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• Gettysburg | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £8.95   |  Saving you £5.04 (56.31%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Thanks to generous funding from media mogul Ted Turner, first-time director Ronald F Maxwell was able to make an almost word-for-word adaptation of Michael Shaara's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Killer Angels. Running over four hours, Gettysburg (1993) splits into two convenient parts for TV viewing (although a 70mm print was given limited theatrical release). This story of three bloody days of conflict in July, 1863 (an unimaginable 50,000 casualties), is divided equally between Union and Confederate forces. On the Union side, Jeff Daniels is the quietly heroic Colonel Joshua Chamberlain; Sam Elliott is utterly convincing as General Buford, the Union cavalryman who holds the Confederate army at bay on the first day. Martin Sheen plays an oddly subdued and vacillating General Lee--a controversial portrait of the legendary Confederate chief--while Tom Berenger, despite being almost hidden underneath an enormous authentically period-style beard, is strong and authoritative as General Longstreet (whose opposition to Lee's plans gave many in the Confederacy a reason to blame him for the disaster at Gettysburg). Chamberlain's last-ditch defence of Little Round Top, which prevented the Union forces from being flanked on the second day of battle, forms the climax to the first half; the heartbreaking Pickett's Charge--the Confederates' disastrous frontal assault on the entrenched Union lines on the third day--is the movie's greatest set piece and one of the most compelling reasons to endure a little too much stodgy dialogue (lifted directly from the novel) and an apparently over-reverential attitude to the subject-matter. But much of this movie was made in and around the actual battle site, so it's only to be expected that the cast and crew tread carefully, as if literally under the watchful eyes of the men whose lives they are re-enacting. And re-enactment is the key: with a cast of thousands in splendidly detailed period costumes, cannonades galore and massed ranks of musketry, the sheer scale of the military spectacle is endlessly impressive. If as a piece of filmmaking it has many faults, as an historical re-enactment Gettysburg is unsurpassed--even by the epic Waterloo (1970), which drafted in a large chunk of the Russian army as Napoleonic extras. --Mark Walker

• Vampire Nation | DVD | (20/10/2014) from £4.99   |  Saving you £11.00 (220.44%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Bucharest, Romania: The not-too-distant future, but an entirely different city. The human population is dwindling. The vampire population, meanwhile, is exploding. Having emerged from the shadows a decade earlier, vampires now walk openly amongst the human population, as a precarious peace exists between the two. A peace made possible by the introduction of a synthetic blood substitute, dispensed by the Romanian government, making traditional vampire feeding, and preying on humans, no longer.

• Seven/Snakes on a Plane/Slither | DVD | (01/10/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  This box set features the following films: Seven (Dir. David Fincher) (1996): Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman star in this sinister and gripping mystery-thriller about a pair of homicide detectives who must solve a puzzling series of horrific murders based on the seven deadly sins - Gluttony Greed Sloth Pride Lust Envy and Wrath. A powerful and unforgettable film Seven reveals the dark and disturbing underworld in which evil stalks... Snakes On A Plane (Dir. David R. Ellis) (2006): On board a flight over the Pacific Ocean an assassin bent on killing a passenger who's a witness in protective custody lets loose a crate full of deadly snakes. The rookie pilot and frightened passengers must band together to try and apprehend the assassin before it's just not the witnesses' life in jeopardy... Slither (Dir. James Gunn) (2006): An invasion of slithery slug-like parasites from outer space arriving via meteorite in the redneck town of Wheelsy South Carolina where they turn most of the local yokels into flesh-eating zombies...

• Offending Angels | DVD | (05/03/2007) from £13.48   |  Saving you £-3.49 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Romance never dies. Sam (Andrew Lincoln) and Baggy (Andrew Rajan) share a house in London play cricket visit the pub and watch porn. It's not much of a life but it's better than coal mining. Sam secretly wants to be a singer and has a deeper interest in his friend Alison than he's willing to admit. Baggy? He's never been able to trust a girl since his fiance jilted him at the altar - besides married women seem safer. Of course commitment is a lot harder than smoking a

