Fringe Warner Home Video

Star Stories Series 1 & 2 (Hopscotch):

"When you're famous, you're public property," the old adage goes. If this is true, then Star Stories has rented out said property, rigorously studied it, smeared it with faeces, and handed it back in a flaming bag.

Star Stories is your typical British-centric copy cat comedy, delivering 25 minute mockumentaries on celeb life stories on the likes of George Michael, Catherine Zeta Jones, Tom Cruise and Britney Spears; all told from a celeb's perspective allowing artistic bias to run rampant. Mimicry is a tried and true, often ho-hum idea (the not-bad Spitting Image and Dead Ringers, the terrible Skit House, hell, even Hey, Hey It's Saturday) but Star Stories distinguishes itself from the pack in three distinct areas: 1) sharp, witty writing, 2) magnificent mimicry from the actors, 3) combining the two to make a genuinely funny outing.

Exactly how hilarious purebred antipodeans will find this is variable. Seeing out my formative years in Ol' Blighty during the '90s lets those like me in to countless extra in-gags that will simply wash over a Southern Cross tattoo-sporting Australian audience. But the action is fast paced enough thanks to excellent editing, and the various real-life characters are so entertaining in their own right that while the episode on Sadie Frost may confuse it can still be enjoyed, and episodes on the universally known Guy Ritchie and Catherine Zeta Jones will have everyone laughing along.

There are enough peripheral characters that pop up in each episode to keep it interesting - Mick Hucknall, Russell Brand, Chris Martin, Colin Farrell, Michael Douglas, John Travolta... not many are left alone - and it's the ludicrous depictions married with spot on impressions that make this such a joy. All the actors are brilliant, but Kevin Bishop is undoubtedly the backbone (check out his Alex Ferguson) and Steve Edge could stare down Jack Dee in a dead-pan contest.

Four star stuff, but add an extra half star if you lived in the England over the past 20 years.

Generation Kill (Warner Home Video):

Produced by David Simon and Ed Burns (The Wire) and based on the writings of Rolling Stone journalist Evan Wright (who was embedded with the US Marines as they rolled through Baghdad in the early stages of Iraq v 2.0), Generation Kill is an intense and frustrating journey displaying all the hallmarks of a Simon/Burns joint. There is no exposition - you're dropped right into the middle of the action with exposition; it's confusing - characters are initially hard to pin down especially in 100 pounds of khaki Kevlar protection and the dialogue is often impenetrable - see point one and two as well as a whole new level of military-speak that easily rivals The Wire's arcane scripting. But make no mistake - this isn't The Wire in the sand. It's an entirely different and yet somehow familiar and equal beast.

Despite the subject matter, Generation Kill isn't a chest-beating shoot-em-up USA! USA! war-is-hell type story. But nor is it a Chomsky-esque antiwar diatribe (that cut shot of a grunt reading Chomsky was quite funny, though). It's a relatively simple, sometimes absurdly placid, document of a bunch of highly trained, unequally educated, bored Marines driving across hostile terrain in a desperate search for a mission. Actual warfare is seen mainly in the hazy distance. When they eventually find their way into combat - it's confusing and nerve jangling.

This seven part mini-series could have been derailed if Wright's character played as the viewer's voice - clarifying the complex administrative machinations onscreen for the laggards at home. Fortunately, he is mostly a silent observer leaving all the work to us. Generation Kill is more about hierarchical incompetence than fighting wars, and the outright unreliability of middle management and chain of command. It is a story about grunts and how they see their world -ugly, reactionary, angry but nuanced and never condescending. Compelling storytelling and essential viewing.