"Actor: Leonardo Melani"

• Celebrity | DVD | (04/02/2002) from £5.74   |  Saving you £9.25 (161.15%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Woody Allen's Celebrity--a portrait of the celebrity life as seen through the eyes of a newly divorced couple--is a black-and-white, New York-style La Dolce Vita that's a chillier flip side to Allen's earlier New York valentine, Manhattan. Despite a few missteps, though, it's an admirable (if dark) and worthy addition to the Allen pantheon. Kenneth Branagh and Judy Davis (both boasting American accents) star as the ex-couple, each struggling to build new, separate lives in a media-saturated, celebrity-driven world. Branagh tries his hand at celebrity profiles (while peddling a screenplay to any star that will listen) and falls into the lap of a bosomy starlet (Melanie Griffith), the first in a long line of briefly attainable women. Davis runs into a producer (Joe Mantegna) who offers her a job as a TV personality as well as a loving relationship. This seemingly simple double plot is punctuated with twists and turns in the form of flashbacks and innumerable side trips, all ravishingly photographed in black and white by the legendary Sven Nykvist, and populated by one of Allen's largest casts ever; if you blink you'll miss countless cameos by Isaac Mizrahi, Donald Trump, Hank Azaria, Leonardo DiCaprio and a host of others. While Davis is splendid as usual (aside from the requisite nervous breakdown scene she's done one too many times), somebody should have told Branagh to put a kibosh on his Woody Allen imitation. His failure in the role, however, isn't entirely his fault, as it's another in a long line of unlikable male protagonists which Allen has created, as if daring audiences to hate his main characters after loving them in such movies as Manhattan and Annie Hall. Far more enjoyable misadventures with Branagh include Charlise Theron in the film's best performance as a libidinous supermodel with a penchant for Echinacea; a stunning Famke Janssen as a successful book editor; and Winona Ryder, acting like an adult for the first time, as an aspiring actress. But they all manage to slip through Branagh's fingers by the end of the film. --Mark Englehart, Amazon.com

• Norma - Vincenzo Bellini | DVD | (28/11/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Bellini's Norma, first performed in 1831, is one of the most glittering jewels in the bel canto repertoire, placing huge vocal demands on the soprano in the title role. The druid priestess who falls prey to human frail ties before redeeming her grace in the flames of the sacrificial fire must also be played with a high degree of dramatic truth. In the 20th century, two singers scaled new heights in combining these requirements: Maria Callas and Joan Sutherland. Sutherland's great achievement, preserved in this 1978 recording of Opera Australia's production at Sidney Opera House, was to render Norma a very human being, unravelling her complex reactions to the events which bring her personal world tumbling down around her. Using Bellini's deceptively simple melodies to tender effect, she reveals the essential purity of many of his greatest arias, not least "Casta diva": an equally valid alternative to Callas' pyrotechnics. Ronald Stevens as Norma's errant Roman lover Pollione and Margreta Elkins as Adalgisa, the unwitting agent of the priestess's ultimate downfall, strike vocal sparks in their duets with Sutherland. But this is essentially a treasurable record of one of the all-time great divas in a role that brought her some of her finest notices, with her husband and long-time collaborator Richard Bonynge in the conductor's box. On the DVD: In all respects, this is a solid offering with few frills. The only extra is an Arthaus trailer. The 4:3 picture format and PCM stereo-sound quality are adequate media for a theatrical performance which is very much of its time: crudely-edited plot explanations separate the acts and there is the imposition of some rather naff stills of the ill-fated lovers on flickering flames to suggest the pyre. But Sutherland's performance triumphs over all. --Piers Ford