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Review 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment / Breakdown [1998]
Actors & Directors
  • M.C. Gainey
  • Kurt Russell
  • J.T. Walsh
  • Jonathan Mostow
  • Kathleen Quinlan
  • Jack Noseworthy
Release date: 2003-06-30
Run time: 89 min.
Creator: Sam Montgomery
RRP: £5.99
Price: £3.30

Review Breakdown [1998] / 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment:

Tautly directed and superbly photographed, this crowd-pleasing thriller from 1997 is indebted to Steven Spielberg's Duel but more closely resembles Dead Calm in its strengths and weaknesses. Kurt Russell plays a stressed-out husband whose wife (Kathleen Quinlan) disappears after their car breaks down in the desert. Tracking down her whereabouts leads to an interstate theft and kidnapping ring, and as Russell pursues-and is pursued by-a vicious redneck played to perfection by J T Walsh (in one of his final film roles), the movie succumbs to several tense but utterly conventional action sequences. That doesn't stop the movie from being an above-average nail-biter. It is so effectively directed by co-writer Jonathan Mostow that even the more surreal situations seem plausible and altogether unsettling. Russell's performance is key to the film's success-he's smart enough to be admirable and we can readily identify with his frustration, confusion and torment. Through him, Breakdown takes on the edgy quality of a wide-awake nightmare. -Jeff Shannon The sinister side of the divide between urban and rural America has inspired countless film makers and, although by no means original, Breakdown is a tense and at times dark example of the genre. Travelling to California to start a new life, Jeff and Amy Taylor are the perfect American couple, young, prosperous and devoted to each other. When they find themselves stranded in the desert following the breakdown of their car their dream descends into a vicious nightmare. [+]
With his wife disappearing into what seems like thin air, Taylor becomes embroiled in an increasingly desperate to rescue her: repeatedly facing a wall of silence from the local community. Kurt Russell handles the role well, comfortable with the numerous action sequences but also adept at portraying Taylor's increasing mental anxiety in the kind of role perhaps more associated with the likes of Harrison Ford (a man who loses his wife more often than you or I might lose our car keys). The locals, led in suitably sinister form by the excellent JT Walsh, are a straight out of Deliverance-presented as dumb hicks but also capable of organising a complex kidnap. The film zips by at a pace, dwelling briefly but effectively on the astonishing number of people who go missing each year before culminating in a high-action, edge-of-the-seat climax. Not rocket science but fun all the same. On the DVD: Breakdown has a suitably epic feel thanks to the vast expanses of desert, and the picture quality on the DVD and the soundtrack's clear effects do much to enhance this perception. Extras are kept to the bare minimum, with the standard chapter and subtitle selection all that is on offer. -Phil Udell.

Review ITV DVD / The Malta Story [1953]
Actors & Directors
  • Alec Guinness
  • Anthony Steel
  • Jack Hawkins
  • Renée Asherson
  • Brian Desmond Hurst
  • Muriel Pavlow
Release date: 2004-05-17
Run time: 99 min.
Creator: William Fairchild
RRP: £9.99
Price: £3.66

Review The Malta Story [1953] / ITV DVD:


Review Momentum Pictures Home Ent / Virgin Territory [2007]
Actors & Directors
  • David Leland
  • Rupert Friend
  • Hayden Christensen
  • Mischa Barton
  • Tim Roth
Release date: 2008-08-25
Run time: 97 min.
RRP: £15.99
Price: £4.16

Review Virgin Territory [2007] / Momentum Pictures Home Ent:


Review Universal Pictures UK / Hells Angels
Actors & Directors
  • Ben Lyon
  • James Hall
  • John Darrow
  • Lucien Prival
  • Howard Hughes
  • Jean Harlow
Release date: 2005-06-13
Run time: 126 min.
RRP: £5.99
Price: £4.15

Review Hells Angels / Universal Pictures UK:

Two bright facets light up Hell's Angels, a 1930s aviation melodrama. One is the extraordinary footage re-creating World War I air battles; the other is 18-year-old Jean Harlow. Both are enough to offset the cornball story and stilted dialogue, the latter added late in production, with the advent of motion-picture sound. The movie, almost three years in the making, with a budget of nearly $4 million-very high for its day-was the obsession of eccentric millionaire director Howard Hughes. Apparently, the authenticity of the dogfight scenes was so important to Hughes that he piloted a plane himself, and ended up breaking a few bones in the process. More shocking, it's said that three pilots lost their lives making the movie. The sequence depicting an epic encounter between the British Royal Flying Corps and a German zeppelin is especially stunning, thanks to the eye-popping use of hand tinting. A bombing raid on a German munitions depot is also remarkably convincing. The movie's other bombshell, Jean Harlow, fairly jumps off the screen as an upper-class floozy who plays fast and loose with the two leading men, RFC pilots Monte and Roy Rutledge (Ben Lyon and James Hall), one a scoundrel and one a saint. Harlow glows in the film-it's immediately obvious why her appearance here put her on the fast track to Hollywood stardom. [+]
Beauty, sex appeal, vulnerability, audacity-whatever the intangible something is that makes a movie star, it's clear Harlow had it, even as a teenager. -Laura Mirsky.

Review Sony Pictures Home Entertainment / A Few Good Men [1993]
Actors & Directors
  • Demi Moore
  • Kevin Bacon
  • Jack Nicholson
  • Tom Cruise
  • Rob Reiner
  • Kiefer Sutherland
Release date: 2002-02-18
Run time: 132 min.
Creator: Aaron Sorkin
RRP: £19.99
Price: £2.25

Review A Few Good Men [1993] / Sony Pictures Home Entertainment:

Astonishingly, Jack Nicholson's legendary performance as a military tough guy in A Few Good Men really amounts to a glorified cameo: he's only in a few scenes. But they're killer scenes, and the film has much more to offer. A US soldier is dead, and military lawyers Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee (Tom Cruise) and Lieutenant Commander JoAnne Galloway (Demi Moore) want to know who killed him. "You want the truth?" snaps Colonel Jessup (Nicholson). "You can't handle the truth!". Cruise also shines as a lazy lawyer who rises to the occasion, and Demi Moore gives a command performance. Kevin Bacon, Kiefer Sutherland, JT Walsh and Cuba Gooding Jr round out the superb cast. Director Rob Reiner poses important questions about the rights of the powerful and the responsibilities of those just following orders in this classic courtroom drama. -Alan Smithee, Amazon. com.

Review Warner Home Video / The Bucket List [Blu-ray] [2008]
Actors & Directors
  • Sean Hayes
  • Jack Nicholson
  • Beverly Todd
  • Morgan Freeman
  • Rob Reiner
Release date: 2008-07-07
Run time: 93 min.
RRP: £26.99
Price: £16.98

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

"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 Jack Nicholson, Morgan Freeman, Sean Hayes.

Review Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainm / Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind [2003]
Actors & Directors
  • Sam Rockwell
  • Maggie Gyllenhaal
  • Drew Barrymore
  • George Clooney
  • Dick Clark
Release date: 2003-12-29
Run time: 113 min.
RRP: £14.99
Price: £3.45

Review Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind [2003] / Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainm:

Showbiz autobiographies don't come any stranger than Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, a fractured kaleidoscope of film styles-from sitcom to paranoid horror-accompanied by an infectious musical mosaic. It's based on a memoir by Chuck Barris-the mastermind behind The Dating Game (the format we know in the UK as Blind Date) and The Gong Show-which interweaves a fairly straight account of his toils in the television industry with outrageous fictions about his secret life as a CIA hit man. First-time director George Clooney takes Barris' bizarre book and-working with screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, who similarly mutated the truth in Adaptation-makes an extraordinary picture, with an awards-quality performance from Sam Rockwell as Barris. Clooney takes the secondary role of Barris' enigmatic boss, and there's sterling work from Drew Barrymore as Barris' ditzy regular girlfriend and Julia Roberts as an espionage dragon lady. It's an acidly witty film that consistently turns the tables on its hero and the audience. Priceless tiny gags include: a silent Brad Pitt and Matt Damon as contestants of The Dating Game and Barris coming up with the idea for a TV quiz show while half-listening to a CIA instructor explaining torture techniques. -Kim Newman.

Review Warner Home Video / The Mission - Two Disc Special Edition
Actors & Directors
  • Aidan Quinn
  • Cherie Lunghi
  • Jeremy Irons
  • Robert De Niro
  • Ray McAnally
  • Roland Joffé
Release date: 2003-06-02
Run time: 120 min.
Creator: Robert Bolt
RRP: £12.99
Price: £5.89

Review The Mission - Two Disc Special Edition / Warner Home Video:

Roland Joffé (The Killing Fields) directs this fuzzy effort at a David Lean-like epic without David Lean's sense of emotional proportion. Lean's most important screenwriting collaborator, Robert Bolt, in fact wrote The Mission, which concerns a Jesuit missionary (Jeremy Irons) who establishes a church in the hostile jungles of Brazil and then finds his work threatened by greed and political forces among his superiors. Robert De Niro is briefly effective as a callous soldier who kills his own brother and then turns to Irons's character to oversee his penance and conversion to the clergy. The narrative and dramatic forces at work in this movie should be more stirring and powerful than they are-the problem being that Joffé is too removed from them to allow us in. -Tom Keogh The Mission is director Roland Joffé's fuzzy effort at an epic in David Lean style without David Lean's sense of emotional proportion. In fact, Lean's most important screenwriting collaborator, Robert Bolt, wrote The Mission, which concerns a Jesuit missionary (Jeremy Irons) who establishes a church in the hostile jungles of Brazil and then finds his work threatened by greed and political forces among his superiors. Robert De Niro is briefly effective as a callous soldier who kills his own brother and then turns to Irons's character to oversee his penance and conversion to the clergy. The narrative and dramatic forces at work in this movie should be more stirring and powerful than they are, the problem being that Joffé is too removed from them to allow us in. By way of compensation, Ennio Morricone contributes one of his most evocative and admired music scores. -Tom Keogh.

Review Uca / Arlington Road [1999]
Actors & Directors
  • Hope Davis
  • Tim Robbins
  • Robert Gossett
  • Jeff Bridges
  • Mark Pellington
  • Joan Cusack
Release date: 2008-01-15
Run time: 113 min.
Creator: Ehren Kruger
RRP: £5.99
Price: £3.25

Review Arlington Road [1999] / Uca:

It's easy to understand why Arlington Road sat on the studio shelf for nearly a year. No, the film isn't awful; rather, it's an extremely edgy and ultimately bleak thriller that offers no clear-cut heroes or villains. In other words, Hollywood had no idea how to sell it. Director Mark Pellington's underrated directorial debut, Going All the Way, suffered the same fate, essentially because the film-maker's presentation of suburban America often shifts dramatically within the same film. Characters are usually miserable and bordering on meltdown, no situation is straightforward and things usually end badly. Arlington Road begins as an astute study of suburban paranoia. Michael Faraday (a face-pinched Jeff Bridges, who spends most of the film on the brink of tears) is a college professor who teaches American history courses on terrorism. He's been a conspiracy freak since his wife, an FBI agent, was killed during a botched raid that feels like a thinly fictionalised reference to the Waco tragedy. After saving the life of his next-door neighbour's child, he initially befriends the family (Tim Robbins and Joan Cusack), but soon believes the husband is a terrorist. The first half of the film mocks Faraday: he has no real evidence and is not the most stable of protagonists. [+]
Despite the fact that it was government paranoia that got his wife killed, Faraday repeats the same type of behaviour. Pellington shifts gears in the second half, however, and for a while, it seems that the film has simultaneously sunk into a cheap, high-octane brand of Hollywood entertainment and undermined its own point. But Arlington Road possesses a stunning ending that's a real gut punch, one that may leave you needing a second viewing to catch all of its smartly executed setup. -Dave McCoy.

Review Acorn Media / New Street Law [2007]
Actors & Directors
  • Paul Freeman
  • John Thomson
  • Don Warrington
  • Lisa Faulkner
  • John Hannah
Release date: 2007-04-02
Run time: 480 min.
RRP: £24.99
Price: £4.84

Review New Street Law [2007] / Acorn Media:


Review Entertainment in Video / Onegin [1999]
Actors & Directors
  • Lena Headey
  • Liv Tyler
  • Toby Stephens
  • Ralph Fiennes
  • Martin Donovan
  • Martha Fiennes
Release date: 2000-06-05
Run time: 106 min.
Creator: Peter Ettedgui
RRP: £19.99
Price: £3.99

Review Onegin [1999] / Entertainment in Video:

Given that for Russians, Pushkin's poem Eugene Onegin is sort of like Hamlet, Beowulf and Lord Byron's Don Juan rolled into one melancholy tale of lost love and ennui among the gentry, it's surprising Russian filmmakers have balked at adapting the film. Having taken a stage production of Hamlet to Russia where it was rapturously received, self-confessed Slavophile actor Ralph Fiennes must have thought he was making reparation when he executive-produced and starred in this faithful adaptation of the film. With Martha Fiennes on board as director, it's something of a family affair with more than a little of the solemnity one often discovers in "personal projects". Pushkin's romanticism comes across amply, but little of his ferocious wit or, inevitably, the authorial voice that makes the poem so compelling, even in translation. Ralph Fiennes typecasts himself in the title role: his Onegin is yet another of the actor's wintry, haunted lovers in period dress (this time early 19th century). The character, a jaded roué from St. Petersburg, summers in the countryside where he inadvertently wins the heart of the impulsive Tatyana (Liv Tyler, the girl they book when Gwyneth Paltrow's busy). Onegin's casual attitude to her love leads to a tragic duel (magnificently tense and perfectly staged), and years later a chance meeting stirs up feelings of regret, triumph and moral queasiness. Tears well in eyes, letters are sent and read, furs are ruffled in the snow. This is the high-brow end of costume drama: patrician in its literary purity, and rather admirable in its restraint and good taste, if a little dull. [+]
If you're not a fan of genre, you might start screaming for Steven Seagal to descend from a helicopter and start spraying the impeccable sets with an Uzi. -Leslie Felperin.

Review Miramax / The Snapper [1993] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Colm Meaney
  • Peter Rowen
  • Tina Kellegher
  • Eanna MacLiam
  • Stephen Frears
  • Ruth McCabe
Release date: 2001-12-18
Run time: 95 min.
Price: £3.93

Review The Snapper [1993] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Miramax:


Review Artificial Eye / The Page Turner [2006]
Actors & Directors
  • Denis Dercourt
  • Deborah Francois
  • Clotilde Mollet
  • Catherine Frot
  • Pascal Greggory
  • Xavier De Guillebon
Release date: 2007-03-26
Run time: 82 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £3.90

Review The Page Turner [2006] / Artificial Eye:


Review 2 Entertain Video / Jonathan Creek - Series 3 And 4 [1997]
Actors & Directors
  • Stuart Milligan
  • Alan Davies
  • Julia Sawalha
  • Caroline Quentin
  • Adrian Edmondson
Release date: 2004-08-02
Run time: 870 min.
Creator: Matthew Hamilton
RRP: £44.99
Price: £42.14

Review Jonathan Creek - Series 3 And 4 [1997] / 2 Entertain Video:


Review Network / At Home With The Braithwaites - Series 3 - Complete
Actors & Directors
  • Sylvia Syms
  • Peter Davison
  • Matthew Evans
  • Amanda Redman
  • Sarah Smart
  • Lynda Bellingham
Release date: 2008-03-31
Run time: 320 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £9.51

Review At Home With The Braithwaites - Series 3 - Complete / Network:


Review Bfi Video / Throne Of Blood [1957]
Actors & Directors
  • Isuzu Yamada
  • Akira Kubo
  • Akira Kurosawa
  • Takashi Shimura
  • Minoru Chiaki
  • Toshirô Mifune
Release date: 2001-10-22
Run time: 105 min.
Creator: William Shakespeare
RRP: £19.99
Price: £9.50

Review Throne Of Blood [1957] / Bfi Video:

A champion of illumination and experimental shading, Kurosawa brings his unerring eye for indelible images to Shakespeare in this 1957 adaptation of Macbeth. By changing the locale from Birnam Wood to 16th-century Japan, Kurosawa makes an oddball argument for the trans-historicity of Shakespeare's narrative; and indeed, stripped to the bare mechanics of the plot, the tale of cut-throat ambition rewarded (and thwarted) feels infinitely adaptable. What's lost in the translation, of course, is the force and beauty of the language-much of the script of Throne of Blood is maddeningly repetitive or superfluous-but striking visual images (including the surreal Cobweb Forest and some extremely artful gore) replace the sublime poetry. Toshiro Mifune is theatrically intense as Washizu, the samurai fated to betray his friend and master in exchange for the prestige of nobility; he portrays the ill-fated warrior with a passion bordering on violence, and a barely concealed conviviality. Somewhat less successful is Isuzu Yamada as Washizu's scheming wife; her poise and creepy impassivity, chilling at first, soon grows tedious. Kurosawa himself is the star of the show, though, and his masterful use of black-and-white contrast-not to mention his steady, dramatic hand with a battle scene-keeps the proceedings thrilling. A must-see for fans of Japanese cinema, as well as all you devotees of samurai weapons and armour. -Miles Bethany.

