"Actor: Paul Wallace"

• Clueless | DVD | (04/12/2000) from £6.99   |  Saving you £9.00 (128.76%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Alicia Silverstone won everyone over with her portrayal of a Beverly Hills teen, Cher, whose penchant for helping others with their relationships and self-esteem is a cover for her own loneliness. Director Amy Heckerling (Fast Times at Ridgemont High) made a smart, funny variation on Jane Austen's novel Emma, sweetly romantic and gently satirical of 90210 social manners. The cast is unbeatable: Dan Hedaya as Cher's rock-solid dad, Wallace Shawn as a geeky teacher, Paul Rudd as the boy who has always been Cher's surrogate brother--and the true holder of her most secret wishes. --Tom Keogh

• Radio Days | DVD | (11/03/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Woody Allen's gentlest and most unassuming movie, Radio Days isn't so much a story as a series of anecdotes loosely linked together by a voice-over spoken by the director. The film is strongly autobiographical in tone, presenting the memories of a young lad Joe (clearly a stand-in for Allen himself) growing up in a working-class Jewish family in the seafront Brooklyn suburb of Rockaway during the late 1930s and early 40s. In this pre-TV era the radio is ubiquitous, a constant accompaniment churning out quiz shows, soap operas, dance music, news flashes and Joe's favourite, the exploits of the Masked Avenger. Given Allen's well-publicised gallery of neuroses, you might expect childhood traumas. But no, everything here is rose-tinted and even the outbreak of war makes little impact on the easygoing, protective tenor of family life. Now and then Allen counterpoints his family album with the doings of the radio folk themselves (blink, and you'll miss a young William H Macy in the studio scene when the news of Pearl Harbour comes through). The rise to fame of Sally (Mia Farrow), a former night-club cigarette girl turned crooner, is the nearest the film comes to a coherent storyline. But most of the time Allen is content to coast on a flow of easy nostalgia, poking affectionate fun at the broadcasting conventions of the period and basking in the mildly rueful Jewish humour and small domestic crises of Joe's extended family. There aren't even any of his snappy one-liners, and the humour is kept low-key, raising at most an indulgent smile. A touch of Allen's usual acerbity wouldn't have come amiss. But for anyone who shares these memories, Radio Days will surely be a delight. On the DVD: Not much besides the theatrical trailer, scene menu and a choice of languages. The screen's the full original ratio, but nothing seems to have been done to enhance the soundtrack, and the dialogue's not always clear. A boost in volume may help.--Philip Kemp

• Goofy Movie - Double Pack | DVD | (27/07/2009) from £24.99   |  Saving you £-7.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Now you can enjoy all the outrageous fun and laughter of Disney's most loveable character as he stars in his very first full-length motion picture - A Goofy Movie. This rockin' and rollin' modern-day tale finds Goofy and his teenage son Max up to their floppy ears in misadventure as they blaze a cross-country trail to their favourite fishing spot. While goofy struggles to bridge the generation gap. Max faces a dilemma of adolescent proportions: keep a secret from his dad or risk losing the girl of his dreams.

• 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

• The Alan Clark Diaries | DVD | (03/05/2004) from £12.70   |  Saving you £0.29 (2.28%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Television drama based on the diaries of MP Alan Clark an outspoken and flamboyant character who made his impact in the political arena during the 1980's and 1990's. Various scandals affairs and career fluctuations are seen through his eyes painting a vivid and sometimes controversial picture of the workings of government and the Thatcher administration.

• Starsky And Hutch - The Complete Third Season | DVD | (28/02/2005) from £21.58   |  Saving you £13.41 (62.14%)   |  RRP £34.99

  The complete third season of undercover adventures with Starsky and Hutch as they use their iconic Gran Torino to bust criminals following tip-offs from coolest informer on the streets Huggy Bear... Episodes comprise: 1. Starsky & Hutch on Playboy Island (a.k.a. Murder on Voodoo Island) (1) 2. Starsky & Hutch on Playboy Island (a.k.a. Murder on Voodoo Island) (2) 3. Fatal Charm 4. I Love You Rosey Malone 5. Murder Ward 6. Death in a Different Place 7. The Crying Child 8

