Week of 28 July 2008
Heroes: Season 2 (Stars Hayden Panettiere, Adrian Pasdar, Dania Ramirez, Ali Larter, Zachary Quinto; £34.99; UK cert 15) A shortened season (just 11 episodes) thanks to the Hollywood writers' strike, word on the street is that this second outing for our Heroes is not as good as the first. But we haven't seen it (we were not sent a review copy) so we can't tell you a thing about it. Except that it's on the shelves. And expensive for just 11 episodes of a TV show. Unreviewed, no extras — Stuart O'Connor
Wings of Desire *** (Stars Bruno Ganz, Solveig Dommartin, Peter Falk; £15.99; UK cert PG) An art-house classic? Or the most overrated film of the 1980s? If you're in the mood, this tale of fallen angels and forbidden love has a lyricism that's spellbinding. If you're not, it has a lyricism that's anaesthetising. Extras include commentary with Wenders and Falk, outtakes and deleted scenes. — Neil Davey
Kings of the Road ** (Stars Rüdiger Vogler, Hanns Zischler, Lisa Kreuzer, Rudolf Schündler; £19.99; UK cert 18) An earlier, lesser known slice of Wenders, Kings of the Road has the customary audience-dividing pace and content (175 minutes, bugger all dialogue) and the customary glorious visual sense. Stunning or stultefying? Probably both. Extras include deleted scenes and a conversation with Wim Wenders. — Neil Davey
Maximum 80s: Porky's / Porky's II *** / * (Stars Dan Monahan, Mark Herrier, Wyatt Knight, Roger Wilson, Kim Cattrall, Alex Karras; £9.99; UK cert 18) The original teen sex comedy scrubs up better than expected almost 30 years later. A simple plot — set in the 1950s, a gang of teenagers out to get laid is ripped off by fat brothel owner Porky, so they plot revenge — still manages to raise a smirk or two, particularly the Mike Hunt gag. Of the cast, only Kim Cattral (young and gorgeous here) went on to have any sort of career. Tame by today's standards, there's minimal nudity or swearing. But it's quite scary watching a bunch of 30-somethings trhying to play teenagers. The sequel, subtitled The Next Day and all about the "kids" trying to perform Shakespeare (and get laid), is pretty forgettable. No extras — Stuart O'Connor
Maximum 80s: Working Girl / 9 to 5 ***½ (Stars Harrison Ford, Sigourney Weaver, Melanie Griffith, Alec Baldwin, Joan Cusack, Dolly Parton, Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, Dabney Coleman; £9.99; UK cert 15) Two movies about working girls stickin' it to the man. Quasi-feminist, anti-corporate 80s nostalgia fest that is formulaic and a little dated but nonetheless exhilarating in its hopefully messages. Plus it's chocked full of likable, fun stars. And who could forget "that song". You know what I mean. No extras — Michael Edwards
Maximum 80s: Dirty Rotten Scoundrels / Three Amigos *** (Stars Steve Martin, Michael Caine, Glenne Headly, Martin Short, Chevy Chase, Patrice Camhi; £9.99; UK cert PG) It's appropriate that this double bill of funny films featuring Steve Martin is released the same time as Baby Mama. Martin's cameo in that is the best thing he's done for years, a reminder that he used to: a) be genuinely funny; and b) specialise in the delightfully silly. While Amigos and Scoundrels aren't in the same league as, say, The Jerk or The Man With Two Brains they're certainly pleasant diversions. Scoundrels is the one that sees Martin battle fellow con-man Caine for the right to 'fish' on the Riviera. Three Amigos is the one where Martin teams up with Chase and Short to play out of work silent movie actors who are mistaken for their characters and hired to defend a village in Mexico (hmm, Galaxy Quest anyone?). They're both popcorn movies but in both cases that's not a complaint. As much fun as a plethora of pinatas. No extras — Neil Davey
Uniform **** (Stars Kai Han, Hongli Liang, Hua Qin, Xueqiong Zeng; £19.99; UK cert 15) As with much of contemporary Chinese cinema, Yinan Diao's story of a factory worker who finds a policeman's shirt and exploits his new found authority is a powerful indictment of the societal marginalisation and dissolution felt in the country's current socio-political climate and also, pretty bleak. Certainly worth watching to explore the country's cinema however and even without knowledge of the problems existent there, this is a strong piece of realist cinema. The only extra is an interview with the director. — Sam Unsted
Hot Tamale *** (Stars Randy Spelling, Jason Priestley, Diora Baird, Carmen Electra, Mike Starr, £9.99, Cert 15) - Despite the entire lack of interest sparked by the cast, this is actually a pretty serviceable little vehicle. While certainly Tarantino-lite in the dialogue and hardly filled with star turns, this is fairly fun, decently made and quite well plotted for a straight-to-DVD effort with enough ideas to suggest that director Michael Damien may at least something of a career ahead. No extras — Sam Unsted
