"Actor: John A"

• Monteverdi: L'Incoronazione di Poppea | DVD | (04/12/2000) from £2.96   |  Saving you £23.29 (1,370.00%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Monteverdi's L'Incoronazione di Poppea (1642) marks one of the very foundations of opera. Revolving around real historical characters, the Roman emperor Nero, his love for Poppea, the betrayal of the empress Octavia, and death of the philosopher Seneca, Monteverdi pits human love, ambition and intrigue against the fates. The set, a symbolic part-globe, and the costumes drawn from various ages suggest--very much in the way of the surreal film of Shakespeare's Titus (1999)--that the concerns of ancient Rome are timeless. With the emphasis on the text (the music alone does not hold the attention for 150 minutes) conductor Jacobs depends upon an excellent cast to bring the production alive. Patricia Schumann dominates the stage, her Poppea is warm, sensual and likeable, without being entirely trustworthy, an effective counterpart to Richard Croft's Nero. Darla Brooks brings just the right degree of vivacious gullibility to Drusilla, while Curtis Ryam offers eccentric comedy as Arnalta. As Ottone Jeffrey Gall is a man acutely tormented by love. Recorded at the 1993 Schwetzinger Festspiele, there is no sign of an audience, the many close-ups suggesting this performance was specially given for video. On the DVD: There are subtitle options for English, French and German, but no special features. The booklet is well documented but does not contain the libretto. The sound is good PCM stereo while the 4:3 image (not 16:9 as stated on the packaging) is better than video but otherwise unremarkable. --Gary S. Dalkin

• Martian Successor Nadesico - Vol. 4 | DVD | (21/07/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  There's plenty of trouble brewing. A new military initiative takes the Nadesico by surprise and Akito finds himself cut adrift but Erina's secret plans for the young pilot are sabotaged when the Jovians stage a daring series of raids on the city. Megumi and Minato are taken hostage the Gekiganger team takes over and the entire universe gets turned upside down and inside out as the shocking truth about the Jovians is finally unveiled.

• Dragon Fighter | DVD | (08/03/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Some rare fossilised eggs are found and sent to a scientist who is trying to prove the existence of the winged dinosaur. As the tests on the eggs proceed the eggs begin to hatch unleashing a horror....

• The Magic Bubble | DVD | (03/09/2001) from £6.53   |  Saving you £-3.54 (-118.40%)   |  RRP £2.99

  Julia a unhappily married mother is magically transformed into a dynamic younger woman and falls in love with handsome Mac. Will her family survive?

• Bucky O Hare - Vol.1 | DVD | (26/02/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  'Bucky O'Hare And The Toad Wars' started as a comic book about the aforementioned individual and his crew who fought toads in an intergalactic space war. In 1989 it became a TV show and in 1991 Hasbro released a series of 10 figures. Bucky returned to his original medium as a member of the Continuity stable of comics around the same time. He's had a Nintendo game based on him and an Arcade game based on the cartoon (see below) which even used some of the voices from the series. Bucky's original graphic novel was complex and often extremely violent but in spite of this when the 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' cartoon likewise based on a comic became an unprecedented success Bucky was also adapted for children's Saturday morning cartoons. Marvel and Sunbow commissioned twelve episodes of Bucky O'Hare and The Toad Wars airing them in syndication in 1991. The cartoon introduced the new human character Willy DuWitt. The animated series carried on the complex storylines of the graphic novel but it proved too much for younger viewers...

