DVD

Fist of Fun

Stewart Lee and Richard Herring's debut TV appearance given a DVD outing

28 Feb 2012

‘It’s not as good as I remembered’. Thus sprach Stewart Lee about the first series of Fist of Fun, the BBC Two show which first introduced the bequiffed comic and Richard Herring, his cohort of many years, to a TV audience. While it might not be…

Tekken: Blood Vengeance

Fluid but uneven CGI movie based on the popular games franchise

1 Feb 2012

This is actually the third movie based on the immensely popular fighting games, but Tekken: Blood Vengeance (Manga Entertainment) is the first fully computer animated version and was originally available as part of the Tekken Hybrid package. It looks…

The best comedy DVDs to give as Christmas presents in 2011

Tim Vine, Tommy Tiernan and Richard Herring among highlights

7 Dec 2011

What does it say about America that ventriloquist Jeff Dunham is among that nation’s top earning comedians? In 2009, Forbes.com placed him third behind Jerry Seinfeld and Chris Rock, having banked an estimated $30m. In response, an astonished Dunham…

Frankie Boyle's Tramadol Nights

The comedian's TV show is a mix of decent stand-up material and woeful sketches

15 Nov 2011

Curious thing the moral barometer. After the faecal flood which surrounded the original Channel 4 showing of Tramadol Nights this time last year, some judicious cutting has been made to the DVD version. Gone is the Jordan/Harvey routine from episode two…

La Planete Sauvage, The Funhouse, Tenebrae and Pulp Fiction rereleased

Blu-ray releases round-up

21 Oct 2011

While inevitably the picture quality and audio track are vastly improved by the high definition offered by Blu-ray another bonus is the extra features you can cram on to the format. Trippy animated sci-fi allegory La Planete Sauvage (Eureka!) ●●●● is…

Barking - DVD review

Unessential DVD release of the short-lived C4 sketch show featuring David Walliams and Peter Kay

17 Oct 2011

(Acorn Media) Back in 1998, Peter Kay, Catherine Tate, David Walliams, Omid Djalili and Mackenzie Crook were all looking for a big break in their comedy careers. The Fast Show had ended on the BBC the previous year and it would be another 12 months…

US TV boxsets: DVD round-up

Bored to Death, The Killing, Weeds and In Treatment reviewed

16 Sep 2011

If you thought that Ted Danson had delivered career-remoulding performances as ‘himself’ in Curb Your Enthusiasm, you should check out the dazzle he brings to the first series of Bored to Death (Warner Home Video ●●●●). Jonathan Ames’ Brooklyn-set…

Doug Stanhope - Oslo: Burning the Bridge to Nowhere

Live DVD from the controversial stand-up

24 Aug 2011

(Roadrunner Comedy) In a short introduction to this wonderfully unhinged film, Doug Stanhope (glass of lager clamped in hand) prepares the viewer to expect the unprofessional. Anyone picking up a copy of Oslo: Burning the Bridge to Nowhere…

DVD reviews: The Kingdom, Giallo, The Pack, Bloodrayne 3, Evil Rising and Lake Mungo

Summer horror DVD round-up

18 Jul 2011

Forget Hollywood – this month we embark on a European horror odyssey. First up, Lars von Trier's superlative haunted hospital drama The Kingdom (Second Sight ●●●●). Collecting both of his four-part Danish TV series into one boxed set for the first time…

The Governor, Being Human and Traffik among DVD highlghts

The old school fares well against newbies in TV drama releases

29 Jun 2011

The Governor ●●●● features a curious performance from Janet McTeer, just four years before her 1999 Oscar nomination for Tumbleweeds. In the first season of Lynda La Plante’s excellent prison drama, she switches between giggling schoolgirl and feisty…

DVD review - Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle

Uncompromising, awkward and confrontational style and content cements reputation

28 Jun 2011

(2entertain) The second series of Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle will do very little to alter the entrenched opinions on both sides of his critical fence. Those detractors will switch off in their droves at the uncompromising, awkward and…

DVD reviews: Amer, My Soul to Take, Season of the Witch, The Resident and more on DVD

Horror DVD round-up

24 Jun 2011

Time for another dastardly delve into the horror DVD pile. We’ll start on a highnote. Amer (Anchor Bay) is actually French but is a studied homage to Italian 70s gialo filmmaking, more concerned with sound, colour, style and mood than coherent…

