Box Sets

I am quite a big fan of gore and body horror so when I saw that hit U.S. series Dexter was available to rent on DVD from LoveFilm I knew I had to watch it!

Dexter is a serial killer with ethics; not your typical leading man! Working as a blood spatter analyst for Miami Metro he encounters the dregs of society and their actions on a daily basis.

Orphaned because his mother was murdered, then adopted by a cop hell-bent on justice, Dexter’s formative years were the catalyst for his now dominant penchant for the macabre.

Dexter seeks to make his little corner of the world a better place by eradicating heinous criminals who have slipped through the net.

Dispensing his own special brand of justice, Dexter plots, plans and meticulously executes his murderous endeavours, whilst ensuring that each victim realises why they are about to meet their maker.

On paper this sounds like quite an intense show, but it’s shot so well, with many varied story arcs and alternative points of interest, that it’s so much more than just another gore fest! (more…)

Here at DVDrental.co.uk we have realised that we offer our professional critique on a lot of films, but have never really concentrated on reviewing TV series, which can become more a part of our lives than the quickfire 90-minute movie.

We dedicate more time to TV series than we do with film; we watch a movie and if we don’t enjoy it then we forget about it, accept the lost hour and a half and simply move on, but with TV we make a conscious decision to continue to watch.  We have a greater opportunity to relate to the characters because we see them on a regular basis; we go through life with them and share in the plethora of compelling events and emotions that shape their fates.  We engage on a whole different level.

I mean, who didn’t cry when Madge Bishop passed away in Neighbours?

I could name brilliant TV shows all day, (Lost, Heroes, 24, ER, Prison Break etc) , but I think you would stop reading, so what I will do instead is tell you about a US series that has been showing on Channel 4 and More 4 over the last few months – Brothers & Sisters.

This show follows the life of a seemingly normal family, the Walkers, from idyllic Ojai, California, but looks can be deceiving and even as early as the first episode, it is clear that everything is not as it seems.

William Walker, the head of the family and founder of the family business, has a sudden fatal heart attack whilst talking to his granddaughter at the side of his pool, and soon after his death the skeletons in his closet slowly start to rear their ugly heads.

William leaves behind his wife Nora (played brilliantly by the legendary Sally Field), and five children, all of whom have not only their own issues to deal with, but now two more particularly pressing ones. Not only have they found out that Dad has been having an affair for over 20 years, but he has also seriously embezzled the family business, leaving them on the verge of not only bankruptcy, but a lawsuit too.

The characters in Brothers & Sisters make for a riveting watch, not least because of their intriguing individual issues that they must tackle.

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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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Today sees the release of the fully CGI animated Star Wars: The Clone Wars in UK cinemas, which we have to say is pretty good, despite initial misgivings, largely based on our opinion of the last film (Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith) particularly Hayden Christensen’s namby pamby depiction of the galaxy’s biggest badass, Darth Vader.

The Clone Wars is sort of like Star Wars Episode 2.5 in that its set in between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, and shows the beginning of events of the eponymous wars that were briefly mentioned by Obi-Wan Kenobi in the first ever Star Wars film waaaaay back in 1977.

The plot follows Anakin Skywalker (voiced by Matt Lanter, who played the drunk college jock Brody in the first series of Heroes) who has reluctantly been lumped with his overeager new disciple – sorry, Padawan – Ahsoka (Ashley Eckstein) who looks like Christina Aguilera in an Egyptian head dress and too much fake tan, as they attempt to rescue Jabba the Hutt’s son from a mysterious band of bounty hunters. Old favourites Obi-Wan and Yoda appear alongside Christopher Lee who reprises his role as Count Dooku the main villain of the piece, and Anthony Daniels, who once again camps it up as stuffy protocol droid C-3PO.

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Every so often a film or television series manages that most rare of feats, it becomes more than its medium and it is ranked alongside the pillars of culture that prop up our conversions and language for years to come.  The Wire is one of those works of art.

To dismiss it as a mere cop show does not do it justice but the show is set in Baltimore and chronicles the struggle of a detail of cops trying to trap a high end drug target, whilst dealing with the vagaries of bureaucracy that are present in all areas of public service.  The cops and the dealers are treated as part of the same puzzle and equal weight is given to both in the program.  The Wire has a high level of characterisation not seen in any other TV show going at the moment.  You will feel for the dealers and hate some of the cops as the line between what’s good and bad becomes increasingly greyed and dependant on context.  There is comic relief combined with searing tragedy and a majestic charm arises from even the most hopeless of situations.

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Bit of film fact trivia known to every Star Wars fan worth their spice; Blue Harvest was the codename for Return of the Jedi used by the production team when filming in order to avoid excessive attention from members of the press and fans alike – the cover was eventually blown despite numerous t-shirts and baseball caps being made help support the ruse.

And so, in order to celebrate the 30th Anniversary of one the best loved movie franchises of the 20th Century (the last two do not count) Seth MacFarlane and the Family Guy team created their own hour-long retelling of A New Hope, which in the traditional Family Guy style takes pot shots at everything from Robot Chicken which stars both of the Seths, (Green and MacFarlane) in their own Star Wars Special, Pimp My Ride (with a souped-up TIE fighter) and the War on Terror, by way of having the Death Star blow up a planet suspected of hoarding WMDs.

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With the second season of the hit sci-fi serial Heroes due to touch down on BBC2 anytime soon, everything Heroes-related has been flying off the shelves like hotcakes of late.

According to our sources, the Season 1 box set has been one of the most requested items on customers wish lists, as subscribers have been keen to take advantage of the fact that multi-disc box sets (sensibly) only count as one order, and those on unlimited plans can keep hold of an order for as long as they want. (more…)