"Actor: Ken Loach"

• Vs. The Life and Films of Ken Loach | DVD | (27/06/2016) from £5.99   |  Saving you £10.00 (166.95%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Louise Osmond (Dark Horse) directs this candid documentary on one of Britain's most celebrated and controversial filmmakers, Ken Loach. Following the director as he prepares to release his final major film I, Daniel Blake later this year, Osmond looks back at the trials and tribulations of Loach's fifty year career, from his roots in television to his award winning features. Featuring interviews his friends and collaborators including Cillian Murphy, Melvyn Bragg, Sheila Hancock and Ricky Tomlinson, this is a funny and provocative account of Loach's life and career. Extras: Bertha DocHouse Q&A with Ken Loach and Louise Osmond Additional Interviews Loach on Location Stills Gallery (Ken's Collaborators) Theatrical Trailer

• Poor Cow | DVD | (25/06/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  I fell in the family way when I was 18 and I got married to a right bastard". Ken Loach's debut feature tells the story of Joy, a young mother (Carol White) whose chauvinistic thug of a husband is thrown into prison. She takes up with one of his friends, lovable, kind-hearted burglar Terence Stamp, but he too ends up in jail.It's intriguing to compare Poor Cow with Cathy Come Home, which Loach made for TV with the same actress at around the same time. Both are about mums trying to make a go of their lives in adverse circumstances. Cathy Come Home, shot in black and white, is an altogether tougher film. Poor Cow, with its Donovan music, gaudy colour photography, star names, and incongruously bawdy humour, seems lightweight by comparison. Certain sequences--Joy making love in the hay or posing half-naked for lecherous amateur photographers--must surely make Loach grimace now. There are some powerful moments--Joy desperately looking for her son who has wandered off, unattended, onto a building site, or trying to escape from her abusive husband--which anticipate such later Loach films as Ladybird, Ladybird or Raining Stones. The scenes between Joy and Stamp are played with real tenderness and humour. Don't be surprised if you think you've seen them before--some of the footage of Stamp was used in Steven Soderbergh's recent thriller, The Limey. --Geoffrey Macnab