"Actor: Meg Johnson"

• City Of Angels | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £6.99   |  Saving you £7.00 (100.14%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Some critics complained that City of Angels could never compare to Wim Wenders's exquisite German film Wings of Desire, which served as the later film's primary inspiration. The better argument to make is that any such comparisons are beside the point, because Wings of Desire was a much more deeply poetic, artfully contemplative film, whereas City of Angels is an enchanting product of mainstream Hollywood. Meg Ryan stars as Dr. Maggie Rice, a heart surgeon who is grieving over a lost patient when an angel named Seth (Nicolas Cage) appears to comfort her. She can see him despite the "rule" that angels are invisible, and Seth's love for Maggie forces him to choose between angelic immortality and a normal human existence on earth with her. Featuring heavenly roles for TV veterans Andre Braugher and Dennis Franz, the film liberally borrows imagery from Wings of Desire, but it also creates its own charming identity. Cage and Ryan give fine performances as lovers convinced they are soul mates, and although the plot relies on a last-minute twist that doesn't quite work, this earnest love story struck a chord with audiences and proved to be one of the surprise hits of 1998. --Jeff Shannon

• Victoria Wood - At The Albert Hall - Live | DVD | (25/11/2002) from £11.52   |  Saving you £5.73 (55.85%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Victoria Wood Live at the Albert Hall provides proof, if any were needed, that after two decades at the top of her profession, Wood is one of a small handful of British comedians of either sex capable of filling the country's largest venues. For the consistently high quality of her penetrating observations of the mundane she has no equal. Recorded in 2001, this performance has all the hallmarks of her microscopic examinations of life's perplexing minutiae and trivia. From her recent hysterectomy to Paul Daniels, from the NHS help line to wheelie bin covers, from Americans in Disneyworld to the ageism of catalogue mailing lists, nothing escapes Wood's attention. Not even in-vogue authors: she refuses to read "Captain Corelli's friggin' Mandolin" as it sits reproachfully at her bedside. Wood even provides her own interval act: a devastatingly accurate parody of a vulgar, second-rate cabaret singer shot to stardom on the wings of a cruise ship docu-soap. Jane McDonald's sense of humour will never face a harder test. More poignant are Wood's observations on parenthood and marriage, with all the physical ailments of middle age ("We've only got one fully operating leg between us"). She has since separated from her husband, the magician Geoffrey Durham. Fans will await the impact of that on her stand-up material with some interest. --Piers Ford

• D.O.A. | DVD | (20/05/2002) from £20.00   |  Saving you £-5.01 (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  A stylish piece of neo-noir, D.O.A. was directed by Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel during their glory days as creators of Max Headroom. Sometimes mocked at the time for its extravagant visual imagery, this is a film which has aged better than might have been expected. Vastly reworked from the 40s original, D.O.A. stars Dennis Quaid as the burned-out campus novelist who discovers he has been fatally poisoned and sets out to find his killer in the short time left to him, along the way rediscovering his love for the life he is going to lose. Quaid is good enough both at chain-smoking cynicism and angry zest that this becomes emotionally credible; a worryingly young Meg Ryan is excellent as the hero-worshipping sophomore he co-opts into his search. With camerawork of sometimes hallucinatory vividness, rather too many shots of fans and Ferris wheels, and Charlotte Rampling playing a dragon-lady villainess to the hilt, this is a film which teeters on the brink of camp, but has the courage of its individuality. On the DVD: D.O.A. comes to disc with almost no special features whatever save for a Spanish soundtrack and subtitles in Spanish and the Scandinavian languages. Its widescreen visual aspect is 1.85:1 and the Dolby sound does full justice to a very loud score by bands like Timbuk 3.--Roz Kaveney

• Victoria Wood - An Audience With Victoria Wood | DVD | (16/09/2002) from £6.79   |  Saving you £3.20 (47.13%)   |  RRP £9.99

  As Victoria Wood once said, "There's nothing you can't say if you say it in the right way". And she goes on to prove that triumphantly in An Audience with Victoria Wood, recorded in front of fellow celebs (whom she sends up effortlessly, describing her long-time collaborator Julie Walters as "the lady with the split ends"). Victoria Wood may be the queen of suburbia but her endless takes on the finer details of banality have an acuity of which Alan Bennett would be proud. Most people cannot do monologue without lapsing into self-consciousness. But she's just brilliant. Her depiction of a nervy woman attempting to conduct a survey in the street, for instance, is priceless: "Here's my ID. Yes, I do look rather startled. It was taken in a photo booth and someone had just poked an éclair through the curtain". She's like Joyce Grenfell on speed. And it's that surreal juxtaposition of the commonplace and the wacky that makes her routines anything but. Even when she takes up residence at the piano, belting out home-made ballads (and this video includes the famous "Let's Do It"), she's both touching and amusing. At one point, she suggests that the British are no good at having fun. Get this video and prove her wrong. --Harriet Smith

• Yanks Go Home - The Complete Series | DVD | (05/03/2012) from £8.99   |  Saving you £11.00 (122.36%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Yanks Go Home takes a hilarious (and, at the time, controversial) look at relations between a group of American servicemen and the inhabitants of the Lancashire town in which they are billeted during World War Two. Both parties experience a series of culture shocks, with the GIs encountering resentment and romance in equal measure. Starring Peter Sallis, Stuart Damon, Bruce Boa and Lionel Murton, this set comprises all thirteen episodes from both series.It's 1942, and a detachment of GIs is about to descend on Warrington. The town clerk, a motley crowd and a band wait anxiously at the station, while local landlady Phoebe Sankey and her daughter, Doreen, speculate as to what the Americans' arrival will bring. Some of the older residents are none too keen on the prospect of USAF troops making themselves at home in their town; but when they see the money flowing in the local pub as a shindig gets going, even they grudgingly admit that the 'invasion' has its advantages!

• Hard Evidence | DVD | (30/10/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  All Sandra Clayton (Kate Jackson) wanted was a quiet life for herself and her kids. But then she discovers her new boss is a criminal whose empire was built on drugs corruption blackmail and prostitution...

• I've Been Watching You 2: Prom Night | DVD | (10/06/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Cherry isn't like the other girls but she still wants to be the prom queen the trouble is she has not been nominated. Bitter and confused by her absence from the list of finalists she embarks on a mission of murder and mayhem in her quest for celebrity status.

• Hard Evidence | DVD | (25/03/2002) from £4.99   |  Saving you £-2.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £2.99

  All Sandra Clayton (Kate Jackson) wanted was a quiet life for herself and her kids. But then she discovers her new boss is a criminal whose empire was built on drugs, corruption, blackmail and prostitution... Actors John Shea, Kate Jackson, Dean Stockwell, Terry O'Quinn, Megan Gallacher & Jennifer Guthrie