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SONY PICTURES HOME ENT. UK Spider-Man 2 (Gift Set) [2004]
More than a few critics hailed <i>Spider-Man 2</i> as the best superhero movie ever, and there's no compelling reason to argue--thanks to a bigger budget, better special effects, and a dynamic, character-driven plot, it's a notch above <i>Spider-Man</i> in terms of emotional depth and rich comic-book sensibility. <i>Ordinary People</i> Oscar-winner Alvin Sargent received screenplay credit, and celebrated author and comic-book expert Michael Chabon worked on the story, but it's director Sam Raimi's affinity for the material that brings <i>Spidey 2</i> to vivid life. When a fusion experiment goes terribly wrong, a brilliant physicist (Alfred Molina) is turned into Spidey's newest nemesis, the deranged, mechanically tentacled Doctor Octopus, obsessed with completing his experiment and killing Spider-Man (Tobey Maguire) in the process. Even more compelling is Peter Parker's urgent dilemma: continue his burdensome, lonely life of crime-fighting as Spider-Man, or pursue love and happiness with Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst)? Molina's outstanding as a tragic villain controlled by his own invention, and the action sequences are nothing less than breathtaking, but the real success of <i>Spider-Man 2</i> is its sense of priorities. With all of Hollywood's biggest and best toys at his disposal, Raimi and his writers stay true to the Marvel mythology, honouring <i>Spider-Man</i> creators Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, and setting the bar impressively high for the challenge of <i>Spider-Man 3</i>. --<i>Jeff Shannon</i>
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£29.97
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SONY PICTURES HOME ENT. UK Adaptation [2003]
Perhaps the cleverest Hollywood movie of its generation, <I>Adaptation</I> is a loose adaptation of Susan Orlean's novelistic non-fiction book <I>The Orchid Thief</I>. It is also a unique exercise in autobiographical fantasy on the part of screenwriter Charles Kaufman (who shares credit with his fictional brother) and a worthy follow-up to director Spike Jonze's first Kaufman-scripted movie <I>Being John Malkovich</I>. Opening on the set of <I>Being John Malkovich</I>, with the writer (played by an intense Nicolas Cage) ordered out of the way by a minion, <I>Adaptation.</I> proceeds to follow more strands than spaghetti. <p> The neurotic Kaufman wins the job of turning Orlean's book into a script and has trouble getting a handle on it, while his more upbeat brother (also Cage) takes a Robert McKee scriptwriting seminar and cranks out a serial killer screenplay that attracts a major buzz. In flashbacks, Orlean (Meryl Streep) works on a <I>New Yorker</I> article and then a book about orchid thief John Laroche (Chris Cooper), a toothless Sam Shepard figure who heads a crew of Seminoles who poach rare flowers ostensibly in order to preserve them from extinction, encouraging the Darwinian process of adaptation essential to evolution. Kaufman ends up taking a seminar with McKee (Brian Cox, hilarious) and the film changes (or adapts) into a bizarre Hollywood thriller with drugs manufactured from flowers, a shoot-out between the writers and the subjects in the Florida everglades and a defiant climactic use of a plot device (<I>deus ex machina</I>) and narrative strategy (voice-over) McKee has ordered Kaufman not to use. <p> So dazzling that it defuses the argument that the hero genuinely has no idea what to do with his material, this film examines the rules of filmmaking and breaks them, shoots off in all directions (a brief history of life on earth sped up) but is held together by performance and direction, and will give the viewer enough material for a week's worth of debates and arguments afterwards. --<I>Kim Newman</I>
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£7.97
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SONY PICTURES HOME ENT. UK S.W.A.T. [2003]
Release Date: 2004-10-25, Rating Suitable for 12 years and over,
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£12.99
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SONY PICTURES HOME ENT. UK Sleepless in Seattle [1993]
The director and stars of 1998's <I>You've Got Mail</I> scored a breakthrough hit with this hugely popular romantic comedy from 1993, about a recently engaged woman (Meg Ryan) who hears the sad story of a grieving widower (Tom Hanks) on the radio and believes that they are destined to be together. She's single in New York, he lives in Seattle with a young son, but the cross-country attraction proves irresistible and pretty soon Meg's on a westbound flight. What happens from there is... well, you must have been living in a cave to have let this sweet-hearted comedy slip below your pop-cultural radar. There's little complexity or depth to writer-director Nora Ephron's cheesy tale of a romantic <I>fait accompli</I>, and more than a little contrivance to the subplots that threaten to keep Hanks and Ryan from actually meeting. But the purity of star chemistry here is hard to deny, and this may be the first film to indicate the more serious and sympathetic side of Hanks that is revealed in later roles. With its clever jokes about chick movies and repeated homage to the classic weeper <I>An Affair to Remember</I>, this may not be everybody's brand of amorous entertainment, but it's got an old-Hollywood charm that appeals to many a movie fan. --<I>Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com</I>
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£5.97
