
- Monica Bellucci
- Michael Davis
- Clive Owen
Release date: 2008-01-21 Run time: 83 min. RRP: £24.99 Price: £7.98
Review Shoot 'Em Up [Blu-ray] [2007] / Entertainment in Video:Clive Owen, Monica Bellucci, Paul Giamatti, Greg Bryk, Stephen McHattie, Ramona Pringle
Actors & Directors
- Moisés Kaufman
- Laura Linney
- Peter Fonda
- Steve Buscemi
- Kathleen Chalfant
- Christina Ricci
Release date: 2008-03-17 Run time: 91 min. Creator: John McAdams RRP: £9.99 Price: £1.92
Review The Laramie Project [2001] / Uca:Even though The Laramie Project has been edited down from almost three hours (the original length of the play) to a lean 96 minutes, the harrowing nature of the subject matter-the brutal murder of Matthew Shepard-and the clarity of the voices of the inhabitants of Laramie, Wyoming, give this film a remarkable emotional power. The Laramie Project was created from over 200 interviews conducted with Laramie residents before, during, and after the trials of the two boys who killed Shepard; the interviews create an amazing cross-section of American views on homosexuality, religion, class, privacy, and so much more besides. Even though it features an all-star cast-Steve Buscemi, Janeane Garofalo, Christina Ricci, Peter Fonda, and Laura Linney are only a few of the recognisable faces-the material has not been glamorised and the performances are both honest and intimate. Even abbreviated, it's a remarkable piece of work. -Bret Fetzer.
Actors & Directors
- Gabriele Ferzetti
- Peter R. Hunt
- George Lazenby
- Ilse Steppat
- Diana Rigg
- Telly Savalas
Release date: 2003-11-03 Run time: 136 min. Creator: Simon Raven RRP: £19.99 Price: £15.80
Review On Her Majesty's Secret Service [1969] / MGM Entertainment:Australian model George Lazenby took up the mantle of the world's most suave secret agent when Sean Connery retired as James Bond-prematurely, it turned out. Connery returned in Diamonds Are Forever before leaving the role to Roger Moore, and Lazenby's subsequent career fizzled, yet this one-hit wonder is responsible for one of the best Bond films. In On Her Majesty's Secret Service, 007 leaves the Service to privately pursue his SPECTRE nemesis Blofeld (played this time by Telly Savalas), whose latest master plan threatens the world's crops with agricultural sterilisation. Bond teams up with smooth international crime-lord Draco (Gabriele Ferzetti) and falls in love with-and marries-his elegant daughter, Tracy (Diana Rigg). Bond monogamous? Not at first; after all he has Blofeld's harem to seduce. Lazenby hasn't the intensity of Connery but he has fun with his quips and even lampoons the Bond image in a playful pre-credits sequence. Rigg, fresh from playing sexy Emma Peel in The Avengers, matches 007 in every way. Former editor Peter Hunt makes a strong directorial debut, deftly handling the elaborate action sequences with a kinetic finesse and a dash of humour. Though not a hit on its original release, On Her Majesty's Secret Service has become a fan favourite and the closest the series has come to capturing the spirit of Ian Fleming's books. -Sean Axmaker, Amazon. [+]
com - On the DVD: Affable and intelligent director Peter Hunt explains his ambition to take the series back to the original spirit of Fleming's books with this instalment. Out of all the Bond DVDs, his commentary track-interspliced with comments from other cast and crew members-is one of the most entertaining and informative as he chuckles over some of his more felicitous touches. Although sadly Diana Rigg is absent from the "making of" featurette, an older and wiser George Lazenby reveals how he acquired one of Connery's suits and went to the same barber in order to make himself look credible for the part. Hunt and others are disarmingly frank about how Lazenby's arrogance on set won him few friends. The late lamented Desmond Llewelyn, who played the boffin "Q", presents an amusing guide to the greatest gadgets of the series and explains how he can barely work a can opener in real life. The rest of the technical features are all present and correct and up to this series' usual high standards. -Leslie Felperin.
