"Actor: John B"

• Men Behaving Badly - Series 5 | DVD | (03/07/2000) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The ultimate small-screen representation of Loaded-era lad culture--albeit a culture constantly being undermined by its usually sharper female counterpart--there seems little argument that Men Behaving Badly was one of 1990s' definitive sitcoms. Certainly the booze-oriented, birds-obsessed antics of Martin Clunes' Gary and Neil Morrissey's Tony have become every bit as connected to Britain's collective funny bone as Basil Fawlty's inept hostelry or Ernie Wise's short, hairy legs. Yet, the series could easily have been cancelled when ITV viewers failed to respond to the original version, which featured Clunes sharing his flat with someone named Dermot, played by Harry Enfield. Indeed, it was only when the third series moved to the BBC and was then broadcast in a post-watershed slot--allowing writer Simon Nye greater freedom to explore his characters' saucier ruminations--that the show began to gain a significant audience. By then, of course, Morrissey had become firmly ensconced on the collective pizza-stained sofa, while more screen time was allocated to the boys' respective foils, Caroline Quentin and Leslie Ash. Often glibly dismissed as a lame-brained succession of gags about sex and flatulence, the later series not only featured great performances and sharp-as-nails writing but also sported a contemporary attitude that dared to go where angels, and certainly most other sitcoms, feared to tread. Or, as Gary was once moved to comment about soft-porn lesbian epic Love in a Women's Prison: "It's a serious study of repressed sexuality in a pressure-cooker environment." Series 5 includes: "Hair" in which Tony returns from holiday to discover Dorothy has convinced Gary she should move in. And that Tony should move out; "The Good Pub Guide" in which our heroes are dismayed when The Crown gets a new look and new landlord (The Fast Show's John Thomson). Tony rescues the pub's old condom machine as a present for Deborah ("I thought it was something we could enjoy together."); "Cowardice" in which Tony becomes convinced Deborah is going through a lesbian phase; "Your Mate Vs Your Bird" in which increased tension in the household persuades Dorothy to reconsider her living arrangements; "Cardigan" in which Gary, concerned he's becoming middle-aged, suggests they go to a rave; "Rich and Fat" in which Tony goes on a diet after Gary accuses him of being "a bit of a podgemeister"; "Home Made Sauna" in which temptation comes Gary's way when Dorothy and Deborah go away for a sailing weekend. The DVD version also features aquiz.

• The Land That Time Forgot | DVD | (30/07/2012) from £7.99   |  Saving you £8.00 (100.12%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Rediscover The Land That Time Forgot, a lost world with Dinosaurs, hostile tribes and deadly wildlife in this much loved Sci-Fi Classic.When a German U-Boat torpedoes a British supply ship, the survivors manage to swim to the surfacing German vessel. Among the survivors are Bowen Tyler (Hollywood superstar Doug McClure) a young allied soldier and a young biologist Lisa Clayton (Susan Penhaligon). They manage to force their way onto the ship and overpower the German crew. Despite sending signals to an allied ship that they have commandeered the German vessel, they are depth charged and forced to allow the German crew to steer the vessel to rendezvous with a German supply boat. They drift of course and find a strange island. Whilst investigating what the island has to offer the crew are attacked by a huge pre historic monster and a tribe of primitive humans. Lisa is kidnapped in the fight and Bowen rushes after the tribe to rescue her. When a huge volcano erupts Bowen's plight to rescue Lisa becomes even more desperate. Can he save them and get back to the Submarine before they are killed by the oncoming lava?

