DVD, Blu-ray and TV

Bogey Nights

More of Humphrey's best moments on a two-disc set

A Man Apart

This is a workmanlike, halfway-successful attempt to consolidate charmless lunkhead Vin Diesel's status as the action star of the moment. Actually, he's not half bad as the widowed (and therefore vengeful) narcotics agent Sean Vetter, but veteran action director F Gary Gray (The Negotiator) is absolutely treading water. Best saved for a Friday night when you've got nothing else to do.

Happy Together

A collaborative highpoint for director Wong Kar-Wai and cinematographer Chris Doyle. Happy Together's account of two gay Hong Kongers (Tony Leung and Leslie Cheung) adrift in Buenos Aires is one of the most visually striking films ever made, sadly only denied masterpiece status by the vagaries of Wong's leisurely narrative pacing.

Messin’ With The Blues

You'd think that seven films lasting up to 90 minutes each would offer limitless space for a thorough examination of the past, present and future of the blues, but Martin Scorsese's grand concept adds up to less than the sum of its parts.

The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen

Sean Connery's over-inflated reputation allows him to text his dozy performance in. He's not the only one snoozing through an utterly uninspired, token "imagining" of Alan Moore's superb comic book. A low-rent X-Men, with clunking script outdone only by haphazard effects and nonsensical action sequences. And the supposed "invisible man" is rubbish.

Canadian Bacon

The cult of Michael Moore reaches back to '94 for his non-documentary debut, a satirical comedy about a PR-inspired American war with Canada that pushes all the Moore-ish buttons (rapid-fire jibes about corporate domination, hawkish Republicans, arms proliferation and conspiracy theories) while remaining alarmingly unfunny.

Guns N’Roses – Welcome To The Videos

With this triple-pronged DVD release, GN'R are freeze-framed forever: caught in a moment, celebrated and finally tucked away as a fond memory. The video collection tops and tails an extraordinary achievement while, live, the band are at their most untouchable and preposterous. Surely Axl must have sacked, then sued, the stylist for the lycra micro-shorts...

A Revengers Tragedy

Alex Cox's gory update of Thomas Middleton's 1607 play about anarcho-nutter royal assassins. The ghost of Derek Jarman clearly lurks behind Cox's ambitious vision of Liverpool as a post-punk, retro-futurist city state. Christopher Eccleston spits nails as the hard-bastard anti-hero, but not even Eddie Izzard, Derek Jacobi and Sophie Dahl can lift the drama above flawed curio level.

Death Wish II

There was genuine suspense and intelligence in Michael Winner's original 1974 thriller, which addressed some of the same debates about rising crime and liberal impotence as Dirty Harry and Straw Dogs. But this 1982 sequel, relocating Charles Bronson's wounded architect to LA and forcing him to endure another double rape/murder episode, veers dangerously close to shabby exploitation.

Lone Wolf Mcquade

To say this ultraviolent 1983 flick is Chuck Norris'best movie might smack of faint praise, but what's good is mostly down to David Carradine as his strutting, butt-kicking, cigar-sucking nemesis. It's a modern-day western, heavy on the spaghetti, with Norris'Texas ranger taking on Carradine's gun-runner and his army of disposable borderland Mexicans. Did Walter Hill watch this before making Extreme Prejudice?
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