Latest video/DVD releases reviewed
THE SQUID AND THE WHALE *****
Directed by Noah Baumbach. Starring Jeff Daniels, Laura Linney, Jesse Eisenberg, Owen Kline, Anna Paquin, Billy Baldwin 16 cert
A pair of snooty intellectuals and their precocious children bicker their way around 1980s Brooklyn. Wait, come back! Baumbach's endlessly witty, perfectly performed comedy sets itself apart from similar exercises in middle-class navel-gazing by adopting a mercilessly satirical attitude towards its characters' affectations. Essential. Donald Clarke
JUNEBUG ****
Directed by Phil Morrison. Starring Amy Adams, Alessandro Nivola, Embeth Davidtz 18 cert
When a sophisticated Chicagoan pays her first visit to the rural North Carolina home of her husband, we feel primed for a calculatedly quirky culture clash. Happily, this proves to be an astutely observed serious comedy layered with telling details and grounded in reality. Among the strong cast, Oscar-nominated Adams is irresistibly warm and endearing. Michael Dwyer
HOSTEL ***
Directed by Eli Roth. Starring Jay Hernandez, Derek Richardson, Eythor Gudjonsson 18 cert
Roth follows Cabin Fever with a creepier excursion as two naive US college students are lured to a hostel-cum-spa outside Bratislava. This is a nervy, slickly orchestrated picture made with true genre panache. DVD extras include commentaries from Roth and executive producer Quentin Tarantino. Michael Dwyer
PRETTY PERSUASION ***
Directed by Marcos Siega. Starring Evan Rachel Wood, Ron Linvingstone, James Woods 18 cert
Although overloaded with issues baggage, this dark, cynical social satire features some razor-sharp humour and is anchored in Wood's vivid portrayal of a scheming, manipulative, student at a Beverly Hills high school. Michael Dwyer
BASIC INSTINCT 2 **
Directed by Michael Caton-Jones. Starring Sharon Stone, David Morrissey, Charlotte Rampling 18 cert
The current favourite for next year's Golden Raspberry Award for worst film is, in fact, not nearly bad enough to be properly entertaining. Stone does exude levels of camp rarely seen outside scouting circles. But everything else is buffed and polished to the point of blandness. Caton-Jones bravely contributes a DVD commentary. Donald Clarke
AN AMERICAN HAUNTING **
Directed by Courtney Solomon. Starring Donald Sutherland, Sissy Spacek, Rachel Hurd-Wood 15 cert
After falling out with a local witch, Sutherland begins hearing noises in the attic. The DVD comes, apparently, with a "gag reel". Viewers may appreciate some levity after viewing a film whose attempts to remain historically accurate render the story - based on a real incident - sombre but not frightening. Donald Clarke
KARLA **
Directed by Joel Bender. Starring Laura Prepon, Misha Collins, Patrick Bauchau, Tess Harper 18 cert
Dramatising a sensational case of multiple rape and murder that convulsed Canada in the 1990s, this film caused such uproar at last year's Montreal Film Festival that the screening was cancelled. Prepon (from That '70s Show) and Collins play Karla Homolka and Paul Bernardo, an ostensibly clean-cut, young middle-class suburban couple whose victims included her sister. Awkwardly structured with extended flashbacks interspersed through a parole hearing involving Homolka and her psychiatrist, the movie unconvincingly tries to portray her, too, as a victim, because of her husband's violence, Still, the film remains disturbing because the essence of its story is true. A pre-Superman Returns Brandon Routh turns up as a young seducer in a nightclub. Michael Dwyer
THE BIG WHITE **
Directed by Mark Mylod. Starring Robin Williams, Woody Harrelson, Giovanni Ribisi, Holly Hunter, Alison Lohman, Tim Blake Nelson 15 cert
The lumbering second feature from the director of Ali G Indahouse finds Williams encountering comic difficulties as he tries to save his Alaskan travel agency. There are some decent jokes, but even the weakest Coen Brothers film does the same things with greater elan. Donald Clarke
THE SHAGGY DOG *
Directed by Brian Robbins. Starring Tim Allen, Robert Downey Jr, Danny Glover, Jane Curtin G cert
In the latest of Disney's trademark somebody-turns-into-something-else family comedies, Tim Allen learns uncomfortable truths about himself after taking on the aspect of a sheepdog. The bits where Tim acts like a dog are passable. The bits where a dog acts like Tim are useless. Donald Clarke
YOURS, MINE AND OURS *
Directed by Raja Gosnell. Starring Dennis Quaid, Rene Russo,Linda Hunt, Rip Torn PG cert
A coastguard officer (Quaid) with eight disciplined kids marries a bohemian interior designer (Russo) whose brood of 10 are used to running riot. At first they squabble. Then they make friends and start to learn the usual lessons. The flick plays like the pilot for a doomed sitcom. Donald Clarke
WAITING . . . *
Directed by Rob McKittrick. Starring Ryan Reynolds, Anna Faris, Luis Guzman 18 cert
This dire would-be comedy is set in a US restaurant where the male staff seem stranded in a state of arrested adolescence. The film is crude, vulgar and unfunny, and its most disgusting scenes happen in the kitchen. Ugh! Michael Dwyer