The Twilight Zone: Rod Serling's Lost Classics ** (Hosted by James Earl Jones; Stars Amy Irving, Gary Cole, Patrick Bergin, Julia Campbell, Jack Palance; £7.99; UK cert 12) Rod Serling is probably the best writer of television there has ever been, and his Twilight Zone is a true classic. So it's a shame that this 1994 made-for-TV double feature, based on two formerly unproduced Serling scripts, doesn't quite measure up to the original. In the first story, The Theatre, a young woman (Irving) goes to see the film His Girl Friday, and is shocked when she sees scenes from her own past and future on the screen. In the second, Where the Dead Are, Dr Benjamin Ramsey (Bergin), a surgeon in 19th century Boston, searches for a scientist who may have the answer to a medical mystery. Serling's voice does come through — a little — in the second story, but it's not enough to make it particularly memorable. No extras — Stuart O'Connor
Bloodbath at The House of Death (Stars Kenny Everett, Pamela Stephenson, Vincent Price, John Fortune; £14.99; UK cert 15) Long considered "lost", this awful excuse for a comedy should have stayed that way. What little plot there is — a cult of Satan worshippers trying to raise up their master, a house where gruesome murders are always taking place, robotic clones — seems to be completely abandoned half-way through. There are almost no jokes in the entire piece, and the normally very funny Everett is as dull as dishwater here. Maybe a few cameos from some of his TV show characters might have helped? Stephenson gets her boobs out and Price hams it up as always, though why he agreed to appear in this shite is beyond me. The only extra is an interview with producers Laurence Myers and Stuart Donaldson, wondering why the film flopped on its initial release in 1984. They only need to watch this DVD to learn the answer. — Stuart O'Connor
UFO Cafe ** (Stars Richard Mulligan, Beau Bridges, Barbara Barrie, Paul Dooley; £7.99; UK cert U) Fairly ordinary, pleasant, amusing made-for-TV sci-fi comedy about a small-town eccentric (Mulligan) who befriends a stranded alien (Bridges) and offers to help him fix his broken spaceship ... shades of My Favourite Martian! Also known as Guess Who's Coming for Christmas? No extras — Stuart O'Connor
Shanghai Kiss *** (Stars Ken Leung, Hayden Panettiere, Kelly Hu, Joel Moore, James Hong; £12.99; UK cert 15) A straight-to-DVD rom-com. A 20-something struggling LA actor (Leung), who's best friends with a 16-year-old high-school girl (Panettiere), inherits a house in Shanghai when his grandmother dies. He travels to China to sell the house, but falls in love with a beautiful Chinese woman (Hu). Light on the comedy — it's more of a drama — but it's still a decent enough film with great performances from the two leads. Extras include an audio commentary, deleted scenes, cast and crew interviews and a making-of featurette. — Stuart O'Connor
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Week of 21 July 2008
Redacted **** (Stars Sahar Alloul, Happy Anderson, Rob Devaney, Ty Jones, Karima Attayeh; £15,99; UK cert 15) Brian DePalma's "fictional" account of a rape and murder in Samarra, Iraq. A powerful drama told in documentary style that joins the growing list of fine films that chronicle the ongoing Middle East conflict. Extras include interviews with DePalma and Iraqi refugees. — Stuart O'Connor
10,000BC * (Stars Camilla Belle, Steven Strait, Cliff Curtis, Joel Virgel, Mo Zinal, Nathanael Baring, Mona Hammond; £15,99; UK cert 12) A mammoth stinker from Hollywood hack Roland Emmerich. Apart from the insane historical inaccuracies — woolly mammoths helping to build the pyramids in Egypt? — we have a tribe of people that appears to be made up of at least a dozen different races. For some inexplicable reason they all speak English, but with a variety of accents; we also have a rainbow of skin colours, but in that day and age, and on that continent, white has to be the least believable. Then there's the dialogue. We thought nobody in Hollywood could write worse dialogue than George Lucas. We were wrong. Then there's the shoddy CGI; the dull pace; the seen-it-all-before plot; the lack of grandeur promised in the trailer; the lack of excitement promised in the trailer; the lack of anyone getting trampled in the mammoth stampedes; the lack of anyone getting eaten by the sabre-tooth tiger. And please don't get us started on those giant chickens. No extras — Screenjabber