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Review Sony Pictures Home Entertainment / You Don't Mess with the Zohan [2008]
Actors & Directors
  • Rob Schneider
  • Dennis Dugan
  • Emmanuelle Chriqui
  • Adam Sandler
  • Judd Apatow
  • Nick Swardson
  • John Turturro
Release date: 2009-01-19
Run time: 109 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £9.98

Review You Don't Mess with the Zohan [2008] / Sony Pictures Home Entertainment:

If You Don't Mess with the Zohan feels like an extended and crazed sketch from Saturday Night Live, there are reasons for that. Zohan's star and SNL alumnus Adam Sandler is joined by several fellow cast members (in uncredited cameo roles) from his years on the NBC show. But Sandler also co-wrote the film's absurdist script with SNL veteran writer and sometime-performer Robert Smigel. Echoes of a few of their classic skits on the show-built around high-strung Israeli characters obsessed with disco and selling junk electronics out of a New York shop-are revisited in Zohan and are a lot of fun to see again. Zohan is unbridled nonsense thrown at the wall, but with a sunny disposition that proves surprisingly persuasive. Sandler stars as an Israeli intelligence operative who fakes his death to reinvent himself in New York City as a hairdresser. Putting the lie to assumptions that any man in that professional field must be gay, Zohan routinely provides raucous sexual favours for all his older female customers. The sight of bottles of gels and hairsprays falling off shelves while the indefatigable Zohan pleasures frisky grannies is pure SNL, and is funnier than it might sound. The silly story involves an old, Palestinian enemy of Zohan, the Phantom (John Turturro), showing up in Manhattan, but everything is really leading to a Big Apple version of the resolution of Israeli-Palestinian conflicts we'd all like to see on a large scale. The film is almost instantly forgettable, and there are many times it veers toward the dumb, but it also sells itself well as a nutty concept. [+]
-Tom Keogh Stills from You Don't Mess with the Zohan (click for larger image).

Review 2 Entertain Video / Little Britain Abroad : Complete BBC Special [2006]
Actors & Directors
  • Matt Lucas
  • Dawn French
  • Peter Kay
  • David Walliams
  • Steve Coogan
Release date: 2007-11-19
Run time: 64 min.
RRP: £12.99
Price: £3.99

Review Little Britain Abroad : Complete BBC Special [2006] / 2 Entertain Video:


Review Universal Pictures UK / Gimme, Gimme, Gimme : Complete BBC Boxset [1999]
Actors & Directors
  • Brian Bovell
  • Liddy Oldroyd
  • Tristram Shapeero
  • James Dreyfus
  • Beth Goddard
  • Kathy Burke
  • Rosalind Knight
Release date: 2006-11-20
Run time: 550 min.
Creator: Sue Vertue
RRP: £19.99
Price: £10.36

Review Gimme, Gimme, Gimme : Complete BBC Boxset [1999] / Universal Pictures UK:


Review Warner Home Video / Gremlins/Gremlins 2 - The New Batch [1984]
Actors & Directors
  • Christopher Lee
  • Haviland Morris
  • Phoebe Cates
  • Hoyt Axton
  • Zach Galligan
Release date: 2005-10-03
Run time: 204 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £5.50

Review Gremlins/Gremlins 2 - The New Batch [1984] / Warner Home Video:

Cross It's A Wonderful Life with ET and Invasion Of The Body Snatchers and you'll get something close to these entertaining and occasionally grotesque tales from producer Steven Spielberg, writer Chris Columbus and director Joe Dante. In the first film we meet Billy Peltzer (played by Zach Galligan), a young man whose inventor father (Hoyt Axton) gives him an odd Christmas present in the shape of a tiny, adorable furry creature called a Mogwai, which is named Gizmo. The pet comes with a set of rules: don't get him wet, don't feed him after midnight and keep him away from direct sunlight. But Galligan breaks the first rule and the damp little critter pops out a dozen smaller offspring. Then the offspring break the second rule and, overnight, turn from cute furry guys to malevolent scale-covered trolls with world domination on their mind. The only way to stop them: rule three. But it's an anxious (and extremely funny) battle to make it to daylight, with the bad gremlins finding ingenious ways to multiply over and over until they're a force to be reckoned with. In the sequel, Zach Galligan is back, along with Phoebe Cates, his girlfriend from the first film. They're both working in an ultramodern skyscraper owned by a Donald Trump clone (a hilarious John Glover). Galligan's furry little buddy is captured by a mad scientist, who not only helps it multiply, but invests the nasty, scaly offspring with intelligence and the ability to talk. [+]
What follows is imaginative mayhem that spoofs old movies, modern television, and the conveniences of postmodern technology. In many ways, the sequel is even more inventive and laughter-inducing than the original. Both films are packed with special effects, all the most impressive when you consider the gremlins are puppets, not computer generated imagery. Expect a wild and fun-packed (if occasionally dark and scary) ride.

