"Actor: Bobby Di Cicco"

• Splash | DVD | (14/10/2002) from £9.75   |  Saving you £6.24 (64.00%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Splash was big news in 1984. It was the sole reason for a renewed Disney Studios forming its Touchstone Pictures subsidiary. This was so they could get away with displaying Daryl Hannah's nude bottom! It was also big news for launching the film career of Tom Hanks, who immediately became a massive box-office comedy draw in the 80s. For Ron Howard, it was the breakaway success that guaranteed he'd be able to pursue as diverse a directorial career path as he wanted to. It's a simple romance tale, spiced up by making the female lead a mermaid. The stroke of brilliance in the script was in making the comedy happen around the two leads, while letting them believably convey they are hopelessly lost in love. The comedy comes from the ever-reliable John Candy as a larger-than-life womanising older brother, and Eugene Levy as a scatty scientist. Although New York looks a little different today, the movie has hardly aged at all. Which is just as well since it boldly begins "This morning." On the DVD: Splash offers a transfer that has some defects, but colours and dark areas seem just about right. We're spoiled for extras, with a warmly nostalgic Howard joining a key production crew commentary in reminiscing on how much fun they had making the movie. There's a half-hour documentary ("Making a Splash") interviewing everyone involved, including some archival footage of the late Candy. Best of all are the original Audition Tapes for Hanks and Hannah, which reveal the consummate professionals these once-hungry stars really are. --Paul Tonks

• Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence | Blu Ray | (16/11/2021) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• I Wanna Hold Your Hand | Blu Ray | (20/06/2016) from £6.99   |  Saving you £13.00 (185.98%)   |  RRP £19.99

• The Big Red One - The Reconstruction | DVD | (02/05/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £13.99

  This version of 'The Big Red One' contains 40 minutes of extra footage that was removed prior to the original release. Lee Marvin stars in this episodic retelling of the exploits of the American First Infantry Division during World War II focusing on the squad's sergeant and four of the teenage soldiers. They struggle to survive campaigns from North Africa in November 1942 to Czechoslovakia in May 1945: along the way they participate in the invasion of Sicily the D-Day invasion

• I Wanna Hold Your Hand | DVD | (25/04/2016) from £11.35   |  Saving you £3.64 (32.07%)   |  RRP £14.99

• Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence | Blu Ray | (19/11/2013) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• The Big Red One - The Reconstruction | DVD | (06/02/2012) from £16.89   |  Saving you £-3.90 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  In Saving Private Ryan, Steven Spielberg depicts the D-day landings with a realism lauded by veterans. The Big Red One depicts the D-day landings, too, and it was made by a veteran. Writer-director Samuel Fuller, who served in the First Infantry Division from North Africa to Czechoslovakia (including the Normandy landings), made a career out of swift, punchy B movies, such as Pickup on South Street and The Naked Kiss. The Big Red One became Fuller's nod to A-movie filmmaking, yet it has the solid, matter-of-fact perspective of the ground-level infantryman. The episodic action ranges all over Europe, as a tough squad of American GIs (including Mark Hamill and Robert Carradine) follow their hard-bitten sergeant (Lee Marvin, at his best) and try to stay alive. Filmed mostly in Israel, the film delivers on the requisite war-movie conventions and tough-guy humour but also introduces notes of poetry. Fuller's D-day doesn't match the pyrotechnics of Spielberg's version, but it creates power from the simple image of a dead soldier's watch, ticking away in blood-soaked surf. A fine and memorable picture, The Big Red One might have been even greater had it been released in Fuller's full-length cut--someday perhaps a restoration will allow the director's vision to be seen for the first time. --Robert Horton

• Tiger Warsaw | DVD | (01/09/2001) from £5.00   |  Saving you £-3.01 (N/A%)   |  RRP £1.99

  Chuck 'Tiger' Warsaw returns to his home town after an absence of 15 years precipitated by an act of irresponsibility which destroyed his sister's wedding and left his father mentally unstable. His home-coming is shunned by his family but he tries desperately to overcome the problems and gain forgiveness.

• Ghoulies 4 | DVD | (05/07/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £3.99

  A little black magic a little black leather.... and a lot of black humour.... Small Satanic creatures are called forth from the Ghoulie Demension and now they roam the streets of Los Angeles trying to find Jonathan Graves who will be able to help them return to their home. But a Satan worshipping dominatrix goes on a killing spree to find Jonathan as well. Which of these will find him first?

• Splash | DVD | (26/03/1999) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Tom Hanks was a relatively unknown TV actor with a sitcom as his biggest credit when relatively unknown director Ron Howard (best known for his own sitcom acting) cast him in this surprise hit. It made stars of Hanks, Daryl Hannah and John Candy and an A-list director out of Howard. Hannah is a mermaid who comes to Manhattan in search of Hanks, the guy she has twice saved from drowning. Hanks runs a business with his loveable, blowhard brother (Candy), whose goal in life is to have a letter published in Penthouse. When this perfect woman shows up, Hanks can't believe his luck and plunges into a dizzyingly romantic relationship, unaware of her sea-water secret. But the mermaid needs to soak and unfurl her tail from time to time, which leads to complications, including her capture by the government for scientific study (what else?). Hanks is winningly charming and Hannah is a perfect match in this enjoyably high-spirited comedy, though the biggest laughs belong to Candy. --Marshall Fine