"Actor: Rebel Penfold Russell"

• The Adventures Of Priscilla Queen Of The Desert (1994) | DVD | (19/05/2000) from £15.03   |  Saving you £4.96 (24.80%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Terence Stamp as a drag queen--an Aussie drag queen? Darling, you'd better believe it. In Stephan Elliott's delirious exercise in ultra-camp meets outback macho, Stamp plays an ageing trans-sexual who, with two of his equally high-glossed pals, heads off for a cabaret engagement in Alice Springs. Priscilla is their chosen vehicle, a school bus painted an outrageous purple. The culture-clash comedy that ensues is none too unpredictable: the local Ockers, initially contemptuous, soon find the spangled and bewigged trio can out-talk, out-drink and if necessary, out-punch them; everything ends in a warm glow of mutual tolerance and appreciation. Elliott maybe hits the feelgood button a little too hard, but it's impossible not to be swept along by the sheer brash energy of the film. The bitchy dialogue snaps and crackles, the costumes and Fellini-esque dance numbers are to die for, and Stamp and Co.--enjoying themselves no end--play the whole thing to the hilt and some way beyond it. --Philip Kemp

• Emma's War | DVD | (01/09/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Australia 1942: the Japanese are bombing Sydney. Anne driven to the bottle by sheer terror of the war and the absence of her husband takes her two young children Emma and Laurel to begin a new and safe life in the mountains. The war that faces the family in the mountains is something else...