Week of 30 November 2009
Rich Hall with Special Guest Otis Lee Crenshaw And The Honky Tonk Assholes: Hell No I Ain't Happy Live at The Apollo **** (£19.99, UK cert 15) I saw Otis Lee Crenshaw perform at the Edinburgh Fringe festival back in August of 2004 (then had a couple of beers with Rich Hall in the Pleasance Courtyard afterwards, but that's another story). I've never been much of a fan of country music, but Crenshaw converted me. Well, converted me to snarky country comedy songs, anyway. What we have here is a superb double act – almost an hour of American stand-up Rich Hall and his dry, acerbic wit, and then almost another hour of his alter-ego singing the kinds of tunes that the likes of Johnny Cash and Dolly Parton would be proud to call their own. If you only know Hall from his appearances on the BBC's brilliant QI panel show, or its Live At The Apollo stand-up comedy series, then do yourself a favour and grab this DVD of Hall's wonderful live show. He's truly a goddamned funny bastard. Extras: A performance of Hall's from the BBC's Live At The Apollo series. — Stuart O'Connor
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Week of 23 November 2009
Rich Hall with Special Guest Otis Lee Crenshaw And The Honky Tonk Assholes: Hell No I Ain't Happy Live at The Apollo **** (£19.99, UK cert 15) I saw Otis Lee Crenshaw perform at the Edinburgh Fringe festival back in August of 2004 (then had a couple of beers with Rich Hall in the Pleasance Courtyard afterwards, but that's another story). I've never been much of a fan of country music, but Crenshaw converted me. Well, converted me to snarky country comedy songs, anyway. What we have here is a superb double act – almost an hour of American stand-up Rich Hall and his dry, acerbic wit, and then almost another hour of his alter-ego singing the kinds of tunes that the likes of Johnny Cash and Dolly Parton would be proud to call their own. If you only know Hall from his appearances on the BBC's brilliant QI panel show, or its Live At The Apollo stand-up comedy series, then do yourself a favour and grab this DVD of Hall's wonderful live show. He's truly a goddamned funny bastard. Extras: A performance of Hall's from the BBC's Live At The Apollo series. — Stuart O'Connor
Eddie Izzard Live Stripped **** (Stars Eddie Izzard; £19.99; UK cert 15) Charity marathon runner extraordinaire, sometime movie star, and all round good egg Eddie Izzard returns to his first love (and what we love him for the most) with a 2 hour live show of stand up comedy. After a couple of lacklustre, half-hearted shows, this is a pleasing return to form and a genuine pleasure to see the surrealist Action Transvestite back to the height of his powers and enthusiasm. Making the focal point of his monologue "Wikipedia" gives him creative freedom to veer off in all sorts of tangents, be they animal, biblical, technological or historical. One section about itunes and Apple is particularly hilarious and demonstrates Izzard's unique observational eye. Of course, his style has always been that of a Python-esque whimsical orator rather than a Jimmy Carr-style gag-meister, but it is this refreshing approach that sets him far above and beyond the majority of stand up's current stars. Highly reccommended. No extras — Duncan Bain
Silent Night, Deadly Night ** (Stars Lilyan Chauvin, Gilmer McCormick, Toni Nero, Robert Brian Wilson, Britt Leach, Nancy Borgenicht, Danny Wagner, Linnea Quigley; £15.99; UK cert 18) I've never been much of fan of remakes, but if ever a film was screaming out to be remade, it's this one. Silent Night, Deadly Night is a really terrific idea, but poorly executed – low budget, bad script, awful dialogue and dire acting. But done properly, this could be an exceptional horror film. It's a great story – little kid sees parents murdered by man dreassed as Santa; raised by cruel nuns in orphanage; and at the age of 18, when forced to play Santa at the toy store at which he works, he cracks and goes on a murder spree. Silent Night, Deadly Night is notorious for the fuss it caused on its release in 1984. It caused so much anger among parents and films critics, who all called for its boycott, that it was never released in the UK (contrary to popular belief, if was never actually banned). So now, with its release on DVD, UK audiences can finally see what the fuss was all about. Not much – these days, you can see raunchier, gorier things on broadcast TV. Extras: A short audio interview with director Charles Sellier Jr, and the trailer. — Stuart O'Connor
Also Out (But Not Reviewed)
• Grey's Anatomy: Season 4
• Fight Club (Blu-ray)
• My Sister's Keeper
• Rob Brydon Live
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Week of 16 November 2009
Al Murray: The Pub Landlord’s Beautiful British Tour Live *** (£19.99, UK Cert 15) Is there a more appropriate man than Al Murray to tackle the issue of Broken Britain? No – Al’s the man, asking a sell-out audience at the gigantic O2 Arena what’s gone wrong – and more importantly “where’s our fucking money gone?” It’s a bit slow to get going – the first 20 minutes seems to consist of Murray asking his front row their names (Mike – beautiful British name) and their professions, but he slowly brings it all together to create interweaving stories using his public. He has the good luck to have a banker, a soldier and a teenage boy right in front of him, but to his credit he gets some great comedy material out of them all. The banker, of course, comes in for some particular stick, but no more than a chap with a pretty wife – “way above your batting average mate”. There are a few longeurs in the middle, but Murray holds his audience’s attention most of the time, and even gets them all to join in with a giant sing-song at the end. There are a few topical gags that already seem dated, but Murray is still a great stand-up. No extras — Mike Martin