• Blood On The Sun | DVD | (01/12/2003) from £8.99   |  Saving you £8.00 (88.99%)   |  RRP £16.99

  While much of the world watched the early success of 'Mein Kampf' and the bombing of Pearl Harbour was ten years in the future few were aware of the existence of an oriental 'Hitler' ... Baron Giichi Tankara. But the war had already started in Japan for James Condon American journalist and editor of the Japanese Chronicle whose intuition has led him to believe that major trouble was brewing. The role of Condon man of hard words and harder fists is just the kind of tough guy t

• Farscape 4.3 | DVD | (19/05/2003) from £9.96   |  Saving you £15.03 (150.90%)   |  RRP £24.99

  In the episodes contained in this third volume, Farscape's fourth series finally kicks into gear and does some of the most surprising things a television show has ever done. The first three episodes are all Farscape classics, which take our expectations and jump up and down on them. "Unrealised Realities" takes John Crichton (Ben Browder) through a wormhole to be interrogated by a creature who regards the Ancients who put the knowledge of wormhole technology in his brain as annoying bumblers and who tells him a lot about time and about alternate universes. This gives the cast a chance to play each other again--Claudia Black's performance as Chiana is particularly disorientating. In "Kansas" John finds himself finally back on Earth, during his own adolescence, with the task of ensuring that his father does not die in the Challenger explosion and alter his personal history. The visit to his long-missed home continues in "Terra Firma" where the crew of Moya have to cope with Bush's America and John discovers the hard way--politics, family, old girlfriends, alien assassins--that you cannot go home again. Lastly in the moderately weaker "Twice Shy", Chiana (Gigi Edgeley) and the others learn that no good deed goes unpunished as a slave they rescue turns out to be one of the more deadly individual menaces they have ever faced. --Roz Kaveney

• Tigerland / The Thin Red Line | DVD | (31/05/2005) from £5.99   |  Saving you £10.00 (166.94%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Tigerland (Dir. Joel Schumacher 2000): Roland Bozz after being conscripted into the US army joins a platoon of other young soldiers preparing to fight in Vietnam. He has no interest in fighting for his country and tries to get sent home as a trouble maker but his superiors mistake his defiance as intelligence and he soon gets a chance to try his hand at leadership... The Thin Red Line (Dir. Terrence Malick 1998): A powerful front line cast including Sean Penn Nick Nolte Woody Harrelson and George Clooney explodes into action in this hauntingly realistic view of military and moral chaos in the Pacific during World War II. Nominated for seven Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director (Terrence Malick) The Thin Red Line is an unparalleled cinematic masterpiece.

• Mind Ripper | DVD | (25/09/2006) from £8.07   |  Saving you £-2.08 (-34.70%)   |  RRP £5.99

  A scientific experiment designed to create a superhuman being has gone wrong. The creators become trapped in a remote desert outpost pursued relentlessly and mercilessly by their own creation. James Stockton the scientist whose research was used despite his protests to create the monster is called the outpost to help undo the horror that now lurks somewhere within the dark halls. James together with his son and daughter soon find themselves trapped inside with the others trying desperately to survive. And with the outpost sealed from within there is no way out...

• Home To Roost: The Complete Second Series | DVD | (18/09/2006) from £12.13   |  Saving you £0.86 (6.60%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Henry Willows (John Thaw) is a middle-aged man in middle-management divorced from his wife for seven years and perfectly happy with the arrangement. Apart from his prudish and pernickety daily cleaner Enid (Elizabeth Bennett) he's alone and revelling in his solitude... However Henry's serenity is shattered when out of the blue his eldest child Matthew (Reece Dinsdale) arrives on his doorstep. It seems that Matthew is disenchanted with life at home because of his mum's new boyfriend. He wants to stay with his dad - for good. The truth of the matter is that he has been thrown out by his mum after she realised that Willows Jr. has too much in common with Willows Sr.! Episodes Comprise: 1. Plastic Dreamworld 2. Open House 3. Acting Out 4. The Test 5. Protest 6. Any Questions? 7. Julie

• Texas Terror | DVD | (11/08/2003) from £6.11   |  Saving you £1.14 (23.51%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Sheriff John Higgins quits and goes into prospecting after he thinks he has killed his best friend in shooting it out with robbers...

