"Actor: Abel"

• Timbuktu Blu-ray | Blu Ray | (10/08/2015) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Passionate, humanistic and enormously powerful, Mauritanian director Abderrahmane Sissako's Timbuktu was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 87th Academy Awards and screened in competition for the Palme d'Or at Cannes Film Festival 2014. Not far from Timbuktu, Kidane lives peacefully in the dunes with his wife Satima, his daughter Toya, and Issan, their twelve-year-old shepherd. In town, the people struggle under a regime of terror imposed by invading Jihadists determined to control their faith and threaten their way of life. Music, laughter, cigarettes, even football have been banned and every day the new improvised courts issue tragic and absurd sentences. Kidane and his family are being spared the chaos that prevails in Timbuktu, but their destiny changes when Kidane runs foul of the foreign occupants and is confronted by their merciless new laws. Based on the forceful takeover of Mail in 2012, Timbuktu is at once searing and poetic; an extraordinary fable about the dangers of religious extremism that also conveys the rich cultural heritage of the Malian people.

• Metropolis | Blu Ray | (19/01/2015) from £31.98   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £29.99

  If you think you know Fritz Lang's Metropolis backwards, this special edition will come as a revelation. Shortly after its premiere, the expensive epic--originally well over two hours--was pulled from distribution and re-edited against Lang's wishes, and this truncated, simplified form is what we have known ever since 1926. Though not quite as fully restored as the strapline claims, this 118-minute version is the closest we are likely to get to Lang's original vision, complete with tactful linking titles to fill in the scenes that are irretrievably missing. Not only does this version add many scenes unseen for decades, but it restores their order in the original version. Until now, Metropolis has usually been rated as a spectacular but simplistic science fiction film, but this version reveals that the futuristic setting is not so much prophetic as mythical, with elements of 1920s architecture, industry, design and politics mingled with the mediaeval and the Biblical to produce images of striking strangeness: a futuristic robot burned at the stake, a steel-handed mad scientist who is also a 15th Century alchemist, the trudging workers of a vast factory plodding into the jaws of a machine that is also the ancient God Moloch. Gustav Frohlich's performance as the hero who represents the heart is still wildly overdone, but Rudolf Klein-Rogge's engineer Rotwang, Alfred Abel's Master of Metropolis and, especially, Brigitte Helm in the dual role of saintly saviour and metal femme fatale are astonishing. By restoring a great deal of story delving into the mixed motivations of the characters, the wild plot now makes more sense, and we can see that it is as much a twisted family drama as epic of repression, revolution and reconciliation. A masterpiece, and an essential purchase. On the DVD: Metropolis has been saddled with all manner of scores over the years, ranging from jazz through electronica to prog-rock, but here it is sensibly accompanied by the orchestral music Gottfried Huppertz wrote for it in the first place. An enormous amount of work has been done with damaged or incomplete elements to spruce the image up digitally, and so even the scenes that were in the film all along shine with a wealth of new detail and afford a far greater appreciation for the brilliance of art direction, special effects and Helm's clockwork sexbomb. A commentary written but not delivered by historian Ennio Patalas covers the symbolism of the film and annotates its images, but the production information is left to a measured but unchallenging 45-minute documentary on the second disc (little is made of the astounding parallel between the screen story in which Klein-Rogge's character tries to destroy the city because the Master stole his wife and the fact that Lang married the actor's wife Thea von Harbou, authoress of the Metropolis novel and screenplay!). There are galleries of production photographs and sketches; biographies of all the principals; and an illustrated lecture on the restoration process which uses before and after clips to reveal just how huge a task has been accomplished in this important work. --Kim Newman

• Rumba | DVD | (22/03/2010) from £4.45   |  Saving you £11.54 (259.33%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Paying homage to Buster Keaton and Jacques Tati, this highly original and surreal comedy set in a colourful world, magically blends theatre, dance, mime and dialogue and will appeal to all film fans seeking out something different this summer.

