"Actor: John M"

• Black Christmas | DVD | (04/12/2006) from £19.99   |  Saving you £-11.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £8.99

  The few remaining residents of a Canadian sorority house are celebrating the onset of Christmas vacation when a thirteen year-old girl is found dead in the park. Soon it is discovered that one of the sorority sisters is missing which triggers a terrifying chain of murders within the house... Director Bob Clark's tense effective film is a precursor to the 'slasher' films Friday 13th and Halloween that would come a half decade later.

• Wizarding World: | Blu Ray | (09/12/2019) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• 24 Hour Party People - Single Disc Edition | DVD | (19/07/2004) from £5.68   |  Saving you £7.31 (128.70%)   |  RRP £12.99

  The story of the Manchester music scene from 70s punk through to the early nineties, as seen from the perspective of Tony Wilson, musical entrepenuer who signed countless bands from Joy Division to the Happy Mondays to his legendary Factory Records label.

• The Lakes - The Complete First And Second Series | DVD | (06/10/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £29.99

  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. In the far longer sequel series that came two years later, these back-stories would come to the fore. Although exploring Danny's tortured soul might have been the obvious continuation, instead an almost Hitchcockian murder scenario occupies far more screen time. But by stretching things out, this second series does not have the same self-contained impact of the original. Additional writers only served to drag out Danny's boy-to-man journey. Ultimately, lessons are learned, including the realistic conclusion that life is without a poetical status quo. Despite the tail-off in overall quality, you'd be hard pressed to identify a better British drama in the years since. On the DVD: The Lakes complete series 1 and 2 box set 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

• G.I. Blues | DVD | (18/03/2002) from £7.05   |  Saving you £5.94 (84.26%)   |  RRP £12.99

  After Elvis Presley got out of the army in 1960, he was instantly ushered into G.I. Blues, a Paramount movie about an Oklahoma singer who (surprise) gets out of the army and wants to open a club. Making a potentially lucrative bet that he can seduce a cabaret singer (Juliet Prowse), Elvis instead falls in love. Leaving behind his rockabilly roots for a slicker image better suited to early 60s pop, the Elvis of this movie is the one who made almost 30 more just like it. The songs include "G.I. Blues", "It's Not Good Enough for You," "Tonight Is So Right for Love" and "Wooden Heart". It's directed by Norman Taurog, a studio veteran who made his first film in 1928 and worked many times with Presley. --Tom Keogh

• One For the Money | DVD | (18/06/2012) from £4.98   |  Saving you £15.01 (301.41%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Unemployed and newly-divorced Stephanie Plum lands a job at her cousin's bail-bond business, where her first assignment puts her on the trail of a wanted local cop from her romantic past.

• Frasier: Complete Series 1 | DVD | (24/11/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Thanks to sharp writing and a pitch-perfect ensemble cast, Frasier became one of the smartest and funniest television shows of the 1990s. Following the 1993 demise of Cheers, Diane's fussy psychiatrist boyfriend Frasier Crane (Kelsey Grammer) seemed an unlikely candidate for a spin-off series. Yet the show earned smash ratings and dozens of Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Comedy Series and Outstanding Lead Actor (Grammer) in the very first series. In an inspired bit of casting, Grammer was matched with David Hyde Pierce as his brother and fellow psychiatrist Niles, and the rest of the players included his radio-programme manager, Roz (Peri Gilpin), his father, Marty (John Mahoney), his father's physical therapist, Daphne (Jane Leeves) and the dog Eddie (Moose). In the first series, Frasier and Marty try to learn how to coexist in the same apartment, Niles and Daphne spend a stormy evening in Niles's house, Frasier acquires pushy agent Bebe (Harriet Sansom Harris) and searches for love with Amanda Donohoe among others, his ex-wife Lilith (Bebe Neuwirth) makes a guest appearance, the family takes a cross-country trip in a Winnebago and the two brothers collaborate on a book. --David Horiuchi

• Spaceballs | Blu Ray | (19/03/2012) from £7.99   |  Saving you £2.00 (25.03%)   |  RRP £9.99

  May the farce be with you in this hysterically funny space oddity, created by comic genius Mel Brooks, that will send you into hyperspace with fits of laughter! Lampooning everything from Star Wars to Star Trek, this outrageous send-up of epic sci-fi movies is full of cosmic crazies who score eight trillion on the laugh-meter! Fearless - and clueless - space heroes Lone Starr (Bill Pullman) and his half man/half dog sidekick Barf (John Candy) wage interstellar warfare to free Princess Vespa (Daphne Zuniga) from the evil clutches of Dark Helmet (Rick Moranis). On the way to the rescue - in their Winnebago - they confront the huge, gooey Pizza the Hutt (voice of Dom DeLuise), sassy robot Dot Matrix (voice of Joan Rivers) and a wise little creature named Yogurt (Brooks), who teaches them the mystical power of The Schwartz in order to bring peace - and merchandising rights - to the entire galaxy!

