DVDs of the week

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10 April 2012

Outstanding horror sequel 28 Weeks Later and Sienna Miller's first real starring role in Factory Girl head up the week's best DVDs.

DVD OF THE WEEK
28 Weeks Later
Twentieth Century Fox, 18, £19.99
****

Nothing can top the now iconic shots of a deserted London that opened Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later, yet this outstanding horror sequel (and how often do you hear that phrase in a review?) has considerable merit on its own terms. It's now 28 weeks since the Rage virus hit Britain, turning everyone in London into a form of rampaging, bloodthirsty zombie. And now, wouldn't you know it, the Yanks have charged in to sort us all out, isolating the non-infected in Canary Wharf. Of course it all goes hideously wrong. In the midst of all this is Robert Carlyle and his young family, providing a convincing emotional focus amid all the enthusiastic lashings of gore. Director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo keeps a tight grip on the suspense and the action. Add to that a meaty script, eerie scenes of a ravaged capital and an intelligent political subtext and there's even more to chew on here than your fingernails.

Extras: Commentary, featurettes. Larushka Ivan-Zadeh

Factory Girl
Paramount Home Entertainment, 15, £15.99
***

Sienna Miller's first real starring role, aside that of 'girl who used to date Jude Law', could have been made for her. This is the bioflick of poor little rich girl Edie Sedgwick, hailed as a 'superstar' by Andy Warhol (a creepy, cocaine-white Guy Pearce), who made her his muse in the 1960s - until aristo Edie did too many drugs, ran out of money and he got bored of her. Miller is surprisingly convincing as an 'It' girl, famous, mainly, for going to parties, wearing clothes (or not) and a tendency to starf***. To be fair, Miller is also able to make you sympathise with spoilt, mannered Edie's damaged fragility - her father allegedly abused her and whenever she or her siblings misbehaved they were packed off to an asylum ('It was the Sedgwick way,' she tremulously explains). Pearce is fabulous and the whole thing oozes glamour but the script is too faithful to the superficiality of its subjects: the tired storyline of glam rise to smack-addled fall will certainly hold your attention for 15 minutes - but not the full 90.

Extras: Commentary, featurette on Edie, Miller's (annoyingly good) audition tape. LI-Z

Curse Of The Golden Flower
Universal, 15, 19.99
***

The latest martial arts epic from Zhang Yimou (House Of The Flying Daggers, Hero) is undoubtedly a feast for the eyes - albeit a feast consisting of an ambassador's reception-worth of Ferrero Rocher. Overlaid with gilt and stuffed with extras, the opulent spectacle quickly smothers what is too slight a plot in the first place. It's China, 928 AD. The Emperor (Chow Yun Fat) returns home to celebrate the holidays. Yet all is far from happy families in the Imperial Court - mainly because the Emperor is slowly and cruelly poisoning his wife (Gong Li), while she's been having it off with her stepson, the crown prince. Gong Li is captivating as the loopy Empress, obsessed with embroidering gold chrysanthemums, but there's little else to prevent your eyelids drooping from surfeit. As you'd expect from Yimou, there's a jaw-dropping fight finale whose grand-scale choreography is almost worth hanging around for - but to be honest, you'll probably have cursed the whole thing to blazes by then.

Extras: Non-lavish in comparison, though the making-of feature does prove the palace is, astoundingly, not all CGI. LI-Z

Suburban Shootout Series One
Channel 4 DVD, 15, £19.99
***

Trouble is lurking among the Smeg fridges, manicured lawns and olive tapenades of Little Stempington. Gun-toting housewife Camilla Diamond (Anna Chancellor, deliciously callous as ever) is intimidating most of her fellow residents; fellow housewife Barbara Du Prez (I'm Alan Partridge's Felicity Montagu), is trying to stop Camilla's reign of terror while at the same time worrying about blood on the rug. Stuck in the middle is gentle new resident Joyce (Amelia Bullmore), courted by both ladies to join their rival gangs because her hubbie just so happens to have started a job as Little Stempington's chief copper. Bloody violence mixed with insular rural sensibilities - yep, this darkly comic, Baftanominated sitcom is basically Hot Fuzz meets Desperate Housewives, but the genre clash works a treat. Some of the setpieces are gleefully silly: 'You've just blown up the Wicker Barn,' says a startled Joyce, in the first of these eight episodes, as Camilla flexes her muscles on the high street. It certainly deserves its current second series on Five.

Extras: Behind the scenes feature, commentaries, trailer, cast biographies. Sharon Lougher

Blunder
Channel 4 DVD, 15, £19.99
*

This Channel 4 sketch show features a character called The Baron, an arm-flailing, evil baddie infamous for using 'obscene' language, which got the programme criticised by Ofcom.

It should have spread its net wider than The Baron: Blunder is unmistakably bad. Characters such as Nigel Livid, who storms into TV boardrooms with complaints, and the randy Malibu Man, simply aren't funny enough to warrant the repeat visits across these six episodes. These, along with too many other sketches from the lacklustre ensemble writing team, barely raise a titter. Don't let its more illustrious co-stars - David Mitchell and enjoyable ventriloquist/comic Nina Conti - lure you into buying this... despite their best efforts, you'll be wanting your money back.

Extras: Extra sketches. SL

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