"Actor: James Ma"

• Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Special Edition | DVD | (10/11/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Chitty Chitty Bang Bang entranced and thrilled children and their parents when it puttered into the cinema in 1968. More than three decades later, and despite the eventual arrival of a stage version that throws the full weight of blockbuster effects at the story, the original remains the real thing for fans of all ages. The flying car is the star and it's impossible not to feel a surge of thrilling relief as the wings kick in when she plunges over the cliff and soars off on her great adventure. The songs might not be the greatest in musical history, but they are delivered with great charm by Dick Van Dyke as Caractacus Potts (a toned-down version of his infamous Bert in Mary Poppins), Sally Ann Howes (Truly Scrumptious) and the children. And then there is Robert Helpmann's child catcher, a terrifyingly sinister figure who exudes a pungent whiff of undiluted evil unmatched by any character since Dorothy squared up to the witch in The Wizard of Oz. Cameos from British character actors abound: Benny Hill, Lionel Jeffries, Anna Quayle, James Robertson Justice and Max Wall all put in appearances that add some fibre to the overall sweetness of the story. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is the ultimate nostalgic confection for family viewing. On the DVD: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Special Edition comes to DVD in widescreen format with a Dolby soundtrack to recreate the authentic cinematic experience for everyone who remembers it from the first time round. The picture quality is robust, revealing some rather homespun aspects to the special effects. Extras are dominated by Dick Van Dyke remembering his time on the film, plus a short item on the origins of the car itself and various trailers. --Piers Ford

• Arsenic And Old Lace | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £13.99

  A drama critic learns on his wedding day that his beloved maiden aunts are homicidal maniacs, and that insanity runs in his family.

• Conan the Barbarian | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £8.09   |  Saving you £-2.10 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  The film that launched Arnold Schwarzenegger's international career, Conan the Barbarian is still regarded by many as his finest hour. Limited to a mere handful of lines and expertly directed to play up the Nietzschean strength of the character by John Milius, the Austrian Oak has never looked more suited to a role, his muscle flexing and sword twirling apparently effortless. The extraordinarily finely detailed production design ensures that the barren Spanish countryside perfectly suits the Hyborean-era backdrop envisioned by author Robert E Howard. Whether dressed in rags or riches, Schwarzenegger and companions Subotai (Gerry Lopez) and Valeria (Sandahl Bergman) look believably born to their surroundings. Backing their own very fine performances are brilliant supporting roles from James Earl Jones as serpentine baddie Thulsa Doom and Max Von Sydow as doomed King Osric. Plot-wise the film is simply the transformation of a wild barbarian into a worldly-wise king who, via a quest for revenge, finally learns the riddle of steel. The script is highly regarded for its dazzling set-pieces (the opening village raid, the orgy of body parts) and quotable dialogue ("They shall all drown in lakes of blood"), and it comes complete with an anti-peace movement reactionary subtext for anyone who cares to look close enough. One other element deserving mention is the extraordinary score by Basil Poledouris, which inspires the film with a sense of operatic grandeur. On the DVD: Conan the Barbarian appears as a suitably mythic special edition DVD. Sadly the magnificent score can only be heard in a mono mix, but the very fine picture is presented in 2.35:1. The extras package is phenomenal, too. Several deleted scenes have been re-edited into the film, but are available to view independently as well. There's a quick split-screen special effects feature showing how the ghostly spirits were added to Conan's resurrection. "The Conan Archives" is an 11-minute slide show of drawings, costumes and advertising. Best of all is the fantastic 53-minute "Conan Unchained" documentary interviewing every conceivable contributor who all reminisce with great fondness. It's slightly better seeing Schwarzenegger and Milius than hearing them talk in their commentary, which inevitably re-tells many of the same anecdotes in between puffs of Arnie's stogies. --Paul Tonks

