"Actor: Michael B"

• 2000 Maniacs | DVD | (28/10/2002) from £10.55   |  Saving you £2.44 (23.13%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Available "fully uncut" for the first time in the UK, Two Thousand Maniacs! is the second of director HG Lewis' "blood" trilogy. Though the "once-in-a-lifetime" title makes a promise no film could keep--only about 30 maniacs show up--and the level of gore is a notch or so down from Blood Feast--only four deaths--this is perhaps the director's most watchable film. The Brigadoon-derived plot nugget concerns a Deep South town (variously suggested to be in Georgia or Arkansas, but actually Florida) wiped out by Union raiders during the Civil War, which reappears once every 100 years to wreak "blood vengeance". For the centennial celebrations, Pleasant Valley lures Yankee tourists off the road and subjects them to gruesome fairground games--a cannibal BBQ, a "horse-race", a "barrel roll" and "teetering rock". The ideas are nasty, and Lewis even attempts subtlety by keeping the quartering and the spiked barrel inside mostly off screen, but the creepiest touch is the "aw-shucks" good humour with which the ghostly Confederate maniacs--led by a mayor who is the spitting image of Sergeant Bilko's Colonel Hall--treat their horrible sport. It has the usual Lewis drawbacks--mostly inept staging, acting that veers between the wooden ("Playmate" Connie Mason) and the amateurishly hammy (one of the worst child actors in film history), clumsy editing, community theatre production values--but his fans wouldn't have it any other way and the hayseed music is great! On the DVD: The full-screen image is as good as this ever will look, considering Lewis' primitive understanding of lighting cinematography, with rich scarlet blood, vividly ugly 1963 leisurewear and very few print imperfections. The features offer an imaginative "Welcome to Pleasant Valley Centennial" menu, with buttons like the target you have to hit to drop the "teetering rock" on the Yankee; lurid original trailer ("Two thousand maniacs crazed for carnage started bathing a whole town in pulsing, human blood ... brutal, evil, ghastly beyond belief"); filmographies for Lewis, Friedman and star William Kerwin (aka Thomas Wood); promotional art gallery; notes by aptly-monickered expert Billy Chainsaw, highlighting the connections with John Waters and Brigadoon; a teaser trailer for "the Herschell Gordon Lewis Collection"; a mass of trailers for other "Tartan terror" titles. The Lewis-Friedman commentary and mind-numbing outtakes reel available on the Region 1 DVD are sadly absent, but that release doesn't have this one's major bonus addition--the entire soundtrack album, with compositions by Lewis himself (including the immortal "Yee-Hah, the South's Gonna Rise Again") and Flatt and Scruggs (of Bonnie and Clyde fame). --Kim Newman

• The Quick And The Dead/Open Range/Desperado | DVD | (01/10/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  The Quick And The Dead (Dir. Sam Rami 1995): Herod (Gene Hackman) Mayor and ruler of Redemption has turned his town into a haven for thugs and Miscreants of every type. In return for his 'leniency' he keeps 50 cents on every dollar traded by the unsavoury group. Each year in order to weed out rivals and to protect his position of power Herod holds a shooting contest which attracts people from miles around including his son 'The Kid' (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Cort (Russell Crowe). It is a shoot to kill contest with the prize being a large sum of cash. Herod wins every year so protecting his position and reputation for being the fastest killer in the West. That is until Ellen (Sharon Stone) rides into town a six-gun strapped to her hip and revenge burning in her heart. She's fast furious and her mind is set on winning the ultimate prize of a duel to the death with Herod. Open Range (Dir. Kevin Costner 2003): Academy-Award winning director Kevin Costner (Dances with Wolves) helms this traditional Western tale of a way of life that is quickly disappearing. Boss Spearman (Duvall) Charley Waite (Costner) Mose Harrison (Benrubi) and ""Button"" (Luna) freegraze their cattle across the vast prairies of the West sharing a friendship forged by a steadfast code of honour and living a life unencumbered by civilization. When their wayward herd forces them near the small town of Harmonville the cowboys encounter a corrupt Sheriff (Russo) and kingpin rancher (Gambon) who govern the territory through fear tyranny and violence. Boss and Charley find themselves inextricably drawn towards the inevitable showdown as they are forced to defend the freedom and values of a lifestyle that is all too quickly vanishing. Amidst this turmoil life suddenly takes an unexpected turn for loner Charley when he meets the beautiful and warm-spirited Sue Barlow (Bening) a woman who embraces both his heart and his soul. As these courageous men prepare for the decisive battle that looms they are also forced to confront and conquer their own internal demons. Desperado (Dir. Robert Rodriguez): In this sequel/remake to 'El Mariachi' a case of mistaken identity leads to a very high body count involvement with a beautiful woman who works for the local drug lord and finally the inevitable face-to-face confrontation and bloody showdown...

