9 reasons why Duffy: The Talking Cat should be the most talked about film of the year.

1) It stars the voice of Eric Roberts, who sounds like he has literally phoned his role in.

2) If the quotes listed on IMDb are anything to go by, the dialogue will be amazing.

3) The director of this family friendly comedy started off directing porn films starring Ron Jeremy.

4) Although David DeCoteau is the director's real name, he has also been credited as David McCabe, Julian Breen, Joseph Tennant, Richard Chasen, Jack Reed, Martin Tate and in a curious case of gender confusion, Ellen Cabot, Victoria Sloan and Mary Crawford.

5) DeCoteau has an impressive eight films due for release this year.

6) Three of those films have !?! in the title.

7) I'm not sure that the positive quote on the cover is from a reputable source.

8) The cat on the cover looks like this...

Whereas the cat in the actual film looks like this...

9) The special effects for the talking cat are rubbish.

Duffy: The Talking Cat is released on DVD on 15th July. 

Here's the full trailer for your enjoyment.

World War Zombies VS Zombies of War - What a difference a swastika makes.

Once again proving that I'm quite good at spotting these things before they happen, it appears that the distributors of the upcoming DVD re-release World War Zombies have had a change of heart and decided to revert back to the film's original, less lawsuit baiting title of Zombies of War; the one it had back in 2006 before Brad Pitt decided to make a vaguely similarly worded action film that they could try and piggy back on.

To further distance themselves from the soon-to-be-released big budget World War Z, they've also made a few subtle changes to the design of the DVD cover, swapping out the overturned van for a tank, increasing the devastation around them and replacing the modern, US flag adorned soldiers with old school World War II soldiers with swastika's on.

So wait... are we supposed to be rooting for the Nazis now?

Fast Girls - Way to tap into a nation's post Olympic high by doing something really misogynistic

Released earlier in the summer and completely missing the whole nation's new found interest in running and jumping and all that other stuff that came off the back of the Olympics, the Noel Clarke scripted Fast Girls told the story of two young women from different backgrounds finding common ground in their love of sport and forging an unlikely friendship. Inspirational stuff, really.

Well, the distributors have decided to try and make the most of the nation's post-Olympics pride by re-jigging the DVD cover to make it look a bit more patriotic. So, now instead of simple plain, everyday training gear, the girls are now dressed in red, white and blue with GBR blazoned across their chests. They're also sponsored by Aviva, which I'm sure is an absolutely crucial detail that warrants inclusion on the DVD cover.

They've also decided to, ahem, boost their audience by photoshopping some noticeably larger breasts onto the athletically figured star Lenora Crichlow, thereby increasing the odds that when dirty old men in rain macs are blindly Google searching for movies about "fast girls", they might consider this to be perfectly serviceable evening viewing material after all.

Fast Girls is available on DVD from the 8th October.

ELEVATOR - Raising the bar for rip-offs

In the immortal words of Kylie Minogue, better the devil you know, and in what can only be described as a do-over of M. Night Shyamalan's Devil but with added terrorism, we now have the simplistically titled Elevator. Lifting* heavily from Devil's cover art but without the reverse crucifix and with added dodgy photoshopping (look, they're on floor 13! The deadliest of all high rise building levels!), Elevator clearly wants to look like Devil as much as possible, going so far as to have a trailer that's almost a shot for shot remake of Devil's.

So, there's the old lady, the annoying nervy guy and plenty of other stock characters to keep you guessing which one the terrorist is. Oh, and if the chubby guy with the little goatee looks familiar, you probably know him better as this guy...

Devin Ratray, always holding a place in our hearts and minds as Buzz McCallister from the first two Home Alone movies (the only two that count if we're being honest), appears in this film as the one of trapees. This is the point where we'd usually make a sarcastic comment about how they've been relegated to starring in straight to DVD rip-offs of other films, but if you want to compare Ratray's career to Macaulay Culkin's... well, at least Ratray is still making movies.

If you've already seen Devil, curiosity over Devin Ratray's role must be the only real reason to watch Elevator, so I'm going to recommend that they just take that next step and change the title to something like this...

*Yes, that was meant to be a pun.

NEW FUN GAME! Matching up the cast of Battleship's names with the actors underneath.

One out of four is pretty bad. I wonder if it works any better on the Blu-ray cover...

Rats.

Battleship is out on DVD and Blu-ray on August 20th and can be pre-ordered here.

Ghostbusters - Yes, it's true, this man has more discs.

If, like me, you snapped up a copy of Ghostbusters when it was released on Blu-ray back in 2009, prepare to feel a slight bit of regret that you didn't wait a while.