Actors & Directors
- Herbert Ross
- Fiona Shaw
- Larry Miller
- Dennis Quaid
- Stanley Tucci
- Kathleen Turner
Release date: 2003-07-14 Run time: 86 min. Creator: Ian Abrams RRP: £12.99 Price: £2.98
Review Undercover Blues [1993] / MGM Entertainment:
Actors & Directors
- Dylan Walsh
- Laura Linney
- Frank Marshall
- Tim Curry
- Grant Heslov
- Ernie Hudson
Release date: 2000-07-31 Run time: 104 min. Creator: Michael Crichton RRP: £12.99 Price: £3.98
Review Congo - Dvd [1995] / Paramount Home Entertainment:This is a terrible movie. Frank Marshall (Arachnophobia) demonstrates no control over story, actors, effects or general presentation in this adaptation of a Michael Crichton novel about an expedition into deep, dark Africa that runs into an unknown race of killer apes. The big monkeys attack and attack and attack and have to be fought off with machine guns and lasers-that's pretty much the story, except there's probably an even better one behind "fourth Ghostbuster" Ernie Hudson's bizarre decision to speak with a British accent. While Marshall wants us to root for the human characters, they're all so obnoxious and unbelievable you can't help but feel lousy for the poor apes when they get chopped to bits just for defending their homes against these twerps. If you're not feeling enough environmentalist ire these days, watch this and get angry. -Tom Keogh.
Actors & Directors
- Michael Balfour
- Gil Winfield
- Terry Kilburn
- Shane Cordell
- Marshall Thompson
- Arthur Crabtree
Release date: 2003-06-30 Run time: 71 min. Creator: Herbert J. Leder RRP: £9.99 Price: £9.99
Review Fiend Without A Face [1958] / 2 Entertain Video:Few 1950s creature features deliver in the way Fiend Without a Face does. The first hour is all build-up as tension grows between an Air Force research base and a small Canadian town (this is one of those British B films that pretends to be set overseas) as a series of mystery deaths are blamed by the superstitious on weird military experiments. It's not a spoiler to give away the big revelation, since every item of publicity material, including the DVD cover, blows the surprise: the initially invisible culprits turn out to be a killer swarm of disembodied brains with eyes on stalks and inchworm-like spinal cord tails. These creatures have a nasty habit of latching onto victims and sucking out their grey matter. The finale is a siege of a house by the fiends, which swarm en masse making unsettling brain-sucking sounds, and are bloodily done away with by the heroes. Using excellent stop-motion animation, this climax goes beyond silliness and manages to be genuinely nightmarish. The orgy of splattering brains stands proud among the cinema's first attempts at genuine horror-comic glee, setting a precedent for everything from The Evil Dead to Peter Jackson's Braindead. Marshall Thompson is a bland, stolid uniformed hero and most of the rest of the cast struggle with "anadian" accents, but Kynaston Reeves is fun as the decrepit lone researcher whose fault it all is. On the DVD: Fiend Without a Face on disc comes with a montage of scenes from other films in this batch of releases (The Day of the Triffids, The Stars Look Down) that plays automatically when the disc is inserted, but otherwise not even a trailer, much less the commentary track and other material found on the pricey but luxurious US Region 1 Criterion release. The print has nice contrasts but is pretty grainy. [+]
-Kim Newman.
