"Actor: Joan Mir"

• Willard | DVD | (30/10/2017) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  As accomplished as it is superfluous, Willard is a stylish horror film with plenty of style but precious little horror. Genre buffs will appreciate it as a visually superior sequel/remake of its popular 1971 predecessor, giving Crispin Glover a title role perfectly suited to his uniquely odd persona, in the same league as Psycho's Norman Bates. This time, Willard's the psychotically lonely son of the original film's now-deceased protagonist: a milquetoast introvert who befriends an army of obedient rats--lethal allies when Willard's pushed to his emotional breaking point by his abusive boss (R. Lee Ermey). In keeping with his memorably macabre episodes of X-Files, writer-director Glen Morgan excels with dreary atmosphere and mischievously morbid humor (including an ill-fated cat named Scully), and Glover gives his best performance since River's Edge. But even the furry villain Ben--an oversized rat with attitude--is more funny than frightful. With some justification, Glover's fans will appreciate the open door to a sequel. --Jeff Shannon

• Raising Helen | DVD | (27/12/2004) from £5.32   |  Saving you £10.67 (200.56%)   |  RRP £15.99

  When her sister and brother-in-law die in a car accident, Kate Hudson's young modeling agency assistant takes on the role as guardian of their three children.

• Pinter at the BBC (5-DVD Set) | DVD | (28/01/2019) from £38.29   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Harold Pinter (1930-2008) was one of the most important and influential British playwrights of the last century. Whilst best-known for his work for the stage, this collection celebrates Pinter's significant contribution to television. His work for the screen shares many of the qualities of that for the stage, from a fascination with the private roots of power and an abiding preoccupation with memory, to a belief in the agency of women. Featuring 10 plays made for the BBC between 1965 and 1988, and previously unavailable on DVD, highlights include Tea Party (1965), Old Times (1975) and 1987's The Birthday Party which sees a rare example of Pinter acting in his own work. A dazzling array of British acting talent is on display, including Michael Gambon, Julie Walters, Leo McKern, Vivian Merchant, John Le Mesurier and Miranda Richardson. THE PLAYS: The Tea Party (Charles Jarrot, 1965) A Slight Ache (Christopher Morahan, 1967) A Night Out (Christopher Morahan, 1967) The Basement (Charles Jarrot, 1967) Monologue (Christopher Morahan, 1973) Old Times (Christopher Morahan, 1975) The Hothouse (Harold Pinter, 1982) Landscape (Kenneth Ives, 1983) The Birthday Party (Kenneth Ives, 1987) Mountain Language (Harold Pinter, 1988) Special Features: Writers in Conversation: Harold Pinter (1984, 47 mins): an ICA interview with Harold Pinter by Benedict Nightingale Pinter People (1969, 16 mins): a series of four animated films written by Harold Pinter Face to Face: Harold Pinter (1997, 39 mins): Sir Jeremy Isaacs interviews Harold Pinter, who discusses the images and events which have inspired some of his most powerful dramas Harold Pinter Guardian Interview (1996, 73 mins, audio only): an extensive interview with the legendary playwright by critic Michael Billington, recorded at the National Film Theatre Illustrated booklet with new writing by Michael Billington, John Wyver, Billy Smart, Amanda Wrigley, David Rolinson and Lez Cooke, and full film credits UK | 1965 1988 | black and white, and colour | 628 minutes | English language with optional hard-of-hearing subtitles | original aspect ratio 1.33:1 | 5 x DVD9, PAL, Dolby Digital 2.0 mono audio (192kbps) | cert 15 (strong language, moderate violence, threat, sex references | region 2

