"Actor: Al Turner"

• Love On The Side | DVD | (06/03/2006) from £12.03   |  Saving you £3.96 (32.92%)   |  RRP £15.99

  A frothy romantic comedy that follows the non-existent love-life of Eve this is a must-see for all fans of Bridget Jones' Diary and Miss Congeniality! Eve believes she has no more appeal than the leftovers she clears way in her job as a waitress in a small-time diner. However for years she has harboured a secret crush for the eye-droppingly handsome local football hero who sadly doesn't even realise she exists. As if Eve's love-life couldn't get any worse Linda a la

• Evidently John Cooper Clarke | DVD | (08/04/2013) from £14.99   |  Saving you £-4.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £10.99

  Documentary which records and celebrates the life and works of 'punk poet' John Cooper Clarke, looking at his life as a poet, a comedian, a recording artist and revealing how he has remained a significant influence on contemporary culture over four decades. With a bevy of household names from stand-up comedy, lyricists, rock stars and cultural commentators paying homage to him, the film reveals Salford-born Cooper Clarke as a dynamic force who remains as relevant today as ever, as successive generations cite him as an influence on their lives, careers and styles. From Bill Bailey to Plan B, Steve Coogan to Kate Nash and Arctic Monkeys front man Alex Turner to cultural commentators such as Miranda Sawyer and Paul Morley, the film exposes the life behind one of Britain's sharpest and most witty poets - a national treasure.

• Oscar Peterson And Count Basie - Together In Concert 1974 | DVD | (01/03/2008) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £8.99

  This outstanding DVD presents a complete and previously unissued live 1974 performance by two jazz giants: Oscar Peterson and Count Basie. Oscar Peterson plays a couple of pieces alone and then presents some amazing duets with Danish bassist Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen. Basie plays a wonderful set with his big band which at that time included such celebrated soloists as Jimmy Forrest Al Grey and Curtis Fuller plus singer Big Joe Turner who makes a special guest appearance. But the true climax of this concert recorded at the Prague Jazz Festival on November 8 1974 comes when Peterson calls Basie to the stand and both enjoy themselves having a friendly conversation with two pianos. Tracklisting: 1. Medley: Old Folks / We'll Be Together Again 2. Just Friends 3. I Love You 4. Mack The Knife 5. Royal Garden Blues 6. Slow Blues In G 7. Jumpin' At The Woodside 8. Fun Time 9. Why Not 10. Body And Soul 11. Blues In G 12. Blues In B 13. Oh Boy 14. Jumpin' At The Woodside

• Ghost / Sliding Doors | DVD | (18/11/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Sliding Doors: The split-second moments that can take a life down one path instead of another form the tantalising 'what if?' in this delightful romantic comedy starring Gwyneth Paltrow. Paltrow plays London publicist Helen effortlessly sliding between parallel storylines that show what happens if she does or does not catch a morning train back to her apartment. Love. Romantic entanglements. Deception. Trust. Friendship. Comedy. All come into focus as the two stories shift back and forth overlap then surprisingly converge in the most romantic comedy in years. Don't miss it - romance was never this much fun! Ghost: A romantic thriller in which yuppie banker Sam Wheat (Patrick Swayze) is murdered but returns to Earth as a ghost to protect his grief-stricken young girlfriend Molly (Demi Moore) and solve his own murder. As he cannot communicate directly with his love he turns to fake medium Oda Mae Brown (Whoopi Goldberg) for help. Nobody is more shocked than Oda Mae to discover she has the genuine power to contact the dead. Goldberg won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance and Bruce Joel Rubin won the statuette for Best Original Screenplay.

