"Actor: Jane Le"

• Midsomer Murders - Stranglers Wood | DVD | (08/08/2003) from £14.02   |  Saving you £2.97 (21.18%)   |  RRP £16.99

  Strangler's Wood is a gruesomely enjoyable entry in the darkly witty Midsomer Murders series. Detective Chief Inspector Barnaby is on the case again, this time in pursuit of a serial murderer who has apparently resurfaced after nearly a decade of quiet. The story is a thoroughly absorbing one, full of nasty crawling secrets that come out when Barnaby begins poking below the village's surface, and the solution is genuinely satisfying. As in other programmes in the series, Strangler's Wood also pays realistic attention to the way Barnaby's job affects his home life, making his tenacity at pursuing a case exasperating without getting melodramatic. Fans of Daniel Casey's Sergeant Troy will be pleased to see him prominently featured in the episode as well. This is a terrific, stand-alone chapter in an excellent series. --Ali Davis

• Komodo | DVD | (27/01/2003) from £22.98   |  Saving you £-6.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £13.99

  I think they're contesting our place in the food chain", quips an Imperilled teen at an especially low moment of Komodo, a regulation trapped-with-monsters straight-to-video quickie. There was a millennial blip of such nature-on-the-rampage horrors in the year 2000 and Komodo settles comfortably onto the shelf with King Cobra, Blood Surf, They Nest, Crocodile, Spiders and Octopus. If you've seen all of them, you'll probably want to see this too--but don't say we didn't warn you. Komodo familiarly packs a few no-name actors to an island supposedly off the shore of Carolina (actually somewhere in Australasia and has them menaced by CGI creatures, then fighting back and beating the beasts. Though the title gives away the nature of the menace, ex-effects technician-turned-director Michael Lantieri keeps the monsters off-screen and purportedly mysterious for half the running time. Teenage Patrick (Kevin Zegers) is traumatised by the deaths of parents (and his dog) and retreats into an amnesiac fugue, but his psychiatrist Victoria (Jill Hennessy) brings him back to the site of the tragedy to stir his memories. It turns out that the local evil oil company has always known that a bunch of giant, flesh-eating lizards were on the loose but kept quiet about it for nebulously nefarious purposes. Oates (Billy Burke), a rebellious company minion, hooks up with Patrick (who shows unexpected resourcefulness in whipping up lizard traps) and the shrink and they have a last-reel confrontation with the monsters that allow for some very distant echoes of Jurassic Park. The CGI and model work is seamless but the monsters have too little personality and, despite their voracious appetites, require all manner of contrivances to bring their victims within snapping distance. Nice bit at the end though with a gory if not dramatic finale. --Kim Newman

• Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em - The Complete First Series | DVD | (21/10/2002) from £9.35   |  Saving you £6.64 (71.02%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Although Britain has changed almost beyond recognition since Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em was first broadcast in the early 1970s, the show's simple slapstick humour has an ageless quality that makes it enduringly hilarious. Michael Crawford found fame as Frank Spencer, still probably television's most accident-prone man, and still Britain's most mimicked sitcom character, having inspired thousands of wannabe entertainers to don black berets and Humphrey Bogart-style rain coats and feebly exclaim "Mmm, Betty!". Crawford's great insight was to portray Frank as both a figure of fun and an endearingly sympathetic character: we laugh at him but never cease liking him, and we always admire his plucky never-say-die spirit. Most of the episodes share the common theme of Frank attempting to find a job (ranging from a holiday camp entertainer to an RAF cadet), but because of his clumsy demeanour and lack of common sense, losing the positions within a matter of hours. Pitted against a variety of middle-aged, male professionals (his GP, a psychiatrist and a public relations consultant for example), Spencer's stupidity reduces these "experts" to nervous wrecks. His long-suffering, doting wife Betty (Michelle Dotrice) features throughout, but despite his wild behaviour and idiocy she appears only mildly flustered by her husband's actions. On the DVD: Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em was one of the first comedy series to be recorded by the BBC in colour, but the sound and vision of the episodes transfer perfectly satisfactorily to DVD format. At times the production values of some of the episodes are decidedly ropey (watch out for stray boom microphones and the skewed opening and closing credit). Apart from the episode and scene selection menus, which incorporate sound extracts from the show, no extras are included. --John Galilee

• Frasier - Series 10 | DVD | (28/07/2008) from £19.95   |  Saving you £15.04 (75.39%)   |  RRP £34.99

  Frasier returns with Season 10 of the smash hit comedy! Emmy Award-winner Kelsey Grammer is Frasier - the hilarious psychiatrist first seen on TV's Cheers and subsequently the star of this smash-hit comedy series.