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SONY PICTURES HOME ENT. UK Spider-Man Charlie's Angels Vertical Limit [2000]
Release Date: 2004-05-17, Rating Suitable for 15 years and over,
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£19.99
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SONY PICTURES HOME ENT. UK Christine [1983]
Release Date: 2005-03-07, Rating Suitable for 18 years and over,
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£7.97
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SONY PICTURES HOME ENT. UK Chilly Dogs
Release Date: 2004-10-11, Rating Suitable for 12 years and over,
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£6.97
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SONY PICTURES HOME ENT. UK Radio [2003]
Release Date: 2004-09-20, Rating Parental Guidance,
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£9.97
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SONY PICTURES HOME ENT. UK Lord Jim [1965]
Three years after <I>Lawrence of Arabia</I>, the largely impressive <I>Lord Jim</I> (1965) finds Peter O'Toole again essaying a self-doubting but remarkable, white Englishman who leads a foreign people against their oppressor. Based on the Joseph Conrad novel, <I>Lord Jim</I> is the story of a British maritime officer, Jim (O'Toole), who takes a brief post on a tramp steamer and flees in terror during a storm at sea. Dogged by a reputation for cowardice, Jim attempts to reinvent himself in his own eyes, commanding an attack against a feudal warlord (Eli Wallach) in a distant, Southeast Asian village and basking in god-like glory afterward. A sinister plot by a gentleman pirate (James Mason) sets the stage for Jim's confrontation with his true destiny. Simplified and adapted by writer-director Richard Brooks (<I>In Cold Blood</I>), <I>Lord Jim</I> sometimes feels rushed and obvious, but O'Toole's golden performance and legendary cinematographer Freddie Young's 70mm footage are outstanding. <I>--Tom Keogh</I>
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£7.97
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SONY PICTURES HOME ENT. UK The Forgotten Gothika [2004]
Release Date: 2005-03-21, Rating Suitable for 15 years and over,
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£11.97
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SONY PICTURES HOME ENT. UK Where The Day Takes You [1992]
Release Date: 2005-01-17, Rating Suitable for 18 years and over,
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£5.97
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SONY PICTURES HOME ENT. UK Bad Boys 2 [2003]
Release Date: 2005-02-21, Rating Suitable for 15 years and over,
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£12.99
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SONY PICTURES HOME ENT. UK Happy Birthday To Me [1980]
<I>Happy Birthday to Me</I> typifies the horror genre prior to the self-reflection and irony that saturated the genre in the late '80s and '90s. A solid cast, decent acting, a well-written script, and relatively high production values result in a solid movie that is engaging on its own in addition to offering a glimpse into the history of '80s horror. The plot follows the rules of the genre (later parodied in such films as the <I>Scream</I> and <I>Scary Movie</I> series). A number of teenagers (played by actors who appear visibly older than their characters) from an elite prep school get into mischievous sexual situations fueled by alcohol and pot smoking. As teens start to disappear, murdered in a variety of violent ways, the film suggests a number of suspects. Is the killer the troubled star played by Melissa Sue Anderson who lost her overbearing, social-climbing mother in a car accident that she survived? Or is it the stern school mistress, the wacky, cool social clown, the social misfit, or none of the above? The film keeps you guessing until the final scene. <I>Happy Birthday</I> is a must-see for serious fans of the horror genre and this release is a solid digital mastering of the movie. Hardcore fans should note that the DVD release was not able to secure the rights to the original soundtrack so this version features an alternate soundtrack of largely nondescript '80s electronic music. <I>--Brian Saltzman</I>
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£9.97
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SONY PICTURES HOME ENT. UK Faster
Release Date: 2004-11-01, Rating Suitable for 12 years and over,
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£7.97
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SONY PICTURES HOME ENT. UK Desperado [1996]
Release Date: 2003-09-15, Rating Suitable for 18 years and over,
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Availability: Usually dispatched within 4 to 7 days
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£5.97
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Entertainment in Video Dungeons And Dragons [2001]
