"Actor: Martin James"

• Insomnia | DVD | (07/07/2003) from £9.99   |  Saving you £8.00 (80.08%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Brought in to investigate the murder of a young girl, a celebrated cop accidentally kills his partner and is blackmailed by a sadistic killer who witnessed it.

• The Final Countdown | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £6.19   |  Saving you £-0.20 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  With a tantalising "what-if?" scenario and a respectable cast of Hollywood veterans, The Final Countdown plays like a grand-scale episode of The Twilight Zone. It's really no more than that, and time-travel movies have grown far more sophisticated since this popular 1980 release, but there's still some life remaining in the movie's basic premise: what if a modern-era navy aircraft carrier--in this case the real-life nuclear-powered USS Nimitz--was caught in an anomalous storm and thrust 40 years backwards in time to the eve of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor? Will the ship's commander (Kirk Douglas) interfere with history? Will the visiting systems analyst (Martin Sheen) convince him not to? Will a rescued senator from 1941 (Charles Durning) play an unexpected role in the future of American politics? Veteran TV director Don Taylor doesn't do much with the ideas posed by this potentially intriguing plot; he seems more interested in satisfying aviation buffs with loving footage of F-14 "Jolly Roger" fighter jets, made possible by the navy's generous cooperation. That makes The Final Countdown a better navy film than a fully fledged time-travel fantasy, but there's a nice little twist at the end, and the plot holes are easy to ignore. James Cameron would've done it better, but this popcorn thriller makes an enjoyable double bill with The Philadelphia Experiment. --Jeff Shannon

• Gettysburg | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £5.49   |  Saving you £8.50 (154.83%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Thanks to generous funding from media mogul Ted Turner, first-time director Ronald F Maxwell was able to make an almost word-for-word adaptation of Michael Shaara's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Killer Angels. Running over four hours, Gettysburg (1993) splits into two convenient parts for TV viewing (although a 70mm print was given limited theatrical release). This story of three bloody days of conflict in July, 1863 (an unimaginable 50,000 casualties), is divided equally between Union and Confederate forces. On the Union side, Jeff Daniels is the quietly heroic Colonel Joshua Chamberlain; Sam Elliott is utterly convincing as General Buford, the Union cavalryman who holds the Confederate army at bay on the first day. Martin Sheen plays an oddly subdued and vacillating General Lee--a controversial portrait of the legendary Confederate chief--while Tom Berenger, despite being almost hidden underneath an enormous authentically period-style beard, is strong and authoritative as General Longstreet (whose opposition to Lee's plans gave many in the Confederacy a reason to blame him for the disaster at Gettysburg). Chamberlain's last-ditch defence of Little Round Top, which prevented the Union forces from being flanked on the second day of battle, forms the climax to the first half; the heartbreaking Pickett's Charge--the Confederates' disastrous frontal assault on the entrenched Union lines on the third day--is the movie's greatest set piece and one of the most compelling reasons to endure a little too much stodgy dialogue (lifted directly from the novel) and an apparently over-reverential attitude to the subject-matter. But much of this movie was made in and around the actual battle site, so it's only to be expected that the cast and crew tread carefully, as if literally under the watchful eyes of the men whose lives they are re-enacting. And re-enactment is the key: with a cast of thousands in splendidly detailed period costumes, cannonades galore and massed ranks of musketry, the sheer scale of the military spectacle is endlessly impressive. If as a piece of filmmaking it has many faults, as an historical re-enactment Gettysburg is unsurpassed--even by the epic Waterloo (1970), which drafted in a large chunk of the Russian army as Napoleonic extras. --Mark Walker

• The Taking Of Pelham 123 | DVD | (29/04/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  ""Outstanding! Bursts With Heart-Stopping Excitement!"" -Leonard Maltin. An all-star cast including Oscar-winners Walter Matthau and Martin Balsam teams up with Robert Shaw to deliver ""sure-fire entertainment [that's] gripping and exciting from beginning to end"" (The Hollywood Reporter). Based on the sizzling best-seller by John Godey this pulse-pounding picture is guaranteed to give you the ride of your life! Somewhere underground in New York's subway system just outside the

• True Grit | DVD | (06/06/2005) from £6.99   |  Saving you £6.00 (85.84%)   |  RRP £12.99

  John Wayne hams it up as a one-eyed, broken-down marshal in this 1969 adaptation of Charles Portis's bestselling novel. Kim Darby plays the formal-speaking adolescent who goes to Wayne for help tracking down her father's killer, and singer Glen Campbell straps on his guns to join the quest. Directed by old lion Henry Hathaway (Rawhide), True Grit is largely a showcase for Wayne (who finally won an Oscar), but it is also a decent Western with a particularly stirring final act. --Tom Keogh

• Sands of Iwo Jima (John Wayne) | DVD | (05/06/2006) from £4.45   |  Saving you £5.54 (124.49%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Alone and outnumbered they had one thing in their favor... the American dream. Blazing action and spectacle are on the menu as battle-toughened sergeant John M Stryker (John Wayne) prepares a group of soldiers for action in the Pacific. The men have got their biggest test ahead on Iwo Jima where they have to inch their way up Mt. Suribachi under constant Japanese fire.