• Apres Vous | DVD | (06/03/2006) from £6.73   |  Saving you £9.26 (57.90%)   |  RRP £15.99

  A very tasty comedy with a little French twist. A random act of kindness snowballs into vivid proof that ""no good deed goes unpunished"" in Aprs Vous the irresistible French comedy that garnered actor Daniel Auteuil a Csar Award nomination for Best Actor. Antoine (Auteuil) a restaurant headwaiter takes a shortcut through a park one night and spots Louis (Jos Garcia) a despondent lovelorn stranger attempting to kill himself. Antoine intervenes - despite Louis'

• Box Of The Banned | DVD | (26/09/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £29.99

  Video Nasties.... For the first time ever 'together' six of the most shocking depraved and corrupt movies which were banned under the Obscene Publication Act 1983/4 - Along with a feature length documentary 'Ban The Sadist Videos' which was a headline for the Daily Mail at the height of the frenzy. Zombie Flesh Eaters (1979): There is something sinister about the sailing-boat drifting slowly in Hudson Bay upon boarding the coast-guard police are confronted with a terrifying sight appearing out of the hatchway - a man covered in blood walks towards them menacingly only after being shot repeatedly does he fall overboard and disappear amid the waves. This news causes a panic in America as the sailing-boat belonged to a famous scientist who mysteriously disappeared in the Caribbean. Ann the scientist's daughter together with a famous journalist Peter West set out to look for him setting sail on a schooner belonging to Brian an American Ethnologist and Susan an underwater photographer they head for the Caribbean. Meanwhile on Mutal Island in the Antilles professor Menard is conducting strange experiments. What follows in the Caribbean and later in New York is truly terrifying - Zombie Flesh Eaters are here! (Dir. Lucio Fulci) I Spit On Your Grave (1978): Jenny (Camille Keaton) a New Yorker who goes to a secluded country retreat to finish work on her novel is one day assaulted raped and left for dead by four men. But she survives to take revenge. She seduces each of her rapists separately and personally performs their painful executions... (Dir. Meir Zarchi) Driller Killer (1979): Reno is struggling artist close to breaking point. The loud punk band in the flat next door practices for 24 hours a day. His debts are mounting. He needs to sell his new painting to pay the overdue rent on the shabby New York apartment he shares with his girlfriend and her spaced-out lesbian lover. Despite the desperate need for cash Reno will not admit that he has completed the painting. It becomes an obsession. In his troubled mind the picture triggers a violence he cannot contain... (Dir. Abel Ferrara) The Last House On The Left (1972): The terrifying story of two teenage girls Mari and Phyllis heading up to the city to celebrate Mari's 17th birthday at concert by the band Bloodlust. Prior to the show the pair are drugged beaten and kidnapped by a group of escaped convicts and taken into the woods where their horrific ordeal ends in rape and murder. When the criminals coincidentally but unknowingly take refuge at the nearby house of one of their victims the girl's parents discover the gruesome fate of their daughter and seek to exact their revenge... (Dir. Wes Craven) Nightmares In A Damaged Brain (1981): Escaped mental patient George (Baird Stafford) repeatedly suffers a graphic nightmare that depicts the axe murders of a couple making love. In Florida a prowler stalks a babysitter - when she is attacked the youngest child she is looking after just sits and laughs... George begins a journey of brutal murder death and destruction until the final moment of truth when his nightmares come to frightening life! (Dir. Romano Scavolini) The Evil Dead (1982): In the literary tradition of Stephen King and the cinematic mode of George Romero (Night of the Living Dead) The Evil Dead is a visual and aural attack on the senses which requires a strong stomach and a healthy sense of humour! Whilst holidaying in the Tennessee woodlands five innocent teenagers unwittingly unleash the spirit of the evil dead. One by one the teenagers fall victim to the frenzied flesh-eating monsters amidst a tour-de-force display of stunning special effects. (Dir. Sam Raimi)

• 13 Rue Madeleine | DVD | (03/05/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  A group of Allied agents prepare to infiltrate German intelligence in Paris to find the whereabouts of a secret rocket site during World War 2. Their task is made even more hazardous by the fact that one of them is a double agent...

