"Actor: Christa"

• Wagner: Die Walkure -- Metropolitan/Levine | DVD | (14/10/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £21.99

  The 1990 Metropolitan Opera performance of Die Walkure ("The Valkyrie") with James Levine conducting is a solid, four-square performance with few frills and no gimmicks, just extraordinarily fine singing and orchestral playing. There is no point in this where you find yourself asking why the director did something: this is the sort of production which could be criticised as unimaginative but defended as serving Wagner's intentions for this instalment of his Ring cycle. Levine and his orchestra give the music an emotional intensity that never overwhelms its grandeur, though perhaps in Wotan's farewell to Brunnhilde, we feel him more as father than as god. James Morris as Wotan has real stature, making us feel that he has finally created the free agents he needs to avoid the curse he has unleashed on the world, but he has broken his heart in the process. Jessye Norman is surprisingly good and erotically self-assured as Sieglinde; the Act 1 love duet with Gary Lake as Siegmund has an ardour that makes the incestuous aspect less a matter of perversity than of the conduct of heroes. Kurt Moll makes Sieglinde's rapist and husband Hunding, a three-dimensional sinister villain; and Christa Ludwig almost manages to sell us Fricka's interminable paean to family values. The most impressive performance here, though, is Hildegard Behrens as Brunnhilde, the steely godling who sacrifices everything because she learns to feel and to know what is right. On the DVD Die Walkure on disc comes with menus and subtitles in German, French, English, Spanish and Chinese and with a picture gallery of the production. Awkwardly it is presented in (American) NTSC format not PAL, with a visual aspect of standard TV 4:3. More impressive is the choice of PCM stereo, Dolby Digital 5.1 or DTS 6.1; the sound is admirably clear and well-balanced. --Roz Kaveney

• Der Ring Des Nibelungen: Highlights (La Fura Dels Baus) | Blu Ray | (22/11/2010) from £8.20   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• The Andromeda Strain | DVD | (18/05/2015) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £29.99

• Wagner: Das Rheingold -- Metropolitan/Levine | DVD | (14/10/2002) from £19.99   |  Saving you £-3.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £16.99

  It takes a certain amount of forethought if Das Rheingold is to be more than a series of special effects scenes, though moments like the appearance of the giants through the mist or Alberich's transformations need to be as thrilling as they are here. As always in his Wagner, and perhaps especially in this very traditional 1990 Metropolitan Opera production of the Ring cycle, James Levine keeps to the forefront the underlying humanity of Wagner's gods and monsters. In the first scene, for example, he brings out the thoughtless, callous frivolity of the Rhine maidens as they precipitate the events of the four operas by taunting the gnome Alberich: it helps that they swirl around, green and gold, in a convincing representation of the bottom of the Rhine, but the emotions are the point. Ekkehaard Wlaschiha is a convincingly menacing Alberich partly because Levine brings out his vulnerability as well as his evil temper. James Morris is splendid as the younger less care-worn Wotan and Siegfried Jerusalem as Loge enjoys the sarcasm of his cynical commentary on Wotan's aspirations. The smaller parts have luxury casting: Matti Salminen as Fafner and Christa Ludwig as Fricka, for example. On the DVD: Das Rheingold comes with a photo gallery of the Metropolitan Opera production and with menus and subtitles in German, French, English, Spanish and Chinese. Disappointingly though it is presented in American NTSC format with standard TV 4:3 visual ratio. But it does have an excellent clear acoustic in all three of its audio options: PCM stereo, Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS 5.1. --Roz Kaveney

• Day Of Anger | Blu Ray | (21/08/2017) from £13.04   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  When Sergio Leone turned Lee Van Cleef into a major star with For a Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, the actor sensibly stayed in Italy to make several more spaghetti westerns, including this one from Leone s former assistant Tonino Valerii that genre aficionados rank amongst the best ever made. Giuliano Gemma plays street cleaner Scott Mary, relentlessly bullied by the people of the small town of Clifton. When legendarily ruthless master gunfighter Frank Talby (Van Cleef) rides into town, Scott seizes the opportunity to lift himself out of the gutter, and possibly even surpass Talby s own skills. But what is Talby doing in Clifton in the first place? This lively, intelligent western, notable for the chemistry between its charismatic leads, some memorable action set-pieces (including a rifle duel on horseback that has to be seen to be believed), and a jazzy Riz Ortolani score, is presented here in an exclusive high-definition restoration from the original Techniscope negative.

