Malcolm McDowell goes back to school in If... on DVD...
It was a few years before Malcolm McDowell was to appear in A
Clockwork Orange, but there was still time for a bit of the old
ultraviolence as he joins the ranks of the Crusaders to take a stand
against the Whips in his snotty school...
And that place is on the internet as they sell a lot of their music via
their own site now, although this latest album is also available via Amazon,
linked by this review from
DVDfever.co.uk reviewer Elly Roberts
who discovers that they seem to have lost their way with this latest
release.
Homer Simpson (right) is not the most competent of people on this
planet and this new Channel 4 ident - i.e. the bits that appear before the
programmes - features Homer trying to relax with a beer, accidentally sending
the cans up onto the phone cable and almost electrocuting himself as the
'4' appears across all of Springfield. It looks fantastic.
Also uploaded recently are a clip of Underworld appearing on The Culture Show,
Jenny Eclair on Breakfast talking about her new show, a discussion about
the new Harry Potter book on Working Lunch and how the cut-pricing has affected
small booksellers, plus trailers for Doctors, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
(with the Patrick Allen soundalike), Smallville on E4 and an amusing one for
Jamie Oliver's new C4 series, Jamie At Home.
Do the Electric Soft Parade make you feel a-live or neutral, on CD...?
They come from Brighton, as does Fat Boy Slim, and if you'd like a bit of
'60s 'trippy hippy leanings' to send you into the weekend then you could do
worse than buy this, brought to you by
DVDfever.co.uk reviewer Elly Roberts.
Stuck for something to do this weekend? The list of the films showing at
Manchester Showcase Cinema
can be found on this page, and won't differ much from what's on in the rest
of the country.
The new films out include: Transformers and The Simpsons Movie.
Get your motor running on Moto GP on the Sony PSP...
A classic bike series on the Xbox, but one that didn't hit the mark on the
PS2 since it was written by a different company and the console couldn't
match the power of the Xbox that was necessary for this game, but how does
it fare on Sony's handheld?
Crash-bang-wallop aplenty in Flatout: Ultimate Carnage on the Xbox 360...
To make an addictive racing game that's loud and violent is not an easy
task and this ticks pretty much the majority of the right boxes, but is
it a Burnout-beater since, for my money, that franchise is the
best of the lot (on the Xbox consoles, at least, since the PS2 editions
weren't a patch by comparison).
Released as one of a number of new DVDs released under the banner of the
'Paramount Originals Collection', more details of which are contained
in this review, this particular one is the classic comedy with Michael
Caine as London wide boy Alfie, who has a girl in every port, metaphorically
speaking, and one keeping his house clean at the same time.
Can Rickie Lee Jones' latest album recapture the '70s magic...?
Best known for the Top 20 single, Chuck E's In Love, back in 1979,
she also took five albums into the charts over the next ten years, but
how does her latest release fare?
DVDfever.co.uk reviewer Elly Roberts
tells us that it's taken almost two years to get a release having been
recorded in the summer of 2005 so that can't be a good omen, or can it?
The comp for Hour of Victory (Xbox 360) has now closed and the answer
was that Lieutenant William Ross is the British SAS Commando Officer.
Thaila Zucchi on DVDfever's Youtube channel...
Thaila Zucchi (right) is one of the most gorgeous and bubbly actresses on the planet (I've met her and
she's a stunner).
Recently, she spoofed the housemates in Big Brother 8 by appearing as fake Australian housemate Pauline,
and last week she took the guest-host job of Big Brother's Big Mouth on E4 after the main BB programme on
Channel 4.
Before any Mrs Angry from Tunbridge Wells thinks Thaila's look is inappropriate in this clip, the reason
for it is due to her spoofing the way the male housemates did their nominations, and she is covering up
the necessary areas with a teddy bear and two pictures of Rolf Harris. That said, it probably isn't really
safe for work.
If you have any objections to this clip, please send me an email or Youtube private message first, but it
is all meant in good humour and is not offensive. I thankyou.
