Release date: 2006-06-19
Run time: 235 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £6.94
Review Francesco's Venice : Complete BBC Series / 2 Entertain Video:
Release date: 2007-07-09
Run time: 360 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £8.00
Review How We Built Britain (BBC) / 2 Entertain Video:Anchored by the impassioned presence of David Dimbleby, How We Built Britain is a terrific documentary series that follows its host on a journey of Britain's architectural heritage. Spread across six hours, it's a diligent, patient journey too, allowing plenty of time and space to tell some of the extraordinary stories that underpin the buildings and work that Dimbleby discovers. How We Built Britain takes in the breadth of the British mainland, and fascinating stories are never far away. What's more, How We Built Britain is happy to pose many questions, attempting to uncover the appropriate answers too. What led to the modern day shopping centre, for instance? How, over the last 1000 years, has architecture developed? And has it been of benefit? What defined the look of certain types of buildings? These and many more posers are ably tackled by an intelligent and rewarding piece of television. Grounded by strong photography, an unwillingness to resort to gimmicks, and a focus on good, honest documentary making, How We Built Britain is a terrific piece of work. Engaging, educational and with a broad appeal, it also boasts welcome rewatch value, and is also likely to ignite a desire to explore what lies beyond your front door. Excellent stuff. -Jon Foster.
![Review Metrodome Distribution / Shake Hands With The Devil [2005]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51sgJN1ZDAL._SL160_.jpg)
Actors & Directors
- Roméo Dallaire
- Peter Raymont
Run time: 90 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £5.17
Review Shake Hands With The Devil [2005] / Metrodome Distribution:
![Review Revelation Films Ltd / Holocaust - 30th Anniversary Collector's Set [1978]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/515VbUnMyiL._SL160_.jpg)
Actors & Directors
- Tom Bell
- Meryl Streep
- James Woods
- Joseph Bottoms
- Marvin J Chomsky
Run time: 431 min.
RRP: £24.99
Price: £16.97
Review Holocaust - 30th Anniversary Collector's Set [1978] / Revelation Films Ltd:
![Review 2 Entertain Video / Walking With Dinosaurs : Complete BBC Series [1999]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41SW96N2SCL._SL160_.jpg)
Actors & Directors
- Kenneth Branagh
- André Dussollier
- Resa Karim
- Jasper James
- Tim Haines
- Avery Brooks
Run time: 230 min.
RRP: £24.99
Price: £6.98
Review Walking With Dinosaurs : Complete BBC Series [1999] / 2 Entertain Video:Walking with Dinosaurs, which must have surprised even its makers by reaching the viewing figures usually reserved for royal weddings, was the undoubted television event of 1999. (The companion book and soundtrack album became bestsellers, too. ) Extending the computer animation techniques developed for Jurassic Park (1993) these six 30-minute programmes, narrated by Kenneth Branagh, became the first blockbuster special-effects documentary. Here was natural history with a difference, recreating "the lost world" of the Cretaceous and Mesozoic with modern technology, the remarkable visuals enabling the programme-makers to show what life may have been like during the estimated 160 million years "when dinosaurs ruled the Earth". As well as the dinosaurs, the series investigates the plants, insects, climate and geography of the distant past, and considers the mystery of why the creatures became extinct so suddenly. There has been some argument over how much is scientific fact, and how much is entertaining speculation-after all, Life on Earth (1978) and The Living Planet (1984) had the advantage of living subjects to film-but for the moment this series must stand as the definitive visual chronicle of the life and times of the fascinating "terrible lizards". A year later the BBC followed this with the surprisingly sympathetic The Ballad of Big Al (about a youthful Allosaurus), before the equally ambitious, and equally enthralling Walking with Beasts (2001). On the DVD: Those interested in special effects techniques will appreciate the inclusion of a 50-minute "making of" documentary (which is also on the VHS). There's also an informative director's commentary, plus some behind-the-scenes picture sequences and additional graphics. The sound is vivid Dolby stereo and the picture is anamorphic 16:9 widescreen. [+]-Gary S Dalkin.
Release date: 2007-11-05
RRP: £24.99
Price: £9.73
Review The Story of India : Complete BBC Series / 2 Entertain Video:
![Review Warner Home Video / 300 [2007]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51S-1MEYb6L._SL160_.jpg)
Actors & Directors
- Lena Headey
- David Wenham
- Vincent Regan
- Gerard Butler
- Dominic West
- Zack Snyder
Run time: 116 min.
