"Actor: Dale Gibson"

• The Jazz Singer | DVD | (02/10/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £16.99

  Back in 1927, The Jazz Singer entered the history books as the first true, sound-on-film talking picture, with Al Jolson uttering the immortal words, "You ain't heard nothing yet!" But even then it was a creakingly sentimental old yarn. By the time this second remake showed up in 1980 (there was a previous one in 1953) it looked as ludicrously dated as a chaperone in a strip club. Our young hero, played by pop singer Neil Diamond in a doomed bid for movie stardom, is the latest in a long line of Jewish cantors, but secretly moonlights with a Harlem soul group. When his strictly Orthodox father (Laurence Olivier, complete with painfully hammy "oya-veh" accent) finds out, the expected ructions follow. Though the lad makes it big in showbiz, it all means nothing while he's cut off from family and roots. But in the end--well, you can guess, can't you? Diamond comes across as likeable enough in a bland way, but unencumbered by acting talent, and the music business has never looked so squeaky clean--nary a trace of drugs, and precious little sex or rock 'n' roll. As for anything sounding remotely like jazz, forget it. This is one story that should have been left to slumber in the archives. --Philip Kemp

• Red Rock West | DVD | (05/12/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Where nothing is as it seems. Michael Williams (Cage) isn't just down on his luck. He's down to his last five dollars. Desperate for a fast buck and a soft bed he's heading for Red Rock and into the worst nightmare he's ever dreamed of. One man (Walsh) wants his wife (Flynn Boyle) murdered. His wife will pay double for revenge. A psychotic contract killer (Hopper) wants to finish his job. And Michael Williams just wants to get way out of town with his life intact...

• Red Rock West | DVD | (18/08/2000) from £20.00   |  Saving you £-0.01 (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  With Red Rock West and The Last Seduction, writer-director John Dahl established himself as America's leading maker of tough, twisted, funny little neo-noir pictures. Red Rock West is a spare, tight reworking of noir-ish motifs--the lone man caught in a web of circumstance and betrayal, the rich femme fatale, the corrupt policeman, the wounded military veteran, the homicidal psychopath--that brings to mind such classics as Detour, Out of the Past and Bad Day at Black Rock. Cage--warming up for his career-peak (so far) performance in Leaving Las Vegas a few years later--plays an unemployed former Marine (his leg injured in the truck-bombing of the base in Beirut) who stumbles into a nightmarish situation when he stops at a bar in the isolated Wyoming town of Red Rock West. With one fateful step, he's trapped; and no matter how hard he tries, he just can't seem to leave town. The late JT Walsh is (as always) splendidly corrupt as the bar owner who harbours some deadly secrets, and Dennis Hopper does a variation on his patented Blue Velvet/River's Edge psycho that suits the treacherous environs of Red Rock West just fine. --Jim Emerson, Amazon.com

• Barbra Streisand - The Belle Of 14th Street | DVD | (02/10/2006) from £17.53   |  Saving you £-4.54 (-34.90%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Barbra is the ""top-billed act"" in this affectionate tribute to turn of the century vaudeville. No detail was too small for this lovingly created world of a bygone era. Her first television special to feature guest-stars The Belle of 14th Street celebrates in ways both comedic and heartfelt ""The Golden Age of Song"". A marvelous showcase for such evergreens as Sophie Tucker's ""Some Of These Days "" ""How About Me"" (written by ""a new young talent"" Irving Berlin) the poignant ""I'm Always Chasing Rainbows "" and the sublime ""My Buddy"" - all classics of the vaudeville era reinvented by the ""greatest star"" of our time. This DVD is from the 5-disc boxed set Barbra Streisand: The Television Specials.