"Actor: Ralph Tabakin"

• Homicide - Series 1 | DVD | (26/02/2007) from £16.98   |  Saving you £-1.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £13.99

  One of the most critically acclaimed shows in TV history Homicide: Life On The Street re-invigorated a tired genre by focusing on the grueling work of solving murders instead of an endless succession of bloody crimes and car chases. Inspired by David Simon's Edgar Award-winning account of Baltimore homicide detectives and brought to television by director Barry Levinson (Rain Man Oz) and writer Paul Attanasio (Gideon's Crossing) Homicide boasted a powerhouse cast featuring Ned Beatty (Deliverance) Yaphet Kotto (Alien) Richard Belzer (Law & Order: SVU) and breakout star Andre Braugher (Frequency). The critical response was overwhelming: Homicide won multiple Emmy and Writer's Guild of America Awards and is one of just two shows in history to claim three Peabody Awards. Now Homicide debuts on DVD with this collector's set featuring all 13 episodes from the first two seasons. Episodes Comprise: 1. Gone For Goode 2. A Ghost Of a Chance 3. Son Of A Gun 4. A Shot In The Dark 5. Three Men And Adena 6. Dog And Pony Show 7. And The Rockets' Dead Glare 8. Smoke Gets In Your Eyes 9. The NIght Of The Living Dead

• Sphere | DVD | (23/10/1998) from £2.87   |  Saving you £12.38 (768.94%)   |  RRP £13.99

  From yet another derivative science fiction novel by Michael Crichton comes Sphere, an equally derivative and flaccid movie, in which three top Hollywood stars struggle to squeeze tension and excitement out of material that doesn't match their talents. You're supposed to find awe and mystery in Crichton's story about a team of scientists and scholars who discover a 300-year-old alien spacecraft deep on the ocean floor, but mostly you feel that this is all much ado about nothing. The exploration team consists of a psychologist (Dustin Hoffman), mathematician (Samuel L Jackson), biochemist (Sharon Stone), and an astrophysicist (Live Schreiber), and when they enter the alien ship they discover a mysterious sphere inside. What they don't know is that the sphere has the power to manipulate their thoughts and perceptions, and before long the scientists' undersea habitat is a veritable haunted house of frightening visions and creeping paranoia. Who can be trusted? What is the sphere's purpose, and why is it on the ocean floor? Sphere makes some attempt to answer these questions, but the film is a mess, and it leads to one of the most anticlimactic endings of any science fiction film ever made. There are moments of high intensity and psychological suspense, and the stellar cast works hard to boost the talky screenplay. But it's clear that this was a hurried production (Hoffman and director Barry Levinson made Wag the Dog during an extended production delay), and as a result Sphere looks and feels like a film that wasn't quite ready for the cameras. