"Actor: De Z"

• Studio Classic: Classic War Movies | DVD | (10/10/2005) from £28.33   |  Saving you £6.66 (19.00%)   |  RRP £34.99

  The Longest Day (Dir. Ken Annakin and Andrew Marton 1962): On June 6 1944 the Allied Invasion of France marked the beginning of the end of Nazi domination over Europe. The attack involved 3 000 000 men 11 000 planes and 4 000 ships comprising the largest armada the world has ever seen. Presented in the original black & white version The Longest Day is a vivid hour-by-hour re-creation of this historic event. Featuring a stellar international cast and told from the perspectives of both sides it is a fascinating look at the massive preparations mistakes and random events that determined the outcome of one of the biggest battles in history. Sink The Bismarck! (Dir. Lewis Gilbert 1960): In the Spring of 1941 Nazi Germany's greatest battleship - the Bismarck scourge of Atlantic shipping - is pinned down at her anchorage in Norway. Making a break for freedom and the safety of air cover from the Luftwaffe the great ship is chased by the Royal Navy. Eventually after heavy casualties including the loss of HMS Hood the Bismarck is finally trapped and sunk. Kenneth More stars as Captain Shepherd - the Admiralty's Director of Naval Operations - who embittered by the death of his wife in an air raid is assigned to this post just as the Bismarck makes its escape. The Desert Rats (Dir. Robert Wise 1953): Richard Burton stars in this exciting film about the courageous men who held off notorious German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel despite being hopelessly outnumbered. The year is 1941 and all that stands between Rommel and the Suez Canal is the fortress of Tobruk which is manned only by a small Australian battalion whom Captain MacRoberts (Burton) must whip into shape - fast! James Mason co-stars in a stunning portrayal as Rommel in this stirring action-packed story of the World War II heroes known as the Desert Rats. Twelve O'Clock High (Dir. Henry King 1949): Convinced an Air Force Commander is at breaking point Brigadier General Savage (Gregory Peck) takes over his struggling bomber group. At first resentful and rebellious the flyers gradually change as Savage guides them to amazing feats. But the stress of command soon takes its toll and the weary general reaches his own breaking point. Authentic aerial battle footage and numerous acclaimed performances make Twelve O'Clock High a credible stirring tale of courage and sacrifice. A Farewell To Arms (Dir. Charles Vidor 1957): This dense adaption of Ernest Hemingway's novel features Rock Hudson as American soldier Lt. Henry and his ill-fated love affair with British Nurse Catherine portrayed by Jennifer Jones during World War I. The two lovers will stop at nothing to be together but Lt. Henry's internal struggles ultimately threaten the relationship. Hemingway's theme of questioning the nature of war and fighting is fully recognised under Charles Vidor's direction.

• Lockdown | DVD | (28/07/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Avery had it all: his beautiful girlfriend Krista a young son and a full scholarship ahead of him. But in the blink of an eye it was all taken away. What started as a night out with his buddies ended with the shooting of a cop and Avery behind bars. He's innocent but that doesn't matter in a place that has its own set of rules. As Krista works to prove his innocence Avery struggles to survive the day-to-day hardships of prison life.

• Dogtanian And The Three Muskehounds - Five Adventures | DVD | (29/03/2004) from £8.43   |  Saving you £-2.44 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  In the heady days of Louis Xlll's France live Dogtanian and three courageous Muskehounds - Athos Porthos and Aramis. Pledged to a life of a adventure they are mnavericks fighting for justice despite their sometimes unorthodix methods. Chivalry honour and companionship are all upheld as they battle against the forces of evil legendary swordsmanship helping them escape danger in the nick of time... Whether overcoming the powerful Richelieu or waging war Dogtanian and the The Three Muskehounds never lose their sense of duty - or sense of humour. They are truly a law unto themselves.

• Sex, Party And Lies | DVD | (11/01/2010) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Sex Party and Lies follows eight friends who are discovering life and looking for a solution to the problems in their relationships. They live out their fantasies in clubs and bars then wake in up in the morning with reality staring them grimly in the face; the repercussions of their actions the night before affecting them and everyone else around them. Each has their own story to tell from un-kept promises and broken dreams to loneliness and coming to terms with their sexuality. The story set over 3 hot days in Alicante and 3 frenzied nights clubbing drinking and taking drugs is a coming of age tale of how the friends discover one by one that their lives cannot continue like this and something has to change...

