"Actor: Shannon Williams"

• Never Been Kissed | DVD | (19/06/2000) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Josie Geller (Drew Barrymore) wants more out of life. As a bright twenty-five-year-old copy editor at Chicago's revered newspaper, the Chicago Sun-Times, she yearns to be a reporter.

• Once Were Warriors | DVD | (01/10/1999) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  New Zealand filmmaker Lee Tamahori (The Edge) directed this brutal but powerful story drawn from the culture of poverty and alienation enveloping contemporary Maori life. Rena Owen plays the beleaguered mother of two boys--one of whom is already in prison while the other contemplates membership in a gang--and a daughter whose potential is being smothered at home. Temuera Morrison gives an outstanding and sometimes shocking performance as the violent head of the household, more adept at keeping up his social stature within his community of friends than holding down a job. Once Were Warriors pulls no punches, literally and figuratively, but despite the rough going, Tamahori gives us a rare and important insight into a disenfranchised people digging down deep to find their pride. --Tom Keogh, Amazon.com

• Girlfight | DVD | (15/10/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  This Sundance Festival award winning film is a quick-tempered young woman who finds discipline, self-respect and love in the most unlikely place: a boxing ring.

• Superstar | DVD | (22/01/2001) from £13.48   |  Saving you £-3.49 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Superstar is a big-screen vehicle for Molly Shannon, the latest comic from the American sketch show Saturday Night Live to have a movie built around her. She isn't exactly funny--in fact, she's a little unsettling. Her creation, the neurotic Catholic schoolgirl Mary Katherine Gallagher, invites laughter because she's a little too close to the bone for anyone who grew up feeling ugly and unloved, which is a lot of people. Mary lives with her grandmother (Glynis Johns), who insists that Mary study business. Mary herself yearns to be famous and admired, though for what isn't exactly clear; she envisions some vague combination of singing, dancing, and acting that will make her a superstar. A talent show promises to be her ticket to stardom (the winning prize is a role in "a movie with positive moral values"), and she won't let her loser status or any hostile cheerleaders stand in her way. Meanwhile, Mary acts out dating fantasies with trees and signposts, envisions the school lunch room bursting into a Fame-like dance number, and longs for the biggest jock in school. What makes Superstar more than just a collection of bad high school memories is that, though the formulaic plot redeems Mary, the movie as a whole isn't so sure. Mary completely loses herself in her obsessive fantasies--many inspired by cheesy made-for-TV movies--but there's always someone watching, aghast, as Mary acts out her inner thoughts. Is she misunderstood or freakish? Superstar never commits to one side or the other, which makes it both comic and uncomfortable. --Bret Fetzer, Amazon.com