"Actor: Michael Gover"

• A Clockwork Orange | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £4.24   |  Saving you £9.75 (229.95%)   |  RRP £13.99

  The controversy that surrounded Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of Anthony Burgess's dystopian novel A Clockwork Orange while the film was out of circulation suggested that it was like Romper Stomper: a glamorisation of the violent, virile lifestyle of its teenage protagonist, with a hypocritical gloss of condemnation to mask delight in rape and ultra-violence. Actually, it is as fable-like and abstract as The Pilgrim's Progress, with characters deliberately played as goonish sitcom creations. The anarchic rampage of Alex (Malcolm McDowell), a bowler-hatted juvenile delinquent of the future, is all over at the end of the first act. Apprehended by equally brutal authorities, he changes from defiant thug to cringing bootlicker, volunteering for a behaviourist experiment that removes his capacity to do evil.It's all stylised: from Burgess' invented pidgin Russian (snarled unforgettably by McDowell) to 2001-style slow tracks through sculpturally perfect sets (as with many Kubrick movies, the story could be told through decor alone) and exaggerated, grotesque performances on a par with those of Dr Strangelove (especially from Patrick Magee and Aubrey Morris). Made in 1971, based on a novel from 1962, A Clockwork Orange resonates across the years. Its future is now quaint, with Magee pecking out "subversive literature" on a giant IBM typewriter and "lovely, lovely Ludwig Van" on mini-cassette tapes. However, the world of "Municipal Flat Block 18A, Linear North" is very much with us: a housing estate where classical murals are obscenely vandalised, passers-by are rare and yobs loll about with nothing better to do than hurt people. On the DVD: The extras are skimpy, with just an impressionist trailer in the style of the film used to brainwash Alex and a list of awards for which Clockwork Orange was nominated and awarded. The box promises soundtracks in English, French and Italian and subtitles in ten languages, but the disc just has two English soundtracks (mono and Dolby Surround 5.1) and two sets of English subtitles. The terrific-looking "digitally restored and remastered" print is letterboxed at 1.66:1 and on a widescreen TV plays best at 14:9. The film looks as good as it ever has, with rich stable colours (especially and appropriately the orangey-red of the credits and the blood) and a clarity that highlights previously unnoticed details such as Alex's gouged eyeball cufflinks and enables you to read the newspaper articles which flash by. The 5.1 soundtrack option is amazingly rich, benefiting the nuances of performance as much as the classical/electronic music score and the subtly unsettling sound effects. --Kim Newman

• A Shock to the System | Blu Ray | (27/05/2024) from £20.79   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  HE'S KILLING ON IMPULSE... AND HE WON'T REST UNTIL HE GETS A CORNER OFFICELoyal and hardworking executive Graham Marshall (screen legend Michael Caine) has paid his dues. He has suffered through mounting bills, the indignities of climbing the corporate ladder, and a nagging wife (Swoosie Kurtz, Sisters) with only an anxiously awaited promotion to keep him going. But that all changes when his promotion is instead given to a boorish associate (Peter Riegert, National Lampoon's Animal House). Annoyed and frustrated, Graham unleashes his rage ... in the form of an accidental killing with which he gets away clean! Emboldened by his newfound talent for murder, Graham begins to rethink his business strategy - with deadly results. Elizabeth McGovern (Ragtime, The Handmaid's Tale), Will Patton (Remember the Titans, No Way Out), and Jenny Wright (Near Dark, The Lawnmower Man) also star in this electrifyingly pitch-black comedy of Madison Avenue and murder. Special Features: -Audio commentary with Director Jan Egleson -Interview with Jan Egleson -Alternate ending -Theatrical trailer -Still gallery

• Survivors - The Complete Series 1 | DVD | (06/10/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £49.99

  Conceived by Dr Who's Terry Nation 'Survivors' is a groundbreaking and startlingly realistic television drama series. First aired in 1975 at the height of the Cold War the post-apocalyptic storylines immediately gripped the imagination of the British public and remains compelling viewing to this day. This digitally remastered DVD release includes all eleven hours of the first series. Episode titles: The Fourth Horseman Genesis Gone Away Corn Dolly Gone to the Angels Garland's

