To round off the year, we collate the DVDs, Blu-rays and Games reviewed in-house at DVDfever.co.uk
throughout 2009, all of which are linked through their individual sections on the left-hand menu.
Apart from the odd update, we'll be back on January 4th 2010. Have a Happy Xmas & New Year!
DVDs & Blu-rays (film content only):
The Air I Breathe 7/10 (review)
Babylon AD 4/10 (review)
Ben X 10/10 (review)
The Big Blue: Version Longue (Blu-ray) 10/10 (review)
Bronson (Blu-ray) 4/10 (review)
The Children (Blu-ray) 8/10 (review)
Crank 2: High Voltage (Blu-ray) 5/10 (review)
The Day The Earth Stood Still (2008) 5/10 (review)
Die Hard 4.0: Ultimate Action Edition (2-disc) 8/10 (review)
The Duchess 7/10 (review)
The Elephant Man (Blu-ray) 10/10 (review)
The Escapist 9/10 (review)
Faintheart 10/10 (review)
Flame & Citron (Blu-ray) 6/10 (review)
Gran Torino (Blu-ray) 9/10 (review)
Hardware (Blu-ray) 6/10 (review)
Hot Fuzz (Blu-ray) 10/10 (review)
In The Loop (Blu-ray) 9/10 (review)
Is Anybody There? (Blu-ray) 6/10 (review)
Knowing (Blu-ray) 8/10 (review)
Leon: The Director's Cut (Blu-ray) 10/10 (review)
Looking For Eric (Blu-ray) 10/10 (review)
The Machine Girl (Blu-ray) 6/10 (review)
Monkey Magic 2/10 (review)
Mum & Dad 10/10 (review)
Nikita (Blu-ray) 10/10 (review)
North Face (Blu-ray) 7/10 (review)
Rolling Stones: The Biggest Bang (Blu-ray) 7/10 (review)
Sexy Killer 7/10 (review)
Shaun of the Dead (Blu-ray) 10/10 (review)
Shut Up and Shoot Me 8/10 (review)
Splinter (Blu-ray) 6/10 (review)
Subway (Blu-ray) 5/10 (review)
Summer 9/10 (review)
Terminator 2: Skynet Edition (Blu-ray) 10/10 (review)
Transporter 3 7/10 (review)
Transsiberian 9/10 (review)
Twelve Monkeys (Blu-ray) 10/10 (review)
Valkyrie (Blu-ray) 8/10 (review)
The Wrestler (Blu-ray) 8/10 (review)
X-Men Origins: Wolverine (Blu-ray) 6/10 (review)
Yes Man 6/10 (review)
Games: Enjoyment Overall
Buzz! Brain of the UK (Sony PSP) 7/10 7/10 (review)
Buzz! Brainbender (Sony PSP) 7/10 7/10 (review)
Fear 2 (Xbox 360) 10/10 10/10 (review)
Ghostbusters (Sony PSP) 6/10 6/10 (review)
Gran Turismo (Sony PSP) 4/10 5/10 (review)
Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars (Nintendo DS) 8/10 7/10 (review)
Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars (Sony PSP) 8/10 7/10 (review)
Grand Theft Auto 4: The Ballad of Gay Tony (Xbox 360) 10/10 10/10 (review)
Grand Theft Auto 4: The Lost and the Damned (Xbox 360) 10/10 9/10 (review)
Little Big Planet (Sony PSP) 10/10 9/10 (review)
Loco Roco 2 (Sony PSP) 10/10 10/10 (review)
King of Fighters (Sony PSP) 8/10 7/10 (review)
King of Fighters XII (Xbox 360) 5/10 6/10 (review)
Manhunt 2 (PS2) 5/10 5/10 (review)
MotorStorm: Arctic Edge (Sony PSP) 10/10 10/10 (review)
Red Faction: Guerrilla (Xbox 360) 7/10 8/10 (review)
Resistance: Retribution (Sony PSP) 4/10 5/10 (review)
Tomb Raider: Double Bill: Legend & Anniversary (Sony PSP) 6/10 6/10 (review)
Tomb Raider: Underworld (Xbox 360) 5/10 8/10 (review)
CHARTS: Rage Against The Machine vs X-Factor - who got the Xmas No.1...?
