Week of 27 June
DVD: Siren ? (Stars Eoin Macken, Anna Skellern, Tereza Srbova; £12.99; UK Cert 15; Runtime 76 mins) Deary me. Scary stories of seductresses luring men to their grisly demises with song may work in the annals of Greek mythology, but once scribbled on paper and filmed, they translate as being a little bit silly. Perhaps that is why I don't recall ever seeing a film about a beautiful-but-deadly siren before, and subsequently have no desire to ever again. The late Andrew Hull, who sadly died last year at just 46 years old, showed potential as a director with his visual flare, but his script, coupled with the cast's dull delivery, make for a wholly tedious watch that fumbles along for almost an hour before the plot – your typical friends-on-holiday remote island horror movie – really gets in gear. Extras: Just under 10 minutes worth of deleted scenes. — Adam Stephen Kelly
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Week of 20 June
BLU-RAY: How Do You Know ? (Stars Reese Witherspoon, Owen Wilson, Paul Rudd, Jack Nicholson; £22.99; UK Cert 15; Runtime 121 mins) Is this a comedy? If so, they forgot to add in the laughs. Is it a rom-com? If so, they forgot to put in any romance along with the missing laughs. Is this a complete and utter mess? Indeed it is. Lisa Jorgenson (Witherspoon) is a softball player who gets cut from the team. She's involved with a vain baseball star (Wilson) but also finds herself drawn to George (Rudd), a businessman being indicted for securities fraud at the company owned by his father (Nicholson). It's a stellar cast, and in the director's chair is the legendary James L Brooks, but for some reason it all goes horribly wrong. The four leads lack any chemistry, and it feels as though each is in a different film. The story is slow and plodding, and the film is utterly devoid of any laughs or witty dialogue. Awful awful stuff – what were they thinking? Extras: An audio commentary with director Brooks and director of photography Janusz Kaminski; a "select scenes" commentary with Brooks and Wilson; 16 deleted scenes, with an optional commentary from Brooks; a blooper reel (1:57); the behind-the-scenes featurette Extra Innings (15:02); the featurette The George (1:36), showing how to make the "special drink" used in the movie; an Interactive Script Gallery; the featurette A Conversation with James L Brooks and Hans Zimmer (25:59). — Stuart O'Connor
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Week of 13 June
BLU-RAY: Age of Heroes ?? (Stars Sean Bean, Danny Dyer, James D'Arcy, Izabella Miko, Sebastian Street; £17.99; UK Cert 15; Runtime 93 mins) “It's an important mission, innit” utters Danny Dyer midway through this largely uninteresting and generic Second World War-set action film, if that gives you any indication of his performance. Channelling The Dirty Dozen, Sean Bean leads a ragtag platoon of British soldiers that includes Dyer's brave-yet-subordinate Corporal Rains on a mission to capture new radar technology from the German forces in Norway. Inspired by the true story of Ian Fleming's (yes, that Ian Fleming) 30 Commando, the predecessor to the SAS, Age of Heroes – the first part of an intended trilogy – is unfortunately far less intriguing than the reality of the tale and not a great deal more than a flat war pic that looks nice on Blu-ray. Extras: A 15-minute behind the scenes feature. — Adam Stephen Kelly
DVD: Jackass 3.5 ??? (Stars Johnny Knoxville, Bam Margera, Ryan Dunn, Steve-O, Jason 'Wee Man' Acuna, Preston Lacy, Chris Pontius, Dave England; £12.99; UK Cert 18; Runtime 81 mins) If Jackass 3 didn't quite satisfy your insatiable appetite for daredevil stunts and outright disgusting antics, please allow me to point you in the direction of Jackass 3.5, another feature-length dose of insanity from those 30-somethings who should really know better. It's crass, crude, lewd, uncensored and unclothed. It also just happens to be more entertaining than the main movie itself, so do not let the fact that the footage here was all taken from the cutting room floor put you off. Sure, the stunts aren't quite as “epic” as in Jackass 3, but there's still an abundance of prosthetic-based trickery, vomit-inducing treachery and full-frontal shamelessness, plus a little insight into the inception of these outrageous and warped ideas. Extras: Jackass: The Beginning: a 40-minute documentary on how the television show got started; deleted scenes; outtakes; and a feature on the cast and crew's European press tour. — Adam Stephen Kelly
DVD: Eaters: Rise of the Dead ?? (Stars Alex Lucchesi, Guglielmo Favilla, Claudio Marmugi, Elisa Ferretti; £12.99; UK Cert 18; Runtime 90 mins) Presented by Uwe Boll (although don't let that deter you), Eaters: Rise of the Dead is a small Spanish film with somewhat of a road movie sensibility. Set a few years into a man-made zombie apocalypse, two hunters of the undead are tasked with collecting specimens for a scientist searching for a cure. With fairly interesting Day of the Dead-style plotting that's chock-full of blood and guts (some decent practical effects, too), the film tries to stray away from a number of ever-prominent genre clichés, but in doing so sidesteps and falls into a bottomless pit of others. That's not its only fault, however, as it's also incredibly slow, moving lethargically for around 35 minutes before the pace beings to pick up. While it's superior to most of the zombie dross in today's saturated market, it still greatly misses the mark despite a spark of potential. Extras: The trailer, VFX breakdown and a half-an-hour long making-of feature. — Adam Stephen Kelly
BLU-RAY: The Bird with the Crystal Plumage ???? (Stars Tony Musante, Suzy Kendall, Enrico Maria Salerno, Eva Renzi; £27.99; UK Cert 15; Runtime 95 mins) The great Dario Argento's directorial debut, 1970's The Bird with the Crystal Plumage is a landmark giallo and the first entry in his “Animal” trilogy. Revolving around an American writer (Musante) living in Rome who is about to return to the States with a bad case of writer's block, he bares witness to an attempted murder in an art gallery on his way home, an event that compels him to investigate a series of deaths thought to be at the hands of the same perpetrator. Clever, bloody and with a haunting score by the legendary Ennio Morricone, this brilliant debut is a true genre classic. My only beef with this release from Arrow Video is with the Blu-ray transfer itself as, although presented with great clarity, has had much of its colour washed out – and a 2:1 aspect ratio to boot – thanks to print supervision by cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, who clearly had a different vision of how the film should look than was originally distributed. Extras: The disc itself includes an audio commentary with leading Argento expert Alan Jones and author Kim Newman, plus three excellent documentary features: A Crystal Classic: Luigi Cozzi Remembers Dario's Bloody Bird (15:02); Sergio Martino: The Genesis of the Giallo (29:04); and The Italian Hitchcock: Dario Argento Remembers The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (15:15). As for the package, we have the usual assortment of Arrow Video goodies: a double-sided sleeve giving you four choices of artwork; a double-sided A4 poster; and a collector's booklet written by Alan Jones, all nicely tucked away in a slipcase. — Adam Stephen Kelly