"Actor: Fred Graham"

• The Italian Job | DVD | (26/08/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Michael Caine stars in this 60s classic as the leader of a team of thieves who plan to use minis to help them perform the heist of the century.

• The Amazing Mr Blunden | DVD | (24/02/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £16.99

  A mysterious very old solicitor Mr. Blunden (Naismith) visits Mrs. Allen and her young children in her squalid Camden Town flat and makes her an offer she cannot refuse. The family become the housekeepers to a derelict country mansion in the charge of the solicitor. One day the children meet the spirits of two other children who died in the mansion nearly a hundred years previously and start to look into the mystery surrounding a fire that destroyed the house and claimed the lives of the two children...

• Defence Of The Realm | DVD | (11/10/1999) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £6.99

  In the politically charged atmosphere of Margaret Thatcher's Britain, newspaper reporters are hungry for the big story that will make them stars and their newspapers famous. Nick Mullen (Gabriel Byrne in his first starring role) is one such reporter for the London Daily Dispatch. A top member of Parliament (Ian Bannen) is the focus of the latest political scandal: he has been photographed with a prostitute who is known to have Russian contacts. Nick barrels into the scandal full-bore, despite warnings from his mentor (a deft Denholm Elliott). Nick receives a tip that makes his story a front-page item and he quickly becomes a celebrity himself. But as he soon discovers, there is much more to the story than he imagined. Director David Drury (Prime Suspect 3) keeps this highly complex, John le Carré-esque story moving swiftly. The clues are hard to find at times but it is not because the story is told unclearly; rather, the filmmakers have decided that audiences can think for themselves and piece together the information along with Nick. Defence of the Realm overlooked and truly entertaining thinking person's film. --Doug Thomas

• The Fast Lady | DVD | (02/02/2004) from £9.48   |  Saving you £0.51 (5.38%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Murdoch Troon (Baxter) attempts to woo the daughter (Christie) of wealthy businessman Charles Chingford by impressing her with a vintage Bentley known as 'The Fast Lady'...

• Krull | DVD | (05/09/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  There's something inescapably appealing about Krull, a camp Star Wars-meets-The Lord of the Rings knock-off, that encourages the viewer to overlook it's very many silly shortcomings and simply enjoy the fun. James Horner's rollicking music score--written soon after his similarly memorable contribution to Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan--certainly helps, as does the epic-scale CinemaScope photography of the breathtaking Italian landscapes. The costumes and extravagant production design are also great to look at, and much of Derek Meddings' visual effects work still looks striking if not exactly state-of-the-art. Of the cast, Freddie Jones stands head and shoulders above all others as the Obi Wan Kenobi-meets-Gandalf character Ynyr: his trip to the centre of the spider's web is both genuinely scary and genuinely touching. The two romantic leads, Ken Marshall as the Luke Skywalker-meets-King Arthur clone Prince Colwyn and Lysette Anthony (with an overdubbed American voice) as his Leia-Guinevere Princess Lyssa, are mere formalities on which to hang the plot. Ironic fun can be had with the all-British supporting cast, which includes Todd Carty of Eastenders fame and Carry On's Bernard Bresslaw, as well as Robbie Coltrane, Liam Neeson and the gorgeous Francesca Annis. On the DVD: Krull comes to DVD in an anamorphic widescreen print, preserving the luscious CinemaScope look of the theatrical release. The Dolby 5.1 sound lives up to the picture. There are two commentary tracks: on the first, director Peter Yates talks through the movie, with contributions from other crew members and leads Ken Marshall and Lysette Anthony. Oddly, the second audio track is just a reading of an article that originally appeared in the November 1982 issue of Cinefantastique magazine. There's also a half-hour "making-of" featurette originally produced to promote the movie at the time, the usual trailer, stills gallery and three talent profiles. --Mark Walker

• Little Voice | DVD | (22/01/2001) from £5.88   |  Saving you £12.11 (205.95%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Michael Caine was robbed of an Oscar. He gives his finest performance in a decade as big-talking small-time agent Ray Say, a paunchy, pale life of the party hiding his desperation under gold chains and cool bravura. When he hears the almost magical voice of Jane Horrocks's meek little LV (short for Little Voice) fill her bedroom with the rich voice of Judy Garland, he sees his ticket to the big time. Little Voice is ostensibly LV's story, and in fact the original play was written for Horrocks, whose amazing vocal impressions of Garland, Shirley Bassey and Marilyn Monroe (among others) form the centrepiece performance of the film. But as directed by Mark Herman (Brassed Off), the story of this mousy girl who shuts herself in from a bellowing world is just as overwhelmed by the bombastic characters as LV herself. Brenda Blethyn babbles a blue streak as LV's overbearing mother, Mari, an ageing widow who escapes her unhappiness in carousing and becomes almost pathologically jealous when Ray's attentions turn from her to LV. As Ray puts his dreams on the line for LV's showcase, he reveals his true self: a venal man who spits and barks out his bottled-up anger in an astoundingly bile-filled delivery of Roy Orbison's "It's Over." The showstopping moment once again overwhelms LV's tale, but Caine's performance is so astounding it seems a fair trade. --Sean Axmaker

• Little Voice | DVD | (22/01/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Michael Caine was robbed of an Oscar. He gives his finest performance in a decade as big-talking small-time agent Ray Say, a paunchy, pale life-of-the-party hiding his desperation under gold chains and cool bravura. When he hears the almost magical voice of Jane Horrocks's meek little LV (short for Little Voice) fill her bedroom with the rich voice of Judy Garland, he sees his ticket to the big time.

