"Actor: Burt Young"

• Amityville 2 - The Possession | DVD | (04/10/2004) from £10.24   |  Saving you £-4.25 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  The living nightmare of the Lutz family. They got out alive! but another family wasn't as lucky. They lived at 112 Ocean Avenue Amityville before the luckless Lutz family and what is the real history of this desirable family residence? In a sequel to the original film The Amityville Horror which tells the true story of the Lutz family's chilling supernatural encounter Amityville: The Possession dramatises other terrifying events which took place at the same house. Not for the faint hearted this is a tale of satanic possession that leads to cold blooded murder on a massive scale - you have been warned!

• Convoy | DVD | (05/03/2001) from £14.23   |  Saving you £-0.24 (-1.70%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Even in the tiny genre of films based on songs, Convoy is a strange effort--CW McCall's 1977 CB radio-themed novelty hit was just a collection of trucker slang, but here it is gussied up by Sam Peckinpah (no less) as a big rig reprise of The Wild Bunch with Kris Kristofferson as trucker outlaw hero Rubber Duck and a wonderfully oversized Ernest Borgnine as "Dirty Lyle", the "bear" who hates "breakers" and finally decides to call in the National Guard to help him enforce traffic laws with machine guns. The plot is almost invisible, as Rubber Duck and his breaker buddies just up and decide to trundle their lorries across the Western States in a dash for Mexico (no one ever mentions delivering their loads to intended destinations) and becoming such a folk hero that the creepy governor (Seymour Cassell) tries to cash in. Kristofferson and Borgnine were old Peckinpah hands, as is heroine Ali MacGraw (a characterless photographer) and sidekick Burt Young ("Love Machine" aka "Pigpen"), and there's a lot of business about cops and outlaws who mirror each other, but the main attraction is the visuals--huge trucks rolling across desert roads in clouds of dust, police cars crashing through billboards, trucks demolishing a corrupt small town. There are traces of road-movie melancholia in the depressed cafes, jails and laybys where free spirits are broken, but it's still mostly a cash-in on Smokey and the Bandit with a few rags of poetry tossed into the mix. On the DVD: A letterboxed print, enhanced for 16x9, looks pretty good, with enough widescreen to get all the trucks into the image. But otherwise this is the sort of release that passes off "chapter search" and "multilingual menus" as extras, although there are basic filmographies for the principal and a poster/photo album. The mono soundtrack comes in English, French, Spanish and Italian. --Kim Newman

• Rocky: The Complete Saga | Blu Ray | (26/10/2009) from £36.13   |  Saving you £35.12 (100.72%)   |  RRP £69.99

  Celebrate one of the greatest inspirational sagas of all time together on Blu-Ray for the first time. Experience the Blu-ray exclusive interactive bonus disc with 3 ' hours of special features! Rocky (Dir. John G. Avildsen 1976): Nominated for 10 Academy Awards' and winner for Best Picture audiences and critics alike cheered this American success story of an everyman triumphing over all odds. Featuring a dynamic musical score a thrilling fight scene and four Oscar'-nominated performances this rousing crowd-pleaser will send spirits soaring. Fighting for love glory and self-respect Rocky scores an exultant knockout! Rocky Balboa is a Philadelphia club fighter who seems to be going nowhere. But when a stroke of fate puts him in the ring with the World Heavyweight Champion Rocky knows that it's his one shot at the big time - a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to go the distance and come out a winner. Rocky II (Dir. Sylvester Stallone 1979): After club fighter Rocky Balboa (Stallone) goes the distance with heavyweight champ Apollo Creed (Weathers) boxing fans clamour for a rematch. But Rocky having sustained massive injuries in the bout announces his retirement. He concentrates on his relationship with Adrian (Shire) marrying her and attempting to settle into the routine of family life. But as Rocky tries to make a new start for himself he realizes that he can't escape his true calling. The ring beckons once more and the Italian Stallion must prepare for the fight of his life. Rocky III (Dir. Sylvester Stallone 1982): Rocky battles his most powerful adversary yet - the ferocious Clubber Lang (Mr. T) - in this hard-hitting action that comes out swinging with adventure humour and emotionally charged human drama. For what may be the most exciting and fast-paced film in the series Sylvester Stallone writes directs and stars with explosive passion and intensity. Rocky IV (Dir. Sylvester Stallone 1985): When Rocky's old friend Apollo Creed is killed during a fight with a super-fit Russian boxer Ivan Drago Rocky blames himself for the death when he could have thrown in the towel before the crucial moment. Fuelled by the Russian's arrogance Rocky arranges a fight with the new champion only this time on Christmas Day in Russia.... Rocky V (Dir. John G. Avildsen 1990): Upon returning home from his latest triumph Rocky (Stallone) learns that all of his money has been lost by an unscrupulous financial advisor. To make matters worse his fight related injuries force his retirement from the ring. So Rocky his wife Adrian (Talia Shire) and his son Rocky Jr. (Sage Stallone) move to their old low-rent neighbourhood in South Philadelphia. There the fighter must resolve the deep-rooted resentment held by his son a bitterness that grows when Rocky trains Tommy Gunn (Tommy Morrison) a young boxer who soon rises to national prominence. When Tommy turns against his mentor and publicity taunts him Rocky knows despite the fatal danger to his health he must fight once more... Rocky Balboa (Dir. Sylvester Stallone 2006): In the sixth instalment of the Rocky franchise we find Rocky as a fifty something widower after the death of his beloved Adrian. His relationship with his son has also deteriorated and Rocky only finds solace in the stories he recounts to the customers who visit his deli. However everything is about to change as a virtual game - showing a young Rocky defeating the current champion Mason 'The Line' Dixion - provides the catalyst for Rocky to re-apply for his boxing license and return to the sport he loves.

