"Actor: Jo"

• A Nightmare On Elm Street 5: The Dream Child | DVD | (25/06/2001) from £6.25   |  Saving you £15.00 (300.60%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The Nightmare on Elm Street series continues to run out of steam, with director Stephen Hopkins (Lost in Space ) applying something approaching brilliance to a script (partly by horror novelists John Skipp and Craig Spector) that falls apart under the light. Among the impressive horror-weird sequences include a boy being absorbed by a motorbike or the characters straying into a superhero comic, but it still has boring Freddy wisecracks, a parade of indistinguishable and annoying teenage cannon fodder, an incomprehensible premise about the dreams of an unborn baby and lots of pompous would-be scariness to drag it down into the morass. Lisa Wilcox returns, but there's no particular reason to be excited about that. -- Kim Newman

• Irreversible | DVD | (26/05/2003) from £11.29   |  Saving you £-4.30 (N/A%)   |  RRP £6.99

  Irreversible begins with the closing credits running backwards before the film begins (or ends) with Marcus (Vincent Cassell) and Pierre (Albert Dupontel) being escorted out of a gay s/m club by the cops, Marcus with his arm broken and Pierre in handcuffs. The "story" proceeds to unwind in a series of single-take scenes that unfold Memento-style, with each scene giving more context to what we have seen previously. Each scenario depicts actions, dialogue, incident, behaviour and circumstance that the lead characters might have wished didn't happen, ranging from extreme violence through awkward social situations to mild embarrassment. The central character (and possible dreamer of this whole what-if story) emerges as Alex (Monica Bellucci), who suffers the worst in a very hard-to-watch rape sequence in an underpass. Semi-improvised, the scenes all have attack and power as themes, with later/earlier conversational sequences that suggest life isn't all sexual assaults in the dark, showing equal cinematic imagination with the horrors. Arguably, this is not a film most would subject themselves to twice, but it is something that stays in the mind for days after viewing, sparking far more ideas and emotions than most wallow-in-nastiness pictures. --Kim Newman

• Spongebob Squarepants: Halloween | DVD | (20/10/2003) from £9.48   |  Saving you £3.51 (37.03%)   |  RRP £12.99

  SpongeBob and his pals become monsters of the deep as they celebrate Halloween in Bikini Bottom. This DVD contains 5 Halloween Episodes. Episode titles: Scaredy Pants Imitation Krabs Frankendoodle I Was A Teenage Gary Squidward The Unfriendly Ghost The Secret Box Band Geeks Welcome To The Chum Bucket My Pretty Seahorse Idiot Box.

• Qi - Series 1 | DVD | (06/11/2006) from £9.35   |  Saving you £10.64 (113.80%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The popular BBC 2 comedy panel quiz hosted by Stephen Fry comes to DVD! Featuring 12 episodes and the panel includes Alan Davies Bill Bailey and special guests including Eddie Izzard.

• Back To The Future Trilogy | DVD | (07/11/2005) from £15.99   |  Saving you £14.00 (87.55%)   |  RRP £29.99

  Back To The Future (1985): 17 year old Marty McFly got home early last night. 30 years early. Michael J. Fox stars as Marty McFly a typical American teenager accidentally sent back to 1955 in a plutonium-powered DeLorean ""time machine"" invented by slightly mad scientist Dr. Emmett Brown (Christopher Lloyd). During his often hysterical always amazing trip back in time Marty must make certain his teenage parents-to-be meet and fall in love otherwise he'll never be bor

• Star Trek Next Generation Series 7 | DVD | (22/05/2006) from £17.98   |  Saving you £19.00 (118.82%)   |  RRP £34.99

  ""Space... The final frontier... These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Its continuing mission: To explore strange new worlds... To seek out new life; new civilisations... To boldly go where no one has gone before!"" - Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) The complete seventh season of Star Trek: The Next Generation one of the finest sci-fi shows of all-time. Episodes Comprise: 1. Descent (Part 2) 2. Liasons 3. Interface 4. Gambit (Part 1) 5. Gambit (P