• Derren Brown - Trick Of The Mind - Series 1 | DVD | (25/04/2005) from £4.99   |  Saving you £15.00 (300.60%)   |  RRP £19.99

  'Trick of the Mind' reveals the truly staggering craft of one of the world's leading entertainers. Derren Brown demonstrates his unique powers of showmanship psychological illusion and misdirection to astound and amaze everyone he meets from people wandering the UK's streets to celebrity fans including Martin Kemp and an astonished Stephen Fry. The eagerly awaited follow-up to 'Inside Your Mind' 'Trick of the Mind' sees Derren return on a grander and more adventurous scale! The

• Doctor In Trouble | DVD | (14/04/2003) from £12.98   |  Saving you £-2.99 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  The madcap doctor team are at it again! This time Dr. Burke stows away on a cruise ship when his girlfriend is assigned a modelling job aboard the vessel and ends up as a ship's doctor.

• Will Hay - Oh Mr Porter / Convict 99 | DVD | (16/06/2003) from £12.60   |  Saving you £0.39 (3.10%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Though he gets solo above-the-title billing, Will Hay was no more a solo comedian than Groucho Marx. Teamed with sidekicks Moore Marriott and Graham Moffatt the trio formed one of British cinema's greatest comedy gangs. Oh, Mr Porter!, one of their finest vehicles, finds Hay as congenial William Porter, an inept railway worker who is shunted off to the dead-end job of stationmaster in Buggleskelly, Northern Ireland. The delight of the film is in the interplay between Hay and Marriott, the single-toothed dotty old-timer, and Moffatt, the chubby smart kid, as they fail the most basic requirements of their jobs but come up trumps when investigating the ghost of One-Eyed Joe and his haunted mill. --Kim Newman One of Will Hay's brisker comic efforts, 1936's Convict 99 sees Dr Benjamin Twist, Hay's clueless schoolmaster, caught in a case of mistaken identity and invited to head up a prison for especially hard-boiled criminals. It's a typical outtake from Hay's bizarrely lawless universe in which, for all his harrumphing and bluster, he's unable to exercise any sort of discipline whatsoever over the men in his charge. Hay plays exactly the same character from film to film, one so ill-equipped for any situation he's equally suited for all. Whereas Twist is an incompetent who somehow muddles through, Hay the comic actor is a master of timing and double-takes who knows precisely how to create the air of a shambles. --David Stubbs

• The Organization | DVD | (03/02/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  The Organization was the second and final sequel to 1967's In the Heat of the Night and sees Sidney Poitier's homicide detective Virgil Tibbs called in to investigate the murder of a factory manager. In a lengthy, dialogue-free opening (the film's best sequence), it appears that we are witnessing the culprits in action. However, this group turns out to be a gang of idealistic young vigilantes who knew that the factory was a front for an international drugs cartel--the Organization of the title--and have made off with a haul of heroin secreted there. Suspected of the manager's murder, they meet Tibbs and seek his cooperation. He agrees to help them, pitting himself not only against the Organization but his own police department. Set in San Franscisco, The Organization invites invidious comparisons with Bullitt: its somewhat cheesy contemporary soundtrack, derived from Miles Davis' Bitches Brew, certainly marks it as a piece of its period, as do the occasionally less-than-convincing action sequences, risible acting and far-fetched plot. Poitier, as ever, lends the film a certain dignity and poise, worthy of better material to work with than this. The film is also notable for providing early showcases for two of Cop TV's most famous Captains: Daniel J Travanti (Hill Street Blues) and Bernie Hamilton (later Captain Dobey in Starsky & Hutch) are both assigned minor roles here. On the DVD: The Organization comes to disc in an adequate transfer, though still a little grainy. The sole extra is the original trailer. --David Stubbs