• I Love You To Death | DVD | (17/11/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  I Love You to Death is a spotty black comedy from Lawrence Kasdan (The Big Chill)--based on a true story--that stars Kevin Kline as a womanising pizzeria owner whose mousy wife (Tracey Ullman) tries multiple ways of murdering him with the aid of sundry friends and hired hands. The film never picks up the necessary momentum or develops the necessary tone to drive it and one is left picking and choosing which of the performers is at least adequately entertaining. Kline is good but perhaps a bit too theatrical and Joan Plowright is hilarious as his mother-in-law. The funniest joke in the whole thing belongs to William Hurt and Keanu Reeves as deeply stoned, would-be-killers who emerge from a taxi and look as if they can't remember what planet they're on. --Tom Keogh

• The Entertainer | DVD | (01/03/2004) from £20.97   |  Saving you £-4.99 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  The Entertainer of the title is Archie Rice, a mediocre music hall artist upholding a dying tradition in an English seaside against a background of the 1956 Suez Crisis. Laurence Olivier stars and is supported by a superb cast including a young Alan Bates as his son, Roger Livesey as his kindly, now retired, always more talented and popular father, and Joan Plowright as his daughter (who, ironically given the story, married Olivier the following year). Albert Finney makes his screen debut in a tiny role and the remarkable cast also features Daniel Massey, Shirley Anne Field, Thora Hird and Charles Gray. Archie himself is a hollow man who brings pain to all around him, and while Olivier's brilliant performance reveals the layers of cynicism which disguise the emptiness inside, the emotional resonance lies with those forced to endure Rice's manipulations, adulteries and deceits. On stage John Osborne's play proved to be a signature part for Olivier, and director Tony Richardson--who filmed Osborne's equally sour Look Back In Anger (1958)--handles the material with unvarnished realism. Unfolding like a dark variation on Chaplin's Limelight (1952), the film equally casts a shadow over the less stellar Tony Hancock vehicle The Punch and Judy Man (1963), ultimately working as both family tragedy and allegory for a declining post-war England. Surprisingly an American 1976 TV movie remake starring Jack Lemmon held its own against this minor British classic. On the DVD: The Entertainer is presented letterboxed at 1.66:1, and sourced from an excellent print preserves the look of the original black and white cinematography very well. Even so a little material is clipped from either side of the image, though this is most notable on the left of the picture. The mono sound is very good. There are no features other than optional subtitles, including English for those hard of hearing. --Gary S Dalkin

• Scarlet Street | DVD | (06/11/2006) from £12.63   |  Saving you £-7.64 (N/A%)   |  RRP £4.99

• The Groom Wore Spurs | DVD | (31/12/2015) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £7.99

  In this light comedy Rogers plays an attorney who marries then divorces a rugged cowboy. When he gets into trouble with the law she feels compelled to defend him. Naturally he turns out to be not so tough after all.

• Scarlet Street | DVD | (18/03/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  In a way, Scarlet Street is a remake. It's taken from a French novel, La Chienne (literally, "The Bitch") that was first filmed by Jean Renoir in 1931. Renoir brought to the sordid tale all the colour and vitality of Montmartre; Fritz Lang's version shows us a far harsher and bleaker world. The film replays the triangle set-up from Lang's previous picture, The Woman in the Window, with the same three actors. Once again, Edward G Robinson plays a respectable middle-aged citizen snared by the charms of Joan Bennett's streetwalker, with Dan Duryea as her low-life pimp. But this time around, all three characters have moved several notches down the ethical scale. Robinson, who in the earlier film played a college professor who kills by accident, here becomes a downtrodden clerk with a nagging, shrewish wife and unfilled ambitions as an artist, a man who murders in a jealous rage. Bennett is a mercenary vamp, none too bright, and Duryea brutal and heartless. The plot closes around the three of them like a steel trap. This is Lang at his most dispassionate. Scarlet Street is a tour de force of noir filmmaking, brilliant but ice-cold. When it was made the film hit censorship problems, since at the time it was unacceptable to show a murder going unpunished. Lang went out of his way to show the killer plunged into the mental hell of his own guilt, but for some authorities this still wasn't enough, and the film was banned in New York State for being "immoral, indecent and corrupt". Not that this did its box-office returns any harm at all. On the DVD: sparse pickings. There's an interactive menu that zips past too fast to be of much use. The full-length commentary by Russell Cawthorne adds the occasional insight, but it's repetitive and not always reliable. (He gets actors' names wrong, for a start.) The box claims the print's been "fully restored and digitally remastered", but you'd never guess. --Philip Kemp