• Against The Sun | DVD | (14/03/2016) from £6.93   |  Saving you £6.06 (87.45%)   |  RRP £12.99

  In one of the most harrowing true stories of World War II, three US Navy airmen crash land their torpedo bomber in the South Pacific and find themselves on a tiny life raft, surrounded by open ocean. No food. No water. No hope of rescue. Against incredible odds, these three virtual strangers must survive storms, sharks, starvation and each other as they try to sail more than a thousand miles to safety.

• Lost In Paris | Blu Ray | (04/12/2017) from £16.98   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Fiona visits Paris for the first time to assist her myopic Aunt Martha. Catastrophes ensue, mainly involving Dom, a homeless man who has yet to have an emotion or thought he was afraid of expressing.

• John Wayne: Complete Paramount Collection | DVD | (06/01/2014) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £49.99

  Box set containing fourteen John Wayne films: True Grit (1969), El Dorado (1966), The Sons of Katie Elder (1965), In Harm's Way (1965), The Shootist (1976), The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), Rio Lobo (1970), Big Jake (1971), Donovan's Reef (1963), Hatari! (1961), McLintock! (1963), Island in the Sky (1953), Hondo (1953) and The High and the Mighty (1954).

• Untouchables - Series 2 | DVD | (14/09/2009) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £34.99

  The gangs of Chicago didn't know what hit them. Considered one of the best crime series of its time the hit show starred Emmy'' winner Robert Stack (Unsolved Mysteries) as real-life Chicago gangbuster and prohibition agent Eliot Ness famous for bringing down the notorious Al Capone. Executive Produced by Quinn Martin (TV's The Fugitive) and narrated by Walter Winchell whose distinctive voice lent credibility to the show the resulting series depicting 1930s Chicago was dramatic fiction with documentary authenticity... and became an instant classic! Each week Ness and his men wrestled with such flavorful villains as Dutch Schultz Lucky Luciano... even Ma Barker! But these agents could never be bought off. They were The Untouchables!

• John Wayne - Complete Paramount Collection | DVD | (12/11/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £49.99

