Week of 25 July
DVD: CSI Miami: Season 8 ???½ (Stars David Caruso, Emily Procter, Adam Rodriguez, Jonathan Togo, Rex linn, Eva laRue, Omar Benson Miller, Eddie Cibrian, Christian Clemenson; £34.99; UK Cert 15; Runtime 1003 mins) CSI: Miami, the sun kissed, beautiful and stylish airhead sibling of the grainy original and cold steel urban upstart CSI: NY, comes to DVD for an eighth season. Season 9 has already begun on television. There is no doubt the forensic investigation show is visually stunning, and the trademark lens flares and helicopter zooms of Horatio and co. racing along Miami's bridges and Freeways are very much in place. Characterisation has always taken a back seat to slick (implausible) science and preposterous crimes, but this season introduces fresh blood and a lighter touch, in the form of transferred investigator with a past, Jesse Cardoza (Cibrian), lab tech Walter (Miller), and eccentric Doctor Loman (Clemenson). The switch in emphasis on characters shakes the dynamic up a little. Horatio (Caruso) takes a back seat in several episodes, and others get a chance to shine. CSI:Miami probably jumped the shark long ago, but here, the crimes get even more inventive and unlikely. In one episode, the gang investigate a murder committed in a Richard Branson- like space tourist orbiter, requiring Jesse , Walter and Mr Wolf to take to zero G low orbit to recreate the conditions. A case of food poisoning in a fancy restaurant originating from dodgy business practices on the suppliers farm require the team to tip-toe around the bizarre State "Agricultural Libel Law". Only in Miami. Fans will still find plenty of mileage in the cases of Horatio et all, glossy and gory in equal measure. No extras — Tim Pelan
DVD: The Violent Kind ?? (Stars Cory Knauf, Tiffany Shepis, Taylor Cole, Bret Roberts, Christina Prousalis; £15.99; UK Cert 18; Runtime 85 mins) Written and directed by Mitchell Altieri and Phil Flores (the self-proclaimed Butcher Brothers), the guys behind The Hamiltons and the remake of April Fool's Day, this genre-busting film is quite something to behold. It revolves around an infamous biker gang partying in a cabin out in the woods. Things soon get bloody and the bodies begin to pile up, but the film doesn't nearly go in the direction that you expect it to. In fact, it's entirely unpredictable simply because it's so terribly strange. While there are glimmers of Altieri and Flores' talents, they're largely lost behind the confusing plot. One minute you think it's your everyday slasher, then suddenly top scream queen Tiffany Shepis, awash with crimson, brings out her best Regan MacNeil. But it doesn't stop there. A bunch of greasers show up out of the blue and turn the movie into a home invasion horror, only it transforms yet again into what appears to be an alien invasion flick. Think Sons of Anarchy meets The Exorcist in a bizarre bloodbath. But weirder. No extras — Adam Stephen Kelly
DVD: Evil Rising ??? (Stars Ville Virtanen, Tommi Eronen, Viktor Klimenko; £15.99; UK Cert 15; Runtime 89 mins) Antii-Jussi Annila's Sauna, an atmospheric and borderline art house horror from Finland, arrives on DVD in the UK this month under the rather redundant and misleading title of Evil Rising. A dark and grim experience, the 1595-set film tells the tale of two brothers, both Finnish soldiers, who arrive at a small, barren village to meet with Russian representatives after leaving a young girl to meet a horrific demise, with the intention of marking new borders following the conclusion of the 25-year-old war between the two nations. There, they are haunted by her ghoulish spirit. Slow-burning, mysterious and highly interpretable – but most of all consistently chilling – Evil Rising is a fine slice of horror from a country that isn't known for such genre fare, but perhaps now could be. Extras: Just the trailer. — Adam Stephen Kelly
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Week of 18 July
BLU-RAY: Blue Crush 2 ?? (Sasha Jackson, Gideon Emery, Elizabeth Mathis; £19.99; UK cert 12; 104 mins) Of all the questions that have been asked in the history of cinema, one of them is definetly not, "Hey when will someone make a sequel to Blue Crush?" Well, in case you were going to ask, I am happy to tell you that the answer is that someone has. 18-year-old Dana (Jackson) is a Beverly Hills surfer girl who wants to discover more about her South African surfer mother (who died when Dana was 5). After an argument with her stuffy, career-minded father (Emery), she hops on a plane to South Africa, where the waves are high and expectations are low. There, she meets a another surf-obsessed girl named Pushy (Mathis), who introduces her to her hippie friends who go by the highly non-pretentious name of "the family," they are a group of beachfront squatters who live the hippie life and seem to want for nothing (see how that washes when they get to 35). To say that Blue Crush 2 is formulaic is like saying that water is wet. You can pretty much guess what happens from the first moment and the film embraces the montage in a way that makes Rocky look pedestrian and subtle. The surfing sequences (which surely are important to the film) are bungled and just feel repetitive. Nothing special to see here. Extras: Deleted scenes; gag reel; The Making of Blue Crush 2 documentary; Surf Safari: Filming In South Africa featurette; Ripping It: Shooting the Surf Scenes featurette; audio commentary with director Mike Elliott and the cast. — John Rain
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Week of 11 July
