"Actor: Paul Burke"

• Sideways | DVD | (16/05/2005) from £4.98   |  Saving you £15.01 (301.41%)   |  RRP £19.99

  A failed novelist takes his best friend for a week in California's wine country in this life affirming flick.

• The Thomas Crown Affair | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £6.49   |  Saving you £9.50 (146.38%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Millionaire businessman Thomas Crown (Steve McQueen) is also a high-stakes thief; his latest caper is an elaborate heist at a Boston bank. Why does he do it? For the same reason he flies gliders, bets on golf strokes and races dune buggies: he needs the thrill to feel alive. Insurance investigator Vicky Anderson (Faye Dunaway) gets her own thrills by busting crooks, and she's got Crown in her cross hairs. Naturally, these two will get it on, because they have a lot in common: they're not people, they're walking clothes racks. (McQueen looks like he'd rather be in jeans than Crown's natty three-piece suits.) The Thomas Crown Affair is a catalogue of 60s conventions, from its clipped editing style to its photographic trickery (the inventive Haskell Wexler behind the camera) to its mod design. You can almost sense director Norman Jewison deciding to "tell his story visually," like those newfangled European films; this would explain the long passages of Michel Legrand's lounge jazz ladled over endless montages of the pretty Dunaway and McQueen at play. (The opening-credits song, "Windmills of Your Mind," won an Oscar.) It's like a "What Kind of Man Reads Playboy?" ad come to life, and much more interesting as a cultural snapshot than a piece of storytelling. --Robert Horton

• Later With Jools Holland - Later - Giants | DVD | (20/10/2003) from £20.23   |  Saving you £-0.24 (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Later... with Jools Holland--Giants is a collection of classic live performances from a decade of the late-night BBC music show. Everyone will have their favourites and, no doubt, differing opinions on what constitutes a musical "giant". What is indisputable here is the sheer volume and variety of artists and styles on offer. The 32 performers range from Pete Towshend to Blondie; Paul Weller to Willie Nelson; Leonard Cohen to Jeff Beck; Page and Plant to Ronnie Spector and the Divine Comedy. The acts vary in quality--Brian Ferry's posturing, staccato rendition of "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?" and Georgie Fame's futile, asthmatic efforts to keep up with the beat on "Yeh! Yeh!" are notable low points--but thankfully the few weaker moments are more than compensated for by tour de force performances from the likes of Al Green, REM, Tony Bennett, Dusty Springfield and George Benson. Your enjoyment will obviously depend on a desire to see these greats play, but where else are you going to get both Robbie Williams belting out an impromptu performance of "Suspicious Minds" and Solomon Burke singing "Cry to Me" from an enormous golden throne? On the DVD: Later... with Jools Holland--Giants comes with a desirable selection of interviews with 10 of the featured performers. Sadly, they are tantalisingly short--never longer than three minutes, some little more than a minute--and never stretch beyond Holland's stock questions or brief, if entertaining, anecdotes. Also included are: a "playlist" feature, which allows you to select six of your favourite tracks and play them in an order of your choice, normal track selection, subtitles and a credit list. --Paul Philpott

• The Thomas Crown Affair | Blu Ray | (02/09/2013) from £6.79   |  Saving you £6.20 (91.31%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Millionaire businessman Thomas Crown (Steve McQueen) is also a high-stakes thief; his latest caper is an elaborate heist at a Boston bank. Why does he do it? For the same reason he flies gliders, bets on golf strokes and races dune buggies: he needs the thrill to feel alive. Insurance investigator Vicky Anderson (Faye Dunaway) gets her own thrills by busting crooks, and she's got Crown in her cross hairs. Naturally, these two will get it on, because they have a lot in common: they're not people, they're walking clothes racks. (McQueen looks like he'd rather be in jeans than Crown's natty three-piece suits.) The Thomas Crown Affair is a catalogue of 60s conventions, from its clipped editing style to its photographic trickery (the inventive Haskell Wexler behind the camera) to its mod design. You can almost sense director Norman Jewison deciding to "tell his story visually," like those newfangled European films; this would explain the long passages of Michel Legrand's lounge jazz ladled over endless montages of the pretty Dunaway and McQueen at play. (The opening-credits song, "Windmills of Your Mind," won an Oscar.) It's like a "What Kind of Man Reads Playboy?" ad come to life, and much more interesting as a cultural snapshot than a piece of storytelling. --Robert Horton