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

  Meantime, made in 1983, was only Mike Leigh's second film to reach the big screen, though by now he was far from a novice director. Yet 10 years after his first movie, Bleak Moments (1971), he couldn't get funding for a single cinematic feature and was obliged to make films for television. Meantime, first shown on Channel 4, was given a limited theatrical release, heralding his eventual return to the cinema. The title is a double-edged pun. It suggests the waiting-around no-time-in-particular that the characters inhabit, but it's also Leigh's barbed comment on the mean-spirited politics of the Thatcher era, when millions of people were tossed on the scrapheap of unemployment. Leigh has sometimes been accused of caricaturing and being condescending to his characters, but Meantime is notable for wry compassion in its portrayal of a bunch of no-hopers stuck in their East End limbo. Not a lot happens. Mark (Phil Daniels) and his retarded brother Colin (Tim Roth) hang about the streets and pubs, banter with their skinhead mate Coxy (Gary Oldman), half-heartedly chat up local girls, bicker with their parents. Their aunt Barbara--who bettered herself and moved to the relative poshness of Chigwell--offers Colin a job helping her decorate, but he backs out of it. Nobody's going anywhere much. But the view's not totally forlorn. Leigh leaves us with a brief, unexpected moment of warmth and solidarity between the two brothers. On the DVD: It's paltry stuff. A so-called "trailer" proves to be a plug for other DVD releases in the same series. Otherwise it's just a scene menu, and English subtitles for the hard of hearing. The early 80s TV-quality images are badly shown up by the DVD's visual acuity. --Philip Kemp

• Will Hay - Convict 99 | DVD | (30/09/2010) from £6.21   |  Saving you £-1.22 (N/A%)   |  RRP £4.99

  Will Hay - Convict 99

• She Wore A Yellow Ribbon | DVD | (30/04/2001) from £12.99   |  Saving you £-3.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  The second instalment of John Ford's famous cavalry trilogy, this meditative Western continues the director's fascination with history's obliteration of the past. It features one of John Wayne's more sensitive performances as Capt. Nathan Brittles, a stern yet sentimental war horse who has difficulty preparing for his impending military retirement. All things considered, he refuses to leave before fulfilling his obligation to the local Indian tribe. It's a film about honour and duty as well as loneliness and mortality. And Oscar-winner Winton C. Hoch beautifully photographs it in Remington-like Technicolor tones (you've never seen such stunning cloud-covered skies). The combination of melancholy and farce (Victor McLaglen makes a perfect court jester) evokes comparisons to Shakespeare. Best of all, the scene in which Wayne fights back tears when receiving a gold watch from his troops is unforgettably bittersweet. If you view the whole trilogy, it actually makes sense to save this for last. --Bill Desowitz, Amazon.com

• Marie - A True Story | DVD | (17/06/2008) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Marie: A True Story charts the rise of Marie Ragghianti (Sissy Spacek) from her violent marriage through her struggle as a single mother putting herself through school right up to her appointment as head of the state parole board. Uncovering widespread corruption in the parole system Marie makes the life changing decision to blow the whistle on the grafters and sentence the governor and his officials to the very prisons they sought to control...Through powerful oppostition and a barr

• The Amazing Mr Blunden | DVD | (10/10/2005) from £50.00   |  Saving you £-44.01 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  The Amazing Mr. Blunden

• Children Of The Corn 4 - 7 | DVD | (25/09/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Children Of The Corn IV - The Gathering (Dir. Greg Spence 1996): The horror returns when the children of a small midwestern town are haunted by an unspeakable evil that lurks somewhere out behind the corn fields. A bright young medical student must solve the frightening mystery that plagues the children before a sinister stranger can claim their souls for his own! It's a pulse-pounding race against time and terror that will leave even the most die-hard suspense fans on the edge of their seats! Children Of The Corn V - Fields Of Terror (Dir. Ethan Wiley 1998): Six college students take a wrong turn and find themselves lost in a strangely deserted rural town only to discover that this deceptively quiet place hides a murderous cult of children controlled by evil forces! Yet even as bodies begin cropping up all around them the young friends decide to stay and rescue the children; or die trying... Children Of The Corn 666 - Isaac's Return (Dir. Kari Skogland 1999): Isaac's Return is the sixth and newest bone-chilling chapteriin the thrilling 'Children Of The Corn' series! On a trip to find her birth mother Hannah Martin picks up a dark stranger who kicks off a mysterious chain of events. Little does Hannah know that her journey may help fulfill a sinister prophecy made 19 years earlier by Isaac the cult's original evil leader! It's a hair-raising movie event you don't want to miss as Isaac makes his terrifying return and the frightening children of the corn achieve their ultimate destiny! Children Of The Corn VII - Revelation (Dir. Guy Magar 2001): When calls to her eccentric grandmother go unanswered Jamie Lowell is shocked to discover that her grandmother's last known address is a condemned tenement building overrun by uncontrollable children! But as Jamie slowly uncovers the truth behind her grandmother's mysterious disappearance she disturbs a powerful evil that now seeks to destroy her as well!

• Shock Waves | DVD | (23/07/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  In 1945 during the final death throes of the Third Reich a crack division of SS Shock Troops went down aboard their ship. They had supposedly drowned beneath several fathoms of ocean. Yet there was one thing about them the world didn't know: they couldn't die as they had never been alive in the first place. Genetically engineered and adaptable to battle conditions anywhere (even under water) these were the Gestapo outfits known as the Death Corps pathological murderers and criminals with an innate desire for violence...