• Rapid Fire | DVD | (30/06/2003) from £19.99   |  Saving you £-14.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Rapid Fire was the penultimate film starring Brandon Lee before his untimely death on the set of The Crow. It's a standard martial arts thriller in which Lee plays Jake Lo, a young arts student who witnesses a gangland execution and is unwittingly drawn into a pitched standoff between the mafia, a Chinese drug syndicate and Ryan, a downbeat but resolute Chicago cop (Powers Boothe) determined to nail his prey. With a plot that careens through every genre cliché, Lee's smouldering looks and showy fighting skills carry the film. The martial arts sequences (which Lee co-choreographed) are nicely staged, but given the unusual settings--the penultimate fight takes place in a Chinese laundry--could have been even more inventive. The workmanlike direction by Dwight H Little (Marked for Death, Free Willy 2) fails to inject much into the material. In particular, traumatised by seeing his Special Agent father die in the Tiananmen Square massacre, Jake Lo's attraction to both a corrupt FBI agent and Ryan as surrogate father figures could have been given more resonance given the loss of Brandon Lee's own father at an early age. With hundreds of bloodless deaths, cringe-worthy dialogue and a dated power rock soundtrack, Rapid Fire looks and feels like a TV film. And on that level, at least, it's entertaining. On the DVD: The main feature is presented in letterboxed widescreen. Sound and picture quality are very good. Subtitles are provided for ten languages (Czech, Danish, Finnish, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Norweigian, Polish, Portuguese, Swedish) and in English for the hard of hearing. Extra features are limited to chapter selection and a theatrical trailer. --Chris Campion

• CSI: Crime Scene Investigation - Season 3 Part 1 | DVD | (05/04/2004) from £4.62   |  Saving you £35.37 (765.58%)   |  RRP £39.99

  Now firmly established as the top-rated US drama, by its third year CSI: Crime Scene Investigation is a show positively glowing with confidence. Even when individual cases seem either too contrived or too easily resolved, the indefatigable night shift at the Las Vegas PD crime lab always look the part, solving conundrums and discovering microscopic damning evidence while, apparently, never shedding their own loose hair or skin cells all over the supposedly quarantined crime scenes. In reality, Catherine Willows' flowing blonde locks would contaminate any evidence she collected, but in the world of CSI only the bad guys leave body parts behind--the CSIs themselves are so good they're positively pristine. The first 12 episodes of season 3 on this three-disc set present more deliciously bizarre situations for the problem-solving sleuths: cannibalism, snuff movies, dwarfs, death while drag racing, bodies falling from the sky, and various dismemberments all tax the team's acumen. These are all double or multiple-case episodes, though in a characteristic trick of the writing sometimes apparently unrelated murders turn out to be connected (or vice versa, as in "Blood Lust", where a road accident victim is not what he seems, and the death of the driver at the hands of an angry mob is made all the more tragic.) The mix of genuine forensic science with the glossiest Jerry Bruckheimer production values, plus the virtues of a good ensemble cast headed by William Peterson's modern-day Sherlock Holmes, remains as compelling as ever. --Mark Walker

• CSI: Crime Scene Investigation - Season 3 Part 2 | DVD | (05/07/2004) from £7.99   |  Saving you £32.00 (400.50%)   |  RRP £39.99

  The second half of CSI's third season serves up generous amounts of the bizarre and depraved for our voyeuristic viewing pleasure: a man driving with a wooden spike in his head, ultra-violent Robot Wars, decomposing bodies in toxic waste drums and violent death during foam-soaked debauchery all add up to a typical night's work for the Las Vegas crime lab. Standout episodes include the 90-minute special, "Lady Heather's Box", in which Grissom renews his acquaintance with the sultry bordello madam and her world of S&M. But is the delightful dominatrix the murderer? In "Night at the Movies" the plot hinges on a reworking of a Hitchcock classic and in "Play with Fire" an explosion in the lab has disastrous consequences for the team. Personal concerns come to the fore in these 12 episodes more prominently than ever before (a contrast to the show's original single-minded focus on the cases). Here, Sara Sidle's paramedic boyfriend unwittingly reveals a guilty secret when he is involved in a devastating car accident ("Crash & Burn"); Warwick witnesses his boyhood mentor falling apart when the older man's daughter is killed in a drive-by shooting ("Random Acts of Violence"); Catherine Willows' daughter and ex-husband are caught up in more violence and mayhem; and Grissom finally has to admit that his hearing problem can no longer be ignored. A welcome development is the expansion of the CSI unit and the introduction of some new, albeit secondary, team members. Guest stars include Elizabeth Berkely ("Lady Heather's Box") and Bobcat Goldthwait ("Last Laugh"). The show remains unrivalled for slick, fast-paced entertainment. On the DVD: CSI, Series 3 Part 2 is a three-disc set with a handful of minor extra features. It has two frankly rather uninspiring episode commentaries featuring the directors, scriptwriters and other crew. Better are the two small featurettes--"Making It Real" and "The Writer's Room"--that shed more light on the making of the show. --Mark Walker

