"Actor: Lorraine"

• Goodfellas | Blu Ray | (25/05/2015) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Martin Scorsese's 1990 masterpiece GoodFellas immortalises the hilarious, horrifying life of actual gangster Henry Hill (Ray Liotta), from his teen years on the streets of New York to his anonymous exile under the Witness Protection Program. The director's kinetic style is perfect for recounting Hill's ruthless rise to power in the 1950s as well as his drugged-out fall in the late 1970s; in fact, no one has ever rendered the mental dislocation of cocaine better than Scorsese. Scorsese uses period music perfectly, not just to summon a particular time but to set a precise mood. GoodFellas is at least as good as The Godfather without being in the least derivative of it. Joe Pesci's psycho improvisation of Mobster Tommy DeVito ignited Pesci as a star, Lorraine Bracco scores the performance of her life as the love of Hill's life, and every supporting role, from Paul Sorvino to Robert De Niro, is a miracle.

• Jaws 2/Jaws 3/Jaws: The Revenge | Blu Ray | (22/08/2016) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £13.69

  Jaws 2: JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT IT WAS SAFE TO GO BACK IN THE WATER The horror is far from over as Roy Scheider, Lorraine Gary and Murray Hamilton reprise their iconic roles in Jaws 2. Four years after the great white shark terrorized the small resort of Amity, unsuspecting vacationers begin disappearing in an all-too-familiar fashion. Police Chief Brody (Scheider) fnds himself in a race against time when a new shark attacks ten sailboats manned by teenagers, including his own two sons. The same heart-stopping suspense and gripping adventure that enthralled movie audiences throughout the world in Jaws returns in this worthy sequel to the original motion picture classic. Run Time: 116 mins approx. Bonus Run Time: 75 mins approx. Aspect Ratio: 2.33:1 Jaws 3: A DEADLY NEW ATTRACTION! The most famous shark of all time is back bigger and more terrifying than ever in Jaws 3 starring Dennis Quaid, Bess Armstrong, Simon MacCorkindale and Louis Gossett Jr. Everyone at Florida's Sea World is thrilled with the new Undersea Kingdom, a maze of underwater plexiglass tunnels that permits visitors to get closer to marine life than ever before. The opening ceremonies include many important guests and one uninvited baby shark who accidentally enters the park's lagoon through a faulty sea gate and subsequently dies. The young shark's 35-foot mother soon follows her offspring, creating the most horrifying tale of terror ever flmed in the water. Directed by Joe Alves, the original Jaws designer, and co-written by Carl Gottlieb who penned the frst two blockbusters, this action-packed adventure will have you screaming for your life. Run Time: 98 mins approx. Bonus Run Time: 98 mins approx. Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1 Jaws: The Revenge: THIS TIME, IT'S PERSONAL. Once again the peace of Amity and the lives of the Brody family are shattered by a bloodthirsty shark in Jaws: The Revenge. Lorraine Gary reprises her role as the now widowed Ellen Brody who fnds herself reliving the horrors of the past when a mammoth shark kills her son. Grief-stricken, she travels to the Bahamas to be with her other son, a marine biologist Lance Guest), and his family. There she meets and falls for a carefree airplane pilot (Academy Award winner Michael Caine). Just as she is starting to put her life back together, the nightmare of the past returns when her granddaughter is attacked by an all-too-familiar great white shark. Determined to end the terror once and for all, Ellen sets out for a showdown to the death. Run Time: 90 mins approx. Bonus Run Time: 5 mins approx. Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 Jaws 2: Deleted Scenes The Making of Jaws 2 Jaws 2: A Portrait by Actor Keith Gordon John Williams: The Music of Jaws 2 The French Joke Storyboards Theatrical Trailers Jaws 3: Jaws 3 in 3D! - See Jaws 3 the way it was originally shown in theaters to experience a third dimension in terror. Jaws: The Revenge: Alternate Ending

• Early Doors - Series 1 And 2 | DVD | (26/09/2005) from £5.94   |  Saving you £2.05 (34.51%)   |  RRP £7.99