• Monteverdi: L'Orfeo -- Savall | DVD | (31/10/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  For this production of L'Orfeo, stage director Gilbert Deflo attempts to recreate the atmosphere of the first performance of Monteverdi's 1607 opera in the plush 19th-century setting of Barcelona's Gran Teatre del Liceu. On the whole he's extremely successful: the scenery consists of painted flats which are used imaginatively (Caronte's cavern is a particular coup de theatre) and the delightful costumes look like ancient Hellenic robes viewed through a 17th century lens. What's most remarkable, though, is the sensitive level of recording, for the light orchestral textures and small voices only once, in the Caronte scene, seem to get swamped by the gilt and velvet. Jordi Savall, looking uncannily like Monteverdi himself, conducts with energy and draws some committed, focused playing from the band. Zanasi makes a fine Orfeo, but all the voices have all the graceful and limpid qualities that are standard now in early music, and the whole company gets the stylised acting manner demanded by the production just right without becoming too arch. On the DVD: L'Orfeo is presented in 16:9 anamorphic ratio, with a choice of Dolby Surround Sound or LPCM Stereo. Within the limitations of a live relay from a large theatre, the picture quality is excellent: the colours of the costumes seem particularly vivid. There are subtitles in English, French, German and Spanish. Special features include an interview with the stage director, an illustrated synopsis and a gallery of cast photos. --Warwick Thompson

• The Deer Hunter | Blu Ray | (28/09/2009) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  The Deer Hunter is an astonishing powerful and vivid epic about three men steelworkers from Pennsylvania whose lives are changed irrevocably in the tragic devastation of the Vietnam war. When Michael Steven and Nick are captured by the Vietcong they are forced to play Russian Roulette by their brutal captors who make bets on their survival. The experience of capture leaves them with terrible physical and spiritual wounds and when Michael returns to Saigon to fulfil an old vow to one of his friends he makes an unexpected horrific discovery. Director Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter won no less than 5 Oscars in 1978 for Best Picture Best Director Best Supporting Actor Best Editing and Best Sound.

• Solas | DVD | (26/12/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Lauded in its native Spain on its release, Benito Zambrano's Solas is a touching portrayal of loneliness and redemption. At its centre is the strained relationship between Maria and her mother Rosa, brought together by Maria's estranged father's illness. Rosa (brilliantly played by Maria Galiana) not only discovers a world very different from her village existence but also finds her daughter's life in disarray--racked with frustration, bitterness and fuelled by alcohol. As the film develops, the two find their relationship not only beginning to grow but also influenced by the arrival of their elderly neighbour, played by Carlos Álvarez Novoa. All three find a new purpose to their lives and, while students of feminism may find Maria's path a little debatable, Ana Fernádez brings the audience on her journey in heart touching fashion. The darkness of tone throughout only makes the subsequent brightness all the more blinding and the result is without doubt a deeply moving piece of cinema. --Phil Udell

• Dollar For The Dead | DVD | (29/07/2003) from £6.96   |  Saving you £-0.98 (N/A%)   |  RRP £2.99

  Cowboy (Emilio Estevez) a lone gunslinger of grey-eyed coldness and very few words rides into town trailing a single wooden coffin behind him. Hotly pursued by The Regulators a band of self appointed lawmen whom are hell bent on revenge and led by the imposing figure of Reager (Howie Long). This mysterious figure is a man with no name and a man with no home whose only role in life appears to be to utilise his incredible gunslinging skills to defend those who are unable to do so against the oppressive bandits and ruthless cowboys in this lawless society. It is on one such occasion when he rescues a crippled civil war veteran he is entrusted with the secret of untold treasures and now has not only Reager and his vengeance riddled posse to deal with but also another band of ruthless outlaws who have made the search for the gold their life's work. It's incredibly stylised action all the way as this cold blooded killer must utilise all of his skills in a battle against overwhelming odds as the mystery behind the single wooden coffin slowly unfolds.