A sword and sorcery fantasy, <I>Dungeons and Dragons</I> the film is based on the role-playing game first introduced in the 1970s. It delivers some of the same kind of fantasy and fun the game offered, as its youthful heroes journey through a magical kingdom battling with the forces of evil. One or two scenes (such as someone having their brain sucked out by a nasty thing with tentacles) might upset very young children. But many of the special effects look tame compared to state-of-the-art films like <I>The Matrix</I> (the dragons in particular are rather wimpish), and though you do need full-blooded acting for this sort of thing, Jeremy Irons goes way over the top as the wicked wizard Profion. Marlon Wayans is supposed to provide some street-wise comedy, but is simply annoying. If you enjoyed playing the game you might like this, but there's a lot of competition in the fantasy film genre these days, and <I>Dungeons and Dragons</I> isn't really up to it. --<I>Ed Buscombe</I><p> <B>On the DVD</B>: This one disc is packed full of extra features. The film and special effects are breathtaking in needle-sharp Widescreen (1.85:1) Anamorphic transfer. As for the soundtrack, you haven't heard a dragon roar until you hear it in Dolby 5.1 or 2.0 Surround. The director Courtney Solomon, Justin Whalin who plays the hero Ridley, and the Dungeons and Dragons game co-creator Dave Arneson, offer one commentary track, which is a bit inane and doesn't really add anything to the film. However, the second commentary with Solomon, Arneson and cinematographer Doug Milsome is much more intelligent and offers some great info about the filming of specific scenes. Along with the UK trailer, there are two special features--a 20-minute Making of featurette, with some entertaining stuff about how Solomon secured the rights to the D&D universe and the creation of the special effects, CGI, costumes and make-up and a 14-minute special feature on the legacy of <I>Dungeons and Dragons</I>. There are 12 deleted scenes, most of which are pretty near completion (save a few blue screens here and there) and the more adrenalin-pumped scenes are broken down in stages to show how the SFX were created. For those who have seen the film and want to play the game, on the DVD-ROM there is also a playable demo of Black Isle's computer game sequel, Shadows of Amn. --<I>Kristen Bowditch</I>
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£6.97
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COLUMBIA TRI-STAR HOME VIDEO 1 Young Guns [1988]
Part of what was touted as a late-1980s revival of Westerns (and you can see how long that lasted), this good-looking, empty-brained film was like a spurs-and-chaps version of a Joel Schumacher movie, filled with pretty faces, prettier imagery, and absolutely no new ideas. <i>Young Guns</i> sees an idiotically grinning Emilio Estevez cast as Billy the Kid, who slowly accumulates a gang of Brat Pack buddies (Lou Diamond Phillips, Kiefer Sutherland, Dermot Mulroney) and fashions them into a group of male models with six-guns. The action is confused and the script is trite, though Terence Stamp is intriguing as the old reprobate who helps the gang get its act together. This is followed by an even worse sequel. <I>--Marshall Fine</I>
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£11.69
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SONY PICTURES HOME ENT. UK Atlantis [1993]
Luc Besson's <I>Atlantis</I> is a fitting companion to his globally popular feature <I>The Big Blue</I>, and presents a mesmerising, non-verbal experience of undersea wonders. Described by one critic as a thinking person's <I>Fantasia</I>, this 75-minute documentary glorifies ocean wildlife with a refreshing absence (apart from a pretentious spoken prologue) of narrative interference. It belongs on your shelf next to <I>Baraka</I> and <I>Koyaanisqatsi</I&g t;. In fruitful collaboration with composer Eric Serra and cinematographer Christian Petron, Besson travelled the world to capture the grace and beauty of such amazing creatures as Floridian manatees, Bahamian dolphins, Australian great white sharks, sea snakes in the Seychelles, and many others. Divided into thematic movements like Disney's animated classic (including a stunning sequence of manta rays set to a Maria Callas performance of <I>La Sonnambula</I>), this glorious film has been visually overshadowed by the spectacular BBC series <I>The Blue Planet</I>, but it serves a different purpose: it's not so much a documentary as a meditative journey, perfect for all-ages viewing. --<I>Jeff Shannon</I>
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£7.97
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SONY PICTURES HOME ENT. UK The Chase [1966]
Release Date: 2004-12-06, Rating Suitable for 15 years and over,
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£7.97
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SONY PICTURES HOME ENT. UK Anacondas 1 And 2 [2004]
Release Date: 2005-03-14, Rating Suitable for 15 years and over,
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£8.97
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SONY PICTURES HOME ENT. UK Fat Friends - Series 1, 2 And 3
Release Date: 2005-03-21, Rating Suitable for 15 years and over,
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£27.97
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SONY PICTURES HOME ENT. UK Cirque Du Soleil - Vol. 3 - Alegria La Nouba Dralion Saltimbanco
Release Date: 2005-01-31, Rating Universal, suitable for all,
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£8.97
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SONY PICTURES HOME ENT. UK Formula 1 2000 - World Championship Review
