"Actor: Jason Oliver"

• Stand By Me | DVD | (04/12/2000) from £5.65   |  Saving you £7.34 (129.91%)   |  RRP £12.99

  A sleeper hit when released in 1986, Stand by Me is based on Stephen King's novella "The Body" (from the book Different Seasons); but it's more about the joys and pains of boyhood friendship than a morbid fascination with corpses. It's about four boys ages 12 and 13 (Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, Jerry O'Connell) who take an overnight hike through the woods near their Oregon town to find the body of a boy who's been missing for days. Their journey includes a variety of scary adventures (including a ferocious junkyard dog, a swamp full of leeches and a treacherous leap from a train trestle), but it's also a time for personal revelations, quiet interludes and the raucous comradeship of best friends. Set in the 1950s, the movie indulges an overabundance of anachronistic profanity and a kind of idealistic, golden-toned nostalgia (it's told in flashback as a story written by Wheaton's character as an adult, played by Richard Dreyfuss). But it's delightfully entertaining from start to finish, thanks to the rapport among its young cast members and the timeless, universal themes of friendship, family and the building of character and self-esteem. Kiefer Sutherland makes a memorable teenage villain and look closely for John Cusack in a flashback scene as Wheaton's now-deceased and dearly missed brother. A genuine crowd-pleaser, this heartfelt movie led director Rob Reiner to even greater success with his next film, The Princess Bride. --Jeff Shannon

• Robin Of Sherwood - Series 3 - Part 1 - Episodes 1 To 6 | DVD | (28/10/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £29.99

  When Robin of Loxley transformed into Robert of Huntingdon in the third series of Robin of Sherwood, many viewers were understandably confused. Michael Praed left the series for reasons that never really became apparent while Jason Connery clearly wasn't a replacement chosen for similar looks or performance. Across the 13 episodes of the third series, Connery's choice became slowly apparent. The magical stories frequently dipped into darker territory as much as they aimed for uplifting humour. The new Hood was at ease with both, while reuniting the merry band and ultimately wooing the fair Marion all over again. Connery turned in a very confident embodiment of the character, clearly bonding well with the established team of actors. Guest stars lined up to contribute alongside him. Memorable appearances include those of Richard O'Brien, David Rappaport, Matt Frewer, Patricia Hodge, Ian Ogilvy and Lewis Collins. (It's fascinating to speculate how different things could have been if the close-second casting choice of Neil Morrissey had been pursued.) The strangest aspect of the series, however, is knowing in retrospect that everyone's confidence and merriment was for nothing. Scripts were written in readiness for the fourth series, but then the studio went bankrupt. Cliffhangers therefore remain that will confuse viewers far more than the lead's replacement. --Paul Tonks

• Tess Of The D'Urbervilles | DVD | (19/02/2007) from £9.98   |  Saving you £2.00 (25.03%)   |  RRP £9.99

  The powerful tale of a peasant girl whose life is torn apart by the love and jealousy of two men. Tess's journey from innocent country maiden to tragic ruined heroine is a story of love prejudice and hypocrisy in an era of Victorian values.

• X-Men: Beginnings Trilogy | Blu Ray | (10/07/2017) from £5.98   |  Saving you £7.36 (184.46%)   |  RRP £11.35

