DVD Rental Blog

The slapstick tech support based sitcom written by Father Ted creator Graham Linehan returns to Channel 4 tomorrow night. If you’ve not seen The IT Crowd, now is the perfect time to get acquainted with Moss, Jen and Roy, who make up the entire IT department of the London-based Reynholm Industries, a company which once turned over “eighteen hundred billion billion,” in profits.

Moss and Roy are, in the words of Denholm Reynholm (the CEO, played by Chris Morris), just a pair of “standard nerds” who are outcast by the rest of the firm despite their reliance on their technical expertise.

The glamorous and ambitious Jen is appointed their manager after blagging her way into the job, even though it’s clear she knows next to squat about computers.

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It’s ten minutes to midnight.

Released over twenty years ago between 1986 and 87, to say that Watchmen was an influential success would be a pretty epic understatement. It cemented Alan Moore’s reputation as a writer in the graphic novel medium and since then, more than a fair few of his graphic novels have (much to his chagrin) been adapted for the big screen, most notably V For Vendetta, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Constantine, and Jack the Ripper conspiracy theory yarn From Hell. His treatment of the Joker in his celebrated Batman one-shot The Killing Joke, is widely cited as being a major influence on both Tim Burton’s 1989 movie, the subsequent Batman animated series, and recent outing The Dark Knight.

No Watchmen, no Heroes. Simple as.

The comic book is set in an alternative universe where superheroes exist – it is 1985, and the Cold War is on the verge of becoming a very, very hot one.

In this universe, the USA won the Vietnam War, and Watergate never happened – Nixon is still the President. The West is defended by a small elite corps of licensed superheroes, the most powerful of which, Dr. Manhattan, has given the States an edge over the Soviets. However, things take a turn for the worse – the story begins with the discovery that The Comedian, an ultra-patriotic American superhero is found dead, having been hurled several stories from his apartment.

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Directed by celebrated painter Julian Schnabel, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly tells the remarkable tale of Jean-Dominique Bauby (Mathieu Amalric), the 43-year old Parisian fashion editor and playboy who, at the zenith of wealth and success was paralysed by a stroke and suffered from “locked in syndrome”, where he is alive and conscious but unable to communicate with the world.

Bauby wakes up in hostpital from a coma to find himself paralysed from head to toe and unable to speak. The only part of his body he can move is his left eyelid, which he uses to communicate. The pretty speech therapist (Marie-Josee Croze) recites the alphabet in the order of most frequently used letters, and Bauby chooses a letter by blinking. Thus, letter by letter, blink by blink, he ‘dictates’ his extraordinary memoir on which this film is based.
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Costing $300,000 and grossing $60 million, Halloween was the independent slasher film that put director John Carpenter on the map, and established many of the clichés found in thirty years of low-budget horror that followed. Now considered a classic, the film’s success lies in its simplicity. A neat plot coupled with deft camera work gives Halloween a stark realism which plays on our primeval fears.

One dark halloween night, a six-year-old boy named Michael Audrey Myers (Will Sandin) stabs his teenage sister to death with a kitchen knife. Discovered soon afterwards by his parents, the boy is sent to a sanatorium under the care of child psychiatrist, Dr. Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasence). After spending eight years in treatment and a further seven locked up, Myers escapes to his quiet hometown of Haddonfield, Illinois, looking for prey.

A 19-year-old Jamie Lee Curtis plays the bookish schoolgirl Laurie Strode. Babysitting on hallowe’en night, Laurie is unaware that the adult Myers (Tony Moran), a psychopathic killer wearing an expressionless white mask, is lurking right around the corner, waiting for his moment to pounce and change the course of her life forever. Meanwhile the horrified Dr Loomis waits, as single-mindedly obsessed as the killer he’s chasing.
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An unmarked video tape that kills you seven days after you’ve watched it is the focus for this psychological thriller, based on the Japanese horror film of the same name. More eerie than grotesque, The Ring is bound to send more than a few Hallowe’en shivers down your spine this Friday.

Naomi Watts plays Rachel Keller, a Seattle-based newspaper reporter who is asked to investigate the sudden and mysterious death of her niece. Rachel discovers that three other teenagers also died that day, and that all four had watched a mysterious, grainy video exactly a week earlier. But once she manages to track down the offending VHS the budding journo can’t help but take a peek, and begins to fear that her curiosity could get the better of her. Determined not to be fooled by an urban legend, Rachel enlists the help of her reluctant ex-boyfriend Noah (Martin Henderson) and intuitive son Aiden (David Dorfman) to get to the bottom of the mystery. But one death threat later and Rachel is fighting to save her own life and those of her family. The clock is ticking…
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In this handsomely executed adaptation of Thomas Harris’s sequel from director Ridley Scott (Blade Runner, Gladiator),  Lecter is now living in freedom as a curator in Florence. Ten years have passed since he escaped from custody; ten years since FBI agent Clarence Starling interviewed him in a maximum security prison. Despite her unspoken promise not to pursue him, Clarice, having been exiled to a desk job after a botched drug raid, finds her self lured by Lecter himself, who writes to her from Italy, confident in his pseudonym “Dr Fell”.