Creator: Michael Gordon
RRP: £9.99
Price: £5.00
Review 300 [2007] / Warner Home Video:Like Sin City before it, 300 brings Frank Miller and Lynn Varley's graphic novel vividly to life. Gerard Butler (Beowulf and Grendel, The Phantom of the Opera) radiates pure power and charisma as Leonidas, the Grecian king who leads 300 of his fellow Spartans (including David Wenham of The Lord of the Rings, Michael Fassbender, and Andrew Pleavin) into a battle against the overwhelming force of Persian invaders. Their only hope is to neutralise the numerical advantage by confronting the Persians, led by King Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro), at the narrow strait of Thermopylae. More engaging than Troy, the tepid and somewhat similar epic of ancient Greece, 300 is also comparable to Sin City in that the actors were shot on green screen, then added to digitally created backgrounds. The effort pays off in a strikingly stylised look and huge, sweeping battle scenes. However, it's not as to-the-letter faithful to Miller's source material as Sin City was. The plot is the same, and many of the book's images are represented just about perfectly. But some extra material has been added, including new villains (who would be considered "bosses" if this were a video game, and it often feels like one) and a political subplot involving new characters and a significantly expanded role for the Queen of Sparta (Lena Headey). While this subplot by director Zack Snyder (Dawn of the Dead) and his fellow co-writers does break up the violence, most fans would probably dismiss it as filler if it didn't involve the sexy Headey. Other viewers, of course, will be turned off by the waves of spurting blood, flying body parts, and surging testosterone. [+](The six-pack abs are also relentless, and the movie has more and less nudity-more female, less male-than the graphic novel. ) Still, as a representation of Miller's work and as an ancient-themed action flick with a modern edge, 300 delivers. -David Horiuchi.
![Review 2 Entertain Video / Walking With Beasts : Complete BBC Series [2001]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51NYQAX9YNL._SL160_.jpg)
Actors & Directors
- Karyn Drane
- Lorne Duquette
- Delvin Opissinow
- Nigel Paterson
- Cory Generoux
- Kenneth Branagh
Run time: 180 min.
Creator: Michael Olmert
RRP: £24.99
Price: £15.09
Review Walking With Beasts : Complete BBC Series [2001] / 2 Entertain Video:Walking With Beasts is an introduction to the animals (predominantly mammals) that roamed the earth from the extinction of the dinosaurs until the rise of early humans. The sequel to the BBC's acclaimed and highly successful series Walking With Dinosaurs, Beasts also uses a combination of clever special effects and computer-generated imagery to create a realistic world as it may have appeared millions of years ago. As to be expected from any BBC nature programme, the images are visually stunning; the prehistoric animals look impressively lifelike, interacting seamlessly with each other and their environment to create an entire world that could have been photographed only yesterday. Best of all is Episode 2, "Whale Killer", which follows a female Basilosaurus, an enormous ancient predatory whale, as she travels through shallow seas and along coastlines-the underwater images could have just as easily originated in the BBC's spectacular Blue Planet series. It's unfortunate, therefore, that Walking With Beasts is let down by its script and the often dubious science therein. Episode 3, "The Land of Giants", begins with an anthropomorphic statement better suited to a Disney film than a scientific documentary, referring to the featured animals as "The good [a herbivore or plant-eating animal], the bad [a carnivore or flesh-eating animal] and the ugly [a giant warthog which is, admittedly, pretty ugly]. " Still, Walking With Beasts has a host of little touches and flourishes that add to the feeling of realism (the animals knock over the cameras, pebbles hit the lens), which make this programme a success as a piece of pure entertainment and prehistoric escapism. A companion book and soundtrack CD is also available. -Ted Kord.
Release date: 2007-06-11
Run time: 180 min.
RRP: £24.99
Price: £13.26
Review Fred Dibnah's Building Of Britain / Acorn Media:
Actors & Directors
- David McCullough (Pres/Narr)
- Ken Burns (Director)
Run time: 690 min.
RRP: £49.99
Price: £27.46
Review The American Civil War / Simply Media:The most successful public-television miniseries in American history, the 11-hour American Civil War defined what has since become known as the "Ken Burns approach"-voice-over narrators reading letters and documents dramatically and stating the writer's name at their conclusion, fresh live footage of places juxtaposed with still images (photographs, paintings, maps, prints), anecdotal interviews, and romantic musical scores taken from the era he depicts. The American Civil War uses all of these devices to evoke atmosphere and resurrect an event that many knew only from stale history books. While Burns is a historian, a researcher, and a documentarian, he's above all a gifted storyteller, and it's his narrative powers that give this chronicle its beauty, overwhelming emotion, and devastating horror. Using the words of old letters, eloquently read by a variety of celebrities, the stories of historians like Shelby Foote and rare, stained photos, Burns allows us not only to learn and understand history, but also to feel and experience it. -Dave McCoy.