Review Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainm / Sister Act / Sister Act 2: Back In The Habit [1992]
Actors & Directors
  • Bill Duke
  • Mary Wickes
  • Whoopi Goldberg
  • Harvey Keitel
  • Maggie Smith
  • James Coburn Jr.
  • Emile Ardolino
Release date: 2008-09-01
Run time: 199 min.
RRP: £17.99
Price: £5.29

Review Sister Act / Sister Act 2: Back In The Habit [1992] / Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainm:

In Sister Act, Whoopi Goldberg plays a Reno lounge singer who hides out as a nun when her villainous boyfriend (Harvey Keitel) goes gunning for her. Maggie Smith is the mother superior who has to cope with Whoopi's unorthodox behaviour, but the cute script turns the tables and shows the latter energising the stodgy convent with song and attitude. A real crowd-pleaser and a perfect vehicle for Goldberg, this is a happy experience all around. -Tom Keogh, Amazon. com Whoopi Goldberg returns in Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit, a gratuitous, poorly written sequel that contrives a reason to get her character back into Maggie Smith's convent. The "socially conscious" plot finds Goldberg being asked to relate to a bunch of street kids and pull them together into a choir. Since a bad guy is needed, the script grabs that old chestnut about a rich guy (James Coburn) preparing to close down the convent's school, and runs with it. The film is slow and unconvincing from start to finish, although co-stars Mary Wickes and Kathy Najimy get some good laughs, and the music is pretty spirited. -Tom Keogh, Amazon. com.

Review Paramount Home Entertainment / Italian Job, The [1969]
Actors & Directors
  • Tony Beckley
  • Benny Hill
  • Michael Caine
  • Peter Collinson
  • Raf Vallone
  • Noel Coward
Release date: 2003-09-15
Run time: 95 min.
Creator: Troy Kennedy-Martin
RRP: £15.99
Price: £4.00

Review Italian Job, The [1969] / Paramount Home Entertainment:

The greatest Brit-flick crime caper comedy of all time, 1969's The Italian Job towers mightily above its latter-day mockney imitators. After Alfie but before Get Carter Michael Caine is the hippest ex-con around, bedding the birds (several at a time) and spouting immortal one-liners ("You're only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!"). The inheritor of a devious plan to steal gold bullion in the traffic-choked streets of Turin, Caine recruits a misfit team of genial underworld types-including a lecherous Benny Hill and three plummy public-schoolboy rally drivers-and uses the occasion of an England-Italy football match as cover for the heist. In his final screen appearance, Noel Coward joyfully sends up his own patriotic persona, and there are small though priceless cameos from the likes of Irene Handl and John Le Mesurier. But The Italian Job's real stars are the three Mini Coopers-patriotically decorated red, white and blue-that run rings round every other vehicle in an immortal car-chase sequence, which preserves forever the British public's love affair with the little car. Quincy Jones provided the irreverent music, naturally, while the cliffhanger ending thumbs its nose at anything so un-hip as a resolution. It's all unashamedly jingoistic-ridiculously, gleefully, absurdly so-but the whole sums up the joie de vivre of the 1960s so perfectly that future historians need only look here to learn why the decade was swinging. On the DVD: The Italian Job disc contains three all-new documentaries-"The Great Idea" (conception), "The Self-Preservation Society" (casting), and "Get a Bloomin' Move On" (stunts)-which dovetail into a good 68-minute "making of" featurette. Contributors include scriptwriter Troy Kennedy Martin and Producer Michael Deeley, who also crops up on the sporadically interesting commentary track with author of The Making of The Italian Job, Matthew Field. The deleted "Blue Danube" waltz scene is also included, with optional commentary. [+]
The print is a decent anamorphic transfer of the original 2. 35:1 ratio, and the soundtrack has been remastered to Dolby 5. 1. The animated Mini Cooper menus set the tone perfectly. -Mark Walker.

