The IT Crowd – out now on DVD
Thursday, November 20th, 2008
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.

After the successful fusion of uninhibited bawdiness and showbiz satire in The 40 Year Old Virgin and pregnancy-centric rom-com Knocked Up, current chieftain of Hollywood comedy Judd Apatow looks to have scored another hit with Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Once again he takes a situation that really shouldn’t be funny – in this case the break-down of a long-term relationship – and sucks from it every last drop of laughs.
Like slipping into a pair of old shoes, 27 Dresses is the epitome of comforting predictability, following the rom-com rulebook to the letter.
Having been maligned by many reviewers upon its release a few weeks ago, the DVD Rental crew weren’t expecting much from Hancock, the latest Will Smith sci-fi action outing, but we left our local cinema pleasantly surprised.
Directed by Tom Shadyac (Ace Ventura, The Nutty Professor), this sequel to Bruce Almighty at $135 million dollars is purportedly the most expensive comedy ever filmed. Steve Carell plays a newscaster turned politician who has uprooted to Virginia, dragging a reluctant wife and three boys with him to support him in his ambitions. His campaign pledge to “change the world” becomes a reality when God, in the form of an avuncular Morgan Freeman, tells him to build an ark to save America from a great flood. In spite of hints at an environmental message – the flood after all followed a controversial decision to privatise a national park – Evan’s penchant for gas-guzzling 4×4s makes him an unlikely eco-warrior.
Seasoned action man and all-round geezer Jason Statham (Collateral, Snatch) and Saffron Burrows (Frida, Deep Blue Sea) star in this comic thriller documenting the 1971 robbery of the Baker Street branch of Lloyds Bank. Oddly enough, the robbers’ walkie-talkie conversations were recorded by a radio ham, but when he reported the incident, no action was taken…
Perhaps the ultimate Girl’s Night In movie has arrived on cinema screens, following Monday night’s premiere at the Odeon West End in Leicester Square here in London – of course we’re flattered that Carrie and the girls chose to unveil their first big screen performance here in the UK, but we can’t help feeling that perhaps their native New York would have been a more fitting choice.