• Starsky And Hutch - The Complete Fourth Season | DVD | (13/02/2006) from £21.58   |  Saving you £13.41 (38.30%)   |  RRP £34.99

  Dave Starsky (Paul Michael Glaser) and Ken 'Hutch' Hutchinson (David Soul) are plainclothes cops patrolling the streets of an unnamed American city (portrayed by Los Angeles) in a 1973 red Grand Torino. Dark-haired Starsky, who has an unflagging appetite and a quick quip for any situation, and tall, blond, Hutch, who is more soulful and serious, are not just partners on the job, they are also close friends. But their unorthodox methods are endlessly frustrating for their boss, Captain Dobey (Bernie Hamilton). The duo has a powerful ally on the street, however, in Huggy Bear (Antonio Fargas), a shady character who proves Starsky and Hutch with plenty of inside information.

• A Goofy Movie | DVD | (05/02/2001) from £5.98   |  Saving you £10.01 (167.39%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Even as Disney has revelled in the success of its high-end animated features, it occasionally sneaks a lesser effort into cinemas, based on one of the many TV shows with which it dominates daytime TV. This one is based on perennial Disney favourite Goofy's adventures in domesticated bliss. Goofy is now a single dad; when son Max gets blamed for a prank gone wrong at school, Goofy blames himself and decides that, for his vacation, he's going to get away with Max alone. Of course, this is no treat for Max, who has just met the girl of his dreams and harbours no wish to spend the summer touring America with his square dad. The vacation is one disaster after another, though they aren't particularly funny disasters; the culmination involves Goofy's efforts to get Max backstage at a big rock concert. --Marshall Fine

• CSI: Crime Scene Investigation - Season 2 Part 2 | DVD | (06/10/2003) from £16.62   |  Saving you £23.37 (140.61%)   |  RRP £39.99

  Thanks to its focus on more single-case episodes, the second half of CSI's second series is an even more highly concentrated dose of forensic puzzle-solving from the Vegas science sleuths. With the whole team working together on one puzzle crime (or series of crime puzzles), the group dynamic is elaborated and the audience drawn deeper into each investigation. The first three episodes are all single cases: "Identity Crisis" sees the return of Grissom's nemesis, serial killer Paul Millander; in "The Finger", Catherine is caught up in an elaborate kidnap plot; while in "Burden of Proof", a stray body in a "body farm" leads to a difficult case of child abuse. After a brief return to the two-investigation-per-episode format, the team unite once more for one of their most intriguing cases, "Chasing the Bus", in which they must unravel the mystery of a bus crash in the desert. "Stalker" is possibly the show's most terrifying episode to date, with a woman found murdered behind the safely locked doors of her apartment. The season concludes with "Cross Jurisdictions", a rather unsubtle way of introducing the spin-off show CSI: Miami and, finally, "The Hunger Artist", a somewhat strained attempt to comment on our society's obsession with glamour and self-image, which is most notable for Grissom's devastating discovery that his hearing problems are not only congenital, but irreversible. --Mark Walker

• Wrong Turn / Roadkill / The Hole | DVD | (06/09/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Wrong Turn: In a hunt to the death would you survive? When a group of friends get stranded in the back woods of Virginia they find that they are not alone... hunted by cannibalistic mountain men they must try to escape without transport before they become the next meal. Roadkill: It's summer break and college freshman Lewis Thomas (Paul Walker) has decided to embark on a cross-country road trip to pick up the girl of his dreams Venna (Leelee Sobieski). But Lewis' romantic hopes hit a detour when he stops on the way to rescue his older brother Fuller (Steve Zahn) who goads him into playing a practical joke on a lonely trucker over a CB radio. Now that trucker an unseen and terrifying force known only by the CB handle 'Rusty Nail' wants the last laugh; and revenge... The Hole: Liz (Thora Birch) staggers towards her exclusive school bloodied and deeply traumatised. Whilst a police psychologist is trying to figure out what happened to her she reveals this twisted and chilling tale. Three rebellious friends Mike Geoff and Frankie are desperate to avoid a school fieldtrip to Wales. Martin the school nerd helps them hide away in an old underground bunker and his only condition is that his friend Liz joins them. Martin is in love with Liz but she wants Mike the coolest guy in school. The teenagers party uncontrolled and undetected in the soundproofed bunker hidden deep in the woods. For three days it is this wild place; Mike even starts to notice Liz for the first time. But when Martin doesn't return to let them out the party atmosphere drains and their sanctuary quickly becomes their living nightmare.