• Valley Of The Dolls / Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls | DVD | (05/01/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Valley Of The Dolls: An adaptation of Jacqueline Susann's trashy novel telling the story of three remarkable women whose lives are affected by show-business celebrity. Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls: An uninhibited all-girl rock trio and their manager arrive in Hollywood to claim an inheritance due to one of the group. They meet Ronnie Barzell a strange personality but a gifted promoter who soon has the combo headed for the big time. During their ascent the girls beco

• This Year's Love | DVD | (28/02/2000) from £7.99   |  Saving you £12.00 (150.19%)   |  RRP £19.99

  An unpretentious Brit-flick distinguished by a great cast, This Year's Love is writer-director David Kane's wry, funny study of six singletons in search of something--possibly love, possibly just sex--that will help them make sense of an untidy world. Aside from the acting, the film's strongest feature is its unflinching realism. The setting is North London's Camden Lock, an area that is in equal parts ultra-trendy and horrendously squalid. The characters reflect the locale: a circle of youthful drop-outs, wannabes and never-have-beens united in their common desire to surmount loneliness and find that elusive "perfect match". The central figures are newlyweds Danny and Hannah (the wonderful Douglas Henshall and Catherine McCormack) and the film in essence concerns itself with the fallout from the spectacular and rapid disintegration of their marriage. Danny first hooks up with cleaner-cum-nightclub singer Mary (a marvellously self-deprecating Kathy Burke), while Hannah finds lecherous womaniser Cameron (an unwashed Dougray Scott). Cameron's flatmate Liam (Ian Hart) fails to impress posh single mum Sophie (Jennifer Ehle in dreadlocks), who goes on to reject Danny and Cameron in turn, while Liam becomes dangerously obsessed by Hannah then Mary. So the merry-go-round of relationship swapping, unlikely coincidences and bittersweet life-lessons turns full circle. David Kane's comic dialogue is witheringly sharp, the situations (aside from all the coincidental meetings) are well-observed and the characters sympathetically three-dimensional (helped in no small part by the quality of the ensemble cast). The frequently hilarious comedy is tempered by an underlying despair: if it's not exactly Brassed Off or The Full Monty for neurotic, self-obsessed metropolitans, it's a film that's at least happy to exist in the same genre and achieves the same poignant empathy with its characters. The soundtrack is great, too. Imagine that the cast of Trainspotting gate-crashed Four Weddings and a Funeral and the result would be This Year's Love. On the DVD: Short on-set interviews with the principals and a promotional featurette are supplemented by a sequence of unedited behind-the-scenes footage. The film itself is presented in a good-looking anamorphic (16:9) print. --Mark Walker

• 2 Guns | Blu Ray | (01/08/2023) from £24.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• The Pot Carriers | Blu Ray | (26/04/2021) from £15.19   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Ronald Fraser reprises his role as a petty career criminal in the big-screen remake of ITV's 1960 hit comedy-drama Play of the Week. An authentic and original look at life behind bars, The Pot Carriers also stars Paul Massie as a first-time prisoner, Carole Lesley as the girl he left outside and Dennis Price in a memorable turn as the charming-but-unprincipled Smooth-Tongue Bertie. It is featured here as a High Definition remaster from original film elements in its original theatrical aspect ratio. James Rainbow is sentenced to twelve months for GBH. Assigned to prison kitchen duties, he is taken under the wing of several old lags led by Redband and becomes involved in some of their fiddles. Redband, however, is due to be released soon and wants to pull one really big fiddle before he goes! Special Features: Theatrical trailer Image gallery Those British Faces: Dennis Price

• The Escapist | DVD | (16/02/2004) from £9.98   |  Saving you £0.01 (0.10%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Denis (Jonny Lee Miller) is a man whose life is shattered by a single criminal act in which his young wife is killed in a bungled break-in by a psychotic career criminal Ricky Barnes (Serkis). Denis for whom life up to then had seemed perfect cannot cope with his loss and dedicates his life to tracking down the man responsible. It is a pursuit which requires him not only to be sent to jail but to be sent to the worst prison in Britain...

