New Releases

• In Sickness and in Health -The Complete Collection | DVD | (13/09/2010) from £19.89   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Hugely Successful sit-com that ran for 8 years, from 1985 to 1992, the sequel to Till Death Do Us Part. Written by Johnny Speight, it follows the fortunes (or mis-fortunes) of bigoted pensioner Alf Garnet, played brilliantly by Warren Mitchell. We see Alf uprooted from his Wapping home and re-located to a West Ham council flat and follow all the drama and problems he brings upon himself by his very opinionated and controversial views on.. well, everything.

• Lost Complete Seasons 1-6 | DVD | (13/09/2010) from £92.89   |  Saving you £86.10 (92.69%)   |  RRP £178.99

  Lost: Season One Along with Desperate Housewives, Lost was one of the two breakout shows of 2004. Mixing suspense and action with a sci-fi twist, it began with a thrilling pilot episode in which a jetliner traveling from Australia to Los Angeles crashes, leaving 48 survivors on an unidentified island with no sign of civilisation or hope of imminent rescue. That may sound like Gilligan's Island meets Survivor, but Lost kept viewers tuning in every Wednesday night--and spending the rest of the week speculating on Web sites--with some irresistible hooks (not to mention the beautiful women). First, there's a huge ensemble cast of no fewer than 14 regular characters, and each episode fills in some of the back story on one of them. There's a doctor; an Iraqi soldier; a has-been rock star; a fugitive from justice; a self-absorbed young woman and her brother; a lottery winner; a father and son; a Korean couple; a pregnant woman; and others. Second, there's a host of unanswered questions: What is the mysterious beast that lurks in the jungle? Why do polar bears and wild boars live there? Why has a woman been transmitting an SOS message in French from somewhere on the island for the last 16 years? Why do impossible wishes seem to come true? Are they really on a physical island, or somewhere else? What is the significance of the recurring set of numbers? And will Kate ever give up her bad-boy fixation and hook up with Jack? Lost did have some hiccups during the first season. Some plot threads were left dangling for weeks, and the "oh, it didn't really happen" card was played too often. But the strong writing and topnotch cast kept the show a cut above most network TV. The best-known actor at the time of the show's debut was Dominic Monaghan, fresh off his stint as Merry the Hobbit in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films. The rest of the cast is either unknowns or "where I have I seen that face before" supporting players, including Matthew Fox and Evangeline Lilly, who are the closest thing to leads. Other standouts include Naveen Andrews, Terry O'Quinn (who's made a nice career out of conspiracy-themed TV shows), Josh Holloway, Jorge Garcia, Yunjin Kim, Maggie Grace, and Emilie de Ravin, but there's really not a weak link in the cast. Co-created by J.J. Abrams (Alias), Lost left enough unanswered questions after its first season to keep viewers riveted for a second season. --David Horiuchi Lost: Season Two What was in the Hatch? The cliffhanger from season one of Lost was answered in its opening sequences, only to launch into more questions as the season progressed. That's right: Just when you say "Ohhhhh," there comes another "What?" Thankfully, the show's producers sprinkle answers like tasty morsels throughout the season, ending with a whopper: What caused Oceanic Air Flight 815 to crash in the first place? As the show digs into more revelations about its inhabitant's pasts, it also devotes a good chunk to new characters (Hey, it's an island; you never know who you're going to run into.) First, there are the "Tailies," passengers from the back end of the plane who crashed on the other side of the island. Among them are the wise, God-fearing ex-drug lord Mr. Eko (standout Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje); devoted husband Bernard (Sam Anderson); psychiatrist Libby (Cynthia Watros, whose character has more than one hidden link to the other islanders); and ex-cop Ana Lucia (Michelle Rodriguez), by far the most infuriating character on the show, despite how much the writers tried to incur sympathy with her flashback. Then there are the Others, first introduced when they kidnapped Walt (Malcolm David Kelley) at the end of season one. Brutal and calculating, their agenda only became more complex when one of them (played creepily by Michael Emerson) was held hostage in the hatch and, quite handily, plays mind games on everyone's already frayed nerves. The original cast continues to battle their own skeletons, most notably Locke (Terry O'Quinn), Sun (Yunjin Kim) and Michael (Harold Perrineau), whose obsession with finding Walt takes a dangerous turn. The love triangle between Jack (Matthew Fox), Kate (Evangeline Lilly) and Sawyer (Josh Holloway), which had stalled with Sawyer's departure, heats up again in the second half. Despite the bloating cast size (knocked down by a few by season's end) Lost still does what it does best: explores the psyche of people, about whom "my life is an open book" never applies, and cracks into the social dynamics of strangers thrust into Lord of the Flies-esque situations. Is it all a science experiment? A dream? A supernatural pocket in the universe? Likely, any theory will wind up on shaky ground by the season's conclusion. But hey, that's the fun of it. This show was made for DVD, and you can pause and slow-frame to your heart's content. --Ellen Kim Lost: Season ThreeWhen it aired in 2006-07, Lost's third season was split into two, with a hefty break in between. This did nothing to help the already weirdly disparate direction the show was taking (Kate and Sawyer in zoo cages! Locke eating goop in a mud hut!), but when it finally righted its course halfway through--in particular