  This boxset features the following films: Hondo: Wayne plays Hondo Lane a cavalry rider who becomes the designated protector of the strong-willed Angie Lowe (Geraldine Page) as well as a father figure to her boy Johnny (Lee Aaker). Angie determinedly awaiting the return of her brutish husband (Leo Gordon) refuses to leave their homestead despite the growing danger from nearby warring Native American tribes. And she finds herself growing more and more enthralled with this stranger Hondo - a man hardened by experience but still capable of sympathy kindness and love. McLintock: George McLintock has to try and convince his wife that he has been faithful after a two year seperation with their fights the talk of the town. Matters are not helped by the extremely attractive cook Mrs Louise Warren he has hired at the ranch house... True Grit: A drunken hard-nosed U.S. Marshal and a Texas Ranger help a stubborn young woman track down her father's murderer in Indian territory. Rio Lobo: After the Civil War Cord McNally searches for the traitor whose perfidy caused the defeat of McNally's unit and the loss of a close friend. El Dorado: Robert Mitchum plays to perfection an alchoholic but gutsy sheriff who relentlessly battles the dark side of the wild West ruthless cattle barons and crooked businessmen. The Duke gives an equally adept performance as the sheriff's old friend who knows his way around a gunfight. Filled with brawling action and humor El Dorado delivers the goods. James Caan and Ed Asner co-star. Big Jake: John Wayne is Jacob McCandles an ageing cowboy in an Old West that is on the verge of modernization. When his eight-year-old grandson is kidnapped by a violent gang led by the evil John Fain (Richard Boone) Jacob's estranged wife (Maureen O'Hara) enlists his help to rescue the boy. Jacob and his three sons (one of whom is portrayed by Wayne's real-life son Patrick) set out to bring the gang to justice. The Shootist: A dying gunfighter spends his last days looking for a way to die with a minimum of pain and a maximum of dignity. The Sons of Katie Elder: Ranch owner Katie Elder's four sons determine to avenge the murder of their father and the swindling of their mother. Features John Wayne Dean Martin Earl Holliman and Michael Anderson. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance: A senator who became famous for killing a notorious outlaw returns for the funeral of an old friend and tells the truth about his deed. Hatari! A group of men trap wild animals in Africa and sell them to zoos. Will the arrival of a female wildlife photographer change their ways? In Harm's Way: A naval officer reprimanded after Pearl Harbor is later promoted to rear admiral and gets a second chance to prove himself against the Japanese. The High and the Mighty: Wayne plays Dan Roman a veteran pilot haunted by a tragic past. Now relegated to second-in-command cockpit assignments he finds himself scheduled on a routine Honolulu-to-San Francisco flight - one that takes a terrifying suspense-building turn when disaster strikes high above the Pacific Ocean at the point of no return. Island in the Sky: Set after World War II Wayne play Dooley a former army pilot flying transport missions who is forced to crash-land his fuel-starved plane on a frozen lake after is strays from its course. Donovan's Reef: Life on a South Pacific island for two ex-Navy buddies is just about perfect. That is until a beautiful straight-laced Bostonian arrives on the island in search of her father...

• Untouchables: Complete Season 3 | DVD | (20/09/2010) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  The Untouchables: Season 3

• The Silent House (Original) | DVD | (01/08/2011) from £5.49   |  Saving you £12.50 (227.69%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Inspired by true events The Silent House was filmed in one continuous amazingly relentless shot with no edits. One of the most terrifying intense and horrific films in modern horror it's also one of the most groundbreaking since The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity. Shy introverted Laura and her jaded father have promised to clean an old friend's property in order for it to be sold. Travelling deep into the hostile unforgiving landscape of rural Uruguay they are to spend the night in an isolated run down cottage. With no civilisation for hundreds of miles and no electricity or modern conveniences within the property Laura begins to dread the on coming night. As darkness prevails her father investigates a strange noise from the above floor. When he doesn't return Laura has nothing but fear to console her. But She's not alone. Something is waiting in the shadows something that knows her worst nightmares.

• L'Argent | DVD | (24/11/2008) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £22.99

  Adapted from ''‰mile Zola's novel of the same name Marcel L'Herbier's L'Argent [Money] is an opulent classic of late-silent era cinema. Filmed in part on location at the Paris stock exchange it reveals a world of intrigue greed decadence and ultimately corruption and scandal when business dealings and amorous deceit combine. Business tycoons Saccard and Gunderman lock horns when the former attempts to raise capital for his faltering bank. To inflate the price of his stock Saccard concocts a duplicitous publicity stunt involving the unwitting aviator Hamelin and a flight across the Atlantic to drill for oil much to the dismay of his wife Line. While Hamelin is away the lascivious Saccard attempts to seduce Line whose own temptation by the allure of money puts herself and her husband in danger - pawns in a high-stakes chess game played out by unscrupulous speculators. With an all-star cast (Brigitte Helm and Alfred Abel fresh from Fritz Lang's Metropolis alongside Pierre Alcover Yvette Guilbert and luminary of the French avantgarde Antonin Artaud) and a mammoth budget L'Argent is comparable in period and scale with other celebrated epics of the silent era such as Abel Gance's Napol''on. With its use of portable cameras that literally descend into the Bourse and revolve around its lavish contours L'Argent represents a type of cinematic Impressionism distinctive to the silent art - a poetry that would change forever with the coming of sound.

