"Actor: Marika Rivera"

• Grand Slam | DVD | (25/09/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Join 'The most popular comedy Wales has ever produced' with GRAND SLAM. In 1977 Wales had a rugby team that was second to none. When they went to Paris to take on the French they were full of confidence... The team went with scores of Welsh supporters eager to watch their heroes beat the French on their own turf and make Wales the Grand Slam champions. During the course of the film we discover that `grand slam' can mean different things to different people and that there are challenges that have to be faced off the pitch that are almost more daunting than those facing the players on the pitch. GRAND SLAM stars Windsor Davies as Mog Jones Huw Griffith as Caradog Lloyd Evans and Sharon Morgan as the accommodating French hostess. The film also includes memorable rugby moments featuring legendary players Gerald Davies JPR Williams Gareth Edwards Phil Bennett Terry Cobner and Steve Fenwick.

• The Supergrass | DVD | (14/07/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Who is Dennis Carter? Well Dennis is a moron. His mum knows it his friends know it and even he knows it. But the police don't. So when Dennis tries to impress Andrea with his fantasies about multi-million pound drug deals Dennis gets nabbed and finds himself a supergrass. The trouble is Dennis doesn't know anything; or does he?

• Girl On A Motorcycle | DVD | (01/09/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Caught midway between 1970s soft-porn clunker The Story of O and Bunuel's sado-masochistic fantasy Belle de Jour, the 1968 erotic curio Girl on a Motorcycle is one of Marianne Faithfull's chief claims to notoriety. She stars as Rebecca, a leather-clad, former bookstore clerk in search of sexual fulfilment who flees her dependable schoolteacher husband for a dangerous liaison with Daniel (Alain Delon), a dashing Professor addicted to speed. The story is told entirely in flashbacks as Rebecca rockets along the road, having donned her leathers and walked out on her sleeping husband at the crack of dawn. It all must have seemed fairly daring and provocative in 1968, providing viewers with ample opportunities to view a naked Faithfull at the height of her allure. But today the existential musings of the lead character seem achingly pretentious, the erotic symbolism merely gawky and unintentionally amusing: the sight of Alain Delon with a phallic pipe dangling from his mouth is like something out of a Rene Magritte painting. The sex scenes between Delon and Faithfull are all swamped in a polarised visual effect that, while garish and psychedelic, is dated and distinctly unerotic. Director Jack Cardiff is better known as a cinematographer on classics such as The African Queen and Black Narcissus. Among Cardiff's other directorial credits is a worthy adaptation of DH Lawrence's Sons & Lovers, but Girl on a Motorcycle is a saucy road movie with no final destination. On the DVD: This DVD version is misleadingly presented as being the fully restored and uncut version of the film. Yet it was the US version not the European one that was heavily cut (and titillatingly re-titled "Naked Under Leather"). The restoration certainly does not refer to the print quality: although the colours are vivid and bright, the print used to master the DVD (in 16:9 anamorphic format) is extremely grainy and, at times, speckled with dirt and scratches. Included as one of the special features, a theatrical trailer loaded with innuendo shows just how much the film was marketed to a prurient audience. Director Jack Cardiff provides an audio commentary but has few revelatory things to say about his film beyond technical considerations, and even makes several clunking errors (recalling his casting decisions concerning a scene that takes place in a provincial German café, he raves about how he strove to find authentic French locals!). He does reveal that the film's use of a voice-over was inspired by the internal monologue that forms the basis of James Joyce's Ulysses. Given Cardiff's age and experience one feels that he must have more interesting anecdotes and insights, making this commentary feel like a wasted opportunity. --Chris Campion