"Actor: Michael Smith"

• Trespass Against Us | Blu Ray | (03/07/2017) from £9.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Starring Michael Fassbender and Brendan Gleeson. Directed by Adam Smith. Three generations of the notorious Cutler family live as outlaws in the Cotswolds, the heart of Britain's richest countryside. The Cutlers live by their own rules, practising their own way of lifepoaching, pilfering and provoking the police. Chad (Michael Fassbender) finds himself torn between respect for his archaic father, Colby (Brendan Gleeson), and a desire to forge a better life for his children. When Colby coerces him into a major robbery one night, Chad is faced with a choice that will change his life forever. Should he follow tradition and do his father's bidding as his rightful son and heir, or should he break the chain and set out on a new path? With the law cracking down on the clan, Colby tightening his grip on the family, and prejudices among the local populace becoming ever more hostile, Chad discovers that his destiny may no longer lie in his own hands.

• Serial Cops | DVD | (15/11/1999) from £7.98   |  Saving you £-2.99 (-59.90%)   |  RRP £4.99

  Michael Madsen and Chris Penn: a combination surely designed to set the hearts of fans of low-budget, direct-to-VHS fare aflutter. In Serial Cops (aka Papertrail) grizzled federal agent Jason Enola (Penn) is exhausted, divorced and close-to-insane himself after spending the last decade unsuccessfully hunting down the vicious "Papertrail" serial killer (named, in literal-minded fashion, after the cryptic notes he leaves with the body of each victim). Suddenly, after a four-year hiatus, Mr Papertrail re-enters Enola's life, embarking on a new spate of grisly murders--only this time he (or she) is also providing a running commentary to hapless shrink Dr Alyce Robertson (Jennifer Dale). Enola, with trusty sidekick Brad Abraham (Madsen) in tow, sets off once again to try and nail the bad guy for once for all. Pure by-the-numbers schlock from the opening credits onwards, Penn and Madsen nonetheless conjure up the odd spark of broad, buddy-movie humour between the gore and cod-psychological waffling, while Damian Lee's direction gets us from A to B with a commendable lack of fuss (even if his few attempts at moody set-pieces indicate that's probably out of necessity). Serial Cops is cheesily harmless, for sure, but if you're after a gritty, even halfway believable serial killer flick you might be best advised to give this a skip. --Danny Leigh

• 1985 (dvd) | DVD | (28/01/2019) from £6.02   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  A closeted young man goes home for the holidays and struggles to reveal his dire circumstances to his conservative family.

• Shark Tale | Blu Ray | (04/06/2019) from £18.57   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Dockers | DVD | (29/03/2004) from £4.98   |  Saving you £1.01 (20.28%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Dockers is a landmark one-off drama suspended somewhere between Ken Loach and Alan Bleasdale's Boys from the Blackstuff. A striking Channel Four production Dockers dramatises the infamous struggle that developed when five Merseyside dockworkers were fired for refusing to work overtime with no pay, and gained the support of co-workers who wouldn't cross their picket line. As a result, those who stood in solidarity with the original five were sacked as well--500 in total--leading to a two-year stand-off. Co-written by award-winning screenwriters Jimmy McGovern (Cracker) and Irvine Welsh (Trainspotting), the two-year ordeal is brought home with startling reality, not least because of the contribution of the real-life Liverpool dockers who helped develop the script in extensive writing workshops, lending the film an authenticity it might have otherwise lacked. While the narrative hangs around the moving central story of one family in which both father and son are caught up in the strike, dramatic conflicts develop on multiple levels: between father and son; between the families of the sacked workers (this is particularly well realised as one long-time friend, played by The Royle Family's Ricky Tomlinson, turns scab); and between the workers and the union that betrays them. Ken Stott and Crissy Rock (Ladybird, Ladybird) are outstanding as the central working-class couple, old before their time at 47, and if nothing else, the film reveals one further reason why Liverpool loved Robbie Fowler quite so ferociously: during post-goal celebrations, Fowler lifts his jersey to reveal a T-shirt emblazoned with a message of support for the wronged dockers, ensuring national attention for the action at a time when all hope seemed lost. --Tricia Tuttle

• The Missionary | DVD | (23/10/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Fallen women? Does it mean they've hurt their knees? After a decade of soul-saving in Africa Charles Fortescue is asked to minister to the ladies of the night in 1906 London. So Fortescue feeds them shelters them and not infrequently provides them a bed: his!A naive man of the cloth becomes a man of the sheets in this playfully naughty yet always tasteful comedy that stars Monty Python's Michael Palin (who also wrote the script) as Fortescue and features a colourful array of cockeyed characters: a blissful airhead (Phoebe Nicholls) a lusty mission sponsor (Maggie Smith) a bewildered butler (Michael Hordern) an earthy bishop (Denholm Elliott) a cantankerous John Bull (Trevor Howard) and more. Jolly good fun!

