"Actor: Al St John"

• Innerspace | DVD | (26/08/2002) from £6.49   |  Saving you £7.50 (115.56%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Innerspace is assured a place in the Hollywood history books as the movie which brought Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan together as one of cinema's most famous couples. The film itself belongs among a series of feelgood fantasies presented by Steven Spielberg in the 1980s, including Back to the Future (1984) and from the same director, Joe Dante, Gremlins (1983). Innerspace offers Dante's usual mixture of comedy, exciting action and fantasy, the plot being a variation on Fantastic Voyage (1966). Test pilot Quaid is miniaturised and as a result of a bungled attempt to steal the new experimental technology, accidentally injected into the body of a deeply stressed and insecure Martin Short. Quaid is charismatic and commanding, Ryan gives an early demonstration of her patent romantic comedy persona, but it's Short's picture as he delivers a perfectly nuanced performance pitched between slapstick and paranoia. The Oscar-winning special effects enhance rather than dominate the story, which, though it gets a bit too silly in places, is generally inventive and sufficiently action packed to sustain the almost two-hour running time. Jerry Goldsmith's muscular score is a major asset, while in-joke spotters will have fun picking out everyone from Chuck Jones to William Schallert (the doctor in The Incredible Shrinking Man (1! 957)). On the DVD: Innerspace on disc has a group commentary with director Joe Dante, producer Michael Finnell, visual effects supervisor Dennis Muren and actor Kevin McCarthy. This is engaging if far from riveting. The original trailer is anamorphically enhanced and there are two perfunctory pages listing cast, crew and the film's Oscar for special effects. The original Dolby Spectral soundtrack has been remixed into Dolby Digital 5.1 and is bold, clear and powerful. The picture is presented at 1.78:1 and is a virtually flawless transfer: colours are rich, detail levels are high and the only trace of grain is in a few particularly high contrast shots.--Gary S. Dalkin

• Abigail's Party | DVD | (26/05/2003) from £5.49   |  Saving you £10.50 (191.26%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Originally screened as part of BBC's Play for Today series in 1977, Abigail's Party is among Mike Leigh's most celebrated pieces, with his then-wife Alison Steadman appallingly brilliant as what Alan Bennett described as the "brutal hostess" at a ghastly suburban soiree. The Abigail of the title never appears--rather, the dull thud of her lively teenage party forms a distant backdrop (and contrast) to an excruciating evening of chilled red wine, olives and the music of Demis Roussos. Steadman plays the overbearing Beverley, an Amazonian mass of frustrated sensuality in a low-cut party frock. Tim Stern is her small, stressed estate-agent husband. The guests are Janice Duvitski as Angela, a nurse whose quite spectacular gormlessness shields her from the stilted social awkwardness quietly raging around her, John Salthouse as Tony, her taciturn husband and Harriet Reynolds as Sue, the gangly and miserably nervous mother of Abigail. Rather than play for gags, Leigh and his actors mercilessly turn the screw of embarrassment through a series of too-true-to-life exchanges of dialogue, the stuff of all our collective worst memories of encounters with neighbours, aunts and office colleagues. Often misread as a satirical parade of suburban grotesques, Abigail's Party probes deeper than that, touching on nerves of anxiety and repression that throb behind the net curtains of modern England, culminating not in farce but tragedy. Decades on, Abigail's Party is as psychologically true and close to home as ever--hard to bear but utterly brilliant. On the DVD: Abigail's Party is perfectly reproduced here in all its 1970s garishness. The one extra is a short featurette, focussing on Alison Steadman's playing of Beverley, with comments from the original actors in the TV series and Peter York marvelling at her "paint-scraping" voice. --David Stubbs

• See No Evil, Hear No Evil | DVD | (11/09/2000) from £6.99   |  Saving you £6.00 (85.84%)   |  RRP £12.99

  See No Evil, Hear No Evil is a comedy thriller about disability that teeters perpetually on the brink of execrable taste, but more often ends up being bland. Brash blind Wally (Richard Pryor) and mild-mannered, cute deaf Dave (Gene Wilder) form a working partnership based partly on mutual regard and partly on desperation. A man is killed at the counter of their cigar store and neither of them can quite account for their actions or identify the killer, Eve (Joan Severance). They find themselves arrested and subsequently on the run. Eve and her henchman--a surprisingly sinister Kevin Spacey--pursue them remorselessly, searching for a gold coin that is more and less than it appears. Mild sexual chemistry between Wilder and the villainess is perhaps one of the few elements here not entirely watered down from late-period Hitchcock. Playing disability for slapstick is perhaps not the most enlightened way to increase sympathy for the disabled: this is a crass film whose good intentions are more than usually fragile. On the DVD: the disc includes a rather smug featurette and filmographies of the two stars. --Roz Kaveney