  Although the superhero comic book has been a duopoly since the early 1960s, only DC's flagship characters, Superman and Batman (who originated in the late 1930s) have established themselves as big-screen franchises. Until now--this is the first runaway hit film version of the alternative superhero X-Men universe created for Marvel Comics by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and others. It's a rare comic-book movie that doesn't fall over its cape introducing all the characters, and this is the exception. X-Men drops us into a world that is closer to our own than Batman's Gotham City, but it's still home to super-powered goodies and baddies. Opening in high seriousness with paranormal activity in a WW2 concentration camp and a senatorial inquiry into the growing "mutant problem", Bryan Singer's film sets up a complex background with economy and establishes vivid, strange characters well before we get to the fun. There's Halle Berry flying and summoning snowstorms, James Marsden zapping people with his "optic beams", Rebecca Romijn-Stamos shape-shifting her blue naked form, and Ray Park lashing out with his Toad-tongue. The big conflict is between Patrick Stewart's Professor X and Ian McKellen's Magneto, super-powerful mutants who disagree about their relationship with ordinary humans, but the characters we're meant to identify with are Hugh Jackman's Wolverine (who has retractable claws and amnesia), and Anna Paquin's Rogue (who sucks the life and superpowers out of anyone she touches). The plot has to do with a big gizmo that will wreak havoc at a gathering of world leaders, but the film is more interested in setting up a tangle of bizarre relationships between even more bizarre people, with solid pros such as Stewart and McKellen relishing their sly dialogue and the newcomers strutting their stuff in cool leather outfits. There are in-jokes enough to keep comics' fans engaged, but it feels more like a science fiction movie than a superhero picture. --Kim Newman

• X-Men: Beginnings Trilogy | DVD | (10/07/2017) from £4.99   |  Saving you £14.92 (299.00%)   |  RRP £19.91

  Although the superhero comic book has been a duopoly since the early 1960s, only DC's flagship characters, Superman and Batman (who originated in the late 1930s) have established themselves as big-screen franchises. Until now--this is the first runaway hit film version of the alternative superhero X-Men universe created for Marvel Comics by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and others. It's a rare comic-book movie that doesn't fall over its cape introducing all the characters, and this is the exception. X-Men drops us into a world that is closer to our own than Batman's Gotham City, but it's still home to super-powered goodies and baddies. Opening in high seriousness with paranormal activity in a WW2 concentration camp and a senatorial inquiry into the growing "mutant problem", Bryan Singer's film sets up a complex background with economy and establishes vivid, strange characters well before we get to the fun. There's Halle Berry flying and summoning snowstorms, James Marsden zapping people with his "optic beams", Rebecca Romijn-Stamos shape-shifting her blue naked form, and Ray Park lashing out with his Toad-tongue. The big conflict is between Patrick Stewart's Professor X and Ian McKellen's Magneto, super-powerful mutants who disagree about their relationship with ordinary humans, but the characters we're meant to identify with are Hugh Jackman's Wolverine (who has retractable claws and amnesia), and Anna Paquin's Rogue (who sucks the life and superpowers out of anyone she touches). The plot has to do with a big gizmo that will wreak havoc at a gathering of world leaders, but the film is more interested in setting up a tangle of bizarre relationships between even more bizarre people, with solid pros such as Stewart and McKellen relishing their sly dialogue and the newcomers strutting their stuff in cool leather outfits. There are in-jokes enough to keep comics' fans engaged, but it feels more like a science fiction movie than a superhero picture. --Kim Newman

• Nora Roberts - Tribute | DVD | (15/03/2010) from £10.62   |  Saving you £4.37 (41.15%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Cilla McGowan intends to renovate her film legend grandmother's farm house but someone is trying to drive her away. With the help of her handsome neighbour Ford Sawyer she is determined to find out who is behind the threats and uncover the truth about her grandmother's death.

• Sharpe's Battle | DVD | (15/01/2007) from £7.92   |  Saving you £3.06 (62.07%)   |  RRP £7.99

  Major Richard Sharpe (Sean Bean) and his loyal band of chosen men return in Sharpe's Battle. Sharpe is given the task of preparing the glamorous Royal Irish Company led by Lord Kiely for their first encounter with the enemy. Previously only used for ceremonial duties the Company finds Sharpe a hard taskmaster. Trouble arises amongst the Irish soldiers when false reports are circulated of a massacre in Ireland perpetrated by the English. When Lord Kiely begins a passionate affair with Juanita the Spanish partisan leader the distressed Lady Kiely looks to Sharpe for comfort. Then Sharpe is led into a French trap and he and the Royal Irish Company find themselves up against the vicious Brigadier Loup and seemingly impossible odds.