• Transamerica | DVD | (24/07/2006) from £5.89   |  Saving you £14.10 (239.39%)   |  RRP £19.99

  A pre-op transsexual finds a son she never knew existed in this award-winning comedy drama.

• Convoy | DVD | (11/09/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Based on the country song by C.W. McCall Convoy is a feel-good action movie from the legendary Sam Peckinpah. A group of independent-minded truckers take to the roads in a massive stand against the corrupt authorities. Led by 'Rubber Duck' (Kris Kristofferson) the rogue drivers keep in touch by CB radio in their efforts to stay one step ahead of the cops...

• Rocky Balboa | Blu Ray | (21/05/2007) from £14.99   |  Saving you £10.00 (66.71%)   |  RRP £24.99

  The greatest underdog story of our time is back for one final round of the Academy Award-winning franchise.

• Before Women Had Wings | DVD | (30/06/2003) from £8.98   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Bird' Jackson is a young girl whose life with her parents is painful and frightening. She turns to her reclusive neighbour Miss Zora played by Oprah Winfrey to escape the harsh realities of her home life and it is through their friendship that Bird learns to dream of a better life. But Miss Zora knows that Bird cannot survive on dreams alone and there is only one way to save her.

• Rocky Anthology (Box Set) | DVD | (28/05/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £39.99

  The story of Rocky Balboa, as presented in this five-movie Rocky anthology, looks suspiciously like a barely fictional parallel to Sylvester Stallone's own career. Such a strong vein of autobiography is hardly surprising, really, since Stallone wrote all five movies and directed II, III and IV. The original was a feel-good patriotic update on the American Dream, mirroring Stallone's own journey as a lucky break drags a man from the gutter into stardom; Rocky II was the story of a man who is subsequently plagued by the need to prove that his first success wasn't a fluke, and represented Stallone's attempt to keep his career afloat amidst a sudden explosion of blockbuster movies and superstar actors; the third featured a rival to his position echoing the friendly battle kept up with Schwarzenegger for box-office dominance; Rocky IV appeared at the same time as Rambo: First Blood Part II and was a veritable shower of self-glorification; and the fifth entered old age as gracefully as it could with younger blood ready to pounce from all directions. Balboa may have been "a little punchy", but Stallone was clearly the brains behind the Rockymovies' success.On the DVD: For picture and sound, it's to the first disc connoisseurs should turn. Transfer and 5.1 soundtrack are a notch above instalments III and IV. Inexplicably, II and V are only in three-channel surround. Disc 1 is also the place for the extras. Although the others feature their own trailer and a half-heartedly animated menu, the first has a montage menu that matches the excellent packaging and links rather easily to a hidden feature ("Rocky Meets Stallone"). There's a fascinating 12-minute "behind the scenes" short with director John Avildsen showing fight test footage and two short tributes to the late Burgess Meredith and cinematographer James Crabe. The commentary might seem a little crowded, featuring Avildsen, producers Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff, Talia Shire, Burt Young and Carl Weathers. The best feature is a 30-minute interview with Stallone, who remembers writing from an 8x9 room in Philadelphia and being inspired by an Ali fight. There are confessions about injuries, casting and his dog Butkus! As a 25th Anniversary special edition, the first disc alone is excellent value. --Paul Tonks