• The Pelican Brief | DVD | (25/09/1998) from £7.19   |  Saving you £6.80 (94.58%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Another John Grisham legal thriller comes to the screen, pairing Denzel Washington and Julia Roberts in a film directed by Alan J Pakula, who is known for dark-hued suspense pictures such as Klute, The Parallax View, All the President's Men, and Presumed Innocent. The Pelican Brief isn't up to the level of those films, but it is a perfectly entertaining movie about a law student (Roberts) whose life is endangered when she discovers evidence of a conspiracy behind the killings of two Supreme Court justices. She enlists the help of an investigative reporter (Washington) and the two become fugitives. The charisma and chemistry of the leads goes a long way toward compensating for the story's shortcomings, as does a truly impressive supporting cast that includes Sam Shepard, John Heard, James B Sikking, Tony Goldwyn, Stanley Tucci, Hume Cronyn, John Lithgow, William Atherton and Robert Culp. --Jim Emerson

• The Frighteners | DVD | (17/01/2000) from £8.98   |  Saving you £3.00 (42.92%)   |  RRP £9.99

  One movie-lover's nightmare is another's raucous joyride, and this special effects-laden horror comedy is bound to split both camps right down the middle. Michael J Fox plays a psychic investigator who can actually see ghosts, and lives with a trio of spirits who scare people to promote Fox's ghost-busting business. In a town infamous for serial killings, a new series of deaths prompts Fox to induce his own out-of-body experience so he can battle death in a spirit-plagued netherworld where evil reigns supreme--or something like that. So much happens in this chaotic film that you might feel like you're watching several movies at once--a slasher pic, a supernatural thriller, and a black comedy all rolled into one non-stop showcase for grisly makeup and a dozen varieties of special effects. It's an odd but wildly inventive film from New Zealand director Peter Jackson, who earned critical acclaim for his previous film Heavenly Creatures and would later create the ingenious pseudo-documentary Forgotten Silver. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com

• Ghost Dog: The Way Of The Samurai 4K UHD+BD | Blu Ray | (23/10/2023) from £19.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Jim Jarmuschs 90s classic GHOST DOG: THE WAY OF THE SAMURAI, gloriously restored in 4K and making its UHD debut, is a superbly sharp, unique thriller featuring a magnificent lead performance from Forest Whitaker (Bird) in an iconoclastic mix of hip-hop, gangster movie and martial arts, with influences from Kurosawa, Suzuki and Melville. Forest Whitaker (Ghost Dog) lives above the world, alongside a flock of birds, in a homemade shack on the roof of an abandoned building. Guided by the words of an ancient samurai text, Ghost Dog is a professional killer able to dissolve into the night and move through the city unnoticed. When Ghost Dogs code is dangerously betrayed by the dysfunctional mafia family that occasionally employs him, he reacts strictly in accordance with the Way of the Samurai. Featuring moody cinematography by the great Robby Muller (Paris, Texas), a sublime score by the Wu-Tang Clans RZA, and a host of colourful character actors (including a memorably stone-faced Henry Silva), GHOST DOG: THE WAY OF THE SAMURAI plays like a pop-culture-sampling cinematic mixtape built around a one-of-a-kind tragic hero. Described by Time Out as very funny, insightful and highly original, the film was nominated for the Palme dOr at Cannes, and remains one of Jarmuschs best-loved films. Product Features Ghost Dog - The Odyssey: A Journey into the Life of a Samurai Deleted Scenes Original Trailer

• Beast in the Cellar | Blu Ray | (22/04/2024) from £9.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  When soldiers stationed in the local community are mauled to death in the local woods, a wild cat is thought to be the culprit. However, two sisters, begin to suspect that their brother who has been locked in their cellar for 30 years may be responsible. This creepy early 70s horror starring Beryl Reid (Psychomania) and Flora Robson (Eye of the Devil, Fragment of Fear) carries a brooding tension that is both claustrophobic and horrible. A bonafide cult classic.