  This box set features both series 1 and 2 of Early Doors. Series 1: A gentle yet compelling story of life love loneliness and blocked urinals. Each evening the regulars bring their particular foibles and characteristics up to the bar. Overhearing their conversations and reliving the events in each of their lives is both moving and amusing. Series 2: The welcome return of the critically acclaimed comedy set entirely in The Grapes a small pub in the Nor

• The Sopranos: Complete Series 1 | DVD | (24/11/2003) from £13.89   |  Saving you £48.10 (346.29%)   |  RRP £61.99

  Writer-producer-director David Chase's extraordinary television seriesThe Sopranos is nominally an urban gangster drama, but its true impact strikes closer to home. This ambitious TV series chronicles a dysfunctional, suburban American family in bold relief. And for protagonist Tony Soprano, there's the added complexity posed by heading twin families, his collegiate mob clan and his own nouveau-riche brood. The brilliant first series is built around what Tony learns when, whipsawed between those two worlds, he finds himself plunged into depression and seeks psychotherapy--a gesture at odds with his midlevel capo's machismo, yet instantly recognisable as a modern emotional test. With analysis built into the very spine of the show's elaborate episodic structure, creator Chase and his formidable corps of directors, writers and actors weave an unpredictable series of parallel and intersecting plot arcs that twist from tragedy to farce to social realism. While creating for a smaller screen, they enjoy a far larger canvas than a single movie would afford and the results, like the very best episodic television, attain a richness and scope far closer to a novel than movies normally get. Unlike Francis Coppola's operatic dramatisation of Mario Puzo's Godfather epic, The Sopranos sustains a poignant, even mundane intimacy in its focus on Tony, brought to vivid life by James Gandolfini's mercurial performance. Alternately seductive, exasperated, fearful and murderous, Gandolfini is utterly convincing even when executing brutal shifts between domestic comedy and dramatic violence. Both he and the superb team of Italian-American actors recruited as his loyal (and, sometimes, not-so-loyal) henchman and their various "associates" make this mob as credible as the evocative Bronx and New Jersey locations where the episodes were filmed. The first year's other life force is Livia Soprano, Tony's monstrous, meddlesome mother. As Livia, the late Nancy Marchand eclipses her long career of patrician performances to create an indelibly earthy, calculating matriarch who shakes up both families; Livia also serves as foil and rival to Tony's loyal, usually level-headed wife, Carmela (Edie Falco). Lorraine Bracco makes Tony's therapist, Dr Melfi, a convincing confidante, by turns "professional", perceptive and sexy; the duo's therapeutic relationship is also depicted with uncommon accuracy. Such grace notes only enrich what's not merely an aesthetic high point for commercial television, but an absorbing film masterwork that deepens with subsequent screenings. --Sam Sutherland

• Jaws | Blu Ray | (04/08/2014) from £13.98   |  Saving you £13.00 (108.42%)   |  RRP £24.99

  In the vastly overrated 1998 book Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, author Peter Biskind puts the blame for Hollywood's blockbuster mentality at least partially on Steven Spielberg's box-office success with this adaptation of Peter Benchley's bestselling novel, Jaws. But you can't blame Spielberg for making a terrific movie, which Jaws definitely is. The story of a Long Island town whose summer tourist business is suddenly threatened by great-white-shark attacks on humans bypasses the potboiler trappings of Benchley's book and goes straight for the jugular with beautifully crafted, crowd-pleasing sequences of action and suspense supported by a trio of terrific performances by Roy Scheider (as the local sheriff), Richard Dreyfuss (as a shark specialist), and particularly Robert Shaw (as the old fisherman who offers to hunt the shark down). The sequences on Shaw's boat--as the three of them realize that in fact the shark is hunting them--are what entertaining moviemaking is all about. It's odd that the cornerstone of the new edition is a 10-year-old documentary. Shot for the laserdisc release (the unofficial 20th anniversary edition), the 2-hour "The Making of Jaws" is an excellent telling of how this film was made and became the top grossing film (and launched the career of extras filmmaker Laurent Bouzereau). An hour-long edited version appeared on the 25th anniversary DVD. Here's what else different from the 25th anniversary DVD: an interesting a 9-minute vintage featurette shot for British TV that has never been seen in the States; a few additions to the extensive "Jaws Archives" (production stills, storyboards and the like), and a few new fragments in the deleted scene roll. The image is the same excellent transfer as before but this time you can get the DTS and Dolby sound on the same disc plus a nice 60-page photo journal. A seaworthy set but hardly worth trading in your old DVD. --Doug Thomas, Amazon.com

