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Review Universal Pictures UK / Imagine Me And You [2006]
Actors & Directors
  • Matthew Goode
  • Lena Headey
  • Ol Parker
  • Darren Boyd
  • Piper Perabo
Release date: 2006-10-16
Run time: 90 min.
RRP: £15.99
Price: £4.99

Review Imagine Me And You [2006] / Universal Pictures UK:

Writer/director Ol Parker's debut takes its title from "Happy Together" by the Turtles ("Imagine me and you / and you and me") and its inspiration from the romantic comedies of Richard Curtis (Love Actually). There's a twist. Flower shop owner Luce (Lena Headey, The Brothers Grimm) is gay. Newlywed Rachel (a convincingly UK-accented Piper Perabo, Lost and Delirious) is straight. The two meet at Rachel's wedding-Luce designed the floral arrangements-and feel an instant connection. Rachel brushes it off. After all, the charming Heck (Matthew Goode, Match Point) was her best friend long before he became her husband. Shortly after the ceremony, however, she begins to feel as if something is missing. She starts making excuses to see Luce. First it's to thank her for the flowers, then it's to invite her to dinner with Heck and their on-the-make pal Cooper (a hilarious Darren Boyd). [+]
who's crushed when he discovers that Luce prefers women. Rachel, meanwhile, finds married life pleasant enough, but only really feels alive when she's with Luce. It's tricky, because she loves Heck and doesn't want to hurt his feelings, so she and Luce decide to stop seeing each other. But the bond between the two is too powerful for either to resist. What it may lack in originality, Imagine Me & You makes up for in an enchanting soundtrack and sensitive performances from its three likable leads. -Kathleen C. Fennessy.

Review Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainm / Ice Princess
Actors & Directors
  • Tim Fywell
  • Kim Cattrall
  • Hayden Panettiere
  • Joan Cusack
  • Michelle Trachtenberg
Release date: 2005-08-22
Run time: 94 min.
RRP: £14.99
Price: £3.50

Review Ice Princess / Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainm:


Review Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainm / Kate And Leopold [2002]
Actors & Directors
  • Natasha Lyonne
  • Breckin Meyer
  • Liev Schreiber
  • Meg Ryan
  • James Mangold
  • Hugh Jackman
Release date: 2003-02-03
Run time: 113 min.
Creator: Steven Rogers
RRP: £15.99
Price: £3.97

Review Kate And Leopold [2002] / Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainm:

On its theatrical release, James Mangold's romantic comedy Kate & Leopold was rightly panned for holes in the logic of its time-travel plot. Stewart (Liev Schreiber) finds a portal to 1876 and goes to observe his ancestor Leopold, Duke of Albany (Hugh Jackman) who then follows him back to 2001. Since Leopold is responsible for inventing a key component in lifts, this instantly causes problems. The gallant Leopold charms, and is charmed by Stewart's ex, Kate (Meg Ryan), a hard-boiled cynical marketing expert who finds in Victorian idealism a corrective to her view of the world. And this is part of the problem with the film-we cannot entirely believe in Meg Ryan as a cynic, or that her problems can be resolved by going off to 1876 to be with her aristocratic sweetie, and much of the film has an oddly sour hostility to its heroine. Hugh Jackman is a delight in the fish-out-of-water scenes and Breckin Meyer is also very funny as Kate's actor brother, who assumes Leopold is a colleague sunk deep into the creation of a part. On the DVD Kate and Leopold has crisp Dolby 5:1 sound, which allows the very different acoustics of the two historical periods to be neatly contrasted, and is presented in anamorphic 1. 85:1 widescreen. We get both the theatrical and Director's cut, both offered with commentary, though the Director's cut audio track is more polemical. The Director's cut restores some expository material and makes more sense. [+]
-Roz Kaveney.

