Wanted - A Better Script - please!!! (Review)
I've seen some tosh in my time, but this movie completely redefines the term. It's a triumph of style over quality, common sense and the laws of physics. For me, it worked a hell of a lot better than The Matrix Trilogy, which it shamelessly rips off, but it lacks any soul or charm being a typically nihilistic comic book adaptation. It's the story of Wesley Gibson (James McAvoy), an accountant...

Mongol (Review)
I'm of the vintage that my familiarity with the legend of Genghis Khan comes from the illustrated story as told in Jackanory-style on Blue Peter by Valerie Singleton. That tale used to put you on the wrong foot by starting off about a little nine-year-old Mongolian lad called Temujin (Temudgin in the movie subtitles) who had all kinds of trouble after his father was assassinated, but grew up into...

Armchair Thriller 5: The Girl Who Walked Quickly (Review)
I know I’m nearly a month late posting this review, but its birth has been a long and painful one. It’s not often I’m stuck for words writing a review, but this one has been a real stinker. I like to pad out a review with plenty of background information normally, but finding decent information about this series has been a struggle. Thank goodness for Google, I say. I’m repeating much of the...

Monte Carlo Or Bust (DVD Details)
Screen Legend Tony Curtis leads an all star international cast in this hilarious romantic and action-packed romp! Set in glorious Monte Carlo, this hugely entertaining follow-up to Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines follows dashing Chester Schofield (Curtis) as he sets out to better his rival Sir Cuthbert Ware-Armitage (Terry-Thomas) on the arduous Monte Carlo Rally.

The Producers (Optimum) (Review)
Introduction Optimum's release of The Producers is a pale shadow of the excellent two-disc SE licensed by Momentum Pictures in 2002. While undoubtedly both editions originate from the same master-tape (the image is beautiful across both editions), much time and effort has been spared in the preparation of the title for sale. Every so often you get a well-loved movie to review. The Producers...

Dracula's Daughter (Review)
Dracula’s Daughter was the first sequel to the original 1931 production of Dracula. Directed by Lambert Hillyer from a screenplay which had been suggested by David O Selznick, and had been worked on by no fewer than six writers it stars Gloria Holden as the Countess Marya Zaleska, daughter of Count Dracula. Reprising his role as Van Helsing from the original 1931 Dracula is Edward Van Sloan....

Son Of Dracula (Review)
Unlike the Frankenstein Franchise, which accidentally had a kind of epic quality to it, the Dracula franchise at Universal was a bit of a mixed bag and only got into its stride when it was integrated along with Frankenstein into the Monsters series. That saw Dracula, the Monster and Lon Chaney Jr’s Wolf Man mixed into a set of mad adventures that culminated in them all facing off against that most...

Pushing Daisies (Review)
I seem to spend more time whinging about the way reviewers are being treated by PR companies and the Studios they serve than actually reviewing stuff. I had hoped to maybe shame them into doing something about it, but sad to say, DVD Reviewers are a pretty long way down the food chain. Well, I’ve decided to give up crusading and in future I’m only going to review movies and tv shows I’ve bought...

Ghost Of Frankenstein (Review)
The Frankenstein Franchise was starting to lose steam by this fourth outing, but it is nonetheless magnificent hokum. Ghost of Frankenstein (1942) was part of Universal’s production-line wartime output. Oddly, the picture completely overlooks the fact that the village of Frankenstein and the castle were in the Nazi heartlands and takes no opportunity to make the kind of heavy-handed propaganda...

Penelope (Review)
Penelope is a modern fairy-tale told in a sub-Barry-Sonnenfeld manner. If Tim Burton’s the style with the throttle wide open, Barry Sonnenfeld around the middle (his Addams Family era) and Brad Silberling’s Lemony Snicket flick at the soft end, then Penelope is definitely Sonnenfeld-Lite. Shot entirely in the UK from a Pinewood base, the entire supporting cast is British and littered with...

The Adventures Of... Boxset (Review)
Whoops, There Go My Trousers In the mid-1970s, the British Film Industry was on its last legs. Television had effectively wiped it out. Cinemas were in decline as families stopped going to the pictures with any kind of regularity, and what movies were being shown tended towards a more adult audience. The Hollywood summer blockbuster had only been invented in 1975 with the release of Jaws,...

The Golden Compass (Review)
My Daemon Would Be A Squirrel I couldn’t get into Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy in the same way that I got into the Harry Potter franchise. The premise is fascinating – a parallel universe where people’s souls are on the outside in the form of an animal, and the world is run by a totalitarian, quasi-religious authority known as the Magisterium – but there was something I felt...

Campion Review - A Crisis Of Conscience (Review)
This review has been delayed by a couple of weeks because I've been wrestling with my conscience. It's given me a real crisis of loyalties. On the one hand, I'm ostensibly writing this review as a public service to people who visit this site expecting to read an honest review of a movie or tv show DVD that they're interested in. On the other, I'm providing a publicity channel for the producers...

Review of Jane And The Dragon (Review)
Introduction Jane and the Dragon is a tale of Medieval Girl Power with wannabe Knight-in-Training Jane and her adventures with a friendly Dragon. She lives in a castle as a lady-in-waiting to the King and Queen and their precocious daughter Lavinia. A spoilt brat son, Prince Cuthbert, features in the first episode but fails to reappear in subsequent episodes. Jane`s friends include the...

Review of Oz & James Big Wine Adventure California (Review)
Introduction I was really looking forward to reviewing this DVD, as I`d thoroughly enjoyed the series when it was screened on BBC2 late last year. Of course, I`ve been disappointed by the PR firm working for Acorn Media (the licensees from RDF Media) who have provided me with a single DVD-R rather than the full package which apparently has two discs. This I find slightly puzzling. If one of...