Will Steven Moffat take over with Doctor Who in 2009...?
Russell T Davies has said he will step down as producer and head honcho
of BBC1's Doctor Who after the 2008 series, but who will take his place?
Steven Moffat has written the better episodes of the revamped series
with The Empty Child two-parter, plus The Girl in the Fireplace
and 2007's Blink, but will he confirm to taking over from 2009 and,
if so, who will replace David Tennant since he's rumoured to be leaving
mid-way through the 2008 series?
DVDfever.co.uk reviewer Elly Roberts
is really pleased with the album from his protegee of Leonard Cohen and it's
an album that he describes as "an absolute audio joy".
Stuck for something to do this weekend? The list of the films showing at
Manchester Showcase Cinema
can be found on this page, and won't differ much from what's on in the rest
of the country.
The new films out include: Hairspray and Firehouse Dog.
Following his previous works, Cronos and The Devil's Backbone,
DVDfever.co.uk reviewer Dan Owen
praises Guillermo Del Toro, a director who has found international success
with Spanish language films as well as carving out a notable Hollywood
career. So how does his latest title fare?
Forest Whitaker is the Last King of Scotland on DVD...
I'd heard there were some good performances to be witnessed in this movie
but only when you come to watch it can you be overwhelmed at the pairing
between Forest Whitaker as General Idi Amin and James McAvoy
as Nick Garrigan, the man who becomes his personal physician and believes
every single word the dictator says... until the truth starts to come out,
but is it too late to do anything about it by then?
Souvenir, Joan of Arc, Maid of Orleans... - the classics from this
band in the early '80s were never-ending, so what better way to start the
week than to indulge in a remastered album complete with a DVD of a live
performance from the time.
Will this be a 'souvenir' for the collection of
DVDfever.co.uk reviewer Elly Roberts?
An album that comes as a big surprise, from Simply Red...
DVDfever.co.uk reviewer Elly Roberts
confirms that this has been a long time coming, but it is a really great
Simply Red album, and that while it may not be 'Stars' mk.2, it is still
their most adventurous album ever.
Stuck for something to do this weekend? The list of the films showing at
Manchester Showcase Cinema
can be found on this page, and won't differ much from what's on in the rest
of the country.
The new films out include: Harry Potter And The Inverted Pyramid Of Piffle... sorry, Order of the Phoenix.
DVDfever.co.uk reviewer Dan Owen
returns with a horror film from Eli Roth that's recently seen a sequel
hit the cinema and, just recently, a further release to this DVD has
come out to coincide with that, but is it as gory as we've been promised?
Love and music: Two worlds collide in Life & Lyrics on DVD...
Former rap star Ashley Walters came to the fore as Asher D in So Solid
Crew, but more recently he's made a name for himself as an actor in BBC1's
Hustle and the excellent 2004 film Bullet Boy, so can his
rise continue as Danny in Life & Lyrics as his group of rappers reach the
finals of the Mic Masters championship, but what's the deal between the
leader of the opposition and the girl Danny's quickly falling for?
DVDfever.co.uk reviewer Elly Roberts
describes Mark Ronson as a potential threat to Fat Boy Slim, and you can
see why given the guest stars on this album's tracks, such as Lily Allen,
Kasabian and Robbie Williams, as they present cover versions of tracks from
times gone by, including the Kaiser Chiefs' Oh My God, here sung
by the aforementioned Ms Allen.
Michael Buble's third CD is in no way irresponsible...
And that's because, according to
DVDfever.co.uk reviewer Elly Roberts,
his Sinatra-style is smoothness personified as his music spans the decades
from 1988 to 1944.
Stuck for something to do this weekend? The list of the films showing at
Manchester Showcase Cinema
can be found on this page, and won't differ much from what's on in the rest
of the country.