Review Warner Home Video / Practical Magic [1999]
Actors & Directors
  • Sandra Bullock
  • Stockard Channing
  • Nicole Kidman
  • Griffin Dunne
  • Goran Visnjic
  • Dianne Wiest
Release date: 1999-07-19
Run time: 100 min.
Creator: Robin Swicord
RRP: £12.99
Price: £5.97

Review Practical Magic [1999] / Warner Home Video:

Actor Griffin Dunne improves a bit on his first film as a director, Addicted to Love, with this drama-comedy about a family of witches. Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock play spell-casting sisters of different temperaments: the former is a high-living, free-spirited sort, while Bullock's character is a homebody who can't get around a family curse that kills the men in their lives. A widowed single mom, Bullock gets into a jam with an abusive Bulgarian (Goran Visnjic) and is helped out by her sibling, but the result brings a good-looking, warm, inquisitive cop (Aidan Quinn) into their lives. The film has a variety of tonal changes-cute, scary, glum-that Dunne can't always effectively juggle. But the female-centric, celebratory nature of the film (the fantasies, the sharing, the witchy bonds) is infectious, and supporting roles by Dianne Wiest and Stockard Channing as Kidman and Bullock's magical aunts are a lot of fun. -Tom Keogh.

Review Warner Home Video / Must Love Dogs [2005]
Actors & Directors
  • Elizabeth Perkins
  • Christopher Plummer
  • Diane Lane
  • Ali Hillis
  • Gary David Goldberg
  • John Cusack
Release date: 2006-02-06
Run time: 98 min.
RRP: £17.99
Price: £4.45

Review Must Love Dogs [2005] / Warner Home Video:


Review Sony Pictures Home Entertainment / Saving Face [2005]
Actors & Directors
  • Lynn Chen
  • Michelle Krusiec
  • Alice Wu
  • Joan Chen
Release date: 2005-12-12
Run time: 93 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £3.77

Review Saving Face [2005] / Sony Pictures Home Entertainment:


Review Icon Home Entertainment / It's A Boy/Girl Thing [2006]
Actors & Directors
  • Brooke D'Orsay
  • Robert Joy
  • Kevin Zegers
  • Nick Hurran
  • Samaire Armstrong
  • Sherry Miller
Release date: 2007-05-21
Run time: 91 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £4.73

Review It's A Boy/Girl Thing [2006] / Icon Home Entertainment:


Review MGM Entertainment / Annie Hall [1977]
Actors & Directors
  • Tony Roberts
  • Diane Keaton
  • Carol Kane
  • Paul Simon
  • Woody Allen
  • Woody Allen
Release date: 2000-07-10
Run time: 89 min.
Creator: Marshall Brickman
RRP: £15.99
Price: £4.93

Review Annie Hall [1977] / MGM Entertainment:

Annie Hall is one of the truest, most bittersweet romances on film. In it, Allen plays a thinly disguised version of himself: Alvy Singer, a successful-if neurotic-television comedian living in Manhattan. Annie (the wholesomely luminous Dianne Keaton) is a Midwestern transplant who dabbles in photography and sings in small clubs. When the two meet, the sparks are immediate-if repressed. Alone in her apartment for the first time, Alvy and Annie navigate a minefield of self-conscious "is-this-person-someone-I'd-want-to-get-involved-with?" conversation. As they speak, subtitles flash their unspoken thoughts: the likes of "I'm not smart enough for him" and "I sound like a jerk". Despite all their caution, they connect, and we're swept up in the flush of their new romance. Allen's antic sensibility shines here in a series of flashbacks to Alvy's childhood, growing up, quite literally, under a rumbling roller coaster. His boisterous Jewish family's dinner table shares a split screen with the WASP-y Hall's tight-lipped holiday table, one Alvy has joined for the first time. His position as outsider is incontestable when he looks down the table and sizes up Annie's "Grammy Hall" as "a classic Jew-hater". [+]
The relationship arcs, as does Annie's growing desire for independence. It quickly becomes clear that the two are on separate tracks, as what was once endearing becomes annoying. Annie Hall embraces Allen's central themes-his love affair with New York (and hatred of Los Angeles), how impossible relationships are, and his fear of death. But their balance is just right, the chemistry between Allen's worry-wart Alvy and Keaton's gangly, loopy Annie is one of the screen's best pairings. It couldn't be more engaging. -Susan Benson.