Ed Byrne – Different Class Live *** (£19.99, UK cert 15) Irish stand-up Byrne starts off his live show in Glasgow with a credit crunch joke, which doesn’t go down well. To his credit he shrugs it off and weaves his own particularly surreal look at life, but it’s a strangely nervous performance in parts and he does lose the pace occasionally. At his best Byrne is a likeable rogue of a storyteller, constantly reminding us not to trust his own tales – a running joke about thinking of a put-down a day after an argument is particularly good. Sometimes though he does seem like he’s testing out material to use somewhere else – a TV series maybe? – and when a routine about Wags goes flat he asks “Was that too harsh?”. The title comes from his obsession with our class system, a subject he keeps referring too before spiralling off in tangents. Byrne is clearly a talent, but perhaps needs to sharpen up his act a little and hone it. That said, his Scottish accent is spot-on, and he’s not afraid to do some Glaswegian jokes to his audience’s face. Maybe next year’s DVD will be the one. No extras — Mike Martin
Also Out (But Not Reviewed)
• Rome: The Complete Seasons 1 and 2 (Blu-ray)
• Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure (Blu-ray)
• South Park: Christmas Time in South Park
• Doctor Who: The Key to Time Collection
• Chris Rock: Kill the Messenger
• Lee Evans: Access All Arenas
• Omid Djalili: Live in London
• Four Christmases
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Week of 9 November 2009
Nigel Slater's Simple Suppers **** (£17.99; UK cert E) Does exactly what it says on the tin – Observer food writer Nigel Slater comes up with a bunch of quick, easy-to-prepare meals. Each of the six half-hour episodes sees Nigel come up with a week's worth of recipes using pretty standard ingredients most of us have in our pantry; and a few ingredients from his garden, which not all of us have. A garden, I mean. Nigel has an easygoing presence in the kitchen, with just as much passion as Gordon and Jamie, but without the overbearinbg attitude (or sweariness) of either. He's much more like Nigella, just nowhere near as sexy (sorry Nige). No extras — Stuart O'Connor
Also Out (But Not Reviewed)
• Tales of the Gold Monkey: The Complete Series
• Desperate Housewives Season 5
• The Informers (Blu-ray)
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Week of 2 November 2009
Jimmy Carr: Telling Jokes *** (£19.99; UK cert 18) Refer to Jimmy Carr as “The Marmite of Comedians” and you run the risk of: a) using the world’s biggest cliché; and b) giving Carr the opportunity to make a gynaecological gag about yeast spread. This latest DVD, of a typically rapid-fire joke sesh at the Bloomsbury Theatre, is billed – like so many of these things – as “too rude for TV”. It’s not all that extreme – there are some charming and family-friendly one liners here – but when it goes extreme, Carr clearly has few taboos. Fortunately, while he still looks like an insurance salesman getting up at the end of the annual conference to tell some dirty jokes, Carr can craft a good gag, and is also sharp witted; indeed, perhaps the best moments here are when he bounces off his audience and demonstrates his speed of thought. But hey, if you don’t like Carr, why would you buy this? If you do, you know what to expect and this will make you laugh. You’ll also make “oof” noises and feel your eyes widen involuntarily, but it will make you laugh. Extras: an “anti-social networking” Twitter style joke round-up which is less offensive (and less consistently amusing) than the show itself. — Neil Davey
Meerkats – The Movie **½ (Stars Paul Newman; £9.99; UK cert PG) What starts out like a factual documentary of the Kalahari desert’s cutest creatures soon becomes the cheesy coming-of-age story of one young meerkat, Kolo. The heavy-handed and overly portentous narration from the late Paul Newman plonks a schlocky story on top of some naturally compelling footage. Fortunately, meerkats are just incredibly cute, with their little pointy noses and big dark eyes – and this lot have buckets of charm (especially when falling asleep standing up). But with the TV series Meerkat Manor and a certain price-comparison ad campaign, the meerkat – sorry, market – has been flooded lately with the furry foot-high animals, and it is not clear exactly what corner of it this film is trying to occupy. For adults used to Attenborough, the sentimental narration will quickly become an annoyance, but it seems a little slow to really appeal to kids. No extras — Holly Williams
Wasting Away **** (Stars Matthew Davis, Julianna Robinson, Michael Grant Terry, Betsy Beutler, Colby French, Joel McCrary; £12.99; UK cert 18) "We can't outrun them, we're zombies ... zombies don't run!" Here we have a fresh twist on the zombie genre - a zombie film from the point of view of the zombies themselves. When a military experiment to create a super soldier goes wrong (don't they always?) the gooey-green toxic waste ends up in the ice-cream t a bowling alley ... where four friends eat it and become zombies. But they don't realise they're zombies - to them, everybody else has turned weird (the fact they have suddenly developed a taste for human brains doesn't click with them straight away. Eventually though they work it out and struggle to survive as people just want to shoot them inthe head. It's a clever, original take on zombies that is bursting with energy and plenty of laughs. A fine directorial debut from Matthew Kohnen, who co-wrote the script wth his brother Sean. Extras: just the trailer — Stuart O'Connor
Also Out (But Not Reviewed)
• The Prisoner: The Complete Series (Blu-ray)
• Menace II Society: Director's Cut
• Belle De Jour (Blu-ray)
• Army of The Dead
• New Town Killers
• Amsterdamned