Instead of releasing the under appreciated (but admittedly nowhere near as good) Ghostbusters 2 on the Blu-ray format, the bigwigs in 'Hollywood' have decided to make us loyal, honest Ghostbusters fans have a second bite of the cherry by releasing the film in a nice new steelbook edition. What's so different about this edition you may ask? Well, from first appearances it would seem to be nothing except the tin (artwork TBC, obviously), as I'm pretty sure that's exactly the same disc that is gracing my now inferior, unloved copy of the film.

So, not only do I now own Ghostbusters on a VHS i'll never need to play, a DVD that I don't need because I bought the re-released version in slime green packaging, the re-released version in slime green packaging that became inferior with the arrival of the Blu-ray, but i'll soon be buying the same film on the same format with the same extras purely because the steelbook packaging looks pretty. Don't judge me.

If 'busting makes you feel good too, the steelbook edition is due for release on November 5th and can be pre-ordered from Amazon now.

Not So Hunky Dory - How I Managed To Make Life Just A Little Bit Harder For A Small Welsh Film

What do you get when you cross one inquisitive film blogger, one of the world's best known film magazines and a small Minnie Driver starring Welsh independent musical-comedy with an erroneous quote on its DVD cover? This whole debacle...

BATTLESHIP VS AMERICAN BATTLESHIP: This Means War

The Asylum, long-time purveyors of straight to DVD dross that looks suspiciously like whatever big budget action film is currently in cinemas, have recently found themselves on the receiving end of a lawsuit from Universal Pictures, thanks to their recent film American Battleship. I can see what Universal are saying, but surely THIS time it was purely coincidental? The Asylum couldn't have PLANNED to release such a similar film at the same time? They wouldn't release yet ANOTHER film just to try and piggy back some profit off Hollywood's best efforts again, would they? WOULD THEY?

Not To Be Confused With... #7

To be fair to the makers of Seafood, they're not the first ones to copy the winning formula of smiling aquatic creatures with a bright yellow title. Still, at least the rest of these didn't attempt a tagline like "the fish are out of water!" despite the fact the fish are quite clearly in the water.

Remember kids, Sharks aren't your friends.

How To Re-Package Your Film To Make It More Successful The Second Time Around

Yes, removing the name of the most famous actor and getting rid of that pesky phone has made all the difference.

Brilliant Film Critic Quotes of Our Time

No. 1. Alan Frank, Weekend at Bernie's.

Not To Be Confused With... #5

If you're looking for a way to get sued by a major motion picture studio as quickly as possible, why not try a bit of intellectual property theft? In an utterly shameless move that will actually probably work at gaining an audience to see the film, the makers of A Good Old Fashioned Orgy have created this impressively plagiaristic poster that looks more than a little bit familiar.


Same big glowy font? Check. Chubby guy with a beard and sunglasses? Check. Middle guy wearing a brown polo shirt? Check. As far as I can tell, the biggest change they've made is switching out the baby for an inflatable pink flamingo which, let's be honest, probably isn't going to have much of an impact on the film's storyline. I suppose you can't blame them, this isn't the first time The Hangover's been plagarised with negative consequences. I mean, did you see The Hangover Part 2? Badum Tish.


If A Good Old Fashioned Orgy seems like your kind of film, it'll be arriving straight to DVD sometime later this year, thankfully with a less lawsuit-y cover.

Not To Be Confused With... #2

To make their thievery even more delicious, on closer inspection it becomes blatantly apparent that the makers of Pressed have just taken the photo of Colin Farrell from the cover of London Boulevard and superimposed Luke Goss's head over the top of it.

Excellent work guys. I'll see you at the design awards.

Remember Folks, Cute Doggy DVD's Are For Life, Not Just For Christmas

Other festive household pet movies are available.

Pain, Lines Not The Same and Automobiles

We've all seen our favourite films be released and re-released on DVD and Blu-ray, and I'm sure that by now we're all used to seeing every iteration being tagged with some humourous tagline or another (apparently Extended, Director's Cut and Special Edition just don't cut it anymore), but couldn't they have come up with a better one than "All Flights Cancelled. You're Scre" for Planes, Trains and Automobiles, a film that's not only one of John Hughes' best comedies, but arguably one of the best films of the 1980's?

The most recent US re-release of the film was titled the 'Those Aren't Pillows!' edition, which whilst hardly a relevant gag to put on the cover of a DVD, at least evokes happy memories of picturing John Candy's chubby digits nestled between Steve Martin's rosy cheeks. For the new UK Blu-ray release though, not only have they chickened out of writing the word 'screwed' on the cover (ooooh, scandal), they've failed to get the correct quote from the film anyway. As always, a quick search on the IMDb shows us the truth...