• Channel 4's Comedy Gala 2013 | DVD | (18/11/2013) from £5.98   |  Saving you £7.01 (117.22%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Filmed at the world famous O2 Channel 4's Comedy Gala sees the cream of the UK's comedy crop come together for one rip roaring comedy night all in aid of Great Ormond Street Hospital. This Comedy Spectacle of 2013 includes 22 of the biggest names in TV and Comedy along with an alternative dance performance from the amazing Diversity and their new recruits all guaranteeing your biggest laughs of the year. Starring: Adam Hills Alan Carr Diversity Jack Dee Jason Byrne Jo Brand Jon Richardson Jonathan Ross Josh Widdicombe Kevin Bridges Lee Evans Michael McIntyre Miranda Hart Nina Conti Paddy McGuiness Paul Chowdhry Rhod Gilbert Rich Hall Russell Brand Seann Walsh Tom Stade Warwick Davis

• Sodom | DVD | (10/09/2018) from £7.89   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Hot twenty year old British soccer hopeful Will finds himself naked and handcuffed to a streetlight in Berlin after his stag night goes awry. He is rescued by Michael, a dashing local, and the two head back to Michael s apartment for a night of passion, tension, and self-discovery.

• Shaun the Sheep - Spring Lamb | DVD | (29/03/2010) from £3.95   |  Saving you £9.04 (228.86%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Featuring 8 brand new adventures from Series 2. Episodes Comprise: Spring Lamb Everything Must Go Bitzer's New Hat Supersize Timmy Hair Today Gone Tomorrow Who's the Caddy? Ewe've Been Framed Two's Company

• The Long Goodbye | DVD | (02/02/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Raymond Chandler's cynically idealistic hero of The Long Goodbye, Philip Marlowe, has been played by everyone from Humphrey Bogart to James Garner--but no one gives him the kind of weirdly affect-less spin that Elliott Gould does in this terrific Robert Altman reimagining of Chandler's penultimate novel. Altman recasts Marlowe as an early 70s Los Angeles habitué, who gets involved in a couple of cases at once. The most interesting involves a suicidal writer (Sterling Hayden in a larger-than-life performance) whom Marlowe is supposed to keep away from malevolent New-Ageish guru Henry Gibson. A variety of wonderfully odd characters pop up, played by everyone from model Nina Van Pallandt to director Mark Rydell to ex-baseballer Jim Bouton. And yes, that is Arnold Schwarzenegger (in only his second movie) popping up as (what else?) a muscleman. Listen for the title song: it shows up in the strangest places. --Marshall Fine

• Angelina Ballerina - Lucky Penny | DVD | (26/05/2003) from £6.73   |  Saving you £6.26 (93.02%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Based on the enormously popular books written by Katharine Holabird with illustrations by Helen Craig Angelina Ballerina tells the timeless tales of a remarkable little mouse who dreams of becoming a prima ballerina. Headstrong passionate and determined Angelina is a character children of all ages will relate to. Filled with humour and tenderness Angelina Ballerina will capture their hearts and prove itself a classic for generations to come.

• Cats - Ultimate Edition | DVD | (13/10/2000) from £20.49   |  Saving you £-14.50 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Cats is a pop-cultural phenomenon that has been performed on stage for more than 50 million patrons in 26 countries for almost 18 years, resulting in more than two billion dollars in ticket sales. Now that Cats has finally made it to the small screen, attention must be paid not just by fans of this critic-proof show, but also by those entertainment mavens who have somehow avoided it until now. This video version has been restaged but, alas, not really reconceived for its new medium. Most of the cast--assembled from London, Amsterdam and New York productions--are competent. Ken Page as Old Deuteronomy, Jacob Brent as Mr Mistoffelees and Elaine Paige--the original London Grizabella, the Glamour Cat well past her prime--are a great deal more than that. Paige has toned down her theatrical belting of her big number, "Memory", and allowed the faded ruin of her character's soul to prevail in close-up. For all the covers of her signature song, Paige's version remains definitive. The video is, by definition, more intimate, which is not always a good thing: costumes are even more Halloweeny in garish close-up, the cats less cuddly without that all-important interaction, the stage's appropriately midnight lighting transmuted to a Las Vegas neon. And the chorus of cats in production numbers is even clunkier and more amorphous in two- and three-shots. The one complete newcomer to the cast is the 90-year-old icon among English actors, John Mills, a delight as Gus the Theatrical Cat. Sir John and his character show the youngsters how it's done in close-up, largely behind the eyes, abetted by a heart-tugging delivery of his one song. Yet virtually all of the songs are lip-synched, further robbing the video Cats of its onstage spontaneity. It's clearer than ever that Lloyd Webber's music is mostly twaddle, with the important exception of "Memory", which instantly and rightly became one of the genuine theatre standards not dependent on context, in the vein of Stephen Sondheim's "Send in the Clowns". On the plus side, most of the characters and lyrics, from TS Eliot's 14-poem Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, are far better defined and understood from the video version. --Robert Windeler, Amazon.com