• The Adventures Of Sir Lancelot | DVD | (25/04/2005) from £48.41   |  Saving you £-18.42 (N/A%)   |  RRP £29.99

  Famed character actor (and one of Doctor Who's first companions) William Russell stars in the popular and well-remembered series The Adventures of Sir Lancelot. The classic and inspirational stories of King Arthur and The Knights of The Round Table are brought to life through the adventures of Sir Lancelot - the bravest of all knights. Presented here is the entire series of 30 action packed episodes of this classic show some of them presented here for the first time in colour. This t

• Mamma Mia! The Movie | DVD | (03/07/2018) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Deliver Us From Evil | DVD | (10/03/2008) from £20.00   |  Saving you £-0.01 (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The story of the most notorious paedophile priest in the modern history is told in this Oscar-nominated documentary.

• Greetings | DVD | (10/03/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Robert De Niro stars in this his second film for director Brian De Palma. 'Greetings' is a satirical comedy focusing on the lives of three New Yorkers each with his own personal fixation ranging from sex and voyeurism to Kennedy assassination theories. Their common interest is discussing the ways to dodge the draft board. De Palma's originalty captures perfectly the spirit of late sixties America. And De Niro even in this early performance displays all the hallmarks that has e

• Against All Odds | DVD | (10/01/2000) from £15.97   |  Saving you £7.01 (54.01%)   |  RRP £19.99

  James Woods doesn't get to play many romantic leads--and he certainly doesn't get the girl in this handsome, if occasionally hollow, remake of Out of the Past. As the mover-and-shaker lover of Rachel Ward, he loses her--if only temporarily--to ex-football star Jeff Bridges. Woods captures the insecurity behind a man of power who understands that the women in his life love his money first. But he also shows us the real tenderness that kept Ward close when money lost its glitter. Bridges is at his best, playing the should-have-been trying to keep his future from repeating his dead-end past. Look for actress Jane Greer (who played the Ward role in the 1947 original opposite Robert Mitchum and Kirk Douglas) in a small role. --Marshall Fine, Amazon.com

• Star Trek 4: The Voyage Home (Special Edition) | DVD | (02/06/2003) from £9.98   |  Saving you £15.01 (150.40%)   |  RRP £24.99

  The most popular movie in the "classic Trek" series of feature films, Star Trek IV was a box-office smash that satisfied mainstream audiences and hard-core fans alike. The Voyage Home returns to one of the favourite themes of the original TV series--time travel--to bring Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, Sulu, Uhura and Chekov from the 23rd century to present-day (i.e., mid-1980s) San Francisco. In their own time, the Starfleet heroes encounter an alien probe emitting a mysterious message--a message delivered in the song of the now-extinct Earth species of humpback whales. Failure to respond to the probe will result in Earth's destruction, so Kirk and company time-travel to 20th-century Earth--in their captured Klingon starship--to transport a humpback whale to the future in an effort to communicate peacefully with the alien probe. The plot sounds somewhat absurd in description, but as executed by returning director Leonard Nimoy, this turned out to be a crowd-pleasing adventure, filled with a great deal of humour derived from the clash of future heroes and contemporary urban realities, and much lively interaction among the favourite Trek characters. Catherine Hicks plays the 20th-century whale expert who is finally convinced of Kirk's and Spock's benevolent intentions. --Jeff Shannon

• Intelligence - Season 1 | DVD | (26/03/2021) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• The Descent (Special Edition) | DVD | (08/02/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  A caving trip goes badly wrong for six girlfriends as they discover they're not alone in the dark.

• The Flintstones In Viva Rock Vegas | DVD | (08/10/2001) from £22.96   |  Saving you £0.02 (0.10%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Kids will enjoy the dinosaurs, gaudy prehistoric decor, and cartoon humour of The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas; but adults will find fewer morsels of entertainment, although the sly performance of Alan Cumming (Eyes Wide Shut) as the Great Gazoo, an alien sent to Earth to observe human mating behaviour is a highlight. The movie begins before Fred (Mark Addy from The Full Monty) and Wilma (Kirsten Johnston from Third Rock from the Sun) Flintstone ever met, back when Wilma was an unhappy rich girl seeking happiness in a less snobby environment. Running away from her smothering mother (Joan Collins!) and an oily suitor, Chip Rockefeller (Thomas Gibson from Dharma and Greg), she winds up at a drive-in restaurant where she meets Betty (Jane Krakowski from Ally McBeal), a waitress who thinks Wilma is actually homeless and invites the runaway to live with her. Our blue-collar heroes, Fred and Barney Rubble (Stephen Baldwin from The Usual Suspects), ask the girls out on a double date, and before long Fred and Wilma bond over bowling. But it turns out that Chip is in debt to a ruthless loan shark and needs Wilma's money, so he invites the couples to his new casino in Rock Vegas, where he plots nefariously to ruin their blossoming love. The plot holds no surprises and the dialogue is clumsy, but there's a blithe dimwittedness to the whole affair that makes it curiously inoffensive. --Bret Fetzer, Amazon.com

• Legends Of Jazz With Ramsey Lewis - Showcase | DVD | (07/07/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £11.99