• Dracula vs Frankenstein | DVD | (14/07/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  In the late 1960s and early 70s, a bizarre alliance between the Filippino movie company Hemisphere and the American exploitation outfit Independent International yielded a series of weirdly interconnected horror movies, most of which work the word Blood into the title. The Filippino items are strangely fascinating vampire and mad scientist pictures with oddball colour effects and a mix of naive serial-style thrills and extreme-for-the-era sex and gore; the American efforts, from director Al Adamson, are shoddier, thrown together from offcuts of previous pictures, and are lead-paced but nevertheless curiously appealing. Gaze in awe at mutant killer trees, slobbering hunchbacked servants, faded matinee idols, stripper-turned-actress heroines with concrete blonde hairdos, evil dwarves, John Carradine or Lon Chaney, footage cut in from completely different films, Dracula and Frankenstein meeting hippies and bikers, red filters when the vampires attack, chanting natives! Plus lots of exclamation marks! Plus lurid trailers! "The kings of horror battle to the death" in Dracula vs Frankenstein. The last of the Frankensteins (J Carrol Naish) works in a carnival horror house with his sidekick Groton the Mad Zombie (Lon Chaney Jr). A Frank Zappa-like Dracula (Zandor Vorkov) and a monster with a face like a big mushroom slug it out. The film also features Russ Tamblyn as a beach biker and a Vegas showgirl heroine on LSD. This Region 2 DVD is sadly bereft of the extras found on the US Troma Region 1 disc. --Kim Newman

• Koyaanisqatsi / Powaqqatsi | DVD | (13/01/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Godfrey Reggio's Koyaanisqatsi ("life out of balance") and Powaqqatsi ("life in transformation") are the first two parts of a trilogy of experimental documentaries whose titles derive from Hopi compound nouns (2002's Naqoyqatsi, or "life in war", is the third). Both feature indispensable musical contributions from minimalist composer Philip Glass. Made in 1983, Koyaanisqatsi was shot mostly in the desert southwest USA and New York City on a tiny budget with no script. But it then attracted the support of Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas and reached a much wider audience. Its techniques, merging cinematographer Ron Fricke's time-lapse shots (alternately peripatetic and hyperspeed) with Glass' reiterative music (from the meditative to the orgiastic)--as well as its ecology minded imagery--crept into the consciousness of popular culture. The influence of Koyaanisqatsi has by now become unmistakable in television advertisements, music videos and, of course, similar movies. Dating from 1988, Powaqqatsi finds the director somewhat more directly polemical than before, with Glass's score stretching to embrace world music. Reggio reuses techniques familiar from the previous film (slow motion, time-lapse, superposition) to dramatise the effects of the so-called First World on the Third: displacement, pollution, alienation. But he spends as much time beautifully depicting what various cultures have lost--cooperative living, a sense of joy in labour and religious values--as he does confronting viewers with trains, airliners, coal cars and loneliness. What had been a more or less peaceful, slow-moving, spiritually fulfilling rural existence for these "silent" people (all we hear is music and sound effects) becomes a crowded, suffocating, accelerating industrial urban hell, from Peru to Pakistan. Reggio frames Powaqqatsi with a telling image: the Serra Pelada gold mines, where thousands of men, their clothes and skin imbued with the earth they're moving, carry wet bags up steep slopes in a Sisyphean effort to provide wealth for their employers. While Glass juxtaposes his strangely joyful music, which includes the voices of South American children, a number of these men carry one of their exhausted comrades out of the pit, his head back and arms outstretched--one more sacrifice to Caesar. Nevertheless, Reggio, a former member of the Christian Brothers, seems to maintain hope for renewal. --Robert Burns Neveldine

• To Catch A Thief | DVD | (04/10/2004) from £7.59   |  Saving you £8.40 (110.67%)   |  RRP £15.99

  From the undisputed master of the suspense-thriller Alfred Hitchcock's (Rear Window The Birds) To Catch A thief is a stylish and witty thriller starring Cary Grant (North by Northwest) and Grace Kelly(Rear Window). The on-screen chemistry between the two protagonists enhances Hitchcock's subtle and ambiguous story of a retired jewel thief forced to uncover the identity of a copycat thief before he is framed for the crimes himself. Grant's charm and sophistication as the retired cat-burglar set opposite the sensuous character of Kelly's socialite ensure that the atmosphere of the film is sexually charged leaving the audience with no doubt that the relationship could unravel at any point...

