"Actor: Oliver Blake"

• The Big Sleep | DVD | (06/11/2006) from £6.34   |  Saving you £0.65 (10.25%)   |  RRP £6.99

  Raymond Chandler's hard boiled novel is brought to the screen with sleuth Phillip Marlowe finding himself involved with murder blackmail and violence when hired to protect a General's young daughter.

• Me Without You | DVD | (14/10/2002) from £6.70   |  Saving you £13.29 (198.36%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Sandra Goldbacher's intense drama of friendship and betrayal Me Without You was not especially liked by UK reviewers, but opened in the US to rave reviews. Carrying the relationship between two teenagers through their student days and into adulthood, it shows the more obviously charismatic Marina (Anna Friel) as parasitic on her more intelligent friend Holly (Michelle Williams) and then utterly devastated when Holly tries to break away (a brief epilogue shows them still involved years later). Best known for her role in Dawson's Creek, Michelle Williams (whose English accent is impeccable) gives a finely nuanced performance; Anne Friel runs the gamut from drug-induced stupor to malice to hysteria with a staginess that is only partly the character's. There are solid performances from Trudy Stiler as the neurotic ex-croupier mother who is part of Marina's problem and Kyle McLachlan as the oddly passive lecturer whom both seduce. The film is good on the passage of time--it has a fine eye for the fashion disasters of 1970s to 90s Britain--yet it's somehow disingenuous in its avoidance of emotional subtext. It's overly partial, too: Holly is obviously a stand-in for the writer-director. On the DVD: Me Without Your is presented in a widescreen visual ratio of 2.35:1 with Dolby 5.1 digital sound that gives full weight and intensity to a soundtrack which revisits a well-chosen selection of obvious and obscure tracks from the period. It has no extra features. --Roz Kaveney

• Laurel and Hardy - Great Guns/Jitterbug/the Big Noise | DVD | (09/10/2006) from £16.50   |  Saving you £8.49 (51.45%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Great Guns (Dir. Monty Banks 1941): Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy join the army to protect their country...but who will protect the army from them? In Great Guns the comic team play a chauffeur and a gardener whose hypochondriac employer (Dick Nelson) a wealthy young man with little experience is drafted. Convinced that he needs them in order to survive in the service they join up as well. Of course the Texas cavalry post to which they're all assigned is made far worse for the wear by the presence of these well-meaning troublemakers and there is never a dull moment in this classic featuring two of the cinema's most revered comic actors! Jitterbugs (Dir. Malcolm St. Clair 1943): Considered the best of the Laurel and Hardy projects filmed at Twentieth Century Fox this energetic musical comedy also introduces singer Vivian Blaine. Stan and Oliver star as a traveling two-man jitterbug band who operate out of a dilapidated jalopy and form an unlikely partnership with a likable con man (Bob Bailey). When the trio joins a carnival they meet Susan a naive young singer (Vivian Blaine) whose mother has been swindled by grifters. Suddenly chivalrous the three orchestrate a sting operation using disguises - with Laurel dressed as Susan's disheveled aunt and Hardy as a rich Texan - to get the woman's money back. Although things don't go as planned the inimitable comedy duo provide nonstop laughs from start to finish in this delightful caper. The Big Noise (Dir. Malcolm St. Clair 1944): The zany antics of legendary comedians Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy come to life in this romp about two phony private detectives. The duo play janitors accidentally hired as sleuths to protect a new super-bomb destined for the War Department in Washington D.C. However the bomb's inventor has loaded his house with crazy contraptions that entrap and confuse the protectors. Meanwhile next door is the biggest threat of all - a gang of crooks determined to get their hands on the inventor's deadly creation. Through a series of crazy misadventures our heroes end up in a remote-controlled airplane along with the bomb and head straight for trouble.

• House of Wax | Blu Ray | (23/06/2020) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Giant From The Unknown (1958) | Blu Ray | (19/01/2021) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Giant From The Unknown (1958) | 4K UHD | (19/01/2021) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A