![Review The Great Indian Wars / The Great Indian Wars 1540-1890 [2007]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51dzj1YDgoL._SL160_.jpg)
Release date: 2007-03-12
Run time: 235 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £12.74
Review The Great Indian Wars 1540-1890 [2007] / The Great Indian Wars:
Release date: 2007-09-24
Run time: 200 min.
RRP: £14.99
Price: £4.98
Review Spartans - The Rise & Fall (Including the story of the 300) / Spartans:
![Review delta home entertainment / Jacques Cousteau Odyssey, The - Complete Series [2006]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/5170SBCZX6L._SL160_.jpg)
Release date: 2006-06-19
Run time: 624 min.
RRP: £29.99
Price: £13.88
Review Jacques Cousteau Odyssey, The - Complete Series [2006] / delta home entertainment:
Release date: 2004-10-18
Run time: 650 min.
RRP: £49.99
Price: £26.62
Review Alistair Cooke's America / 2 Entertain Video:A classic from what now seems like the Golden Age of TV documentaries, Alistair Cooke's America was first broadcast in 1972-3 and it remains, along with the contemporary The World at War, an example of how documentaries should be made: there's none of the flashy editing, wobbly camera-work, over-intrusive music or costumed actors prancing around in the mode of Simon Schama's fussy History of Britain for example. Here there is just scenery, the odd map or illustration and—most importantly—Cooke himself talking directly and unhurriedly to camera. Over 13 leisurely hours, he narrates a "personal history" of his adopted country, beginning with his own arrival as a fresh young Cambridge graduate in the 1930s before taking us back to the very foundations of America, its colonisation, the war of Independence (told in an admirably non-partisan way) and so on through momentous and turbulent decades right up to the early 1970s, where Civil Rights and protest movements are high on the agenda. Throughout, Cooke interweaves anecdotes and digressions into the main narrative, charming the viewer with his storytelling precisely in the manner so beloved of listeners to his admirable Letter from America. By the end he has a warning that, although delivered in 1973, remains as telling today as it did then: America, like Ancient Rome as depicted by Gibbon in his Decline and Fall, stands poised between its remarkable vitality and its equally remarkable capacity for decadence. Whether, like Rome, the USA becomes a victim of its own internal divisions or somehow manages to pull back from the brink still remains to be seen. On the DVD: This four-disc set is neatly presented in digipack format, and includes a Pebble Mill at One interview with Cooke in which he discusses the series. -Mark Walker.
![Review 2 Entertain Video / State Of The Planet [2000]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/5189W5NSTBL._SL160_.jpg)
Actors & Directors
- David Attenborough
- Kate Broome
Run time: 147 min.
Creator: Rupert Barrington
RRP: £15.99
Price: £6.89
Review State Of The Planet [2000] / 2 Entertain Video:State of the Planet is long overdue. The BBC's Natural History Unit has finally delivered a hard-hitting documentary series on the extinction crisis many scientists believe is beginning to threaten the integrity of the entire biosphere. The combination of stunning camerawork, glossy production, David Attenborough's inspirational whispering narration and subject matter of the greatest and most urgent import makes State of the Planet riveting and required viewing. The three programmes cover the scientific understanding of the crisis, the extent to which humans are implicated in the wave of extinctions currently sweeping across our planet, and the ways in which we might slow or halt the current precipitous decline in Earth's biodiversity. In brief, the conclusions are that we know astonishingly little about the diversity of life on Earth, that our species is implicated at every level in precipitating this, the "sixth great mass extinction", and that we are only just beginning to see possible ways out of the environmental mess that we have created. Viewing the second programme (our malfeasance) directly before the third (our attempts at remediation) makes it abundantly clear that we have a very long way to go. The participation in the series of some of the world's leading authorities on biodiversity and extinction-Ed Wilson, Terry Erwin, Sylvia Earle, Sir Robert May-adds considerable gravity to Attenborough's already weighty presentation. However, the programmes would have been much improved had the experts been allotted more than the odd sound-bite. And why only three programmes on such an important and urgent issue? Even the terrifically expensive and time-consuming Walking with Dinosaurs got six. More of the serious stuff, please. [+]-Chris Lavers.
Actors & Directors
- David Attenborough
- Kenneth Clark
Run time: 650 min.