Review MGM Entertainment / Jack And Sarah (1995)
Actors & Directors
  • Eileen Atkins
  • Judi Dench
  • Tim Sullivan
  • Richard E. Grant
  • Samantha Mathis
  • Cherie Lunghi
Release date: 2001-07-23
Run time: 105 min.
Creator: Steve Morrison
RRP: £15.99
Price: £3.16

Review Jack And Sarah (1995) / MGM Entertainment:

The story of a father and baby daughter, 1995's Jack and Sarah is the best cinematic depiction of what came to be known as "the 90s man". No matter how bad things get we know Richard E Grant will eventually learn to get in touch with his feelings and express his emotions. Grant plays Jack, whose reaction to the loss of his wife during childbirth is initially complete rejection followed by an alcoholic binge. Jack's family coax fatherhood from him easily enough however and this is where the film's heart lies. Brushing away the bitter beginning, Grant's comedic performance in juggling life around newborn baby Sarah is often hilarious: the image of the child in a sock hat being carried in a padded envelope is priceless. Bouncing off Grant's acting are some terrific cameos from Judi Dench as his stuffy mum and Sir Ian McKellen as a convincingly inebriated butler. Samantha Mathis plays an American waitress who provides a twist to the tale. There's genuine chemistry between her and Grant, specifically when they are both around the outrageously cute baby Sarah. Written and directed by Tim Sullivan, this is clearly a very personal expression of the meaning of family. Although backed by lots of Simply Red songs, it hopefully won't be one that's too quickly outdated. [+]
On the DVD: The ratio is confusingly stated as "Widescreen 4:3". Effectively it's an anamorphic 1:66:1 presentation giving a tad more edge than its video predecessor. Sound is in Dolby surround. The minimal extras are four repetitive TV spots and two theatrical trailers. -Paul Tonks.

Review 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment / Working Girl [1988]
Actors & Directors
  • Joan Cusack
  • Melanie Griffith
  • Alec Baldwin
  • Sigourney Weaver
  • Mike Nichols
  • Harrison Ford
Release date: 2006-03-06
Run time: 109 min.
RRP: £12.99
Price: £3.93

Review Working Girl [1988] / 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment:

In the ensuing years since Working Girl was released, Harrison Ford has never given such a charming and witty performance, Sigourney Weaver hasn't been given quite the same kind of scenery-chewing role, and Melanie Griffith simply hasn't got near doing anything this good again. And yet in Mike Nichols' excellent romantic comedy, they all gel in a film with eminent rewatch value. The premise is fairly simple. Griffith's lowly secretary gets a job with Weaver's megabitch boss. The former is unhappy at home and work, while the latter is unscrupulous and underhand, and happy to pass off one of Griffith's good ideas as her own. Yet when Weaver's character is incapacitated, in steps Griffith, who quickly attracts the professional and personal attention of Ford, as she attempts to navigate her way to the top-until Weaver reappears on the scene… In lesser hands, all this could become routine Hollywood nonsense, yet here it really clicks. Griffith effectively brokered her career off the back of her performance here, yet all three leads are in fine form, with a strong supporting cast and a delicious script to fall back on. Elements have certainly dated, and the world in many ways has moved on, yet there's still plenty of room in it for films as good as this one. -Jon Foster.