Manchester-based trumpeter Matthew Halsall is a rising star on the burgeoning UK jazz scene, and
DVDfever.co.uk reviewer Elly Roberts
considers him the new Miles Davis. Find out why in this review.
Enjoy an alternative family Christmas from Putayamo on CD...
While you’re decorating the Xmas tree, making a gingerbread house or simply wrapping pressies, why not relax and enjoy
this cool collection of yuletide yummies from Putumayo World Music. Find out more in this review from
DVDfever.co.uk reviewer Elly Roberts.
Stuck for something to do this weekend? The list of 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: St Trinians 2 and Avatar.
While western ears were following successive music revolutions from pop, psychedelia, rock, prog rock, punk, ska,
new wave, and new romanticism between 1968 and 1981, there was a ‘quieter’ revolution going on - on the western coast
of Africa.
DVDfever.co.uk reviewer Elly Roberts
gives you the story on this 33-track compilation.
An intoxicating brew of East meets West from Dogan Mehmet on CD...
According to
DVDfever.co.uk reviewer Elly Roberts,
when the Rolling Stones, The Beatles and Led Zeppelin introduced eastern flavours into rock music it turned the genre
on its head, and opened the floodgates. Now teenage Turkish -Cypriot Dogan Mehmet, from Brighton, has masterfully
infused them into folk music. Find out how in this review.
Take control of your new friend, Sackboy, in Little Big Planet on the Sony PSP...
Out now:
When I first heard about this game getting released on the PS3, it didn't sound massively appealing to me - the sort
of thing that would appeal to the Wii generation, just moving a little character about a user-generated landscape and
not much else... and then I played it on the PSP and was instantly captured by its charm...
There's some game footage for you to enjoy in this review.
What a glorious period for German film right now the cream of which was on show at this year’s festival at the Curzon
Soho Cinema in London. It seems as if each wave of filmmakers is further exploring their history – not just revisiting
their past, but teasing out the truth, challenging accepted views, and exorcising their ghosts.
But don’t just take
DVDfever.co.uk reviewer Helen Jerome's
word for it; go out and see these films in 2010, when they should be hitting UK screens.
Youtube highlight: Rage Against The Machine for Xmas No.1! on The Wright Stuff...
Yes, the campaign starts here! Or rather, it started on Facebook, on a group with 700,000+ members all pledging to buy
it, including myself, to stop X-Factor from getting there instead!
CHARTS: Lady Gaga vs Peter Kay - Who got the new No.1...?
Once again, we look at a few titles in more detail.
The titles of note are the following, but read on for further details about the highlights:
Bergerac: The Complete Collection (89.99 DVD, BBC)
Breaking Bad Season 1 (24.99 DVD, Sony)
Cast Offs (19.99 DVD, 4 DVD)
OMD: Electricity (14.99 DVD, Fact)
Breaking Bad Season 1
No one would confuse the desperate dad Bryan Cranston plays in this character-driven drama with the fun-loving Hal from Malcolm in the Middle. In Breaking Bad, Walter White lives in the suburbs with his wife--and wears tighty-whiteys--but the similarities end there. During the pilot, the cash-strapped chemistry teacher finds out he has inoperable lung cancer. He and Skyler (Deadwood's Anna Gunn) have one son, Walter Jr. (R.J. Mitte), and a daughter on the way. With two years to get his affairs in order, Walter comes up with a wild plan: he and former student Jesse (Aaron Paul), a drug dealer, will open a meth lab.
In the hands of creator Vince Gilligan (The X-Files), Bad's first season plays like the improbable offspring of Weeds and The Shield. With nothing left to lose, the Albuquerque 50-year-old uses his death sentence as a catalyst to break every rule he's ever followed while keeping his family--including Skyler's radiologist sister, Marie (Betsy Brandt), and her DEA agent husband, Hank (Dean Norris)--out of the loop. Throughout these seven episodes, Walt takes on a hostage, a dead body, and a partner who likes to sample his own product. Based on the description alone, it shouldn't work as well as it does, except Gilligan and company keep the situations psychologically believable and Emmy winner Cranston makes Walt surprisingly sympathetic as he swings between compassion and self-interest. As he tells his students, "Chemistry is the study of change", a statement that applies equally well to the show, since Walt ends up in a very different place than where he began.