• The Osterman Weekend | DVD | (30/10/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Once a year Tanner invites a small group of friends with whom he studied at Berkley to a social gathering known as the Osterman Weekend named after Bernard Osterman (Craig T. Nelson) at whose home the first such meeting took place. Shortly before the latest Osterman Weekend is due to happen the CIA convinces Tanner that one of his friends is a KGB operative involved in a conspiracy that threatens national security. He agrees to have his home wired with video and audio surveillance equipment in the hopes of uncovering the traitor. On arrival at Tanner's house the friends soon realise what's going on and the amiable tone of the weekend rapidly degenerates into a tense psychological battle of wits leading to an orgy of violence.

• From Hell It Came (V.O.S.) - Audio: English - Region 0 | DVD | (27/10/2008) from £19.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Daniel Boone | DVD | (14/03/2011) from £6.46   |  Saving you £-4.47 (-224.60%)   |  RRP £1.99

  In 1775 Daniel Boone leads thirty settler families to Kentucky where they face two threats: Indian raiders led by renegade white Simon Girty and the schemes of Stephen Marlowe to seize title to the new lands.

• M Money/Do The Right Thing | DVD | (28/07/2008) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Mo' Money (Dir. Peter MacDonald) (1992): You can never be too rich or too funny. Comedian Damon Wayans brings his rogue's gallery of outrageous characters to this action filled comedy about a con artist who tries to go straight but keeps getting pulled in the wrong direction... Do The Right Thing (Dir. Spike Lee) (1989): The hottest day of the year explodes on-screen in this vibrant look at a day in the life of Bedford-Stuyvesant Brooklyn. Featuring a stellar ensemble cast that includes Danny Aiello Ossie Davis Ruby Dee Richard Edson Giancarlo Esposito Robin Harris Samuel L. Jackson Bill Nunn Rosie Perez and John Turturro. Spike Lee's powerful portrait of urban racial tensions sparked controversy while earning popular and critical praise. Spike received a Best Director nomination whilst the veteran Italian-American actor Danny Aiello was nominated for best actor.

• Inspector Morse - Last Bus To Woodstock | DVD | (01/08/2007) from £6.73   |  Saving you £-1.74 (N/A%)   |  RRP £4.99

  Another case for the ale-drinking Oxford detective. When a young girl is found murdered in a pub car park on a rainy night, Morse (John Thaw) is called in. He discovers a tangled web involving a high-ranking figure in the world of Oxford academia.

• A Moon for the Misbegotten | DVD | (01/01/1975) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Theatrical sparks flew when veteran ONeill interpreters Jason Robards, Jr. and Colleen Dewhurst joined forces in the celebrated 1973 revival of Eugene ONeills tender semi-autobiographical drama. Under the inspired direction of Jose Quintero, they helped transform the neglected 1947 work into a now-recognized modern masterpiece. In a towering performance, the late, great Jason Robards portrays a cynical, self-hating alcoholic actor based on ONeills elder brother, Jamie. The majestic Colleen Dewhurst plays the earthy, gruff daughter of his scheming Irish tenant farmer (Ed Flanders) with whom the failed actor spends a soul-baring night of guilt-ridden confessions, tenderness, and absolution. Both Dewhurst and Flanders won Tony Awards for their performances.

• House of Blues - Learn To Play Beginner Electric Guitar | DVD | (24/07/2006) from £21.02   |  Saving you £-2.03 (-10.70%)   |  RRP £18.99

  This accelerated programme packed with a spectrum of techniques will get you playing immediately. Beginning with the basics of holding the guitar and tuning up world-renowned instructor Kevin McCreery guides you through your first chords lead patterns scales rhythm techniques various exercises and more. Furthermore the one-to-one lessons are complimented by a set of playalong backing tracks to help develop your skills and your confidence. You'll enjoy a compelling history of the electric guitar with details of pioneering performers and master players of the past. Includes a 32-page lesson book and web membership for lesson support online.

• Children Of The Corn | UMD | (29/08/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

• Street Of Dreams | DVD | (05/07/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £3.99

  Some men would die for her love. He may have to kill for it.... Private eye Tom Kyd rescues a distressed woman and lets her stay in his apartment for the night. The following morning she disappears and now Tom is in serious trouble.....