New Releases

• Band Of Brothers | DVD | (31/01/2011) from £19.98   |  Saving you £-4.19 (N/A%)   |  RRP £13.80

  A genuinely epic achievement, the 10-part World War II drama Band of Brothers is a television series that makes big-screen Hollywood war movies look small in comparison. Based on the book by historian Stephen Ambrose, the series follows the US 101st Airborne Division's "Easy" E-Company from initial training through D-Day and across Holland, Belgium, Germany and Austria until the end of the war. Coproduced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, the series take its initial inspiration from Saving Private Ryan and borrows that film's visceral visual approach to combat scenes using hand-held camerawork and de-saturated photography. But where Band of Brothers excels is in its scrupulous attention to the realities of military life (retired US Marine Captain Dale Dye, who also co-stars, is the man to credit). After the high drama of the parachute drop on D-Day, Easy's greatest trial comes during the Battle of the Bulge, when they are besieged at Bastogne in the depths of winter. In one of the most harrowing and credible depictions of war ever committed to film we see the men enduring the repeated artillery attacks of the German forces and experience, if only vicariously, some of the sheer terror of the assault, while being humbled by the soldiers' courage and determination. Such feelings are enhanced by the series' masterstroke--bookend interviews with the surviving members of Easy Company, who talk with barely suppressed emotion of the experiences we see recreated. The endorsement of these veterans elevates Band of Brothers beyond any mere "war film"--its extraordinary achievement is that it shows the horror and savagery of war without gloss or jingoism, and yet celebrates the fraternal bonds and dogged heroism of the men who fought. On the DVD: Band of Brothers arrives handsomely packaged in a six-disc box set with two episodes on each of the first five discs. Sound (Dolby 5.1) and picture (1.78:1 widescreen) only enhance the series' epic credentials. Disc 6 contains all the extras, the meatiest of which is the marvellous 80-minute documentary "We Stand Alone Together" about the real men of Easy Company. There's also a first-rate, genuinely interesting 30-minute "making of" feature about actor boot camp, visual effects and blowing up fake trees among many other things. This is complemented by actor Ron Livingston's revealing Video Diaries of boot camp. Additionally there's a "Who's Who" section and footage of the HBO premiere at Utah Beach, plus a TV spot for car company Jeep. --Mark Walker

• Upstairs Downstairs: the Compl | DVD | (31/01/2011) from £38.98   |  Saving you £23.00 (62.18%)   |  RRP £59.99

  Upstairs Downstairs takes place in 165 Eaton Place from the turn of the century through the Great War and into the Roaring Twenties. It concerns the Bellamy family: politician Richard Bellamy his wives Marjorie and Virginia wastrel son James wayward daughter Elizabeth and his flighty ward Georgina Worsley. The house domestics are led by Hudson the Butler a conservative Scot who must contend with the 'below stairs' behaviour of the household staff including cook Mrs Bridges and maids Rose and Sarah. A spectacular critical and ratings success when first transmitted on ITV Upstairs Downstairs still maintains its position as one of the major success stories of British television worldwide. Multi award-winning (including ones from BAFTA the Writers Guild the Royal Television Society Emmies and Golden Globes) the series stars Jean Marsh Gordon Jackson Angela Baddeley Pauline Collins and Lesley-Anne Down. This boxset contains all 68 episodes from the five series of Upstairs Downstairs originally transmitted between 1971 and 1975.

• Snatch | DVD | (31/01/2011) from £9.98   |  Saving you £-2.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Brad Pitt and Vinnie Jones star in this tale of a London jewel heist, the new film from the director of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.

• Doctor Who - Mutants | DVD | (31/01/2011) from £7.85   |  Saving you £12.14 (154.65%)   |  RRP £19.99

  When a strange message pod turns up at UNIT HQ the Doctor and his assistant Jo suddenly find themselves involved in another dangerous mission for the Time Lords. The TARDIS takes them to Skybase One above the inhospitable Solos. It is the 30th century and the planet is about to gain independence from Earth's glorious empire. But someone on Solos has other plans and alarmingly the natives are slowly mutating into fierce-looking creatures. It's time for the Doctor and Jo to find out why...

