"Actor: David Allen Brooks"

• Cast Away (2 Disc Set) | DVD | (03/07/2006) from £12.76   |  Saving you £13.22 (135.31%)   |  RRP £22.99

  Cast Away reunites star Tom Hanks and director Robert Zemeckis in their first collaboration since the heavy-handed sentimentality of Forrest Gump. Thankfully, this time their film's life-affirming message is delivered with more subtlety, attributable both to an extraordinarily committed, physically demanding central performance from Hanks and to Zemeckis' technically masterful but carefully understated direction. It's also a film with three distinct "acts" or, to be old-fashioned about it, a proper beginning, middle and end. The story follows schedule-obsessed but fulfilled FedEx supervisor Chuck Noland (Act 1) on a personal journey into the bleakest, most solitary despair (Act 2), before Helen Hunt, in the thankless role of ex-girlfriend, unwittingly allows him to glimpse an optimistic future full of untapped possibilities (Act 3). Hanks' sojourn on the island is the centrepiece, but this is no tropical island idyll: following a terrifying plane crash (the one sequence in the film where Zemeckis shows off his uncanny ability to choreograph action), life on the island is seen to be a depressing and bitter experience filled with disappointment, danger and suicidal despair. Having lost all hope of rescue, ultimately Noland's greatest test is not to survive, but to find a reason to survive. He has no Man Friday for company, just a volleyball named "Wilson" that is both a narrative device allowing Hanks to deliver dialogue and an intriguingly pagan personification of the island's spirit under whose protection Noland is finally able to summon fire (significantly, and heartbreakingly, Wilson leaves him as he regains contact with the world). In an era of MTV-style film editing, Zemeckis and Hanks fearlessly take their time establishing with total conviction the grim realities of Noland's situation, his devastating loss of hope and the means by which he achieves his escape. Like Contact before it, Cast Away is a refreshingly thoughtful piece of mainstream cinema that explores weighty existential issues but retains a warm human intimacy. On the DVD: The luminous anamorphic print with vivid Dolby 5.1 soundtrack is accompanied on the first disc by a technical commentary from Zemeckis and key crew personnel. It's plenty insightful for budding filmmakers, although for pure listening pleasure one might have preferred a more relaxed piece with just the director and Tom Hanks. The second disc includes a 30-minute making-of documentary in which the director sums up the moral of the movie--"Surviving is easy but living is difficult". This draws on material from the three other mini-documentaries about survival skills, Wilson the volleyball and the Fijian island location of Monu Riki respectively. There's also a section on the sometimes surprising use of CGI effects and a storyboard-to-film comparison sequence. Tom Hanks chats with American TV host Charlie Rose about this movie and his career in the extensive 50-minute interview. Trailers, artwork and stills round out a valuable two-disc set. --Mark Walker

• Cast Away | DVD | (02/07/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  From the director of "Forrest Gump" comes a contemporary drama about a man in isolation who is forced to transform himself both physically and emotionally in order to survive.

• Babylon 5 - Crusade The Complete Series | DVD | (28/03/2005) from £24.29   |  Saving you £11.70 (48.17%)   |  RRP £35.99

  'Crusade' picks up the torch from where its illustrious award-winning predecessor 'Babylon 5' left off. Written and produced by 'Babylon 5' creator Michael J. Straczynski 'Crusade' begins in the late 23rd century as humanity defeats the evil Shadow race. But its allies remain - and they swear revenge. When the mysterious hateful Drakh unleash a deadly biogenetic plague on Earth mankind faces its demise within five years unless the Rangers an elite army of light forged during civi

• Tom Hanks Collection | DVD | (06/10/2008) from £19.95   |  Saving you £-9.96 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Titles Comprise: Cast Away: Tom Hanks is Chuck Noland a man in a hurry. His job for Federal Express has him traveling the world on a moments notice exhorting the company's employees to speed things up--never turn your back on the clock. When he's suddenly called away for business on Christmas night his tolerant longtime girlfriend Kelly (Helen Hunt) drives him to the airport. They have their Christmas in the car--and Chuck plunks an engagement ring into her lap right before he gets on the plane telling her I'll be right back. But an unexpected storm cuts the plane's crew off from radio contact and blows them off course. Chuck is the sole survivor of the resulting crash and washes up on a completely deserted island. Stranded there he must give up everything that he once took for granted and learn how to survive all alone in the wilderness. Saving Private Ryan: Seen through the eyes of a squad of American soldiers the story begins with World War II's historic D-Day invasion then moves beyond the beach as the men embark on a dangerous special mission. Captain John Miller (Tom Hanks) must take his men behind enemy lines to find Private James Ryan whose three brothers have been killed in combat. Faced with impossible odds the men question their orders. Why are eight men risking their lives to save just one? Surrounded by the brutal realities of war each man searches for his own answer - and the strength to triumph over an uncertain future with honour decency and courage. Catch Me If You Can: Steven Spielberg directs this incredible-but-true story of the young life of Frank Abagnale Jr. Following the traumatic divorce of his beloved parents (Christopher Walken and Nathalie Baye) in the 1960s at age sixteen Abagnale (Leonardo DiCaprio) goes AWOL becoming a prodigious cheque forger and impersonator of a Pan-Am pilot a doctor and lawyer. Soon he has the FBI fraud squad on his trail in particular dogged agent Carl Hanratty (Tom Hanks) who carries on a game of cat-and-mouse with Abagnale over a few years. Forrest Gump: The movie triumph that became a phenomenon. Tom Hanks gives an astonishing performance as Forrest an everyman whose simple innocence comes to embody a generation. Winner of six Academy Awards including Best Picture Best Director (Robert Zemeckis) and Best Actor (Tom Hanks). The Terminal: After arriving at New York's JFK airport Viktor Navorski (Tom Hanks) gets unwittingly tied in bureaucratic glitches that make it impossible for him to return to his home country or enter the U.S.! Now caught up in the richly complex and amusing world inside the airport Viktor makes friends gets a job finds romance with a flight attendant (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and ultimately discovers America itself...

• Jack Frost II | DVD | (05/04/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Sequel to the horror 'Jack Frost'. The evil snowman is resurrected but now he's resistant to fire bullets and even chemical anti-freeze! With revenge on his mind Jack sets out on a chilling killing spree that threatens to ice everyone around him...

• Jack Frost 2: Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman | Blu Ray | (28/12/2021) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A