DVD round-up from The TOMB

'Walk the Line', 'Shopgirl' and 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show' all hit the shelves this week.

May 22 2006

Today is a good day for DVD, with a plethora of praiseworthy pictures hitting stores this week.

First up is cult classic 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show', the musical horror comedy that seems to grow more popular with each passing year.

Today it hits DVD as part of a very special boxset that also includes the little seen sequel 'Shock Treatment' (hitting UK DVD for the first time). And while the follow-up is a stale, unnecessary retread of the original, the original is still a camp classic, and completists will no doubt lap it up, if only to do the ‘Timewarp’ again and again.

Continuing the musical theme this week, 'Walk the Line' also makes its DVD debut this week, and is thoroughly recommended to anyone who has an even passing interest in Johnny Cash.

The music is fantastic, Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon give career-best performances and the DVD includes some fine extras, including an excellent featurette on Cash's famous Folsom Prison gig.

I'd also recommend 'Lower City', a seedy, sweaty, and extremely sexy tale of a love triangle threatening to destroy the bond between two lifelong friends.

I'm also reliably informed that 'Shopgirl' and 'Pavee Lackeen' are well woth a look. 'Shopgirl', (which I'll be checking out tonight) is apparently Steve Martin's return to bittersweet comedic form, while 'Pavee Lackeen' is a powerful, documentary-like tale of Irish travellers.

Finally the 'Special Reserve' two-disc edition of 'Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid' is out this week. Starring two of Hollywood's biggest stars (Redford and Newman) performing at the very height of their powers, it may well be the most entertaining western ever made, and for those reasons alone it is quite simply unmissable.

As for the one to avoid, hands down it's 'Aeon Flux', a 'sci-fi epic' that did little more than give me a splitting headache. Indeed, the only thing that kept me going was sporadic appearances from Pete Postlethwaite, dressed in what appears to be a giant condom, looking confused and more than a little scared to be appearing in such an abomination.

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