Film: Recorded Delivery
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Your support makes all the difference.Trojan Eddie (15) Film Four, rental 29 September
A lively scene opens Gillies McKinnon's largely forlorn film in which small-time con-man Eddie (Stephen Rea) flogs the contents of the back of a lorry with breathtaking ingenuity, assisted by Dermot (Stuart Townsend). The pair put on a polished Vaudevillian performance which persuades the most stalwart of punters to part with their pennies for 10 lampshades, a box of pencils and a mobile phone. The cash is handed over to their boss, the fearsome John Power (Richard Harris), head of the travelling community. But when Power decides to marry a local girl, a third of his age, Eddie is left to pick up the pieces.
Secrets and Lies (15) VCI/Film Four, retail, 29 September pounds 14.99
Mike Leigh's incisive comedy drama is a study of complex family relationships, which centres on siblings Cynthia (the award-winning Brenda Blethlyn) and the long-suffering Maurice (Timothy Spall). Long-harboured secrets bob to the surface when Hortense, a self-assured young black optometrist, discovers Cynthia to be her long-lost mother. Contrasting with its gloomy predecessor, Naked, Secrets and Lies is forgiving to its characters and thankfully allows optimism to mingle with Leigh's more characteristic pessimism.
The Simpsons: Springfield Murder Mysteries (PG) Fox, retail, 29 September pounds 12.99
The Simpsons was the funniest thing on telly before the BBC incomprehensibly scrapped it and left us in the objectionable hands of Noel Edmonds. Help is at hand at last with these four gems from the Groening stockpile. Springfield is on tenter-hooks following the shooting of the evil Mr Burnes as the finger is pointed at Homer. Meanwhile, the local jailbird - Sideshow Bob - proposes marriage to Marge's sister in a plot to steal all her money. This dysfunctional yet close-knit family form an acutely observed, ironic and affectionate critique of American culture, in this case taking pot-shots at megalomania, police incompetence, conspiracy theories and Hollywood movies.
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