Hours of fun for F1 addicts, this official <I>Formula One 2000 World Championship Review</I> has neat interactive menu options that let the viewer switch back and forth between a number of perspectives during each race. First select the race you want to see, then choose either the Continuous Version or the Interactive Version. Continuous play runs potted highlights (five minutes or so) of each race, but the Interactive Version is the really interesting bit: this lets you select the view from the on-board cameras or the trackside cameras, watch the reactions in the pit lane, or even see continually updated race data statistics. The stilted commentary hardly matches Murray Walker for excitement, but does a serviceable job pointing out the significant moments in each race. Gimmicks aside, this was a vintage F1 season anyway: from Australia to waterlogged Silverstone to the first American F1 race since 1991 at Indianapolis and beyond, 2000 was the year that Michael Schumacher gave Ferrari the Constructor's Championship for the first time in 20 years, not to mention winning the Driver's title for himself. But Schuey's race to the finish was not without its setbacks: he suffered his share of crashes and breakdowns, as well as inadvertently breaking the leg of one of his pit crew and bursting into tears at a post-race press conference. New British talent emerged with Jensen Button driving in his first season for the Williams team, and this was also the year that McLaren's David Coulthard (who survived a plane crash early in the season) began to outstrip team mate and former World Champion Mika Hakkinen: it was the Scot who turned out to be Schumacher's closest rival. This disc is an absorbing way to replay the highlights of a memorable F1 year. --<I>Mark Walker</I>
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£7.97
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SONY PICTURES HOME ENT. UK White Chicks
Release Date: 2005-02-28, Rating Suitable for 15 years and over,
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£5.97
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SONY PICTURES HOME ENT. UK Swan Princess 1, 2 And 3 Plus Sing Along [1994]
Release Date: 2004-02-16, Rating Universal, suitable for all,
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£7.97
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SONY PICTURES HOME ENT. UK Lawrence of Arabia - Two Disc Set [1962]
In 1962 <I>Lawrence of Arabia</I> scooped another seven Oscars for David Lean and crew after his previous epic, <I>The Bridge on the River Kwai</I>, had performed exactly the same feat a few years earlier. Supported in this Great War desert adventure by a superb cast including Alex Guinness, Jack Hawkins and Omar Sharif, Peter O'Toole gives a complex, star-making performance as the enigmatic TE Lawrence. The magnificent action and vast desert panoramas were captured in luminous 70mm by Cinematographer Freddie Young, here beginning a partnership with Lean that continued through <I>Dr Zhivago</I> (1965) and <I>Ryan's Daughter</I> (1970). Yet what made the film truly outstanding was Robert (<I>A Man For All Seasons</I>) Bolt's literate screenplay, marking the beginning of yet another ongoing collaboration with Lean. The final partnership established was between director and French composer Maurice Jarre, who won one of the Oscars and scored all Lean's remaining films, up to and including <I>A Passage to India</I> in 1984. Fully restored in 1989, this complete version of Lean's masterpiece remains one of cinema's all-time classic visions. --<I>Gary S Dalkin </I> <p> <B>On the DVD</B>: This vast movie is spread leisurely across two discs, with Maurice Jarre's overture standing in as intermission music for the first track of disc two. But the clarity of the anamorphic widescreen picture and Dolby 5.1 soundtrack justify the decision not to cram the whole thing onto one side of a disc. The movie has never looked nor sounded better than here: the desert landscapes are incredibly detailed, with the tiny nomadic figures in the far distance clearly visible on the small screen; the remastered soundtrack, too, is a joy. Thanks are due to Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg who supervised (and financed) the restoration of the picture in 1989; on disc two Spielberg chats about why David Lean is his favourite director, and why <I>Lawrence</I> had such a profound influence on him both as a child and as a filmmaker (he regularly re-watches the movie before starting any new project). Other features include an excellent and exhaustive making-of documentary with contributions from surviving cast and crew (an avuncular Omar Sharif is particularly entertaining as he reminisces about meeting the hawk-like Lean for the first time), some contemporary featurettes designed to promote the movie and a DVD-ROM facility. The extra features are good--especially the documentary--but the breathtaking quality of both anamorphic picture and digital sound are what make this DVD package a triumph. --<I>Mark Walker</I>
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£5.97
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SONY PICTURES HOME ENT. UK Warriors Of Heaven And Earth [2003]
Anybody hungering for a good old-fashioned Western needs to check out <I>Warriors of Heaven and Earth</I>, which--although it's set in 7th-century China--has all the valor and spectacle of a John Ford picture. It also has a goofy supernatural streak, for the chopsocky crowd. The opening 10 minutes or so offer an alarmingly convoluted plot, but it swiftly settles down. What's going on is that a long-exiled Japanese hit man (Kiichi Nakai), hired to kill a renegade Chinese warrior (Jiang Wen), temporarily teams up with his quarry in order to escort a camel caravan along the Spice Road. Of course, they are menaced by a brutal warlord, and beautiful Zhao Wei (<I>So Close</I>) is mixed in there too. Director He Ping (<I>Red Firecracker, Green Firecracker</I>) captures some magnificent vistas in the Gobi Desert, but more importantly he sketches the codes or honor and behavior essential to any such tale. <I>--Robert Horton</I>
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£6.97
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SONY PICTURES HOME ENT. UK Cirque Du Soleil - Nouvelle Experience, Saltimbanco, Reinvente, Magie Continue [1991]