• Close Encounters Of The Third Kind | DVD | (31/01/2011) from £7.55   |  Saving you £-1.56 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Anybody who has written him off because of a string of stinkers--or anybody who's too young to remember The Goodbye Girl--may be shocked at the accomplishment and nuance of Richard Dreyfuss's performance in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Here, he plays a man possessed. Contacted by aliens, he (along with other members of the "chosen") is drawn toward the site of the incipient landing: Devil's Tower, in rural Wyoming. As in many Spielberg films, there are no personalised enemies; the struggle is between those who have been called and a scientific establishment that seeks to protect them by keeping them away from the arriving spacecraft. The ship, and the special effects in general, are every bit as jaw-dropping on DVD as they were in the theatre (well, almost). Released in 1977 as a cerebral alternative to the swashbuckling science fiction epics then in vogue, Close Encounters now seems almost wholesome in its representation of alien contact and interested less in philosophising about extra-terrestrials than it is in examining the nature of the inner "call." Ultimately a motion picture about the obsession of the driven artist or determined visionary, Close Encounters comes complete with the stock Spielberg wives and girlfriends who seek to tether the dreamy, possessed protagonists to the more mundane concerns of the everyday. So a spectacular, seminal motion picture indeed (albeit one with gender politics that are all too terrestrial). --Miles Bethany

• Stepmom | DVD | (31/01/2011) from £7.97   |  Saving you £-1.98 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Although Stepmom was dismissed as a contender in the 1998 Oscar race, it's worth giving a second chance to this rather cogent, sharp-tongued look at second chances. Susan Sarandon's performance as a mum about to be replaced by her ex-husband's new girlfriend (played by Julia Roberts) has a lot of bite, and it's a shame the script opted to trivialise her plight in its final reel. Initially, the rancour that passes between divorced mum Jackie (Sarandon) and trendy fashion photographer Isabel (Roberts) rings true, aided by the sincerity of Jackie's ex-husband Luke (Ed Harris) and the emotional plight of their children, who have the most to lose in their parents' divorce. As the drama makes clear, the children are the real victims in the agony that ensues between old and new love. Director Chris Columbus, who is adept at showing familial chaos (he directed Mrs. Doubtfire and Home Alone) with a sanitised minimum of lingering emotional damage, actually manages to dig a trifle deeper than usual in exploring the jealousy and hurt that occur when the baton is passed between a birth mum and the younger wife who steps into her shoes. Stepmom fortunately manages to touch on that chord--showing how an ambitious woman might feel hampered by the responsibility of children just because she's fallen in love with their dad--as well as the haunting grief that it causes their birth mum. It's an issue that haunts millions of second wives everywhere, and while Roberts conveys the confusion of being taken for granted in the melee that follows, it's Sarandon who walks off with the film. She's relentless in her fury, and everyone else in the film--the generally excellent Harris included--is sideswiped. It's just a shame that Hollywood once again wimps out in the end, solving the problem by giving Sarandon a terminal illness. Instead of allowing Jackie and Isabel's relationship to unfold on something less than a high note, the movie has to quell its best thing with a false payoff because it doesn't know what to do with real life. --Paula Nechak, Amazon.com

• Mr Nice | DVD | (31/01/2011) from £8.05   |  Saving you £11.94 (148.32%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Most wanted. Most wasted. During the mid 1980s Howard Marks (Rhys Ifans) had forty-three aliases eighty-nine phone lines and owned twenty-five companies throughout the world. Whether bars recording studios or offshore banks all were money laundering vehicles serving the core activity: dope dealing. At the height of his career he was smuggling consignments of up to thirty tonnes of marijuana from Pakistan and Thailand to America and Canada and had contact with organisations as diverse as MI6 the CIA the IRA and the Mafia.

• Winters Bone | Blu Ray | (31/01/2011) from £10.98   |  Saving you £11.00 (122.36%)   |  RRP £19.99

  17 year-old Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence) embarks on a mission to find her father after he uses their family house as a way of securing his bail and disappears without a trace. Faced with the possibility of losing her home and being turned out into the Ozark woods Ree challenges her outlaw kin's code of silence and risks her life to save her family. She hacks through the lies evasions and threats offered by her relatives and begins to piece together the truth. Winner of the 2010 Sundance Film Festival's Grand Jury Prize and Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award Winter's Bone is directed by Debra Granik (Down To The Bone) and adapted for the screen by Granik and Anne Rosellini. Based on the best-selling novel by Daniel Woodrell this tense naturalistic thriller stars Jennifer Lawrence John Hawkes Kevin Breznahan Dale Dickey Garret Dillahunt Sheryl Lee and Tate Taylor.