• Krippendorf's Tribe | DVD | (22/02/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Available for the first time on DVD! After squandering his grant money despondent and recently widowed anthropologist James Krippendorf must produce hard evidence of the existence of a heretofore undiscovered New Guinea tribe. Grass skirts makeup and staged rituals transform his three troubled children into the ""Shelmikedmu "" a primitive culture whose habits enthrall scholars. But when a spiteful rival threatens to blow the whistle on Krippendorf's ruse he gets into the act as we

• Miami Vice - Series 1 | DVD | (02/10/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The cops. The cars. The clothes. The music. From executive producer Michael Mann (Heat Collateral) comes the first season of the explosive groundbreaking detective show that redefined the word ""cool."" Set against the seamy and steamy Miami underworld ride shotgun with suave Vice cops Sonny Crockett (Golden Globe winner Don Johnson) and Rico Tubbs (Phillip Michael Thomas) as they battle a never-ending gallery of criminals drug dealers and lowlifes. Features episodes 1-8 from Season One.

• Running | DVD | (30/06/2003) from £13.81   |  Saving you £-11.82 (N/A%)   |  RRP £1.99

  Mike Andropolis is a failure law school drop-out and jack-of-all-trades about to lose his house and family. In desperation he decides to train for the Olympic Marathon in a last ditch attempt at winning back his family and his self-respect...

• The Incredible Hulk | DVD | (09/04/2001) from £6.74   |  Saving you £6.25 (92.73%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Mr McGee don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry...... 1: A Solitary Place In a bid to avoid triggering the Hulk David seeks isolation in the wilderness of Baja Mexico. However his hideaway is found by a woman on the run who pleads with David for his help. 2: Like a Brother David takes a job in a car wash where he has to overcome racial prejudice and protect his fellow workers from the influence of a local drug dealer. 3: Haunted David is hired by Renee Stevens to help her move back into her childhood home where she lived before her twin sister drowned. Once in the house they are haunted by a chilling series of events from Renee's tragic past.

• Body Count | DVD | (05/09/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Pike is a man who always seems to get mixed up with the wrong people. After his release from prison a friend persuades him to do one more hit this time a no-violence raid on an art gallery. Things don't go as planned...

• Terminator | DVD | (26/09/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Almost ten years have passed since Sarah Connor's ordeal began, and her son John, the future leader of the resistance, is now a healthy young boy.

• The Battleaxe | DVD | (19/10/2009) from £10.98   |  Saving you £-0.99 (-9.90%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Francis Matthews and Jill Ireland star as Tony Evers and Audrey Page an engaged couple whose pre-marital bliss is shattered by the future bride's domineering mother. Unable to withstand this wicked witch of the Northlands Matthews tries to weasel out of the marriage by suing for breach of promise: the broken promise being that mother would stop meddling. Joan Haythorne plays the domineering mother in-law Mrs Page who has made it her business to keep the two apart and ensure her daughter doesn't marry such a crooked character.