  Legends Of Jazz with Ramsey Lewis is a dynamic all-star collection of 13 riveting performances featuring some of the biggest names in contemporary jazz music! Tracklisting: 1. Al Jarreau Kurt Elling - Take Five 2. Chris Botti - My Funny Valentine 3. Marcus Miller George Duke Lee Ritenour - The Panther 4. David Sanborn Phil Woods - Senor Blues 5. Chick Corea - Armando's Rhumba 6. Robert Cray Keb' Mo' - 12 Year Old Boy 7. Benny Golson - Killer Joe 8. Ivan Lins - The Island 9. Clark Terry - Mumbles 10. Jane Monheit John Pizzarelli - They Can't Take That Away 11. Dave Valentin - Obsesion 12. Dave Brubeck Billy Taylor - Take the 'A' Train 13. Ramsey Lewis - Dear Lord

• Macbeth | DVD | (23/08/2004) from £11.00   |  Saving you £1.99 (18.09%)   |  RRP £12.99

  An adaptation of William Shakespeare's classic which depicts the crumbling of an obsessed man's sanity and the chronicling of his moral disintegration.

• Threads | DVD | (10/07/2000) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Hideously plausible when first broadcast in 1984, this BBC TV docu-drama now seems like a terrifying might-have-been, although a great deal of what it says about the probable aftermath of a nuclear attack remains horribly pertinent. Scripted by Barry Hines (author of the novel on which Ken Loach's Kes was based) and directed by Mick Jackson (who later went to Hollywood with The Bodyguard and Volcano), at the time Threads seemed like a response to the American TV movie The Day After although it stands nobly on its own. Showing the after-effects of World War III on the United Kingdom by concentrating on two Sheffield families linked by an unplanned pregnancy, it illustrates the scientific, political, medical and social consequences of the severing of the many vital connective "threads" that support a Western society. Grim in a particularly 1980s way, this is a compulsive if uncomfortable watch and accomplishes a great deal without the distraction of spectacle, picking through all the melted milk bottles and firing squad traffic wardens to find the human horror at the heart of it all. --Kim Newman

• Ally McBeal, Series 5 Box Set 2 | DVD | (10/02/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The fifth season was the last series of Ally McBeal, and probably the least satisfying. While always at least slightly entertaining, it was troubled by two conflicting imperatives: first, to steer its neurotic characters and multiplicity of sub-plots towards a coherent and credible resolution; second, to sustain another series of a programme that had, by now, exhausted all the plot possibilities that were remotely believable. The result is a bemusing onslaught of new characters (Ally's Mini-Me Jenny and a barely distinguishable phalanx of lantern-jawed male leads), celebrity cameos (Edna Everage, Christina Ricci, Barry White, Matthew Perry, Jon Bon Jovi), several storylines that would test the credulity of any of the curiously indulgent judges before whom Ally's firm practises (notably the arrival of a 10-year-old daughter that Ally didn't know she had) and one misbegotten attempt to anchor the programme to the real world (the "Nine One One" episode, an unwatchably mawkish allegory about the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States). Granted that Ally McBeal was never intended to be realistic drama, but when the programme spirals entirely off into the realms of the surreal, any possibility of the sort of identification with the characters on which the programme once relied is lost. Though not without its moments, the sudden redemption of Fish, always the best-written character, is deftly handled. Season Five will be of chief interest to adherents who stuck with it through the first four and so wanted to see how it all ends; in keeping with the central character's defining motifs of solipsism and self-pity, it does so with a whimper. On the DVD: Ally McBeal has episode selector on each disc, and a scene selector within each of those. The final disc contains two short and desultory documentaries on the series billed, somewhat hopefully, as "Special Features". A French audio soundtrack is available, as are subtitles in English, French and Dutch. –-Andrew Mueller

• Hot in Cleveland- Season 1 | DVD | (25/04/2011) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Three women fom LA were en-route to Paris for a well deserved holiday, but their plane made an unexpected landing in Cleveland, Ohio.Victoria Chase (Wendie Malick) a soap-opera actress and her 2 friends were not too thrilled but soon realised it wasn't so bad and decided to stay, especially when they met a feisty landlady.(Betty White)The episodes comprise: 'Pilot', 'Who's Your Mama?', 'Birthdates', 'The Sex That Got Away', 'Good Neighbors', 'Meet the Parents', 'It's Not That Complicated', 'The Play's the Thing', 'Good Luck Faking the Goiter' 'Tornado'.

• Penny Serenade | DVD | (08/09/2003) from £12.88   |  Saving you £-7.90 (N/A%)   |  RRP £1.99

  Newspaperman Roger Adams (Cary Grant) falls for record store worker Julie Gardiner Adams (Irene Dunne) and the pair marry on New Year's Eve shortly before Roger leaves for a new job in Tokyo. His new wife joins him three months later and announces she is pregnant but a major earthquake in Tokyo leads to her losing the baby and unable to bear anymore. The pair eventually return to America where Roger buys a small country newspaper and Roger and Julie begin the process of adopting a

• The Electric Horseman | DVD | (24/12/2001) from £10.31   |  Saving you £2.68 (25.99%)   |  RRP £12.99