"Actor: Christopher Fennell"

• American Gothic | DVD | (20/03/2006) from £11.59   |  Saving you £23.40 (201.90%)   |  RRP £34.99

  In some ways reminiscent of David Lynch's Twin Peaks this eerie drama series concentrated on the dark and often disturbing truths hidden beneath the surface of a small American town. Set in Trinity South Carolina American Gothic succeeded in its one-season run to intrigue viewers with its mysterious storylines and macabre undertones. Gary Cole heads up the cast as Sheriff Lucas Buck Trinity's knight in shining armor. Much of the plot revolves around Buck's attempts

• The X Files Movie | DVD | (31/01/2000) from £7.78   |  Saving you £8.20 (171.19%)   |  RRP £12.99

  The definitive American television series of the 1990s. The X-Files comes to the big screen with an anticlimactic whimper. And how could it be otherwise? Why should material so perfectly realised in one medium necessarily translate well into another? The series is crisply and thoughtfully executed in just about every detail, but the heart of its appeal lies in the elegant handling of complicated and evolving ongoing story lines, which is not something movies are especially good at. The big-screen drive for closure cramps the creative style, though it may also help nonfans get a grip on the proceedings. We do get some invigorating thrills and chills, however, and a more satisfying sense of the scale of an all-enveloping human-alien conspiracy than ever before, but there's no more plot development here than in an average two-part season-ending. FBI black sheep Mulder and Scully have been temporarily transferred from the X-Files project to an anti-terrorist unit to investigate an Oklahoma City-style bombing. They uncover a new wrinkle in the Syndicate/Cancer Man conspiracy--basically an attempt to help one bunch of (benign?) aliens fight off another bunch who want to colonise Earth. A spectacular, ice-bound finale thrillingly staged by series-veteran director Rob Bowman offers Mulder (but not a conveniently unconscious Scully) his first clear look at a You Know What, which in some quarters qualifies as an epochal event. Martin Landau offers the agents some crucial clues, and several familiar TV faces (including the Lone Gunmen and Mitch Pileggi's indispensable Assistant Director Skinner) turn up briefly to wink knowingly at faithful fans. --David Chute

• The War | DVD | (14/04/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Kevin Costner is the big name in The War, but the film belongs squarely to Elijah Wood, who plays his son. The film deals with the children of a Vietnam veteran in 1970 Mississippi; as their dad (Costner) tries to cope with post-traumatic stress disorder after serving in the war, the kids build a mammoth tree house in the woods--then must defend it against the local white-trash bullies. The film includes a particularly harrowing contest involving a swim across the reservoir of a decrepit water tower; still, director Jon Avnet can't avoid a certain "can't we all just get along" didactic message. That doesn't put a damper on the youthfully natural quality of the child actors, and Costner is actually quite winning as a sensitive, troubled soul. --Marshall Fine, Amazon.com

• The Education Of Little Tree | DVD | (17/05/2004) from £26.99   |  Saving you £-11.00 (-68.80%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Based on the novel by Forrest Carter 'The Education Of Little Tree' is a simple and touching tale set in the deep-south during the Depression. It tells the story of a young boy Little Tree who is sent to live in the Tennessee Mountains with his grandparents. On his arrival Little Tree discovers he is half Cherokee and begins to learn the wisdom and way of life of the Cherokee but the government places him in an Indian school where he is abused physically and psychologically...