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• Neville's Island | DVD | (15/03/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Neville's Island is an ITV TV film which plays like The Lord of the Flies meets Three Men in a Boat. Except here there are four men, who, when their boat sinks, find themselves stranded on a small island in the middle of the Lake District's Derwent Water with a sausage and an almost defunct mobile phone. Given that our heroes are middle-aged executives on a weekend training exercise, tempers and personalities soon fray. Starting Martin-Men Behaving Badly-Clunes this is essentially a comedy, though the funniest lines go to Timothy Spall as the mercilessly sarcastic Gordon. Jeff Rawle is Neville, the capable team leader, David Bamber the organised Angus, while Clunes has the plum role as Roy, whose mental instability triggers the sometimes-surreal concluding sequences. In a scene paralleling Scream (1996) the rules of the stranded-on-an-island film genre are established, allowing writer Tim Firth to have fun twisting the clichés. He even feints that the film is about to turn into a slasher pic, or the UK's answer to Deliverance (1972). Neville's Island does get a little out of its depth when it ventures into metaphysical waters, but the performances are perfectly judged and the exceptionally sharp dialogue delivers sustained amusement and intermittent belly laughs. On the DVD: There is a basic stills gallery and a list of screen credits for each of the four stars which is misleadingly labelled "biography". Otherwise there are no special features. The sound is effective three channel Dolby Pro logic with the dialogue well presented and Barrington Pheloung's inventive score highlighted. The anamorphically enhanced 1.77:1 ratio picture is occasionally grainy but the DVD clarity does succeed in making a TV film look like a real, albeit low-budget, feature film, with some beautiful daytime cinematography and some imaginative firework shots demonstrating strong contrast and luminosity.--Gary S Dalkin

• El Topo | DVD | (28/01/2013) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Cult western fantasy. Gunslinger El Topo (Alexandro Jodorowsky who also directs and provides the script) travels the desert with his seven-year-old son. When they come across the scene of a massacre one of the dying victims tells them that the gang responsible is led by a man known as the Colonel. El Topo sets out to exact vengeance liberating the Colonel's wife in the process. She then challenges El Topo to prove his mettle by taking on the four masters of the desert.

• Beyblade - Vol. 1 | DVD | (05/04/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Beyblade is an animé tie-in to the high-tech spinning top toys. It has some of the standard faults of the cheaper Japanese animations--such as static backgrounds and overly perky facial design--but it makes inventive use of the idea that the competitions of the Beybladers are the outward manifestation of more occult conflicts in another realm. Young Tyson is a keen and inventive Beyblader--in the first episode, he works out a way of quadrupling the speed and force of his top--but it helps that his Beyblade is inhabited by the spirit of an ancestral dragon. Thus equipped, he moves through one round after another of an international competition, sometimes in alliance with the haughty Kai and his gang and sometimes opposing them, and always helped by Kenny and Dizzi, the spirit beast that inhabits Kenny's laptop. How much of this you want to watch will ultimately depend on how many duels between spinning tops you are going to be interested in, but the byplay between physical and spirit realms, and the conflict of characters is moderately interesting as well. On the DVD: Beyblade, Volume 1 comes with stereo sound and a visual aspect ratio of 4:3. The special features are limited to promotional material for the Beyblade tops, including quizzes and guides to customising. --Roz Kaveney

• Oliver Twist | DVD | (18/04/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Clive Donner's take on the classic Dickens tale of an orphan boy who escapes the horrors of the orphanage only to be taken in by a band of thieves and pickpockets...

• Van Helsing (Two Disc Collector's Edition) | DVD | (11/10/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Like a roller coaster ready to fly off its rails, Van Helsing rockets to maximum velocity and never slows down. Having earned blockbuster clout with The Mummy and The Mummy Returns, writer-director Stephen Sommers once again plunders Universal's monster vault and pulls out all the stops for this mammoth $148-million action-adventure-horror-comedy, which opens (sans credits) with a terrific black-and-white prologue that pays homage to the Universal horror classics that inspired it. The plot pits legendary vampire hunter Van Helsing (Hugh Jackman) against Dracula (the deliciously campy Richard Roxburgh), his deadly blood-sucking brides, and the Wolfman (Will Kemp) in a two-hour parade of outstanding special effects (980 in all) that turn Sommers' juvenile plot into a triple-overtime bonus for CGI animators. In alliance with a Transylvanian princess (Kate Beckinsale) and the Frankenstein monster (Shuler Hensley), Van Helsing must prevent Dracula from hatching his bat-winged progeny, and there's so much good-humored action that you're guaranteed to be thrilled and exhausted by the time the 10-minute end-credits roll. It's loud, obnoxious, filled with revisionist horror folklore, and aimed at addicted gamers and eight-year-olds, but this colossal monster mash (including Mr. Hyde, just for kicks) will never, ever bore you. A sequel is virtually guaranteed. --Jeff Shannon

• A Father's Betrayal | DVD | (30/06/2003) from £4.98   |  Saving you £-1.99 (N/A%)   |  RRP £2.99

  Powerful lawyer Eddie Brannigan is delighted to have his son back in his life and the feelings are reciprocated. The younger Eddie's friend Rebecca however accuses Eddie Senior of date-rape and he could end up sending his own father to jail.