Special Features:
Making of Breaking Bad
Deleted/Extended Scenes
Cast and Crew Commentaries
Inside Breaking Bad
Vince Gilligan's Photo Gallery
AMC Shootout - Interview with Vince Gilligan and Bryan Cranston
On June 20 2009, 80’s synth-pioneers Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark performed with a 75 piece orchestra at Liverpool’s Philharmonic Hall, under the watchful eye of filmmaker Hambi, and utilising the vision of artist Peter Saville (creator of the neo-classical cover for OMD’s foremost release Electricity). OMD performed their imposing back catalogue abetted by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, after collaborative audio-visual installation, "The Energy Suite", received its orchestral premiere. The hit laden set, featuringh classics such as "Enola Gay" and "Joan of Arc", and stuffed with exclusive firsts, such as the primary live outing of "Radio Prague", is captured on Electricity: OMD with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.
The band’s determination to utilise the entire orchestra to maximum effect saw Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys abandoning almost all the original instrumentation in favour of complete re-workings of the song arrangements. "The Energy Suite" emerged from an 80’s vision, born around the time OMD recorded Stanlow, an epic musical journey, which featured ambient recordings from Stanlow Oil Refinery on the Wirral peninsular.
Synopsis:
Synth-pop cult ensemble Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark performs its repertoire together with the Royal Liverpool Philarmonic Orchestra. Legendary Mancunian designer and artist Peter Saville and filmmaker Hambi also take part to the project providing a more thanfitting visual background. Full tracklisting includes: 'Radio Prague', 'Messages', 'Souvenir', 'Joan Of Arc', 'Maid Of Orleans', 'All That Glitters', 'La Femme Accident', 'Talking Loud And Clear', 'Dream Of Me', 'Walking On The Milky Way, 'Native Daughters Of The Golden West', 'Sailing on the Seven Seas', 'Enola Gay', 'Electricity', 'Romance Of The Telescope'.
Detective Sergent Jim Bergerac of Jersey's Bureau des Estrangers tracks down all kinds of criminals in his red Triumph Roadster. This all encompassing collection features all the episodes from each of the show's nine series.
Bergerac: The Complete Collection is out now on
DVD (£65.88).
Cast Offs
Subversely comic series CAST OFFS, centres on a fictional reality TV show in which six disabled people are shipped off to a deserted island and left to fend for themselves for six months. With only sheep, chickens and each other for company the group struggle to cope. Each episode tells one of their stories in flashback; offering brutally honest, darkly comic and often poignant tales of life with disabilities.
Stuck for something to do this weekend? The list of 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: Where the Wild Things Are, Carriers and The Step Father.
California dreaming from the Skygreen Leopards on CD...
DVDfever.co.uk reviewer Elly Roberts
stumbled across this band and found this album to be a welcome addition to his collection. With influences including
The Byrds, The Kinks and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, what's not to like!
"Another little gem from the Emerald Isle" is how
DVDfever.co.uk reviewer Elly Roberts
sums up this 11-tracker, which is the man's fifth album and a "dazzling collection of Americana crossover songs that
ought to have ears pricking at all the ‘real music’ stations".
Who you gonna call? Ghostbusters on the Sony PSP...
Out now:
It's one of the iconic films of the '80s, so can a game released 25 years after the film do justice to such a classic?
Well, just about. It's addictive if, albeit, very flawed. But then the original ZX Spectrum game wasn't perfect either,
but there's something about the franchise that just keeps you coming back for more.... well, except for the second movie,
that is.
He's been going for 26 years and this latest release sees the bluesman making this a tribute to “one of the true working
class voices of America “, the late Dave Dudley.
DVDfever.co.uk reviewer Elly Roberts
relaxes with this great new album.
Once again, we look at a few titles in more detail.
