"Actor: Natalie Paul"

• Bleak House (Special Edition) | DVD | (13/11/2006) from £9.25   |  Saving you £-2.25 (N/A%)   |  RRP £7.00

  Acclaimed writer Andrew Davies turns his talents to one of Charles Dickens' most brilliant novels - arguably the greatest ever depiction of Victorian London. Fresh and imaginative yet faithful to the original this thrilling fast-paced adaptation is shot with a contemporary edge. At its heart is the story of the icily beautiful Lady Dedlock who nurses a dark secret and the merciless lawyer Tulkinghorn who seeks to uncover it. The generous John Jarndyce struggling with his own past and his two young wards Richard and Ada are all caught up like Lady Dedlock in the infamous case of Jarndyce vs. Jarndyce which will make one of them rich beyond imagination if it can ever be brought to a conclusion. As Tulkinghorn digs deeper into Lady Dedlock's past he unearths a secret that will change their lives forever and which is almost as astounding as the final outcome of the Jarndyce case.

• The Planet of the Apes Collection (six disc box set) | DVD | (08/10/2001) from £29.99   |  Saving you £-16.50 (N/A%)   |  RRP £13.49

  The five films in the Planet of the Apes series are enjoyable as pure entertainment and yet substantial enough to have inspired academic studies about the film's broader political themes. Loosely adapted from the novel by French author Pierre Boulle, Planet of the Apes was released at the height of racial and political unrest in America, adding resonance to its story of a NASA astronaut (Charlton Heston) stranded on a planet where superior apes dominate inferior human slaves. The film's final image--in which a horrified Heston realises the fate of humankind--remains one of the most indelible in all of science-fiction cinema. Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970) continues the original's distant future scenario, pitting militant apes against mutant humans dwelling in the subterranean ruins of New York City. Its phenomenal success spawned Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971), in which simian scientists Cornelius and Zira (Roddy McDowall and Kim Hunter, reprising their roles from Planet) travel backward in time, setting the stage for the ape supremacy of the first two films. McDowall returned in Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972) as Caesar, the son of Cornelius, leading an ape revolution that bridges the historical gap of the previous films. Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973) ended the five-film cycle with McDowall again playing the chimpanzee leader Caesar, defeating gorillas and human mutants to establish the hierarchy introduced in the original film. The Apes films present a classic what-if scenario that hasn't lost a bit of its potency. As if to prove its cultural endurance, the cycle returned to its origins with director Tim Burton's remake of Planet of the Apes in 2001. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com On the DVD: A glorious indulgence for diehard fans of the series, this handsomely packaged six-disc set contains all five original" Apes" movies, from the wonderful 1967 original to 1973's low-budget Battle. It all look as good as possible in widescreen anamorphic transfers, the first movie's starkly wonderful cinematography in particular is a treat to see on DVD. Planet has been remixed in vivid Dolby 5.1, highlighting the bold sound design and JerryGoldsmith's masterful avant-garde score. The others are good Dolby stereo, with the odd exception of Escape, which is mono. There are trailers on each disc, but no commentaries sadly. The sixth bonus disc consists of a relatively new two-hour documentary hosted by Roddy McDowall which takes us through the entire saga in detail, pointing out the series' daring social commentary and the increasing difficulties of working with progressively smaller budgets. Sensibly, the documentary spends about an hour on the first movie and then an hour discussing all the rest. Overall, this is a very attractive package. --Mark Walker

• The Deuce: Season 2 | DVD | (04/02/2019) from £13.39   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Featuring an acclaimed ensemble cast led by James Franco and Maggie Gyllenhaal, and executive produced by David Simon, George Pelecanos, Nina K. Noble and Franco, Season 2 of The Deuce finds its protagonists living at the apex of the Golden Age of Porn: when the dream of a mainstream X-rated film business is a credible reality, and the free-for-all sex trade of Times Square is at its gaudy, unrestrained height. Picking up in late 1977 (five years after S1), the Deuce's backroom massage parlors and SRO hotels have exploded into sprawling sex emporiums featuring nude girls, live sex shows and peep booths for every imaginable fetish. The NY Mafia's grip on the porn business is beginning to slip as talent migrates to the West Coast but for now, the city is flush with movies, music and art as the drug-fueled party rages around the clock. Season 2 of The Deuce captures the disco era in all its excesses before developers, crack cocaine, AIDS and videotapes conspire to end the debauched glory of Times Square.

