Games
GAMECUBE SUPER SMASH BROS MELEE (Nintendo) £44.99 0...
Surprise. Surprise. Nintendo go and do something new With a well-\ivorn genre. OK. it's not entirely new as this is an updated yer8ion of their N64 hit but there is so much in here that it merits speCial attention. Essentially a beat-'em-up involv:ng all your tax/Ourite Nintendo characters. SSBM is so packed with imaginatcn. verve and class that it transcends the normal combat titles. That's not to say it is perfect. as it lacks the intricacies during battle that the genre's big boys have. but the huge array of extras. secrets. silly scoring bonuses. characters and game modes makes for a uniquely enjoyable time. Visually impressive and deeply addictive. Super Smash Bros Melee has the emphasis firmly on the fun rather than the challenge. and in a world where ultra-realism seems to grow ever more popular. it proves that nothing can replace pure. unadulterated enjoyment. slain Davidsom
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Medal of Honour Frontline (P82 EA 5339.99) World War ll on console.
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Elder Scrolls III Morrowind (PC Bethesda 5729.99) Say goodbye to free time. Pikmin lGameCuhe Nintendo $344. 99/ Inventive. infectious and insane.
Bruce Lee (XBox l/ivoiidi 5739.99) You can Jeet KtlllC Do it.
108 THE LIST ‘; 7’; l." I/‘Ct’
Internet .
internet@list.co.uk
FIGHTING
www.bumfights.com
It's not just food that street people associate the word scrap with. As this sensitive site proves. homeless guys and girls like nothing better than a good ruck. You can almost taste the scrawny Rufus as he leathers into fellow bums. Contains seemingly unrelated female nudity.
SATIRE www.thevoiceofreason .co.uk
Should the queen change her hair colour to celebrate her big year? Was the Potter's Bar crash an al-Qaeda sabotage? When Peter Mandelson was in government. did he spend more time collecting conkers than dealing With cabinet business? Stupid questions dressed up as serious ones. Or is it the other way round?
CONSPIRACY
www.clydelewis.com
Was the US government behind the mysterious discovery of cows' eyeballs in a St Louis family's garden? Has the Lindbergh baby been feund? Are artifiCial sweeteners turning American citizens into either Violent psychopaths or Parkinson's victims? Frurtcakes with wacko opinions: don't you just love them?
,7
GENEALOGY www.electricscotland .com
For those who can't get enough of their family, trace your roots all the way back to the beginning of time. How Scottish are you? Dare you discover the truth about your true background?
EXCREMENT www.jboom.com/shite -price/
Ever wondered how valuable your poo is? I know I have. It's all in the timing. apparently. Click some buttons. go off and sink one. return to y0ur work station (having taken all hygiene precautions) and you will learn how much that little visit has cost y0ur employer. If you haven't got a job (as it were). it needn't stop you from experimenting.
www.popjustice.com
The critics have had their say ab0ut Slim Shady's new album. But what do old people think about The Eminem Show? ‘In my day criminals were decent; police didn‘t need sirens or truncheons:' “proper dancing will live on long after this “gangster rap" has gone;' ‘when the bowls club shut down. it hit us all quite hard.‘ Three of the more lucid opinions.
(Brian Donaldson)
Panhandling galore in Bumfights
video@list.co.uk
HORROR FROM HELL (18) 117min 000
Alan Moore’s sprawling comic book tale of Jack the Ripper is transferred to the screen by Allen and Albert Hughes of Menace II Society and Dead Presidents fame. Johnny Depp plays an opium obsessed detective with clairvoyant traits, ably assisted by Robbie Coltrane, in a scandal
‘ Video] DVD
Hammer House revisited in From Hell
that reaches the highest levels of Victorian society. While the delectable Heather Graham plays a whore with a heart of gold (surely moviedom’s favourite cliche) whose mates are slowly being picked off one by one in a suitably
gruesome manner.
The usually reliable cast are dragged down by dodgy accents (you think Depp’s is bad, wait till Graham opens her mouth), but at least they appear to be having a whale of a time hamming it up for the camera. The Hughes brothers, however, are far more accustomed to urban grime than Wctorian crime and appear not really to know how to handle the rich text or period details.
The dark gothic sets, the green tinted lighting, the hints of hideous violence all scream Hammer Horror (particularly the deliciously disturbing Hands of the Ripper). A compliment to be sure, but considering the talent involved and the scope of the original graphic novel you crave excitement and shocking revelations. This offers nothing even the laziest conspiracy theorist hasn’t heard 1000 times before. Perfectly watchable but it likes to think it’s far cleverer than it really is. (Twentieth Century Fox VHS/DVD rental) (Henry Northmore)
DRAMA A MA SOEUR! (to) 93min oeeee
After Romances combo of the obvious and the arcane. Catherine Breillat here really knows how to play with an audience’s emotions withOLit playing to viewer's assumptions. For all the obscure sexual activity. wasn't Romance just a piece of dated pre-feminism?
In her latest. Breillat gives us sibling rivalry as the beautiful Elena puts out to an Italian stud while podgy Anais initially looks on. In the process Breillat gets close to the heart of teen sexuality and the debatable benefits of being beautiful when you're too y0ung to know what to do with it. and where being plump and complicit in an act of sexual abuse perhaps allows for greater autonomy. This is edgy. radical stuff. (Tartan VHS. DVD rental/retail) (Tony McKibbin)
THRILLER THE DEEP END (15) 96min eee
It should be a run-of-the- mill crime caper. A woman finds the murdered body of her son's gay lover and dumps it in the lake. Which is when she gets blackmailed by a man With Video evidence of her son's relationship. He wants big money.
But no one behaves quite as you expect. First. the mother (Tilda Swrnton. fabulously distraught and distracted) is just too preOCCupied with her
family to get the cash together. Then, the blackmailer (GOran Visnjic of ER) feels sorry for her and reduces his demands.
The result of this quiet study of family responsibility is something refreshingly free of Hollywood formula. (Twentieth Century Fox VHS/DVD rental) (Mark Fisher)
THRILLER LIBERTY STANDS TILL
(15) 96min 0.
The right to bear arms: fundamental pillar of American freedom or root of a violence-ridden society? This is the question Liberty Stands Still claims to have in mind when the deranged father (Wesley Snipes) of a child gunned down at school takes an arms manufacturer (Linda Fiorentino‘i hostage. What ensues is a series of unlikely and completely tensionless scenes. strung together by a dialogue that badly masquerades as a debate on the USA‘s most controversial amendment. Far from inCiting any sort of social rappOrt on gun COntrol. this direct to video release leaves viewers thinking: 'Who cares?‘ (Associates VHS/DVD rental) (Katharine Allen)
DRAMA
RIDING IN CARS WITH BOYS
(12) 125min 00
There are a number of unspoken rules dictating who can or can't write their autobiography: and leading a life less ordinary is certainly one Of them. QUite why Beverly Donofrio thought her remarkably mundane existence was worthy of a book. let alone a film adaptation, IS anyone's guess.
So too lS why Drew BarrymOre. James Woods. Lorraine Bracco et a/ saw fit to star in it — and turn in good performances at that. Barrymore plays Donofrio. a 15-year-0ld who finds herself pregnant and married. thus iiiiSSing Out on the univerSity education she so craved. Several years of bad mothering later she finally gets her WISh. But by that time. we've long Since stopped