DVD Box sets of work by Terence Rattigan, Andrei Tarkovsky and Danny Boyle

Abbas Kiarostami and David Leland collections also released in June

21 Jun 2011

If you are still buying DVDs in these straightened, downloaded times then you are going to want a bit of bang for your buck. Box sets are the way forward and late June and July are surprisingly full of intriguing new releases. The Terence Rattigan…

Bare Behind Bars, Sea Purple, Here Come the Girls 3 and Dare

LGBT DVD Roundup

27 May 2011

If it’s a quiet night on the sofa you’re after, beware Bare Behind Bars (Arrow Video ●●●●). Described as a ‘chicks in chains grindhouse explosion’, we’re given sadistic lesbian guards, a permanently aroused screwball nurse and convicts with cabin fever…

AC/DC hope to release new album soon

Music Gossip

7 May 2011

AC/DC are hoping to release a new album "within the next couple of years". Angus Young - lead guitarist in the band - revealed the plans at the group's 'AC/DC Live At River Plate' DVD premiere at the Hammersmith Apollo in London last night (06.05.11…

DVD round-up: The Governor, Skins Series Five, Being Human, Jack Rosenthal at the BBC and Traffik

18 Apr 2011

The Governor ●●●● features a curious performance from Janet McTeer, just four years before her 1999 Oscar nomination for Tumbleweeds. In the first season of Lynda La Plante’s excellent prison drama, she switches between giggling schoolgirl and feisty…

Age of the Dragons

Flawed take on Moby Dick a sea of flat performances hampered concessions to original text

7 Apr 2011

(12A) 90min This loose retelling of Moby Dick boasts some sumptuous cinematography and the unlikely star pairing of Danny Glover and Vinnie Jones. But transplanting the action to a fantasy land (an effectively shot Utah) and swapping dragons for…

Profile: Simon Hynd, director of horror thriller Senseless

Jason Behr plays US businessman who is kidnapped

24 Mar 2011

Born 20 January, 1974, Edinburgh Background Hynd studied Film & Television at Napier, making a few shorts that got him noticed by the Scottish film industry, going on to win a Scottish BAFTA for his short Tumshie Mcfadgen’s Bid for Ultimate…

DVD: Phenomena, The Beyond, Senseless, Blooded, Skyline, Primal, Island of Death

Recent horror DVD releases reviewed

24 Mar 2011

Italian horror from the 1970s and 80s is finally getting the recognition it deserves. Dario Argento is on familiar ground in Phenomena (Arrow Video) ●●●● as a killer stalks an isolated girls school, but with a twist, as a young Jennifer Connolly uses…

The Larry Sanders Show - complete series on DVD

Garry Shandling's sitcom, starring Jeffrey Tambor and Jeremy Piven, gets new lease of life

24 Mar 2011

(Mediumrare) In the summer of 1998, the final episode of a beloved, long-running American sitcom was aired but with a conclusion hated by so many that continuous talk of a reunion seemed fuelled purely by a desire to right some terrible wrongs. That…

Buried, Puppet Master: Axis of Evil and Shock Labyrinth released on DVD

Horror DVD round-up

2 Mar 2011

Over the years some of the greatest horror films have found love and longevity amongst the classics of the genre despite their direct-to-video origins. Unfortunately that’s not always the case as The Open Door (Second Sight) ● proves. Taking the vague…

Stone and Who Loves the Sun among DVD release highlights

Featuring boxsets of Akira Kurosawa, Richard Woolley and Luis Buñuel

2 Mar 2011

Here’s what may be of interest on DVD and Blu-ray that’s coming out in March. An Unflinching Eye: The Films of Richard Woolley (BFI ●●●●) brings together the almost complete short and feature work of this overlooked British filmmaker whose films were as…

DVD: The Flying Scotsman

1929 Romantic comedy thriller is silent film with dialogue added

17 Feb 2011

Classic 1929 action-romance set on the titular train, with amazing stunts and future Oscar-winner Ray Milland.

DVD: I Spit on Your Grave

2010 remake of notorious 'Video Nasty'

17 Feb 2011

Sarah Butler stars in Steven R Monroe's reboot of the 1978 rape-revenge Video Nasty.