• The Promise | DVD | (04/09/2017) from £7.55   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  It is 1914. As the Great War looms, the mighty Ottoman Empire is crumbling. Constantinople, the once vibrant, multicultural capital on the shores of the Bosporus, is about to be consumed by chaos. Michael Boghosian (Oscar Isaac), arrives in the cosmopolitan hub as a medical student determined to bring modern medicine back to Siroun, his ancestral village in Southern Turkey where Turkish Muslims and Armenian Christians have lived side by side for centuries. Photo-journalist Chris Myers (Christian Bale), has come here only partly to cover geo-politics. He is mesmerized by his love for Ana (Charlotte le Bon), an Armenian artist he has accompanied from Paris after the sudden death of her father. When Michael meets Ana, their shared Armenian heritage sparks an attraction that explodes into a romantic rivalry between the two men. As the Turks form an alliance with Germany and the Empire turns violently against its own ethnic minorities, their conflicting passions must be deferred while they join forces to survive even as events threaten to overwhelm them. The one promise that must be kept is to live on and tell the story.

• Beautiful Thing | DVD | (03/12/2001) from £9.90   |  Saving you £3.08 (44.57%)   |  RRP £9.99

  A grim, gritty South London housing estate makes an unlikley setting for a romantic fairy-tale, but Hetti MacDonald's gay teenage love story all but brings it off. Adapted by screenwriter Jonathan Harvey from his own stage play, Beautiful Thing tells how teenage loner Jamie falls for next-door neighbour Ste, one of the tough kids who bullies him at school. Amazingly, he finds his feelings reciprocated, and the two progress to a tender, tentative affair. Sidestepping conventional notions of working-class homophobia, the film succeeds in presenting its central relationship not as anything startlingly different, but simply as a teenage romance--with all the joy and heartbreak it implies--that happens to be between two 15-year-old guys. Problems of brutality and deprivation are acknowledged but never allowed to dominate, and under the influence of love even the harsh walkways and terraces of the estate take on a sunlit glow. --Philip Kemp

• Never Let Me Go (2010) | Blu Ray | (27/06/2011) from £10.78   |  Saving you £14.21 (131.82%)   |  RRP £24.99

  As children Ruth Kathy and Tommy spend their childhood at a seemingly idyllic English boarding school. As they grow into young adults they find that they have to come to terms with the strength of the love they feel for each other while preparing themselves for the haunting reality that awaits them.

• Perry Mason: Season 1 | DVD | (07/12/2020) from £4.85   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  The world's most renowned fictional lawyer is back on the case in this exciting HBO series that tells the origin story of master criminal defence attorney Perry Mason. Set in 1932 Los Angeles, this edgy, noirish update puts a new spin on the iconic character created by Erle Stanley Gardner and made famous by the classic TV show that ran from 1957 to 1966. The series begins with Mason (Matthew Rhys) living paycheck to paycheck as a low-rent private investigator who's haunted by his wartime experiences and managing the fallout of a broken marriage. During eight twisty, cliff-hanger episodes, Mason is determined to do what's righteven when it's not necessarily legalas he digs into a controversial and politically loaded case, exposing a fractured city and a possible police coverup. The stellar cast includes John Lithgow, Tatiana Maslany, Juliet Rylance, Chris Chalk and Shea Whigham.

• Never Let Me Go (2010) | DVD | (27/06/2011) from £5.79   |  Saving you £14.20 (245.25%)   |  RRP £19.99

  As children Ruth Kathy and Tommy spend their childhood at a seemingly idyllic English boarding school. As they grow into young adults they find that they have to come to terms with the strength of the love they feel for each other while preparing themselves for the haunting reality that awaits them.

• Bandolero! | DVD | (04/07/2005) from £8.72   |  Saving you £4.27 (48.97%)   |  RRP £12.99

  It's a Wild West clash of personalities in Val Verde Texas for the warring Bishop brothers (Dean Martin and James Stewart) who must now join forces to escape a death sentence. Featuring an all-star cast including Raquel Welch and George Kennedy and exploding with action Bandolero! packs a smoking six-gun wallop from its first tense show-down to its last exciting shootout.

• Dirty Deeds | DVD | (26/01/2004) from £14.98   |  Saving you £1.01 (6.74%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Australian crime caper set in 1969 Sydney. Local crime boss Barry Ryan's life is sweet but when two mobsters from America turn up to muscle in on his patch, he decides its time to teach them a lesson in outback hospitality.

