"Actor: Micole Mercurio"

• Flashdance | DVD | (07/10/2002) from £5.23   |  Saving you £12.02 (302.77%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Flashdance was the aspirational feel-good movie of 1983, with its thudding Giorgio Moroder soundtrack, Fame-meets-An Officer and a Gentleman storyline and a doe-eyed but iron-willed heroine played by the promising Jennifer Beals. By day Alex (Beals) is a Pittsburgh welder. By night she dances self-choreographed pieces for beer swillers in a seedy nightclub. Then she goes home and dreams of entering the city's ballet school and a professional career. Adrian Lyne's film is full of compromises. It never really gets to grips with Alex's misfit status in a male-dominated world. And in the end, she is given the leg-up she needs by her boss (Michael Nouri) who won't take "no" for an answer. That's called stalking these days. But Flashdance also has some fascinating surreal moments. The infernal qualities of life on an industrial site are well described by good lighting and the dances take on a bizarre life of their own within the film. Beals is often in shadowy long shot for these scenes and, in fact, most of the actual dancing was done by a more qualified stand-in. On the DVD: Flashdance is presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen with a Dolby Digital 5.1 surround soundtrack. On disc the film still pulsates with that 1980s anything-is-possible energy. Apart from standard subtitle options and scene selections, there are no extras. --Piers Ford

• While You Were Sleeping | DVD | (22/01/2001) from £8.25   |  Saving you £6.74 (81.70%)   |  RRP £14.99

  If you don't mind a heavy dose of schmaltz and sentiment, this romantic comedy has a gentle way of seducing you with its charms. While You Were Sleeping was the first starring role for Sandra Bullock after her blockbuster success in Speed. In a role that nicely emphasises her easygoing appeal, Bullock is the reason the movie works at all. She plays Lucy Eleanor Moderatz, a Chicago Transit tollbooth clerk who's hopelessly smitten with a daily commuter, Peter Callaghan (Peter Gallagher). She saves the object of her affection from certain death after he's mugged and falls onto the train tracks. While Peter is in a coma, she lets his family believe that she is his fiancée, and surprisingly finds herself drawn to his brother (Bill Pullman), for whom the attraction is definitely mutual. How Lucy gets out of this amorous predicament is what makes this pleasant movie less predictable than its familiar ingredients would initially indicate. It's feel-good fluff, with characters and performances that keep you smiling through the drippy plot mechanics. --Jeff Shannon

• Mask | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £11.17   |  Saving you £-1.18 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Sometimes the most unlikely people become heroes. Based on the true story of a teenager with a facial deformity from a rare disorder that no child has been known to survive. Cher won Best Actress Award at Cannes for her performance as Rocky's mother in this emotional and spirited drama.

• Gleaming the Cube | DVD | (31/01/2000) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £6.99

• Norma Jean And Marilyn | DVD | (20/04/2004) from £6.73   |  Saving you £8.26 (122.73%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Mira Sorvino and Ashley Judd deliver stunning performances in this acclaimed psychological drama that takes a revealing look at the two personalities of Marilyn Monroe.

• Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael | DVD | (17/09/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £6.99

  In 1990, Welcome Home Roxy Carmichael showed Winona Ryder as cinema's top teenage role model. Her edge was a delinquency-equals-sympathy angle that held true throughout Beetlejuice, Mermaids, Heathers and Edward Scissorhands. Here as Dinky Bossetti she's chasing the ghosts of a past no one can explain. She's adopted; her town of Clyde, Ohio is mysteriously stuck in the 1950s; but weirder still is everyone's fixation with the imminent return of once-famous homecoming girl Roxy Carmichael. Dinky's school peers conform to the John Hughes 80s look and mindset, but it's the retro adult population that really winds her up. Jeff Daniels ought to be a perfectly conditioned suburbanite, but can't get over having once been married to Roxy. Imparting the secret that they'd had a child and given it away, Dinky's own confusions and obsessions suddenly make sense. The tangle of B-plots are given purpose at the same time she is. Her silent admirer (Thomas Wilson Brown) is able to approach her at last, and her school guidance counsellor becomes the friend she's never had. Ultimately the story's about the notion that no teenager ever feels like they fit in. Of course the real problem facing Ryder, Dinky and any viewer is that all teens grow up. What then? On the DVD: This is a bare-bones package with a simple two-channel stereo and 16:9 anamorphic ratio transfer. That said, it looks and sounds just fine. There's only one trailer, but someone's tried with the diner-style menu at least. --Paul Tonks

• When He's Not A Stranger | DVD | (25/09/2000) from £13.48   |  Saving you £-0.49 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  An estimated one out of every three women will be sexually assaulted at some time in their life with ninety percent of these victims choosing not to report the assaults to the police. This powerful and disturbing film deals with 'Forcible Rape Amongst Friends' one of the most prevelant crimes facing young women today. Annabeth Gish (Mystic Pizza) portrays the shocked and violated victim Lynn McKenna who is lured into a sense of false security and raped by her bestfriend's boyfriend John Telersky (Deathstalker 2). Confused and ashamed and faced with the knowledge of almost certain defeat Lynn must decide whether or not to press criminal charges against her attacker and bring about necessary justice.

• The Chase | DVD | (26/11/2001) from £7.71   |  Saving you £-1.72 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  A bank robber on the run after shooting a policeman is pursued by both the law who want to capture him and the press who are anxious for his story...