• A Clockwork Orange Ultimate Collector's Edition | Blu Ray | (04/10/2021) from £34.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Stomping, whomping, stealing, singing, tap-dancing, violating. Derby-topped hooligan Alex (Malcolm McDowell) has a good time - at the tragic expense of others. His journey from amoral punk to brainwashed proper citizen and back again forms the dynamic arc of Stanley Kubrick's future-shock vision of Anthony Burgess' novel. Controversial when first released, A Clockwork Orange won New York Film Critics Best Picture and Director awards and earned four Oscarr* nominations, including Best Picture. Its power still entices, shocks and holds us in its grasp.This 50th Anniversary Ultimate Collector’s Edition includes:. •A Clockwork Orange on 4K Ultra HD & Blu-ray. •Blu-ray Bonus Disc featuring Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures and O Lucky Malcolm! documentaries. •32-page booklet. •Double-sided Poster. •Set of 3 Art Cards. •Behind the scenes stills. •Newspaper prop replica. Special Features:. • Commentary by Malcolm McDowell and Historian Nick Redman. • Channel Four Documentary Still Tickin’: The Return of Clockwork Orange. • New Featurette Great Bolshy Yarblockos!: Making A Clockwork Orange. • Career Profile O Lucky Malcolm! [in High Definition]. • Theatrical Trailer.  

• The Last Detail | DVD | (05/08/2002) from £19.99   |  Saving you £-7.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  The Last Detail nearly didn't get a release. Columbia, for whom it was made, was alarmed by the movie's barrage of profanity and resented the unorthodox working style of its director, Hal Ashby, who loathed producers and made no secret of it. Only when the film picked up a Best Actor Award for Jack Nicholson at Cannes did the studio reluctantly grant it a release--with minimal promotion--to widespread critical acclaim. Nicholson, in one of his best roles, plays "Bad-ass" Buddusky, a naval petty officer detailed, along with his black colleague "Mule" Mulhall (Otis Young), to escort an offender from Virginia to the harsh naval prison at Portsmouth, NH. The miscreant is a naïve youngster, Meadows (Randy Quaid), who's been given eight years for stealing $40 from his CO's wife's favourite charity. The escorts, at first cynically detached, soon start feeling sorry for Meadows and decide to show him a good time in his last few days of freedom. Ashby, a true son of 60s counterculture, avidly abets the anti-authoritarian tone of Robert Towne's script. Meadows is a sad victim of the system--but so too are Buddusky and Mulhall, as they gradually come to realise. A lot of the film is very funny. Nicholson gets to do one of his classic psychotic outbursts--"I am the fucking shore patrol!"--and there are some pungent scenes of male bonding pushed to the verge of desperation. But the overall tone is melancholy, pointed up by the jaunty military marches on the soundtrack. Shot amid bleak, wintry landscapes, in buses and trains and grey urban streets, The Last Detail is a film of constant, compulsive movement going nowhere--a powerful, finely acted study of institutional claustrophobia. On the DVD: The Last Detail disc doesn't have much in the way of extras. There are abbreviated filmographies for Ashby, Nicholson and Quaid (though not for Young) and a trailer for A Few Good Men (1992). The mono sound comes up well in Dolby Digital, and the transfer preserves DoP Michael Chapman's subtle, subfusc palette and the 1.85:1 ratio of the original. --Philip Kemp

• Survivors - The Complete Series 3 | DVD | (14/11/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £49.99

  Conceived by Dr Who's Terry Nation 'Survivors' is a groundbreaking and startlingly realistic television drama series. First aired in 1975 at the height of the Cold War the post-apocalyptic storylines immediately gripped the imagination of the British public and remains compelling viewing to this day. Episodes comprise: 1. Manhunt 2. A Little Learning 3. Law Of The Jungle 4. Mad Dog 5. Bridgehead 6. Reunion 7. The Peacemaker 8. Sparks 9. The Enemy 10. The Last Laugh 11. Long