that whopper of a finale--the drama series had left its irked fan base thrilled once again. This doesn't mean, however, that you should skip through the first half of the season to get there, because quite a few questions find answers: what the Others are up to, the impact of turning that fail-safe key, the identity of the eye-patched man from the hatch's video monitor. One of the series' biggest curiosities from the past--how Locke ended up in that wheelchair in the first place--also gets its satisfying due. (The episode, "The Man from Tallahassee," likely was a big contributor to Terry O'Quinn's surprising--but long-deserved--Emmy win that year.) Unfortunately, you do have to sit through a lot of aforementioned nuisances to get there. Season 3 kicks off with Jack (Matthew Fox), Kate (Evangeline Lilly), and Sawyer (Josh Holloway) held captive by the Others; Sayid (Naveen Andrews), Sun (Yunjin Kim), and Jin (Daniel Dae Kim) on a mission to rescue them; and Locke, Mr. Eko (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), and Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick) in the aftermath of the electromagnetic pulse that blew up the hatch. Spinning the storylines away from base camp alone wouldn't have felt so disjointed were it not for the new characters simultaneously being introduced. First there's Juliet, a mysterious member of the Others whose loyalty constantly comes into question as the season goes on. Played delicately by Elizabeth Mitchell (Gia, ER, Frequency), Juliet is in one turn a cold-blooded killer, by another turn a sympathetic friend; possibly both at once, possibly neither at all. (She's also a terrific, albeit unwitting, threat to the Kate-Sawyer-Jack love triangle, which plays out more definitively this season.) On the other hand, there's the now-infamous Nikki and Paulo (Kiele Sanchez and Rodrigo Santoro), a tagalong couple who were cleverly woven into the previous seasons' key moments but came to bear the brunt of fans' ire toward the show (Sawyer humorously echoed the sentiments by remarking, "Who the hell are you?"). By the end of the season, at least two major characters die, another is told he/she will die within months, major new threats are unveiled, and--as mentioned before--the two-part season finale restores your faith in the series. --Ellen A. Kim Lost: Season Four Season four of Lost was a fine return to form for the series, which polarized its audience the year before with its focus on The Others and not enough on our original crash victims. That season's finale introduced a new storytelling device--the flash-forward--that's employed to great effect this time around; by showing who actually got off the island (known as the Oceanic Six), the viewer is able to put to bed some longstanding loose ends. As the finale attests, we see that in the future Jack (Matthew Fox) is broken, bearded, and not sober, while Kate (Evangeline Lilly) is estranged from Jack and with another guy (the identity may surprise you). Four others do make it back to their homes, but as the flash-forwards show, it's definitely not the end of their connection to the island. Back in present day, however, the islanders are visited by the denizens of a so-called rescue ship, who have agendas of their own. While Jack works with the newcomers to try to get off the island, Locke (Terry O'Quinn), with a few followers of his own, forms an uneasy alliance with Ben (Michael Emerson) against the suspicious gang. Some episodes featuring the new characters feel like filler, but the evolution of such characters as Sun and Jin (Yunjin Kim and Daniel Dae Kim) is this season's strength; plus, the love story of Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick) and Penny (Sonya Walger) provides some of the show's emotional highlights. As is the custom with Lost, bullets fly and characters die (while others may or may not have). Moreover, the fate of Michael (Harold Perrineau), last seen traitorously sailing off to civilisation in season two, as well as the flash-forwards of the Oceanic Six, shows you never quite leave the island once you've left. There's a force that pulls them in, and it's a hook that keeps you watching. Season four was a shorter 13 episodes instead of the usual 22 due to the 2008 writers' strike. --Ellen A. Kim Lost: Season Five Since Lost made its debut as a cult phenomenon in 2004, certain things seemed inconceivable. In its fourth year, some of those things, like a rescue, came to pass. The season ended with Locke (Terry O'Quinn) attempting to persuade the Oceanic Six to return, but he dies before that can happen--or so it appears--and where Jack (Matthew Fox) used to lead, Ben (Emmy nominee Michael Emerson) now takes the reins and convinces the survivors to fulfill Locke's wish. As producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse state in their commentary on the fifth-season premiere, "We're doing time travel this year," and the pile-up of flashbacks and flash-forwards will make even the most dedicated fan dizzy. Ben, Jack, Hurley (Jorge Garcia), Sayid (Naveen Andrews), Sun (Yunjin Kim), and Kate (Evangeline Lilly) arrive to find that Sawyer (Josh Holloway) and Juliet (Elizabeth Mitchell) have been part of the Dharma Initiative for three years. The writers also clarify the roles that Richard (Nestor Carbonell) and Daniel (Jeremy Davies) play in the island's master plan, setting the stage for the prophecies of Daniel's mother, Eloise Hawking (Fionnula Flanagan), to play a bigger part in the sixth and final season. Dozens of other players flit in and out, some never to return. A few, such as Jin (Daniel Dae Kim), live again in the past. Lost could've wrapped things up in five years, as The Wire did, but the show continues to excite and surprise. As Lindelof and Cuse admit in the commentary, there's a "fine line between confusion and mystery," adding, "it makes more sense if you're drunk." --Kathleen C. Fennessy

