"Actor: Steve Lips Kudlow"

• Anvil! The Story of Anvil | DVD | (15/06/2009) from £6.81   |  Saving you £11.18 (164.17%)   |  RRP £17.99

  At 14 Toronto school friends Steve Lips Kudlow and Robb Reiner made a pact to rock together forever. Their band Anvil went on to become the demigods of Canadian metal releasing one of the heaviest albums in metal history 1982's Metal on Metal. The album influenced a musical generation including Metallica Slayer and Anthrax that went on to sell millions of records. But Anvil's career took a different path - straight to obscurity. Director Sacha Gervasi has concocted a wonderful and often hilarious account of Anvil's last-ditch quest for elusive fame and fortune. His ingenious filmmaking may first lead you to think this a mockumentary but it isn't. Gervasi joined the legendary heavy-metal band as a roadie for a tour of Canadian hockey arenas so he has intimate insight into the members' eccentricities. It's fascinating to see the reality of their day-to-day lives as they struggle to make ends meet take a misguided European tour and engage in antics on the road - which is not always lined with fans. Gervasi even finds a softer center to this raucous film introducing us to band members' ever-supportive but long-suffering families. At its core Anvil! The True Story of Anvil is a timeless tale of survival and the unadulterated passion it takes to follow your dream year after year. Anvil rocks - it has no other choice. John Cooper Director of Programming Sundance Film Festival

• Anvil - The Story Of Anvil | Blu Ray | (15/06/2009) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Nearly three decades on, is Anvil! The Story Of Anvil finally the film that finally gives This Is Spinal Tap a run for its money? Quite possibly so. The recipient of far-reaching acclaim, and with a real run for being named film of the year, this is a superb documentary, that is all the more staggering for being true. Anvil! The Story Of Anvil follows the band of its title, a heavy metal group who enjoyed moderate success in the late 70s and early 80s, but kept going even when the light of fame and success shone elsewhere. Thus, we meet the band’s members--Steve ‘Lips’ Kudlow and Robb Reiner--as they hold down day jobs, record an album and head off on a European tour that could have been taken straight out of the Spinal Tap playbook. As Anvil! The Story Of Anvil develops, though, there’s a drama at the heart of it that mixes in with the many frequent laughs. And, as it turns out, it’s a film that out of nowhere manages to move you, pretty much the last thing you expect of it. This is, and there’s no two ways about it, a quite brilliant film, and one of the very best documentaries in some time. It’s outrageously entertaining, very funny and yet human to the core. Anvil! The Story Of Anvil is going to take some beating, and don’t be surprised if it’s another three decades before anything else comes close to it and This Is Spinal Tap… --Jon Foster

• Anvil - The Story Of Anvil - CD and DVD Double | DVD | (15/06/2009) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Nearly three decades on, is Anvil! The Story Of Anvil finally the film that finally gives This Is Spinal Tap a run for its money? Quite possibly so. The recipient of far-reaching acclaim, and with a real run for being named film of the year, this is a superb documentary, that is all the more staggering for being true. Anvil! The Story Of Anvil follows the band of its title, a heavy metal group who enjoyed moderate success in the late 70s and early 80s, but kept going even when the light of fame and success shone elsewhere. Thus, we meet the band’s members--Steve ‘Lips’ Kudlow and Robb Reiner--as they hold down day jobs, record an album and head off on a European tour that could have been taken straight out of the Spinal Tap playbook. As Anvil! The Story Of Anvil develops, though, there’s a drama at the heart of it that mixes in with the many frequent laughs. And, as it turns out, it’s a film that out of nowhere manages to move you, pretty much the last thing you expect of it. This is, and there’s no two ways about it, a quite brilliant film, and one of the very best documentaries in some time. It’s outrageously entertaining, very funny and yet human to the core. Anvil! The Story Of Anvil is going to take some beating, and don’t be surprised if it’s another three decades before anything else comes close to it and This Is Spinal Tap… --Jon Foster