"Actor: Christina Fulton"

• Dangerous Game | DVD | (30/04/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Abel Ferrara's taste for the sensational is on display in the flawed but interesting Dangerous Games, even though its subject matter is a long way from the genre material in which he has mostly specialised. The film is a psychological drama in which the Method manipulations of director Eddie (Harvey Keitel) prey on the weaknesses of coke-head actor Burns (James Russo) and insecure soap star Sarah (Madonna) to a point where reality breaks down for all three of them--and, in the film's last moments, the audience too; we are left traumatically hanging by a profound ambiguity in what we have just seen. Ferrara moves backwards and forwards between naturalistic and staged shots: we see scenes in hand-held verité and as rushes on a video. The over-wrought drama of consumerism, decadence and possible redemption that is being shot in the film is clearly intended to be directly relevant to their lives and is only marginally more melodramatic; at one point, Eddie's wife arrives unexpectedly at his hotel room moments after Sarah has left his bed. Keitel gives his usual authoritative performance as a weak man breaking under the weight of his pretensions; as Sarah, Madonna gives one of her less bad performances, attractively underplaying amid a storm of hamminess. On the DVD: the DVD only gives us subtitles and the trailer as extras. --Roz Kaveney

• Holiday Affair | DVD | (22/09/2003) from £19.89   |  Saving you £-17.90 (N/A%)   |  RRP £1.99

  A sales clerk wins the heart of a little boy and his widowed mother amidst the magic of Christmas in New York City. Jodie (Cynthia Gibb) is a widow with a six-year-old son. Her life is settled and comfortable until the day she goes shopping in the smart Manhattan store where Steve Mason (David James Elliott) works. A sales clerk working in the kids' toy department Steve instantly falls in love with Jodie. But she is only there to buy a train for her company to use in a commercial. She has no interest in the train or the magic of Christmas expecting to return the toy the next day. Her son Timmy changes everything. The train his mother brings home for Christmas is his dream come true. Like Steve young Timmy believes anything is possible and wishes with all his heart that the train is for him. And Steve is wishing for Jodie. But will their wishes come true? Will Jodie be won over by the power of Christmas magic?