"Actor: Mak Wilson"

• Return To Oz | DVD | (22/03/2004) from £5.99   |  Saving you £9.00 (150.25%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Return to Oz is a 1985 live-action sequel that split critics and audiences alike: you don't fool with Mother Nature, spit into the wind, remake Casablanca, or trash the land of Oz. The 1939 classic musical is so beloved that it's almost impossible to imagine seeing Dorothy in shock therapy, a crumbled yellow brick road, the ruins of Emerald City, and the Tin Man turned into stone. But L Frank Baum, the author of the original Oz books, portrayed just that with his continuing stories of Dorothy. When you get by these tough facts, the film version is solid entertainment for the over-seven set. Dorothy (a 10-year-old Fairuza Balk in her debut) is back in Kansas, where Aunt Em (Piper Laurie) is at the end of her rope: her niece is not sleeping and going on about a place called Oz. Therapy may be the answer, but luckily the scary clinic goes dark before Dorothy can be, er, cured (but the lead-up will scare the munchkins out of most kids). She wakes up in the land of Oz, now in tatters, and searches for its king, the Scarecrow. A new set of friends, including a tin soldier, a talking chicken, and a pumpkin man, help her against new villains, including Princess Mombi (Jean Marsh)--complete with a set of detachable heads--and the evil Nome King (Nicol Williamson with a great assist from Will Vinton's Claymation). The sole directorial effort of Oscar-winning editor Walter Murch is stuffed with marvellous effects that foreshadow later works by Tim Burton and the Henson non-Muppet films. --Doug Thomas

• Buddy | DVD | (04/07/2005) from £4.94   |  Saving you £1.05 (21.26%)   |  RRP £5.99

  A delightful family adventure based on a remarkable true story featuring amazing effects courtesy of Jim Henson's Creature Shop. Rene Russo stars as eccentric socialite Gertrude ""Trudy"" Lintz who adopts a baby gorilla into her already-bustling animal menagerie. Along with chimpanzees Maggie and Joe Buddy gets into all kinds of hilarious monkey business and proceeds to drive everyone bananas. .

• Fungus The Bogeyman | DVD | (31/10/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Differing from the original release this special edition DVD contains the three part bogeylicious story (as seen on the BBC) and over an hours worth of bogey picking extras! Based on two very different worlds; the home of 'drycleaners' (that's humans to you and I) and the dark damp world of Bogeydom where Fungus and his family live it s'not quite the life of slime you'd expect. Fungus' job is to venture 'up top' to scare drycleaners. Unfortunately one adventure backfires creating the Bogeypeople's worst crisis - a Drycleaner has discovered their existence.... This is repulsive yet strangely compulsive viewing for all the family!

• Buddy | DVD | (11/03/2002) from £11.38   |  Saving you £-2.40 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Based on the life of Gertrude Lintz, a Long Island socialite who kept an amazing menagerie of animals on her estate, this very able film by Caroline Thompson (Black Beauty) concentrates on Lintz's relationship with a gorilla named Buddy, whom she raised from infancy on. The film is geared toward kids but in the very best sense as Thompson orchestrates some very entertaining sequences without cutting corners on logic, the way most forms of children's entertainment do today. Rene Russo is very good as the eccentric woman, and Robbie Coltrane is uncharacteristically warm and fuzzy as her patient husband. Nice support work from Alan Cumming and the rest of the cast. Thompson is aiming for something akin to the live-action glory days of Disney, and she comes close to achieving it. --Tom Keogh

• 12 Lethal Kicks | DVD | (25/10/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Featuring twelve different titles: Best Of The Best: Alex Grady an Oregan welder and widowed father of a 5-year-old son is chosen for the United States National Karate team. He finds himself in the company of of Tommy Lee a soft spoken Karate instructor and a mix of international colleagues. It's a team with rough edges that must be resolved if they're to win the international competition in the South Korean capital Seoul. The team's sponsor brings in an unorthodox tr