The titles of note are the following, but read on for further details about the highlights:
Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince (24.99 DVD, 28.99 Blu-ray, 49.99 DVD boxset, 59.99 Blu-ray Boxset, Warner)
The Hangover (19.99 DVD, 26.99 Blu-ray, Warner)
Inglourious Basterds (19.99 DVD, Universal)
Gavin And Stacey Series 3 (19.99 DVD, 24.99 Blu-ray, DVD Boxset, Blu-ray Boxset, BBC)
G.I. Joe - The Rise Of Cobra (19.99 DVD, 26.99 Blu-ray, Paramount)
The Tudors Season 3 (29.99 DVD, 39.99 Blu-ray, 49.99 DVD Boxset, BBC)
Bandslam (17.99 DVD, E1)
George Michael: Live in London (17.99 DVD, 19.99 Blu-ray, Sony)
Ugly Betty Season 3 (35.99 DVD, Walt Disney)
James May's Toy Stories (19.99 DVD, 4DVD)
American Pie 7: Book Of Love (15.99 DVD, Universal)
Shorts (15.99 DVD, 22.99 Blu-ray, Warner)
Mid-August Lunch (15.99 DVD, Artificial Eye)
The Queen (2009 TV Series) (19.99 DVD, 4DVD)
Kath And Kim Series 1 & 2 (29.99 DVD, BBC)
Buried Alive (18.99 DVD, Backstage Alliance)
Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince
Emboldened by the return of Lord Voldemort, the Death Eaters are wreaking havoc in both the Muggle and wizarding worlds and Hogwarts is no longer the safe haven it once was. Harry suspects that new dangers may lie within the castle, but Dumbledore is more intent upon preparing him for the final battle that he knows is fast approaching. He needs Harry to help him uncover a vital key to unlocking Voldemort's defenses--critical information known only to Hogwarts' former Potions Professor, Horace Slughorn. With that in mind, Dumbledore manipulates his old colleague into returning to his previous post with promises of more money, a bigger office...and the chance to teach the famous Harry Potter.
Meanwhile, the students are under attack from a very different adversary as teenage hormones rage across the ramparts. Harry's long friendship with Ginny Weasley is growing into something deeper, but standing in the way is Ginny's boyfriend, Dean Thomas, not to mention her big brother Ron. But Ron's got romantic entanglements of his own to worry about, with Lavender Brown lavishing her affections on him, leaving Hermione simmering with jealousy yet determined not to show her feelings. And then a box of love potion-laced chocolates ends up in the wrong hands and changes everything. As romance blossoms, one student remains aloof with far more important matters on his mind. He is determined to make his mark, albeit a dark one. Love is in the air, but tragedy lies ahead and Hogwarts may never be the same again.
Although Quentin Tarantino has cherished Enzo G. Castellari's 1978 "macaroni" war flick The Inglorious Bastards for most of his film-geek life, his own Inglourious Basterds is no remake. Instead, as hinted by the Tarantino-esque misspelling, this is a lunatic fantasia of WWII, a brazen re-imagining of both history and the behind-enemy-lines war film subgenre. There's a Dirty Not-Quite-Dozen of mostly Jewish commandos, led by a Tennessee good ol' boy named Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) who reckons each warrior owes him one hundred Nazi scalps--and he means that literally. Even as Raine's band strikes terror into the Nazi occupiers of France, a diabolically smart and self-assured German officer named Landa (Christoph Waltz) is busy validating his own legend as "The Jew Hunter." Along the way, he wipes out the rural family of a grave young girl (Melanie Laurent) who will reappear years later in Paris, dreaming of vengeance on an epic scale.
Now, this isn't one more big-screen comic book. As the masterly opening sequence reaffirms, Tarantino is a true filmmaker, with a deep respect for the integrity of screen space and the tension that can accumulate in contemplating two men seated at a table having a polite conversation. IB reunites QT with cinematographer Robert Richardson (who shot Kill Bill), and the colors and textures they serve up can be riveting, from the eerie red-hot glow of a tabletop in Adolf Hitler's den, to the creamy swirl of a Parisian pastry in which Landa parks his cigarette. The action has been divided, Pulp Fiction-like, into five chapters, each featuring at least one spellbinding set-piece. It's testimony to the integrity we mentioned that Tarantino can lock in the ferocious suspense of a scene for minutes on end, then explode the situation almost faster than the eye and ear can register, and then take the rest of the sequence to a new, wholly unanticipated level within seconds.