• Knight Moves | DVD | (17/02/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Yet another serial killer drama, Knight Moves is perhaps a little too in love with its own ingenuity. Chess Grand Master Peter Sanderson (Christopher Lambert) finds himself, in the middle of a crucial tournament, challenged to a game whose rules he does not know, by a killer who will murder women until Sanderson stops him. The local police, headed by Sedman (Tom Skerrit), suspect this is actually a game Sanderson is playing with them; while Kathy, a woman profiler brought in on the case, finds herself falling in love with Sanderson but still suspecting him. None of the performances are more than competent and Lambert's aloof neurotic is perhaps less likable than was intended. Director Carl Schenkel is too fond of odd camera angles and garish lighting, but the end result is a moderately successful detective story for those who are fond of puzzles. On the DVD: Knight Moves is ungenerous with special features, providing a bare minimum of filmographies, photo gallery and trailer. It has a visual aspect ratio of 2.35:1 and Dolby Digital sound. --Roz Kaveney

• Verdi: La Traviata -- Glyndebourne | DVD | (31/10/2000) from £16.28   |  Saving you £11.70 (88.04%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Performances of La Traviata stand or fall to an unusual extent on their principal soprano; the first thing that needs saying about this Glyndebourne performance is that Marie McLaughlin has all of the attributes needed for a role that is fundamentally a virtuoso one, no matter how emotionally involving it is as well. The point about Violetta is that she is, with absolute authenticity, all of the things she becomes in the course of the opera--the febrile socialite and yearning love of Act One, the quiet domesticated woman of Act Two who sacrifices her love for Alfredo to precisely the family values he has talked her into espousing, the dying penitent of Act Three. Walter McNeil is an impressive poetic Alfredo in whose successful courtship we can believe. He is also unusually good in Act Two, Scene Two where for once his public humiliation of Violetta is actually painful, which makes his repentance at her deathbed far more moving. Brent Ellis is solidly powerful as his father Germont--the duet in which he talks Violetta into renouncing his son and comes to value what he is destroying is one of the high points here, as it should be. Bernard Haitink conducts impressively. On the DVD: As (unfortunately) usual with Arthaus Musik, the DVD contains no extra features worth mentioning past the usual subtitles in German, English and French, relegating discussion of the opera's stormy history to the booklet. --Roz Kaveney

• Never The Twain - The Complete Series 1 | DVD | (04/06/2001) from £20.00   |  Saving you £-7.01 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Remarkably, the Johnny Mortimer-scripted series Never the Twain ran to over 50 episodes between 1981 and 1984 on ITV. It starred Donald Sinden as Simon Peel, a stuffy, upper-middle class antiques dealer who lives next door to Oliver Smallbridge (Windsor Davies of It Aint Half Hot, Mum fame), a working-class lad made good, also in the antiques trade. As the first series establishes, theirs is a prickly relationship, not just because theyre rivals in trade but also rivals for the affections of the middle-aged, comely Veronica. They are aghast when they discover their respective son and daughter plan to marry, coming on like the Capulets and Montagues of Middle England. Never the Twain is a pleasantly predictable antique of the sitcom variety, redeemed by Sinden and Davies gruff, blustery and persistent antagonism. It depicts a cosy, never-never world of "dirty weekends", huge suburban houses, borderline homophobic mirth and reliable puns on "genes" and "jeans"--the sort of series in which characters greet surprising news by spraying a mouthful of tea halfway across the room. Some will find it barely endurable, others a welcome reminder of a bygone televisual era before alternative comedy became the ubiquitous norm. This DVD contains an episode guide and picture gallery. --David Stubbs

• Sam - Series 2 - Part 2 | DVD | (11/10/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Stay Single And Live Forever.... Series Two of Sam adapted from the book by John Finch. Mark McManus stars as Sam in this fondly remembered TV series.... Episodes comprise: Stay Single And Live Forever / Credit / Sins Of The Father / The World As It Is