• Love Story | DVD | (04/02/2002) from £5.99   |  Saving you £7.00 (116.86%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Strife-torn America wanted a meat-and-potatoes romance in the late 1960s, and the country embraced Erich Segal's slim, generic-sounding novel in a big way. It did so again for the film adaptation of Love Story in 1970, starring Ryan O'Neal as a law student who defies his rich and powerful father (Ray Milland) on every issue, including the former's love for a music student (Ali MacGraw). The two marry, start life together ... and then the Grim Reaper turns up at the door. Directed by Arthur Hiller (The In-Laws), the film ends up lacking the kind of stylistic boost that might have made it a must-see for the ages. But its faithfulness to the book's uncomplicated and, yes, moving intentions is pretty solid. O'Neal is convincing as a nice guy who's as bullheaded in his own way as his steely father (a nice job by Milland), and MacGraw has a way of getting under one's skin. A viewer just has to try not laughing at the refrain, "Love means never having to say you're sorry". --Tom Keogh

• The Deer Hunter: Special Edition (2 discs) | DVD | (04/08/2003) from £5.79   |  Saving you £11.20 (193.44%)   |  RRP £16.99

  The Deer Hunter is an expansive portrait of friendship in a Pennsylvania steel town, and of the effects of the Vietnam War. Led by the trio of Robert De Niro, John Savage and Christopher Walken (who won a supporting actor Oscar), the first hour is dominated by an engrossing Russian Orthodox wedding and reception. When the drama moves overseas it switches from anthropologically realistic documentation of a community's rituals to highly controversial and still shocking Russian Roulette scenes, symbolising the random horror of war. Unforgettable as they are, the Vietnam sequences occupy less than a third of the three-hour running time; defying movie convention The Deer Hunter is fundamentally a before-and-after ensemble character study anchored by De Niro's great performance. Although it was the first serious Hollywood feature to address the Vietnam War, the plausibility of some of the later plot developments raises awkward questions. But the film remains powerfully effective, its deliberate pace, naturalistic overlapping dialogue and unflinching seriousness marking it very much a product of the 1970s. With nine Oscar nominations and five wins, including Best Picture and Director, it's a cinematic landmark that stands the test time, almost incidentally setting Meryl Streep on the road to superstardom in her first leading role. On the DVD: The Deer Hunter: Special Edition has the film on the first disc with a serious yet amiable Region 2 exclusive discussion track between director Michael Cimino and critic SX Finnie. The picture is anamorphically enhanced at 2.35:1, and perfectly reproduces Vilmos Zsigmond's deliberately desaturated, necessarily grainy cinematography. The Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack clearly reveals the mono original, being largely focused on the centre speaker and while it does a good job, some of the choral music does sound harsh. Dialogue is sometimes indecipherable, but that's due to the naturalistic nature of the original sound recording and mixing. Disc 2 offers excellent new interviews with Jon Savage (15 mins), Vilmos Zsigmond (15 mins) and Michael Cimino (23 mins). Also included is the original trailer (anamorphically enhanced 2.35:1), a routine photo gallery and a DVD version of the original press brochure. There's no trace of the 40 minutes of deleted material referred to by Cimino, but this presentation is still an object lesson in how quality of extras triumphs over quantity. --Gary S Dalkin

• Terms Of Endearment | DVD | (05/11/2001) from £6.41   |  Saving you £6.58 (102.65%)   |  RRP £12.99

  When Terms of Endearment was released in 1983, director and writer James L Brooks was lauded for his depiction of a complex mother/daughter relationship. For his leading ladies he chose actresses with two of the strongest personalities in Hollywood, but armed with an exceptionally witty script and endless patience he eventually drew magnificent performances from Shirley Maclaine as Aurora and Debra Winger as her daugher Emma, assisted considerably by Jack Nicholson's considerate professionalism. As the philandering retired astronaut who beds Maclaine and then provides her with surprising support in the film's dark later moments, Nicholson shines with comic brilliance which earned him an Oscar. It was no secret that Maclaine and Winger could barely contain a mutual antipathy on set. Yet they strike sparks off each other on screen. When comedy turns to tragedy with the development of Emma's cancer, the laughs continue even while the tear ducts are being given a good work out. In the glory days of Hollywood, this would have been acknowledged a great "women's picture" and its weepy credentials are impeccable. It stands out as a warm, accessible work that admirably rejects sugary sentiment in favour of the realistic rough edges that characterise most human relationships. On the DVD: Presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen with a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, this DVD is ideal for home cinema viewing. The picture and sound quality are fine, benefiting Michael Gore's gentle, memorable music and bringing the best out of Andrzej Bartkowiak's luminous photography. In addition to the original theatrical trailer, the major extra is the director's commentary in which James L Brooks reminisces with coproducer Penney Finkelman and production designer Polly Platt. They look back at their impressive work with a touching degree of wonder and apprentice directors should take note when Brooks recalls his steep learning curve in managing his leading ladies. --Piers Ford