• Hitler: The Rise of Evil | DVD | (20/10/2003) from £7.33   |  Saving you £10.66 (145.43%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Starring Robert Carlyle as the Nazi dictator, Hitler: The Rise of Evil is a lavish made-for-TV two-parter that traces Adolf Hitler's early life, including his boyhood in Austria and impoverished period as a struggling artist in Vienna, culminating in 1934, by which time he had assumed the chancellorship of Germany. We bear witness to the rhetoric, ruthlessness and obsessive determination that propelled him to power, despite the best efforts of opponents like Matthew Modine's campaigning journalist. His inadequate but despotic relationships with women, such as his tragic half-niece Geli Raubal, are also examined. Carlyle fares very well in what is traditionally considered the invidious task of bringing Hitler to dramatic life, conveying him plausibly as an impenetrably evil man, complex but irredeemable. However, this drama fails to explain just how and why such a pathetic, psychotic, unattractive individual such as Hitler could make such an immediate, profound impression on, for example, Ernst Hanfstangl and his wife Nina (ER's Julianne Margulies). Disproportionate attention is paid to Hitler's relationship to this American-born couple, perhaps as a sop to US audiences. In contrast, the social, cultural and political context of inter-war Germany is skimpily depicted here, making Hitler's ascendancy seem almost absurd. On the DVD: Hitler: The Rise of Evil is, as you would expect, a decent transfer from the TV original, but there are no additional features. --David Stubbs

• In The Loop | DVD | (24/08/2009) from £4.99   |  Saving you £13.00 (260.52%)   |  RRP £17.99

  From Armando Iannucci, the comic-genius behind The Thick of It and starring Tom Hollander, James Gandolfini, Peter Capaldi and Steve Coogan, comes a hilarious and biting satire on British-US relations and the lunacy of War.

• The Sons Of Katie Elder | DVD | (06/06/2005) from £5.99   |  Saving you £7.00 (116.86%)   |  RRP £12.99

  John Wayne recovered from his first bout of cancer to appear in 1965's The Sons of Katie Elder as the brother of Dean Martin, Earl Holliman and Michael Anderson Jr. All four characters are wandering souls prone to trouble, but after the funeral of their frontier mother, they set out to avenge her death. Directed by Henry Hathaway (Wayne's director on True Grit), the film moves like a conventional, latter-day Western, with good performances from Wayne and Martin, who'd already costarred with the Duke in Howard Hawks' Rio Bravo. There's also nice support from Dennis Hopper (who had a legendary conflict with Hathaway on this film), Strother Martin and George Kennedy. --Tom Keogh

• Lolita | DVD | (01/06/2006) from £6.19   |  Saving you £7.80 (126.01%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Stanley Kubrick's 1961 version of Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov's notorious 1953 novel, prompted a scandal in its day: even to address the issue of paedophilia on screen was deemed to be as perverted as the hapless protagonist Humbert Humbert. James Mason plays Humbert, the suave English Professor whose gentlemanly exterior peels away as quickly as his scruples once exposed to Sue Lyons' well-developed teenage beauty. In order to be close to her, he marries her mother, the lonely and pathetically pretentious Charlotte (Shelley Winters) only for her to expire conveniently, leaving Humbert free to embark on a motel-to-motel trek across America with Lolita in tow, evading suspicions that theirs is more than a father-daughter relationship. Peter Sellers, meanwhile, gives a Dr Strangelove-type tour de force performance as Clare Quilty, a TV writer also in pursuit of Lolita, who harasses Humbert under several guises, including a psychiatrist. As a movie, Lolita is flawed, albeit interestingly so. The sexual innuendo (a summer camp called Camp Climax, for example) seems jarring and pointless, while Sellers' comic turn detracts from any sense of guilt, tension or tragedy. It's as if the real purpose of the film is to offer a sort of silent, mocking laughter at the wretched Humbert and systematically divest him of his dignity. By the end, he is a babbling wretch while Sue Lyons' Lolita is pragmatic and self-possessed. It's Mason and Lyons' performances, which lift the film from its mess of structural difficulties. Decades on, their central relationship still makes for pitifully compulsive viewing. On the DVD: Few extras, sadly, though the brief original trailer is excellent, built around the question, "How could they make a film out of Lolita?". The original black and white picture and mono sound are excellent. --David Stubbs

• Rebel Without A Cause | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £7.19   |  Saving you £11.80 (164.12%)   |  RRP £18.99