• Tora! Tora! Tora! | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £7.94   |  Saving you £12.05 (151.76%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Here is just one of the many mishaps chronicled in Tora! Tora! Tora!: "Sir, there's a large formation of planes coming in from the north, 140 miles, 3 degrees east." "Yeah? Don't worry about it." The epic film shows the bombing of Pearl Harbour from both sides in the historic first American-Japanese coproduction: American director Richard Fleischer oversaw the complicated production (the Japanese sequences were directed by Toshio Masuda and Kinji Fukasaku, after Akira Kurosawa withdrew from the film), wrestling a sprawling story with dozens of characters into a manageable, fairly easy-to-follow film. The first half maps out the collapse of diplomacy between the nations and the military blunders that left naval and air forces sitting ducks for the impending attack, while the second half is an amazing re-creation of the devastating battle. While Tora! Tora! Tora! lacks the strong central characters that anchor the best war films, the real star of the film is the climactic 30-minute battle, a massive feat of cinematic engineering that expertly conveys the surprise, the chaos and the immense destruction of the only attack by a foreign power on American soil since the Revolutionary war. The special effects won a well-deserved Oscar, but the film was shut out of every other category by, ironically, the other epic war picture of the year, Patton. --Sean Axmaker, Amazon.com

• A Room For Romeo Brass | DVD | (25/03/2002) from £8.06   |  Saving you £4.93 (61.17%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Growing up ...fighting family ...talking out of your arse...

• Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story By Martin Scorsese (2019) (Criterion Collection) UK Only | Blu Ray | (25/01/2021) from £30.85   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  In 1975, in an America defined by both the self-mythologizing pomp of the upcoming bicentennial and ongoing socio-political turmoil, BOB DYLAN and a band of troubadoursincluding luminaries such as JOAN BAEZ, ALLEN GINSBERG, and JONI MITCHELLembarked on a now-legendary tour known as The Rolling Thunder Revue, a freewheeling variety show that was part traveling counterculture carnival, part spiritual pilgrimage. Director MARTIN SCORSESE (The Irishman) blends behind-the-scenes archival footage, interviews, and narrative mischief, with a magician's sleight of hand, into a zeitgeist-defining cultural record that is as much a concert documentary as it is a slippery, chimerical investigation into memory, time, truth, and illusion. At the centre of it all is the magnetic Dylan, a sphinx-like philosopher-poet singing, with electrifying conviction, to the soul of an anxious nation. DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES New 4K digital transfer, approved by director Martin Scorsese, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack New interviews with Scorsese, editor David Tedeschi, and writer Larry Ratso Sloman Restored footage of never-before-seen Rolling Thunder Revue performances of Tonight I'll Be Staying Here with You and Romance in Durango, and of a never-before-seen cut of Tangled Up in Blue Trailer English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing PLUS: An essay by novelist Dana Spiotta and writing from the Rolling Thunder Revue tour by author Sam Shepard and poets Allen Ginsberg and Anne Waldman

• Catch Me If You Can | DVD | (02/07/2006) from £7.17   |  Saving you £12.82 (178.80%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Based on the true story of Frank Abagnale Jr., the youngest man to ever feature on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list who managed to pass himself off with several identities with an FBI agent hot on his trail.

• The Sons of Katie Elder (Blu-ray) | Blu Ray | (15/09/2020) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Inspector Gadget 2 | DVD | (12/05/2003) from £7.97   |  Saving you £10.02 (125.72%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Inspector Gadget 2 sees the unlikely detective with higher-tech gadgets and more special effects. French Stewart (from TV's Third Rock from the Sun) replaces Matthew Broderick as the bumbling detective in a plot that revolves around the glitch-ridden Gadget being replaced by a completely robotised female. Parent Trap's Elaine Hendrix does what little she can with the one-dimensional role of "G2". Still, Gadget falls for his rival and the pair team up with his smart-as-a-whip niece Penny and her brainy beagle for a showdown with Claw. Where Broderick struggled to humanise the caricature of an inept detective in the 1999 original, Stewart doesn't even try. Instead he plays Gadget as a cartoon with endless over-the-top theatrics. The enhanced special effects may placate young viewers, but without the comedy of the original, that's small comfort. --Kimberly Heinrichs

• The Final Countdown | DVD | (02/04/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  In 1980 the US Navy's most powerful warship the USS Nimitz is caught in a storm during routine maneuvers in the Pacific. Enveloped by a strange green light the ship passes through a vortex and when they emerge the crew find that their communication has been cut off. Captain Matthew Yelland (Kirk Douglas - Spartacus Lust for Life) sends out a patrol and the F-14 pilots are shocked to encounter vintage Japanese warplanes. To their surprise they discover that they have somehow been transported back in time to 6th December 1941: the day before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. As captain of a technologically superior craft should Captain Yelland fulfill his duty to protect the United States and foil the impending attack or let history run its course? With fantastic aerial sequences made with the cooperation of US Navy pilots this classic tale of space time and war features a cast full of Hollywood veterans including Martin Sheen (The West Wing) and Katherine Ross (The Graduate The Stepford Wives). Will things ever be the same again?...it's The Final Countdown!