Review 2 Entertain Video / Nighty Night - Series 1
Actors & Directors
  • Julia Davis
  • Sarah Smith
  • Rebecca Front
  • Kevin Eldon
  • Angus Deayton
Release date: 2005-10-03
Run time: 171 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £4.50

Review Nighty Night - Series 1 / 2 Entertain Video:


Review Sony Pictures Home Entertainment / Moonlighting - Complete Seasons 1 and 2
Actors & Directors
  • Rebecca Stanley
  • James Karen
  • Bruce Willis
  • Cybill Shepherd
  • Allyce Beasley
Release date: 2008-10-06
Run time: 1152 min.
RRP: £29.99
Price: £9.97

Review Moonlighting - Complete Seasons 1 and 2 / Sony Pictures Home Entertainment:

Glamorous Maddie Hayes (Cybill Shepherd) is an ex-model with a problem-her accountant just ran off with her money. Granted, he did leave her with a few broken-down businesses. One happens to be a detective agency run by charming loudmouth David Addison (Bruce Willis). Her attempt to shutter the agency fails when they stumble across a crime and David convinces Maddie to help him solve it. And with that, one of television's most popular partnerships was born. Moonlighting made a star out of newcomer Willis and turned Shepherd (Taxi Driver), who had already found fame through fashion and film, into a bona fide TV star. Created for TV by Glenn Gordon Caron (Remington Steele), the romantic comedy/detective drama was a mid-season replacement that quickly became a hit. There were only six episodes in the first season, including the two-part pilot, but 18 were produced for the second. The first two seasons attracted an eclectic array of guest stars, including Tim Robbins ("Gunfight at the So-So Corral") and Whoopi Goldberg ("Camille"), who earned an Emmy nomination for her performance. The most notable guest was surely Orson Welles, who introduces the black and white noir spoof "The Dream Sequence Always Rings Twice". [+]
It would be his final TV appearance. Moonlighting ran for three more years. While the Emmy-winning Willis would abandon TV for the big screen, Shepherd found subsequent small screen success with Cybill. Caron, meanwhile, would launch another mid-season replacement series which became a surprise hit: NBC's Medium with Patricia Arquette. -Kathleen C. Fennessy, Amazon. com.

Review Paramount Home Entertainment / Forrest Gump (2 Disc Special Collector's Edition) [1994]
Actors & Directors
  • Gary Sinise
  • Robin Wright Penn
  • Sally Field
  • Robert Zemeckis
  • Mykelti Williamson
  • Tom Hanks
Release date: 2001-11-05
Run time: 136 min.
Creator: Winston Groom
RRP: £15.99
Price: £4.55

Review Forrest Gump (2 Disc Special Collector's Edition) [1994] / Paramount Home Entertainment:

If you read the label on a box of chocolates you'll know exactly what you're gonna get. Life isn't like that in Forrest Gump, however, which is one of the reasons why this movie divided appreciative audiences from hard-hearted critics like few others before it. Audiences responded to the Frank Capra-style sentimentality of this warm-hearted tale of a good ol' American boy making his way in the world without ever losing his pure and simple innocence. Critics, however, were made uneasy by the apparently reactionary subtext to the parallel lives of Forrest and his girlfriend Jenny. Her fate, contrasted with his, suggests a triumph for plain ol' American values over dangerous freethinking hippies and liberals. Whether the movie is just unadulterated sentiment or right-wing propaganda, one thing at least was acknowledged by all: that Forrest Gump displays all the craftsmanship of one of Hollywood's most inventive directors and features a central performance from an actor renowned for his total commitment to every role. Thanks to Robert Zemeckis and Tom Hanks, even the most cynical critic will find it hard not to shed at least one tear by the end of this undeniably engrossing movie. The soundtrack is great, too. On the DVD: another good two-disc set gives fans of Gump and budding filmmakers alike plenty to enjoy. The anamorphic picture and Dolby Surround on Disc 1 do full justice to Zemeckis' vision, which is accompanied by two commentaries: one from the director, producer Steve Starkey and production designer Rick Carter, and another one from producer Wendy Finerman. [+]
Disc 2 has the usual making of documentary (30 mins), plus some neat featurettes on the production and sound design and the many special effects shots (including how they made Gary Sinise lose his legs). In addition there are some screen tests of Robin Wright and a very young Haley Joel (The Sixth Sense) Osment, plus trailers and a photo gallery. All in all this is a worthwhile package. -Mark Walker.