• Jack Reed - Badge Of Honour | DVD | (23/10/2000) from £4.48   |  Saving you £1.51 (33.71%)   |  RRP £5.99

  When a young mother is murdered Sergeant Jack Reed sets out to find her killer. But the secret world of undercover operations rears its ugly head.

• The Lakes | DVD | (06/10/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  The Lakes brought writer Jimmy McGovern and actor John Simm a great deal of critical praise in 1997. Following a particularly dry period for British TV drama, the show's realistic characterisations and their painfully honest decisions hit audiences hard. Simm is a twentysomething trapped in a life of compulsive gambling, theft and being on the dole in Liverpool. On a whim he heads north to the Lake District. He expects to find the countryside quietude where his hidden poetical leanings might find a home, but instead gets caught up in a community like any other. Lies, temptation and tragedy beset every household just as much as the big city. The focus of Series 1 is Danny's relationship with Emma (Emma Cunniffe) and the consequences of having a child. As time races by, his link to the Lakes becomes an exercise in torment when the eyes of blame fall easily upon him after the accidental deaths of four schoolgirls. Stoking the flames of a series of secondary explosions in waiting are a pair of affairs, one adulterous, the other complicated by religion. On the DVD: The Lakes Series 1 comes with two separate commentary tracks for the very first episode. In interviews, John Simm fondly recalls how cold the lake water was and director David Blair recalls putting him in it. It's a shame the two weren't recorded together. It's also a shame that's all there is in this package. Even a few cast biographies would have been welcome. Picture is 4:3 and stereo sound is as you'd expect from 1990s UK TV. --Paul Tonks

• Prime Suspect 1 to 7 Box Set | DVD | (06/11/2006) from £19.99   |  Saving you £80.00 (400.20%)   |  RRP £99.99

  Prime Suspect 1 (1991): When DCI Jane Tennison (Mirren) takes over the running of what appears to be an open and shut murder case her investigations lead her into a male dominated world and the hunt for a serial killer. Prime Suspect 2 (1992): DCI Tennison begins an investigation into the death of a young girl whose body is found in the back garden of a house in London. Prime Suspect 3 (1993): Chief Inspector Jane Tennison investigates the discovery of a male prostitute's charred body in the burnt-out flat of a transsexual... Prime Suspect 4 - Inner Circles (1995): Detective Superintendent Tennison investigates the mysterious death of a local country club manager and is led to a hidden political scandal... Prime Suspect 4 - Scent Of Darkness (1995) A series of brutal sex murders disturbingly similar to the pattern of Tennison's first major case leads to the awful suggestion that she may have caught the wrong man... Prime Suspect 4 - The Lost Child (1995): Detective Superintendent Jane Tennison's return to London's Southampton Row is complicated by personal upheaval and an investigation into the disappearance of a child... Prime Suspect 5 - Errors Of Judgement (1996): Detective Superintendent Jane Tennison has been transferred to Manchester and finds herself in a world she does not know surrounded by people she cannot trust and invloved with a man she cannot have. Her latest case is destined only to make things worse... Prime Suspect 6 - Last Witness (2003): Detective Superintendent Jane Tennison (Helen Mirren) returns for a sixth investigation and another battle with the male establishment. Tennison is back in London heading a large murder squad dealing with numerous cases. She's facing the prospect of early retirement and has ambitious underlings snapping at her heels. When the body of a young Bosnian woman is found with evidence of torture Tennison takes personal charge of the case. Her investigation leads her to one possibly two Serbian war criminals eager to silence the last witness to a massacre a decade before. Prime Suspect 7 (2006): This tense uncompromising drama by distinguished dramatist and novelist Lynda La Plante has received critically acclaimed on both sides of the Atlantic; winning 14 international awards including a BAFTA for Best Drama Serial and Best TV Actress (Helen Mirren). Retirement loom large for Detective Inspector Tennison but as her exemplary career draws towards its inevitable conclusion Jane is paying dearly for 35 years of repressed rage and loneliness. When the body of a missing schoolgirl is discovered the hunt for her killer begins. However as Jane and her team struggle to track down the brutal child murderer the world-weary Detective Tennison begins to unravel.