• The Majestic | DVD | (30/09/2002) from £9.99   |  Saving you £4.00 (40.04%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Set during the 1950s blacklist a young Hollywood screenwriter (Jim Carrey) loses his job and memory after a car accident, only to fall in love with a new woman in the heart of a small town.

• The Three Fugitives | DVD | (15/03/2004) from £6.97   |  Saving you £8.02 (115.06%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Lucas a bank robber newly released from prison is given a lift to the bank by two local cops who are taking bets on how long they think he'll remain straight. Once inside the bank Lucas is taken hostage by an amateur thief and is forced into going on the run with the man and his six-year-old daughter...

• Wall Street | Blu Ray | (17/03/2008) from £9.95   |  Saving you £10.04 (100.90%)   |  RRP £19.99

  From the director of 'Platoon' Oliver Stone comes a new battle set in the greatest jungle of them all Wall Street: a place where honour is traded for power and peace of mind for a piece of the action. Against this background two men form a dangerous friendship - one a ruthless multi-millionaire corporate raider the other a newly minted power hungry young broker. Two men trading their women families and each other against all odds and every rule in the book...

• The Fantasia Collection | DVD | (11/12/2000) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £49.99

  More ambitious in scope than any of its other animated films (before or to come), Disney's 1940 Fantasia was a dizzying, magical and highly enjoyable marriage of classical music and animated images. Fantasia 2000, originally made for the IMAX large-screen format, features some breathtaking animation and storytelling, and in a few spots soars to wonderful high points, but it still more often than not has the feel of walking in its predecessor's footsteps as opposed to creating its own path. A family of whales swimming and soaring to Respighi's The Pines of Rome is magical to watch, but ends all too soon; a forest sprite's dance of life, death and rebirth to Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring too clearly echoes the original Fantasia's Night on Bald Mountain/Ave Maria sequence. But when it's on target, Fantasia 2000 is glorious enough to make you giddy. Hans Christian Andersen's "The Steadfast Tin Soldier" is a perfect narrative set to Shostakovich's Piano Concerto No. 2, and Donald Duck's guest appearance as the assistant to Noah (of the Ark fame) set to Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance marches is a welcome companion piece (though not an equal) to The Sorcerer's Apprentice, the one original Fantasia piece included here. The high point of Fantasia 2000, though, is a fantastic day-in-the-life sequence of 1930s New York City set to Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue and animated in the style of cartoonist Al Hirschfeld; it's a perfect melding of music, story and animation style. Let's hope future Fantasias (reportedly in the works) take a cue from the best of this compilation. The music is provided by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, conducted by James Levine, interspersed with negligible intros by Steve Martin, Bette Midler, Itzhak Perlman, James Earl Jones and others. --Mark Englehart

• The Professionals Mk III | Blu Ray | (03/12/2018) from £29.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Long-awaited, long-overdue: The Professionals as you have never seen them before. Bodie and Doyle need little by way of introduction, but if the series had at all escaped you since its debut in 1977 their boss George Cowley, head of CI5, couldn't put it more succinctly than his opening gambit: anarchy, acts of terror, crimes against the public. To combat it I've got special men experts from the army, the police, from every service. These are The Professionals . Featuring the perfect ensemble cast of Martin Shaw, Gordon Jackson (completely against type here) and the much-missed Lewis Collins, the series ran for 57 action-packed episodes and made an immediate impact on British and then international audiences which has sustained 40 years. But the series has never looked this good. Painstakingly restored from the camera-original negatives, the series could have been made yesterday. No matter how many times you have seen The Professionals, this is a new experience, like seeing it for the first time. Features: Brand-new, High Definition restorations of all 13 episodes in series three from the camera-original negatives Brand-new 5.1 tracks from original sound elements Remastered original as-broadcast mono tracks Remastered music-only tracks featuring Laurie Johnson's original scores HD photo galleries featuring hundreds of rare and previously unseen images All episodes are presented in their original production order PDF material featuring scripts and memorabilia English HOH subtitles

• The Pebble and the Penguin | DVD | (28/05/2012) from £10.89   |  Saving you £-0.90 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  As a brief promo by a Sea World Animal Ambassador tells us before the movie begins, male penguins really do present pebbles to the females during a courtship that will result in a lifetime match. This post-Thumbelina Don Bluth/Barry Manilow effort gives us Hubie, a nerdy penguin whose love for the beautiful Marina, remarkably, is returned. Alas, before he can present her with a fine stone, his evil--and strangely buff--rival throws him into the swirling sea. Epic adventures and a comical sidekick result. Leopard seals and killer whales threaten, but kids will be entertained rather than frightened by this harmless, if less-than-brilliant movie. --Kimberly Heinrichs

• Big Momma's House 2 | DVD | (29/05/2006) from £6.49   |  Saving you £13.50 (208.01%)   |  RRP £19.99

  FBI agent Malcolm Turner goes undercover as Big Momma in this hit comedy sequel.