• Kramer vs Kramer / Lorenzo's Oil / Born Free - A New Adventure | DVD | (06/09/2004) from £19.99   |  Saving you £-5.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Kramer vs. Kramer: Kramer vs Kramer is the box office smash that gathered 5 Oscars including Best Picture Best Actor for Dustin Hoffman and Best Supporting Actress for Meryl Streep. Returning home late from work one night a career-obsessed Ted Kramer is told by his wife that she is leaving him. After a life of being 'somebody's daughter' or 'somebody's wife ' she's going off to find herself - leaving Ted to care for their 6 year-old son. Ted while trying to hold down his job gets to really know his son: cooking his meals taking him to the park understanding every need and fear. For the first time in his life he feels like a fulfilled parent. But then Joanna returns. And she wants her son back... Born Free: A New Adventure: Set in the heart of Africa Elsa the Lioness tranforms the lives of two American teenagers struggling to come to terms with a family move from downtown Chicago. Lorenzo's Oil: A five-year-old boy Lorenzo Odone is diagnosed as having a brain disease known as ALD a condition so rare that no medical body has undertaken to research the ailment and develop a cure. Desperate Lorenzo's parents (Nolte and Sarandon) embark on a desperate search for a cure and must battle the medical establishment when they make astounding progress using humble olive oil...

• Secret Agent | DVD | (07/07/2003) from £14.98   |  Saving you £-7.99 (N/A%)   |  RRP £6.99

  One of Alfred Hitchcock's finest pre-Hollywood films, the 1936 Secret Agent stars a young John Gielgud as a British spy whose death is faked by his intelligence superiors. Reinvented with a new identity and outfitted with a wife (Madeleine Carroll), Gielgud's character is sent on assignment with a cold-blooded accomplice (Peter Lorre) to assassinate a German agent. En route, the counterfeit couple keeps company with an affable American (Robert Young), who turns out to be more than he seems after the wrong man is murdered by Gielgud and Lorre. Dense with interwoven ideas about false names and real identities, about appearances as lies and the brutality of the hidden, and about the complicity of those who watch the anarchy that others do, Secret Agent declared that Alfred Hitchcock was well along the road to mastery as a filmmaker and, more importantly, knew what it was he wanted to say for the rest of his career. --Tom Keogh

• Red 2 | Blu Ray | (25/11/2013) from £7.99   |  Saving you £15.00 (187.73%)   |  RRP £22.99

  Retired CIA agent Frank Moses (Bruce Willis) reunites his team of elite operatives in the highoctane action-comedy RED 2.

• Chicago PD S8 | DVD | (06/09/2021) from £7.69   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  All 16 Season Eight Episodes From Emmy®-winning producer Dick Wolf and the team behind Chicago Fire comes Chicago P.D., a gripping police drama about those who put it all on the line to serve and protect. District 21 of the Chicago Police Department is made up of two distinctly different groups: the uniformed cops who patrol the beat and deal with street crimes, and the intelligence unit, the team that combats the city's major offenses, such as organized crime, drug trafficking and high-profile murders. Leading the intelligence team is Sgt. Hank Voight (Jason Beghe), a man not against skirting the law in the pursuit of justice. Demanding and tough, only those who can take the heat survive under Voight's command. From the street cops with dreams of moving up to the elite crew who are already in, life on the job is a daily challenge.

• Family Guy Presents Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story | DVD | (24/10/2005) from £6.01   |  Saving you £11.24 (236.63%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Join Stewie Lois Peter Meg Chris and Brian in their most subversive shocking and hysterically funny adventure yet with this full-length adaptation of the cult TV Show. When Stewie everybody's favourite maniacal baby genius has a near-death experience at his first swimming lesson he is temporarily distracted from his plans for world domination. Determined to make the most of his time on the planet Stewie decides to turn his back on his evil ways forever and start anew! With