• Spiders | DVD | (14/10/2013) from £5.94   |  Saving you £10.05 (169.19%)   |  RRP £15.99

  The City is crawling! In New York City's subway tunnel a new species of poisonous spiders is discovered. Inadvertently the spiders mutate to gigantic proportions and wreak havoc on the entire city.

• Relative Strangers | DVD | (22/01/2007) from £6.96   |  Saving you £6.02 (151.64%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Dr Richard Clayton (Ron Livingston) has it all: a loving fiance (Neve Campbell) two wonderful supportive parents a successful career as a psychiatrist and a self-help book on anger management climbing the best seller list. Everything in his life is right on course including a wedding date only a few weeks away. Until one fateful night when his jealous brother tells him the truth about his upbringing...he was adopted. Enter Frank and Agnes Manure (Danny DeVito and Kathy Bates)

• The Princess And the Warrior | DVD | (28/01/2002) from £9.43   |  Saving you £10.56 (111.98%)   |  RRP £19.99

  From German director Tom Tykwer whose energetic 'Run Lola Run' wowed audiences in 1998 comes this ethereal modern-day fairy tale. Using beautiful visuals involving ice cubes underwater bubbles rain and the well-worn buildings of Wuppertal Tykwer implements his signature filming style. Bodo (Furmann) and Sissi (Potente) come together under strange circumstances: at the scene of an accident where Bodo saves Sissi's life after she is run over by a truck. Then he disappears. Sis

• The Gate | DVD | (05/09/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  In 1987 The Gate was at the forefront of what came and went as a purely 80s genre: Kiddie Horror. Just like The Lost Boys or The Monster Squad of the same year, the idea was to let a couple of younger-than-teenage kids loose in a well-worn horror scenario and play it for as many laughs as scares. Its 15 certificate (PG-13 in the States) meant The Gate had an enormous opening weekend, and a considerable shelf life. The kids in question here are a very young Stephen (Blade) Dorff as Glen and his best friend Terry. After some tree felling in Glen's seemingly miles-square back yard they discover a hole full of precious rock. This is of course the Gate to a demonic dimension. As things start levitating, Glen's dog dies and moths get into the most awkward of places, it becomes obvious that the Gate is open! A teenage sister does little to help early on, but naturally the story develops into one about banding together under extreme circumstances. The make-up and stop-motion animation effects remain impressive in scope and there are a couple of frights still just on the right side of cliché. Since it was so successful, the writer and director went on to make an inferior sequel some years later. On the DVD: Viewers should note this is a very murky transfer that's in an unspecified widescreen ratio. There's also an unspectacular (equally unspecified) sound mix. But a gallery of 10 photos and the theatrical trailer makes up for that, right? --Paul Tonks

• The Dentist | DVD | (07/06/2004) from £14.98   |  Saving you £0.01 (0.07%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Dr. Alan Feinstone is a rich and successful Beverly Hills dentist. In fact he is much more - a connoisseur of music the owner of a palatial mansion and the proud husband of a beautiful wife. There's only one small problem - he's insane. The perfectionist Dr. Feinstone expects it of everyone else as well. The unacceptable fact that no one is perfect annoys the good doctor and leads him to commit his one small imperfection - murder. Murder is so messy and Dr. Feinstone hates messes. But sometimes he just can't help killing a patient or two.

• Wagner: Gotterdammerung -- Metropolitan/Levine | DVD | (14/10/2002) from £12.24   |  Saving you £11.01 (100.27%)   |  RRP £21.99