• Live 8 | DVD | (07/11/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £34.99

  One Day. One Concert. One World. On July 2nd 2005 nine cities took part in Live 8. Over 150 artists played in front of 2 million spectators across 4 continents. The earth had never seen anything like it! Timed to coincide with the G8 summit meeting in Scotland Live 8 directly called for eight leaders to double aid fully cancel debt and deliver trade justice for Africa; in short to start making poverty history in 2005. Additional features include footage from the July 6t

• Monsters, Inc. 3D | Blu Ray | (25/02/2013) from £11.99   |  Saving you £2.16 (18.02%)   |  RRP £14.15

  Experience the film that captured the hearts of critics and fans around the world in a breathtaking new way. Monsters, Inc. is visually dazzling, action-packed and hilarious, raves the Boston Herald. Experience it like never before in this Ultimate Collector's Edition! Lovable Sulley (John Goodman) and his wisecracking sidekick Mike Wazowski (Billy Crystal) are the top scare team at Monsters, Inc., the scream-processing factory in Monstropolis. When a little girl named Boo wanders into their world, it's the monsters who are scared silly, and it's up to Sulley and Mike to keep her out of sight and get her back home. Open the door to a phenomenal world of excitement and imagination that will have you screaming for more. Loaded with sensational bonus features, including the theatrical short, Partysaurus Rex, Monsters, Inc. is hours of fantastic family fun. Special Features: Filmmakers' Round Table Monsters, Inc. Ride and Go Seek: Building Monstropolis in Japan Roz's 100 Door Challenge Gameo Toy Story Toons: Partysaurus Rex For the Birds Outtakes and Company Play

• State of Play | Blu Ray | (21/10/2019) from £14.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  A tense conspiracy thriller that twists deeper and deeper into the hostile twilight world where politics meets the press, from Emmy-winning writer Paul Abbot (Cracker) and director David Yates (Harry Potter, Fantastic Beasts). Featuring an all-star cast including David Morrissey, John Simm, Bill Nighy, James McAvoy and Kelly Macdonald. Stephen Collins is an ambitious politician. Cal McAffrey is a well-respected investigative journalist and Stephen's ex-campaign manager. En route to work one morning, Stephen's research assistant mysteriously falls to her death on the London Underground. It's not long before rumours of an affair between Stephen and the assistant hit the headlines. Meanwhile a suspected teenage drug dealer is shot dead. Revelation upon revelation pile up in the aftermath of these two seemingly unconnected events, ultimately bringing to light shady dealings between the government and major corporate powers. Friendships are tested and lives are put on the line as an intricate web of lies unfolds.

• Sex and The City: The Complete Boxset | DVD | (05/11/2018) from £33.05   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  For six seasons Carrie Bradshaw and friends Samantha, Miranda, and Charlotte offered us their hilarious, outspoken and outrageous look at dating, mating and relating in the big city. Celebrate the show that explores the day-to-day -- and night-to-night -- world of single women in this, the definitive collector's edition.

• Antz | DVD | (01/09/2014) from £4.99   |  Saving you £15.00 (300.60%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Woody Allen as a worker ant with an inferiority complex? Sylvester Stallone as an affable soldier ant who discovers that digging tunnels is cool? The animation playground we all knew so well is turning into a theme park full of in-jokes for grownups. Antz explores age-old topics (one person--err, insect--can make a difference, individuality and social responsibility must exist side by side, war is hell) with comic asides and Woody Allen's funniest quips this side of PG (adults will chuckle at the socialist slogans bandied about as he campaigns for workers' rights). Sharon Stone voices the rebellious princess with a fun-loving streak that doesn't quite overcome her royal bearing and court training, but she can learn. Gene Hackman is all teeth (ants have teeth?) and menacing grins as the Army general plotting insect-icide. This bug's-eye view of life on Earth gives Allen's neurotic nonconformist an epic adventure of microscopic proportions: a devastating war with a termite colony, an odyssey to the fabled land of plenty (a picnic ground), and a race to save his fellow workers from certain death. Other voices include Anne Bancroft as the Queen, Christopher Walken, Jennifer Lopez, Danny Glover, Dan Aykroyd, Jane Curtin and John Mahoney. The computer animation isn't exactly realistic but feels as solid and contoured as puppet animation with the smoothness and slickness of traditional cell cartoons, and the character designs and animation offer a marvellous range of expressions. The PG rating includes a gritty battle sequence that may frighten youngsters. --Sean Axmaker