Release Date: 2004-02-02, Rating Universal, suitable for all,
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£17.97
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SONY PICTURES HOME ENT. UK Man Dancin'
Release Date: 2004-10-25, Rating Suitable for 15 years and over,
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£7.97
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SONY PICTURES HOME ENT. UK The Shield - Series 1 [2002]
Teeming with gang-bangers, perverts, rapists and killers, <I>The Shield</I> is unabashedly adult TV drama; and even liberal viewers may flinch at plots involving child pornography and serial murder. The first series of this uncompromising police drama focuses on pugnacious detective Vic Mackey (Michael Chiklis), whose amoral Strike Team employs dubious tactics in the crime-ridden (and fictional) Farmington district of Los Angeles. Mackey and his maverick partners are at odds with seasoned detectives and beat cops, escalating tensions with precinct Captain Aceveda (Benito Martinez), a Latino with flexible scruples and a political agenda. <p> The series invites viewers to form their own judgments regarding Mackey's volatile behaviour, which includes killing an undercover cop in the electrifying pilot episode. While each episode stands alone, the arc of the series incorporates Aceveda's campaign to end Mackey's career, the self-loathing of a homosexual rookie (Michael Jace) whose partner (Catherine Dent) is Mackey's occasional mistress, a straight-laced detective (Jay Karnes) yearning for respect, Mackey's compassionate attempt to rehabilitate a crack whore (Jamie Brown, giving the season's finest guest performance), the autism of Mackey's young son and the recklessness of his closest partner (Walton Goggins) and the vigilant stoicism of Det. Wyms (CCH Pounder), who's as sensibly upright as Mackey is corrupted. <I>The Shield</I> is excellent TV for those who can grasp its complexities; all others beware. --<I>Jeff Shannon</I>
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£16.97
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SONY PICTURES HOME ENT. UK Heavy Gear - Series 1 [2002]
Release Date: 2004-05-17, Rating Suitable for 12 years and over,
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£12.99
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SONY PICTURES HOME ENT. UK The Sweetest Thing [2002]
With chick-flick stalwarts like Sandra Bullock, Julia Roberts and the <I>Sex and the City</I> crew pushing 40, <I>The Sweetest Thing</I> lowers the demographic to the late-20s and stirs in some of that Farrelly Bros/<I>American Pie</I>-style gross-out stuff to liven up the usual man-chasing, clothes-shopping and hug-and-squealsome female bonding. <p> Cameron Diaz plays a party-hearty miss who claims to prefer Mr Right Now over Mr Right. Although she gains most of her laughs by treating various men very badly, the plot still boils down to Diaz scurrying after nice guy Thomas Jane. Diaz and gal pal Christina Applegate endure several humiliations in a public toilet to crash a family wedding so she can cosy up to Thomas. Their friend Selma Blair has bizarre sexual adventures back home with a pick-up who dresses as a cartoon elephant. <p> Set mostly in San Francisco--an unfortunate city for women who like high heels as much as these heroines do--the film stops every few minutes for strange attempts at musical numbers (the big ensemble piece is called Your Penis Is So Large) and seems entirely to miss the irony when a golden oldie prompts Diaz to wax nostalgic about the far-off halcyon days of 1994. The leads are appealing enough to get away with characters who are as nasty and shallow as they are cute, but director Roger Kumble too often mistakes outrageous for inventive. <p> <B>On the DVD:</B> <I>The Sweetest Thing</I> contains one of the oddest commentaries ever recorded, with director Kumble and his cast on helium. This actually offers more laughs than the film, especially when the girls turn on Jason Bateman and give him a hard time for being in <I>Teen Wolf Too</I>. Also included are a selection of chick-flick trailers, storyboard comparisons, two featurettes, a snippetty making-of (Politically Erect) and a witty spoof about the screenwriter (A Legend Is Born: A Day in the Life of Nancy M Pimental). --<I>Kim Newman</I>
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£19.99
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SONY PICTURES HOME ENT. UK The People Vs Larry Flynt (Special Edition) [1996]
Directed by Milos Forman, <I>The People vs. Larry Flynt</I> is the fictionalised, but true, story of how smut-peddler Larry Flynt--the poor man's redneck Hugh Hefner--ended up appealing a libel case (brought by televangelist Jerry Falwell) to the US Supreme Court and winning a major legal victory that affected all Americans. It transpires that the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights--as brought to life in this splendidly quirky and alternately reverent and irreverent comedy--ensures everyone's freedom by protecting a whole range of expression, from the banal to the outrageous. Scripted by the writers of <I>Ed Wood</I> (another affectionately twisted biography of a disreputably eccentric entertainment figure), <I>The People vs. Larry Flynt</I> applies a similar sort of exaggerated and telescoped editorial-cartoon sensibility to the wild life and times of <I>Hustler</I> skin-magazine publisher Larry Flynt. There are terrific performances by Woody Harrelson as Flynt, grunge-star-turned-glamour-pus s Courtney Love as his wife Althea and Edward Norton as their lawyer (a composite character). --<I>Jim Emerson</I>