• The Dark Half | DVD | (22/10/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Although it lacks the creepy subtleties of Stephen King's celebrated novel, George Romero's underrated adaptation of The Dark Half is among the best films based on King's fiction, with Romero taking care to honour the central theme while serving up some gruesome gore in the film's much-criticised finale. Inspired by King's own admission that he wrote several novels under the pseudonym Richard Bachman, The Dark Half explores the duality of a writer's impulse, ranging from literary respectability to the viscerally cathartic thrills of exploitative pulp fiction. Author and teacher Thad Beaumont (Timothy Hutton) finds himself torn between those extremes when he "kills" his profitable alter ego, George Stark (the bestselling dark half to Thad's light), who then assumes evil, autonomous form (again played by Hutton) to defend lethally his role in Thad's creative endeavours. Forced to wrestle with this evil manifestation of his own unformed twin, Thad must fight to protect his wife (Amy Madigan), their twin babies and himself. While Romero skilfully develops the twin/duality theme to explore the writer's dilemma, Hutton is outstanding in his dual roles, playing Stark (in subtly fiendish makeup) as a redneck rebel with a knack for slashing throats. Julie Harris adds class in a supporting role, and horror fans will relish Romero's climactic showdown, in which swarms of sparrows seal Stark's fate. It favours a pulp sensibility with clunky exposition to explain Stark's existence, but The Dark Half is a laudable effort from everyone involved. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com

• The Legend Of The Seven Golden Vampires | DVD | (28/06/2013) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Hammer Horror! Dragon Thrills! The First Kung Fu Horror Spectacular! Count Dracula journies to a remote Chinese village in the guise of a warlord to support six vampires who are dispirited after the loss of a seventh member of their cult. At the same time vampire hunter Prof. Van Helsing happens to be lecturing in the country and is persuaded by villagers to help them fight this curse of the ages... Possibly the only film to combine the traditions of a vampire story with Kung Fu!

• I Know What You Did Last Summer Trilogy | Blu Ray | (21/12/2020) from £54.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Four young friends bound by a tragic accident are reunited when they find themselves being stalked by a hook-wielding maniac in their small seaside town.

• The Somme | DVD | (03/07/2006) from £12.13   |  Saving you £0.86 (6.60%)   |  RRP £12.99

  This superb major BBC documentary provides an entirely fresh perspective on the Somme revealing that there was more to events than just senseless mass slaughter - because it was on those blood-soaked fields that the British Army learned how to defeat its German enemy. Featuring superb and highly authentic dramatic enactments and contemporary combat footage it compares the assault on Thiepval by a company of the 2nd Salford Pals on July 1st 1916 with an attack on the same objective

• Summer Interlude | DVD | (29/03/2004) from £10.35   |  Saving you £9.64 (93.14%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Talented young ballerina Marie (Nilsson) falls in love with wealthy young college student Henrik Malmsten). After spending the summer together Henrik suffers a tragic accident and as a result his death continues to shape Marie's actions throughout her life...

• The Forest | DVD | (28/04/2008) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Two campers Sharon and Teddy are terrorized in the deep dark woods of the California wilderness by a cannibalistic knife-wielding madman. Teddy is killed but Sharon manages to escape. That same night their boyfriends Steve and Charlie take refuge in an old cave to protect themselves from the storm. There they meet the killer an old man wearing a beat up old baseball cap named John. He tells them the story of how he walked in on his unfaithful wife and her lover. He killed them both and gathered his two children and ran off into the forest Unfortunately his kids got sick and they committed suicide. Since then he has developed a taste for human flesh and will kill anybody who trespasses on his territory...

• Massacre In Rome | DVD | (02/04/2007) from £7.98   |  Saving you £-1.99 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Set in the Second World War when Nazi Germany occupied Italy. This film deals with the Vatican's involvement in the entire movement during the occupation of Rome.

• Longest Day Steelbook | Blu Ray | (02/06/2014) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £22.99

  The Longest Day is a vivid re-creation of the June 6 1944 allied invasion of France which marked the beginning of the end of Nazi domination in Europe. Featuring a stellar international cast and told from the perspectives of both sides this fascinating look at one of history's biggest battles ranks as one of Hollywood's truly Great War films.