• Outrageous Fortune | DVD | (19/07/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Sometimes a movie works despite all its faults. Outrageous Fortune has a flimsy, formulaic script, so-so production values and an odd combination of stars, but somehow it's engaging and fun. Shelley Long and Bette Midler play two struggling actresses--one a hoity-toity priss and the other a brassy slob--who learn they've been sleeping with the same guy (Peter Coyote) when he gets blown up in a terrorist assault and they confront each other in the morgue. When they discover that he's still alive, the bickering pair track him down, traipsing across the US in high heels, pursued all the way by government agents, using their dubious acting talents to get them out of tough situations. The absurd plot keeps things moving and director Arthur Hiller (Silver Streak, The Out of Towners) gets cheerful performances out of everyone, particularly the strong supporting cast--including Robert Prosky (Broadcast News, Mrs. Doubtfire) as a pompous acting teacher, comedian George Carlin as a burnt-out would-be Indian and the underused John Schuck (M*A*S*H, McCabe & Mrs. Miller) as a long-suffering agent. Although contrived and cliché-ridden, the film is just absurd enough to entertain. --Bret Fetzer

• Legends of the Fall - Collectors Edition | DVD | (30/10/2000) from £5.50   |  Saving you £14.49 (263.45%)   |  RRP £19.99

  A box-office hit when released in 1994, this sprawling, frequently overwrought familial melodrama may get sillier as its plot progresses, but it's the kind of lusty, character-based epic that Hollywood should attempt more often. It's also an unabashedly flattering star vehicle for Brad Pitt as Tristan--the rebellious middle son of a fiercely independent Montana rancher and military veteran (Anthony Hopkins)--who is routinely at odds with his more responsible older brother, Alfred (Aidan Quinn), and younger brother, Samuel (Henry Thomas). From the battlefields of World War I to his adventures as an oceangoing sailor, Tristan's life is full of personal torment, especially when he returns to Montana and finds himself competing with Alfred over Samuel's beautiful widow (Julia Ormond), whose passion for Tristan disrupts the already turbulent Ludlow clan. Under the wide-open canopy of Big Sky country, this operatic tale unfolds with all the bloodlust, tragedy, and scenery-chewing performances you'd expect to find in a hokey bestselling novel (in fact, it's based on the acclaimed novella by Jim Harrison), but it's a potent mix that's highly entertaining. Not surprisingly, John Toll won an Academy Award for his breathtaking outdoor cinematography. --Jeff Shannon

• Buffy The Vampire Slayer - Season 2 | DVD | (03/10/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £34.99

  The complete second season of vampire slayer Buffy. Episodes comprise: 1. When She Was Bad 2. Some Assembly Required 3. School Hard 4. Inca Mummy Girl 5. Reptile Boy 6. Halloween 7. Lie To Me 8. The Dark Age 9. What's My Line? (Part 1) 10. What's My Line? (Part 2) 11. Ted 12. Bad Eggs 13. Surprise 14. Innocence 15. Phases 16. Bewitched Bothered And Bewildered 17. Passion 18. Killed By Death 19. I Only Have Eyes For You 20. Go Fish 21. Becoming (Part 1) 22. Becoming (Part 2)

• Rambo: First Blood 4K | 4K UHD | (12/11/2018) from £19.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  When small town Washington sheriff Will Teasle (Brian Dennehy) detains a vagrant drifter for resisting arrest, little does he realise that he has set in motion a series of events that bring mayhem and bloody reckoning to his community. The shabby vagrant is in fact former Green Beret John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone), a hero of the Vietnam War who has returned home to find America no longer wants him. Responding to brutal treatment from Teasle's Deputies with sudden ferociousness, Rambo makes a daring escape from the town jail, steals a motorcycle and roars off towards the wilderness with the sheriffs not far behind Based on the bestselling novel by David Morrell, filmed during a brutal winter in British Columbia, First Blood is a breathtaking portrayal of America at odds with itself. Features: Rambo takes the '80s Part 1 Drawing First Blood - Making Of Alternate Ending Outtake Deleted scene: Dream in Saigon Original Trailer How to Become Rambo Part 1 The Restoration The Real Nam Forging Heroes Sylvester Stallone Audio commentary Screenwriter David Morell Audio commentary

• The Village | DVD | (31/01/2005) from £6.24   |  Saving you £11.75 (188.30%)   |  RRP £17.99

  The man behind "The Sixth Sense" and "Signs" returns with a tale about an isolated village whose inhabitants live with the frightening knowledge that evil and foreboding creatures live in the surrounding woods.

• The Krays | DVD | (20/09/1999) from £7.64   |  Saving you £2.35 (30.76%)   |  RRP £9.99

• Crossroads | DVD | (11/05/2009) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Eugene Martone (Ralph Macchio) struggles with the devil and his destiny when he goes down to the Crossroads in this contemporary drama. With a potent blend of adventure, romance and music, the film takes gifted Martone into a dangerous and challenging new world. Obsessed with unlocking the mysteries of the blues, the fledging musicians finds cantankerous Willie Brown (Joe Seneca), a master of the blues harmonica, and frees him from prison. The unlikely duo hobos from New York to Mississipi as Martone searches for fame and Brown tries to break a contract he signed years ago with the devil.

