Weirdsville - By James Ellaby

Weirdsville could hardly be more of a 'cult' film if it tried, and it certainly does try a heck of a lot. It's so obviously aimed at a certain market - people who like laughing at the crazy adventures of stoners, basically - that the fact that it barely scratched the surface of mainstream cinema when it was released last year won't have mattered much because its main business will be done on DVD. The plot, such as it is, sees junkie losers Royce (American Beauty's Wes Bentley) and Dexter (Scott Speedman from the Underworld films) trying to hide the body of pal Matilda (Taryn Manning) when she won't wake up after one drug session too many, and that leads on to entanglements with some Satanists, an internet tycoon who had an icicle land in his brain and a rowdy posse of midget knights. Is that 'cult' enough for you? The name comes from a vandalised sign in the town where our anti-heroes live, altered from Weedsville, though the amount of time they spend high on something or other means that the original name would have been just as appropriate really. Bentley has done little since obsessing over a paper bad and Thora Birch in American Beauty, but he's good in this as 'ideas man' (aka, idiot) Royce, while Speedman is more likeable than you'd expect someone with his credits (mostly dumb action films) to be, and they both do very well in their shambling roles, making their characters less self-consciously 'wacky' than they could have been. Director Allan Moyle also successfully pulls Weirdsville back from the brink at times by injecting some pathos into proceedings or simply by emphasising the grotty world that these people mostly inhabit. A lot of crazy stuff happens, but all of it has a purpose of some kind even if that purpose is just as crazy, and that helps maintain your interest in it as an entertaining romp with some decent laughs, some good music and a cast that make the best of what they are given. At 90 minutes long it doesn't overstay its welcome and is a nicely understated film that will obviously appeal to fans of this kind of stuff, but is very watchable and enjoyable for most movie fans.

The Adventures Of Rin Tin Tin - Volume Four - By James Ellaby

Along with Lassie, Rin Tin Tin is one of those famous dogs that everyone has heard of, but not many people really know much about, and Rinty is certainly less well known for people under 50 in this country. This series of DVD releases of the 1950s TV show aims to change all that, putting the black and white adventures in colour and providing a new score and sound effects, though you get the feeling that the latter change is more down to rights and contracts than anything else. If you've already got the first three volumes of this, then volume four has to be a pretty essential purchase, but what is there here for newcomers to the stories of Rin Tin Tin? The original dog had been dead a while before this show began, and the character is played here mostly by one of his descendants (check around the web and you'll find a site dedicated to the Rin Tin Tin bloodline, which is still going today), and he is joined by Lee Aaker (who is now a ski instructor for people with special needs...) as young orphan Rusty. In previous episodes they had joined the Cavalry in the Old West at Fort Apache, and each of their adventures focuses around life at the fort, battles with Injuns or life in the nearby town. By this stage in the series, the pattern had been pretty much sorted for a while and there's a cosy certainty that everything will turn out alright by the end of the episodes, usually with Rinty jumping off something to knock a gun out of some bad guy's hand. It's undemanding stuff, but undeniably entertaining too, with some of the more ambitious episodes looking like proper movie westerns with all of the soldiers and injuns charging at each other. Some of it's a bit corny obviously, particularly some of the songs that get sung, but the acting is pretty good and the scripts aren't bad for the time either. The main time that its age shows is when strange things happen to people's voices where they have been overdubbed by different actors at some point, and this is glaringly obvious at times, but that's a minor quibble. With 17 half-hour episodes on these discs, there's a lot of fun to be had here and you can quickly get immersed in Rinty and Rusty's world, making this an excellent collection of classic adventure TV that puts a lot of contemporary family TV to shame.