DVD: Betrayal

War thriller suffers from two-dimensional characters and lack of action

17 Feb 2011

(15) 93min (Optimum) Nazi occupied Oslo in 1943 and the black market is rife. Life is sweet for corrupt businessmen who frequent the nightspot Club Havana, largely thanks to the compliance of the SS Major who turns a blind eye and takes his share.

DVD: Pelican Blood

Suicide and competitive bird-watching meet in dark drama from Irish director

17 Feb 2011

(15) 94min (Icon) Irish indie director Karl Golden ’s second feature is more raw and vicious than his 2003 debut The Honeymooners. Harry Treadaway (Fish Tank, Control) plays Nikko, a suicidal young man whose low-key daily routine of bird watching…

DVD: In Their Sleep (Dans Ton Sommeil)

Quietly unsettling psychological thriller

17 Feb 2011

French psychological thriller directed by Caroline and Eric du Potet, and starring Anne Parillaud (Nikita).

Deep Red (Profondo Rosso)

Stands alongside Suspiria as one of Dario Argento’s mid-career peak films

2 Feb 2011

(18) 121/100min (Arrow) Deep Red stands beside such work as The Bird with the Crystal Plumage and Suspiria as the most interesting of Dario Argento’s mid-career peak films. Its captivating visuals, all clean lines, whites and chromes contrasting…

Ving Rhames gives compelling performance as Sonny Liston in Phantom Punch

Poor supporting performances dog gangster movie by numbers

2 Feb 2011

(15) 100min (Metrodome) Perhaps the most duplicitous aspect of Robert Townsend’s account of the life of heavyweight champ Sonny Liston is the title itself. Liston’s rematch with Mohammed Ali ended early with a punch that simply didn’t look like a…

1964 version of The Thin Red Line is a workmanlike war movie

Original film bludgeons home madness of war message of James Jones' novel

2 Feb 2011

(12) 95min (Optimum) The central message of James Jones’ source novel – war is insane and it turns soldiers into mad men – was somewhat lost amid the seemingly endless scenes of marines wading through long grass in Terrence Malick’s quasi-mystical…

Series 1 of Gary Tank Commander released on DVD

Greg McHugh' slightly dim, highly camp Edinburgher

2 Feb 2011

(15) 180min (2entertain) The idea of a slightly dim, highly camp Edinburgher in the armed services sounds like it has the potential to be either massively offensive or a spot-on critique of military politics. The ultimately affectionate Gary Tank…

K-20: The Legend of the Black Mask

Japanese take on vintage crime-fighter serials boasts evocative steampunk setting

2 Feb 2011

(12) 137min (Manga Entertainment) Forget about the duff Green Hornet, this Japanese take on vintage crime-fighter serials – The Shadow, The Rocketeer, The Phantom et al – is far more entertaining. The year is 1949, but it’s an alternate reality in…

Private Road

12 Jan 2011

(15) 89min (BFI) Barney Platts-Mills’ 1971 film is undoubtedly one of the great lost British masterpieces of the 1970s. Platts-Mills was a filmmaker whose previous cult film Bronco Bullfrog had taken a knife to the frothy London set cinema of the…

Wetherby

Intriguing and engrossing 1984 mystery drama with to-die-for cast

12 Jan 2011

(15) 99min (Park Circus) National treasure David Hare remains best known for his award-feted plays (Plenty, The Blue Room) and his screenwriting (The Hours, The Reader), but he’s also an assured director, as is evidenced by this intriguing and…

F

British ‘hoody horror’ thriller in which a group of teachers defend themselves from schoolkids

12 Jan 2011

(18) 78min F is the latest in a line of peculiarly British ‘hoody horror’ films that also include Eden Lake and Heartless. English writer/director Johannes Roberts’ effort is the best yet thanks to his smart script, crisp direction and a fine…

Freakonomics

‘Blockbuster documentary’ adapting bestselling book on human nature not quite substantial enough

12 Jan 2011

(12) 90min (Optimum) This ‘blockbuster documentary’, which pools the talents of six well-established doc directors to adapt the bestselling book by Steven D Levitt and Stephen J Dubner that examined various aspects of human nature, doesn’t quite add…

Flesh Of The Orchid (La Chair De L’Orchidee)

12 Jan 2011

(18) 120min (Bluebell) Charlotte Rampling rarely takes an easy role and this 1975 adaptation of a James Hadley Chase novel is no exception. She is Claire, a runaway heiress and it’s the asylum she is running away from. Taking up with big and bulky…

