Don't miss Morris: lo-fi mockumentary new to DVD rental

I Love You Philip Morris
Out to rent on DVD and blu ray from today.

Both Ewan McGregor and Jim Carey can slip right past the border on aggravating so it was a bold move to cast them as the leads in this slapstick romantic comedy.

Carey's limitless energy is put to good use in his portrayal of Steven Russell - equally exuberant whether he's turning to Jesus, coming out of the closet or getting rich quick ("Nobody tells you this," he laments, in one of film's many snappy voiceover lines, "but being gay is really expensive.").

Films about ordinary guys who turn, to a greater or lesser extent, to crime to fund some glamour are a mini-tradition all of their own, from Blow to Catch me if you can or even, in a less funny vein, The Talented Mr Ripley.

This film fits in with that with the added bonus of the, genuinely sweet, McGregor-Carey love story.

Morris: a Life With Bells on
Out to rent on DVD and blu ray from today.

One word you hear again and again about this lo-fi mockumentary is 'charming'.

How else to describe a happy Brit comedy about Morris dancing?

Charming could equally apply to the story of the film's distribution. It was left without a mainstream distributor and thousands of film fans signed a petition demanding a mainstream release making it a sort-of countryside cult hit.

The film itself is (charmingly) barmy. It follows Derecq Twist, the leader of Millsham Morris, a Morris dancing maverick .

Like other classic mockumentaries, there are plenty of laughs to be wrung out from placing a high melodrama within a small world, coupling that with the innate ridiculousness of morris dancing is hilarious.

The cast is all a very British affair in all, as you'd expect. Lucy Akhurst (her off Spaced) directs which explains why Simon Pegg's posted a spoof audition on Youtube (see below).

Derek Jacobi, Naomie Harris and Greg Wise also star.

City Island
Out to rent on DVD and blu ray from today.

Completing our tripartite of comedies is this US indie flick starring Andy Garcia and Julianna Margulies as the couple at the centre of a semi-warring Italian-American family.

Secrets and lies are at the heart of the comedy and given that they're all lies worth keeping - to take just three: an obsession with fat-girl porn, a career in stripping and a wild stab at acting - the farce nicely snowballs into the ridiculous.

I'd only ever seen Margulies on TV before - in ER and The Good Wife - where she tends to play it po-faced and controlled so she's a bit of revelation here as a snarky nut-job.

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