• The Powell & Pressburger Collection - 9 DVD Box Set | DVD | (15/08/2005) from £49.98   |  Saving you £-9.99 (N/A%)   |  RRP £39.99

  ***WARNING***ALL DVD TITLES CONTAIN ENGLISH SUBTITLES EXCEPT FOR THE DVD TITLE - A CANTERBURY TALE*** Never in the history of British film have two figures become as iconic as those of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. Reigning throughout the 40s and 50s these two magnificent filmmakers brought to life British films and continue to radiate immense critical acclaim and inspiration for all contemporary film making. Includes: 1. A Matter of Life & Death (1946) 2. The Life & Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) 3. A Canterbury Tale (1944) 4. I Know Where I am Going (1945) 5. 49th Parallel (1941) 6. The Battle of the River Plate (1956) 7. Ill Met By Moonlight (1957) 8. They're A Weird Mob (1966) 9. The Red Shoes (1948)

• Everybody Loves Sunshine | DVD | (28/10/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Two heavies from the wrong side of the tracks in London try to choose very different paths upon their release from prison; subdued Ray (Goth) wants to escape his previous lifestyle but his unhinged former partner and friend Terry (Goldie) sucks him back in...

• Three Of A Kind - Season 1 | DVD | (15/08/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  The BBC's classic sketch show is brought to DVD for the first time. This funny fast moving non-satirical mainstream sketch show made Tracey Ullman a household name and emphasised the burgeoning talent of Lenny Henry. Like most comedy shows Three Of A Kind set out to be as funny as it could be; but - unlike most other shows - it filled every nanosecond of airtime with gags wall to wall top to bottom in an effort to do so. Apart from its use of video trickery and

• Crossing Guard, The | DVD | (09/05/2011) from £3.79   |  Saving you £16.20 (81.00%)   |  RRP £19.99

  One of the Most Powerful Movies of the Year! - Fox-TV. Academy Award winner Jack Nicholson (1997 Best Actor As Good As It Gets) drives this suspenseful critically acclaimed action thriller about one man's unquenchable thirst for revenge! For six agonizing years Freddy Gale (Nicholson) has waited for John Booth (David Morse The Negotiator) the man jailed for a crime that destroyed Freddy's life. Now Booth is out of prison and Freddy's giving him three days before he returns...to even the score! Directed by Sean Penn and starring Academy Award Winner Anjelica Huston (1985 Best Supporting Actress Prizzi's Honor) and sexy Robin Wright (Message In A Bottle) The Crossing Guard is an intense emotionally charged thriller that delivers!

• Sanctuary | DVD | (17/06/2002) from £15.56   |  Saving you £-9.57 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Confirming the testosterone-laced promise he showed in the earlier Drive, the charismatically lithe Mark Decascos stars as buff man-of-the-cloth Father Luke, whose plans for a successful food drive are put on hold when a covert kill squad forces him to confront his shadowy past in this surprisingly effective bullet ballet. The needlessly complex high-tech storyline may be somewhat shaky, but this adrenalised conspiracy thriller earns its wings by virtue of a strong cast (including a villainous Jaimz Woolvett, miles away from his role as the greenhorn gunslinger in Unforgiven), an impressively stylised lighting palette and a jaw-droppingly gonzo epilogue that cries out for--nay, demands--a sequel. Director Tibor Takacs was previously responsible for two unfairly forgotten 1980s horror gems The Gate and I, Madman. --Andrew Wright

• 3 Classic Katherine Hepburn Films - The African Queen / On Golden Pond / Iron Petticoat | DVD | (20/10/2003) from £20.00   |  Saving you £-2.01 (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  The African Queen The boozing smoking cussing captain of a tramp steamer Charlie Allnut saves prim and proper Rose Sayer after her brother is killed by German soldiers at the beginning of World War I in Africa. Many quarrels later the two set sail on the Ulonga-Bora in order to sabotage a German ship. Based on the 1935 novel by C.S. Forester the wonderful combination of Hepburn and Bogie (who won an Oscar) makes this a thoroughly enjoyable blend of comedy and adventure. Later came the book (and Clint Eastwood film) White Hunter Black Heart which chronicled screenwriter Peter Viertel's experiences observing Huston throughout the making of the picture. On Golden Pond Family tensions explode for a loving couple Ethel and Norman Thayer (Katherine Hepburn and Henry Fonda in Academy Award winning performance) at their New England summer cabin on Golden Pond. Their daughter Chelsea (Jane Fonda) has come to visit with her new lover Bill (Dabney Coleman) and his tough young son Billy (Doug McKeon). The three generations collide. But what begins as a stubborn battle of wills between Norman and Billy slowly turns into a relationship that Chelsea always wanted with her father and Norman discovers how much he has missed by denying his daughter's love. Iron Petticoat A US Air Force captain forces down a Russian MIG only to be confronted by a Russian fighter ace. The Captain is tasked with converting her to capitalism.