• Surf's Up/Open Season/Monster House | DVD | (22/09/2008) from £6.89   |  Saving you £13.10 (190.13%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Surf's Up: A stylistically daring CGI feature Surf's Up is based on the groundbreaking revelation that surfing was actually invented by penguins. In the film a documentary crew will take audiences behind the scenes and onto the waves during the most competitive heartbreaking and dangerous display of surfing known to man the Penguin World Surfing Championship. Open Season: Boyz 'n the Wood Boog a domesticated 900lb. Grizzly bear finds himself stranded in the woods 3 days before Open Season. Forced to rely on Elliot a fast-talking mule deer the two form an unlikely friendship and must quickly rally other forest animals if they are to create a rag-tag army against the hunters. Monster House: CGI animation from executive producers from Robert Zemeckis (Back To The Future) and Steven Spielberg in which three teens discover that their neighbour's house is really a living breathing scary monster! Even for a 12-year old D.J. Walters has a particularly overactive imagination. He is convinced that his haggard and crabby neighbor Horace Nebbercracker who terrorizes all the neighborhood kids is responsible for Mrs. Nebbercracker's mysterious disappearance. Any toy that touches Nebbercracker's property promptly disappears swallowed up by the cavernous house in which Horace lives. D.J. has seen it with his own eyes! But no one believes him not even his best friend Chowder. What everyone does not know is D.J. is not imagining things. Everything he's seen is absolutely true and it's about to get much worse than anything D.J could have imagined....

• Bride of Re-Animator | DVD | (12/11/2007) from £8.45   |  Saving you £1.54 (18.22%)   |  RRP £9.99

  It's been eight months since the Miskatonic Massacre stained the halls with blood - and Dr. West and Dr. Cain's experiments have taken a bizarre turn. Now they have gone beyond re-animating the dead...into the realm of creating new life. The legs of a hooker and the womb of a virgin are joined to the heart of Dr. Cain's dead girlfriend - and the bride is unleashed upon her mate in a climax of sensual horror.

• Sam - Series 2 - Part 3 | DVD | (08/11/2004) from £21.67   |  Saving you £-1.68 (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Sam returns from the sea and finds many things in Skellerton have changed. He is upset about the loss of his grandfather. His mind strays back to his boyhood and he relives the actual day his father left and his last words. Arthur Corby in desperation asks Sam for help. Episode titles include: Land Half A Loaf Tow Steps Forward One Step Back Moving On

• Who's Afraid of Vagina Wolf | DVD | (29/09/2014) from £3.82   |  Saving you £13.93 (676.21%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Anna is a charismatic but struggling filmmaker facing a midlife crisis having turned 40; she lives in her friend's garage in L.A. dances in a vagina costume for money and has neither job nor girlfriend. Just when she's about to give up on both she meets sexy post-feminist Katia. To impress her new muse Anna decides to write and direct an all-female remake of 'whose Afraid of Virginia Wolf?' casting Katia and her best friends Chloe and Penelope in the film. Along the way with the help of those around her she discovers some home truths with hilarious results. From director Anna Margarita Albelo (A Lez in Wonderland Hooters) comes this eccentric semi-autobiographical romantic comedy with Albelo in her first feature fiction film alongside Guinevere Turner (Go Fish The L Word) in a show-stopping and award-winning performance Carrie Preston (True Blood) and Janina Gavankar (True Blood).

• All I Want | DVD | (22/12/2003) from £6.73   |  Saving you £13.26 (197.03%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Elijah Wood has one of his first post-Frodo leading roles in the mild-mannered comedy All I Want (the original title of which was Try Seventeen in its film festival showings). He's a 17-year-old college dropout who moves into a funky old apartment building and becomes intrigued by his wacky neighbours. Mandy Moore plays the self-absorbed actress across the hall and Run Lola Run goddess Franka Potente is a cranky photographer. The movie has a few surprises (the casting seems to suggest a teenybopper romance for Wood and Moore, but not so fast), although the energy level rarely perks up and it's pretty thin on actual narrative happenings. Wood's tendency toward fantasy is an especially tired device. A furtive sense of humour, plus the big adoring close-ups of the highly photogenic leading ladies, provides the low-key interest. Trivia: Elizabeth Perkins plays the hero's irresponsible mum; she was also Elijah Wood's mother in Avalon. --Robert Horton

