"Actor: Michael Percival"

• 101 Dalmatians - Live Action | DVD | (06/11/2001) from £8.29   |  Saving you £-3.30 (N/A%)   |  RRP £4.99

  It's hard to know who thought it would be a good idea to make a live-action version of Disney's animated classic. The one bright notion anyone had was casting Glenn Close as Disney Übervillainess Cruella de Vil; her flashing eyes and angular features are a perfect match and do credit to what is one of the most indelible animated characters Disney has ever created. The story remains essentially the same, focusing on Cruella's plot to kidnap the puppies of a young married couple (Jeff Daniels and Jolie Richardson) and make them into a coat. But the dreaded John Hughes, who wrote this script, fills it with sadistic slapstick and far too few genuine laughs. The human actors work hard, but to little avail; thankfully, there's a posse of puppies to regularly steal scenes when the going gets dreary--although there are only so many laughs to be had from inappropriate dog puddles. --Marshall Fine, Amazon.com

• The Piglet Files - The Complete Series 2 | DVD | (16/04/2012) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Starring Nicholas Lyndhurst (Only Fools and Horses), Clive Francis and Michael Percival, The Piglet Files is the sitcom that truly lifts the lid on the shadowy world of espionage during the early nineties with quite startling results. Coerced into working for M15 only to find his spymasters are a collection of misinformed, bungling incompetents, electronics lecturer Peter Chapman is hapless gadgets expert Piglet Puma and Panther being already in use and he s feeling the pressure. This series finds the unlikely agent attempting to steal a former agent's memoirs, searching for a mole near the top of MI5... and falling headlong into a KGB honey trap!

• Too Late The Hero | DVD | (08/04/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Set on a Pacific island in 1942, Too Late the Hero is a hard-as-nails "men on a mission" war movie: a group of British soldiers have to traverse the New Hebrides to destroy a Japanese radio transmitter, then get back to safety while being hunted all the way. Inevitably everything goes wrong, but director Robert (The Dirty Dozen) Aldrich turns the book of WWII movie clichés on its head and springs some unnerving surprises. Even the token American star, Cliff Robertson--echoing William Holden's grafted-on role in The Bridge on the River Kwai--proves less than obviously heroic, while an outstanding Michael Caine brings considerable depth to his usual cynical cockney. Henry Fonda gets heavily billed for a brief guest appearance, but there are star performances such fine British character actors as Denholm Elliot, Ian Bannen, Ronald Fraser and Lance Percival. This portrait of battle-worn men offers greater complexity than Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan, while the jungle trek was more recently paralleled in Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line. Only the attitudes--more 1970 than 1942--detract from Aldrich's tellingly realistic vision, which with a thoughtfully ironic script and a succession of tense set pieces and brutal firefights, builds to a harrowing climax. On the DVD: The picture is presented at approximately 1.7:1, reformatted from the original 2.2:1 70mm theatrical presentation. Despite approximately 25 per cent of the original image being missing, this loss is only really noticeable in a few scenes. Apart from the occasional fleck, the print is in superb condition, and despite the lack of anamorphic enhancement the picture is sharp, detailed and has excellent colour. The surround sound (not mono as listed on the packaging) is highly effective, with the tension being increased by a considerable amount of the music coming from the rear speakers. The special features are simply a few static pages of biographical and production notes. --Gary S. Dalkin

• Up Pompeii / Up The Chastity Belt | DVD | (04/08/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Up Pompeii: A funny thing happens to Lurcio (Frankie Howerd) on the way to the rent-a-vestal-virgin market stall. A mysterious scroll falls into his hands listing the names of all the conspirators plotting to murder Emperor Nero. And when the upstart slave is elected to infiltrate the ringleader's den the comical ups-and-downs lead to total uproar. Up The Chastity Belt: A funny thing happened to Lurkalot serf to Sir Coward de Custard on the way to Custard Castle. Lurkalot sells lusty love potions and rusty chastity belts in the market place but on this day Sir Graggart de Bombast arrives to sack the castle and to get the lovely Lobelia Custard in the sack! Lurkalot must help Custard cream the knight in pining armour...

• The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner | DVD | (14/04/2003) from £39.99   |  Saving you £-20.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Following the success of Karel Reisz's 'Saturday Night and Sunday Morning' Alan Sillitoe adapted another of his works for the screen this time a short story of a disillusioned teenager rebelling against the system to make Tony Richardson's 'The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner' one of the great British films of the 1960s. Newcomer Tom Courtenay is compelling as the sullen defiant Colin refusing to follow his dying father into a factory job railing against the capitalist bosses and preferring to make a living from petty thieving. Arrested for burglary and sent to borstal Colin discovers a talent for cross-country running earning him special treatment from the governor (Michael Redgrave) and the chance to redeem himself from anti-social tearaway to sports day hero. With Colin a favourite to win against a local public school tensions build as the day approaches...

• 101 Dalmatians - Live Action | DVD | (22/01/2001) from £19.33   |  Saving you £-1.34 (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  It's hard to know who thought it would be a good idea to make a live-action version of Disney's animated classic. The one bright notion anyone had was casting Glenn Close as Disney Übervillainess Cruella de Vil; her flashing eyes and angular features are a perfect match and do credit to what is one of the most indelible animated characters Disney has ever created. The story remains essentially the same, focusing on Cruella's plot to kidnap the puppies of a young married couple (Jeff Daniels and Jolie Richardson) and make them into a coat. But the dreaded John Hughes, who wrote this script, fills it with sadistic slapstick and far too few genuine laughs. The human actors work hard, but to little avail; thankfully, there's a posse of puppies to regularly steal scenes when the going gets dreary--although there are only so many laughs to be had from inappropriate dog puddles. --Marshall Fine, Amazon.com

• The Piglet Files - The Complete Series 3 | DVD | (12/11/2012) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Nicholas Lyndhurst Clive Francis and Michael Percival star in the hit sitcom that truly lifts the lid on the shadowy world of espionage during the early nineties – with quite startling results.