• Lust For A Vampire | DVD | (11/10/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Through the unholy rites of black magic the notorious female vampire Carmilla Karnstein is reincarnated as a luscious young debutant (Yutte Stensgaard). But when the depraved seductress is enrolled at an exclusive girl's school she begins to inflame the desires of her fellow students as wellias her weak-willed teacher (Ralph Bates). Can these perverse hungers be quenched by theimere taste of blood or will an entire village be unwittingly consumed by their lust for a vampire?

• Under The Sand | DVD | (24/09/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Marie, a professor of English literature in a Paris university, has been happily married to Jean for 25 years. During their summer holiday he vanishes. Has he left her? commited suicide? drowned? With no clue she acts as if he is still alive.

• The Santa Clause/Santa Clause 2 - Limited Edition | DVD | (03/10/2005) from £8.95   |  Saving you £6.04 (67.49%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Tim Allen makes an impressive screen debut in Disney's well-written seasonal film The Santa Clause. Divorced toy company executive Scott Calvin is pleased to have his son Charlie for Christmas, though the boy himself isn't happy about it. But when Santa Claus accidentally topples off the roof of the house and falls with a thud in the snow, Scott finds himself taking the merry old elf's place and earning new respect in his son's eyes. When the night ends, the reindeer take them to the North Pole, and Scott discovers that by donning the fabled red suit, he's inadvertently agreed to become the next Santa Claus. It's an enjoyable, straightforward family film, anchored by the affable charisma of Allen.--Bret Fetzer Considering how lame a sequel it could have been, The Santa Clause 2 makes for a pleasant seasonal diversion. It's got the familiar smell of Disney marketeering, and more than a few parents will object to this further embellishment of the St Nick legend, but Tim Allen's amiable presence provides ample compensation. According to the "Missus Clause" in his North Pole contract, he can't continue to be the real Santa until he gets married. It's all as sweet as spiced eggnog, with that warmed-over feel of a mandated sequel, but the Christmas spirit does prevail with the sound of sleigh bells and Allen's rosy-cheeked "Ho, ho, ho!". --Jeff Shannon

• Helter Skelter | DVD | (11/04/2011) from £4.99   |  Saving you £8.00 (160.32%)   |  RRP £12.99

  A detective gets involved with a wealthy socialite who can't seem to stop hiccupping.

• Simon Birch | DVD | (19/07/2004) from £29.00   |  Saving you £-14.01 (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Simon is the smallest kid in town but has always known that he was born to do something big while at the same time his best friend Joe is searching for the identity of his father. Together these two share the ups and downs that will forever bind them together.

• Get Smart Again | DVD | (11/08/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £3.99

  The free world's secret weapon dormant for 20 years has been called up for active duty. He's the bumbling addle brained master spy extrodinaire Maxwell Smart aka Agent 86. Smart is primed again to do battle against the sinister forces of KAOS. His wife 99 wants to get involved too however she's already more involved than she thinks...

• Power Rangers - Dino Thunder: Triassic Triumph | DVD | (22/08/2005) from £6.83   |  Saving you £5.16 (75.55%)   |  RRP £11.99

  A spin-off of the popular 'Power Rangers' children's TV show 'Dino Thunder' features a team of kids who discover ancient rocks that give them the ability to transform into superheroes. With the help of manufactured dinosaurs they fight mutants created by an evil paleontologist named Mesogog who would like to see the world return to a prehistoric era. In these episodes Kira and Devin while working at an internship at a TV station are attacked by Mesagog's faceless soldiers the Ty

• Belle And Sebastian - Fans Only | DVD | (20/10/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Considering their reputation for hating interviews and photo sessions, Belle & Sebastian's Fans Only is a surprisingly intimate affair. Over 136 minutes, the main feature documentary follows Belle & Sebastian from their inception in 1996 through every step of their six-album career, tracking the band to America, Brazil, and Japan, and hanging out with them in their hometown of Glasgow. At times, Fans Only feels like a lovingly crafted home video, with private photos and previously unseen segments of super-8 footage merging with the commercial promos and television appearances. It's all here: childhood snaps, Stuart Murdoch behind the wheel of an orange city bus, a song from the legendary Session At West 54th (still the holy grail for some devotees), a self-made documentary of a band rehearsal from 1999, Richard and Mick's acceptance speech at the Brits (with Richard captioned as Nick Cooke), Stevie and Stuart serenading the queue at the Bowlie Weekender, the band appearing on a Brazilian chat show, it goes on and on. Belle & Sebastian have always been a fans' band, close to those that understand them and inaccessible to those that don't. Fans Only is that relationship caught brilliantly on video. On the DVD: Fans Only on disc also includes live versions of "Dog on Wheels", "Landslide" and "The Kids are Alright" from The Bowlie Weekender. There are questions from the band's press conference for Fold Your Hands, You Walk Like a Peasant, plus Stevie singing "Darlin'" at Coachella, a 60s' version of "Jonathan David" and a Discography. --Ian Watson