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Review Bfi Video / Love Is The Devil - Study For A Portrait Of Francis Bacon [1998]
Actors & Directors
  • Derek Jacobi
  • Adrian Scarborough
  • Anne Lambton
  • Daniel Craig
  • Tilda Swinton
  • John Maybury
Release date: 2008-08-18
Run time: 87 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £12.98

Review Love Is The Devil - Study For A Portrait Of Francis Bacon [1998] / Bfi Video:


Review Warner Home Video / Sweeney Todd - The Demon Barber of Fleet Street [Blu-ray] [2007]
Actors & Directors
  • Tim Burton
  • Timothy Spall
  • Helena Bonham-Carter
  • Johnny Depp
  • Alan Rickman
  • Sacha Baron Cohen
Release date: 2008-05-19
Run time: 112 min.
RRP: £27.99
Price: £14.25

Review Sweeney Todd - The Demon Barber of Fleet Street [Blu-ray] [2007] / Warner Home Video:

After years of rumours, it turns out that Tim Burton was the perfect visionary to film Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Stephen Sondheim's Broadway masterpiece, and the result is a macabre and moving musical movie as enthralling as anything Burton has ever done. The show's mix of gothic horror, Grand Guignol, very dark humor, and witty and beautiful music never was the stuff of traditional musical comedy, but it's a powerful work, and perhaps the richest of the late 20th century. In the movie, Burton's frequent collaborator, Johnny Depp, plays Todd, a wronged man whose lust for revenge drives him to murder (an 19th-century legend who has been traced to a real-life barber). Helena Bonham Carter, another Burton mainstay, is Mrs. Lovett, the barber's partner-in-unspeakable-crime. It's no surprise that Depp is an excellent choice to convey Todd's brooding intensity and volcanic rage, but he can also sing a score that is so challenging it has often played in opera houses (though not with the same style as the Broadway original, Len Cariou, and he occasionally lapses into pop style). Bonham Carter is small of voice and lacks the humour of the original Broadway Lovett, Angela Lansbury, but she sings on pitch, in rhythm, and in character at the same time, which is no small feat for a Sondheim show. Aficionados will regret the loss of certain musical passages-"The Ballad of Sweeney Todd" is just an instrumental overture and the chorus is gone altogether, among others, but the reassuring presence of orchestrator Jonathan Tunick and conductor Paul Gemignani ensures that the music feels right and sounds great. And the film's depiction of a Victorian London hellhole, with cinematography by Dariusz Wolski and costumes by Colleen Atwood, also looks and feels right. The excellent cast is filled out by Alan Rickman as the villainous Judge Turpin, Timothy Spall as his seedy Beadle, Sacha Baron Cohen as a rival barber, Jamie Campbell Bower as the young lover Anthony, Jayne Wisener as his object of affection, and Ed Sanders as the young Toby. [+]
For fans of Tim Burton and Johnny Depp who don't think they like musicals, Sweeney Todd should be a revelation (though not for the squeamish, as the gore is intense and completely appropriate). For fans of Broadway and Sondheim, it's hard to imagine getting a better adaptation than this. The fact that there's no newly composed Oscar-bait song sung by a Josh Groban-type over the end credits only makes it better. -David Horiuchi Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham-Carter, Alan Rickman.

Review Warner Home Video / Amadeus [1985]
Actors & Directors
  • Tom Hulce
  • Simon Callow
  • Elizabeth Berridge
  • Roy Dotrice
  • Milos Forman
  • F. Murray Abraham
Release date: 1998-12-01
Run time: 153 min.
Creator: Peter Shaffer
RRP: £13.99
Price: £3.00

Review Amadeus [1985] / Warner Home Video:

The satirical sensibilities of writer Peter Shaffer and director Milos Forman (One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest) were ideally matched in this Oscar-winning movie adaptation of Shaffer's hit play about the rivalry between two composers in the court of Austrian Emperor Joseph II-official royal composer Antonio Salieri (F. Murray Abraham), and the younger but superior prodigy Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Tom Hulce). The conceit is absolutely delicious: Salieri secretly loathes Mozart's crude and bratty personality but is astounded by the beauty of his music. That's the heart of Salieri's torment-although he's in a unique position to recognise and cultivate both Mozart's talent and career, he's also consumed with envy and insecurity in the face of such genius. That such magnificent music should come from such a vulgar little creature strikes Salieri as one of God's cruellest jokes, and it drives him insane. Amadeus creates peculiar and delightful contrasts between the impeccably re-created details of its lavish period setting and the jarring (but humorously refreshing and unstuffy) modern tone of its dialogue and performances-all of which serve to remind us that these were people before they became enshrined in historical and artistic legend. Jeffrey Jones, best-known as Ferris Bueller's principal, is particularly wonderful as the bumbling emperor (with the voice of a modern mid-level businessman). The film's eight Oscars include statuettes for Best Director Forman, Best Actor Abraham (Hulce was also nominated), Best Screenplay and Best Picture. -Jim Emerson Note: this region two DVD is a "flipper" with a break between sides A and B. A note-perfect cinematic event whose immortality was assured from its opening night, Amadeus is an unlikely candidate for the Director's Cut treatment. [+]
Like one of Mozart's operas, the multiple Oscar-winning theatrical version seemed perfectly formed from the outset-ideal casting, costumes, sets, cinematography, lighting, screenplay, music, music, music-so the reinstatement of an extra 20 minutes simply risks adding "too many notes". Yet though this extended cut can hardly be said to improve a picture that needed no improvement, it does at least flesh out a couple of small subplots and shed new light on certain key scenes. Here we learn why Constanze Mozart bears such ill-will towards Salieri when she discovers him at her husband's deathbed: he has insulted and degraded her after she came to him for help. We also see deeper into the reasons why Mozart has no pupils: not only has Salieri poisoned the Emperor's mind against him, but the only promisingly lucrative teaching job he can find ends disastrously when he realises that the master of the house just wants music to quiet his barking dogs. In a humiliating coda to that episode, a drunk and desperate Wolfgang returns later to beg for money only to be coldly rejected. The structure of the picture is otherwise unaltered. On the DVD: Amadeus-The Director's Cut finally accords this masterful work the DVD treatment it deserves. The handsome anamorphic widescreen picture is accompanied by a choice of Dolby 5. 1 or Dolby stereo sound options, and it's all contained on one side of the disc (the original single-disc DVD release was that crime against the format, a "flipper"). Director Milos Forman and writer Peter Shaffer provide a chatty though sporadic commentary, but they're obviously still too mesmerised by the movie to do much more than offer the odd anecdote. Disc 2 contains an excellent new hour-long "making of" documentary, with contributions from Forman, Shaffer, Sir Neville Marriner and all the main actors, taking in the scriptwriting, choice of music, casting and problems involved in filming in Communist Czechoslovakia with half the crew and extras working for the Secret Police. -Mark Walker.

Review Sony Pictures Home Entertainment / Mr Smith Goes To Washington [1939]
Actors & Directors
  • James Stewart
  • Claude Rains
  • Frank Capra
  • Edward Arnold
  • Guy Kibbee
  • Jean Arthur
Release date: 2001-02-26
Run time: 125 min.
Creator: Sidney Buchman
RRP: £19.99
Price: £3.78

Review Mr Smith Goes To Washington [1939] / Sony Pictures Home Entertainment:

In Frank Capra's bright, funny and beautifully paced satire Mr Smith Goes to Washington political heavyweights decide that Jefferson Smith (James Stewart), an obscure scoutmaster in a small town, would be the perfect dupe to fill a vacant US Senate chair. Surely this naïve bumpkin can be easily controlled by the senior senator (Claude Rains) from his state, a respectable yet corrupted career politician. Capra fills the film with Smith's wide-eyed wonder at the glories of Washington, all of which ring false for his cynical secretary (Jean Arthur) who doesn't believe for a minute this rube could be for real. But he is. Capra was repeating the formula of a previous film, Mr Deeds Goes to Town, but this one is even sharper. Stewart and Arthur are brilliant, and the former cowboy-star Harry Carey lends a warm presence to the role of the vice-president. Mr Smith Goes to Washington is Capra's ode to the power of innocence-an idea so potent that present-day audiences may find themselves wishing for a new Mr Smith in the halls of power. The 1939 US Congress was none too thrilled about the film's depiction of their august body, denouncing it as a caricature; but even today, Capra's jibes about vested interests and political machines look as accurate as ever. -Robert Horton, Amazon. com.

Review Sony Pictures Home Entertainment / Gridiron Gang [2007]
Actors & Directors
  • L. Scott Caldwell
  • Dwayne Johnson
  • Xzibit
  • Kevin Dunn
  • Phil Joanou
  • Leon Rippy
Release date: 2007-06-04
Run time: 120 min.
Creator: Jeff Maguire
RRP: £15.99
Price: £1.00

Review Gridiron Gang [2007] / Sony Pictures Home Entertainment:

In Gridiron Gang, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson once again displays far more cinematic charisma than one could expect from a former professional wrestler. Sean Porter (Johnson, Be Cool), a football player turned juvenile detention counsellor, wrestles with a seemingly insolvable problem: The vast majority of young men who leave detention fall right back into crime. Seeking a way to give these not-yet-hardened kids a taste of self-esteem and discipline, Porter persuades his superiors to let him teach the kids football-and then take on high school teams. Though based on a true story (documentary footage over the closing credits reveals that some dialogue was lifted straight from the real Sean Porter's mouth), Gridiron Gang is pure underdogs-overcome-adversity formula. A formula is not necessarily a bad thing; when executed with skill and commitment, fulfilling a classic story mechanism can be perfectly satisfying, and Gridiron Gang qualifies. But it's Johnson who carries it through, demonstrating-in the most unlikely of roles-a surprisingly gentle touch. Johnson manages to be manly without overbearing machismo, earning not only respect but empathy. -Bret Fetzer.

Review Universal Pictures UK / The Blue Dahlia
Actors & Directors
  • Howard Da Silva
  • Alan Ladd
  • Doris Dowling
  • Veronica Lake
  • William Bendix
  • George Marshall
Release date: 2007-02-12
Run time: 96 min.
Creator: Raymond Chandler
RRP: £9.99
Price: £3.75

Review The Blue Dahlia / Universal Pictures UK:


Review Optimum Home Entertainment / Bloody Sunday [2002]
Actors & Directors
  • Nicholas Farrell
  • Tim Pigott-Smith
  • Kathy Kiera Clarke
  • Gerard McSorley
  • James Nesbitt
  • Paul Greengrass
Release date: 2008-03-03
Run time: 106 min.
RRP: £17.99
Price: £5.09

Review Bloody Sunday [2002] / Optimum Home Entertainment:


Review Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainm / Pearl Harbor [2001]
Actors & Directors
  • Alec Baldwin
  • Ben Affleck
  • Jon Voight
  • Tom Sizemore
  • Kate Beckinsale
  • Michael Bay
Release date: 2007-10-01
Run time: 176 min.
RRP: £17.99
Price: £5.41

Review Pearl Harbor [2001] / Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainm:


Review Paramount Home Entertainment / Cheers - Series 2 [1983]
Actors & Directors
  • Kirstie Alley
  • George Wendt
  • Ted Danson
  • Rhea Perlman
  • Shelley Long
Release date: 2004-06-07
Run time: 534 min.
Creator: Les Charles
RRP: £34.99
Price: £11.10

Review Cheers - Series 2 [1983] / Paramount Home Entertainment:

It looks great: season two of the situation comedy many consider the best ever produced on American television has a superb presentation on this DVD collection. The colours are rich, the images sharp-a vast improvement over those murky reruns in perpetual TV syndication. Then, of course, there are the consistently brilliant episodes from Cheers' sophomore year. Despite its low-rated debut in 1982, the ensemble farce set in a Boston bar confidently returned with several strong story arcs, including the turbulent, screwball romance between intellectual poseur Diane Chambers (Shelley Long) and affable primitive Sam Malone (Ted Danson), romantic conflicts for the sexually voracious and deeply cynical barmaid Carla (Rhea Perlman) and marital separation for beloved barfly Norm (George Wendt). With John Ratzenberger signing on as a full-time cast member (playing pompous jive-slinger and postman Cliff Claven), and those opaque one-liners by the clueless Coach (Nicholas Colasanto), Cheers was firing on all cylinders. Episode highlights include "They Call Me Mayday", in which talk-show personality Dick Cavett, playing himself, convinces Sam the public would be interested in the former major league pitcher's autobiography-a notion that throws the unpublished, would-be novelist Diane into disbelief. Also wonderful is "Where There's a Will," guest-starring George Gaynes as a rich, dying man who leaves the gang $100,000 on a paper napkin will. "No Help Wanted" finds Sam's friendship with down-on-his-luck accountant Norm strained when the latter has a go at the bar's books, while the great "Coach Buries a Grudge" features the addled, elder statesman of Cheers delivering a memorable eulogy for a friend after discovering the dead man had an affair with his wife. Opinions vary about the worthiness of Cheers' latter years (the show ended in 1993), but no one disputes the merit of its ground-breaking start. -Tom Keogh.

Review Optimum Home Entertainment / Make It Happen [2008]
Actors & Directors
  • Darren Grant
  • Tessa Thompson
  • Matt Kippen
  • Erik Fjeldsted
  • Mary Elizabeth Winstead
  • Riley Smith
Release date: 2008-12-29
Run time: 86 min.
RRP: £17.99
Price: £10.98

Review Make It Happen [2008] / Optimum Home Entertainment:


Review Sony Pictures Home Entertainment / The Road Home [1999]
Actors & Directors
  • Honglei Sun
  • Hao Zheng
  • Yulian Zhao
  • Yimou Zhang
  • Bin Li
  • Ziyi Zhang
Release date: 2001-04-16
Run time: 86 min.
Creator: Shi Bao
RRP: £19.99
Price: £15.48

Review The Road Home [1999] / Sony Pictures Home Entertainment:

The latest film by Chinese director Zhang Yimou, The Road Home (1999) is a story of past and present. In black and white we see a young businessman return to a rural village where his father has died. His mother wants a traditional funeral, which involves carrying the coffin several miles in the depths of winter. Then, in flashback and brilliant colour, we are told the story of his parents' courtship. His father had come as the local schoolteacher and had fallen in love with his mother, a local girl. Political complications ensue and they are separated for two years, but at last reunited. This apparently simply tale is told with great insight and dazzlingly beautiful camerawork, in a style which echoes the Italian neo-realist films of the 1940s. Perhaps it doesn't have the complexity of the director's earlier film, Raise the Red Lantern (1991), which starred the luminous Gong Li, but The Road Home has her match in Zhang Ziyi, who also starred in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000). On the DVD: The quality of the sound and picture (in 2. 35:1 ratio) are excellent. [+]
There are no additional features except for subtitles in English and 15 other languages. -Ed Buscombe.