Review of Telly Addicts (Review)
Introduction Being one, I always used to love that series with Noel Edmonds. This latest edition is the third incarnation of the show as an interactive STB game, the so-called "TV Heaven" edition. The pace of the game is somewhat leisurely, although that may have more to do with the interaction time of my Sony player than a fault of the game itself. The disc clicks and whirrs every time you...

Review of Tommy Cooper Hour, The (Review)
Introduction This often-postponed title snuck on to the shelves a few weeks back without much real fanfare. It had been on Network`s to-do list for a good twelve months, but something had been holding up the final release. Now it`s out, it`s time some shouting should be done about what is one of the jewels of television comedy. It is, possibly, difficult for a modern audience to appreciate...

Review of Classic Sci-Fi Boxset (Review)
Introduction Universal`s Classic Sci-Fi boxset contains The Creature From The Black Lagoon, The Incredible Shrinking Man, This Island Earth, Tarantula, The Thing From Another World, It Came From Another World and Invasion Of The Body Snatchers. Unfortunately, Universal only sent out review copies of Invasion Of The Body Snatchers - which is available separately and has its own review - and...

Review of Pygmalion (Review)
Introduction Easily George Bernard Shaw`s most popular play, Pygmalion is the story of a bet – that arrogant Professor of Phonetics Henry Higgins can, by teaching Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle elecution, pass her off as a lady inside of six months. This is a magical presentation of a magical play – a top rate cast performing a top rate script (Shaw`s play was adapted for the screen by...

Review of Paul Merton In Galton and Simpson`s...: The Complete Series (Review)
Introduction If there should be an unwritten law of comedy – like the one about never appearing with animals or children – it should be "never second-guess a classic". Do an homage in your own style by all means, but never ever think you can improve on the original. Mark Lewisohn in the Radio Times Guide To TV Comedy makes an analogy with music – making a cover version of a classic. You can do...

Review of Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer, The (Review)
Introduction My heart sank when I pulled this disc out of the jiffy bag from Reviewer Towers – a printable DVD-R with the title written on it in felt tip, and secured in a thin, plain clam-shell case. I`m always slightly disappointed getting a largely anonymous replication plant test disc of a release – no box illustration or anything of the finished package – so you can imagine my first...

Review of Raise the Titanic (Review)
Introduction So much went wrong with this picture it was the "Heaven`s Gate" of the British Film Industry. Aimed to be the crowning achievement in ITC`s cinematic efforts, Lord Lew Grade threw $36million at the project and was dismayed to find a return of only $7million on his investment. "It would have been cheaper to lower the Atlantic" he was later heard to mutter. Contrary to popular...

Review of Casino Royale (2006) (Review)
Introduction All right, I`ll put my hand up and admit I was one of the naysayers who didn`t rate Daniel Craig as Bond and who reckoned the whole "dark and gritty" enterprise would sink without trace. Can we take my hat as being eaten? (It was disgusting by the way, taking ages to get even al dente). Casino Royale is a reboot of the franchise for the late 2000s. It takes the whole Bond...

Review of Please Sir, The Complete Third Series (Review)
Introduction ITV comedy has never stood up particularly well against its BBC counterpart. There are very few ITV comedies in the same league as (say) Dad`s Army, Steptoe and Son, and Porridge. Please Sir is, however, head and shoulders above the usual ITV comedy fare and is one of the few series that – if it had been shown on BBCtv would surely have been a regular in the schedules. Created...

Review of Not On Your Nellie (Review)
Introduction This release was (perhaps deservedly perhaps not) vilified in the Radio Times on its release (they got their review copy ages before we got ours). Not On Your Nellie comes from a certain era in ITV comedy in the 1970s which has suffered from an enormous cultural backlash in recent years. While many BBC shows of the same era are celebrated as classics, ITV comedy shows are (again...

Review of Moses The Lawgiver (Review)
Introduction The man Gene Kelly in Singin in the Rain told us supposed his toeses were roses. To the rest of us, the man who led the Children of Israel out of slavery to the Pharaohs and gave them the Ten Commandments. In the mid 1970s, ATV`s Lew Grade was intent on making something a little more important than just his usual ITC money-spinners such as The Saint, Randall and Hopkirk and The...

Review of Hellzapoppin` (Review)
Introduction In the depths of World War II, Hollywood (and for that matter Broadway) sought refuge from the horrors of war in humour. There had always been a strong tradition of humour in filmmaking from the early days of the cinema – slapstick, satire and quick-fire humour exemplified by the likes of Laurel and Hardy, the Marx Brothers, directors like Frank Capra, Howard Hawks and Preston...

Review of Christina (Review)
Introduction Nothing to do with Stephen King or a 1958 Plymouth Fury. Christina is a strictly softcore romp from 1984 (copyright Leeds Film Accounting Services Ltd.) based on a series of overblown 1980s erotic novels by Blakely St James. The movie includes a promise (or should that be warning?) that following adaptations of the Christina novels are on the way. Fortunately the movie`s box office...

Review of QI : Series A (Review)
Introduction I have mixed feelings about a lot of modern comedy. Not alternative comedy, although that`s something of a misnomer these days as there is so little old-fashioned comedy around the alternative stuff is the mainstream. Putting aside gross-out, cringe and shock comedy (Little Britain, The Office et al) there`s a strong tradition growing in modern comedy of smart-arsism. You know...

Review of Marlene Dietrich: The Movie Collection (Review)
Introduction Throughout the 1930s, there was a corner of the Hollywood fields that was forever Germany. Much of the great art of early Hollywood cinema was down to German filmmakers lured to California by opportunities of big budgets. Directors such as Von Sternberg and Lubitsch did some of their best work in Hollywood. Universal Pictures was run by German emigres, the Laemmles, the greatest...