Beverley Callard's New Year bashes

TV Gossip

30 Dec 2010

Coronation Street's Beverley Callard has been invited to 10 New Year's Eve (31.12.10) parties. The 53-year-old actress explained she and husband Jon McEwan have been inundated with various offers to ring the new year in, but aren't sure which of the…

Comedy DVDs round up - The best and worst

The verdict on DVDs from Richard Herring, Greg Giraldo, Tommy Tiernan and Kevin Bridges

23 Dec 2010

The former Popworld and Never Mind the Buzzcocks host proves that behind the barbed sarcasm, he’s a vulnerable little soul. Over the course of 80 minutes, he chats about his inability to find a good man and his oddball family. A tortured Jewish lad…

The Avengers: The Complete Series 6

The flamboyant spy series that echoed the pop-cultural moods of the 1960s

14 Dec 2010

(12) 480min (Optimum) Throughout the 1960s The Avengers bestrode the televisual world like a colossus. Twisted, kinky and confident, the flamboyant spy series echoed precisely the pop-cultural moods of that tumultuous decade. The latest volume in…

Tropic of Cancer

14 Dec 2010

(18) 87min (Olive Films) Available on DVD for the first time, this is the 1970 adaptation of Henry Miller’s novel set at the end of the 1960s rather than the 1930s when the book was originally published. It nevertheless captures the irreverence of…

Down Terrace

Alternately nasty and hilarious UK kitchen sink gangster film

14 Dec 2010

(15) 89min (Metrodome) Not another facking Brit gangster flick?! Well, yes, but this alternately nasty and hilarious little gem is a world away from the mockney posturing of Guy Ritchie and co. Set in the suburban backstreets of Southern England’s…

Kicks

Lindy Heymann’s dark drama dramatises crisis of Britain’s celebrity culture

14 Dec 2010

(15) 82min (Drakes Avenue) The third and final film to be made under Liverpool and Northwest’s excellent micro-budget scheme, Digital Departures, director Lindy Heymann’s dark drama is very different from its predecessors, Terence Davies…

A Bay of Blood

Mario Bava’s 1971 film one of the most influential and imitated horror films ever made

30 Nov 2010

(18) 80min (Arrow Video) Out of all Arrow’s lush new DVD and Blu-ray issues of films from the American and Italian masters of horror, this is the one I have been looking forward to most. I was first introduced to Mario Bava’s 1971 film by friend…

Shogun Assassin

30 Nov 2010

(18) 85min (Eureka/Masters of Cinema) Heavily cut by the British Board of Film Censorship for its original cinema release and subsequently banned as a video nasty, this bloodthirsty 1980 martial arts flick has since become a chanabara (samurai…

Sweet Karma

30 Nov 2010

(18) 85min (Anchor Bay) There are echoes of female vigilante benchmarks Ms 45 (aka Angel of Vengeance) and the Kill Bills in this femme fatale revenge thriller in as much as it features a gorgeous girl (model-turned-actress Shera Bechard) brutally…

I am a Camera

Largely forgotten adaptation of Christopher Isherwood’s Goodbye to Berlin omits social decay

30 Nov 2010

(12) 100min (Park Circus) Made in 1955 this, the first major film adaptation of Christopher Isherwood’s Goodbye to Berlin, is largely forgotten, eclipsed by the multi award-winning stage and film musical Cabaret, also adapted from Isherwood’s tales…

Chaplin at Keystone

30 Nov 2010

(U) 561min (BFI) Before he became an international star and acclaimed filmmaker, Charlie Chaplin learned to make movies at Mack Sennett’s Keystone Film Company. Spotted in Fred Karno’s touring vaudeville troupe, Chaplin was snapped up by the silent…

Down Home Music

30 Nov 2010

(E) (Arhoolie) In 1963 German filmmaker Dietrich Wawzyn set out to shoot a series of films for German television that took him through the southern states in search of American jazz and roots music. He asked Arhoolie Records founder Chris…

Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?

22 Nov 2010

(U) 89min (Eureka/Masters of Cinema) Frank Tashlin’s wacky 1957 advertising world romp has got to be a contender for the fastest comedy ever made. Tashlin, the Hollywood animator-turned-filmmaker, even gets in a gag before the film’s opening…