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£6.97
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SONY PICTURES HOME ENT. UK Envy [2004]
Release Date: 2005-01-10, Rating Suitable for 12 years and over,
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£6.97
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SONY PICTURES HOME ENT. UK Tears Of The Sun [2003]
Release Date: 2005-02-21, Rating Suitable for 15 years and over,
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£12.99
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SONY PICTURES HOME ENT. UK They Came To Cordura [1959]
Gary Cooper's forte--the searching, lone figure beleaguered by conflicts over conscience, truth, and ethics--followed him all the way to the ambitious <I>They Came to Cordura</I>, his third-to-last feature. Cooper plays Thomas Thorn, a career officer in America's fading horse Army of the early 20th century. Thorn's alleged cowardice in battle has been papered over by superiors: He is to identify acts of bravery during an attack on Pancho Villa's troops and lead those designated heroes to a Medal of Honor ceremony in Cordura, Texas. Though Thorn tries to extract the secret behind courage from each man, he discovers a battle-hardened, bestial side to them as well. The Cordura journey becomes fraught with mutiny and near-assaults on a Yankee expatriate (Rita Hayworth). Thorn, reputation aside, redefines courage on his own terms. This widescreen drama (the DVD offers full-screen format as well) is suspenseful, morally complex, and visually rich, but Cooper's performance carries the day. <I>--Tom Keogh</I>
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SONY PICTURES HOME ENT. UK Breakin' All The Rules
Release Date: 2004-10-25, Rating Suitable for 12 years and over,
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SONY PICTURES HOME ENT. UK The Mummy Returns (Two Disc Special Edition) [2001]
We don't have time for subtle, says Brendan Fraser, the star of <I>The Mummy Returns</I>, neatly encapsulating the relentless pace and hammerheaded tone of the film. As is the way of sequels here we have more, more, more of the same formula: more explosions, more action and more mind-numbingly endless CGI effects. Once again borrowing shamelessly from the <I>Indiana Jones</I> series, <I>The Mummy Returns</I>, like its predecessor, has boundless energy but lacks the stylish verve and charm of Spielberg's trilogy. All the original cast are reunited, this time joined by WWF star the Rock in a cameo role designed to plug his spin-off vehicle, <I>The Scorpion King</I>, and young actor Freddie Boath who plays an English eight-year-old in the 1930s whose dialogue borrows from Bart Simpson (Get a room and My dad's gonna kick your arse are two of his choice phrases). Other cinematic thefts include a <I>Jurassic Park</I>-style creatures-in-the-long-grass sequence and a lengthy triple-threat finale along the lines of <I>Return of the Jedi</I>. Still, despite the wearying relentlessness of its computer-generated effects, endless chases and fights, this is undeniably fun popcorn fodder and provides some memorable scenes along the way, notably Rachel Weisz and Patricia Velasquez battling it out for the affections of nasty old Imhotep.<p><B>On the DVD:</B> This two-disc Special Edition is a treat for fans of the franchise. The first disc has an anamorphic widescreen print of the movie in its 2.35:1 CinemaScope ratio, and a choice of Dolby 5.1 or DTS for the headache-inducing soundtrack. There's a decent commentary from the director and producer, plus a couple of DVD-ROM features. Disc 2 has all the usual stuff, including a 20-minute making-of documentary, a five-minute interview with the Rock about <I>The Scorpion King</I>, plus an exclusive trailer for it that is unsurprisingly reminiscent of <I>Conan the Barbarian</I>. There are also some detailed special effects breakdowns of key sequences, a blooper reel of outtakes and a virtual tour of the Universal theme park attraction The Mummy Returns Chamber of Doom. Sundry trailers, production notes, a music video and an Egyptology 201 text feature round out a well-loaded second disc. --<I>Mark Walker</I>
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SONY PICTURES HOME ENT. UK Annie Oliver [1999]
Release Date: 2003-11-03, Rating Universal, suitable for all,
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SONY PICTURES HOME ENT. UK 3 Way [2003]
Release Date: 2004-08-09, Rating Suitable for 15 years and over,
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SONY PICTURES HOME ENT. UK She Hate Me [2004]
In a long and varied career, <I>She Hate Me</I> is easily one of Spike Lee's most unusual films--on the one hand it's a drama, on the other, it's a comedy. Then there's the structure: a crazy quilt made up out of several different stories. Even the style is a patchwork incorporating animation and pseudo-documentary--in the vein of Lee's 1986 hit <I>She's Gotta Have It</I>. It all revolves around one John Henry Jack Armstrong (<I>8 Mile</I>'s Anthony Mackie), a successful executive at a biotech company much like ImClone (the one that brought Martha Stewart down). When Jack blows the whistle and loses his job, ex-fiancée Fatima (<I>Ray</I>'s Kerry Washington), who left him for another woman, offers the now-penniless Jack $10,000 to impregnate her. All goes well, so they set up business together, and he proceeds to impregnate countless gay women, including mafia princess Simona (Monica Bellucci). If there's one thing that keeps it all together, it's Mackie, who handles the many changes Lee puts him through with admirable aplomb. <I>--Kathleen C. Fennessy</I>