• Cleopatra | Blu Ray | (24/09/2012) from £31.98   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £29.99

  A pre-code film that sneaked onto screens just as the censorious Hays Office began cracking down on Hollywood's racier propositions, Cleopatra is a libertine paean to decadence and depravity that can still send a viewer's mind reeling and pulse thumping – all courtesy of the Golden Age's swampiest psychosexual auteur, Cecil B. DeMille (The Ten Commandments; The Greatest Show on Earth; The King of Kings). Claudette Colbert (It Happened One Night; The Palm Beach Story; Drums Along the Mohawk) presides over the most outrageous spectacle this side of The Scarlet Empress as the eponymous pharaoh queen who speeds from Julius Caesar (Warren William) to Marc Antony (Henry Wilcoxon), from Egypt to Rome, from war-room to bedroom… The whiff of incense permeates every scene, with each connected to the next in a veritable matrix of whips, blindfolds, and bindings – the crazed arrangement laying bare all the fetish inklings of the moving-picture dream.

• The Incredible Melting Man | DVD | (13/10/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Oh Vunderbar! This is the perfect drive-in flick (if there were any drive-ins left) as astronaut Alex Rebar returns to Earth from a botched space mission only to have contracted a strange disease that makes him slowly melt. This leads to a bloody killing spree. The first fifteen minutes of this trots out all the B-movie standards (gore campy moments and breasts!) which will leave any low-budget Vipco fan grinning! Packed full of great over-the-top moments fantastic make-up effects (

• WWE - UK Rampage 92/93 | DVD | (14/11/2011) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Tagged Classics double DVDs showcase the best events from WWE's past and are consistently strong sellers. UK Rampage '92: Some of the legends of the ring are in action, including classic footage of Sid Justice taking on the deadly Undertaker. A WWE Championship Match as Shawn Michaels battles Randy 'Macho Man' Savage. Also in action: The Legion of Doom, Rick 'The Model' Martel, Bret 'Hit Man' Hart and The British Bulldog UK Rampage '93: Classic wrestling from the 90's as Shawn Michaels takes on Crush in an Intercontinental title match. Hacksaw Jim Duggan goes up against 'The Narcissist' Lex Luger. Nasty Boy Brian Nobbs battles Headshrinker Fatu. Plus much more action from Mr. Perfect, Doink the Clown, Bob Backland and Typhoon.

• Roger and Me | DVD | (15/03/2004) from £14.38   |  Saving you £-0.39 (-2.80%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Made in 1989, Roger and Me is a loose, smart-alecky documentary directed and narrated by Michael Moore. Here for the first time, the man who won unexpected Oscar glory with Bowling for Columbine exposed audiences to his devastating wit and a working-class pose. When his hometown is devastated by the plant closure of an American corporate giant (making record profits, one should note), the hell-raising political commentator with a prankster streak tries to turn his camera on General Motors Chairman Roger B Smith, the elusive Roger of the title, and the film is loosely structured around Moore's odyssey to track down the bigwig for an interview. While Moore ambushes his corporate subjects like a blue-collar Geraldo Rivera, a guerrilla interviewer who treasures his comic rebuffs as much as his interviews, his portraits of the colourful characters he meets along the way can be patronising. The famous come off as absurdly out of touch (Anita Bryant appears for some can-do cheerleading, and hometown celebrity Bob Eubanks tells some boorish jokes), and the disenfranchised poor (notably an unemployed woman who sells rabbit meat to make ends meet) all too often appear as buffoons or hicks. But behind his loose play with the facts and snarky attitude is a devastating look at the victims of downsizing in the midst of the 1980s economic boom. This portrait of Reagan's America and the tarnish on the American dream comes down to a simple question: what is corporate America's responsibility to the country's citizens? That's a question no-one at GM wants to answer. --Sean Axmaker

• Camp X-Ray | DVD | (18/01/2016) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  A young soldier escapes her suffocating small town by joining the military, only to find that she isn't going for a tour of duty in Iraq as she hoped. Instead, she's sent to Guantanamo. Met with hatred and abuse from the men in her charge, she forges an odd friendship with a young man who has been imprisoned at Gitmo for eight years

• Alice Cooper - Prime Cuts | DVD | (07/02/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Featuring ultra-rare concert performances television appearances and interviews including never before seen footage - this DVD is a must have for everyone from the most devoted fan to anyone who has ever had the slightest curiosity about one of rock's most electrifying and entertaining performers.

• Pathology | DVD | (18/08/2008) from £5.99   |  Saving you £14.00 (233.72%)   |  RRP £19.99

  A group of medical students devise a deadly game: to see which one of them can commit the perfect murder.

• Pathology | Blu Ray | (17/04/2019) from £8.75   |  Saving you £9.24 (105.60%)   |  RRP £17.99

  A group of medical students devise a deadly game: to see which one of them can commit the perfect murder.

• The Hills Have Eyes - Limited Edition Steelbook | Blu Ray | (29/09/2014) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £22.99

  A cross-country road trip takes a deadly turn in this chilling remake of Wes Craven's classic horror film about a stranded family that falls prey to a freakish clan of blood-thirsty mutants in the New Mexico desert. Packed with gut-wrenching gore and heart-stopping suspense The Hills Have Eyes will keep you on the edge of your seat!