  Under the baton of James Levine, Gotterdammerung ("The Twilight of the Gods") has a narrative drive that reminds us that, of all the individual operas in Wagner's Ring cycle, this is the one most about human emotions and the one in which its heroes are pulled into a world where they are most vulnerable to them. Siegfried Jerusalem as Siegfried and Hildegard Behrens as Brunnhilde never, in a sense, stand a chance: they are innocents who allow themselves to be manipulated not merely by the villainous Hagen, but by the ordinary venality of Gunther and his sister Gutrune, who goes along with a dirty little scheme to get what she wants, and is destroyed by it. As the tempter figure Hagen, Matti Salminen dominates the stage whenever he is on it; he is one of those basses whose voice and scowl seem to come from somewhere deeper than his large boots: rarely have the summoning of the vassals, or the oath of vengeance he, Gunther and Brunnhilde swear against Siegfried seemed so utterly his triumph. Jerusalem is almost perfect as Siegfried in spite of the gravelly quality of his heroic tenor: he has a glorious innocence even when the character is tricked into desecrating his true love; Hildegard Behrens is magnificent as Brunnhilde, both in her anger at Siegfried's apparent betrayal of her and in her redemptive understanding of how she has to atone for his death. Other Gotterdammerungs may be more monumental, but few make you care so passionately. On the DVD: Gotterdammerung comes with menus and subtitles in German, French, English, Spanish and Chinese and with a picture gallery of the production. Awkwardly it is presented in (American) NTSC format, not PAL, and with a visual aspect of standard TV 4:3. More impressive is the choice of PCM stereo, Dolby Digital 5.1 or DTS 5.1; the sound is admirably clear and well-balanced. --Roz Kaveney

• Away With Words | DVD | (09/02/2009) from £18.99   |  Saving you £-3.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Asano has a phenomenal memory. For him words take a unique form as he tastes smells and visualises them to the point where he can never forget a word once he has heard it. One day he decides to travel and arrives in Hong Kong where he soon encounters Kevin a man who soon becomes lover confidante and friend to Asano. However Kevin is an alcoholic and the relationship between the two becomes fraught as words seem to stand in the way of the pairs' future together.

• Mahler - Symphonies Nos. 9 and 10, Das Lied Von Der Erde | DVD | (24/10/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £21.99

  Mahler - Symphonies Nos. 9 And 10 Das Lied Von Der Erde

• Day Of Anger | DVD | (21/08/2017) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  When Sergio Leone turned Lee Van Cleef into a major star with For a Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, the actor sensibly stayed in Italy to make several more spaghetti westerns, including this one from Leone s former assistant Tonino Valerii that genre aficionados rank amongst the best ever made. Giuliano Gemma plays street cleaner Scott Mary, relentlessly bullied by the people of the small town of Clifton. When legendarily ruthless master gunfighter Frank Talby (Van Cleef) rides into town, Scott seizes the opportunity to lift himself out of the gutter, and possibly even surpass Talby s own skills. But what is Talby doing in Clifton in the first place? This lively, intelligent western, notable for the chemistry between its charismatic leads, some memorable action set-pieces (including a rifle duel on horseback that has to be seen to be believed), and a jazzy Riz Ortolani score, is presented here in an exclusive high-definition restoration from the original Techniscope negative.

• The Wonder Kid | DVD | (18/04/2016) from £6.39   |  Saving you £3.60 (36.00%)   |  RRP £9.99

  This wonderfully warm and moving drama features Bobby Henrey, the young star of Carol Reed's The Fallen Idol, Muriel Aked and Oscar nominee Oskar Werner in the story of an exploited child prodigy whose unhappy existence is transformed by the daring plan of his loving governess. Featuring Robert Krasker's gorgeous cinematography, The Wonder Kid is presented here in a brand-new transfer from the original film elements, in its as-exhibited theatrical aspect ratio.Orphan Sebastian Giro, a famous and gifted child pianist, leads an unnatural, highly restricted existence in the clutches of his crooked manager, Mr Gorik. When Miss Frisbie, Sebastian's elderly English governess, confronts Gorik about his activities, he dismisses her from her position. Undaunted, the kindly old lady enlists the help of a gang of small-time crooks, and plots a dramatic ruse that will change Sebastian's life forever...SPECIAL FEATURES:[] Image gallery[] Original pressbook PDF

• Christa Ludwig: Lieder Recital | DVD | (30/03/2009) from £15.18   |  Saving you £4.81 (31.69%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Lieder Recital

• Vampire Secrets | DVD | (31/05/2010) from £12.98   |  Saving you £2.01 (13.40%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Titles Comprise: Vampire Secrets: In this fascinating journey through time HISTORY uncovers the ancient folkloric origins of blood-craving creatures from beyond the grave. Bram Stoker: This fascinating programme introduces the man behind one of literature's most enduring creations. MonsterQuest: Movie Monsters Vampires in America: We investigate cases of people who thirst for blood. Can science separate the fact from the fiction surrounding these creatures of the night? Origins Of The Vampire: The fictional vampire is rooted in a grim reality the vampire legend grew out of actual incidents and horrifying encounters with death and the unknown. We investigate the vampire. History's Mysteries The Real Dracula: The exploits of the fictional vampires pale in comparison to the horrors committed by Vlad THE REAL DRACULA! We look at the truth behind the fiction. Cities of the Underworld: Dracula's Underground: We unearth the facts and myths of Bucharest's most famous figure Vlad the Impaler more commonly known as Dracula. Travelling underground to explore secret prisons caves and dungeons.