• Valley Of The Dolls | DVD | (18/07/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  What a trip! An entertainingly psychedelic adaptation of Jacqueline Susann's splendidly trashy novel telling the story of three remarkable women whose lives are affected by show-business celebrity. Revered composer John Williams (Star Wars) won his very first Oscar - and nomination - for Best Music.

• King Lear | DVD | (20/03/2006) from £20.00   |  Saving you £-0.01 (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Adapted from the acclaimed 1997 production by the Royal National Theatre Ian Holm stars as the tragic monarch King Lear; wise headstrong but blind to his weaknesses. Proposing to divide his kingdom between his three daughters Gonreil Regan and Cornelia Lear devises a test for his offspring to convince him of their suitability and compassion for rule. As the scheme unfolds Gonreil and Regan's true colours emerge uncovering a vast conspiracy of greed lust for power and cruelty

• Psychic Killer | DVD | (21/08/2000) from £15.40   |  Saving you £-9.41 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Wrongly accused of murdering the doctor who refused to treat his ailing mother young Arnold (Jim Hutton) is placed in a mental institution under the care and supervision of Dr Laura Scott. While there he is taught the secrets of out of body travel by a fellow inmate. Freed when the real killer is found Arnold swears revenge on those who committed him. Using his new-found psychic powers Arnold eliminates those he hates in a brutal and bloody reign of terror which leaves Detectives Mogan (Paul Burke) and Anderson (Aldo Ray) faced with a killer they can't even see.

• Pot O' Gold | DVD | (25/08/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £4.99

  While 'Born To Dance' is the movie musical most associated with James Stewart the largely forgotten Pot o' Gold is the one in which he is most involved with music. The plot has Stewart as Jimmy Haskell a music-loving harmonica-playing man who comes across a poor but excellent band (led by Horace Heidt) that rehearses on a boarding-house roof. Jimmy becomes interested in the people who own the boarding-house Ma McCorkle (Mary Gordon) and her lovely daughter Molly (Paulette Goddard). Jimmy and Molly combine forces to promote the career of Horace and the lads but that task is made difficult by Jimmy's wealthy Uncle Charley. This is a rare opportunity to hear Stewart sing with surprisingly pleasant results. Songs from a group of writers include: Do You Believe In Fairy tales? (Mack David Vee Lawnhurst) When Johnny Toots His Horn (Hy Heath Fred Rose) Slap happy Band Hi Cy What's Cookin'? Pete The Piper Broadway Cabellero (Henry Sullivan Lou Forbes). The movie was produced by James Roosevelt son of FDR.

• Ted And Ralph | DVD | (01/06/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  This hilarious spin-off from BBC's award-winning sketch-based comedy The Fast Show concludes Ted and Ralph's painfully repressed relationship as wealthy landowner Ralph continues his uncomfortable attempts at forging an intimate union with working class Irish estate manager Ted. However Ralph has to save his estate as he slips into bankruptcy and believes that a wife would help him out of the mire... Enter Wendy a lady who might not be all she appears. As Ralph's f

• Pot O' Gold | DVD | (06/11/2000) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £3.99

  While 'Born To Dance' is the movie musical most associated with James Stewart the largely forgotten Pot o' Gold is the one in which he is most involved with music. The plot has Stewart as Jimmy Haskell a music-loving harmonica-playing man who comes across a poor but excellent band (led by Horace Heidt) that rehearses on a boarding-house roof. Jimmy becomes interested in the people who own the boarding-house Ma McCorkle (Mary Gordon) and her lovely daughter Molly (Paulette Goddard). Jimmy and Molly combine forces to promote the career of Horace and the lads but that task is made difficult by Jimmy's wealthy Uncle Charley. This is a rare opportunity to hear Stewart sing with surprisingly pleasant results. Songs from a group of writers include: Do You Believe In Fairy tales? (Mack David Vee Lawnhurst) When Johnny Toots His Horn (Hy Heath Fred Rose) Slap happy Band Hi Cy What's Cookin'? Pete The Piper Broadway Cabellero (Henry Sullivan Lou Forbes). The movie was produced by James Roosevelt son of FDR