  When people think of James Dean, they probably think first of the troubled teen from Rebel Without a Cause: nervous, volatile, soulful, a kid lost in a world that does not understand him. Made between his only other starring roles, in East of Eden and Giant, Rebel sums up the jangly, alienated image of Dean, but also happens to be one of the key films of the 1950s. Director Nicholas Ray takes a strikingly sympathetic look at the teenagers standing outside the white-picket-fence 50s dream of America: juvenile delinquent (that's what they called them then) Jim Stark (Dean), fast-girl Judy (Natalie Wood), lost-boy Plato (Sal Mineo), slick hot-rodder Buzz (Corey Allen). At the time, it was unusual for a movie to endorse the point of view of teenagers, but Ray and screenwriter Stewart Stern captured the youthful angst that was erupting at the same time in rock 'n' roll. Dean is heartbreaking, following the method-acting style of Marlon Brando but staking out a nakedly emotional honesty of his own. Going too fast, in every way, he was killed in a car crash on September 30, 1955, a month before Rebel opened. He was no longer an actor, but an icon, and Rebel is a lasting monument. --Robert Horton, Amazon.com

• 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi 4K | Blu Ray | (08/07/2019) from £19.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Joe Dziemianowicz, New York daily news A riveting and exhilarating true story. A masterpiece. Stephen Hayes, The weekly standard- When everything went wrong, six men had the courage to do what was right. Visionary director Michael Bay delivers a Rock-solid action drama* you won't soon forget in 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi. Follow the elite ex-military operators who fought back against overwhelming odds to save American lives in this visceral, powerful, pulse-pounding portrayal of true heroism.

• Friends: Complete Series 3 - New Edition | DVD | (25/10/2004) from £5.99   |  Saving you £44.00 (734.56%)   |  RRP £49.99

  Seemingly low-key but as wittily crafted as the first two series, this season develops minor characters--Gunther, Central Perk's proprietor, who is in love with Rachel; Phoebe's half-brother Frank (played by rising-star Giovanni Ribisi); the chick and duck--who will play key parts later on while the foundations for crucial story lines developed in Series 4 are laid down. The most momentous story arc covers Rachel and Ross splitting up when she suggests they take a "break" and he sleeps with the girl from the copy shop. Phoebe gets to know her little brother Frank who falls in love with the much-older Alice, for whom Phoebe will bear triplets in a later series. Monica pines after Richard and then starts dating the millionaire Pete, although towards the end Chandler is trying to persuade her he's good boyfriend material--clearly an omen of things to come. --Leslie Felperin

• The Vicar Of Dibley - Series 1 And 2 - Complete | DVD | (07/05/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  The sleepy village of Dibley has a new vicar but it's not your standard order bloke with beard bible and bad breath - it's Dawn French of the hilarious comedy duo French and Saunders. Armed with a sharp wit a double dose of double entendre and healthy supply of chocolate she brings the town's lovable - through rather eccentric - inhabitants a hysterical new outlook on life love and the Church of England that will leave audiences in stitches! From the writer of Notting Hill and Four Weddings and a Funeral Richard Curtis comes the first two series of this BBC sit-com.

• Battle Of The Bulge | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £4.99   |  Saving you £13.00 (434.78%)   |  RRP £15.99

  The last desperate fight that changed the course of history. Five months after D-Day most American soldiers think the German army is broken. The Germans think otherwise. In an attempt to buy time to fill the skies with their invincible new jets they launch one fast furious offensive: the Battle of the Bulge. For this epic recreation of one of World War II's most crucial confrontations director Ken Annakin (The Longest Day) captures the explosive action of massive f

• Passion Of The Christ Special Edition | DVD | (26/03/2007) from £12.13   |  Saving you £3.86 (31.82%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Director Mel Gibson's controversial retelling of the last twelve hours in the life of Jesus Christ.