• CSI: Crime Scene Investigation - Season 1 Part 1 | DVD | (01/07/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £39.99

  The latest in a long line of successful US police dramas, the forensic cop show Crime Scene Investigation varies the formula by focusing on a team of civilian scientists who work the night shift in Las Vegas, poring over crime scenes for fingerprints, blood spatters, DNA-laced mucus and (especially) maggots. Star William Petersen plays a variation of his role from Manhunter, the cool puzzle-solving genius who can rattle off mystifying speeches with aplomb, while his contrasting partner is Marg Helgenberger, cast as a single mother/ex-stripper who is as concerned with the emotional as well as the physical mess left by crime. While most US cop shows (witness NYPD Blue) tend towards soap, neglecting the cases in favour of personal crises, CSI gives its regulars enough life to make them human but is essentially puzzle-based, with individual episodes following two or three cases à la Homicide: Life on the Street. The occasional special focuses on a major job with the team investigating the slaughter of a whole family ("Blood Drops") or a death in first class on a plane over Vegas ("Unfriendly Skies"). A few continuing threads are laid down, with a recurrent villain who gets away, but will inevitably return, but on the whole these shows play pretty well as one-offs. Very high-tech in style, with lots of zooms into microscopic examinations of hair follicles or stomach contents and distinctive visualisations of the different stories told by witnesses and evidence, this is one of the best shows currently airing. On the DVD: CSI's first DVD box set contains the show's first 12 episodes: the pilot followed by "Cool Change", "Crate & Burial", "Pledging Mr Johnson"; "Friends and Lovers", "Who Are You?", "Blood Drops"; "Anonymous", "Unfriendly Skies", "Sex Lies and Larvae"; "The I-15 Murders" and "Fahrenheit 932". In addition to inventive menus, the three-disc set offers character profiles, a trailer, some B-roll on-set footage, a subtitle option, and snippet-like interviews with the cast and creatives. --Kim Newman

• C.S.I. - Series 4 Part 1 | DVD | (09/05/2005) from £7.99   |  Saving you £32.00 (400.50%)   |  RRP £39.99

  C.S.I. is an acclaimed edgy fast-paced drama series about a passionate team of forensic investigators (among them William Petersen and Marg Helgenberger) who work the graveyard shift at the Las Vegas Criminalistics Bureau. Their job - to find the missing pieces at the scene that will help to solve the crime and vindicate those who often cannot speak for themselves - the victims. Between the hidden clues and the buried motives lies the trail to the truth because people lie... but t

• Hotel New Hampshire | DVD | (02/02/2004) from £6.98   |  Saving you £-0.99 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  From the novel by John Irving comes this darkly comic tale of an eccentric New England family. As the father moves them from one place to the next setting up a new hotel each time the assortment of oddball characters seem to become involved in ever more bizarre situations. Frannie becomes obsessed with the boy who attacks her John becomes obsessed with Frannie his sister and both of them fall for a girl who is so insecure she hides in a bear outfit Frank is coming to terms with his homosexuality and the youngest Lilly is convinced she isn't growing. The family pet is a flatulent dog that ends up stuffed and causes more trouble than when it was alive...

• CSI: Crime Scene Investigation - Season 1 Part 2 | DVD | (07/10/2002) from £5.34   |  Saving you £34.65 (648.88%)   |  RRP £39.99

  The second half of CSI's first year takes Grissom and his untiring team down some darker paths than before. Nick finally gives in to his urges and sleeps with the hooker who has a crush on him in "Boom"--with predictably disastrous consequences. Sarah is badly affected by the rape and attempted murder of an unknown woman in "Too Tough to Die"; and even Grissom is shaken when dealing with the sudden death of an infant in "Gentle, Gentle". The final episode of the year, "Strip Strangler", is a real shocker, as the team track a brutal serial killer. Elsewhere, the morbid business of investigating corpses and crime scenes is enlivened with flashes of welcome humour: when a horse is found dead with packets of uncut diamonds concealed in its uterus, Grissom deadpans "This horse is a mule". Throughout, the show remains focused on its scientific remit, only revealing enough of the characters' private lives to provide added piquancy to each investigation: Sarah's complete lack of a life outside her work; Warrick's old gambling habit; Catherine's attachment to her daughter and troubles with ex-husband Eddie; Nick's over-eagerness to please. Grissom, meanwhile, like the Dalai Lama, is the model of inscrutable wisdom. The show itself, like a millennial antidote to a decade of X-Files, is relentlessly empirical: everything that initially seems mysterious--from spontaneous human combustion to an apparent case of vampirism--is always explicable and explained by the team's scientific dedication. On the DVD: CSI, Series 1 Part 2 contains 11 episodes on three discs. Extra features consist of a brief promo featurette, production notes and a series of on-set interviews with the cast. Oddly for such a cutting-edge show, picture is old-fashioned 4:3 with basic Dolby stereo sound. --Mark Walker