DVD: The Devil's Rock ???? (Stars Craig Hall, Matthew Sunderland, Gina Varela; £15.99; UK Cert 18; Runtime 82 mins) The Nazis were well known for their strange fascinations and interests in the occult, and no more so could that history be illustrated – and exaggerated – than in The Devil's Rock, a tense and gripping new supernatural horror film set in the Channel Islands on the eve of D-Day, where two soldiers from New Zealand land on a beach to discover a sinister plot that involves the enemy birthing a demon from the pages of a Grimoire to annihilate the Allies. The best Kiwi horror since Peter Jackson's Braindead, The Devil's Rock is an original, gore-soaked delight. No extras — Adam Stephen Kelly
DVD: You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger ??? (Stars Anthony Hopkins, Gemma Jones, Naomi Watts, Josh Brolin, Antonio Banderas, Freida Pinto, Lucy Punch, Pauline Collins, Ewan Bremner, Philip Glenister; £19.99; UK Cert 12; Runtime 98 mins) The legendary Woody Allen presents another of his typical roundelays of well-to-do characters experiencing troubled love lives and thwarted desires, back in sunny and picturesque London again. And this is easily the best of his London-set films. Hopkins and Jones play a long-married couple, now separated. To get over her depression, she pays regular visits to a clairvoyant (Collins) to mask her feelings of loss, while he hooks up with a pretty prostitute (Punch) many years his junior to give himself a new lease of life. Meanwhile, their daughter (Watts) is frustrated that her novelist hubby (Brolin) is not earning money. She takes a job as an assistant to art gallery owner Banderas and develops a crush on him. Brolin espies beautiful Pinto through the window of the flat opposite and becomes infatuated with her. His new book has been turned down by his publishers but, luckily for him, his writer friend (Bremner) has been killed in a car crash, or so he thinks, and he passes off his pal's new manuscript as his own in a bid to seek success. Complications ensue, and it's a quite a bit of fun (Watts in particular is fantastic), but it lacks the sparkle of Allen's earlier, New York-bound works. One for hardcore fans only. Extras: Allen has never done an audio commentary track for any of his films, and he doesn't start with this one. The only bonus features are the theatrical trailer and an ad for the film's soundtrack. — Stuart O'Connor
DVD: WWE Tagged Classics: Shawn Michaels ?? (£19.99; UK Cert 15; Runtime 241 mins) Hosted in a gym by a wired Michael Hayes in his Dok Hendrix persona – and with an HBK baseball cap, price tag included – Shawn Michaels: Heartbreak Express Tour, the second half of a new two-disc WWE Tagged Classics release (paired with Shawn Michaels: Hits from the Heartbreak Kid), takes a look at how the year 1996 (with a small slice of 1997) was to the Heartbreak Kid. Featuring highlights from eight matches, this two-hour DVD shows Michaels at quite possibly the most triumphant moment in his entire career when he defeated Bret Hart in an Iron Man match at WrestleMania XII to capture his first WWE Championship, before he was tasked with defending his title against the likes of Diesel, Vader, Sycho Sid and the maniacal Mankind. As always, highlights as opposed to full-length bouts are unsatisfying, meaning this release only does a mediocre job of telling the story of Mr. Hall of Fame's year. No extras — Adam Stephen Kelly
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Week of 4 July
Blu Ray: The Mercenary ? (stars Danny Trejo, Gary Daniels, Bai Ling, Tommy "Tiny" Lister; UK cert 18; runtime 89 mins) There really should be a BBFC ruling against misleading plot synopsis and film posters / disc covers. The Mercenary is as far from a "full on thriller" as it possible to get without backing out of the room and over a cliff (which is what I felt like doing watching it). Danny Trejo is a shaman in a South East Asian village, who is killed when the mercenary of the title, Sebastian (Gary Daniels) raids the place. he's more accurately a sex trafficker. Trejo doesn't quite die, but mooches about in the spirit world, and, in a convoluted manner, allows a dying American who has paid to marry Bai Lin to live instead. But not before she has been set up to marry abusive Tiny Lister, and the two mismatched lovers abscond with money that Sebastian wants. He sets off in pursuit, closely followed by Forest Whitaker's less famous brother, Damon. The film is shambolic, badly written, directed, and performed. At least the cinematography is nice. Extras: Just some trailers. — Tim Pelan
DVD: The Pack ??? (Stars Yolande Moreau, Emilie Dequenne, Benjamin Biolay, Philippe Nahon, Matthias Schoenaerts; £15.99; UK Cert 18; Runtime 81 mins) Predominantly set in a decrepit bar situated in an isolated corner of rural France, a young woman finds herself at the mercy of the proprietor and her son as they imprison and prepare her for a rendezvous with a pack of subterranean humanoid creatures with an appetite for human flesh. Taking inspiration from the likes of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Night of the Living Dead, first-time director Franck Richard shows plenty of potential and does a hell of a job of creating atmosphere and building tension in this slow-paced but effective horror. If it wasn't for an incredibly weak “shock” twist that blunts the film's denouement, it could be considered a little genre gem from across the Channel. Extras: The Artist at Work: Creating The Pack: a two-minute feature on the design of the DVD sleeve, drawn by the man behind The Evil Dead and A Nightmare on Elm Street artwork, and the trailer. — Adam Stephen Kelly