• Knight's Tale, A / The Princess Bride / The Mask Of Zorro | DVD | (17/05/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  A Knight's Tale: Heath Ledger is William Thatcher a peasant squire who breaks all the rules when he passes himself off as a nobleman and takes the jousting world by storm. The only thing that stands between William and his dream of becoming the world champion of this most extreme of competitions is the bad boy of the sport Count Adhemar. And when the two rivals go lance to head at the world finals to determine who will be named the ultimate champion you'd better arm yourself and hang on tight for the thrill ride of your life! Princess Bride: A young boy confined to bed with the flu is less than thrilled when his grandfather (Peter Falk) arrives to read him the story of The Princess Bride. It tells the adventures of Buttercup the most beautiful woman in the world and Westley the man she loves in the fairy-tale kingdom of Florin. When Buttercup is kidnapped Westley has to overcome some pretty tough obstacles if he is to rescue her from the clutches of three kidnappers - scaling the cliffs of insanity battling rodents of unusual size facing tortue in the Pit of Despair... True Love has never been a snap. Mask Of Zorro: With The slash of a steel blade and the mark of a 'Z' he defends the weak and exploits and avenges the wrongs committed against them... It has been twenty years since Don Diego de la Vega (Anthony Hopkins) successfully fought Spanish oppression in Alta California as the legendary romantic hero Zorro. He transforms troubled bandit Alejandro (Antonio Banderas) into his successor in order to stop the tyrannical Don Rafael Montero (Stuart Wilson) who robbed him of his freedom his wife and his precious daughter Elena (Catherine Zeta Jones) all those years ago.

• The X Files: Nothing Important Happened Today | DVD | (10/06/2002) from £3.80   |  Saving you £12.19 (320.79%)   |  RRP £15.99

  It has become traditional for The X-Files to kick off each new season with a humourless conspiracy two-parter, and Season 9 is no exception: in The X Files: Nothing Important Happened Today David Duchovny’s Mulder is gone, along with everything in his apartment, and Gillian Anderson’s Scully is mostly at home with her perhaps-telekinetic baby, which leaves the bulk of the investigation to promising new characters Doggett (Robert Patrick) and Reyes (Annabeth Gish).The A-plot features Lucy Lawless as a water-breathing terminatrix who could be an alien, a government experiment or a mermaid without it making any difference, but too much time is spent on impossible-to-follow subplots about internal FBI politics and everyone’s intricate backstory (if ever a release needed a "previously..." prologue, this is it). Usually, the series gets over these heart-sinking openers and livens up a bit, but this time there’s a feeling that this is the end of the line for a thoroughly battered premise.Chris Carter joins Gene Roddenberry in the exclusive category of producer-creators who turn in the worst scripts for their own shows, and all the strengths of The X-Files (shivers, wit, provocative ideas) are missing in action here as the engine grinds on empty.On the DVD: The X-Files: Nothing Important Happened Today on disc arrives with two three-minute filler featurettes, focusing on Gish’s character and the making of this show. The good news is that this anamorphic widescreen release is the best The X-Files has ever looked in a television format, showing that however dramatically exhausted it might be, the show remains technically impressive. --Kim Newman

• LE BEAU SERGE | DVD | (08/04/2013) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Grard Blain and Jean-Claude Brialy star in the first of their collaborations with the great Claude Chabrol. The director's masterful feature debut - ironic, funny, unsparing - is a revelation: another of that rare breed of film where the dusty formula might be used in full sincerity: Le Beau Serge marks the beginning of the Chabrol touch. In this first feature film of the French New Wave, one year before Truffaut's The Four Hundred Blows, the dandyish Franois (Brialy, of Godard's A Woman Is a Woman, Rohmer's Claire's Knee, and countless other cornerstones of 20th-century French cinema) takes a holiday from the city to his home village of Sardent, where he reconnects with his old chum Serge (Blain), now a besotted and hopeless alcoholic, and sly duplicitous carnal Marie (Bernadette Lafont). A grave triangle forms, and a tragic slide ensues. From Le Beau Serge onward up to his final film Bellamy in 2009, the revered Chabrol would come to leave a significant and lasting impression upon the French cinema - frequently with great commercial success. It is with great pride that we present Le Beau Serge, the kickstart of the Nouvelle Vague and of Chabrol's enormous body of work, on Blu-ray and DVD in the UK for the first time. Special Features: Gorgeous new Gaumont restoration of the film in its original aspect ratio New and improved English subtitles Original theatrical trailer A 56-minute documentary about the making of the film L'Avarice [Avarice], Chabrol's 1962 short film A lengthy booklet with a new and exclusive essay by critic Emmanuel Burdeau; excerpts of interviews and writing by Chabrol; and more

