Latest video: Rare treats

By Ewan McDonald

They're holding a banquet to honour a war hero, Captain John Boyd. There are a lot of very badly barbecued steaks, still dripping blood.

Boyd, though, has blotted his copybook as well as his uniform jacket. Suffering from what we'd now call shell-shock after the Mexican-American War of 1846-48, he's about to be exiled to remote Fort Spencer, high in the Sierra Nevada mountains. (Well, that's a slightly different way of dealing with the problem than the British took 50 years later.)

One night soon after Boyd has taken command of the outpost with its motley crew of soldiers, a stranger named Colquhoun stumbles out of the snow, explaining that he's the last survivor of a group of westward-bound settlers. Stranded in the ranges, their food ran out and they turned to stewing one other.

Boyd leads a search party which loses a little more than the plot. He must battle a growing urge to casserole his mates and outlast the mysterious Colquhoun.

It may sound like a cheapjack horror film about cannibals, something that Hammer didn't get around to making, but Ravenous has just a bit more than that.

A good food stylist, for one thing. And a smart script, its black humour delivered in a nicely understated manner; a class director, Antonia Bird, the Englishwoman whose CV includes Priest and Mad About You.

Then there are the leads: Guy Pearce, who made his name camping it up in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and Dating the Enemy before going straight in LA Confidential, is Boyd. Colquhoun is another dark notch in the black belt of Robert Carlyle: this is the Trainspotting and Plunkett and Macleane side, not The Full Monty or Hamish MacBeth one.

Warmly recommended - that is, about two hours at 180 deg C.

* That's the only major rental release this week. But on to the sale shelves today comes last year's hit There's Something About Mary by the Farrelly brothers, the guys who lowered the belt of good taste several notches with their earlier Dumb and Dumber and Kingpin.

For those who've somehow succeeded in not catching up with the movie, it's a twisted (their word) romantic comedy with Cameron Diaz as Mary, a luscious beauty (their words) pursued by offbeat characters (read losers) played by Ben Stiller and Matt Dillon ...

Other recent movies: Halloween H20, the family reunion of the original screamer of 20 years later, with Jamie Lee Curtis and a cameo from her mum, Psycho victim Janet Leigh; the remake of Cry the Beloved Country, with James Earl Jones and Richard Harris in Alan Paton's story of injustice and prejudice in apartheid South Africa; The Avengers, the Ralph Fiennes-Uma Thurmann version of the high-camp 60s telly series; and A Perfect Murder, Michael Douglas and Gwyneth Paltrow in a stylish updating of Hitchcock's classic Dial M for Murder (see contest results below).

Mark Wahlberg and Lou Diamond Phillips head the cast in The Big Hit, Christina Ricci in The Opposite of Sex, Alicia Silverstone in Excess Baggage and a collection of The Best of Party of Five are others on sale.

Some documentaries: The Irish Empire explores the "scattering" of communities around the world, from Chicago to Vladivostok, from Australia to Argentina (excuse me, you seem to have missed one there). Though there are only four million Irish people at home, around 70 million around the world claim Irish descent, and this video explores their lives, their ups and downs.

Shaky Beginnings - The Shaping of New Zealand sees Jim Hickey trek the length and breadth of the country to help explain the forces of nature that shaped our landscape and its plant and animal life ...

Before the Mast is a chronicle of two ships, the history of James Cook's original barque and its voyages interwoven with the story of the construction of its replica and its journey from England to Australia.

Highlights for the smallest members of the household include Walt Disney's last animated feature, The Aristocats; the first new video release in 10 years of stories about Thomas the Tank Engine; and gosh, here's another Teletubbies video.