• Della (1964) - Joan Crawford | DVD | (10/09/2012) from £9.99   |  Saving you £3.00 (30.03%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Joan Crawford plays the daughter of the town's founder, an uncompromising woman who rules her home with an iron fist and exerts her influence over the town she owns so much of. The story finds a young lawyer attempting to get Della to sell a parcel of land to a government contractor who will bring lots of jobs to the town. He's invited to visit her home in the middle of the night and discovers her and her daughter living in a nocturnal world, sleeping during the day and going about their bus...

• Like It Is | DVD | (11/09/2000) from £12.70   |  Saving you £2.29 (18.03%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Like It Is is much like watching a train wreck--the very idea of it is repellent and yet you perversely can't avert your eyes. While its urban grittiness and sooty veneer entranced some critics who mistook its violent, netherworld neorealism for art, Like It Is offers little in the way of redemption, positive gay imaging or even particularly good narrative. Paul Oremland directed this venture about a young, gay Blackpool tough named Craig (Steve Bell) who bare-knuckle boxes for money. He ultimately moves to London in search of a better life and falls in with the trendy London gay-club scene, meeting and falling for a handsome record producer named Matt (Ian Rose) and his wealthy boss (played by the Who's lead singer Roger Daltrey). The better life is quickly tainted by disillusion and misery, much as is the viewing experience. Steve Bell is, in real life, a featherweight boxing champion in Britain and therefore brings an urgent and raw vitality to the lead, but the characters as a whole are either irritating or unsympathetic, and it's ultimately difficult to find anyone to care for, or a story worth empathising with. --Paula Nechak, Amazon.com

• The Invisible Man, Series 1 (Box Set 2) | DVD | (07/04/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £39.99

  The Invisible Man continued its first year in increasingly tense and cryptic fashion. Anti-hero Darien has to keep up his spying gig in order to be fed an antidote to the side effects of the invisibility gland. Unfortunately it isn't working. The clock is ticking all the way to a tense finale, where the Quicksilver insanity threatens to consume him whole. There's lots of fun with the format on the way, of course. Darien encounters a ghost, a sperm thief and a hitman who likes to blind his witnesses. Some grander political backdrop comes to the fore as well, with the Chinese government seeking surreptitiously to obtain the gland. All the while there's a growing sense that the Agency has troubles of its own. In an unprecedented bit of audience participation, viewers were allowed to vote for the resolution of a story entitled "Money for Nothing". Fans went for the more interesting option, thankfully, and so an invisible bank raid pays off nicely for everyone. Creating constant conflict throughout the year is the lurking presence of arch-enemy Arnaud. The immediate resolution of that conflict is one of several surprise twists that singled out the show as more than standard TV SF fare. Not even a so-so cameo from Star Trek's Wil Wheaton could spoil the fun. On the DVD: The Invisible Man's second box set features even more extras than the first DVD set. Two cast commentaries are frequently comic, though with a constant sense of disappointment the show didn't go further than two series. There are lengthy interviews with the cast, too. But of real interest to fans will be alternate footage previously unseen in the UK. Some FX shots and script pages round out the package. --Paul Tonks

• Pot O' Gold | DVD | (10/11/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £4.99

  A rare musical/comedy outing for James Stewart then at the peak of his career. Stewart plays James Hamilton Haskell a former music store worker who joins his uncle's health food business and befriends a band along the way. His uncle hates music his hatred not being helped by the fact that the band practice next door to his factory. Based on a popular radio show of the time (also called POT O' GOLD) the film gave both James Stewart and Paulette Goddard the opportunity of displayi

• Boy Eats Girl | DVD | (13/02/2006) from £2.89   |  Saving you £13.10 (453.29%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Stephen Bradley's deliciously wicked horror/comedy in which a boy declares his love for his girlfriend only to die the same night. He is brought back to life by his mother as a flesh-craving zombie who sires more teen undead while trying to control his appetite for his beloved...