Review 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment / All About Eve [1950]
Release date: 2005-04-18
Run time: 134 min.
RRP: £12.99
Price: £3.99

Review All About Eve [1950] / 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment:


Review Universal Pictures UK / Frankenstein [1931]
Actors & Directors
  • Edward Van Sloan
  • Colin Clive
  • John Boles
  • Boris Karloff
  • Mae Clarke
  • James Whale
Release date: 2005-11-01
Run time: 69 min.
Creator: Robert Florey
RRP: £9.99
Price: £2.93

Review Frankenstein [1931] / Universal Pictures UK:

"It's alive! Alive!" shouts Colin Clive's triumphant Dr. Frankenstein as electricity buzzes over the hulking body of a revived corpse. "In the name of God now I know what it's like to be God!" For years unheard, this line has been restored, along with the legendary scene of the childlike monster tossing a little girl into a lake, in James Whale's Frankenstein, one of the most famous and influential horror movies ever made. Coming off the tremendous success of Dracula, Universal assigned sophomore director Whale to helm an adaptation of Mary Shelley's famous novel with Bela Lugosi as the monster. When Lugosi declined the role, Whale cast the largely unknown character actor Boris Karloff and together with makeup designer Jack Pierce they created the most memorable monster in movie history: a towering, lumbering creature with sunken eyes, a flat head, and a jagged scar running down his forehead. Whale and Karloff made this mute, misunderstood brute, who has the brain of a madman (the most obvious of the many liberties taken with Shelley's story), the most pitiable freak of nature to stumble across the screen. Clive's Dr. Frankenstein is intense and twitchy and Dwight Frye set the standard for mad-scientist sidekicks as the wild-eyed hunchback assistant. Whale's later films, notably the spooky spoof The Old Dark House and the deliriously stylised sequel The Bride of Frankenstein, display a surer cinematic hand than seen here and add a subversive twist of black comedy, but given the restraints of early sound films, Whale breaks the film free from static stillness and adorns it with striking design and expressionist flourishes. -Sean Axmaker.

Review Cinema Club / A Christmas Carol [2004]
Actors & Directors
  • Kelsey Grammer
  • Jennifer Love Hewitt
Release date: 2007-11-05
Run time: 87 min.
RRP: £5.99
Price: £1.87

Review A Christmas Carol [2004] / Cinema Club:


Review 2 Entertain Video / Hound of the Baskervilles [2002]
Actors & Directors
  • David Attwood
  • Ian Hart
  • Matt Day
  • Richard Roxburgh
  • John Nettles
  • Richard E. Grant
Release date: 2003-02-17
Run time: 90 min.
RRP: £15.99
Price: £3.56

Review Hound of the Baskervilles [2002] / 2 Entertain Video:

With 17 previous screen adaptations behind it, this 2002 BBC version of The Hound of the Baskervilles might have been inhibited by the sheer weight of expectation. But in this production-marking the centenary of Arthur Conan Doyle's novel-director David Attwood rings the changes subtly and strikingly, helped by Allan Cubitt's tautly argued script and Christopher Hall's vivid production: the viewer feels the "presence" of the moors as never before. Richard Roxburgh is a thoughtful, understated Sherlock Holmes-self-absorbed yet observant of life around him. There's nothing bumbling or ineffectual about Ian Hart's Dr Watson-a resourceful thinker who, often sceptical of Holmes, complements him in human awareness. Richard E Grant dons a plausibly sociopathic manner as Stapleton, and there's a touching portrayal of his put-upon sister from Neve McIntosh. John Nettles and Geraldine James contribute sterling character parts as Dr and Mrs Mortimer, and Matt Day is a suave, not too sophisticated Sir Henry Baskerville. It adds up to a convincing rethink of a hallowed tale. On the DVD: The Hound of the Baskervilles on disc comes with a 16:9 picture that reproduces the sombre atmosphere of Baskerville Hall-shot at a variety of English locations-with real immediacy, and the Dolby Digital sound has 5. 1 surround enhancement. Subtitles are in 11 languages, with 10 scene selections-framed in a stylishly- presented main menu. [+]
Special Features include a 12-minute making of documentary and interviews with the cast members, as well as a running commentary from Attwood and Hall. -Richard Whitehouse.

Browse Drama:

Models & Brands:
Breakdown [1998], The Malta Story [1953], Virgin Territory [2007], Hells Angels, A Few Good Men [1993], The Bucket List [Blu-ray] [2008], Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind [2003], The Mission - Two Disc Special Edition, Arlington Road [1999], New Street Law [2007], Onegin [1999], The Snapper [1993] (REGION 1) (NTSC), The Page Turner [2006], Jonathan Creek - Series 3 And 4 [1997], At Home With The Braithwaites - Series 3 - Complete, Throne Of Blood [1957], All About Eve [1950], Frankenstein [1931], A Christmas Carol [2004], Hound of the Baskervilles [2002]

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