• Walk Off The Pounds with Lorraine Kelly | DVD | (01/01/2009) from £9.88   |  Saving you £6.10 (88.53%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Walk Off The Pounds With Lorraine Kelly is an innovative new concept! Just by following in Lorraine's footsteps you too can shed the weight you desire to lose! Never before has the power of walking - one of the most effective ways to get fit and lose weight - been used in such a user friendly workout routine. As well as handy hints and a diary plan to get you walking this DVD will give you the real deal on how to maximise your fat burning potential. With a unique set of power workout

• The Assassin | DVD | (24/05/1999) from £15.34   |  Saving you £-2.35 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  This is one of those Hollywood remakes of a European hit in which one can visualize a committee of studio executives sitting around and saying, "Okay, we know what made the original film unique and different and fun. How can we make that same movie and do exactly the opposite?" For-hire director John Badham (Saturday Night Fever) took La Femme Nikita, Luc Besson's undeniably sexy, original, and kitschy French film about a female assassin, and translated it into The Assassin, a calculating, mechanistic American thriller with no distinctive style. Bridget Fonda gamely plays the willowy street punk who becomes a high-society killer, but once that provocative irony is in place, the movie is pretty much a series of by-the-numbers action set pieces. Until, that is, Dermot Mulroney shows up as a love interest; but even that twist can't save this film. You're much better off with the original, subtitles and all. The DVD release has optional full-screen and widescreen presentations, production notes, theatrical trailer, optional French and Spanish soundtracks, and optional English, French, and Spanish subtitles. --Tom Keogh, Amazon.com

• The Sopranos - Season 5 | DVD | (20/06/2005) from £17.99   |  Saving you £44.00 (244.58%)   |  RRP £61.99

  Facing an indeterminate sentence of weeks/months/years until new episodes, Sopranos fans are advised to take the fifth; season, that is. At this point, superlatives don't do The Sopranos justice, but justice was at last served to this benchmark series. For the first time, The Sopranos rubbed out The West Wing to take home its first Emmy for Outstanding Dramatic Series. Michael Imperioli and Drea de Matteo also earned Best Supporting Actor and Actress honors for some of their finest hours as Christopher and Adriana. From the moment a wayward bear lumbers into the Sopranos' yard in the season opener, it is clear that The Sopranos is in anything but a "stagmire." The series benefits from an infusion of new blood, the so-called "Class of 2004," imprisoned "family" members freshly released from jail. Most notable among these is Tony's cousin, Tony Blundetto (Steve Buscemi, who directed the pivotal season 3 episode "Pine Barrens"), who initially wants to go straight, but proves himself to be something of a "free agent," setting up a climactic stand-off between Tony and New York boss Johnny Sack. These 13 mostly riveting episodes unfold with a page-turning intensity with many rich subplots. Estranged couple Tony and Carmela (the incomparable James Gandolfini and Edie Falco) work toward a reconciliation (greased by Tony's purchase of a $600,000 piece of property for Carmela to develop). The Feds lean harder on an increasingly stressed-out and distraught Adriana to "snitch" with inevitable results. This season's hot-button episode is "The Test Dream," in which Tony is visited by some of the series' dear, and not-so-dearly, departed in a harrowing nightmare. With this set, fans can enjoy marathon viewings of an especially satisfying season, but considering the long wait ahead for season 6, best to take Tony's advice to his son, who, at one point, gulps down a champagne toast. "Slow down," Tony says. "You're supposed to savor it." --Donald Liebenson, Amazon.com

• Fever Pitch | DVD | (17/09/2007) from £5.38   |  Saving you £10.61 (197.21%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Adapted by Nick Hornby from his own best-selling novel Fever Pitch is one of the funniest most believable and most talked about films in years. Meet Paul a man with an obsession: football. When he meets his other obsession in life Sarah he soon discovers that unlike football relationships aren't played out in seasons. As their roller-coaster relationship becomes even more entertaining and enthralling than the nail-biting end to the League Championship what will the outcome be?

