"Actor: Kathy Lun"

• This Year's Love | DVD | (28/02/2000) from £7.99   |  Saving you £12.00 (150.19%)   |  RRP £19.99

  An unpretentious Brit-flick distinguished by a great cast, This Year's Love is writer-director David Kane's wry, funny study of six singletons in search of something--possibly love, possibly just sex--that will help them make sense of an untidy world. Aside from the acting, the film's strongest feature is its unflinching realism. The setting is North London's Camden Lock, an area that is in equal parts ultra-trendy and horrendously squalid. The characters reflect the locale: a circle of youthful drop-outs, wannabes and never-have-beens united in their common desire to surmount loneliness and find that elusive "perfect match". The central figures are newlyweds Danny and Hannah (the wonderful Douglas Henshall and Catherine McCormack) and the film in essence concerns itself with the fallout from the spectacular and rapid disintegration of their marriage. Danny first hooks up with cleaner-cum-nightclub singer Mary (a marvellously self-deprecating Kathy Burke), while Hannah finds lecherous womaniser Cameron (an unwashed Dougray Scott). Cameron's flatmate Liam (Ian Hart) fails to impress posh single mum Sophie (Jennifer Ehle in dreadlocks), who goes on to reject Danny and Cameron in turn, while Liam becomes dangerously obsessed by Hannah then Mary. So the merry-go-round of relationship swapping, unlikely coincidences and bittersweet life-lessons turns full circle. David Kane's comic dialogue is witheringly sharp, the situations (aside from all the coincidental meetings) are well-observed and the characters sympathetically three-dimensional (helped in no small part by the quality of the ensemble cast). The frequently hilarious comedy is tempered by an underlying despair: if it's not exactly Brassed Off or The Full Monty for neurotic, self-obsessed metropolitans, it's a film that's at least happy to exist in the same genre and achieves the same poignant empathy with its characters. The soundtrack is great, too. Imagine that the cast of Trainspotting gate-crashed Four Weddings and a Funeral and the result would be This Year's Love. On the DVD: Short on-set interviews with the principals and a promotional featurette are supplemented by a sequence of unedited behind-the-scenes footage. The film itself is presented in a good-looking anamorphic (16:9) print. --Mark Walker

• Jacknife | DVD | (13/10/2003) from £4.98   |  Saving you £1.01 (20.28%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Based on the acclaimed book by neurologist Oliver Sacks, director Penny Marshall's hit 1990 drama Awakenings stars Robin Williams as Dr. Malcolm Sayer. Sayer is a neurologist who discovers that the drug L-Dopa can be used to "unlock" patients in a mental hospital from the mysterious sleeping sickness that has left them utterly immobilized. Leonard (Robert De Niro) is one such patient who awakens after being in a comatose state for 30 years, leaving Sayer to guide Leonard in adjusting to the world around him. Penelope Ann Miller costars as the daughter of another patient, with whom Leonard falls tenuously in love. Earning Oscar nominations for best picture, actor and screenplay, this moving fact-based drama was a hit with critics and audiences alike. --Jeff Shannon

• Jacknife | DVD | (24/09/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Fifteen years previously three friends were drafted into the Vietnam War and only two came home. Still traumatised by their experiences and estranged from each other for many years Dave and 'Jacknife' meet again in a confrontation which will test their friendship and shape their futures.

• Seriously Funny - The Greatest Comedy Collection | DVD | (25/11/2002) from £5.05   |  Saving you £14.94 (295.84%)   |  RRP £19.99

  'Seriously Funny!' is the funniest DVD you will ever own! Introduced by Nick Hancock this is the best and most hilarious comic talent and their funniest sketches for Comic Relief. Whether it's Alan Partridge Kevin & Perry Ali G or Billy Connolly to name but a few who make you laugh out loud if it's hot comedic action you're after then you'll love this DVD! *Portion of sales going to Comic Relief.

• Who Finds A Friend Finds A Treasure | DVD | (25/04/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Set in World War II on an island the irrepressible two are looking for treasure. They have to deal with natives slayers and a trigger happy Japanese soldier before they can begin their search. Total family comedy!

• Jacknife | DVD | (27/08/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Made in 1989 and set 15 years after the end of the Vietnam War, Jacknife tells the story of alcoholic trucker Dave (Ed Harris) who lives with his sister Martha (Kathy Baker). Robert De Niro is Megs, Dave's ex-'Nam sidekick who re-enters his life on the promise of a fishing trip. Megs and Martha embark on a tentative courtship to the seething fury of Dave, who considers Megs "bad news". However, through wartime flashbacks it soon becomes clear that his hitting the bottle is a means of bottling up his feelings about Vietnam, Megs and their mutual buddy Bobby, killed in action. Ruminative and romantic, Jacknife slow-burns its predictable though satisfying way to its resolution, the three main players carrying the burdens of their roles with admirable restraint, especially Ed Harris, whose rage is internalised at the expense of his liver. There are echoes of The Deerhunter but this is not a film of that order or scale, as its low-budget synthesiser soundtrack signifies, feeling at times like a superior made-for-TV affair. On the DVD: A full-screen version with a ratio of 4:3. Neither sound nor picture quality are exactly a showcase for DVD technology, both being a little fuzzy, while the dubbing goes noticeably awry on 42 minutes. Special features are decidedly un-special: the original, lugubrious trailer plus "talent profiles" which are merely lists of the main players' previous films. --David Stubbs