I'm assuming that is the scene the cover is alluding to, otherwise what's the point of the whole "You're Scre" line? Seeing as it's the punchline to one of the greatest exchanges in movie history (yeah, I said it), it might have been reasonable for them to place "you're fucked" on the cover, with a simple asterisk used the save the blushes of those of a sensitive nature. Or maybe, when you've got two massive stars in John Candy and Steve Martin and a iconic director in John Hughes, along with one of the longest and most instantly recognisable titles in movie history already on the cover, they should know when to just leave it alone.


If you like your Blu-rays with unnecessary bumph on the cover, Planes, Trains and Automobiles is out to buy from Monday. Luckily, the film inside is still awesome.

SUBMARINE BLU-RAY review

Out now on DVD and Blu-Ray is Richard Ayoade's directorial debut, charting the highs and lows of teenager Oliver Tate's love life. Read my thoughts on the film and what the Blu-Ray extras have to offer, next...

Congrats Luke Goss, That Must Be The Most Nonsensical Name For A Film I've Ever Heard

Asterisks and The Lesson In Over Censorship

I'm pretty sure we're all aware of which naughty word they've purposely censored in the tagline for Cyrus, and frankly, it's some good advice. But were the asterisks really so ineffective that they needed to soften the naughty word AND keep the asterisks for the DVD cover?

It's perhaps a slightly overzealous change when they clearly don't have a problem with Jonah Hill waving his fist at John C Reilly with the international sign language for wanker.


Maybe they just like f**king around with stuff. Kn*bheads.

Let The Right Cover Win

The release of Let The Right One In's remake Let Me In is now imminent, so we've been treated to the inevitable re-release of the original film on DVD. Why a film that only got released on DVD 14 months ago needs a re-release, I don't know. Well actually, of course I know.

The blood letting scene depicted on the cover definitely happened in the original film, but it's not exactly the first image I think of from the swedish vampire movie. This cover doesn't look like any of the marketing materials used for the original, but what it does look a bit like is the posters for the new one. I can just see it now...

"Hey Ma! We dont hav to go see that nuw vampire film at the sinemer. HMV hav got it fur a fiva!"

This release strategy happens all the time, recent examples being the original Clash Of The Titans and Inglorious Bastards (correct spelling) suddenly appearing on shelves when the new version is at the cinemas. You may think I'm being a bit cynical about the timing but trust me, I work in entertainment retail. They want stupid people to think it's the new one.

In a way, I'm all for this. I don't mind the existence of the remake, but the more people who watch the original, the better. I was a fan of the original film, and from what I've heard the remake is pretty good too, but I'll report on how they compare once they new version is released in cinemas in a couple of weeks. For now, I do like some of the things that they've done with this cover, in particular the quote from Empire...

Yep, last year. And just in case you're wondering what these guys think of the new version, they've put a bloody great sticker on the box to let you know.

BLU-RAY BOXSET OCTOBERFEST

This October might just be one of the best months for Blu-Ray releases yet, and almost certainly for Blu-Ray boxsets. Among the classics currently scheduled for release are...

Mercifully dropping the stupid Quadrilogy name and going for the much grander sounding Anthology, this bumper pack of Alien goodness should make its high-def debut on October 25th.


Amazon.co.uk and Play.com both have the price at £37.49, or there's a pretty cool (but expensive) special edition egg sculpture at Play.com for £89.99.

Also out on that day is probably the highlight of my year. Yes, on October 25th we finally get Back To The Future on Blu-Ray. Rumour has it that the new special features also includes some of the footage of Eric Stoltz as Marty McFly. Words cannot express my excitement for this.


Amazon.co.uk have this at £27.97 and Play.com have it at the marginally more expensive £27.99. There's also a tin on Amazon.co.uk for £44.93 or on Play.com for £44.99. I ain't going to quibble over a few pennies, but I guarantee they would have sold more copies than the other if they'd ended the price in 88.

Depending on who you believe, this boxset is either out on the 25th as well (I hope not, that'd be a scheduling nightmare and murder on my bank balance), or more probably it's out on the 18th. I'll be honest, I'm not sure if I've ever seen Robocop 3, and I don't think it really matters. But I'm looking forward to seeing the first one again and the second one still has its charms. If only they included the first films' TV edit from the mid 90's, where they substituted all the fuck you's for forget you's and all the asshole's for airhead's, then for comedic value this would have been a must buy.


Amazon.co.uk have it for £17.99, which is loads better than Play.com's £26.99. Play have got the correct release date though, so I don't know. If ever there was a series of films that would be ideal for a special edition tin sleeve, it would be Robocop, but they've not bothered with that for some reason.


Oh, and these are all released after my birthday, but there's such a thing as a late present. I'll forgive you.