• Looking For Eric | Blu Ray | (12/10/2009) from £14.98   |  Saving you £-3.99 (N/A%)   |  RRP £10.99

  In desperate times it takes a spliff and a special friend to help a lost postman find his way, so Eric turns to his hero: footballing genius, philosopher and poster boy, Eric Cantona.

• Wild At Heart - Series 3 | DVD | (02/02/2009) from £13.48   |  Saving you £13.50 (117.49%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Wild At Heart: Series Three (3 Discs)

• Shakespeare & Hathaway: Private Investigators: Series 3 - BLU-RAY | Blu Ray | (23/03/2020) from £15.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  The third Series of the Hit BBC Show Combining corpses, comedy and cracking mysteries, this quirky crime drama has won the hearts of over 200 countries. Now that Lu has passed her private investigator exams and Frank s tidied himself up a bit, there s no stopping them. But murder, kidnap, blackmail and infidelity still abound in the pretty tourist town of Stratford-upon-Avon. An ageing heavy metal star with a pact with the devil. A Shakespeare museum full of deadly secrets. A King Lear story set in a carpet warehouse. Welcome to the birthplace of the Bard, where low-life criminals get caught up in deliciously high drama. Includes subtitles for the Hard Of Hearing

• Double Team | DVD | (16/02/2004) from £5.19   |  Saving you £0.80 (15.41%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Look ma, no script! As expected from a movie by Hong Kong action director Hark Tsui, there are many explosive, fast-paced sequences in this Jean-Claude Van Damme vehicle. Some are thrilling, others inconsequential. There is also another mumbling, overdone performance by Mickey Rourke, who looks as if he performed his own plastic surgery. Except for an unintentionally humorous ending, the only surprise is Dennis Rodman as Van Damme's partner in exploitation. Rodman has plenty of charisma, but needs someone to weed out those inferior scripts. He plays an eccentric arms dealer coerced by an avenging Van Damme into tracking down the evil and sadistically weird character played by a well-muscled Rourke. It says little for the production that the best sequence of the movie occurs a quarter of the way into the action. It concerns an escape by Van Damme from an island think tank for forcibly retired covert agents. After that, everyone should have gone home. --Rochelle O'Gorman, Amazon.com

• My Wife Is An Actress | DVD | (01/01/2001) from £3.85   |  Saving you £16.14 (419.22%)   |  RRP £19.99

  My Wife Is an Actress ("Ma Femme Est une Actrice") stars Charlotte Gainsbourg--ex-child star, daughter of Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin, beautiful and accomplished actress--alongside her real-life husband Yvan Attal, who also directs. Attal is a humble sports journalist married to a famous international star (played by Gainsbourg) and uncomfortable with her celebrity. His first film as a director plays knowingly with off-screen reality: the two leads even use their own names, Charlotte and Yvan, for the characters they play. In the film, Charlotte goes to London to appear in a romantic drama opposite British movie icon John (Terence Stamp, sending himself up with some luvvie-ish posturing). Left at home, Yvan torments himself with thoughts of his wife playing sex scenes with John and his jealousy puts their marriage at risk. His visits to her on the set in London only make things worse. There's scope here for some good comedy, as well as an interesting exploration of how, in an actor's life, reality and artifice can snarl each other up. But Attal, who also scripted, makes his characters so shallow and two-dimensional that it's hard to believe in them, let alone care about them. A sub-plot about the squabbling between Yvan's sister and her husband over whether their unborn son should be circumcised (she's Jewish, he's not) feels tacked-on and tiresome. In aspiring to script and star in his directorial debut, Attal may have overstretched himself. Given a stronger script, this could have been a funnier or more searching film, or both. On the DVD: My Wife Is an Actress comes to disc in a clear full-screen transfer, although the dialogue's a little muffled here and there--a fault of the original, not the transfer. By way of extras we get the theatrical trailer, a likeably relaxed 16-minute "making of" featurette and a handful of not very interesting deleted scenes. --Philip Kemp