Review Paramount Home Entertainment / South Park - Season 8
Release date: 2008-09-15
Run time: 296 min.
RRP: £24.99
Price: £15.97

Review South Park - Season 8 / Paramount Home Entertainment:

To quote Bad Day at Black Rock, a man is as big as what'll make him mad. By this criteria, South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone are giants. Fanaticism of any stripe, steroids, vapid pop culture icons marketed as role models for impressionable youth, and mass merchants encroaching on small town life are just some of the hot button issues tackled in South Park's eighth season. Of course, South Park is not above (or beneath) stooping to conquer, as witness "Stupid Spoiled Whore Video Playset," which climaxes in a "whore-off" featuring-you guessed it-Paris Hilton. Sure, Paris is an easy target, as is Michael Jackson (portrayed in the episode "The Jeffersons" not as a child molester, but as an infantile parent who needs to grow up). But just as a segment of the population tunes in to The Daily Show to get Jon Stewart and company's satirical take on the day's news, so do South Park fans eagerly await Parker and Stone's perspective on the zeitgeist. Which brings us to the season's most infamous episode, "The Passion of the Jew," in which Kyle is devastated by Mel Gibson's brutalising epic, Cartman is transformed into Gibson's Hitlerian apostle, and an unimpressed Stan and Kenny try in vain to get their money back from Gibson himself, a loony toon with a penchant for torture. And while Janet Jackson's Super Bowl wardrobe malfunction is old news, South Park's response, "Good Times with Weapons," remains a relevant satire of misplaced parental priorities, not to mention an anime-stylised tour-de-force in which the boys purchase martial arts weapons at a county fair and imagine themselves as ninja warriors. In one of Stone and Parker's candid mini-commentaries, available as a listening option on each episode, the duo grade this season a B+. Give them extra credit, then, for such seriously (or hilariously) twisted episodes as the one (whose title cannot be printed here) that sends up the film You Got Served, and the instant holiday classic "Woodland Critter Christmas," with its Satan-worshiping forest creatures, and a brilliant surprise ending that echoes Chuck Jones's classic cartoon Duck Amuck, in which the unseen animator tormenting poor Daffy is revealed to be none other than Bugs "Ain't I a stinker?" Bunny. [+]
-Donald Liebenson.

Review 2 Entertain Video / Saxondale - Complete Series 2 [2007]
Actors & Directors
  • Rasmus Hardiker
  • Steve Coogan
  • Ruth Jones
  • John Henderson
  • Morwenna Banks
  • James Bachman
Release date: 2008-09-22
Run time: 168 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £12.74

Review Saxondale - Complete Series 2 [2007] / 2 Entertain Video:


Review Gervase Phinn / Gervase Phinn - Live Again - A School Inspector Calls!
Release date: 2008-11-03
RRP: £19.99
Price: £7.49

Review Gervase Phinn - Live Again - A School Inspector Calls! / Gervase Phinn:


Review Optimum Releasing / Whisky Galore (Single Disc) [1949]
Actors & Directors
  • Catherine Lacey
  • Basil Radford
Release date: 2006-11-13
Run time: 80 min.
RRP: £15.99
Price: £3.98

Review Whisky Galore (Single Disc) [1949] / Optimum Releasing:


Review John Williams Productions / The Steamie
Actors & Directors
  • Eileen McCallum
  • Katy Murphy
  • Dorothy Paul
  • Haldane Duncan
Release date: 2003-09-22
Run time: 86 min.
RRP: £14.99
Price: £4.98

Review The Steamie / John Williams Productions:


Review Warner Home Video / Little Shop Of Horrors [1987]
Actors & Directors
  • Frank Oz
  • Tichina Arnold
  • Steve Martin
  • Vincent Gardenia
  • Ellen Greene
  • Rick Moranis
Release date: 2003-05-26
Run time: 91 min.
Creator: Howard Ashman
RRP: £12.99
Price: £3.86

Review Little Shop Of Horrors [1987] / Warner Home Video:

Hilarious, tacky black comedy from 1960 that may be the best film by B-picture master Roger Corman, other than Bucket of Blood, made about the same time with the same writer, Charles Griffith. Seymour (Jonathan Haze) is an assistant in a skid-row flower shop who's on the point of losing his job when the unusual plant he's developed turns the store into a major attraction. The only problem is that the plant needs human blood to live, all the while crying, "Feed me! FEED ME!" Luckily, Seymour causes a series of inadvertent deaths that more than make up for the food shortage. Jack Nicholson provides a comic sidebar as a masochistic nutter visiting a dentist's office. Giggling and wild-eyed from the same impulse that might lead others to read scandal sheets, he can be seen in the dentist's waiting room reading aloud from Pain magazine. Famous for having the shortest shooting schedule on record (two days and a night), The Little Shop of Horrors spawned an off-Broadway musical that was in turn made into a successful film in 1986, starring Rick Moranis and Steve Martin. It was in just this quick-shoot atmosphere that Corman nurtured the careers of many of America's most celebrated film directors; this little shop of honours included Francis Ford Coppola, Peter Bogdanovich, Martin Scorsese, and Jonathan Demme. -Jim Gay.