Again, be warned: This is not your "Greatest Generation," Saving Private Ryan WWII. The sadism of Raine and his boys can be as unsavory as the Nazi variety; Tarantino's latest cinematic protégé, Eli (director of Hostel) Roth, is aptly cast as a self-styled "golem" fond of pulping Nazis with a baseball bat. But get past that, and the sometimes disconcerting shifts to another location and another set of characters, and the movie should gather you up like a growing floodtide. Tarantino told the Cannes Film Festival audience that he wanted to show "Adolf Hitler defeated by cinema." Cinema wins
Gavin and Stacey have moved to Wales. Stacey couldn't be happier now she’s back with her mum Gwen, her uncle Bryn and a daily diet of omelettes. Gavin on the other hand is adjusting to life in Barry, and although he won't admit it, he's missing his parents Pam and Mick and of course, his best friend Smithy.
Smithy is bereft in Essex without Gav, and is trying to get used to the fact that his son, Neil the baby, is now living in a caravan with mum Nessa and soon-to-be stepfather Dave Coaches.
In the third and final series of this award winning comedy, we find out once again that there’s nothing predictable about families and friends…whichever side of the Severn Bridge they live on.
If you like your humour broadside up, hold the subtlety, you'll want to nurse this Hangover with your best mates. The ensemble cast meshes perfectly--it's like a super-R-rated episode of Friends: silly, slapstick, and completely in the viewer's face. When four pals go to Vegas to celebrate the imminent nuptials of one of them, they partake in a rooftop toast to "a night we'll never forget." But they're in for a big surprise: their celebration drinks were laced with date-rape drugs, so when they awake in their hotel room 12 hours later, not only are they hung over, but they can't remember what they did all night long. Oh, and they're missing the groom-to-be.
The film is so cheerfully raunchy, so fiercely crude, that the humour becomes as intoxicating as the mind-altering substances. The standout in the ensemble is Zach Galifianakis, who is alternately creepy and hilarious. Ed Helm (The Office), in addition to his memory, loses a tooth in uncomfortably realistic fashion, and Bradley Cooper (He's Just Not That into You) has deadpan comic timing that whips along at the speed of light. "Ma'am, you have an incredible rack," he blares to a pedestrian from the squad car the guys have "borrowed." "I should have been a [bleeping] cop," he tells himself approvingly.
Director Todd Phillips brings back his deft handling of the actors and the dude humour that worked so well in Old School, as well as the unctuous Dan Finnerty, memorable as a lounge/wedding singer in both films. But it's the nonstop volley of jokes--most cheerily politically incorrect--that grabs the audience and thrashes it around the hotel room. Just watch out for the tiger in the bathroom.
29 tracks spanning many classic tunes of 1968, from Smokey Robinson and Wilson Pickett to The Temptations and Marvin Gaye,
several such compilations have been released and
DVDfever.co.uk reviewer Elly Roberts
takes a good listen to this one first of all.
Stuck for something to do this weekend? The list of 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: Planet 51, The Descent Part 2 and The Box.
Back in 2001, Sufjan Stevens released the electronica album Enjoy Your Rabbit, song cycles based around animals on
the Chinese Zodiac calendar. Now he's reworked it with New York-Berlin based contemporary string quartet Osso and
produced a totally instrumental Baroque-infused collection, but how does it fare?
DVDfever.co.uk reviewer Elly Roberts
takes a listen.
As of April 2009, Blu-rays and DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TH-37PX80B
37" Plasma TV with a Sony BDP-1500 Blu-ray player and played through a Yamaha DSP-AX820 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Jan 2011: Intel Quad Core Dell XPS 8100, i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80Ghz, 8Gb RAM, nVidia GeForce GTS 240, Windows 7
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
