Reviews

With one of the most effective and quite brilliant viral ad campaigns in recent years raising mainstream awareness of Parker Finn’s unnerving and genuinely creepy premise, can the film surrounding it all actually really deliver?  

A 72 year old Jeff Bridges reinforces his legendary status by going on the run as a former spy with a shady past, in this cracking, fabulously tense, 7-episode thriller - UPDATED 1st October for the UK release with a full season review  

Sony's latest Xperia handset keeps a surprising number of features from its flagship sibling and sports impressive display and camera capabilities, even at this premium level. While not cheap, has Sony managed to squeeze in a decent balance of features and value?  

A ‘Baz Luhrmann’ film in every sense of the word, the Australian master of gaudy excess dives with gusto into the legend of Elvis Aaron Presley and delivers an experience for the senses befitting of them both.  

Sonos has expanded its subwoofer options to now include the Sub Mini, a compact and nimble model which adds an element of choice against the larger, original Sub. As Sonos users are committed to their ecosystem, does the Sub Mini give them what they've been patiently waiting for?  

Ana de Armas shines, painfully, in this brutally mesmeric Marilyn Monroe mood piece from Andrew Dominik, landing its epic NC-17 runtime on Netflix in 4KDV/DA.  

The OLED807 is a new Philips OLED TV for 2022 featuring the latest 6th Gen P5 AI picture processing suite. There's IMAX Enhanced compatibility and Dolby Vision, HLG, HDR10 and HDR10+ adaptive are all supported as well as four-sided Ambilight and Android 11 TV OS controls the smart TV features. So, is it any good? Let's find out...  

With a bit of dramatic license, Viola Davis gives an explosive performance in an otherwise frustratingly by-the-numbers depiction of the Agojie, West Africa's real life "Amazons."  

Joel Schumacher’s Bat Pack teen classic shines brighter than it ever has before on this stunning new 4K release from Warner Bros.  

Improbably managing to both be worse than the last entry, and waste the return of the original cast, Dominion is shot and edited so incompetently you might find it unintentionally amusing, though that's still not worth 161 minutes of your waking life.  

The Anthem MCA 525 Gen 2 is an impressive addition to Anthem’s new line up and would look, and sound, magnificent paired with an AVM series processor. But that performance comes at a price.  

Eureka's first foray into 4K is Jackie Chan's classic Police Story Trilogy, boasting stunning native 4K/DV presentations, and marking the first time that Supercop has been released in the UK in a high def format.  

Olivia Wilde and Katie Silberman have strayed from their Booksmart comfort zone to experiment with something tonally and narratively more complex. And it’s a total slice.  

The latest flagship from Anthem is said to represent the culmination of all the company knows about AV processor design. It turns out that’s quite a lot.  

As scary now as it was back then, Poltergeist comes to 4K Blu-ray sending chills down your spine.  

It may be missing a few of the big gun features found on the latest Pro and Pro Max handsets but Apple's standard iPhone 14 still has a handy basket of goodies that make it tremendously appealing. Has it got enough to keep it ahead of the iPhone 13, which has just had a price drop, though?  

Andor proves to be the Rogue One of Star Wars TV shows, with returning writer Tony Gilroy delivering the goods on this superbly atmospheric, claustrophobically tense tale of a Rebellion in the making.  

Legendary British loudspeaker manufacturer KEF continues to build on its legacy of getting great performance from small enclosures. The KF92 subwoofer sits outside the company’s Reference Series and commands the middle of the range, but can its tiny form factor deliver the goods on demanding source material?  

Kogonada's festival darling lo-fi sci-fi puts a family in existential crisis mode when their robot child shuts down, taking us on a journey of sublime contemplation.  

Neat is the latest brand to channel their history into a product for the present… is the Petite Classic the perfect solution for 2022?  

Monty Python’s final messy cinematic masterpiece comes to 4K with songs about sperm, Christmas, all manner of male genitalia and the universe itself, given a new lease of life thanks to its amusingly unnecessary DTS:X soundtrack...  

Keeping a similar design to its immediate predecessor and meting out the usual processor and camera improvements, Apple has instead focussed on new user interface features and invites you to... Dynamic Island.  

UPDATED 16-SEP-2022: For All Mankind reached a tremendous conclusion with Season 2's finale, affording a snapshot of a future that Season 3 is clearly going to build tensely towards.  

UPDATED 16-SEP-2022: William Petersen's Gil Grissom is back, kind-of, in this mostly blah resurrection of the endless CSI franchise.  

Continuing on from / soft rebooting Paul Schrader's deeply underappreciated 1980 Richard Gere crime drama, Jon Bernthal takes the lead as a recently paroled escort who has to navigate the seedy underworld 15 years after he was framed.  

More compelling than it has any right to be, Hulu's unauthorised chart of the rise and fall and rise and fall of "Iron Mike" Tyson is equal parts tragic and unpleasant, but never less than enthralling.  

Studio Trigger offers up another visually stunning, eye-poppingly violent and surprisingly human, piece of animation in the form of a cyberpunk dystopia inspired by the CD Projekt videogame.  

Cambridge Audio’s technically interesting turntable gets a revamp - is this the balance of analogue convenience and audiophilia you’ve been looking for?  

One of the quintessential 80's bonkbusters from one of the 80’s quintessential director-star line-ups gets a very disappointing 4K release from Paramount…  

Set for an initial US launch, the new subwoofer and improved player with dual-band Wi-Fi, will be joined by improved search options and navigation tools for the streaming platform rolling out during the year.  

From Antonioni to Chaplin, post war Japanese police procedural to a rain-swept Gotham and a much-lauded crime epic, a Sidney Poitier western to a harrowing gut punch of a classic Vietnam war documentary, this month’s releases will no doubt offer a little bit of everything to everyone. ALSO - Competitions for EIGHT of them!  

The inventors of the subwoofer are back with the new X+ series. Sitting in the middle of the range, is the X12+ the sweet spot for fans of M&K Sound’s push-pull approach to deep bass?  

We take a belated look at Baltasar Kormákur's taut, tense survival flick, which is, surprisingly, far better than its "Idris Elba punches a Lion" marketing.  

"You're so toxic!" Halina Reijn's film offers far more than a surface level mockery of Gen Z and the Twitter vernacular in this mischievous deconstruction and reconstruction of the slasher genre.  

The best version of The Motion Picture comes to 4K Blu-ray, looking and sounding so good, the film is no longer boring.  

Robert Zemeckis reunites with his Forrest Gump star for a soulless CG romp that's 110 minutes too long.  

David Cronenberg's long overdue return to future-bent body-horror is as icky and grotesque as fans could have hoped for, even if he feels a smidge rusty in this realm.  

The archetypal Triangle speaker gets the special birthday treatment. Is it something you’ll be holding a candle for?  

A marked improvement to 2015's largely Gru-less prequel, Steve Carell returns to centre stage as the despicable tween in charge of his hapless helpers.  

Horror sub-genre upon sub-genre is shoehorned into a strange mix of Hallmark Christian movie of the month, MTV Headbangers Ball and Hostel-style grue-fest that is very much less than the sum of its parts…