Review Sony Pictures Home Entertainment / Catch And Release [2007]
Actors & Directors
  • Timothy Olyphant
  • Jennifer Garner
  • Susannah Grant
  • Darren Daurie
  • Joshua Friesen
  • Juliette Lewis
Release date: 2007-07-23
Run time: 107 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £2.27

Review Catch And Release [2007] / Sony Pictures Home Entertainment:

Jennifer Garner's lips grow more Angelina-esque every year. In the romantic comedy Catch and Release, Garner (Alias,13 Going On 30) plays Gray Wheeler, a young woman whose fiance dies unexpectedly before the wedding, leaving Gray unable to afford her home-so she moves in with her fiance's best friends, Sam (Kevin Smith, director of Clerks and Dogma) and Dennis (Sam Jaeger, Lucky Number Slevin). But the presence of another old friend named Fritz (Timothy Olyphant, Deadwood) leads to the unveiling of a secret: Gray's fiance had a child with another woman. Catch and Release lacks the clear story structure that most romantic comedies are built on, but trades it for a richer sense of the ambiguities of human relationships. Garner, though lovely and personable, is a bit bland-fortunately, she's surrounded by actors with all kinds of edges, including Smith (who shows an unexpected and uncloying earnest side), Fiona Shaw (from the Harry Potter movies) as the fiance's grieving mother, and Juliette Lewis (Cape Fear), who demonstrates once again her powers as a fearless and surprising actress. Catch and Release is an uneven movie with a remarkably elegant visual style that sometimes clashes with the workman-like dialogue, but it can't be written off as the same old Hollywood claptrap. Though a happy ending is inevitable, the path it takes has some surprising turns and flashes of unexpected emotional depth. - Bret Fetzer.

Review Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainm / Shall We Dance? [2004]
Actors & Directors
  • Stanley Tucci
  • Anita Gillette
  • Richard Gere
  • Jennifer Lopez
  • Peter Chelsom
  • Susan Sarandon
Release date: 2005-06-20
Run time: 101 min.
RRP: £17.99
Price: £3.93

Review Shall We Dance? [2004] / Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainm:

Something got lost in translation from 1996's critically acclaimed Japanese comedy, but the American remake of Shall We Dance? is not without charms of its own. In being transplanted from Tokyo to Chicago, the original version's subtle humor is shaken out of its cultural context, but this is an otherwise faithful adaptation in which a weary lawyer (Richard Gere) battles his mid-life crisis with ballroom dancing lessons, while his wife (Susan Sarandon) hires a private detective to see if he's cheating. Those expecting a Jennifer Lopez showcase will be disappointed; her role as the melancholy dance instructor keeps the beautifully lovelorn J-Lo on the sidelines, while a cast of standard-issue supporting characters (especially Stanley Tucci's clandestine faux-Latin dance lover) provide a generous dose of Hollywood-ized comic relief. All of this gives Shall We Dance? a polished sheen of mainstream entertainment that many viewers-and especially ballroom dancers-will find delightfully irresistible. -Jeff Shannon, Amazon. com.

Review Optimum Home Entertainment / Me And You And Everyone We Know
Actors & Directors
  • Miranda July
  • John Hawkes
  • Brandon Ratcliff
  • Miranda July
  • Miles Thompson
Release date: 2006-01-30
Run time: 90 min.
RRP: £15.99
Price: £4.29

Review Me And You And Everyone We Know / Optimum Home Entertainment:


Review Lions Gate Home Entertainment / Good Luck Chuck [2007]
Actors & Directors
  • Dan Fogler
  • Dane Cook
  • Mark Helfrich
  • Jessica Alba
Release date: 2008-03-17
Run time: 97 min.
RRP: £17.99
Price: £4.18

Review Good Luck Chuck [2007] / Lions Gate Home Entertainment:


Review Verve Pictures / Nina's Heavenly Delights [2006]
Actors & Directors
  • Ronny Jhutti
  • Pratibha Parmar
  • Art Malik
  • Shelley Conn
  • Laura Fraser
  • Raji James
Release date: 2007-01-22
Run time: 91 min.
Creator: Andrea Gibb
RRP: £19.99
Price: £4.25

Review Nina's Heavenly Delights [2006] / Verve Pictures:


Review Contender Home Entertainment Group / In Search Of A Midnight Kiss [2008]
Actors & Directors
  • Scoot McNairy
  • Alex Holdridge
  • Sara Simmonds
Release date: 2008-10-06
Run time: 89 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £11.88

Review In Search Of A Midnight Kiss [2008] / Contender Home Entertainment Group:


Review Sony Pictures Home Entertainment / Maid In Manhattan [2003]
Actors & Directors
  • Tyler Posey
  • Ralph Fiennes
  • Stanley Tucci
  • Wayne Wang
  • Jennifer Lopez
  • Natasha Richardson
Release date: 2003-09-15
Run time: 101 min.
Creator: Kevin Wade
RRP: £19.99
Price: £2.93

Review Maid In Manhattan [2003] / Sony Pictures Home Entertainment:

In the breezy Maid in Manhattan, a maid in a top-flight hotel (Jennifer Lopez) chances to dress in a guest's clothes just when a handsome political candidate (Ralph Fiennes) walks in. Naturally, he's bowled over and pursues her; he's initially drawn to her gorgeous good looks but soon comes to appreciate her honesty and common sense. Of course, she can't let him know that she's only a maid, and various high jinks ensue-it's all pretty formulaic, but lurking in the edges of this glossy, brainless romance are a wealth of sly turns by Natasha Richardson and Amy Sedaris (as callow socialites), Bob Hoskins (as a dignified butler), Stanley Tucci (as Fiennes' exasperated campaign manager), and many less familiar faces. All help to give Maid in Manhattan the life and texture that has been processed out of the main characters. -Bret Fetzer.

Review Universal Pictures UK / Bridget Jones's Diary / The Edge Of Reason
Actors & Directors
  • Beeban Kidron
  • Jim Broadbent
  • Hugh Grant
  • Colin Firth
  • Sharon Maguire
  • Gemma Jones
  • Renee Zellweger
Release date: 2005-11-14
Run time: 202 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £8.99

Review Bridget Jones's Diary / The Edge Of Reason / Universal Pictures UK:

Bridget Jones's Diary Featuring a blowzy, winningly inept size-12 heroine, Bridget Jones's Diary is a fetching adaptation of Helen Fielding's runaway bestseller, grittier than Ally McBeal but sweeter than Sex and the City. The normally sylphlike Renée Zellweger (Nurse Betty, Me, Myself and Irene) wolfed pasta to gain poundage to play "singleton" Bridget, a London-based publicist who divides her free time between binge eating in front of the TV, downing Chardonnay with her friends, and updating the diary in which she records her negligible weight fluctuations and romantic misadventures of the year. Things start off badly at Christmas when her mother tries to set her up with seemingly standoffish lawyer Mark Darcy (Colin Firth), whom Bridget accidentally overhears dissing her. Instead she embarks on a disastrous liaison with her raffish boss, Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant, infinitely more likeable when he's playing a baddie instead of his patented tongue-tied fops). Eventually, Bridget comes to wonder if she's let her pride prejudice her against the surprisingly attractive Mr. Darcy. If the plot sounds familiar, that's because Fielding's novel was itself a retelling of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, whose romantic male lead is also named Mr. Darcy. An extra ironic poke in the ribs is added by the casting of Firth, who played Austen's haughty hero in the acclaimed BBC adaptation of Austen's novel. First-time director Sharon Maguire directs with confident comic zest, while Zellweger twinkles charmingly, fearlessly baring her cellulite and pulling off a spot-on English accent. [+]
Like Four Weddings and a Funeral and Notting Hill (both of which were written by this film's coscreenwriter, Richard Curtis), Bridget Jones's stock-in-trade is a very English self-deprecating sense of humour, a mild suspicion of Americans (especially if they're thin and successful), and a subtly expressed analysis of thirtysomething fears about growing up and becoming a "smug married. " The whole is, as Bridget would say, v. good. -Leslie Felperin Bridget Jones 2: The Edge Of Reason Although it's been three years since we last saw Bridget (Renée Zellweger), only a few weeks have passed in her world. She is, as you'll remember, no longer a "singleton," having snagged stuffy but gallant Mark Darcy (Colin Firth) at the end of the 2001 film. Now she's fallen deeply in love and out of her neurotic mind with paranoia: Is Mark cheating on her with that slim, bright young thing from the law office? Will the reappearance of dashing cad Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant) further spell the end of her self-confidence when they're shoved off to Thailand together for a TV travel story? If such questions also seem pressing to you, this sequel will be fairly painless, but you shouldn't expect anything fresh. Director Beeban Kidron and her screenwriters-all four of them!-are content to sink matters into slapstick, with chunky Zellweger (who's unflatteringly photographed) the literal butt of all jokes. Though the star still has her charms, and some of Bridget's social gaffes are amusing, the film is mired in low comedy-a sequence in a Thai women's prison is more offensive than outrageous-with only Grant's rakish mischief to pull it out of the swamp. -Steve Wiecking.