• Winter's Bone | DVD | (31/01/2011) from £8.95   |  Saving you £7.04 (78.66%)   |  RRP £15.99

  17 year-old Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence) embarks on a mission to find her father after he uses their family house as a way of securing his bail and disappears without a trace. Faced with the possibility of losing her home and being turned out into the Ozark woods Ree challenges her outlaw kin's code of silence and risks her life to save her family. She hacks through the lies evasions and threats offered by her relatives and begins to piece together the truth. Winner of the 2010 Sundance Film Festival's Grand Jury Prize and Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award Winter's Bone is directed by Debra Granik (Down To The Bone) and adapted for the screen by Granik and Anne Rosellini. Based on the best-selling novel by Daniel Woodrell this tense naturalistic thriller stars Jennifer Lawrence John Hawkes Kevin Breznahan Dale Dickey Garret Dillahunt Sheryl Lee and Tate Taylor.

• Black Hawk Down | DVD | (31/01/2011) from £5.98   |  Saving you £0.01 (0.17%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Ridley Scott directs this fast moving action adventure about the disastrous mission in Somalia on October 3 1993 where nearly 100 U.S. Army Rangers commanded by Capt. Mike Steele were dropped by helicopter deep into the capital city of Mogadishu to capture two top lieutenants of a Somali warlord which leads to a large and chaotic firefight between the Rangers and hundreds of Somali gunmen which destroys two U.S. Black Hawk helicopters in Mogadishu.

• Band Of Brothers | Blu Ray | (31/01/2011) from £23.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  All ten episodes of the award-winning mini-series based on the real-life experiences of American paratroopers who fought in Europe during the Second World War. From their training in Camp Toccoa, Georgia, through their landing in Normandy as part of the D-Day offensive, their participation in the Battle of the Bulge, and all the way up to the final surrender of the German forces, the series follows the adventures of Easy Company, a unit noted for its skill and bravery, but which also suffered a high number of casualties in its journey across Europe. Each episode also features excerpts from actual interviews with surviving members of the company.

• Thomas & Friends | DVD | (31/01/2011) from £5.29   |  Saving you £7.70 (59.30%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Come along with Thomas for a wonderfully wobbly and wheelspinning good time! Your favourite friend has bridges to cross and tracks to uncover in these exciting adventures. When Victor gets overloaded with too many tasks can Thomas help him let out the steam? While trying to get Scruff as clean as a whistle will Thomas have to get his own wheels dirty? Just when things seem to be rolling along will Ol' Wheezy make a wobbly mess of Thomas' special delivery? Hold on for exciting surprises waiting to be delivered just for you! Episodes Comprise: Toby And The Whistling Woods Victor Says Yes Jumping Jobi Wood Thomas And Scruff

• Last Holiday | DVD | (31/01/2011) from £14.98   |  Saving you £1.01 (6.74%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Queen Latifah plays a shy cookware salesperson who throws caution to the wind when she learns her days are numbered.

• Hey There, It's Yogi Bear | DVD | (31/01/2011) from £6.54   |  Saving you £1.45 (22.17%)   |  RRP £7.99

  Between bouts of wit with Ranger Smith Yogi juggles a little romance with Cindy Bear. Because of her fondness for Yogi Cindy finds herself the victim of an evil circus impresario. He has her performing dangerous feats on a high wire while his demented pooch looks on with mad laughter. It is up to Yogi and his sidekick Boo Boo to save her.

• World's Greatest Dad | DVD | (31/01/2011) from £4.98   |  Saving you £10.01 (201.00%)   |  RRP £14.99

  A thoughtful but outrageous comedy from Bobcat Goldthwait World's Greatest Dad is a story about a man that learns that the things you want most may not be the things that make you happy. Robin Williams stars as Lance Clayton a man who has learnt to settle. He dreamed of be a rich and famous writer but has only managed to make it as a high school poetry teacher. His only son Kyle (Daryl Sabara) is an insufferable jackass who won't give his father the time of day. Then in the wake of a freak accident Lance suffers the worst tragedy and the greatest opportunity of his life. He is suddenly faced with the possibility of all the fame fortune and popularity he ever dreamed of if only he can live with the knowledge of how he got there.