• Jaws | DVD | (24/07/2000) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Jaws revolutionised Hollywood, single-handedly invented the summer blockbuster, spawned three increasingly poor sequels, and became the first film to gross more than 100 million dollars. Unlike many recent blockbusters, however, in Jaws the audience really cares about the fate of the men engaged in their duel with the monster. Granted the shark looks fake, but we willingly suspend our disbelief as storytelling and character development count for far more than mere special effects, adding enormously to the movie's suspense, excitement and sheer terror. The cast and screenplay are exemplary, but it was Steven Spielberg who emerged as the film's true star, while John Williams' unforgettable Oscar-winning score made him almost as much of as household name as the young director.On the DVD: For a Steven Spielberg movie and an all-time classic, this 25th Anniversary Edition release is impressive, but not all it could be. The anamorphically enhanced 2.35:1 ratio picture is superb, as is the re-mixed Dolby Digital 5.1 sound (the film was originally released in mono). It is a joy to see the film's picture and sound quality rescued from years of television and VHS screenings, offering a reminder of what all the fuss was about in the first place. The deleted scenes are quite interesting, offering more background on Brody, Hooper and Quint, including the latter's bizarre vocal duel with a boy playing the recorder! The four photo galleries are good, but some captions would have helped enormously. Disappointingly, there's no director's commentary, the best extra being a 50-minute documentary, "The Making of Jaws". This is excellent, and quite different from the BBC television production, "In the Teeth of Jaws". Even if you've seen that, there's much more to learn here. --Gary S. Dalkin

• The Sopranos - Complete Collection | Blu Ray | (08/09/2014) from £46.65   |  Saving you £12.85 (27.55%)   |  RRP £59.50