Last night Twentysixfeet played a gig in London to promote their new single
My Dead Organ and the info didn't come out until it was too late to
put it online, but the following info about the single comes from
DVDfever.co.uk reviewer Elly Roberts:
DROWNED IN SOUND REVIEW: "I used to have an idealistic, ultimately
naive, belief that the best music was written straight from the heart, chords
strummed and odes composed spontaneously, meditating on some (lost?) love or
tragedy.
twentysixfeet disprove this belief immediately. If this music is straight
from the heart then it is an atrophied, jet-black heart pumping pure
adrenaline through an alien body, its beat riddled with arrhythmia. 'My Dead
Organ' is a triumph of forward-thinking music; an alarmingly complex slab of
detuned riffs, spazzed-out electronics and manic drum rolls, always teetering
on the edge of sanity and cohesion.
Comparisons can be drawn to fellow Brits Oceansize circa their Effloresce
debut, but where t' Size reached their focal point on sprawling epics,
twentysixfeet are at their most potent when cramming every idea into as small
a time (just under four minutes on the title track) as possible.
Yet their sound never comes across as laboured or clogged, such is the
confident, ecstatic realisation of their ideas. twentysixfeet's glorious mix
of snarling metal and searing post-rock is both thrillingly unhinged yet, at
the same time, constantly focused."
SINGLE OF THE MONTH AT SUBBA CULCHA! "TWENTYSIXFEET - MY DEAD ORGAN:"With the scope of Radiohead on a productive day, the glitch-ridden tomfoolery
of 65DOS, all underpinned by the sort of mind expanding, mind melding genius
that see’s them sit nicely alongside Martin Grech, one’s to watch!!!"
Unpeeled Review: "They bring electronic soul to the
post-post-postman-fucking-pat post rock diaspora, by making their circuits
bleed and adding muscle to the stringy cables and synth laden sounds. You'll
hear real echoes of Coldplay (only an idiotl would deny there were good bits)
as a wasteland Berlin bunkered Eno and tortured U2 dig for victory with
waspish keyboards a chaos of crunching guitars and what can only be werewolves
chewing through the bass strings.
The grand things about 'My Dead Organ' and
its 'Hejira' flip are their ambition, scope and the innocent, if huge
achievement of subverting the likes of U2, Coldplay and Yes without being
anything less than twentysixfeet. Wonderful stuff."
RockFeedback Review: "...mesmerising stuff, like The Cure got lost in The
Forest and never re-emerged. It's epic, quite disconcerting rock, with tunes
and effective, subtle use of electronics.
In a strange moment of synchronicity
they have a track called Hejira, a simple piano-led tune with soaring male
vocals, in keeping with its theme of people fleeing from hostilities; it
effectively captures a sense of escape and emigration. The upliftingly titled
'My Dead Organ' is a melee of riff-ed distortion, driving electronics,
blitzkrieg guitars, though with surprising clear vocals and production, which
is what sets them apart."
Tom Cruise goes for a third impossible mission on DVD...
DVDfever.co.uk reviewer Dan Owen
returns with a look at an action-packed third entry in the series for Tom
Cruise based on the classic TV series, Mission: Impossible, this
time featuring Philip Seymour Hoffman as the baddie and Michelle
Monaghan, Maggie Q and Keri Russell as the talent. Support is
made up from Laurence Fishburne, Ving Rhames and the UK's own Simon
Pegg.
Over 40 retro games of joy: Activision Hits Remixed on the PSP...
If you're a child of the '80s and are still enjoying your video games today,
there's no excuse not to say no to this collection of some of the key games
from back in the day that enhanced your childhood when the real world was
grinding you down.
HERO, Laser Blast, Pitfall, River Raid, Starmaster and 39 more, including
some I'd never heard of, and some which are probably best forgotten, but
either way it's a collection worth checking out.
The weekend before last
DVDfever.co.uk reviewer Elly Roberts
went to see a gig that would put most multi-artist concerts to shame as
it included a number of bands including, as discussed here, The Coral, The
View and, one of the most outstanding bands since they began over 40 years
ago, The Who.
DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV
connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and
played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
