Sun shines on McConaughey

At last, Matthew McConaughey gets the role he was born for in Sahara: an action-mad explorer who looks great in a turquoise turban. He's Dirk Pitt, famous adventurer, and he's combing the African desert for a lost battleship from the American Civil War.

Much more importantly, the same patch of desert is also occupied by some properly villainous baddies and a doctor played by Penelope Cruz - which is a lot less likely than finding a 19th-century boat in the world's largest sandpit.

She's on the track of a mysterious disease that's killing off the locals; this has nothing to do with Dirk's quest, of course, but he's hardly the man to let a nice-looking girl save the African population alone.

Sahara is great fun, whizzing along at top speed with shoot-outs, helicopters and even the occasional conversation. If you missed it on the big screen, or just fancy revisiting the rarity that is a truly entertaining Hollywood blockbuster, your Friday night couch-time is sorted.

Extras: None.
Rating: ****

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Rob Reiner followed up cult hit This Is Spinal Tap with 1985's The Sure Thing - a charming, tightly scripted teen road movie that established John Cusack and the insecure, wisecracking on-screen persona that's stood him in such good stead ever since.

He's college student Gib, willingly travelling 3,000 miles for the sake of a sure thing: a girl (Nicollette Sheridan, now a Desperate Housewife) who'll definitely sleep with him.

His companion on the road is Alison (Daphne Zuniga), who's as uptight and hardworking as he's wacko and lazy ("spontaneity has its time and place"); they have nothing in common and can't stand each other, so obviously they're destined to fall in love. Getting them there, though, is a fun trip in every sense.

Extras: None.
Rating: ****

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Sloshing with a gory pouch of the red stuff, Box Of Blood is literally what the title suggests. Dare to lift the lid and you'll find a six-disc vampire fest with a pleasingly dark bite.

Instead of hammy old Hammer et al, there's the likes of Near Dark, Kathryn Bigelow's ultra-violent post-modern fable (starring Bill Paxton), about a vampire family taking chunks out of the Deep South; Werner Herzog's mournful Nosferatu The Vampyre starring Klaus Kinski, who would have been a lot less fun to bump into on a dark night than his character Dracula; as well as the full-frontal bite of bisexual porno flick Vampyres (uncut for the first time).