• Gypsy | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £4.95   |  Saving you £11.04 (223.03%)   |  RRP £15.99

  The girl who became the greatest show in show business. Ringing with the show-biz sass of its Jule Styne/Stephen Sondheim score the film version of the Broadway hit Gypsy takes you on a grand vaudeville tour. It sweeps you up in the roller-coaster relationship of Louise (Natalie Wood) the wallflower later to blossom into sophisticated stripper Gypsy Rose Lee and her ambitious mother Rose (Rosalind Russell whose performance won her a fifth Best Actress Golden Globe

• Battle For The Planet Of The Apes | DVD | (22/08/2005) from £4.35   |  Saving you £8.64 (198.62%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Two civilizations battle for the right to inherit what's left of earth! The fifth and final episode in the Planet of the Apes series. After the collapse of human civilization a community of intelligent apes lives in harmony with a group of humans but a community of mutants who reside beneath a destroyed city try to conquer those whom they perceive as enemies. Footage from the previous installments is effective in providing background information as flashbacks in an attempt t

• Conquest Of The Planet Of The Apes | DVD | (22/08/2005) from £6.08   |  Saving you £6.91 (113.65%)   |  RRP £12.99

  This fourth film in the ""Planet of the Apes"" series picks up the action a few years after ""Escape from the Planet of the Apes"" left off. At the end of the third movie the ape Cornelius and his wife Zira were murdered by humans when they traveled back in time. However their son Caesar remained behind with kind-hearted circus owner Armando who kept the ape's existence a secret. ""Conquest of the Planet of the Apes"" opens in 1991 after an epidemic has wiped out the dog population

• Show Me A Hero | DVD | (04/04/2016) from £15.20   |  Saving you £14.79 (97.30%)   |  RRP £29.99

  In an America generations removed from the greatest civil rights struggles of the 1960s, the young mayor of a mid-sized American city is faced with a federal court order that says he must build a small number of low-income housing units in the white neighborhoods of his town. His attempt to do so tears the entire city apart, paralyzes the municipal government and, ultimately, destroys the mayor and his political future. From creator David Simon (HBO's Treme and The Wire) and director Paul Haggis (Crash), and based on the nonfiction book of the same name by Lisa Belkin, the six-part HBO Miniseries presentation Show Me a Hero explores notions of home, race and community through the lives of elected officials, bureaucrats, activists and ordinary citizens in Yonkers, NY.

• Children of the Corn 666: Isaa | DVD | (16/05/2011) from £8.88   |  Saving you £14.10 (239.39%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Isaac's Return is the sixth and newest bone-chilling chapter in the thrilling 'Children Of The Corn' series! On a trip to find her birth mother Hannah Martin picks up a dark stranger who kicks off a mysterious chain of events. Little does Hannah know that her journey may help fulfill a sinister prophecy made 19 years earlier by Isaac the cult's original evil leader! It's a hair-raising movie event you don't want to miss as Isaac makes his terrifying return and the frightening children of the corn achieve their ultimate destiny!

• Show Me A Hero | Blu Ray | (04/04/2016) from £15.47   |  Saving you £19.52 (126.18%)   |  RRP £34.99

  In an America generations removed from the greatest civil rights struggles of the 1960s, the young mayor of a mid-sized American city is faced with a federal court order that says he must build a small number of low-income housing units in the white neighborhoods of his town. His attempt to do so tears the entire city apart, paralyzes the municipal government and, ultimately, destroys the mayor and his political future. From creator David Simon (HBO's Treme and The Wire) and director Paul Haggis (Crash), and based on the nonfiction book of the same name by Lisa Belkin, the six-part HBO Miniseries presentation Show Me a Hero explores notions of home, race and community through the lives of elected officials, bureaucrats, activists and ordinary citizens in Yonkers, NY.