Review Arrow Films / Mrs Caldicot's Cabbage War [2003]
Actors & Directors
  • Gwenllian Davies
  • Ian Sharp
  • Peter Capaldi
  • Pauline Collins
  • Anna Wilson-Jones
  • Sheila Reid
Release date: 2004-01-26
Run time: 110 min.
Creator: Vernon Coleman
RRP: £12.99
Price: £4.03

Review Mrs Caldicot's Cabbage War [2003] / Arrow Films:


Review Universal Pictures UK / The Rockford Files - Series 5 - Complete [1978]
Actors & Directors
  • James Garner
  • Noah Beery
  • Stuart Margolin
  • Joe Santos
  • Tom Selleck
Release date: 2008-05-12
Run time: 1057 min.
RRP: £34.99
Price: £16.49

Review The Rockford Files - Series 5 - Complete [1978] / Universal Pictures UK:


Review Paramount / Ghost Whisperer: The Third Season (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Fred Toye
  • David Conrad
  • Camryn Manheim
  • Jay Mohr
  • Gloria Muzio
  • John Gray
  • Jennifer Love Hewitt
  • Eric Laneuville
  • Josh Hopkins
  • Ian Sander
Release date: 2008-09-02
Run time: 796 min.
Price: £31.86

Review Ghost Whisperer: The Third Season (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Paramount:


Review Universal Pictures UK / Directed By Douglas Sirk - Has Anyone Seen My Gal?/All I Desire/Magnificent Obsession/All That Heaven Allows/Written On The Wind/The Tarnished Angels/Imitation Of Life
Actors & Directors
  • Rock Hudson
  • Agnes Moorehead
  • Jane Wyman
  • Conrad Nagel
  • Douglas Sirk
  • Virginia Grey
Release date: 2007-01-15
Run time: 653 min.
RRP: £69.99
Price: £17.97

Review Directed By Douglas Sirk - Has Anyone Seen My Gal?/All I Desire/Magnificent Obsession/All That Heaven Allows/Written On The Wind/The Tarnished Angels/Imitation Of Life / Universal Pictures UK:


Review 4 Front Video / Crocodile Dundee In Los Angeles [2001]
Actors & Directors
  • Alec Wilson
  • Jere Burns
  • Jonathan Banks
  • Linda Kozlowski
  • Simon Wincer
  • Paul Hogan
Release date: 2005-06-06
Run time: 91 min.
Creator: Matthew Berry
RRP: £9.99
Price: £3.54

Review Crocodile Dundee In Los Angeles [2001] / 4 Front Video:

Made 13 years after the previous sequel, 2001's Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles sees Paul Hogan's likeable, heroic and unworldly Aussie hero accompany his partner Sue (Linda Kozlowski, Hogan's real-life wife) to Los Angeles. There he finds himself wrestling with the niceties of the Californian lifestyle somewhat less easily than he wrestles with crocs back in the outback. Sue, meanwhile, uncovers a smuggling plot involving artworks from Yugoslavia. Dundee duly steps forward to go undercover and-with a bit of muscle and survivalist nous-saves the day. As anyone who saw Escape from LA will testify, the moral here is: never make a sequel in Los Angeles. The kindest thing that can be said about this outing is that it is harmless. It exudes a family-friendly geniality throughout that almost makes its many flaws endurable-almost but not quite. Hogan-61 when he made this-makes for an embarrassingly implausible action hero, lacquered in trowel-loads of make-up to fill in the facial creases. The antipodean-abroad jokes are insultingly feeble; Dundee strolls into a gay bar by mistake, thinks the parking valet is a mugger, can't operate the remote control, etc. There's a cameo involving Mike Tyson that belongs nowhere and Kozlowski's performance only fuels suspicion that this is a husband and wife vanity project. [+]
If nothing else, Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles is proof that Hollywood's alleged stony-heartedness is a myth, for it can only have been out of charity and benevolence to an elderly Australian thespian down on his luck that this movie was given the green light. On the DVD: Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles is presented in anamorphic widescreen format with excellent image quality, bringing out the rich contrasts between the early outback scenes and the early establishing shots of sunlit LA. Sound quality is impeccable also. The only extras, however, are the trailer and some "behind the scenes" clips so perfunctory and unrevealing they might as well not have bothered. -David Stubbs.