• Crack in the Floor | DVD | (01/09/2003) from £12.97   |  Saving you £-9.98 (-333.80%)   |  RRP £2.99

  The continuing popularity of horror spoofs has created an opportunity for low-quality slashers such as A Crack In the Floor to pass themselves off as humorous. The story follows axe-wielding psychotic hermit Jeremiah who meets a bunch of fresh-faced young hikers and the movie employs every trick in the genre's book but still fails to rise itself above cheap exploitation (best indicated by the tasteless rape of Jeremiah's mother that prefaces the action). Brazenly claiming to feature Tracy Scoggins and Gary Busey--who in reality appear for about five minutes each--the film features young unknowns, the most high profile being Saved By the Bell's Mario Lopez. Which is fitting really because the film, with its mix of teen enthusiasm, redneck stereotypes and crass violence, is little more than that show meets The Dukes of Hazzard meets Deliverance meets Friday the 13th. Recommended for connoisseurs of everything gory and tacky but no-one else. On the DVD: The DVD manages to keep the quality set so spectacularly by the film itself--featuring an appalling trailer, a reprint of the information on the disc's box, biographies of the handful of established actors who make the briefest of cameos and trailers for some equally naff TV movies. Not what DVD was invented for. --Phil Udell

• Tess Of The D'Urbervilles | DVD | (12/05/2003) from £15.75   |  Saving you £-5.76 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  The powerful tale of a peasant girl whose life is torn apart by the love and jealousy of two men. Tess's journey from innocent country maiden to tragic ruined heroine is a story of love prejudice and hypocrisy in an era of Victorian values.

• Exhibit A | DVD | (21/06/2010) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Winner of the prestigious Best UK Feature award at the Raindance Film Festival and nominated for three British Independent Film Awards. Exhibit A tells the timely story of a normal family disintegrating under financial pressure, eventually driven to the unimaginable. All is not as it seems as the King family go about their day-to-day lives oblivious of the horror to come. Dad Andy (Bradley Cole) is nursing a secret that ultimately leads to terrifying consequences for them all. We witness these chilling events unfold through daughter Judith's (Brittany Ashworth) video camera, which subsequently becomes Exhibit A. The film is inspired by the many men in real life who are known to their neighbours as devoted husbands and fathers, but for unknowable reasons suddenly decide to take drastic action to protect their loved ones. Exhibit A has left a trail of stunned audiences at festivals all over the world and won't leave you the same person. The Collector's Edition includes an exclusive making of featurette, rehearsal footage and bonus teaser trailers.

• Class of 1999 | DVD | (08/03/2004) from £20.97   |  Saving you £-11.99 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Even though this violent indie film has "exploitation" stamped all over it--with its gratuitous car chases, shootouts, and anarchistic characters--it is a guilty pleasure. Unfolding in the future--well, at least at the time of its release it was a decade ahead of schedule--this movie shows how US urban schools have deteriorated to the point that gangs run the classroom and the police, scared to even go near these educational wastelands, use hired goons to keep law and order there. (In fact, the US government now has a Department of Educational Defence.) In Class of 1999, a corporate representative (Stacy Keach), eager to rake in potential billions in government contracts, convinces a Seattle-area school principal (Malcolm McDowell) to test out three lifelike android teachers (including Pam Grier). This technological trio possesses intelligence and superhuman strength, which offer to both educate and discipline the bad apples at school. Unfortunately, the androids quickly move from harsh discipline such as spankings and beatings to murder, and Keach's corporate scumbag convinces McDowell's educator that despite this, the program needs to stay its course. Thus it is up to a newly paroled ex-gang member (Bradley Gregg) and the principal's daughter (Traci Lind) to uncover the teachers' identities and alert students and rival gangs to the impending danger. Despite its formulaic approach and some plot implausibilities, Mark Lester's film is entertaining to watch, especially with such exchanges as this: "So they've been waging war with my students." "Well, isn't that what all teachers do?" --Bryan Reesman, Amazon.com