• Mothers & Daughters | DVD | (23/03/2009) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  ...are there some things a girl shouldn't share with her mother? A story of Londoners connected by family, friends and a certain therapist who brings all her patients' problems back to their mothers. Lives start to unravel during an eventful dinner party where the cook spoils the food, a coke headed model flirts with a married vicar, a secret affair is exposed, old family wounds are reopened and... of course... one meddling mother drops by to cause even more trouble.

• Scarlet Street | DVD | (17/11/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £4.99

  In a way, Scarlet Street is a remake. It's taken from a French novel, La Chienne (literally, "The Bitch") that was first filmed by Jean Renoir in 1931. Renoir brought to the sordid tale all the colour and vitality of Montmartre; Fritz Lang's version shows us a far harsher and bleaker world. The film replays the triangle set-up from Lang's previous picture, The Woman in the Window, with the same three actors. Once again, Edward G Robinson plays a respectable middle-aged citizen snared by the charms of Joan Bennett's streetwalker, with Dan Duryea as her low-life pimp. But this time around, all three characters have moved several notches down the ethical scale. Robinson, who in the earlier film played a college professor who kills by accident, here becomes a downtrodden clerk with a nagging, shrewish wife and unfilled ambitions as an artist, a man who murders in a jealous rage. Bennett is a mercenary vamp, none too bright, and Duryea brutal and heartless. The plot closes around the three of them like a steel trap. This is Lang at his most dispassionate. Scarlet Street is a tour de force of noir filmmaking, brilliant but ice-cold. When it was made the film hit censorship problems, since at the time it was unacceptable to show a murder going unpunished. Lang went out of his way to show the killer plunged into the mental hell of his own guilt, but for some authorities this still wasn't enough, and the film was banned in New York State for being "immoral, indecent and corrupt". Not that this did its box-office returns any harm at all. On the DVD: sparse pickings. There's an interactive menu that zips past too fast to be of much use. The full-length commentary by Russell Cawthorne adds the occasional insight, but it's repetitive and not always reliable. (He gets actors' names wrong, for a start.) The box claims the print's been "fully restored and digitally remastered", but you'd never guess. --Philip Kemp

• Color of Poetry | DVD | (27/09/2004) from £32.37   |  Saving you £-7.38 (-29.50%)   |  RRP £24.99

  With primal force and infinite delicacy Joan Mir (1893-1983) created a visual world that fused passion sexuality philosophy and flights of fancy into an ecstatic carnival of symbols: stars eyes women birds objects from the Catalonian landscape and the folklore of his native country Spain. Created with exclusive access to the Mir musuem in Barcelona this retrospective of Mir's paintings is enhanced with state-of-the-art high definition filming historic newreel footage

• Berserk! | Blu Ray | (18/03/2022) from £31.98   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Joan Crawford (What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?) stars as Monica Rivers, the owner of a traveling circus plagued by a series of mysterious deaths. When a high-wire performer becomes the first victim, he is replaced by Frank Hawkins (Ty Hardin, Battle of the Bulge), an even more daring aerialist. But Frank's attentions to Monica make her business manager, Dorando (Michael Gough, Batman), jealous.After Dorando becomes the brutal killer's next victim, Police Superintendent Brooks (Robert Hardy) arrives at the scene, but the mystery is not so easy to unravel with a cast of suspects with motives including jealousy and revenge. This campy horror flick with a surprising climax also features Judy Geeson (To Sir, With Love) and Diana Dors (There's a Girl In My Soup).