"Actor: Bradley Coryell"

• My Dog Skip (2000) | DVD | (04/06/2001) from £5.16   |  Saving you £8.83 (171.12%)   |  RRP £13.99

  My Dog Skip, a nonpareil family film, is, as one of the characters so aptly puts it, "a heartbreak waiting to happen". Frankie Muniz, winning over audiences in the TV series Malcolm in the Middle, has competition in My Dog Skip--Skip himself (adorably played by a total of six Jack Russell terriers). Muniz, an inveterate charmer, stars as Willie Morris (from whose memoir the film is adapted), a gawky, awkward boy growing up during World War II under an overly protective father (Kevin Bacon). When his mom (Diane Lane) gives him Skip on his ninth birthday, his life is changed in every way for the better. Previously disinterested peers become pals, and he experiences puppy love with a girl named Rivers (Caitlin Wachs). There are plenty of high jinks and rah-rah touches of Americana, and the film also attempts to deal with sophisticated emotions--Willie's boyhood hero turns out to be less than heroic--but its devastating emotional core comes, simply and obviously, with Skip's eventual ageing and demise. Dog lovers will be wiped out; those who don't care for canines shouldn't even be bothering to read this review. (Ages 8 and older) --David Kronke, Amazon.com

• Tuck Everlasting | DVD | (08/12/2003) from £6.46   |  Saving you £8.53 (56.90%)   |  RRP £14.99

  With the makings of a classic, Disney's Tuck Everlasting is loosely but respectfully adapted from Natalie Babbitt's beloved children's book. This appealing fable focuses on the timeless Tuck family, blessed--and cursed--with immortality after drinking from a magical spring. Hiding their secret over passing decades, they are discovered in 1914 by Winnie (Alexis Bledel)--the only daughter of stern, upper-crust socialites--who encounters the life-affirming Jesse Tuck (Jonathan Jackson) and grows enchanted with his family (Sissy Spacek, William Hurt, Scott Bairstow) while her parents fear she's been kidnapped. The film's teenage romance is invented (Winnie is younger in Babbitt's book), but it's charmingly appropriate, and Ben Kingsley is perfect as a menacing man of mystery. Scoring a solid follow-up to his equally enjoyable My Dog Skip, director Jay Russell turns Tuck Everlasting into a magical plea for living life to its fullest. --Jeff Shannon