LATEST ADDITIONS

The slow drip-feed of animated TV sensation The Simpsons on DVD continues with this latest four-disc boxset, collecting together all 22 episodes from the show's 2002-2003 14th season. By this point in the show's life many were already claiming that The Simpsons was past its best, having peaked around seasons six and seven and having been on a downward spiral ever since. But despite some fairly vocal criticism, this particular season was actually one of the show's most critically lauded.

While he’s been a mainstay of DC Comic’s superhero pantheon since 1960 (in this incarnation, at least), you’d be hard-pushed to say that Green Lantern is a particularly recognisable name for most people. As such, this sci-fi blockbuster had its work cut out not only introducing its hero Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds) and his supporting cast, but also establishing the concept of the inter-galactic police force he ends up working for, the Green Lantern Corps. Add to that a melodramatic back-story and two separate villains and its no wonder that the film struggles under the weight of its ambitious scope. But what’s surprising, given all of that, is how thin and uneventful the film ends up feeling. While the space stuff looks great, but most of the action takes place on Earth and looks ordinary and unexciting by comparison.

Writer Leigh Whannell and director James Wan changed the face of modern horror with their low budget 2004 hit Saw. However, since that ingenious debut the filmmaking partnership has struggled to come up with a concept as fresh or inventive (remember we're talking about the original Saw here, not the franchise that followed), serving up first the derivative haunted ventriloquist dummy flick Dead Silence, and now this curious mix of subgenres. Initially playing out like a haunted house flick, Insidious then transforms into a possession movie before finally heading out into the Dreamscape-like territory of astral projection. As you might expect, it doesn't exactly hang together comfortably, but there are at least a few good scares along the way.

The Alien Anthology boxset is quite simply a must-have for any self-respecting home cinema buff. Not only do you get two bona fide Five Star classics – Ridley Scott’s original Alien and James Cameron’s Aliens – but it also includes David Fincher’s horribly underrated Alien3 and Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s half-baked Alien Resurrection. Okay, so the latter can’t compare to the first three films in this legendary sci-fi/horror series, but taken as a whole the Alien saga remains one of the most exciting, fascinating and enduring genre franchises around and it simply has to form a part of every self-respecting home cinema fan’s collection.