• Dogtooth | Blu Ray | (13/09/2010) from £19.75   |  Saving you £0.24 (1.22%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Winner of Un Certain regard at Cannes A mother and father desperate to shelter their three children from the outside world create a self styled utopia inside the walls of their secluded compound. The three children have never ventured outside and spend their days being educated and entertained within the limits of a strict and suppressive system concocted by their father. So far removed are they from the real world they have their own vocabulary and believe cats to be dangerous wild man eating predators aeroplanes flying overhead to be toys and small yellow flowers to be zombies. When the father invites a trusted outsider into their home to service his son's sexual urges the domestic balance is disturbed and the protective bubble surrounding their lives soon implodes.

• Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush | DVD | (13/09/2010) from £14.90   |  Saving you £5.09 (34.16%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Clive Donner's (The Caretaker) modish and glossy swinging Sixties comedy follows the sexual exploits of irrepressible teenager Jamie (Barry Evans) who is full of adolescent energy obsessed by sex and determined to lose his virginity. Based on the book by respected British author and journalist Hunter Davies (The Beatles authorized biography) and with music by The Spencer Davies Group and Traffic Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush caused a considerable stir when first released due to its taboo-busting portrayal of permissive 60s society and is now rightly regarded as a definitive British coming-of-age film. Unavailable in any format since its initial theatrical run this lost cult classic now receives its home video premier in High-definition.

• Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time | DVD | (13/09/2010) from £7.26   |  Saving you £10.73 (147.80%)   |  RRP £17.99

  In the spirit of Pirates of the Caribbean, Walt Disney Pictures and producer Jerry Bruckheimer present the most fun filled movie of 2010 - Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.