• The Gambler Blu-Ray (Imprint Collection # 49) | Blu Ray | (21/05/2021) from £26.90   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Rocky - Special Edition | DVD | (28/05/2001) from £9.35   |  Saving you £13.63 (214.31%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The 1976 Best Picture Award-winner Rocky has the look of a contemporary on-the-streets movie like Taxi Driver, but the heart of a fairytale. For the Bicentennial Year, world heavyweight champion Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers), a Muhammad Ali-like stars-and-stripes blowhard, cynically offers a title shot to an unknown over-the-hill Philadelphia club fighter, Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone). Unlike the sequels, Rocky is a rare American sports movie to realise there's more drama and emotional resonance in losing than winning. The unique finale suggests that going the distance against the odds is more of a triumph than a conventional victory. Stallone, then an unknown as actor and writer, crafts the script to his own strengths--mumbling, Brando-like sincerity combined with explosive physicality expressed in his use of a side of beef as a punch-bag or wintery jogs around Philly. Surprisingly little of the film is taken up with ring action, as we follow Rocky's awkward courtship of pet-store minion Adrian (Talia Shire) and uneasy relationship with her slobbish brother (Burt Young), while Burgess Meredith provides the old pro licks as the curmudgeonly trainer. Though it led to a slick, steroid-fuelled franchise, it has a pleasing roughness, exemplified by the memorable funk/brass band score and the array of fidgety, credible method acting tics. On the DVD: 1.85:1 16x9 print, which represents the sometimes-slick, sometimes rough look of the cinematography; feature commentary with supporting cast and crew (Burt Young admits to rubbing vermouth into his neck to make himself repulsive), video interview with Stallone, a retrospective featurette (which includes news footage of the Ali fight that inspired the story), 8mm test fight footage with a flabbier Stallone, tributes to Burgess Meredith and cameraman James Crabe, trailers for Rocky and all the sequels (which makes a solid précis of the whole series). All this and a "special hidden feature" (a comic sketch with Sly meeting Rocky).--Kim Newman

• The Killer Elite | DVD | (21/07/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Best friends Mike Locken and George Hansen are the 'Killer Elite' undertaking jobs that are too dangerous even for the CIA. But when one of the duo is betrayed by the other things get tricky...

• Last Exit To Brooklyn | DVD | (25/10/1999) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  The setting is a working-class neighbourhood of New York in the 1950s. Among the characters are prostitute Tralala her brutal pimp Vinnie an effiminate homosexual and a corrupt union official. Based on the book by Hubert Selby Jr. this is an extremely disturbing and effective adaption of his once-banned novel.

• Back To School | DVD | (05/09/2005) from £34.99   |  Saving you £-22.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Rodney Dangerfield makes the grade with this laugh-riot comedy that's in a class of its own! Higher education will never be the same when co-stars Sally Kellerman Robert Downey Jr. Sam Kinison Ned Beatty and more join the maniac as he takes on the brainiacs! Thornton Melon's (Dangerfield) son is a college misfit so Thornton's lending some fatherly support...by enrolling as a fellow freshman! Who cares if the owner of the ""Tall and Fat"" clothing empire never finished high school

• Last Exit To Brooklyn | DVD | (02/10/2006) from £17.97   |  Saving you £5.01 (33.44%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The mean and desolate streets of Brooklyn are home to a host of unhappy hopeless characters stuck in dead-end lives. A young prostitute emotionally numb from having sold her body so many times regularly leads her prospective clients to a dark alley where a gang beats and robs them; an office worker cannot deal with his repressed homosexuality; and a young girl's father refuses to admit that she is eight months pregnant. All these stories take place in a world waiting to explode: local workers are engaged in an angry strike against a nearby factory while not too far away at the Brooklyn Navy Yard soldiers sail daily for Korea many never to return. The personal and the political intermingle in this bleak look at poverty drugs and violence in the inner-city in the early 1950s based on Hubert Selby Jr's controversial book. Jennifer Jason Leigh received the Best Supporting Actress Award from the New York Film Critics Circle in 1990 for her work in this film.