• Moonlight And Valentino | DVD | (05/06/2006) from £14.99   |  Saving you £-9.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  This is a powerful comedy drama about four women who discover untapped strength within themselves when they finally let go of what divides them. In the blink of an eye the happily married Rebecca Lott becomes a widow or as she puts it 'the w word'. She is not alone for long however when her eccentric friend Sylvia neurotic younger sister Lucy and controlling ex-stepmother Alberta move in with a lot of baggage - both emotional and literal! But when Alberta hires a sexy house painter to raise Rebecca's spirits he inspires unforseen passion - and unexpected compassion - within each of the women as they learn to let down their defences and let go of their innermost fears. Both poetically poignant and fall-down funny Moonlight and Valentino will make its way into your heart.

• Janet Jackson - Rhythm Nation | DVD | (27/03/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £10.99

  From Janet Jackson's multi-platinum album 'Rhythm Nation 1814' comes the first ever DVD video compilation containing the videos of US No.1s Miss You Much Escapade Black Cat and Love Will Never Do (Without You) which was directed by world-renowned photographer Herb Ritts. Digitally remastered audio and visuals bring the conceptual video Rhythm Nation to new life. Also included are interviews and behind the scenes footage of Janet plus the extended version of Alright which includes cameos by Heavy D. Cyd Charisse The Nicholas Brothers and jazz legend Cab Calloway. Tracklist: 1. Prologue 2. Miss You Much 3. Rhythm Nation 4. Escapade 5. Alright (Extended Version) 6. Come Back To Me 7. Black Cat 8. Love Will Never Do (Without You) 9. Epilogue

• Bride Of Re-Animator | DVD | (27/01/2003) from £29.95   |  Saving you £-9.96 (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Brian Yuzna's Bride of Re-Animator (1990) was one of the last hurrahs for special-effects-based horror films before CGI extended the ease with which the impossible could be put on screen. Like its predecessor, Re-Animator, Bride is very loosely based on HP Lovecraft's stories of Herbert West, a scientist with a taste for investigation that knows no boundaries, especially not those of good taste. He and his agonisingly liberal sidekick Cain have discovered an improvement on their original serum--now they can not only bring the dead back to life but also assemble them from parts first. Jeffrey Combs gives a wonderfully dour performance as West, not even cracking a smile when a creature he has concocted from fingers and an eye-ball is running around the room unseen by a pestering detective. This is the sort of film that constantly escalates its macabre elements--the surviving villain of the first film has been left as simply an animated head, but that does not stop him pursuing his revenge on West, nor finding ways of using West's new techniques along the way. It all makes for cheerfully gruesome fun. On the DVD: Bride of Re-Animator is presented in an anamorphic widescreen visual aspect ratio of 1.85:1, and its Dolby 2.0 does what little can be done with the muddy soundtrack, but is rather better with the jauntily creepy score. The only special features on this Tartan issue are the trailer, the director's production notes and a reel of trailers for other Tartan horror movies. --Roz Kaveney

• Sweeney, The - Vol. 1 - Bank Jobs | DVD | (06/10/2000) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  If you were watching TV in the mid-1970s chances are The Sweeney was one of the weekly highlights and these re-mastered collections will have you pining for a time when the only choice was brown or beige, and a monkey would buy you a lot more than a nice whistle. If, however, these episodes are your first taste of Detective Inspector Jack Regan (John Thaw) and Detective Sergeant George Carter (Dennis Waterman) of the Flying Squad, be warned that you will soon be telling friends to "Shut it!" and scouring the pages of Exchange and Mart for a mint-condition Ford Granada in Tawny Metallic (ironically the choice ride for slags in the show was the Jaguar MK2, later to become so closely associated with Thaw's more cerebral take on policework, Inspector Morse).First aired as 1974's pilot Regan, the show was produced by Thames Television subsidiary Euston Films and ran over four series and 53 episodes. Despite being given strict guidelines on speaking parts, locations and structure, writers were expected to produce scripts very quickly and individual episodes were filmed within 10 working days. Based on this frenetic schedule, the result was a choice parade of slags, blags and assorted lowlife, played out across fantastic London locations with a gritty humour that set the agenda for many of the small-screen cop shows to follow. Regan and Carter manage to fit up a few collars between pints, and even occasionally shed their nylon shirts and flares for a distinctly unromantic interlude between the sheets--brown of course.This first volume of Sweeney highlights starts in relatively sedate style with "Contact Breaker", written by Robert-Banks Stewart and featuring Warren Clarke (when he only had one chin) as wire-specialist Danny Keever. When parolee Keever seems bang-to-rights for a bank job Regan smells a rat and decides to have a closer look at other possibilities, including the ex-con's missus, Brenda (Coral Atkins). The second episode, "Night Out", is a much more feisty affair, despite nearly all the action being confined to the pub inhabited by Iris (Mitzi Rogers), an old flame of Regan's under suspicion for aiding and abetting the break-in going on in the bank next door. Troy Kennedy Martin's script throws in an Old West-style saloon fight, backstreet beatings and even one for old time's sake when Regan and Iris are forced play the waiting game together. "Well", as one character observes, "it is Saturday night"! --Steve Napleton