• 13 Rue Madeleine | DVD | (09/05/2005) from £6.73   |  Saving you £6.26 (48.20%)   |  RRP £12.99

  A group of Allied agents prepare to infiltrate German intelligence in Paris to find the whereabouts of a secret rocket site during World War 2. Their task is made even more hazardous by the fact that one of them is a double agent...

• Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters | Blu Ray | (03/03/2014) from £14.83   |  Saving you £10.16 (68.51%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Percy Jackson, the son of Poseidon, continues the epic journey to fulfill his destiny, as he teams with his demigod friends to retrieve the Golden Fleece, which has the power to save their home and training ground, Camp Half-Blood.

• Metropolis | Blu Ray | (22/11/2010) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £29.99

  With its dizzying depiction of a futuristic cityscape and alluring female robot Metropolis is among the most famous of all German films and the mother of sci-fi cinema (an influence on Blade Runner and Star Wars among countless other films). Directed by the legendary Fritz Lang (M Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse The Big Heat etc.) its jaw-dropping production values iconic imagery and modernist grandeur - it was described by Luis Bu'uel as a captivating symphony of movement - remain as powerful as ever. Drawing on - and defining - classic sci-fi themes Metropolis depicts a dystopian future in which society is thoroughly divided in two: while anonymous workers conduct their endless drudgery below ground their rulers enjoy a decadent life of leisure and luxury. When Freder (Gustav Fr''hlich) ventures into the depths in search of the beautiful Maria (Brigitte Helm in her debut role) plans of rebellion are revealed and a Mariareplica robot is programmed by mad inventor Rotwang (Rudolf Klein-Rogge) and master of Metropolis Joh Fredersen (Alfred Abel) to incite the workers into a self-destructive riot. A Holy Grail among film finds Metropolis is presented here in a newly reconstructed and restored version as lavish and spectacular as ever thanks to the painstaking archival work of the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung and the discovery of 25 minutes of footage previously thought lost to the world. Lang's enduring epic can finally be seen - for the first time in 83 years - as the director originally intended and as seen by German cinema-goers in 1927.

• The Affairs of Susan | DVD | (21/03/2016) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Oscar-winning screen idol Joan Fontaine (Suspicion, Rebecca) stars as Susan Darrell, a stunning but naïve actress from New York who is about to get married. Though she only met her fiancé Richard (Walter Abel) a few weeks previously, the lovebirds are set on tying the knot and throw a party to celebrate. Mingling amongst their guests, Richard finds three former because of Susan's and starts probing them on how they met. All the men clearly still carry a torch for Susan, but each of them knows a very different woman not so naïve after all. Broadway big-shot Roger (George Brent), Millionaire Mike (Don DeFore) and novelist Bill (Dennis O'Keefe) each give Richard a conflicting portrait of his fiancée. With their wedding rapidly approaching, Richard is left wondering exactly what kind of woman he will be facing at the altar William A. Seiter (Laurel and Hardy Sons of the Desert) directs an all-star cast in this sharp, witty comedy-drama as chaotic and enchanting as Susan herself. Also stars Byron Barr.

• Holiday Inn | DVD | (01/12/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Holiday Inn is the perennial Christmas-season favourite from 1942 that teams Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire as entertainers (and rival suitors of Marjorie Reynolds) running an inn that is only open on holidays. It's a great excuse for lots of singing and dancing, seamlessly wrapped in a catchy story, and Astaire's frequent director Mark Sandrich (Top Hat, Shall We Dance) doesn't let us down. The Irving Berlin numbers (each one connected to a different holiday) are winners, with Crosby's warm performance of "White Christmas" a movie touchstone. --Tom Keogh

• Modern Life | DVD | (27/07/2009) from £21.02   |  Saving you £-5.03 (-31.50%)   |  RRP £15.99

  A truly uplifting cinematic experience infused with warmth and care from filmmaker Depardon who spent 20 years chronicling life in rural France.