• Lawrence Of Arabia | DVD | (31/01/2011) from £9.98   |  Saving you £-2.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  In 1962 Lawrence of Arabia scooped another seven Oscars for David Lean and crew after his previous epic, The Bridge on the River Kwai, had performed exactly the same feat a few years earlier. Supported in this Great War desert adventure by a superb cast including Alex Guinness, Jack Hawkins and Omar Sharif, Peter O'Toole gives a complex, star-making performance as the enigmatic TE Lawrence. The magnificent action and vast desert panoramas were captured in luminous 70mm by Cinematographer Freddie Young, here beginning a partnership with Lean that continued through Dr Zhivago (1965) and Ryan's Daughter (1970). Yet what made the film truly outstanding was Robert (A Man For All Seasons) Bolt's literate screenplay, marking the beginning of yet another ongoing collaboration with Lean. The final partnership established was between director and French composer Maurice Jarre, who won one of the Oscars and scored all Lean's remaining films, up to and including A Passage to India in 1984. Fully restored in 1989, this complete version of Lean's masterpiece remains one of cinema's all-time classic visions. --Gary S Dalkin On the DVD: This vast movie is spread leisurely across two discs, with Maurice Jarre's overture standing in as intermission music for the first track of disc two. But the clarity of the anamorphic widescreen picture and Dolby 5.1 soundtrack justify the decision not to cram the whole thing onto one side of a disc. The movie has never looked nor sounded better than here: the desert landscapes are incredibly detailed, with the tiny nomadic figures in the far distance clearly visible on the small screen; the remastered soundtrack, too, is a joy. Thanks are due to Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg who supervised (and financed) the restoration of the picture in 1989; on disc two Spielberg chats about why David Lean is his favourite director, and why Lawrence had such a profound influence on him both as a child and as a filmmaker (he regularly re-watches the movie before starting any new project). Other features include an excellent and exhaustive "making-of" documentary with contributions from surviving cast and crew (an avuncular Omar Sharif is particularly entertaining as he reminisces about meeting the hawk-like Lean for the first time), some contemporary featurettes designed to promote the movie and a DVD-ROM facility. The extra features are good--especially the documentary--but the breathtaking quality of both anamorphic picture and digital sound are what make this DVD package a triumph. --Mark Walker

• Going The Distance | DVD | (31/01/2011) from £3.55   |  Saving you £12.44 (350.42%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Drew Barrymore and Justin Long star in this romantic comedy about a long distance romance worth fighting for.

• Pathe Collection -A Year To Remember - The 1950s | DVD | (31/01/2011) from £22.99   |  Saving you £2.00 (8.70%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Using rare news footage and interviews from the incredible British Path archive this extraordinary series provides a unique year by year look at what made the news of yesteryear. With a comprehensive hour long programme on each year of the 1950s this 3 disc - set package provides the definitive insight into the decade that took us from post-war austerity to consumer boom. The morale-boosting Festival of Britain in 1951 was held to encourage commerce in challenging times - rationing was still in effect and the post-war baby boom come to fruition in the birth of 'teenage' culture. This sizeable younger population wasmaking its new found spending power felt with the rise of 'Rock n Roll' and the emergence of coffee shops on street corners. Although the decade began with a Labour government with Clement Attlee as Prime Minister the Conservatives would dominate the decade with Winston Churchill Anthony Eden and Howard Macmillan all taking residence at 10 Downing Street. It was a challenging time for the politicians as they dealt with the Suez Canal Crisis the Soviet invasion of Hungary further H-Bomb testing and closer to home the horrific Harrow and Wealdstone train disaster. The whole country was also united in grief with the passing of KingGeorge VI and then with pride as the masses witnessed the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. It was also a period marked by scientific and technological progress; the first Sputnik Satellite the last ride on the London Tram the Polio vaccination and much to the dislike of motorists everywhere the introduction of the parking meter. This collection also features some of the more light hearted events of the decade such as Bing Crosby playing golf in Scotland Bolton Wanderers beating Manchester United to lift the FA Cup and the 100th Varsity Boat Race. Relive all these events and many many more with A Year To Remember: The 1950s.

• Missing | DVD | (31/01/2011) from £14.49   |  Saving you £1.50 (10.35%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Missing

• Yogi Bear - The Complete Series | DVD | (31/01/2011) from £16.25   |  Saving you £8.74 (53.78%)   |  RRP £24.99

  The first break-out superstar of the Hanna-Barbera canon, a genuine show business icon, and smarter than the average bear, The Yogi Bear Show: The Complete Series 4-Disc Collector's set features all 35 remastered and restored episodes from the entire series.