  Tony Soprano is the head of two families and sometimes the pressure is too much to bear. As head of the Sopranos crime family he deals with conniving underbosses rival families and the occasional dead body. As husband to his wife Carmela and father to his two children Meadow and Anthony Jr. he deals with financial difficulties infidelity and trying to keep his professional life from colliding with his family life. Episodes Comprise: Season 1 The Sopranos 46 Long Denial Anger Acceptance Meadowlands College Pax Soprana Down Neck The Legend of Tennessee Moltisanti Boca A Hit is a Hit Nobody Knows Anything Isabella I Dream of Jeannie Cusamano Season 2 Guy Walks Into A Psychiatrist's Office Do Not Resuscitate Toodle-F**king-Oo Commendatori Big Girls Don't Cry The Happy Wanderer D-Girl Full Leather Jacket From Where To Eternity Bust-Out 11. House Arrest The Knight In White Satin Armor Funhouse Season 3 Mr. Ruggerio's Neighborhood Proshai Livushka Fortunate Son Employee of the Month Another Toothpick University Second Opinion He Is Risen The Telltale Moozadell To Save Us All From Satan's Power Pine Barrens Amour Fou Army of One Season 4 For All Debts Public and Private No Show Christopher The Weight Pie-O-My Everybody Hurts Watching Too Much Television Mergers and Acquisitions Whoever Did This The Strong Silent Type Calling All Cars Eloise Whitecaps Season 5 Two Tony's Rat Pack Where's Johnny All Happy Families Irregular Around the Margins Sentimental Education In Camelot Marco Polo Unidentified Black Males Cold Cuts The Test Dream Long Term Parking All Due Respect Season 6 Members Only Join The Club Mayham The Fleshy Part of the Thigh Mr. and Mrs. John Sacrimoni Request Live Free or Die Luxury Lounge Johnny Cakes The Ride Moe n' Joe Cold Stones Kaisha Soprano Home Movies Stage 5 Remember When Chasing it Walk Like a Man Kennedy and Heidi The Second Coming The Blue Comet Made in America Special Features: Season 1 Audio Commentary with Creator/Writer/Director David Chase and Peter Bogdanovich David Chase Interview (77:30) Featurette #1 Family Life (4:12) Featurette #2 Meet Tony Soprano (3:30) Season 2 Audio Commentary with: Director Tim Van Patten Director Henry J. Bronchtein and Producer Ilene Landress Director Allen Coulter and Producer Ilene Landress Director John Patterson Behind-the-Scenes Featurette: The Real Deal (04:51) Behind-the-Scenes Featurette: A Sit-Down with The Sopranos (13:36 Season 3 Audio Commentary with: Writer/Cast Member Michael Imperioli Director Steve Buscemi Series Creator/Writer David Chase Behind-the-Scenes Featurette w/host Karen Duffy (3:46) Season 4 Audio Commentary with: Writer Terence Winter Writer/Cast Member Michael Imperioli Writers Robin Green and Mitchell Burgess Series Creator/Writer David Chase Season 5 Audio Commentary with: Director Rodrigo Garcia Director Peter Bogdanovich Director Steve Buscemi Director Mike Figgis Cast Member Drea de Mattteo Season 6A Audio Commentary with: Cast Members Edie Falco Robert Iler and Jamie-Lynn Sigler Writer Matthew Weiner Writer Terence Winter and Cast Members Michael Imperioli and Tony Sirico Series Creator/Writer David Chase Season 6B Audio Commentary with: Cast Member Steven R. Schirripa Cast Member Dominic Chianese Cast Member Robert Iler Cast Members Stevie Van Zandt and Arthur Nascarella Making Cleaver (7:50) The Music of the Sopranos (16:28) Sopranos Bonus Disc Special Features:: Supper with The Sopranos Part I (36:50) Supper with The Sopranos Part II (38:02) Lost Scenes (Season 1 Episode 1): Tony and Dr. Melfi discuss Gotti Guiliani and his Mother (01:33) Lost Scenes (Season 2 Episode 1): Meadow asks Carmela about Tony's feud with his mother. Carmela and Meadow go to see Livia in the hospital and are greeted by Janice and a bodyguard etc. (04:07) Lost Scenes (Season 2 Episode 1): Pussy Silvio Paulie and the guys discuss Tony's relationshiop with his mother. (01:02) Lost Scenes (Season 3 Episode 10): Pussy is cornered in a heroin bust. (02:17) Lost Scenes (Season 4 Episode 3): Tony and Melfi discuss prejudice against Italians. (01:59) Lost Scenes (Season 5 Episode 3): Paulie calls Tony to ask for a meeting. They meet and Paulie asks for a sit-down with Feech. (02:24) Lost Scenes (Season 6A Episode 1): Junior is paranoid about a car parked on the street. (00:36) Lost Scenes (Season 6A Episode 8): Tony tells Vito it's safe to come home. (02:22) Lost Scenes (Season 6A Episode 11): Phil stops by to visit Vito's house and check the place out. (01:45) Lost Scenes (Season 6B Episode 1): Tony and Bobby play with fireworks. Janice asks where her hat is. (00:47) Alec Baldwin Interviews David Chase: Cut to the Chase (21:13) Alec Baldwin Interviews David Chase: Anatomy of the Mob (22:02) Lost Scenes (Season 2 Episode 2): Janice tells Livia she's not going to be defeated that easily. (01:51) Lost Scenes (Season 2 Episode 6): Tony rants to his family about Richie being at the funeral. (00:51) Defining A Television Landmark (45:29)

• Jaws 2 | DVD | (06/04/2009) from £5.38   |  Saving you £4.61 (85.69%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Judged entirely on its own merits, Jaws 2 isn't a bad film. It even has some passably scary moments (Brody discovering a charred body in the waves; the swimming boy racing the shark back to his dinghy). But it's absolutely impossible to judge this movie on its own merits. Despite being given a great big Panavision camera to play with director Jeannot Szwarc can't hide his TV-movie origins, nor can the script, both of which spend far too long landlocked with the bickering inhabitants of Amity Island. Where the original film boldly set out to sea with Robert Shaw's Ahab-like Quint, in a misplaced desire to attract a teenage audience this movie dwells at interminable length on the courting rituals of the local youth; where Spielberg's original is a masterpiece of pacing and carefully timed tension-building, Jaws 2 sags terribly whenever the plastic shark swims out of sight. Roy Scheider comes off best, reprising his role as Chief Brody, while Lorraine Gary's role as his wife is expanded (she must be a glutton for punishment: she also starred in Jaws 4: The Revenge). Taken as a sequel Jaws 2 is inferior in every way; taken as an unassuming TV movie it's a respectable, workmanlike effort; but looking forward at what was to follow, it begins to look like a minor masterpiece. --Mark Walker

• Fast Girls | Blu Ray | (08/10/2012) from £3.25   |  Saving you £19.74 (607.38%)   |  RRP £22.99

  When sassy streetwise Shania (Lenora Crichlow) meets ambitious, middle class Lisa (Lily James), their two worlds collide on the athletics track with explosive results.