• The Sopranos: Series 2 (Vol. 2) | DVD | (21/05/2001) from £6.03   |  Saving you £6.96 (115.42%)   |  RRP £12.99

  The second series of The Sopranos, David Chase's ultra-cool and ultra-modern take on New Jersey gangster life, matches the brilliance of the first, although it's marginally less violent, with more emphasis given to the stories and obsessions of supporting characters. Sadly, the programme makers were forced to throttle back on the appalling struggle between gang boss Tony Soprano and his Gorgon-like Mother Livia, the very stuff of Greek theatre, following actress Nancy Marchand's unsuccessful battle against cancer. Taking up her slack, however, is Tony's big sister Janice, a New Age victim and arrant schemer and sponger, who takes up with the twitchy, Scarface-wannabe Richie Aprile, brother of former boss Jackie, out of prison and a minor pain in Tony's ass. Other running sub-plots include soldier Chris (Michael Imperioli) hapless efforts to sell his real-life Mafia story to Hollywood, the return and treachery of Big Pussy and Tony's wife Carmela's ruthlessness in placing daughter Meadow in the right college. Even with the action so dispersed, however, James Gandofini is still toweringly dominant as Tony. The genius of his performance, and of the programme makers, is that, despite Tony being a whoring, unscrupulous, sexist boor, a crime boss and a murderer, we somehow end up feeling and rooting for him, because he's also a family man with a bratty brood to feed, who's getting his balls busted on all sides, to say nothing of keeping the Government off his back. He's the kind of crime boss we'd like to feel we would be. Tony's decent Italian-American therapist Dr Melfi's (Loraine Bracco) perverse attraction with her gangster-patient reflects our own and, in her case, causes her to lose her first series cool and turn to drink this time around. Effortlessly multi-dimensional, funny and frightening, devoid of the sentimentality that afflicts even great American TV like The West Wing, The Sopranos is boss of bosses in its televisual era. --David Stubbs

• Ute Lemper Sings Kurt Weill | DVD | (03/03/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Ute Lemper sings Kurt Weill live at the Bouffes du Nord Paris and Ute Lemper sings Michael Nyman at the Musikhalle Hamburg. Tracks include: Le Grand Lustucru Train Du Ciel I'm A Stranger Here Myself Bilbao Song Die Rote Rosa Complainte De La Seine Barbara Song Moritat Vom Mackie Messer Surabaya-Johnny Alabama Song Denn Wie Man Sich Bettet Youkali / Tango Habanera Je Ne T'aime Pas J'attends Un Navire The Saga Of Jenny September Song Tchaikovsky Trouble Man My Ship

• Gone In The Night | DVD | (21/01/2013) from £10.31   |  Saving you £-5.32 (N/A%)   |  RRP £4.99

  The night in 1988 when David and Cindi Dowaliby's 8-year-old daughter Jaclyn was abducted, David and Cindi lost not only their daughter, but also their freedom and their innocence. Their experiences are recounted in this utterly compelling story, which tells how, through a combination of power, politics, manipulation and murder, the Dowalibys fell victim to one of the most nightmarish miscarriages of justice in American legal history

• Maigret - Series 1 - Episodes 4 To 6 | DVD | (09/02/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Michael Gambon plays the extraordinary Belgian detective Inspector Maigret in this television adaptation of the novels by George Simenon. Intuitive intelligent and creative with a genius for human nature Maigret is like no other detective as he cunningly investigates crime and the human psyche. Episode titles: Maigret And The Mad Woman Maigret On Home Ground Maigret Sets A Trap.

• Scorcher | DVD | (01/07/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Colonel Ryan Beckett (Mark Dascascos) and his team of misfit tactical mavericks are called away from leave on orders from President Nelson (Rutger Hauer) only to be informed that the gravest threat to all humanity has become their ultimate challenge. Man's quest for harnessing the power of nuclear weapons has wreaked havoc on the earth. The Pacific plates are shifting. The world is hotting up. Earthquakes. Volcanic eruptions. An apocalypse of biblical proportions. They have just three days left to deflect the plates successfully with the power of another thermo-nuclear bomb - ground zero: Los Angeles. As both heat and panic flare through the cities of the world and with the help of a group of the US's top scientists Beckett must battle to save the planet and fight for the life of his daughter caught between marauding gangs taking the lawless streets hostage before the raging fire of hell on earth consumes them all!

