LATEST ADDITIONS

Anton van Beek  |  Sep 07, 2012  |  0 comments

For all of its narrative flaws – not to mention its annoying title – there’s a lot to like about this assured debut feature from writer-director Sean Durkin. Not least is Elizabeth Olsen’s incredible central performance as a young woman who flees life in an abusive cult to take refuge with her sister.

John Archer  |  Sep 06, 2012  |  0 comments

Hailing from Finland (as its name suggests) the Finlux brand isn’t entirely new to the UK. It’s entered and left again on more than one previous occasion. But with its latest push, Finlux (now actually owned by Turkish outfit Vestel) is seemingly making its most concerted effort yet to establish a firm TV foothold on our shores.

Anton van Beek  |  Sep 05, 2012  |  0 comments

Roger Vadim’s 1968 star vehicle for then wife Jane Fonda is an extremely odd movie. Based on a French comic book series, Barbarella wastes no time on such niceties as plot or characterisation. Instead, it’s all about a sultry babe playing dress-up and having a series of erotic encounters in outer space. It should, therefore, be absolute rubbish, but the tongue-in-cheek nature of the whole endeavour, coupled with Fonda’s brilliant central performance, lifts Barbarella to a higher plateau. Not necessarily a ‘good’ film in the traditional sense, but still a lot of fun.

Steve May  |  Sep 04, 2012  |  0 comments

It may not be pretty, but Eminent’s EM7285 network media player is certainly advanced. Built around the Realtek RT1185 chipset, it’s compatible with a huge array of files and formats. The player ships sans hard drive, but one is easily loaded into the side if you want to store content locally; large files can be quickly moved onto it via a high-speed USB 3.0 connection. Rear-facing connections include HDMI and component with digital optical and coaxial audio outputs. There are also legacy phonos if you want to slum it. Gigabit Ethernet is the recommended network connection but there’s also integrated Wi-Fi.

Anton van Beek  |  Sep 03, 2012  |  0 comments

It’s not easy being a Breaking Bad fan in the UK. Not only has the show all but disappeared from the airwaves, but the UK branch of Sony Pictures is almost a year behind its US counterpart in bringing it to DVD – and doesn’t even offer a Blu-ray version on this side of the Atlantic. Thankfully, this four-disc release goes some way to making up for all of the difficulties.

Steve May  |  Sep 02, 2012  |  0 comments

With its angled edges and slot-loading disc mechanism, the Panasonic DMP-BDT320 at first glance looks like a jazzed up version of the brand’s cheaper DMP-BDT220, but the two players are chalk and cheese. This home theatre lightweight puts in a heavyweight performance that belies its thin build.

Adam Rayner  |  Sep 02, 2012  |  0 comments

Long-term readers will know I have talked about my love of speaker designers - as a gently bonkers breed all of their own - before. For instance, I’ve witnessed engineers almost come to blows during arguments about tweeters. You have to be deeply passionate about your job to get to that level.

Anton van Beek  |  Sep 01, 2012  |  0 comments

Following Pineapple Express and Your Highness, it looks like David Gordon Green’s fascination with updating ‘80s movies for modern audiences has come a cropper at last. An update of Adventures in Babysitting, this tiresome new comedy ditches the simple charm of the original in favour of swearing. Hilarious it ain’t.

Martin Pipe  |  Aug 31, 2012  |  0 comments

Once again we have to thank the hackers for something cool. An offshoot of the XBMC multimedia player that was installed on many hacked Xboxes, Boxee adds – amongst other things – social networking integration and plugin (app) support. It’s available for Windows, Linux and Apple devices, but licensed hardware products designed around the software are now available.

Anton van Beek  |  Aug 29, 2012  |  0 comments

Grand. Sweeping. Majestic. Epic. These are the words that have come to define David Lean's captivating 227-minute biography of the enigma that was T.E. Lawrence – a remarkable cinematic achievement of the kind we'll probably never see again. Simply unmissable.

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