It turns out that Clarice and the FBI are not the only ones with an eye on the Doctor - billionaire and convicted child molester Mason Verger (played by a very heavily made-up Gary Oldman) remembers Lecter too. After using his wealth to escape a jail sentence several years ago, Verger was ordered by the court to attend therapy sessions… with none other than the celebrated Baltimore psychiatrist Dr. Hannibal Lecter…

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In this now-classic 90’s horror, two mismatched policemen follow a serial killer with a biblical bent, trying to establish a pattern to his murders. The subject matter certainly won’t win brownie points for originality, but this exceptionally nasty thriller twists these familiar elements into a gripping and claustrophobic web of tension.

In a grim, anonymous city which seems to experience constant rainfall, steady-handed veteran Detective William Somerset is preparing to retire from the force, weary of the horror and apathy that surrounds him. But before he does so, he is matched with Detective David Mills, a young cop with a can-do attitude who has recently moved from a smaller town with his sweet-tempered wife (Gwyneth Paltrow). The pair form the modern detective cliché – the wise old hand and the cocky young upstart who gradually learn to rub along.
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The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) is a cult classic - a transvestite-sci-fi-horror-rock-opera parody and the undisputed king of midnight movies. Other filmmakers have tried to emulate its success, such as Warner Bros. with Little Shop of Horrors, but with only partial success. A run of catchy tunes gives the film momentum, while Charles Gray’s remarkably straight-faced narration holds the freaky lingerie-and-facepaint clad shambles together.

With a screen play written by Jim Sharman and Richard O’Brien (yes, he of The Crystal Maze) the film is based on the British musical stage production The Rocky Horror Show, and it is in the theatre that the whole caboodle really belongs, with the performers and audience joining in a collective send-up. The film remains very much a staged play, and loses much of its giddy appeal when translated to the confines of one’s living room, mainly because the audience - normally participants as well as spectators -  has disappeared. Bearing all that in mind, what better excuse to invite your mates round for a fishnet-clad horror fest, courtesy of the enigmatic Dr. Frank N. Furter?
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When it was announced that the next actor to step into the shoes of the world’s foremost international man of mystery would be blond, blue-eyed Daniel Craig, everyone and their dog was up in arms over the choice of leading man; how could he pull it off when he doesn’t look the part, and prefers automatic transition over manual?

Doubting Thomases the world over were made to eat their hats upon the arrival of Casino Royale, which confidently reinvigorated the Bond franchise, which was veering dangerously close to self-parody with the pretty god awful Die Another Day. All of the classic elements were there, an Aston Martin (DB5), Vodka Martini, soundtrack by David Arnold, nods to the political climate of the time, there was a thankfully noticeable lack of CGI, with practically all the stunts being performed the ‘old fashioned way’, there were guns, there were girls, and there were gadgets; even the film’s title was a nod to the original Ian Fleming source material.

But despite all the knowing winks, it was a thoroughly modern take on a classic style, perhaps best encapsulated by the infamous Vodka Martini scene which sent naysayers into apoplexy; asked by a waiter if he wants his drink shaken or stirred, he replies ‘Do I look like I give a damn?’ This Bond meant business, but not business as usual.

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Lyrical and expressive, The Road Home represents a significant shift from more analytical and politically charged films concerning the period of Chinese history which preceded the Cultural Revolution. Dealing with the relationship between city and country, old and new, the film portrays love pursued in youth and fiercely remembered in old age. It is a tale of constancy and devotion against the odds in which the past represents the stability of family values and village customs; political tension is also hinted at, and occasionally bubbles to the surface. The present, on the other hand, is cold and uncertain. The young have moved away from the villages, and the old traditions are dying out. Traditional skills perfected over a lifetime are rejected for commercialism. The adage ”Know the past, know the present” resonates with inreasing sentiment as it is repeated throughout the film.

Zhang Yimou, who also directed Red Sorghum, Raise the Red Lantern, and The Story of Qiu Ju, was formerly a cinematographer, and he is adept at stirring up emotions with his mastery of colour and mood. He possesses an intense awareness of the natural world, revealing in his camerawork the glory of the changing seasons, the weather and the gorgeous landscape of towering mountains, crisp snow and lush, golden fields. San Bao’s impassioned soundtrack, reminiscent of James Horner’s theme music for Titanic, represents a full-blooded escape from the political heavy-handedness that dogged Zhang’s earlier Mao-era features, lending this elemental love story an emotional grandeur.

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