Actors & Directors
- Pierre Benedetti
- Sirpa Lane
- Walerian Borowczyk
- Lisbeth Hummel
- Elisabeth Kaza
- Marie Testanière
Release date: 2001-11-19 Run time: 93 min. RRP: £10.99 Price: £4.69
Review The Beast - (La Bete) [2001] / Nouveaux Pictures:
Actors & Directors
- Corin Nemec
- Yancy Butler
- Michael Jeter
- John Badham
- Wesley Snipes
- Gary Busey
Release date: 2000-06-05 Run time: 97 min. Creator: Tony Griffin RRP: £12.99 Price: £3.48
Review Drop Zone [1995] / Paramount Home Entertainment:
Actors & Directors
- Alfred Hitchcock
- Farley Granger
- John Dall
- Cedric Hardwicke
- James Stewart
- Constance Collier
Release date: 2007-06-04 Run time: 77 min. RRP: £9.99 Price: £4.22
Review Rope [1948] / Universal Pictures UK:An experimental film masquerading as a standard Hollywood thriller. The plot of Rope is simple and based on a successful stage play: two young men (John Dall and Farley Granger) commit murder, more or less as an intellectual exercise. They hide the body in their large apartment, then throw a dinner party. Will the body be discovered? Director Alfred Hitchcock, fascinated by the possibilities of the long-take style, decided to shoot this story as though it were happening in one long, uninterrupted shot. Since the camera can only hold one 10-minute reel at a time, Hitchcock had to be creative when it came time to change reels, disguising the switches as the camera passed behind someone's back or moved behind a lamp. In later years Hitchcock wrote off the approach as misguided, and Rope may not be one of Hitchcock's top movies, but it's still a nail-biter. They don't call him the Master of Suspense for nothing. James Stewart, as a suspicious professor, marks his first starring role for Hitchcock, a collaboration that would lead to the masterpieces Rear Window and Vertigo. -Robert Horton.
Actors & Directors
- Bruce Malmuth
- David Greenlee
- Christopher Leitch
- Ren Woods
- Bethany Rooney
- Daniel Attias
- Jason Allen
- Cory Danziger
- Ritch Brinkley
- Alan Cooke
Release date: 2008-09-30 Run time: 2654 min. Price: £59.15
Review Beauty and the Beast: The Complete Series (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Paramount:
Actors & Directors
- John Strickland
- Robert Pugh
- Cherie Lunghi
- Keeley Hawes
- Geraldine McEwan
- Christian Coulson
Release date: 2006-03-20 Run time: 94 min. RRP: £9.99 Price: £1.00
Review Agatha Christie : Miss Marple - A Murder Is Announced / ITV DVD:
Actors & Directors
- Michael Gleason
- Pierce Brosnan
- Stephanie Zimbalist
Release date: 2007-03-12 Run time: 1035 min. Creator: Robert Butler RRP: £29.99 Price: £21.81
Review Remington Steele - Series 1 - Complete [1983] / 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment:
Actors & Directors
- Johnny Venocur
- John Vernon
- Robert Dryer
- Linda Blair
- Danny Steinmann
- Sal Landi
Release date: 2008-09-23 Run time: 93 min. Creator: Norman Yonemoto Price: £8.18
Review Savage Streets: Special Edition [1983] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / BCI, a Navarre Corporation Company:
Actors & Directors
- Teddy Dunn
- Guy Norman Bee
- Jason Dohring
- Marcos Siega
- John T. Kretchmer
- Harry Winer
- Kristen Bell
- Francis Capra
- Percy Daggs III
- David Barrett
Release date: 2005-10-11 Run time: 935 min. Price: £27.13
Review Veronica Mars: The Complete First Season [2005] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Warner Home Video:
Actors & Directors
- Scott Bakula
- Kevin J. O'Connor
- Joseph Latimore
- J. Trevor Edmond
- Daniel von Bargen
- Clive Barker
Release date: 2000-06-19 Run time: 116 min. Creator: Steve Golin RRP: £15.99 Price: £2.79
Review Lord Of Illusions [1995] / MGM Entertainment:
| Browse Crime, Thrillers & Mystery:
Models & Brands: Goldeneye [1995], The Quiller Memorandum [1966], The Day After Tomorrow - Two Disc Edition [2004], Mindhunters [2005], Chucky - The Killer DVD Collection [1991] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Shoot 'Em Up [Blu-ray] [2007], The Laramie Project [2001], On Her Majesty's Secret Service [1969], Undercover Blues [1993], Congo - Dvd [1995], Fiend Without A Face [1958], The Beast - (La Bete) [2001], Drop Zone [1995], Rope [1948], Beauty and the Beast: The Complete Series (REGION 1) (NTSC), Agatha Christie : Miss Marple - A Murder Is Announced, Remington Steele - Series 1 - Complete [1983], Savage Streets: Special Edition [1983] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Veronica Mars: The Complete First Season [2005] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Lord Of Illusions [1995] |