• Richard III | DVD | (06/02/2006) from £13.48   |  Saving you £1.51 (11.20%)   |  RRP £14.99

  ""Why I can smile and murder while I smile And cry 'Content' to that which grieves my heart And wet my cheeks with artificial tears And frame my face to all occasions..."" Soon after Edward IV is crowned King his brother Richard a hunchback twisted in mind as well as body starts scheming for the throne of England. He woos and wins Lady Anne and then poisons Edward's mind against their brother Clarence later organising his death. But even after his coronation

• The Boys From Brazil | DVD | (10/03/2003) from £3.99   |  Saving you £6.00 (150.38%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Robustly entertaining and bracingly sinister, The Boys from Brazil stars Gregory Peck as the infamous Dr Josef Mengele, the former Nazi chief who intends to resurrect the Führer and create a Fourth Reich through genetic experiments that commence with the assassination of some 94 fathers. Elderly Nazi hunter Ezra Lieberman (Laurence Olivier, in an Oscar-nominated performance) is tipped to the plot, but his efforts to expose Peck (fiendishly cast against type) are thwarted by a set of menacing triplets played by Jeremy Black. Back in 1978, The Boys from Brazil (adapted from Ira Levin's novel) was an incalculably tense, straight-faced entertainment whose lack of irony allowed the viewer to indulge the film's outrageous premise without moral offence. But in view of the scientific advancements made since the release of the film, it's now a cautionary tale, and all the more compelling for being so. Jerry Goldsmith's richly conceived, Oscar-nominated score--replete with echoes of Mahler and Strauss--reinforces this impression.--Kevin Mulhall

• The Howling | Blu Ray | (09/10/2017) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  An instant werewolf classic, The Howling was directed by Joe Dante, a graduate of Roger Corman's school of low-budget ingenuity who had gained enough momentum with 1978's Piranha to rise to this bigger challenge. He brought along Piranha screenwriter John Sayles, too, and recruited makeup wizard Rob Bottin to create what was then the wildest on-screen transformation ever seen. With Gary Brandner's novel The Howling as a starting point, Sayles and Dante conceived a werewolf colony on the California coast, posing as a self-help haven led by a seemingly benevolent doctor (Patrick Macnee), and populated by a variety of "patients", from sexy, leather-clad sirens (Elisabeth Brooks) to an old coot (John Carradine) who's quite literally long in the tooth. When a TV reporter (Dee Wallace) arrives at the colony to recover from a recent trauma, the resident lycanthropes prepare for a howlin' good time. Dante handles it all with equal measures of humour, sex, gore, and horror, pulling out all the stops when the ravenous Eddie (Dante favourite Robert Picardo, later known as The Doctor on Star Trek: Voyager) transforms into a towering , bloodthirsty werewolf. (Bottin's mentor Rick Baker would soon raise the make-up ante with An American Werewolf in London.) As usual in Dante's movies (qv. Gremlins), in-jokes abound, from characters named after werewolf movie directors, amusing cameos (Corman, Sayles, Forrest J Ackerman), and hammy inserts of wolfish cartoons and Allen Ginsberg's "Howl". It's best appreciated now as a quintessential example of early-80s horror, with low-budget limitations evident throughout, but The Howling remains a giddy genre milestone. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com

• Cry Freedom Blu-Ray | Blu Ray | (15/03/2021) from £8.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  The unforgettable friendship of two unforgettable men on Blu-Ray for the very first time. The tension and the terror that was a recent South Africa is powerfully portrayed in director Richard Attenborough's sweeping store of black activist Stephen Biko (Denzel Washington - Malcom X), head of the 'Black Conciousness' movement and a liberal white newspaper editor who risks his own life to bring Biko's message to the world. After learning of apartheid's true horrors through Biko's eyes, editor Donald Woods (Kevin Kline - Wild Wild West) discovers that his friend has been silenced by the police. Detemined not to let Biko's message go unheard, Woods undertakes a perilous quest to escape South Africa and bring Biko's tale of courage to the world. This riveting, true story offers a stirring account of a man at his most evil and most heroic.

• State Of Grace | DVD | (23/06/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Having been away for several years Terry Noonan (Sean Penn) is reunited with his gangland friends the ruthless Jackie Flannery (Gary Oldman) and his brother Frankie (Ed Harris) the Kitchen's most powerful racketeer. Terry grew up in Hell's Kitchen he's streetwise and knows the rules. But returning as an undercover cop to the squalor of his childhood haunts leads him deep into a dark underworld of deceit corruption betrayal and murder. He's been assigned to put Frankie Flannery