"Actor: Colette Brown"

• Blue Juice | DVD | (07/06/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Wax up your boards and hang 10 (or whatever) where the big waves come crashing in: off the English coast at Cornwall. Huh? No endless summer? No two girls for every boy? No, but in Blue Juice one can see what most of us probably never even thought about: the British Isles are indeed islands and, not incongruously, there's a considerable surfing culture with a handful of home-grown legends. One of the latter is JC (Sean Pertwee), a skilled surfer so driven by the challenge and so dedicated to his mates that it threatens his meandering romance with the long-suffering Chloe (Catherine Zeta-Jones). The two have planned an extensive, around-the-world trip as a kind of prelude to discussing marriage, but the arrangement is threatened when three of JC's old childhood chums arrive from London. One of them (played by Steven Mackintosh) is a famous record producer who has sold his soul (in every sense) to reap profits from fashionable electronica. Another (Ewan McGregor) is a chronic screw-up resorting to hustling junk to unsuspecting customers. The last (Peter Gunn) is an anxious sort, terrified of marrying his long-time girlfriend. Together, these four guys look like a pack of nowhere men and they know it: while the story largely focuses on JC and Chloe, there's plenty of material for the supporting characters to indulge in mucho self-loathing. The film never quite jumps off the screen and the script may be hampered by too many layers of character eccentricity, but this is still an enjoyable piece with some fine comic performances. --Tom Keogh, Amazon.com

• Blue Juice (Repackage) | DVD | (10/05/2021) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Sean Pertwee, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Ewan McGregor star in this British drama set in Cornwall. As he approaches his thirties skilled surfer JC (Pertwee) considers settling down with his girlfriend, Chloe (Zeta-Jones), who has ambitions to own a cafe. However, the arrival of his friends from London prompt him to take on more surfing challenges and relive his hedonistic days of youth. But will his relationship with Chloe survive if this behaviour continues?

• Ultraviolet | DVD | (05/02/2001) from £20.98   |  Saving you £4.01 (16.00%)   |  RRP £24.99

  In the six-part British "vampire-slaying" mini-series Ultraviolet we discover that UV light is used (both in surgery and via high-tech weaponry) to identify people who have been infected with a disease labelled "Code 5". It's transmitted via a bite to the neck, but at no point in the series is the word "vampire" used. Instead, in the second episode ("In Nomine Patris") the nickname "Leech" is introduced. We learn that it was this disease, these "Leeches", that were responsible for the Fire of London, and that one in 20 people are already infected. In the opening episode, policeman Michael Colefield (Jack Davenport) is recruited into the secretive CIB. He meets its introverted priest-chief Pearse (Philip Quast), the emotionally driven Dr Angela March (Susannah Harker) and the bullish heavyweight Vaughan (Idris Elba). Spinning around Mike's suddenly complicated life are his best friend's jilted fiancée Kirstie (Colette Brown) and old flame Frances (Fiona Dolman). In later hard-hitting episodes we see a 12-year-old boy stab his teacher priest to death ("Mea Culpa") and the capture of a "Leech" ("Persona Non Grata"). This intriguing series ends having tied together most of its threads, but dangles worrying implications at the viewer... not so much to suggest a sequel as to hammer home everything at stake. --Paul Tonks

• Ultimate Lie | DVD | (20/10/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99