• DCI Banks - Series 2 | DVD | (19/11/2012) from £8.99   |  Saving you £11.00 (122.36%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Stephen Tompkinson returns as Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks, in the hit series based on the novels of the award-winning crime writer Peter Robinson. In three new adaptations, Banks must come to terms with dramatic changes to his team, as DS Annie Cabbot's impending maternity leave leads to the arrival of DI Helen Morton as a brilliant, accomplished, but socially inept addition to the Yorkshire Major Crimes Unit. When DCI Alan Banks receives a disturbing message from his brother Roy in Strange Affair, he drops everything to find him, just as new recruit DI Helen Morton finds evidence linking Banks to the body of a murder victim… In Dry Bones That Dream, DCI Alan Banks and DI Helen Morton must learn to reconcile their conflicting policing styles and personalities whilst trying to unravel the increasingly puzzling murder of a local accountant who has been leading a secret double life. When a teenage schoolgirl is found strangled in Innocent Graves, Banks and his team quickly identify their prime suspect. But the closer Banks moves towards a conviction, the more the course of the investigation distances him from Helen.

• Goodfellas | 4K UHD | (12/12/2016) from £19.89   |  Saving you £2.42 (12.17%)   |  RRP £22.31

  Martin Scorsese's 1990 masterpiece GoodFellas immortalises the hilarious, horrifying life of actual gangster Henry Hill (Ray Liotta), from his teen years on the streets of New York to his anonymous exile under the Witness Protection Program. The director's kinetic style is perfect for recounting Hill's ruthless rise to power in the 1950s as well as his drugged-out fall in the late 1970s; in fact, no one has ever rendered the mental dislocation of cocaine better than Scorsese. Scorsese uses period music perfectly, not just to summon a particular time but to set a precise mood. GoodFellas is at least as good as The Godfather without being in the least derivative of it. Joe Pesci's psycho improvisation of Mobster Tommy DeVito ignited Pesci as a star, Lorraine Bracco scores the performance of her life as the love of Hill's life, and every supporting role, from Paul Sorvino to Robert De Niro, is a miracle.

• The Sullivans: Volume 6 | DVD | (28/04/2014) from £49.90   |  Saving you £-9.91 (N/A%)   |  RRP £39.99

• The Sopranos: HBO Season 6 (Part 2) | DVD | (19/11/2007) from £9.61   |  Saving you £35.38 (368.16%)   |  RRP £44.99

  Critically hailed as 'a modern masterpiece' (The Observer) the series is a darkly humorous and often violent look at a New Jersey family whose patriarch happens to be a mob boss. The pace is fast the conflict fierce and the humour bitterly dark The Sopranos takes hold and doesn't let go.

• The Sopranos: Complete Series 1 (Six Disc Set) | DVD | (29/10/2000) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £61.99