• Chocky | DVD | (07/10/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  First transmitted in 1984, Chocky is a six-part TV adaptation of John Wyndham's clever novel. Matthew, an apparently normal 12-year-old boy, starts talking to an invisible presence called Chocky, who quizzes him on a wide variety of subjects as if unfamiliar with life on Earth. Over the course of the serial it is suggested that Chocky is an alternate personality or, after Matthew has been helped by Chocky to rescue his sister from drowning, a guardian angel. But we realise early on that this non-imaginary friend is in fact an alien who has made exploratory contact with the boy. Though Chocky manifests as a swirl of blue light, this is a rare piece of TV science fiction that sticks to the domestic arena, exploring ideas rather than playing with special effects. Wyndham's very 1950s-styled novel is updated by making the kids less well-spoken, and throwing in Rubik's cubes and space invaders video games, but adaptor Anthony Read's script preserves the virtues of the novel. Young Andrew Ellams is fine in a demanding role, and there's good-quality puzzled concern from dad James Hazeldine and 80s TV's resident sexy mum Carol Drinkwater. Apart from a few eye-abusing 1984 fashions--Jeremy Bulloch's huge glasses and blinding white jeans in a cameo as a psychiatrist--and the general leisurely pace, which is no bad thing in such a careful piece of drama, this has dated little. Those who remember its first broadcast will find it lives up to the memory, and those who weren't born then should still find it an entertaining watch. On the DVD: Chocky on disc can be accessed as a marathon two-and-a-half-hour watch or as six individual episodes (the latter is recommended). Print quality is fine given the techniques of its production. A nice extra is a 20-minute, in-depth chat with writer Anthony Read. --Kim Newman

• Murder Rooms - The Dark Beginnings Of Sherlock Holmes | DVD | (24/03/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £6.99

  So you're interested in the beginnings of Sherlock Holmes? Well then its elementary my dear Watson that you start here with 'The Dark Beginnings'... This BBC drama provides a fascinating insight into the fictional beginnings of Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson the tale based on the real-life relationship between Arthur Conan Doyle and Doctor Joseph Bell his tutor at Edinburgh University.

• Harry Enfield's Brand Spanking New Video | DVD | (30/09/2002) from £16.20   |  Saving you £-4.95 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Revealing a truly adult edge never previously seen Harry Enfield brings us the best bits of his 'Brand Spanking New Show' with a whole new gang of chums and catchphrases. New characters include: Cornish Ladies Man the last of the great West Country lovers; Chris Great the 'fictional' red-headed DJ who owns the radio station; Shagging Couple still at it after all these years; Paxman the journalist with a very direct interviewing style; The Pharmacist thorough but rather indiscreet; Mother & Daughter people think we're sisters; and loads more.

• Afterlife - Series 1 & 2 Box Set | DVD | (26/12/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £29.99

  The complete series 1 and 2 of this chilling paranormal drama. Featuring an all star cast this chilling psychological series enters the world of the dead to answer questions about the living. Robert Bridge (Andrew Lincoln) is a psychology lecturer grieving the loss of his young son Josh who was killed in a car accident four years earlier. A specialist in the study of psychic mediums Robert is invited to an evening of clairvoyance where he meets Alison Mundy (Lesley Sharp) - a far cry from the fraudulent psychics he is used to. Ever since she was a child Alison has seen spirits and after a near death experience they have taken over her life. Now driven by a compulsion to help those around her Alison seeks to resolve relationships torn apart by death. Episode Listing - Series 1: 1. More Than Meets The Eye 2. Lower Than Bones 3. Daniel One & Two 4. Misdirection 5. Sleeping With The Dead 6. The 7:59 Club Series 2: 1. Roadside Bouquets 2. Ratman 3. Lullaby 4. Your Hand In Mine 5. Mirrorball 6. Mind The Bugs Don't Bite 7. Things Forgotten 8. A Name Written In Water

