"Director: Scott Alexander"

• Screwed | DVD | (02/04/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Screwedwas another nail in the coffin of former Saturday Night Livewisecracker Norm MacDonald, following his dismal previous film, Dirty Work. However, while Screwedisn't particularly funny (the jokes about dentures, dog poop and dead bodies are pretty much as old as the hills), the plot exerts a perverse interest; for most of the film, it's genuinely unpredictable. MacDonald plays Willard, the butler-chauffer, all-purpose flunky of Mrs. Crock, the wealthy, penny-pinching owner of a pastry company. Fed up with her abuse, Willard and his friend Rusty (David Chappelle from Blue Streak and 200 Cigarettes) conspire to kidnap her dog Muffin. But Muffin escapes and returns home; the ransom note is assumed to be for Willard himself. Rusty and Willard run with the idea, sending in a videotape of himself being held prisoner. When a detective starts getting a little too close, they panic and decide to fake Willard's death. Okay, none of it makes much sense, but in a world of ridiculously formulaic films which slavishly follow every screenwriting cliché Screwed seems like a brief oasis of narrative invention. Of course, it still isn't funny. And by the end, it's lost whatever spark of imagination that got it started. Too bad. It's written by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, the screenwriters responsible for Problem Child, but also for Ed Wood and The People vs Larry Flynt--they should stick to biographies. --Bret Fetzer, Amazon.com

• Screwed | DVD | (05/04/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Chauffeur Willard Fillmore (Norm MacDonald) is over-abused and under-appreciated by his boss from hell Miss Crock (Elaine Stritch). Desperate for a payback he enlists the help of his hotheaded best friend Rusty (Dave Chappell) and they decide to dognap Miss Crock's precious pooch and hold it for ransom. But when the dog escapes and Miss Crock thinks Willard's the one being held for a price they must get help from the creepy and crazy mortician Grover Cleaver (Danny DeVito) to cash in on the payoff. Now the three have triple the trouble and triple the fun as they try to get even without getting screwed!

• The Fan/About Schmidt/15 Minutes | DVD | (24/10/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The Fan (Dir. Tony Scott 1998): Gil Renard (Robert De Niro) is a big baseball fan. Separated from his wife and son and down on his luck Renard's love of baseball becomes an obsession and he stalks his favourite baseball celebrity Bobby Rayburn (Wesley Snipes). When Rayburn falls into a career slump Renard's obsession takes a deadly turn and he secretly vows to stop at nothing including murder to restore his idol's reputation. About Schmidt (Dir. Alexander Payne 2002): Warren Schmidt (Nicholson) has arrived at several of life's crossroads all at the same time as he is forced to deal with an ambiguous future as he enters retirement. Soon after his wife of 42 years passes away and he must come to terms with his only daughters marriage to a man he does not care for. With no job no wife and no family Warren is desperate to find something meaningful in his thoroughly unimpressive life. Warren sets out on a journey of self-discovery exploring his roots across Nebraska and facing up to the failure that his life has become. 15 Minutes (Dir. John Herzfeld 2001): Robert De Niro stars as homicide detective Eddie Flemming a man who knows how to handle high-profile murders. But now with a crime that has ended in a grisly fire and a pair of Eastern European killers on a rampage across the city Flemming must team up with a rival: the low-key Arson Investigator Jordy Warsaw played by Ed Burns.