  The Sopranos, writer-producer-director David Chase's extraordinary television series, is nominally an urban gangster drama, but its true impact strikes closer to home: This ambitious TV series chronicles a dysfunctional, suburban American family in bold relief. And for protagonist Tony Soprano, there's the added complexity posed by heading twin families, his collegial mob clan and his own nouveau riche brood. The series' brilliant first season is built around what Tony learns when, whipsawed between those two worlds, he finds himself plunged into depression and seeks psychotherapy--a gesture at odds with his midlevel capo's machismo, yet instantly recognisable as a modern emotional test. With analysis built into the very spine of the show's elaborate episodic structure, creator Chase and his formidable corps of directors, writers, and actors weave an unpredictable series of parallel and intersecting plot arcs that twist from tragedy to farce to social realism. While creating for a smaller screen, they enjoy a far larger canvas than a single movie would afford, and the results, like the very best episodic television, attain a richness and scope far closer to a novel than movies normally get. Unlike Francis Coppola's operatic dramatisation of Mario Puzo's Godfather epic, The Sopranos sustains a poignant, even mundane intimacy in its focus on Tony, brought to vivid life by James Gandolfini's mercurial performance. Alternately seductive, exasperated, fearful, and murderous, Gandolfini is utterly convincing even when executing brutal shifts between domestic comedy and dramatic violence. Both he and the superb team of Italian-American actors recruited as his loyal (and, sometimes, not-so-loyal) henchman and their various "associates" make this mob as credible as the evocative Bronx and New Jersey locations where the episodes were filmed. The first season's other life force is Livia Soprano, Tony's monstrous, meddlesome mother. As Livia, the late Nancy Marchand eclipses her long career of patrician performances to create an indelibly earthy, calculating matriarch who shakes up both families; Livia also serves as foil and rival to Tony's loyal, usually level-headed wife, Carmela (Edie Falco). Lorraine Bracco makes Tony's therapist, Dr Melfi, a convincing confidante, by turns "professional", perceptive, and sexy; the duo's therapeutic relationship is also depicted with uncommon accuracy. Such grace notes only enrich what's not merely an aesthetic high point for commercial television, but an absorbing film masterwork that deepens with subsequent screenings. --Sam Sutherland, Amazon.com

• Jaws 4 - The Revenge | DVD | (22/07/2014) from £5.19   |  Saving you £2.80 (53.95%)   |  RRP £7.99

  One would think that after the aquatic horror of the previous three Jaws films the remnants of the beleaguered Brodie family would be happily nursing their hydrophobia somewhere in Kansas. However, in Jaws 4--The Revenge, we find that Ellen (Lorraine Gary) is still living on a tiny island and her eldest son Michael (Lance Guest) has become, of all things, a marine biologist. Even when yet another giant shark slaughters her younger son, all Ellen can do to take her mind off it is go to the Bahamas and gaze at the sea. There she embarks on a romantic affair with salty sea-pilot Hoagie (a nice turn from Michael Caine), but this peace is shattered as the shark begins to target her grandchildren and friends. Where this monster-with-a-grudge comes from, bearing in mind that the sharks in each of the previous films got blown up or electrocuted, is something of a conundrum. But logic is clearly not a concern in a script that demands only that this film should bear some tenuous relation to its predecessors. The ghost of the far-superior original looms large here--in the form of Ellen's flashbacks (which actually use footage from the earlier films), scenes that overtly refer to moments from the series (Michael's son mimics him at the dinner table, as Michael once did to his own father) and a set littered with conspicuously large photos of Roy Scheider. There are nice touches--Michael and his Jamaican partner Jake (Mario Van Peebles) fit the shark with a heart monitor which lets off an eerie blipping sound when it approaches, it is nice to see a romance between more "mature" characters portrayed so warmly and when the maternal Ellen forms the resolve to protect her family it even looks like she may briefly become a sort of geriatric Ripley character (à la Aliens). But with a shark that has never looked more rubbery, set pieces that lack suspense and invention and a short running time (only 86 minutes) it is hard to shake off the sensation that this is a made-for-TV film. Those wanting a dose of tongue-in-cheek killer-creature action would be better off avoiding this wet fish and taking in a Jaws rip-off with a little more bite, such as Deep Blue Sea or Deep Rising. --Paul Philpott

• Jailbirds/Sailors Don't Care | DVD | (31/08/2015) from £9.99   |  Saving you £5.00 (50.05%)   |  RRP £14.99

  JAILBIRDS (1940) 73 mins Colour. Charles Hawtrey stars as Nick a prisoner who escapes along with Bill (Albert Burdon) dressed in drag. Both get jobs in a bakery where they hide some stolen jewellery in a loaf ! Hawtry at his "campest" best SAILORS DON’T CARE (1940) 74 mins Black & White.Boatbuilding father and Son Nobby Clark (Edward Rigby Tom Gamble) join the River Patrol service. They are 'vamped' by two nightclub girls mixed up with their manager in spy work. Manning a listening post on the ship 'Terrific' Joe and Nobby see a parachutist landing in the river with a time bomb in his hands....