• Gounod: Faust | DVD | (13/09/2010) from £16.89   |  Saving you £1.10 (6.51%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Disc 1 Faust - Programme Start Scene 1 - Rien! En vain j'interroge Scene 2 - Mais ce Dieu que peut-il pour moi? Scene 2 - '' merveille! Scene 1 - Vin ou bi''re Scene 2 - '' sainte m''daille....Avant de quitter ces lieux Scene 3 - Allons amis!....Le veau d'or Scene 3 - Merci de ta chanson! Scene 4 - Nous nous retrouverons mes amis! Scene 5 - Ainsi que la brise l''g''re [Cabaret d'enfer] Scene 1 - Introduction Scene 1 - Faites-lui mes aveux [Flower Song] Scene 2 - C'est ici?....Attendez-moi l'' Scene 2 - Quel trouble inconnu me p''n''tre!....Salut! demeure chaste et pure Scene 2 - Alerte! la voil''! Scene 3 - Je voudrais bien savoir....'Il ''tait un roi de Thul''' Scene 3 - Que vois-je l''?....'' Dieu! que de bijoux! [Jewel Song] Scene 4 - Seigneur Dieu que vois-je! Scene 4 - Prenez mon bras un moment! Scene 5 - Il ''tait temps! Scene 5 - Il se fait tard! Adieu! Scene 5 - '' nuit d'amour ciel radieux! Scene 5 - T''te folle!....Tenez! Elle ouvre sa fen''tre! Disc 2 Scene 1 - Seigneur daignez permettre Scene 2 - D''posons les armes! Scene 2 - Gloire immortelle de nos a''eux [Soldiers' Chorus] Scene 2 - Allons Siebel Scene 3 - Qu'attendez-vous encore?....Vous qui faites l'endormie [Serenade] Scene 3 - Que voulez-vous messieurs? Scene 3 - Par ici par ici mes amis!....''‰coute-moi bien Marguerite! Scene 1 - Entr'acte....Dans les bruy''res Scene 1 - Jusqu'aux premiers feux du matin Scene 2 - Ballet: Qu'as-tu donc?....Ne la vois-tu pas? Scene 3 - Intermezzo Scene 3 - Va-t-en!.... Le jour va luire Scene 3 - Marguerite!....Ah! C'est la voix du bien-aim''! Scene 3 - Alerte alerte ou vous ''tes perdus!....Anges purs Scene 4 - Apotheosis - Christ est ressuscit''!

• Doctor Who - Time And The Rani | DVD | (13/09/2010) from £5.94   |  Saving you £14.05 (236.53%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Doctor Who: Time And The Rani (Dr Who)

• Breathless | DVD | (13/09/2010) from £8.99   |  Saving you £11.00 (122.36%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Landmark French movie that turns the tragi-comic story of small time criminal Michel Poiccard/Laszlo Kovacs (Belmondo) obsessed with both Bogart and an aspiring American journo (Seberg) into a major masterpiece of fickle hedonism. Cigarettes hats sunglasses and determined unconformity make Belmondo a true cinematic icon playing against the stunning Seberg to a sharp jazz score in the coolest of cities. Crafted with elusive spontaneity Godard's nervy style still looks as good as ever.

• Are You Being Served - The Complete Series | DVD | (13/09/2010) from £50.45   |  Saving you £-15.46 (N/A%)   |  RRP £34.99

  Are You Being Served?: The Complete Collection (10 Discs)

• Queer As Folk (Definitive Edition) | DVD | (13/09/2010) from £37.95   |  Saving you £-7.96 (N/A%)   |  RRP £29.99