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SONY PICTURES HOME ENT. UK Doctor Miriam Stoppard's Having A Baby
Release Date: 2004-10-25, Rating Exempt,
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SONY PICTURES HOME ENT. UK Golden Games
Release Date: 2004-08-09, Rating Exempt,
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SONY PICTURES HOME ENT. UK World Rally Championships 2003 - Showdown
Release Date: 2004-02-23, Rating Universal, suitable for all,
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SONY PICTURES HOME ENT. UK The Three Worlds Of Gulliver [1960]
The 1960 children's feature <I>The Three Worlds of Gulliver</I> brings to life the first two sections of Jonathan Swift's <I>Gulliver's Travels</I> in a version which, while sanitised for youngsters, retains some of the satire and intelligence of the original. It also boasts excellent-for-the-time special effects by Ray Harryhausen, though the effects wizard keeps his trademark stop-motion animation to a minimum, featuring it only when Gulliver (Kerwin Mathews from 1958's <I>The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad</I>), has problems with an outsized crocodile and a foraging squirrel. Instead, Harryhausen concentrates on portraying the miniature Lilliputians and the giant Brobdingnagians, and the results still impress over 40 years on. <p> This is a colourful, witty, charming film, though it is also heavily Americanised, the dialogue anachronistic and some of the accents decidedly trans-Atlantic. Mathews is a little stiff in the role of a British doctor, but English actress June Thorburn makes a spirited and beautiful Elizabeth, Gulliver's fiancée who in this version comes along for the journey. While the 1996 TV mini-series <I>Gulliver's Travels</I> comes much closer to Swift's intentions Harryhausen's version will delight younger viewers and has the advantage of a beguiling score from the great Bernard Herrmann. Some viewers may be startled to learn that in the 17th century there were Spanish mountains just outside London, and that Wapping was just a minute's walk from the beach.<p> <B>On the DVD:</B> <I>The Three Worlds of Gulliver</I> on disc has good mono sound while the picture, which is anamorphically enhanced and presented at 1.77:1, is of variable quality. There are very distracting fleck marks where the emulsion has been damaged on the print in many shots featuring Gulliver against a bright blue sky. These really should have been restored before transfer to DVD.<p> Although the packaging refers to The Ray Harryhausen Chronicles featurette, this is actually the same superb 57-minute TV documentary which has appeared on other Harryhausen titles. Everyone should have it in their collection once. This is Dynamation is a three-minute special effects promo for <I>The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad</I>. Also included is a five-minute original making of featurette and trailers for <I>The Three Worlds of Gulliver</I> (1.70:1 letterboxed), <I>The Golden Voyage of Sinbad</I> (4:3) and <I>Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger</I> (1.77:1 anamorphic), as well as basic filmographies of Jack Sher, Arthur Ross, Ray Harryhausen and Kerwin Mathews. --<I>Gary S Dalkin</I>
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SONY PICTURES HOME ENT. UK Mona Lisa Smile [2004]
Julia Roberts' command of the screen is so effortless, it's easy for moviegoers to take her for granted--but we shouldn't. <I>Mona Lisa Smile</I>--about a non-comformist teacher at a private school who encourages students to pursue their individuality--is pretty much an all-girls version of <I>Dead Poets Society</I> that mixes 50s fashions with 70s feminist thought. However, its lack of ambition doesn't diminish the talent that's gone into it: the writing and directing are well-honed and skilful; the actors--a talent-studded cast featuring Marcia Gay Harden, Kirsten Dunst, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Julia Stiles and Juliet Stevenson--are uniformly excellent. But without question, <I>Mona Lisa Smile</I> rides on Roberts' shoulders and she carries it with ease. She's possibly the only contemporary actor who simply owns a movie the way Bette Davis, Jean Arthur, or Claudette Colbert once did, radiating a engaging mix of intelligence, drive, and emotional warmth that cannot be matched. --<I>Bret Fetzer</I>
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SONY PICTURES HOME ENT. UK Anacondas: The Hunt For The Blood Orchid [2004]
Release Date: 2005-03-14, Rating Suitable for 12 years and over,
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SONY PICTURES HOME ENT. UK Taboo [2002]
Release Date: 2003-05-19, Rating Suitable for 15 years and over,
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SONY PICTURES HOME ENT. UK Legends of the Fall - Collectors Edition [1995]
A box-office hit when released in 1994, this sprawling, frequently overwrought familial melodrama may get sillier as its plot progresses, but it's the kind of lusty, character-based epic that Hollywood should attempt more often. It's also an unabashedly flattering star vehicle for Brad Pitt as Tristan--the rebellious middle son of a fiercely independent Montana rancher and military veteran (Anthony Hopkins)--who is routinely at odds with his more responsible older brother, Alfred (Aidan Quinn), and younger brother, Samuel (Henry Thomas). From the battlefields of World War I to his adventures as an oceangoing sailor, Tristan's life is full of personal torment, especially when he returns to Montana and finds himself competing with Alfred over Samuel's beautiful widow (Julia Ormond), whose passion for Tristan disrupts the already turbulent Ludlow clan. Under the wide-open canopy of Big Sky country, this operatic tale unfolds with all the bloodlust, tragedy, and scenery-chewing performances you'd expect to find in a hokey bestselling novel (in fact, it's based on the acclaimed novella by Jim Harrison), but it's a potent mix that's highly entertaining. Not surprisingly, John Toll won an Academy Award for his breathtaking outdoor cinematography. <I>--Jeff Shannon</I>