• Rita, Sue And Bob Too | DVD | (22/09/2003) from £19.99   |  Saving you £-14.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  British films about sex are fairly rare, and mostly embarrassing: from the painfully anxious (Brief Encounter) to the hopelessly naff (the Carry On films). What a treat then is Rita, Sue and Bob Too, Alan Clarke's filming of a stage play by young Andrea Dunbar. It's an unsentimental, gleefully lewd comedy about shagging. Tagged for its cinema release in 1987 as "Thatcher's Britain with its knickers down", it even provoked a minor moral hullabaloo in the newspapers. Rita (Siobhan Finneran) and Sue (Michelle Holmes) are two giggly Bradford lasses stuck on a ramshackle housing estate. They keep themselves in fags by occasional baby-sitting for nouveau riche couple Bob (George Costigan) and Michelle (Lesley Sharp). Bob fancies himself rotten, but Michelle has ruled that sex is off the menu. So one night, driving Rita and Sue home, Bob detours to the Yorkshire moors and offers the girls a little something extra in his front seat. Rita and Sue decide to grab it while they can. Alan Clarke's cult following is founded on his bleak, brilliant films about violent young men (Scum, The Firm, Made in Britain). But Rita, Sue is a tribute to Clarkey's ribald sense of humour. It even sports a cameo from novelty pop-act Black Lace, performing their non-hit "Gang-Bang". Teenage debutantes Holmes and Finneran are terrific--just watch them dancing lustily around Bob's red leather sofa to Bananarama. In support, Clarke wisely cast skilled northern comedians like Patti Nicholls and Willie Ross, as Sue's foul-mouthed mum and dad. Amid the laughs, Clarke as usual doesn't stint from showing us the harsh, unlovely side of life. He shot the film on location at Bradford's Buttershaw estate, where Andrea Dunbar grew up and where, tragically, she died of a brain haemorrhage only a few years after the film's release. --Richard Kelly

• The Paper Lads - The Complete Series | DVD | (29/07/2013) from £18.92   |  Saving you £1.07 (5.66%)   |  RRP £19.99

  This fondly remembered family series from Tyne Tees follows the adventures of J.G., Ian, Gog, Baz and Sam - teenagers on a paper round for their local newsagent, Jack Crawford. Retired policeman Jack always tells the lads (and lass) to keep their eyes open as they go about their rounds; as a result they often discover the news, as well as deliver it! Filmed among the terraced streets of Gateshead and featuring humorous, exciting scripts - several garnering a Writer's Guild Award (Best Childr...

• Warrior Season 1 | DVD | (28/10/2019) from £11.00   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  THIS GRITTY, SEXY, VIOLENT, PULSE-QUICKENING NEW ORIGINAL SERIESS FROM CINEMAX® is a crime drama set during the brutal Tong Wars of San Francisco's Chinatown in the latter part of the 19th century. Inspired by the writings of the late Bruce Lee, the story follows Ah Sahm (Andrew Koji), a martial arts prodigy who immigrates from China to San Francisco under mysterious circumstance and becomes a hatchet man for one of Chinatown's most powerful organised crime families.

• Hacksaw Ridge | Blu Ray | (22/05/2017) from £6.41   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  The UV copy is only available in the UK and Ireland. HACKSAW RIDGE is the epic and inspiring true story of Desmond Doss (Andrew Garfield; The Amazing Spider-Man franchise) an army medic and conscientious objector who, during the bloodiest battle of World War II, saved 75 men without firing or carrying a gun. Also starring Sam Worthington (Avatar), Vince Vaughn (True Detective), Hugo Weaving (The Hobbit franchise) and Teresa Palmer (Triple 9). Special Features: Veterans Day Greeting with Mel Gibson Deleted Scenes Blu-ray exclusive The Soul of War: Making Hacksaw Ridge Blu-ray exclusive A Conflict of Faith

• Perry Mason: Season 1 | Blu Ray | (07/12/2020) from £15.48   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  The world's most renowned fictional lawyer is back on the case in this exciting HBO series that tells the origin story of master criminal defence attorney Perry Mason. Set in 1932 Los Angeles, this edgy, noirish update puts a new spin on the iconic character created by Erle Stanley Gardner and made famous by the classic TV show that ran from 1957 to 1966. The series begins with Mason (Matthew Rhys) living paycheck to paycheck as a low-rent private investigator who's haunted by his wartime experiences and managing the fallout of a broken marriage. During eight twisty, cliff-hanger episodes, Mason is determined to do what's righteven when it's not necessarily legalas he digs into a controversial and politically loaded case, exposing a fractured city and a possible police coverup. The stellar cast includes John Lithgow, Tatiana Maslany, Juliet Rylance, Chris Chalk and Shea Whigham.