Review Pathe Distribution / An Ideal Husband [1999]
Actors & Directors
  • Minnie Driver
  • Rupert Everett
  • Cate Blanchett
  • Jeremy Northam
  • Oliver Parker
  • Julianne Moore
Release date: 2000-04-10
Run time: 93 min.
Creator: Oscar Wilde
RRP: £12.99
Price: £3.92

Review An Ideal Husband [1999] / Pathe Distribution:

For truly clever dialogue and a smartly structured plot, you can't go wrong with Oscar Wilde. Wilde's play An Ideal Husband is not his best known, but this film adaptation has all the wit you could ask for and a cast with the chops to deliver it: Cate Blanchett (Elizabeth, Oscar and Lucinda), Julianne Moore (Boogie Nights, Short Cuts), Minnie Driver (Grosse Pointe Blank, Big Night), Jeremy Northam (The Winslow Boy, Emma), and especially Rupert Everett (My Best Friend's Wedding, A Midsummer Night's Dream), who tosses off perfect epigrams with unflappable aplomb. The plot hinges on Northam, a member of Parliament (the British governing body, not the funk band) with a skeleton in his closet who is blackmailed into a shady business deal by a lady of mystery (Moore), who turns out to be a loathed school chum of the parliamentarian's wife (Blanchett). Everything is resolved happily, but not until after some devious twists of fate, several mistaken identities, lots of comic banter, and much social skewering. Wilde, whose troubled life and public exposure of his homosexuality is chronicled in the movie Wilde (1997), has a sharp eye for hypocrisy and the artificial poses demanded by society-but political commentary never gets in the way of a smart laugh. Visually sumptuous and briskly paced, An Ideal Husband will satisfy anyone looking for social satire or romantic comedy. -Bret Fetzer, Amazon. com.

Review Paramount Home Entertainment / The Last Holiday [2006]
Actors & Directors
  • Gerard Depardieu
  • Timothy Hutton
  • Queen Latifah
  • Wayne Wang
  • Alicia Witt
  • L.L. Cool J.
Release date: 2006-07-03
Run time: 111 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £3.06

Review The Last Holiday [2006] / Paramount Home Entertainment:


Models & Brands:
Imagine Me And You [2006], Ice Princess, Kate And Leopold [2002], Practical Magic [1999], Must Love Dogs [2005], Saving Face [2005], It's A Boy/Girl Thing [2006], Annie Hall [1977], Jack And Sarah (1995), Working Girl [1988], Catch And Release [2007], Shall We Dance? [2004], Me And You And Everyone We Know, Good Luck Chuck [2007], Nina's Heavenly Delights [2006], In Search Of A Midnight Kiss [2008], Maid In Manhattan [2003], Bridget Jones's Diary / The Edge Of Reason, An Ideal Husband [1999], The Last Holiday [2006]

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