• Jean-Luc Godard Box Set - Alphaville/Le Petit Soldat/Une Femme Est Une Femme | DVD | (06/09/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £29.99

  Contains three films by Jean Luc Godard: ALPHAVILLE UNE FEMME EST UNE FEMME and LE PETIT SOLDAT.ALPHAVILLE:With 1965's ALPHAVILLE--part sci-fi action film part noir thriller--the acclaimed French New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard achieves a stunningly clinical futurism using absolutely no special visual effects. The result is a moving original film that with its abstract political and intellectual themes essentially redefines the apocalyptic science fiction genre. ALPHAVILLE clearly the product of one of cinema's greatest contributors is nothing less than a bona fide cult classic.UNE FEMME EST UNE FEMME:Godard pays tribute to American musicals in much the same way that his debut feature A BOUT DE SOUFFLE did to American gangster films. The story follows the beautiful Angela (Anna Karina) a strip-tease artist who wants nothing more than to have a baby. Her live-in boyfriend Emile (Jean-Claude Brialy) doesn't want to refuse and risk sparking major friction between the two. However fed up with her constant pleading Emile finally suggests that she shack up with his best friend Alfred (Jean-Paul Belmondo) and much to Emile's dismay she eventually takes his advice. Godard's second feature employs jump cuts and jarring sound mixing--most notably during Karina's strip-tease performances. Godard is at his most affectionate and good-natured here. He also makes several cinematic in-jokes including one in which Belmondo's character mentions that he wants to hurry home to watch A BOUT DE SOUFFLE the film that turned Belmondo into a megastar just one year before. Featuring a magnetically cute performance from Karina who soon after the film became Godard's wife this loving romantic comedy is a dazzler.LE PETIT SOLDAT (1960):Michel Subor stars as Bruno a hitman under contract by the French government who suddenly develops a conscience and a philosophy when he is ordered to kill a left wing Arab leader. His newfound ideals are provoked by the stunning Veronica (Karina) a young woman who is secretly employed by the Arabs. The two fall in love and not surprisingly Bruno finds it impossible to carry out his mission bringing down the wrath of the French government on both he and Veronica. Beautifully filmed by Raoul Coutard LES PETIT SOLDAT is less interested in the mechanics of plot as it is in providing Godard a voice for thoughts and musings on the politics and horrors of the Algerian War. It was originally banned in France because of its frank depiction of torture during Algeria's war of Independence which was tearing France apart at the time of the film's completion.

• 2001 Maniacs: Field Of Screams | Blu Ray | (26/07/2010) from £11.53   |  Saving you £9.72 (94.64%)   |  RRP £19.99

  When a round of unsuspecting Northerners fail to show up for their annual Guts N' Glory Jamboree the residents of Pleasant Valley take their cannibalistic carnival on the road and head to Iowa.

• Little Drummer Boy - An Essay On Gustav Mahler By And With Leonard Bernstein | DVD | (16/07/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £16.99

  This television essay from 1985 was written by Leonard Bernstein to commemorate the 125th anniversary of Gustav Mahler's birth. The essay recorded in Israel Vienna and later in London is punctuated by biographical interludes and illustrated by musical examples drawn from the cycle of Mahler's works recorded by Leonard Bernstein. Bernstein talks plays and conducts various orchestras (Israel Philharmonic Orchestra London Philharmonic Orchestra Wiener Philharmoniker) and soloists (Janet Baker Christa Ludwig Edith Mathis Lucia Popp Walton Groenroos) in performances spanning 17 years. Leonard Bernstein also examines the roots of Gustav Mahler's inspiration. This DVD features music from the nine symphonies The Song of the Earth and the Wunderhorn Cycle.