• 3 Ninjas - High Noon At Mega Mountain / Kick Back / Knuckle Up | DVD | (06/09/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  3 Ninjas High Noon At Mega Mountain: When dastardly villains Medusa and Lothar Zogg and their evil cohorts invade a family fun park and take its summer visitors hostage it's up to the three ninjas to save the day with a little help from an aging action movie hero who needs to pull off the rescue to regain his street credibility. 3 Ninjas Kickback: Colt Rocky and Tum Tum are back in another action-packed story where they travel with their grandfather to Japan in search of a secret cave of gold closely followed by a band of heavy metal rockers. 3 Ninjas Knuckle Up: Rocky Colt and Tum Tum find themselves in action again as they get drawn into a struggle between an American Indian tribe and a ruthless businessman who is dumping toxic waste on their land.

• House Of Wax | Blu Ray | (04/12/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Car troubles and a spooky waxworks museum spell trouble for a gang of US teens in this horror re-make.

• Spice World - the Movie | DVD | (01/10/1999) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  One of the reasons that the Spice Girls remain so much fun is that in the great British tradition, they don't take themselves too seriously. Like The Beatles before them, the girls are more than happy to take pot-shots at their own manufactured image, something that Spiceworld: The Movie revels in. It doesn't hurt, of course, that plenty of others are along for the ride: Richard E. Grant chews scenery as the road manager; Meat Loaf is the kindly, ever-reliable bus driver; Elvis Costello (!) makes a tongue-in-cheek cameo; and Roger Moore is... well, bizarre. The plot, as such, is merely a convenience, somehow tying together the girls' first-ever live concert, a pregnant friend, a documentary film crew, a non-Spice love story, and something or other about a tabloid photographer. But that's not the point--what matters here is a surprisingly deft touch by director Bob Spiers and a script that refuses to take anything too seriously; the result is a gentle self-parody that knows just how far to take the joke. --Randy Silver

• Don't Panic | DVD | (27/09/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  On his 17th Birthday Michael is given a present of a Ouija board by Tony his best friend. At a session Tony using a medium known to him as 'Virgil' unwittingly unlocks the evil forces of the board. Soon there is a wave of violent killings and the cheif suspect appears to be Michael who has been a witness to all the killings via premonitions and out of body experiences. Is Michael the killer and can he prove his innocence or is someone else being possessed by the evil spirit?

• Love Soup - Series 1 | DVD | (03/12/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Tamsin Greig and Michael Landes star in this romantic comedy drama penned by sitcom legend David Renwick. Love Soup looks at what happens when your first love is a distant memory but you haven't yet found ""the one"". Dealing with the parallel lives of a perfectly matched couple who have yet to meet each other the comedy-drama follows their hopes fears and dating disasters as they try to remain sane in a world from which they each feel increasingly excluded. Tamsin Greig (Green Wing) plays Alice Chenery an account manager for a perfume company in a London department store struggling to maintain a flat in Brighton she cannot afford. Michael Landes who has starred in The Wonder Years and The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air plays Gil Raymond a successful American comedy writer who has fled his home country in search of artistic integrity and a lasting relationship.

• Beatdown | DVD | (14/03/2011) from £4.03   |  Saving you £8.96 (69.00%)   |  RRP £12.99

  After his brother is brutally murdered streetfighter Brandon Becker (Rudy Youngblood Apocalypto) is forced to go on the run when the mob demand that he pay back his sibling's debts. Taking refuge at his father's place (Danny Trejo Machete) he soon gets involved in the local underground cage-fighting scene and with the help of a former MMA champion (Michael Bisping) plans to settle the score and take revenge. With superb action sequences designed by top Hollywood stunt coordinator Mike Gunther Beatdown features a great cast including some of the world's greatest MMA stars.