"Actor: María Barranco"

• Women on The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown | DVD | (20/02/2017) from £7.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  When Iván (Fernando Guillén) jilts long-time lover, actress Pepa (Carmen Maura), she plans her suicide; lacing her gazpacho soup with barbiturates. She is, however saved by her best friend Candela (Maria Barranco), a fugitive from the law. Further adding to the chaos, Ivan's son (Antonio Banderas) and his finance Marisa (Rossy de Palma) turn up at the apartment. Bored with the situation, Marisa inadvertently ingests the gazpacho and as she blissfully snoozes, her fiancé inaugurates an affair with Carmen's fugitive friend. Pedro Almodóvar directs this fact-moving, surreal farce of obsessive love, garnering him an Academy Award® nomination. Extras: Around Women On The Verge of a Nervous Breakdown Introduction by José Arroyo Trailer

• Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! | DVD | (27/12/2004) from £4.40   |  Saving you £15.59 (354.32%)   |  RRP £19.99

  A love story with strings attached! Recently released from a mental institution Ricky (Banderas) sets in motion his grand plan. Hunting down the porn star with whom he once had sex Ricky tries to convince her to be his wife. However when she's somewhat reluctant to say the least to take up his offer of marriage he vows to tie her down to endear himself to her...

• The Ages Of Lulu | DVD | (28/01/2013) from £7.79   |  Saving you £5.20 (66.75%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Submerged in the fears of a childhood devoid of affection fifteen-year old Lulu succumbs to the attraction of a young friend of the family Pablo. One night he takes her to a rock concert and after the show in the back of his car introduces Lulu to her first sexual experience. Years later when Pablo returns from teaching in the U.S. the two meet again and get married. He creates for her a world apart a private universe in which time has no meaning. But Lulu tires of living in an unreal world and leaves home. She begins to hang out in shady bars where she plunges helplessly but feverishly into the hell of dangerous apparently forbidden desires

• Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown | DVD | (04/12/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  In Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988) pregnant actress Pepa (Carmen Maura) is distraught by a break-up with her actor boyfriend Ivn (Fernando Guilln) and prepares a gazpacho laced with sleeping pills. She is however saved from suicide by her best friend Candela (Mara Barranco) a fugitive from justice. Pepa's ex-lover's grown son (Antonio Banderas) arrives with wife-to-be Marisa (Rossy de Palma) in answer to Carmen's ""room to let"" newspaper ad. Marisa inadvertently ingests the gazpacho and as she blissfully snoozes her fianc inaugurates an affair with Carmen's fugitive friend.

• Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown | Blu Ray | (20/02/2017) from £9.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  When Iván (Fernando Guillén) jilts long-time lover, actress Pepa (Carmen Maura), she plans her suicide; lacing her gazpacho soup with barbiturates. She is, however saved by her best friend Candela (Maria Barranco), a fugitive from the law. Further adding to the chaos, Ivan's son (Antonio Banderas) and his finance Marisa (Rossy de Palma) turn up at the apartment. Bored with the situation, Marisa inadvertently ingests the gazpacho and as she blissfully snoozes, her fiancé inaugurates an affair with Carmen's fugitive friend. Pedro Almodóvar directs this fact-moving, surreal farce of obsessive love, garnering him an Academy Award® nomination. Extras: Around Women On The Verge of a Nervous Breakdown Introduction by José Arroyo Trailer

• The Julio Medem Collection Vol.1 | DVD | (26/02/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £34.99

  Vacas (1992): Director Julio Medem presents a saga spanning over half a century of the twisted goings on between two families in Northern Spain. Carmelo Gomez and Candido Uranga star as the fathers sons and grandsons locked through the ages in an absurdly stubborn and emotionally exhausting conflict. From the Carlist Wars of 1875 to the more famous Spanish Civil War of the thirties Vacas proves that sometimes there seems to be no escape from how family ties dictate our fate. Also starring Ana Torrent Emma Suarez and Pilar Bardem. The Red Squirrel (1992): 'The Red Squirrel' is an anti-macho parable by Spanish director Julio Medem; an intriguing story that draws its characters and audience into a complex game of lies and deceit it demonstrates the director's extraordinary and fresh visual style. Contemplating suicide as he stands against the parapet of a pier one summer night ex-pop star Jota (Nancho Nova) is interrupted by a sudden motorcycle crash. Rushing to the scene he discovers the biker to be a young attractive woman with amnesia (Emma Suarez). Masquerading as her boyfriend he names her Lisa invents a shared history for the two of them and whisks her off on a holiday to the Red Squirrel campsite. Here he reinforces his deception by parading the facade of their long-term relationship in front of other the campers. However it is not long before Jota has to confront the surprising consequences of his lie as there is more to Lisa than meets the eye... A film full of ingenious mesmerising and cryptic images The Red Squirrel made a huge impact at Cannes Film Festival in 1992. Tierra (1996): Angel an exterminator recently released from a mental hospital comes to rid a small Spanish town of tiny grubs in the soil. The local wine-making industry has found these pests responsible for giving their product an ""earthy"" taste that has divided local opinion. While in town Angel becomes involved with two beautiful and very different women and impacts their lives on a grand scale. Can either of these women accept the fact that Angel travels with a ""ghost"" of himself or that he routinely speaks with the deseased townspeople?

• The Ages Of Lulu | DVD | (16/12/2002) from £9.32   |  Saving you £10.67 (114.48%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The Ages of Lulu is a gruelling sexual odyssey from Spanish director Bigas Luna, made immediately prior to his popular trilogy Jamón, jamón (1992), Golden Balls (1993) and The Tit and the Moon (1994). Starting as the somewhat queasy story of the young Lulu's affair with the manipulative Pablo (Oscar Ladoire), the movie takes a much darker turn once they are wed. It is conventional cinematic wisdom that there's no such thing as sex after marriage, but here Lulu's husband incomprehensibly leads her into blindfolded incest, then is heartbroken when she reacts with disgust. Soon Lulu (superbly played by Francesca Neri from ingénue to hardened 30-something), is paying gay men for group sex, eventually becoming an unwilling attraction in a commercial sado-machochistic orgy. The closest most UK audiences will have come to this before is in Ken Russell's The Devils (1971) and Crimes of Passion (1984), and it is surely one of the most gut-churningly nightmarish scenes ever passed for home viewing. While Ages of Lulu may function as a reactionary warning against the wilder shores of sex, Luna's intention remains unsatisfyingly enigmatic, since the script is under-written and psychologically unconvincing. The end result is pretentious, repellent pornography which degrades human beings of any sexual persuasion. On the DVD: The Ages of Lulu is transferred at an anamorphically enhanced 1.78:1 and image quality is very good, though in some scenes very slightly soft. The film can be watched with or without English subtitles, and the sound is unremarkable stereo. The main extras are a seven-page essay on Bigas Luna and five pages detailing the now restored 110 seconds of cuts made to the 1998 video release. The main title still contains 65 seconds of alternate footage to the cinema original for legal reasons. Also included are filmographies of Lunas and Oscar Ladoire, two trailers plus trailers for six other films. --Gary S Dalkin