Review 2 Entertain Video / Two Pints Of Lager And A Packet Of Crisps : Complete BBC Series 1-6 Box Set [2001]
Actors & Directors
  • Sheridan Smith
  • Gareth Carrivick
  • Nick Wood
  • Ralf Little
  • Becky Martin
  • Natalie Casey
  • Will Mellor
  • Kathryn Drysdale
  • Caroline Jeffries
Release date: 2006-10-16
Run time: 1551 min.
Creator: Karen Laws
RRP: £69.99
Price: £26.86

Review Two Pints Of Lager And A Packet Of Crisps : Complete BBC Series 1-6 Box Set [2001] / 2 Entertain Video:

Two Pints Of Lager & A Packet Of Crisps features the sex-fuelled lives of five late-teens/early twenty-somethings in the northern town of Runcorn. Janet is going out with Jonny, his best friend Gaz has started to date Janet's best friend Donna, and self-centred student Louise just wants a job to keep her in cigarettes. There's also Donna's sarcastic mother, Flo, constantly nagging her daughter to take up a 'proper' relationship with a worthy young man. Storylines followed the on-again/off-again relationships of the young protagonists who have lots of sex and meet in pubs. After the first series the show was initially broadcast on BBC Choice and its successor BBC3. The second series was shown by terrestrial BBC2 from 12 August to 16 September 2002, the third from 7 July to 15 September 2003, the musical special on 10 May 2004 and the fourth series from 17 May to 19 July 2004. The show's title was inspired by the 1980 hit single 'Two Pints Of Lager And A Packet Of Crisps Please' by "Splodgenessabounds".

Review 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment / Futurama - Bender's Big Score [2007]
Actors & Directors
  • Dwayne Carey-Hill
Release date: 2008-04-07
Run time: 85 min.
RRP: £15.99
Price: £11.86

Review Futurama - Bender's Big Score [2007] / 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment:


Review American Dad! / American Dad! - Season 1-3 - Complete [2005]
Release date: 2008-05-12
Run time: 1123 min.
RRP: £59.99
Price: £28.97

Review American Dad! - Season 1-3 - Complete [2005] / American Dad!:


Review Universal Pictures UK / Marx Brothers Boxset: A Girl in Every Port/The Cocoanuts/Love Happy/Room Service/Animal Crackers/Monkey Business/Horse Feathers/Duck Soup
Actors & Directors
  • Chico Marx
  • Harpo Marx
  • Groucho Marx
Release date: 2006-10-16
Run time: 555 min.
RRP: £49.99
Price: £15.98

Review Marx Brothers Boxset: A Girl in Every Port/The Cocoanuts/Love Happy/Room Service/Animal Crackers/Monkey Business/Horse Feathers/Duck Soup / Universal Pictures UK:


Review 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment / How I Met Your Mother - Season 1
Actors & Directors
  • Neil Patrick Harris
  • Pamela Fryman
  • Jason Segel
  • Cobie Smulders
  • Alyson Hannigan
Release date: 2007-05-07
Run time: 484 min.
RRP: £29.99
Price: £13.98

Review How I Met Your Mother - Season 1 / 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment:


Models & Brands:
You Don't Mess with the Zohan [2008], Little Britain Abroad : Complete BBC Special [2006], Gimme, Gimme, Gimme : Complete BBC Boxset [1999], Gremlins/Gremlins 2 - The New Batch [1984], Sister Act / Sister Act 2: Back In The Habit [1992], Italian Job, The [1969], Nighty Night - Series 1, Moonlighting - Complete Seasons 1 and 2, Forrest Gump (2 Disc Special Collector's Edition) [1994], South Park - Season 8, Saxondale - Complete Series 2 [2007], Gervase Phinn - Live Again - A School Inspector Calls!, Whisky Galore (Single Disc) [1949], The Steamie, Little Shop Of Horrors [1987], Two Pints Of Lager And A Packet Of Crisps : Complete BBC Series 1-6 Box Set [2001], Futurama - Bender's Big Score [2007], American Dad! - Season 1-3 - Complete [2005], Marx Brothers Boxset: A Girl in Every Port/The Cocoanuts/Love Happy/Room Service/Animal Crackers/Monkey Business/Horse Feathers/Duck Soup, How I Met Your Mother - Season 1

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