  Television has become so much a part of our lives that it rarely surprises us anymore, so when a series like Queer as Folk comes along--truly shocking and genuinely touching--it's an event to be remembered. Originally broadcast as eight half-hour episodes on Channel 4, QAF follows the lives of three men through life, love and all the travails of such in Manchester. That the protagonists are all gay--and Nathan (Charlie Hunnam) is just 15 years old--is treated as matter of course, and were it not for the fact that every character who is introduced is so vividly realised, it would be the only point. The ultimate triumph of QAF is not that the explicit, explosive subject matter is handled (mostly) tastefully, or that it made it on screen at all--it's that the characters are so intriguing that the unflinching looks at sex and relationships almost fade completely into the background. The series certainly starts with a bang: in the first episode, young Nathan is deflowered, Stuart (Aiden Gillen) becomes a father and Vince (Craig Kelly) pines away with an unrequited love that quickly establishes itself as the series' main theme. (That Vince spends half of QAF with a boyfriend complicates the situation some.) Nathan has already come to terms with his sexuality by the time the series starts, but that doens't mean that the rest of his family--or his fellow students--have; Stuart, the biggest (or, at least, busiest) stud in town, and QAF's approaches 30 and starts to re-examine his life; and Vince has to live with the rest of them. The parents, families, friends and co-workers of all involved get plenty of screen time, and occasionally steal the scenes themselves--especially Denise Black (hairdresser Denise Osbourne from Coronation Street). The DVD includes a Photo Gallery and a handful of interviews, which add little to the package. --Randy Silver

• Date Night | DVD | (13/09/2010) from £4.66   |  Saving you £15.33 (328.97%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Tina Fey and Steve Carell join forces as a buttoned up, suburban couple looking to reignite the spark in their ritual "Date Night".

• Mulholland Drive | Blu Ray | (13/09/2010) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Pandora couldn't resist opening the forbidden box containing all the delusions of mankind, and let's just say in Mulholland Drive David Lynch indulges a similar impulse. Employing a familiar film noir atmosphere to unravel, as he coyly puts it, "a love story in the city of dreams", Lynch establishes a foreboding but playful narrative in the film's first half before subsuming all of Los Angeles and its corrupt ambitions into his voyeuristic universe of desire. Identities exchange, amnesia proliferates and nightmare visions are induced, but not before we've become enthralled by the film's two main characters: the dazed and sullen femme fatale, Rita (Laura Elena Harring), and the pert blonde just-arrived from Ontario (played exquisitely by Naomi Watts) who decides to help Rita regain her memory. Triggered by a rapturous Spanish-language version of Roy Orbison's "Crying", Lynch's best film since Blue Velvet splits glowingly into two equally compelling parts. --Fionn Meade

• Bloodsport 4 | DVD | (13/09/2010) from £11.82   |  Saving you £-1.83 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Daniel Bernhardt returns as John Keller the cop and martial arts expert with a chip on his shoulder in The Final Chapter: Bloodsport 4. Keller's investigative unit discovers that several inmates of local prisons have been executed and their bodies have suspiciously disappeared. Keller is asked to volunteer for an undercover assignment as an inmate to get some answers. When a fight is staged within the prison walls Keller is incorrectly blamed for the death of two officers. Now branded a cop killer himself he is sent to Death Row his cover still intact. His partner Christy Blaire is his only link to the outside world. On Death Row he discovers a world of corruption and violence in which a sadistic senior warden and his guards provoke bloodthirsty fights between inmates as a source of entertainment.

• Gaudi's Barcelona | DVD | (13/09/2010) from £12.99   |  Saving you £4.00 (30.79%)   |  RRP £16.99

  Antoni Gaudi was an eccentric dandy and a devout Catholic. The campaign to persuade the Vatican to make him a saint still goes on. But his legacy of extraordinary colourful and simply weird buildings has made him perhaps the world's best known architect. All this despite the fact that his work was limited to one country - Spain - and almost to one city Barcelona. Every year millions of tourists flock to see the mysterious neo-Gothic outline of the Casa Battlo the rollercoaster roof of the Pedrera or the still unfinished Sagrada Familia. The strange contours of the Gaudi monuments bring joy to young and old alike. This DVD tells the life story of Gaudi from his unremarkable origins through a doomed infatuation with a divorcee to the tragic street accident which ended his life. Along the way we visit the much-loved masterpieces and hear how they came about as well as peeking at some of the lesser-known but still wonderful buildings not on the usual tourist trail. The infectious enthusiasm of narrator Robert Elms is married with some stunning photography - brilliant pictures celebrating the brilliant artwork of this peculiar genius.

