"Actor: Alex Rafalowicz"

• Shine | DVD | (22/01/2001) from £5.38   |  Saving you £9.61 (178.62%)   |  RRP £14.99

  This tearjerker by Australian filmmaker Scott Hicks is a surprising story about real-life classical pianist David Helfgott, an Australian who rose to international prominence at a very young age in the 1950s and 1960s, and suffered a psychological collapse after enduring years of abuse from his father (Armin Mueller-Stahl). Hicks has three very fine actors portraying Helfgott at different stages of his life, including the adorably wry and goofy Noah Taylor (Flirting), who takes up the character's teen years, and Oscar winner Geoffrey Rush, giving a great performance playing the musician as a schizophrenic adult. Despite the Helfgotts' compromised psychological health, Shine is hardly a depressing experience. If anything, the story is really about how long one person's life can take to make glorious sense of itself. Sir John Gielgud, in golden form, plays Helfgott's teacher. --Tom Keogh, Amazon.com

• Demons | DVD | (24/10/2011) from £16.18   |  Saving you £-3.19 (-24.60%)   |  RRP £12.99

  A teenage girl, Billie, endures a miserable existence with her alcoholic mother. The mother punishes her daughter every day just for being born. Billie has never been to school, she is not allowed to get a job, and she is not permitted to leave the house ever. As such, Billie’s bizarre upbringing has resulted in her becoming a virtual prisoner in her own home. During a three day drinking binge, the mother forgets to buy groceries, forcing a starving Billie to sneak out of the house in search of food. Unfortunately, her mother catches her and Billie’s chained to the laundry sink as punishment. When Billie agrees to run away from home with her new friend, Sean, her mother uncovers the plan and refuses Billie to go. Billie repressed anger is unleashed and, in fury, she mortally wounds her mother. Burying the body in the backyard, Billie hides all traces of the crime. As she waits for Sean to arrive, it soon become clear that the mother’s evil, vengeful spirit remains in the mortal world. Even in death, the mother is hell bent on denying Billie her freedom.