• Class Of 1999 | DVD | (08/10/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Even though Class of 1999 has "exploitation" stamped all over it--with its gratuitous car chases, shoot-outs, and anarchistic characters--it is a guilty pleasure. Unfolding in the future--well, at least at the time of its release it was a decade ahead of schedule--this movie shows how our urban schools have deteriorated to the point that gangs run the classroom and the police, scared to even go near these educational wastelands, use hired goons to keep law and order there. (In fact, the US government now has a Department of Educational Defense.) In Class of 1999, a corporate representative (Stacy Keach), eager to rake in potential billions in government contracts, convinces a Seattle-area school principal (Malcolm McDowell) to test out three lifelike android teachers (including Pam Grier). This technological trio possess intelligence and superhuman strength, which enable them to both educate and discipline the bad apples at school. Unfortunately, the androids quickly move from harsh discipline such as spankings and beatings to murder, and Keach's corporate scumbag convinces McDowell's educator that despite this, the programme needs to stay its course. Thus it is up to a newly paroled ex-gangbanger (Bradley Gregg) and the principal's daughter (Traci Lind) to uncover the teachers' identities and alert students and rival gangs to the impending danger. Despite its formulaic approach and some plot implausibilities, Mark Lester's film is entertaining to watch, especially with such exchanges as: "So they've been waging war with my students". "Well, isn't that what all teachers do?"--Bryan Reesman, Amazon.com

• Wuthering Heights / Tess Of The D'Urbervilles | DVD | (03/05/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Emily Bronte's classic tale of all-consuming love in a new adaptation and a new production of Thomas Hardy's classic novel.

• A Crack In The Floor | DVD | (22/10/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  The continuing popularity of horror spoofs has created an opportunity for low-quality slashers such as A Crack In the Floor to pass themselves off as humorous. The story follows axe-wielding psychotic hermit Jeremiah who meets a bunch of fresh-faced young hikers and the movie employs every trick in the genre's book but still fails to rise itself above cheap exploitation (best indicated by the tasteless rape of Jeremiah's mother that prefaces the action). Brazenly claiming to feature Tracy Scoggins and Gary Busey--who in reality appear for about five minutes each--the film features young unknowns, the most high profile being Saved By the Bell's Mario Lopez. Which is fitting really because the film, with its mix of teen enthusiasm, redneck stereotypes and crass violence, is little more than that show meets The Dukes of Hazzard meets Deliverance meets Friday the 13th. Recommended for connoisseurs of everything gory and tacky but no-one else. On the DVD: The DVD manages to keep the quality set so spectacularly by the film itself--featuring an appalling trailer, a reprint of the information on the disc's box, biographies of the handful of established actors who make the briefest of cameos and trailers for some equally naff TV movies. Not what DVD was invented for. --Phil Udell

• Small Time Obsession | DVD | (05/03/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £3.99

  Erroneously labelled a "gangster film", the independently made British film Small Time Obsession is in fact a thought-provoking essay on generation gaps and loyalties. London's Polish District is the setting, where four long-term friends are used to filling time and their pockets with petty crime. Michael (Alex King) has come to realise he has increasingly less in common with the others, and also with his parents who own a delicatessen. Life's big decisions elude Michael. His exclusively Polish-speaking father wants him to take over the family business, his greyhound Bullitt is starting to win prizes at the track and he's also secretly in love with Ali (Juliette Caton). Unfortunately she's already spoken for by tough guy Chris (Jason Merrells). This love triangle hardly has time to sort itself out since Chris is inadvertently embroiling them all in more Big Time crime. Although the circumstances inevitably lead to bouts of violence , what's refreshing here is that character relationships genuinely resonate with believability. First time writer/director Piotr Szkopiak tells the story with several shades of sympathetic subtlety, sensitively portraying the problems of a generation torn between inheriting their parents' displaced traditions and "fitting in".On the DVD: In this anamorphic widescreen presentation the dirty grey backdrop of London seems to rise up and swamp the characters. A 14-minute documentary ("Behind the Obsession") talks about those locales and how the director and distributor marketed the film. As well as a trailer, the extras package includes numerous text pages devoted to: cast and crew biographies, Production Notes, Locations, Media Reviews and the Polish Community. --Paul Tonks