Whip It rolls on to DVD rental

Whip It
Out to rent on DVD and Blu ray

One of the major problems with DVD rental by post is that, having a moment, you're very likely to just go ahead and put something you feel you really should watch - Shoah, say - on your list which is just going to sit by the DVD player like an accusation.

What you really should add is something easy to watch and gently life-affirming. In other words: Whip It.

Roller derby! Pun-ny names (Bloody Holly, Rosa Sparks)! Drew Barrymore! Directing also! What's not to love?

Ever-likeable Ellen Page is in the title role but it's a strong cast all-round, so much so that some (Zoe Bell, the stunt actress who starred in Death Proof, for example) whip by far too fast.

On the downside, Juliette Lewis is in it. Luckily she's a baddie which neutralises her acid-strength grating personality a little bit.

Cemetery Junction
Blockbuster exlclusive: not out to rent on DVD and Blu ray from elsewhere until August 30th.

Cemetery Junction is not a comedy.

Such was the main (only?) message of the press junket for this Gervais/Merchant-penned Brit flick and so I'm contractually obliged to repeat it here.

And it's not a comedy, really. It's a sweetly nostalgic coming-of-age story about living somewhere crap - sort of like Footloose without the dancing.

Gervais plays the hero's dad and Matthew Goode is the inevitable awful boyfriend of love-interest Felicity Jones.

In all, it's another could've been made for rental heartwarmer.

Incidentally, having met someone who lives in the actual Cemetery Junction recently we can confirm that it is indeed grim. Still. But rent is cheap.

Seven
Newly available to download from the Lovefilm player.

Lovefilm's online streaming service goes from strength to strength with the additions such as this Thriller gem from 1995.

Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman star as detectives - smart and young, grouchy and disenfranchised respectively - out to catch a sin-obsessed serial killer.

We know, we know so far so generic. Actually, writing the pr�cis down there, it sounds a bit like Donald Kaufman's script from Adaptation. Except that it's not.

Despite elements - namely the set-up with the two leads - that could have come off as pure cliche, as a whole Seven is so well-plotted and cohesive that those concerns are soon forgotten.

The cityscape is rain-soaked and noir-ish, the gruesome bits are horrible but not unwatchable and the ending will stick with you.

If you haven't seen it yet, even if you have, don't miss it online.

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