• The Shadow | DVD | (06/07/2009) from £6.73   |  Saving you £3.26 (48.44%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Another masked avenger is reincarnated as a big budget movie. Idle playboy Lamont Cranston (Alec Baldwin), schooled in Tibetan mysticism, fights crime in late '30s New York while wearing a natty hat and false beak. He finds time to romance telepathic sweetie Margo Lane (Penelope Miller), whose crusty old scientist Dad (Ian McKellen) has just invented an atom bomb which is in danger of falling into the hands of Shiwan Khan (John Lone), conquest-happy last descendent of Genghis Khan.Director Russell Mulcahy turns out the regulation death traps (a locked chamber filling with water, a bomb timer which ticks away during the climax) and the Shadow breezes through via nifty "invisible" effects. It evokes the conventions and charms of 1930s' pulp fiction in rather more nostalgic mode than Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, and adds little of its own attitude, although a sly camp sensibility (notably in the extremely chi-chi Tim Curry and John Lone as the villains) goes for snickering at the expense of tension. A pleasant, eye-pleasing movie but, after the super-heroic likes of Batman, The Crow and The Mask, the merely mysterious Shadow seems somewhat grandfatherly and remote. --Kim Newman

• Torchwood - Children of Earth | DVD | (13/07/2009) from £7.97   |  Saving you £20.01 (401.81%)   |  RRP £24.99

  An ordinary day becomes a world of terror as every single child in the world stops. A message is sent to all the governments of Earth: 'We are coming'. But as a trap closes around Captain Jack sins of the past are returning as long-forgotten events from 1965 threaten to reveal an awful truth. Torchwood are forced underground as the government takes swift and brutal action. With members of the team being hunted down Britain risks becoming a rogue state with the mysterious and powerful 456 drawing ever closer. Captain Jack Gwen and Ianto are helpless as events escalate until mankind faces the end of civilisation itself.

• Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man | DVD | (02/08/2004) from £5.99   |  Saving you £14.00 (233.72%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The trials and tribulations of Stephen Dedalus a young man growing up in Ireland in the early part of the 20th century. He starts to feel a stranger in his own land as he starts to understand the nature of art and politics and he has to make a decision whether to accept exile in another land or stay and fight....

• Flying Tigers (John Wayne) | DVD | (05/06/2006) from £4.95   |  Saving you £5.04 (101.82%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Jim Gordon commands a unit of the famed Flying Tigers the American Volunteer Group which fought the Japanese in China before America's entry into World War II. Gordon must send his outnumbered band of fighter pilots out against overwhelming odds while juggling the disparate personalities and problems of his fellow flyers. In particular he must handle the difficulties created by a reckless hot-shot pilot named Woody Jason who not only wants to fight a one-man war but to waltz off with Gordon's girlfriend too.

• Tosh | DVD | (20/06/2022) from £5.33   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Miracle On 34th Street | DVD | (01/11/2004) from £4.44   |  Saving you £1.55 (34.91%)   |  RRP £5.99

  The original 1947 version of this Valentine Davies story follows the misadventures of Kris Kringle (Edmund Gwenn) as he gets a job playing Santa Claus at Macy's department store in New York City. Natalie Wood is the little girl who tells him she doesn't believe in Santa, and Maureen O'Hara and John Payne are the couple who help Kris through a trial in which he must prove he's the jolly fellow from the North Pole. A sweet movie and perennial Christmas favourite, Miracle on 34th Street is one of those films that gets under your skin and must be revisited every so often. --Tom Keogh

• The Railway Children Return | Blu Ray | (03/10/2022) from £6.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  ! Inspired by one of the most beloved British family films of all time, THE RAILWAY CHILDREN RETURN is an enchanting, moving, and heart-warming adventure for a new generation. 1944 As life in Britain's cities becomes increasingly perilous, three evacuee children Lily (Beau Gadsdon), Pattie (Eden Hamilton) and Ted (Zac Cudby) Watts are sent by their mother from Salford to the Yorkshire village of Oakworth. There to meet them on the train station platform are Bobbie Waterbury (Jenny Agutter, reprising her iconic role in the original film), her daughter, Annie (Sheridan Smith), and grandson Thomas (Austin Haynes), and with their help the evacuees are soon settling into their new life in the countryside. When the children discover injured American soldier Abe (KJ Aikens), hiding out in the railyard at Oakworth Station, they are thrust into a dangerous quest to assist their new friend who, like them, is a long way from home. Extras: Then & Now, Looking The Part, History & Trains