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SONY PICTURES HOME ENT. UK Spider-Man 2 [2004]
More than a few critics hailed <i>Spider-Man 2</i> as the best superhero movie ever, and there's no compelling reason to argue--thanks to a bigger budget, better special effects, and a dynamic, character-driven plot, it's a notch above <i>Spider-Man</i> in terms of emotional depth and rich comic-book sensibility. <i>Ordinary People</i> Oscar-winner Alvin Sargent received screenplay credit, and celebrated author and comic-book expert Michael Chabon worked on the story, but it's director Sam Raimi's affinity for the material that brings <i>Spidey 2</i> to vivid life. When a fusion experiment goes terribly wrong, a brilliant physicist (Alfred Molina) is turned into Spidey's newest nemesis, the deranged, mechanically tentacled Doctor Octopus, obsessed with completing his experiment and killing Spider-Man (Tobey Maguire) in the process. Even more compelling is Peter Parker's urgent dilemma: continue his burdensome, lonely life of crime-fighting as Spider-Man, or pursue love and happiness with Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst)? Molina's outstanding as a tragic villain controlled by his own invention, and the action sequences are nothing less than breathtaking, but the real success of <i>Spider-Man 2</i> is its sense of priorities. With all of Hollywood's biggest and best toys at his disposal, Raimi and his writers stay true to the Marvel mythology, honouring <i>Spider-Man</i> creators Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, and setting the bar impressively high for the challenge of <i>Spider-Man 3</i>. --<i>Jeff Shannon</i>
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COLUMBIA TRI-STAR HOME VIDEO 1 Dirty Dancing [1987]
As with <I>Grease</I> (1978) and <I>Footloose</I> (1984) before it, <I>Dirty Dancing</I> was a cultural phenomenon that now plays more like camp. That very campiness, though, is part of its biggest charm. And if the dancing in the movie doesn't seem particularly dirty by today's standards--or 1987's--it does take place in an era (the early '60s) when it would have. Frances Baby Houseman (Jennifer Grey, daughter of ageless hoofer Joel Grey), vacationing in the Catskills with her family one summer, falls under the sway (as it were) of dance instructor Johnny Castle (Patrick Swayze). Baby is a pampered pup, but Johnny is a man of the world. Baby's father Jake can't see the basic decency in greaser Johnny that she can. It should come as no surprise to find that Baby, who can be as immature as her name, learns more about love and life--and dancing--from free-spirited Johnny than traditionalist Jake. <I>Dirty Dancing</I> spawned two successful soundtracks, a short-lived TV series and a stage musical. It may be predictable, but Grey and Swayze have chemistry, charisma and all the right moves. It's a sometimes silly movie with occasionally mind-boggling dialogue--No one puts Baby in a corner!--that nonetheless carries an underlying message about tolerance and is filled with the kind of exuberant spirit that is hard for even the most cynical to resist. Not that they would ever admit it. --<I>Kathy Fennessy</I><p>< ;b>On the DVD:</b> The information outlined on the package makes the special features appear very appealing: you too could Learn to Dirty Dance. However, all the DVD actually teaches you is how to move from side to side with a slow cha cha cha--not exactly dirty. Other additional features include the obligatory scene selection and a directors commentary from Eleanor Bergstein, offers interesting snippets of trivia, but overall is dull and stuttering. There's also the original theatrical trailer plus a very poor selection of filmographies for the cast and crew which (none of whom aside from Swayze ever amounted to much) which is difficult to read due to the italic scrawl they insist on using across the whole features section. That being said with a 1.78:1 ratio and Dolby Digital 5.1 this release is the closest you will get to reliving those 1980s school discos and back-seat cinema rows. --<I>Nikki Disney</I>
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20TH CENTURY FOX HOME ENTERTAINMENT 9.12 Weeks [1985]
Frequently given short shrift as soft porn (which it is) and as mindless (which it isn't), director Adrian Lyne's follow-up to <I>Flashdance</I> (insert own joke here) is a thoughtful, smutty film about a bad sexual relationship. It follows the two-month affair between Elizabeth, an art-gallery dealer, and John, a Wall Street executive. The relationship spirals downward into raunchier sex (filmed, by the way, quite nicely) but principally is about two adults doing adult things but not acting anything like real adults. Attempts at actual human connection, about the longing to be good, are present here and make this an above-average erotic film. Rourke is just honing his scumbag, bad-boy persona; but it doesn't overwhelm. At least there's lots and lots of Kim Basinger. --<I>Keith Simanton, Amazon.com</I>
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SONY PICTURES HOME ENT. UK Soccer Superskills With Jay Jay Okocha
Release Date: 2004-06-28, Rating Exempt,
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