• Clockwork Orange | DVD | (13/11/2000) from £8.99   |  Saving you £11.00 (122.36%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The controversy that surrounded Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of Anthony Burgess's dystopian novel A Clockwork Orange while the film was out of circulation suggested that it was like Romper Stomper: a glamorisation of the violent, virile lifestyle of its teenage protagonist, with a hypocritical gloss of condemnation to mask delight in rape and ultra-violence. Actually, it is as fable-like and abstract as The Pilgrim's Progress, with characters deliberately played as goonish sitcom creations. The anarchic rampage of Alex (Malcolm McDowell), a bowler-hatted juvenile delinquent of the future, is all over at the end of the first act. Apprehended by equally brutal authorities, he changes from defiant thug to cringing bootlicker, volunteering for a behaviourist experiment that removes his capacity to do evil.It's all stylised: from Burgess' invented pidgin Russian (snarled unforgettably by McDowell) to 2001-style slow tracks through sculpturally perfect sets (as with many Kubrick movies, the story could be told through decor alone) and exaggerated, grotesque performances on a par with those of Dr Strangelove (especially from Patrick Magee and Aubrey Morris). Made in 1971, based on a novel from 1962, A Clockwork Orange resonates across the years. Its future is now quaint, with Magee pecking out "subversive literature" on a giant IBM typewriter and "lovely, lovely Ludwig Van" on mini-cassette tapes. However, the world of "Municipal Flat Block 18A, Linear North" is very much with us: a housing estate where classical murals are obscenely vandalised, passers-by are rare and yobs loll about with nothing better to do than hurt people. On the DVD: The extras are skimpy, with just an impressionist trailer in the style of the film used to brainwash Alex and a list of awards for which Clockwork Orange was nominated and awarded. The box promises soundtracks in English, French and Italian and subtitles in ten languages, but the disc just has two English soundtracks (mono and Dolby Surround 5.1) and two sets of English subtitles. The terrific-looking "digitally restored and remastered" print is letterboxed at 1.66:1 and on a widescreen TV plays best at 14:9. The film looks as good as it ever has, with rich stable colours (especially and appropriately the orangey-red of the credits and the blood) and a clarity that highlights previously unnoticed details such as Alex's gouged eyeball cufflinks and enables you to read the newspaper articles which flash by. The 5.1 soundtrack option is amazingly rich, benefiting the nuances of performance as much as the classical/electronic music score and the subtly unsettling sound effects. --Kim Newman

• Survivors - The Complete Series 2 | DVD | (26/03/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £49.99

  Conceived by Dr Who's Terry Nation Survivors is a groundbreaking and startlingly realistic television drama series. First aired in 1975 at the height of the Cold War the post-apocalyptic storylines immediately gripped the imagination of the British public and remains compelling viewing to this day. This digitally remastered DVD release includes all eleven hours of the second series.

• Celtic Untouchable Season 2006/07 Review | DVD | (11/06/2007) from £20.23   |  Saving you £-5.24 (-35.00%)   |  RRP £14.99

  In season 2006-2007 Celtic really were Untouchable in Scottish football! Here's the glory of Gordon Strachan's second year in charge at Celtic Park and it's a story of back-to-back titles... A league & Tennent's Scottish Cup 'double' plus a piece of European history as well! Join the boys as they surge to the top of the Bank of Scotland Premier League and threaten to win the title by Christmas! Enjoy the tenacity and flair of a team who refuse to accept that they are ever beat

• A Shock To The System | DVD | (09/09/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £7.99

  Michael Caine stars as Graham Marshall a career-minded business-man passed over for promotion by a younger man. In anger he discovers that he has the power to kill any person who gets in his way....

• Cyborg Cop 2 | DVD | (29/04/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £3.99

  The new generation of Cyborgs are more lethal powerful dangerous and smarter than the computers that programmed them. So intelligent they are capable of regenerating themselves without human control - a chilling prospect for the civilized world.

• Merchant Of Death | DVD | (03/09/2001) from £17.22   |  Saving you £-11.24 (N/A%)   |  RRP £2.99

  Hard bitten cop Jim Randall's colleague is gunned down in an ambush. Jim becomes a one-man slaughterhouse in his mission of revenge.

• Clockwork Orange (Deluxe Box) | DVD | (12/08/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £39.99

  Stomping whomping stealing singing tap-dancing violating. Derby-topped teddy-boy hooligan Alex has his own way of having a good time. He has it at the tragic expense of others. Alex's journey from amoral punk to brainwashed proper citizen forms the dynamic arc of Stanley Kubrick's future-shock vision of Anthony Burgess' novel. Unforgettable images startling musical counterpoints the fascinating language used by Alex and his pals - Kubrick shapes them into a shattering whole. Hugely controversial when first released A Clockwork Orange won the New York Film Critics Best Picture and Director honors and earned four Academy Award nominations including best picture. The power of its art is such that it still entices shocks and holds us in its grasp.

• Cyborg Cop 2 | DVD | (11/09/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £2.99

  The new generation of Cyborgs are more lethal powerful dangerous and smarter than the computers that programmed them. So intelligent they are capable of regenerating themselves without human control - a chilling prospect for the civilized world.