Now available to rent or buy: 'Starr Wars' and 'The X-Files'

The effect is peculiarly ambiguous yet powerfully soporific. Not many laughs

A LOOK at just some of the new videos which have come on the market this week.

Sex, Lies, Apologies, Evasions, and Videotape

A low-budget comedy in which newcomer Bill Clinton plays a man who is being accused of sexual infidelity. Oddly and rather effectively, you never get to see the accuser, only hear his voice - and that's another odd thing. Why is the accuser a man? Wouldn't the man's wife be the one to accuse him? The cutting is amateur, the camerawork shaky and the editing nonexistent. The effect is peculiarly ambiguous yet powerfully soporific. Not many laughs.

My Summer With Monica

A low-budget comedy in which newcomer Bill Clinton plays an American President who is impeached on charges of sexual harassment. He is given such a hard time by Kenneth Starr, the prosecutor, that finally Starr himself is arrested on charges of sexual harrassment of the President. A funny moment, but it takes a long time coming.

Saving Privates

Stephen Spielberg's latest blockbuster in which a squad of hand-picked men go storming into the White House to cover for the President while he mounts a secret assault course. Eventually they come to grief, but everyone has a heap of fun till then.

All the President Means

Nice to see this classic back in circulation again.

Lust in Space

Low budget comedy in which newcomer Bill Clinton plays the part of a man who bets he can seduce a given person in a small alcove of the White House. He does so, but has no witnesses to prove it, so is condemned to repeat the act over and over again until someone believes him. A cross between Warthog Day and Match of the Day.

All The President's Semen

Nice to see this classic back in circulation again.

The Avengers

Remake of the old classic in which Senator Joe McCarthy and his merry men held the whole of America to ransom. In this update, it's Ken Starr and his merry men who try to paralyse America by crucifying the President, but the effect is equally soporific.

The Hoarse Whisperer

Low-budget comedy in which newcomer Bill Clinton plays the part of the man accused by nameless prosecutors of having had a passing affair with some girl while at the same time being the most powerful man in the world. It is never quite explained why the most powerful man in the world would agree to such footling questioning. Small wonder, though, if his answers occasionally become hoarse whispers.

Deconstructing Hillary

Wacky, bittersweet Woody Allen comedy. "Hey, cheer up, Hillary!" he says at one point. "Don't forget that Hillary and hilarious are the same word!" She bursts into tears.

Chelsea Girl

Another wacky, bittersweet Woody Allen comedy. "Hey, cheer up, Chelsea!" he says at one point. "It isn't everyone who's named after an Italian football team!"

"Chelsea is not an Italian team," she says indignantly.

"That's how much you know about football," he says.

Starr Wars

A galactic epic in which the evil K Starr takes on the shining radiance of the President in a battle which rages through time, space and 400 boxes of unread evidence.

The X Files

Those 400 boxes of unread evidence come to the fore again in this sci- fi masterpiece. Could so much testimony really be generated by one inquiry? Or are extra-terrestrials dumping their rubbish on earth? Is the Starr Report actually the wastebasket of some alien computer system? Has America gone mad? This film quietly poses all the questions but gives none of the answers, rather like a US president.

Close Encounters in the Third Way

Low-budget comedy set in the White House. There are, apparently, two main routes from the Oval Office to the presidential quarters, but there is also a third, little-known and little-used, back corridor in which a president can, if he wishes, have a little discretion and privacy. That's the idea, anyway. In practice things can and do go disastrously and hilariously wrong. Starring newcomer Bill Clinton. I've got a feeling we're going to see a lot more of this man. Or, of course, a lot less.