• A Few Good Men | DVD | (18/02/2002) from £6.03   |  Saving you £13.96 (231.51%)   |  RRP £19.99

  As Good as it Gets is one of the sharpest Hollywood comedies of the 1990s, for all of its conventional plotting about an obsessive-compulsive curmudgeon (Jack Nicholson) who improves his personality at the urging of his gay neighbour (Greg Kinnear) and particularly a waitress (Helen Hunt) who inspires his best behaviour. It's questionable whether a romance between Hunt and the much older Nicholson is entirely believable, but this movie's smart enough--and charmingly funny enough--to make it seem endearingly possible. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com Astonishingly, Jack Nicholson's legendary performance as a military tough guy in A Few Good Men really amounts to a glorified cameo: he's only in a few scenes. But they're killer scenes, and the film has much more to offer. Cruise also shines as a lazy lawyer who rises to the occasion, and Demi Moore gives a command performance. Director Rob Reiner poses important questions about the rights of the powerful and the responsibilities of those just following orders in this classic courtroom drama. --Alan Smithee, Amazon.com

• Top Gear - The Challenges 1-4 Collection | DVD | (22/11/2010) from £18.45   |  Saving you £16.54 (89.65%)   |  RRP £34.99

  Top Gear: The Challeneges 1 - 4 Collection Box Set

• Take The Money And Run | DVD | (07/05/2001) from £13.47   |  Saving you £-0.48 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Woody Allen's feature-film debut, Take the Money and Run, a mockumentary that combines sight gags, sketchlike scenes, and stand-up jokes at rat-a-tat speed, looks positively primitive compared to his mature work. Primitive, but awfully funny. Allen plays Virgil Starkwell, a music-loving nebbish who turns to a life of crime at an early age and, undaunted by his utter and complete failure to pull off a single successful robbery, continues his unbroken spree of bungled heists and prison breaks even after he marries and raises a family. Narrator Jackson Beck, whose stentorian voice of authority makes a perfect foil for Starkwell's absurd exploits, lobs one droll quip after another with deadpan seriousness. Though spotty, Allen tosses so many jokes into the mix that it hardly matters and when they hit they are often hilarious: the chain gang posing as cousins to their old-woman hostage ("We're very close", Virgil explains to a dim cop), arguing with a dotty movie director who is supposed to be their cover for a bank robbery, Virgil's escape attempt with a bar of soap. Allen spoofs decades of crime films, everything from I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang to Bonnie and Clyde, but you don't have to know the movies to enjoy this goofy, sometimes clumsy, but quite clever comedy. --Sean Axmaker, Amazon.com

• The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Series | DVD | (26/03/2018) from £32.92   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Based on the best-selling anthologies of Victorian and Edwardian detective fi ction, The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes features the world-famous consulting detective's fictional rivals in the fog-shrouded crime capital of London. Set in the three decades before the Great War, each story dealt with an individual and perplexing case (and a different detective). This top-flight, BAFTA-winning series attracted an incredible array of talent, including John Neville, Robert Stephens, Peter Vaughan, Roy Dotrice, Donald Pleasence, Ronald Hines, Peter Barkworth and Donald Sinden. This set contains the 13 high quality episodes that made up the complete first series

• Autobiography of a Princess (Merchant Ivory Collection) | DVD | (12/02/2007) from £12.45   |  Saving you £-2.46 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  A thoughtful character study and fascinating look at a nearly obselete Indian lifestyle.

• Shootfighter | DVD | (12/04/2005) from £19.98   |  Saving you £-13.99 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Two heroes are manipulated by the villain into participating in an illegal martial arts competition funded by bloodthirsty high rollers. The contests often end in death for the loser and the two heroes must face each other after the preliminary rounds are over. It'll tear your heart out!

• Paul Blart - Mall Cop 1 And 2 | DVD | (17/08/2015) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £22.99

  Paul Blart: Mall Cop With a heart that won’t quit a stomach that won’t stop gurgling and a self-sworn oath to protect his turf he’s Paul Blart: Mall Cop. Mild-mannered Paul Blart (Kevin James I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry Hitch TV’s “The King of Queens”) has always had huge dreams of becoming a State Trooper. Until then he patrols the local mall as a security guard. With his closely cropped moustache personal transporter and gung-ho attitude only Blart seems to take his job seriously. All of that changes when a team of thugs raid the mall and take hostages. Untrained unarmed and a super-size target it’s up to Blart to save the day. Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 Paul Blart is headed to Las Vegas to attend a Security Guard Expo and inadvertently discovers a heist - and it's up to him to apprehend the criminals.