• Mallrats | Blu Ray | (13/10/2020) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• National Lampoon's Class Reunion | DVD | (08/04/2002) from £13.97   |  Saving you £-3.99 (N/A%)   |  RRP £6.99

  Incredibly, National Lampoon's Class Reunion was the project that launched John Hughes' writing career before he started directing. On some surreal level, the film's premise is actually quite ingenious. It blends together the nudie flick and stalker/slasher genres that became hugely popular in the early 1980s. The group of classmates reuniting 10 years after graduation are nothing like the idiots of Animal House: they're worse! So when they are hunted through the dilapidated halls by misunderstood psycho Walter Baylor (Blackie Dammett), you can expect lots of black humour. Running for their lives are yuppie-in-the-making Bob Spinnaker (a slimily smooth Gerrit Graham), class nobody Gary Nash, slobbish womaniser Hubert (Stephen Furst playing against his usual shy nerd), scary-looking Satanist Delores and two potheads who are oblivious to the goings-on. Hilarious cameos come from Michael Lerner as mysterious Dr Young, Chuck Berry (!) and the late, great Anne Ramsey (Momma in Throw Momma from the Train) as the world's worst school cook. There were more than a dozen theatrical "Lampoon" movies plus many more for TV and video: Class Reunion may not be subtle, and it's certainly not politically correct, but it endearingly remains one of the daftest from the series' early days . On the DVD: The picture and sound are understandably average, but some effort has been put into the menu page at least; a gallery of 20 photos are the only extra. --Paul Tonks

• Best Of The Best Vol.3 - No Turning Back | DVD | (24/03/2008) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Karate tha ancient martial art and modern international sport is a contest of body mind and spirit where often the the toughest competition is against yourself. Two former members of the U.S National Karate Team join forces to avenge the death of their friend who was brutally slain in competition at an underground Las Vegas fighting club. An initial confrontation between the revenge-minded pair and the murderer leaves the evildoer with a horrible facial scar and he vows to bury the two former internationalists. After he makes a few attempts to gun the duo down they finally settle the score in a bloody match at the club!

• Feeling Minnesota | DVD | (16/04/2001) from £6.05   |  Saving you £13.94 (69.70%)   |  RRP £19.99

  There can be few better ways reminding oneself of the key elements in late 1990s left-of-centre Hollywood than watching Feeling Minnesota. The film attempts to draw together most of the main themes from the post-Pulp Fiction world into one whole. The story--young lovers Freddie and Jjacks (sic) on the run from a criminal past--is pure True Romance, with an attempt to throw in a little Cohen brothers' style weirdness. It's not a bad film--how can any film that opens with a Johnny Cash tune not have some degree of style to it?--just one that misses that certain spark. The casting of Diaz and Reeves is hopelessly mismatched, the former's delightfully light touch during the film's many funny moments merely serving to heighten Reeves' clod hopping. He is slightly better when playing opposite brother and husband to Freddie Sam (Vincent D'Onofrio), but is unavoidably the film's weak link. It can't be denied that by pushing all the relevant buttons, Feeling Minnesota manages to provide a couple of hours of reasonably engrossing entertainment but, like the Bob Dylan version of "Ring of Fire" that closes the film, the originals are still the best. On the DVD: The de rigeur credible rock soundtrack is given extra sparkle by the DVD's audio quality, but the extras available are slight. The "making-of" featurette offers little more than one of those infuriating extended adverts that are passed off as film documentaries, while the cast interview section is presented in a series of a few second answers to a succession of uninspiring questions. --Phil Udell

• The Rolling Stones - Bridges To Babylon 1998 | DVD | (01/10/1999) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Like any good brand, the Rolling Stones know to preserve the formula even when updating the package, and this long-form concert video underscores that market strategy. As with each of their tours since the early 1980s, the quartet, augmented by a discreet auxiliary of backup musicians, gives the fans new eye-candy while dishing up a familiar set list spiked with Mick Jagger's lip-smacking vocals and Keith Richards' signature guitar riffs. The visual twists are at once spectacular and conservative: a cyclopean main stage design with massive pillars (presumably the Babylonian connection), a vast oval video screen (shades of Big Brother), and a hydraulic bridge enabling a mid-concert sortie into the audience, with the Stones playing a more stripped-down, intimate set on a small satellite stage. That huge physical setting doubtless made the live shows eye-filling rock spectacles, but the video crew necessarily accepts the limitations of the small screen, focusing more on close-ups of the band, rapid cuts, and racing, hand-held tracking shots to convey excitement while keeping the viewer close to the action. The evening's repertoire sticks to the band's most familiar hits, and if the Glimmer Twins occasionally slip their masks to let the routine show, the real wonder is how effectively they keep the playing focused. During the first half of the programme, the band's newest songs (especially "Saint of Me" and "Out of Control") elicit conspicuously higher energy from the band, if not the audience. But just as the show seems doomed to a certain anonymity, the escape onto the smaller, no-frills stage pumps up players and crowd alike, particularly when they launch into "Like a Rolling Stone", a cover that winds up sounding like a great idea too long deferred. --Sam Sutherland, Amazon.com