• Gomorrah Season 1-3 | Blu Ray | (12/03/2018) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Based on an idea by Roberto Saviano, from his international best-selling book, ˜Gomorrah' and the film of the same name, directed by Matteo Garrone, comes an event-series from Italy focused on the fierce Neapolitan crime organization, the Camorra. Set in the suburbs of Naples, focusing on organized crime and the relationships between gangsters, drug dealers, and ordinary people, Gomorrah depicts street-level crime and its hierarchical organization from the pavement, all the way up to regional government offices. The Savastano clan, led by the Godfather, Pietro (Fortunato Cerlino) and his loyal wife, Lady Imma (Maria Pia Calzone) reign over Naples with the assistance of his obedient and self-confident right-hand man, Ciro ˜The Immortal' (Marco D'Amore), who must teach their only son Gennaro - the heir to the Savastano gilded throne, the brutal and bloody ways of their clan. As Gennaro transforms into, and beyond, what Ciro and Pietro could have ever wished for him to become, power struggles ensue, and the balance of power shifts back and forth with devastating consequences for all involved. As the era of the Savastano clan looks to be crumbling, Ciro and Gennaro's fates will intertwine as they spread their criminal links beyond their homeland, encountering new illicit ways to trade in drugs and thrive on the spoils, despite both of them being all but destroyed in the process.

• LE BEAU SERGE | Blu Ray | (08/04/2013) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Grard Blain and Jean-Claude Brialy star in the first of their collaborations with the great Claude Chabrol. The director's masterful feature debut - ironic, funny, unsparing - is a revelation: another of that rare breed of film where the dusty formula might be used in full sincerity: Le Beau Serge marks the beginning of the Chabrol touch. In this first feature film of the French New Wave, one year before Truffaut's The Four Hundred Blows, the dandyish Franois (Brialy, of Godard's A Woman Is a Woman, Rohmer's Claire's Knee, and countless other cornerstones of 20th-century French cinema) takes a holiday from the city to his home village of Sardent, where he reconnects with his old chum Serge (Blain), now a besotted and hopeless alcoholic, and sly duplicitous carnal Marie (Bernadette Lafont). A grave triangle forms, and a tragic slide ensues. From Le Beau Serge onward up to his final film Bellamy in 2009, the revered Chabrol would come to leave a significant and lasting impression upon the French cinema - frequently with great commercial success. It is with great pride that we present Le Beau Serge, the kickstart of the Nouvelle Vague and of Chabrol's enormous body of work, on Blu-ray and DVD in the UK for the first time. Special Features: Gorgeous new Gaumont restoration of the film in its original aspect ratio, presented in 1080p on the Blu-ray New and improved English subtitles Original theatrical trailer A 56-minute documentary about the making of the film L'Avarice [Avarice], Chabrol's 1962 short film A lengthy booklet with a new and exclusive essay by critic Emmanuel Burdeau; excerpts of interviews and writing by Chabrol; and more

• To The Devil A Daughter | DVD | (11/10/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £13.99

  A heretic priest (the legendary Christopher Lee in one of his finest Hammer performances) plots to use a teenage nun (Nastassja Kinski) in a depraved sexual pact with the forces of darkness. But when an American occult novelist uncovers the conspiracy he must battle an international cabal of evil for the body and soul of the Devil's child-bride. Can this black magic marriage be stopped before an innocent girl is defiled as the womb of Satan?

• The Beyond | DVD | (06/02/2017) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Lucio "King of the Eyeball Gag" Fulci made his name with a series of gory, gooey horror epics, and The Beyond stands above all as his outré masterpiece. The largely incoherent plot has something to do with a turn-of-the-century curse and a doorway to hell in the cellar of an old New Orleans hotel. Fulci shows his usual sensitivity with wooden acting, clumsy dialogue, and buckets of oozing blood and pus, but don't let that get in the way of enjoying this mad tale of zombies from hell invading Earth and eating their way through a cast of humans: crucified martyrs, blind visionaries, creepy hotel handymen, befuddled cops, and a plucky pair of heroes desperately fleeing a horde of hungry undead. The blood-red art direction is eerily beautiful, and Fulci's relentless long takes, punctuated by jolting shock cuts and eruptions of grotesque violence, create a mood of sheer paranoid horror right down to the final, mind-bending image. And don't forget the Fulci claim to fame: eyes are gouged out, eaten away, melted with acid, and (shudder) popped out by a spike through the back of the skull. Yech! If you dare ignore such piddling details as narrative logic and let yourself get carried away on the creepy visuals, it's a deliciously stylish treat, an edgy bit of Gothic gore pitched in all its bone-crunching, flesh-ripping, organ-splatting glory. This sadistic, sanguinary hell-spawn tale is for gore-hounds only. --Sean Axmaker, Amazon.com

• Killing Season | Blu Ray | (18/08/2014) from £8.08   |  Saving you £9.91 (122.65%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Sharing the screen for the first time in motion picture history Academy Award® winner Robert De Niro and two-time Oscar® nominee John Travolta star in the nail-biting Killing Season. Two veterans of the Bosnian War - one an American named Benjamin Ford (Robert De Niro) the other a former Serbian soldier Emil Kovac (John Travolta) - engage in a tense action-packed cat and mouse game against the backdrop of America's most forbidding and remote landscape - the Appalachian mountain wilderness.

