WHITE MEN CAN'T JUMP - BLURAY (EMPIRE MAGAZINE)
Ron Shelton’s whip-smart spin on basketball is less sport, more a series of comic riffs, as two hustlers compete to wrangle money on the court. Like the game itself, the agile back and forth between Snipes and Harrelson is almost poetic (“You can put a cat in an oven, but that don’t make it a biscuit”), and despite its overly long runtime, the winning mixture of ball skills and banter remains hypnotic.
4 stars
EXTRAS – 1 star
An extended version scores you a pointless extra 10 minutes.
ANONYMOUS - BLURAY (EMPIRE MAGAZINE)
Roland Emmerich’s controversial take on the Shakespeare myth follows the tribulations of repressed artiste the Earl of Oxford, as he is forced to publish his works through an uncouth and illiterate actor – William Shakespeare. Handsome but hollow, the film struggles with a po-faced script whose tenuous plot strands quickly unravel into a melodramatic mess. An impressive cast is reduced to overwrought shouting matches, while Rafe Spall’s Shakespeare vainly longs for a passing Carry On movie to liven things up.
2 stars
Extras - 2 stars
Deleted scenes and perfunctory interviews aren't much ado about anything.
RED LIGHTS - DVD / BLURAY (EMPIRE MAGAZINE)
Two paranormal investigators (Weaver and Murphy) scramble to disprove Robert De Niro’s mysteriously powerful celebrity psychic in a passable but uneven thriller. The showy cast are at the top of their game, but Buried director Rodrigo Cortés’ magic touch fades after an intriguing first act “cat-and-mouse”. As events spiral out of control, so does the film’s focus, pulling out endless reams of tricks that are only loosely tied together, before a final misdirection that's little more than a cheap parlour trick.
2 stars