• Honeymoon In Vegas | DVD | (07/06/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Writer-director Andrew Bergman is capable of funny, funny stuff, but Honeymoon in Vegas runs out of jokes long before it runs out of comic ideas. The result is a series of comedy concepts that never get past the one-liner stage and are distinctly unsatisfying. Still, there is plenty to be amused by in this story of a reluctant bridegroom (Nicolas Cage) who finally agrees to marriage, only to lose his fiancée (Sarah Jessica Parker) in a crooked poker game to a professional gambler (James Caan). The rest of the movie deals with his frantic attempt to get his fiancée back, while coping with a Vegas in the throes of an Elvis-impersonator convention. That's the funniest thing about the whole movie (most notably the team of parachuting Elvises at the end), but even that is drawn out in ways that are more clever than laughter-inducing.--Marshall Fine, Amazon.com

• Rocky | Blu Ray | (21/04/2014) from £7.99   |  Saving you £12.00 (150.19%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Rocky Balboa, a small-time boxer gets a supremely rare chance to fight the heavy-weight champion, Apollo Creed, in a bout in which he strives to go the distance for his self-respect.

• Going Overboard | DVD | (14/08/2006) from £6.54   |  Saving you £-2.55 (-63.90%)   |  RRP £3.99

  Get ready for big laughs on the high seas as Adam Sandler plays Shecky Moskowitz a cruise ship waiter who has his eyes on becoming the ship's comedian. Shecky notices that the ship's comedian Dickie Diamond always gets the stunningly gorgeous beauty queens on board by being the funny man. Dickie doesn't want any competition and refuses to give Shecky a chance to perform on the ship as his warm up act. As fate would have it Dickie hat is blown overboard and he gets locked in the bathroom. With the comedian presumed lost at sea and the ship in need of a comedy act Shecky is given his big break at stand up. The big question is will he sink or swim? Shecky's antics rock the boat in this hilarious sea adventure that's jam packed with hysterical comic sketches and sexy fantasy sequences.

• The Adventures Of Pluto Nash | DVD | (10/03/2003) from £5.49   |  Saving you £8.50 (154.83%)   |  RRP £13.99

  The Adventures of Pluto Nash was shelved for nearly two years, and when it was finally released, hardly anyone noticed. In the interim, Eddie Murphy made the marginally better Showtime and started fishing for a career revival that wasn't a sequel to his previous hits. In the satirical, lunar-colony hash of Pluto Nash, Murphy's a variant of Casablanca's Rick Blaine in the year 2087, happily running the moon's hottest nightclub, refusing a buyout offer from a greedy gambler, and suffering the consequences with his sidekick robot (Randy Quaid in yet another thankless role) and newest employee (Rosario Dawson, before doing similar time in Men in Black II). A visual hybrid of Total Recall and A.I., this nearly laughless comedy would be a total write-off if it weren't for Murphy's stalwart attempt to jump-start the flagging humour. He's got the chops of a superstar, but only when his collaborators are on the same page. --Jeff Shannon

• A Summer to remember | DVD | (26/05/2008) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Silent since losing his hearing to meningitis young Toby Wyler takes a bitter stance against the world and his family refusing to accept his new stepfather. But when a highly trained orangutan named Casey is thrown from a truck near Toby's home the boy soon has a secret friend he can communicate with via sign language.

• Rocky | Blu Ray | (21/05/2007) from £31.03   |  Saving you £-11.04 (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  This is the film that catapulted Sylvester Stallone into the international spotlight and launched one of the most successful series of films in movie history. Rocky won the 1976 Academy Award for Best Picture and two nominations for Stallone for leading actor and writer. This is the story of a loser a two-bit boxer from Philadelphia who gets a second chance in life by being offered an impossible shot at the heavyweight title. Stallone's performance is as powerful as his character's punches in the ring. This is one of the most exciting action movies you will ever see.