• A Long Way From Home | DVD | (31/03/2014) from £4.69   |  Saving you £13.30 (73.90%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Joseph and Brenda have done what many only dream of and retired to the South of France to live out the rest of their days as if they were permanently on holiday. But retirement is not what Joseph imagined and when a young attractive couple Suzanne and Mark choose their favourite bistro for dinner everything Joseph thought he knew about himself and his world is turned upside down.

• Children Of The Corn 666 - Isaac's Return | DVD | (05/10/2004) from £14.42   |  Saving you £0.57 (3.95%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Isaac's Return is the sixth and newest bone-chilling chapteriin the thrilling 'Children Of The Corn' series! On a trip to find her birth mother Hannah Martin picks up a dark stranger who kicks off a mysterious chain of events. Little does Hannah know that her journey may help fulfill a sinister prophecy made 19 years earlier by Isaac the cult's original evil leader! It's a hair-raising movie event you don't want to miss as Isaac makes his terrifying return and the frightening child

• Brian Wilson - Smile | DVD | (13/06/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Smile? In 1966, the legendary abandoned Beach Boys' album and "teenage symphony to God" left its visionary, Brian Wilson, with the devil to pay. Disc One of this double DVD set offers David Leaf's glorious documentary "Beautiful Dreamer", interviewing all those involved with the project's development (save, bizarrely, any of the surviving Beach Boys, least of all Smile's most trenchant naysayer Mike Love) and charting Brian Wilson's ascendancy to the cusp of creative immortality and subsequent crash-and-burn to a bedridden, burnt-out recluse. In the South Pole-style "production race" with The Beatles for popular music's brave new frontier (a contest more self-justificatingly important to Wilson than to Lennon/McCartney) it was to be The Beatles who planted the flag and Wilson who perished in the snow; Smile was to be Brian Wilson's nemesis. The albums' eventual completion and re-recording (hats off to Brian Wilson's musical sidekicks The Wondermints) in 2003 was the happiest and unlikeliest conclusion to pop music's most fascinating and infuriating chapter. The entire live performance of Smile in Los Angeles - beautifully filmed on Disc 2 - is a fitting happy ending. The work - especially the waxing and waning chorales of the "Child Is Father Of The Man" section - is a marvel; beautiful, bold, coherent and deft enough to leave the myth - the great "what if?" of 20th Century music history - intact. --Kevin Maidment

• Offenbach: Orphee aux Enfers -- Lyon National Opera/Minkowski | DVD | (25/10/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  In the role of Eurydice Natalie Dessay begins at once with a display of vocal and verbal pyrotechnics which are then taken up by Yann Beuron as Orpheus. Together they give us an ideal of the developments to follow. Dancers and singers melt into a unit. The stage setting and an unconventional choreography sparkle with inventiveness. When Pluto for example arrives on skis from the underworld onto Mt. Olympus and Offenbach quotes the famous can-can right in the middle of Pluto's aria it seems to be a parody of his own work. The production offers a wealth of material for modern interpretations and immorality. Thus we see a bored Eurydice lying on the sofa in her apartment as she zaps her way through the TV channels constantly looking for diversion showing us how timeless an opera buff can really be. Sometimes she sings upside down hopping around - a vocal masterpiece. Laurent Naouri also captivates in the role of Jupiter and costumed as a fly demonstrates his vocal and acting talent with Jacques Offenbach's Buzz aria. To sum up; the present production is a fountain-of-youth cure for Offenbach's operetta classic. A cascade of ideas and ironic allusions turns this ingenious work into a feast for eyes and ears.

• Anywhere But Here / Where The Heart Is | DVD | (01/01/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Anywhere But Here (Dir. Wayne Wang 2000): Adele is a flashy flirtatious dreamer. Her daughter Ann is a quiet no-nonsense realist. On the surface they're like oil and water but deep down they're two of a kind. ""Susan Sarandon makes magic"" (Chicago Tribune) and ""Natalie Portman soars"" (NY-1) in this funny and touching story about a mother who knows best...and a daughter who knows better! Where The Heart Is (Dir. Matt Williams 2000): Ashley Judd and Natalie Portman