• Porterhouse Blue | DVD | (15/07/2002) from £17.99   |  Saving you £-8.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Based on Tom Sharpe’s satirical novel and set in a fictional, all-male Cambridge College, 1987’s Porterhouse Blue is a crusty delight. Ian Richardson stars as the austere moderniser who takes over as master of Porterhouse with a view to bringing in radical changes; David Jason is Skullion, head porter for 45 years and a bulldog-style traditionalist.Porterhouse Blue is a wonderfully grotesque and not inaccurate depiction of an Oxbridge college that has set itself resolutely and decadently against the modern world. Crammed with hoggish, port-swilling dons who are more concerned that the college stay "head of the river" than with academic achievement, the highlight of Porterhouse’s year is the Founder’s Feast, in which students and tutors gorge debauchedly on roast swan stuffed with widgeon, to the horror of the new vegetarian master. Jason’s Skullion looks on approvingly: he’s a stickler for Porterhouse’s inverted values, disapproving, for instance, of student Zipser (John Sessions), the only fellow at the college actually there to work. When the master eventually fires Skullion, the forces of traditionalism gather in sympathy and attempt their revenge.Unfolding over 190 leisurely minutes, Porterhouse Blue is an elegantly turned comedy in which practically every morsel of dialogue is to be savoured for its delicious tang. Jason and Richardson are reliably excellent in what is an overall exhibition of British TV thespianism at its finest. --David Stubbs

• CSI: Crime Scene Investigation - Complete Season 1 | DVD | (08/12/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £58.99

  It's all here. All the cases. All the evidence. All the solutions. All 23 episodes of the Golden Globe nominated first season of CSI. Now available in this special edition DVD set. Episodes comprise: 1. Pilot 2. Cool Change 3. Crate 'n Burial 4. Pledging Mr. Johnson 5. Friends & Lovers 6. Who Are You? 7. Blood Drops 8. Anonymous 9. Unfriendly Skies 10. Sex Lies and Larvae 11. I-15 Murders 12. Fahrenheit 932 13. Boom 14. To Halve And To Hold 15. Table Stakes 16.

• CSI: Crime Scene Investigation - Season 2 Part 1 | DVD | (28/07/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £39.99

  These first 12 episodes from the second series of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation consolidate the show's well-deserved popular appeal, while beginning to explore (gently at first) beneath the slickly professional surface of the investigators themselves. Gradually we learn more about what makes Grissom and his astonishingly gifted forensics team tick, beyond merely that they're workaholics who seem to require no sleep at all. The show's trademark reveals of vital evidence--be it on the autopsy slab or under the microscope--add a fresh spin to what is, at heart, a good old-fashioned whodunit series. William Petersen brings the requisite air of antiquarianism to a character whose meticulous demeanour and love of order consciously inherits the mantle of Sherlock Holmes (whose vast collection of tobacco samples and bottles of chemicals are the ancestors of CSI's high-tech crime lab). This is a series in which scientific evidence-gathering is elevated to the status of a religion. "When a tree falls in the forest, even if no one is around to hear, it does make a sound", affirms Grissom with the calm assurance of a yogi on the path to Enlightenment. And just when CSI starts to seem a little too pat, just when the trail of clues seems too neat, the show always seems able to throw a surprise or two at us: perhaps there has been no crime after all; perhaps the evidence concerns a completely different crime altogether; or perhaps, as in one brave episode concerning brothers implicated in multiple murders, the evidence simply isn't good enough to convict the right man, even when Grissom knows which one really is guilty. As a result, every episode is simply compulsive viewing. On the DVD: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Series 2 Part 1 comes in a three-disc set with several worthwhile extras. There are cast and crew interviews, an on-set tour, a peek at the workshop where all the bloody body parts are created, and, most informative, selected episode commentaries featuring writer-creator Anthony E Zuiker and director and producer Danny Cannnon among others. Picture and Dolby Digital sound are impeccable. --Mark Walker