• Lost - The Complete Sixth Season | Blu Ray | (13/09/2010) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £60.99

  It’s taken a long time to get here, but finally, the last season of Lost arrives, with answers to at least some of the questions that fans of the show have been demanding for the past few years. In true Lost fashion, it doesn’t tie all its mysteries up with a bow, but it does at least answer some of the questions that have long being gestating. In the series opening, for instance, we finally learn the secret of the smoke monster, which is a sizeable step in the right direction. In terms of quality, the show has been on an upward curve since the end date of the programme was announced, and season six arguably finds Lost at its most confident to date. Never mind the fact that it’s juggling lots of proverbial balls: there’s a very clear end point here, and the show benefits enormously from it. Naturally, Lost naysayers will probably find themselves more alienated than ever here. But this boxset nonetheless marks the passing of a major television show, one that has cleverly managed to reinvent itself on more than one occasion, and keep audiences across the world gripped as a result. There’s going to be nothing quite like it for a long time to come… --Jon Foster

• I Am Love | DVD | (13/09/2010) from £8.45   |  Saving you £7.54 (89.23%)   |  RRP £15.99

  The matriarch of a wealthy Milanese family finds comfort and routine in a life geared towards her husband and children. But a chance encounter ignites long repressed passions and sets her on a journey of sexual awakening.

• Scarlet Pimpernel - The Complete Series 1 & 2 | DVD | (13/09/2010) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Scarlet Pimpernel: The Complete Series 1 & 2 (4 Discs)

• Songs From The Road | DVD | (13/09/2010) from £10.75   |  Saving you £3.24 (30.14%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Tracklist:1. Lover Lover Lover2. Bird On The Wire3. Chelsea Hotel4. Heart With No Companion5. That Don't Make It Junk6. Waiting For The Miracle7. Avalanche8. Suzanne9. The Partisan10. Famous Blue Raincoat11. Hallelujah12. Closing Time

• American Werewolf In London / Mary Shelleys Frankenstein / Dracula / The Thing | DVD | (13/09/2010) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  American Werewolf In London: One of the most gripping horror films of all time is now available in a new 2 disc DVD Special Edition! When two American students touring the English countryside are attacked by a vicious wolf during a full moon, their lives are suddenly transformed forever. Featuring ground-breaking Academy Award-winning make-up by Rick Baker, this cult favourite is directed by John Landis (National Lampoon's Animal House) and perfectly blends the macabre with a touch of humour. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: It is the late 18th Century. After the death of his beloved mother, young Victor Frankenstein leaves his father and Elizabeth, the adopted sister he passionately loves, to attend university. Here he becomes obsessed with the teachings of Professor Walman who believes that living creatures can actually be created from dead matter. One electrifying night, Frankenstein's efforts are rewarded as his Creature struggles to life. Alone, despised and driven by a rage of emotional agony, it sets off to find its maker. And so begins the nightmare that will engulf Victor Frankenstein... Dracula: Francis Ford Coppola returns to the original source of the Dracula to create a modern masterpiece. It follows the tortured journey of the devastatingly seductive Transylvanian Prince (Gary Oldman) as he moves from Eastern Europe to 19th century London in search of his long lost Elisabeta, who is reincarnated as the beautiful Mina (Winona Ryder)... The Thing: Horror-meister John Carpenter teams Kurt Russell's outstanding performance with incredible visuals to build this chilling version of the classic The Thing. In the winter of 1982, a twelve-man research team at a remote Antarctic research station discovers an alien buried in the snow for over 100,000 years. Soon unfrozen, the shape-shifting alien wreaks havoc, creates terror and becomes one of them...

• Le Cercle Rouge | Blu Ray | (13/09/2010) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Master thief Corey is fresh out of prison. But instead of toeing the line of law-abiding freedom he finds his steps leading back to the shadowy world of crime crossing paths with a notorious escapee and an alcoholic ex-cop. As the unlikely trio plots a heist against impossible odds their trail is pursued by a relentless inspector and fate begins to seal their destinies. Taking its title from Buddhist Iore Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Cercle Rouge combines honorable anti-heroes coolly atmospheric cinematography and breathtaking set pieces to create a masterpiece of crime cinema.