• Sam - Series 3 - Part 2 | DVD | (10/07/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The third series of Sam comes to DVD this release features part two of the series. In series two Sam went to Germany in search of his father. When he returned to Skellerton many things had changed. His grandmother had died and he moved in with his grandfather. Despite moving on his mind Sam continued to be drawn back to his childhood and the day his father left.

• The Sweeney - Vol. 2 - Car Chases | DVD | (06/10/2000) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  If you were watching TV in the mid-1970s chances are The Sweeney was one of the weekly highlights and these re-mastered collections will have you pining for a time when the only choice was brown or beige, and a monkey would buy you a lot more than a nice whistle. If, however, these episodes are your first taste of Detective Inspector Jack Regan (John Thaw) and Detective Sergeant George Carter (Dennis Waterman) of the Flying Squad, be warned that you will soon be telling friends to "Shut it!" and scouring the pages of Exchange and Mart for a mint-condition Ford Granada in "Tawny Metallic". (Ironically the choice ride for slags in the show was the Jaguar MK2 later to become so closely associated with Thaw's more cerebral take on police work, Inspector Morse.) First aired as 1974's pilot Regan, the show was produced by Thames Television subsidiary Euston Films and ran over four series and 53 episodes. Despite being given strict guidelines on speaking parts, locations and structure, writers were expected to produce scripts very quickly and individual episodes were filmed within 10 working days. Based on this frenetic schedule, the result was a choice parade of slags, blags and assorted lowlife, played out across fantastic London locations with a gritty humour that set the agenda for many of the small-screen cop shows to follow. Regan and Carter manage to fit up a few collars between pints, and even occasionally shed their nylon shirts and flares for a distinctly unromantic interlude between the sheets--brown of course. In "Stoppo Driver", when a gang of villains lose their own driver in a high-speed chase the logical replacement for their next blag is Cooney (Billy Murray), the squad's latest chauffeur who learnt everything he knew from Evel Knievel. Led by Barney ("a tough monkey, plenty of form") the thieves kidnap Cooney's bride on their honeymoon night and blackmail him to help them rob a bent card game. Colin Welland provides the hired muscle in the second episode, "Faces", as renegade ex-marine Tober, visiting the Smoke from Manchester to help a terrorist gang take down four quickfire scores to fund their operations. The Sweeney boys know a hard man when they see one ("he did Smoky Evans with a hatchet") and relish the opportunity for some fisticuffs between styrofoam cups of tea (like "liquid concrete"). Things get messy when a stuck-up intelligence officer tells them the final blag is being faked to rustle out his undercover grass and Regan is forced to stand down, despite having acted on their own pint-sized informant's tip-off: "but it was the dwarf"! --Steve Napleton

• American Psycho - Special Edition (4K Ultra HD) (+ Blu-ray 2D) (+ 2 DVDs) (+ CD) | Blu Ray | (01/07/2021) from £40.16   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A