Review Cinema Club / All The King's Men
Actors & Directors
  • Stuart Bunce
  • Maggie Smith
  • Sonya Walger
  • David Jason
  • William Ash
  • Julian Jarrold
Release date: 2005-08-01
Run time: 108 min.
RRP: £15.99
Price: £3.98

Review All The King's Men / Cinema Club:


Review Pathe Distribution / Love's Labour's Lost [2000]
Actors & Directors
  • Alicia Silverstone
  • Kenneth Branagh
  • Natascha McElhone
  • Kenneth Branagh
  • Alessandro Nivola
  • Carmen Ejogo
Release date: 2000-09-11
Run time: 90 min.
Creator: William Shakespeare
RRP: £12.99
Price: £3.97

Review Love's Labour's Lost [2000] / Pathe Distribution:

Having taken Shakespeare at his word on Hamlet (i. e. , not cutting a single syllable out of a very long play), Kenneth Branagh selects a more radical approach with Love's Labour's Lost. Here the prolific director-star weeds out much of the play's dialogue, and adds songs and dances of a decidedly modern bent. The King of Navarre (Alessandro Nivola, Nicolas Cage's wacko brother in Face/Off) and his three comrades (Branagh, Matthew Lillard, Adrian Lester) take a vow: no womanly distractions while they pursue their studies. Ah, but at that very moment, floating down a magical studio-built river, is the queen of France (Alicia Silverstone), accompanied by three ladies-in-waiting. You do the maths. Branagh has set the tale on the eve of the Second World War, which allows for the inclusion of vintage pop songs, including "Cheek to Cheek", "The Way You Look Tonight" and a rousing chorus of "There's No Business Like Show Business", led by-who else?-Nathan Lane. The fact that most of the cast members are not accomplished song-and-dance folk is clearly meant to charm, but the results are spotty at best. Perhaps the most dynamic performer is Natascha McElhone (memorable from Ronin), whose aristocratic bearing and bottomless eyes lend a gravity to the material that is otherwise absent from Branagh's twinkly staging. [+]
The play contains some of Shakespeare's loveliest paeans to the language of love, yet Branagh seems to be in a hurry to juice everything up lest the audience lose interest. The labour shows. -Robert Horton.

Review Network / Band Of Gold - The Complete Series (6 Disc Box Set) [1995]
Actors & Directors
  • Betsan Morris Evans
  • Barbara Dickson
  • Rachel Talalay
  • Dan Armour
  • Charles Beeson
  • David Innes Edwards
  • Vanessa Acquah
  • Matthew Evans
  • Samantha Morton
  • Mark Addy
Release date: 2006-02-06
Run time: 900 min.
RRP: £39.99
Price: £25.32

Review Band Of Gold - The Complete Series (6 Disc Box Set) [1995] / Network:


Review Tla Releasing / Love Sick [2006]
Actors & Directors
  • Maria Popistasu
Release date: 2008-06-02
Run time: 84 min.
RRP: £14.99
Price: £6.97

Review Love Sick [2006] / Tla Releasing:


Browse Drama:

Models & Brands:
Love Is The Devil - Study For A Portrait Of Francis Bacon [1998], Sweeney Todd - The Demon Barber of Fleet Street [Blu-ray] [2007], Amadeus [1985], Mr Smith Goes To Washington [1939], Gridiron Gang [2007], The Blue Dahlia, Bloody Sunday [2002], Pearl Harbor [2001], Cheers - Series 2 [1983], Make It Happen [2008], The Road Home [1999], Mrs Caldicot's Cabbage War [2003], The Rockford Files - Series 5 - Complete [1978], Ghost Whisperer: The Third Season (REGION 1) (NTSC), Directed By Douglas Sirk - Has Anyone Seen My Gal?/All I Desire/Magnificent Obsession/All That Heaven Allows/Written On The Wind/The Tarnished Angels/Imitation Of Life, Crocodile Dundee In Los Angeles [2001], All The King's Men, Love's Labour's Lost [2000], Band Of Gold - The Complete Series (6 Disc Box Set) [1995], Love Sick [2006]

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