• A Love To Hide | DVD | (13/04/2009) from £20.00   |  Saving you £-5.01 (-33.40%)   |  RRP £14.99

  After witnessing the death of her parents at the hands of the Nazis a young Jewish girl tries to survive by taking shelter from an old friend. The gestapo soon track her down and she is forced to flee once more to the support of a childhood vacation friend who passes her off as an employee of the family business. However the girls presence soon gets her protectors into trouble themselves.

• Memories Of Underdevelopment | Blu Ray | (17/02/2017) from £13.05   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Hailed as one of if not the most sophisticated films ever to come out of Cuba, Memories of Underdevelopment (Memorias Del Subdesarollo) is visionary Cuban director Tomás Gutiérrez Alea's tour de force. Now, thanks to Mr Bongo Films, the film is set to arrive in a stunningly restored version on UK Blu-ray for the first time. Listed at number fifty-four on Derek Malcolm's 100 Greatest Movies, this cinematic masterpiece has been fully restored using the original camera and sound negative by Cineteca di Bologna with a vintage duplicate provided by the Instituto Cubano del Arte e Industria Cinematograficos. This international initiative to save the film from decay was funded by The George Lucas Family Foundation and the Martin Scorsese-chaired World Cinema Project, founded to provide a resource for those countries lacking archival and technical facilities. Memories of Underdevelopment makes its Blu-ray debut on 20 February 2017. Memories of Underdevelopment follows Sergio (Sergio Corrieri Soy Cuba), through his life, following the departure of his wife, parents and friends in the wake of the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Alone in a brave new world, Sergio observes the constant threat of foreign invasion, before meeting Elena (Daisy Granados), a young woman he seeks to mould into the image of his ex-wife, but at what cost to himself? Even though director Tomás Gutiérrez Alea was a staunch and devoted supporter of the revolution, Memories of Underdevelopment offers a raw and uncompromising analysis of the newly formed system of government. Through a moving blend of narrative fiction, still photography and rare documentary footage, Alea catalogues the intricacies of the early days of the Castro regime; producing a stirring and enigmatic work that feeds off the culture of the very subject it is studying: Cuba. One of the early landmark films of post-revolutionary Cuban cinema, Tomás Gutiérrez Alea said of his 1968 opus: ˜Every day, to build our society, we have to confront the type of people we despise I hope with my film, to annoy, provoke, and upset all of them.'

• The X Files: Providence | DVD | (16/09/2002) from £7.86   |  Saving you £8.13 (103.44%)   |  RRP £15.99

  As with earlier releases, The X-Files: Providence splices together two episodes, "Provenance" and "Providence", into a pseudo-movie. Again, the results fall way below the series average as the long-dead alien conspiracy business is flogged, with a lot of running around and ominous rumbling still not adding up to anything like an actual story. FBI agent Neal McDonaugh (of Minority Report) inexplicably survives a flaming motorcycle crash, leaving behind brass rubbings taken from an alien spaceship, then shows up and tries to murder Scully's psychokinetic baby, who is promptly kidnapped by a UFO cult. In Part 2, Scully (Gillian Anderson) and Reyes (Annabeth Gish) fend off enemies and friends within the bureau as they track down the cultists, who are having trouble with a spaceship they've dug up, and a typical pointless climax has things happen without the characters doing anything to contribute. Even at this late, post-Duchovny stage in the game, The X-Files has turned out some fine stand-alone episodes, but these dreary wallowings go a long way towards explaining why only diehards are still watching. After the child says "I made this" at the end of the credits, it's becoming very hard not to shout "well, clean it up then". On the DVD: The X-Files: Providence, as with Nothing Important Happened Today, arrives in a great-looking anamorphic widescreen transfer. There are two slight promotional "featurettes"--three-minute clips/talking heads promos focusing on the episode "Providence" and actor Cary Elwes' character. --Kim Newman

• What Have I Done To Deserve This? | DVD | (04/12/2006) from £8.57   |  Saving you £9.42 (109.92%)   |  RRP £17.99

  An erotic and bizarre black comedy which follows a typical Spanish housewife with rather atypical family problems! Nazis homosexuality drug dealing extra-marital affairs and a plot to forge Hitler's diaries: everything you'd expect from Spanish auteur Pedro Almodovar's fourth film!