RRP: £51.99
Price: £28.94
Review Civilisation : Complete BBC Series (4 Disc Box Set) / 2 Entertain Video:
Release date: 2006-11-13
RRP: £59.99
Price: £40.60
Review A History of Britain : The Complete BBC Series (6 Disc Box Set) / Simon Schama:
![Review Momentum Pictures / Bowling For Columbine [2002]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/513N7V3HQNL._SL160_.jpg)
Actors & Directors
- Charlton Heston
- Marilyn Manson
- Jacobo Arbenz
- Michael Moore
- Mike Bradley
- Michael Moore
Run time: 120 min.
Creator: Jim Czarnecki
RRP: £19.99
Price: £2.99
Review Bowling For Columbine [2002] / Momentum Pictures:An Oscar-winning documentary based around a 1999 massacre at an American High School in Colorado, Bowling for Columbine is filmmaker Michael Moore's take on the culture of firearms violence that is, apparently, peculiar to the USA. Significantly, this is no detective investigation into the psychology and motives of the two students who randomly opened fire on their classmates, killing 12 of them-Moore regards such particulars as practically irrelevant-rather, it's an attempt to counter the moral panic and right-wing diagnoses that followed the massacre, with the likes of rock star Marilyn Manson blamed by some. Using a mixture of roving interviews, statistics, historical documentary footage, cartoon animation and the set-ups familiar to fans of his TV Nation series, Moore teases out appalling truths about gun proliferation in America. He's able to obtain a rifle by opening a bank account and shows that the bullets used in the Columbine massacre were still available at KMart-until he confronts their management with victims of the shootings. But it's not just gun proliferation that's the problem. Canada, Moore discovers, is similarly rife with firearms yet has a far lower murder rate. The problem with the US, Moore believes, is an irrational climate of fear that has driven the country to reactionary extremes since the days of the pioneers, persuading citizens that they need to be armed to the teeth. In a film short on lowlights, the highlight is Moore's confrontation with NRA President Charlton Heston. Moore's deceptively genial, shambling, regular American dude appearance (as well as his NRA membership) wins Heston's confidence and Moore teases from the actor an inadvertently racist slip of the tongue, before turning up the heat, at which point Heston terminates the interview. In this moment, the sort of anger Moore demonstrated at the 2003 Academy Awards ceremony surfaces briefly as he brandishes a picture of a gunshot victim to the retreating Heston. [+]Funny, shrewd, righteous, hard to deny, Bowling for Columbine is uncomfortable and irresistible filmmaking. -David Stubbs.
Release date: 2005-04-25
Run time: 999 min.
RRP: £99.99
Price: £30.98
Review The World At War - Complete TV Series (11 Disc Box Set) / Fremantle Home Entertainment:When this epic series was first broadcast in 1973 it redefined the gold standard for television documentary; it remains the benchmark by which all factual programming must judge itself. Originally shown as 26 one-hour programmes, The World at War set out to tell the story of the Second World War through the testimony of key participants. The result is a unique and unrepeatable event, since many of the eyewitnesses captured on film did not have long left to live. Each hour-long programme is carefully structured to focus on a key theme or campaign, from the rise of Nazi Germany to Hitler's downfall and the onset of the Cold War. There are no academic "talking heads" here to spell out an official version of history; the narration, delivered with wonderful gravitas by Sir Laurence Olivier, is kept to a minimum. The show's great coup was to allow the participants to speak for themselves. Painstaking research in the archives of the Imperial War Museum also unearthed a vast quantity of newsreel footage, including on occasion the cameraman's original raw rushes which present an unvarnished and never-before-seen picture of important events. Carl Davis' portentous main title theme and score underlines the grand scale of the enterprise. The original 26 episodes were supplemented three years later by six special programmes (narrated by Eric Porter), bringing the total running-time to a truly epic 32 hours. -Mark Walker.
Release date: 2008-11-03
Run time: 200 min.
RRP: £24.99
Price: £14.99
Review Simon Schama's The American Future: A History / Simon Schama:
| Models & Brands:
Francesco's Venice : Complete BBC Series, How We Built Britain (BBC), Shake Hands With The Devil [2005], Holocaust - 30th Anniversary Collector's Set [1978], Walking With Dinosaurs : Complete BBC Series [1999], The Story of India : Complete BBC Series, 300 [2007], Walking With Beasts : Complete BBC Series [2001], Fred Dibnah's Building Of Britain, The American Civil War, The Great Indian Wars 1540-1890 [2007], Spartans - The Rise & Fall (Including the story of the 300), Jacques Cousteau Odyssey, The - Complete Series [2006], Alistair Cooke's America, State Of The Planet [2000], Civilisation : Complete BBC Series (4 Disc Box Set), A History of Britain : The Complete BBC Series (6 Disc Box Set), Bowling For Columbine [2002], The World At War - Complete TV Series (11 Disc Box Set), Simon Schama's The American Future: A History |
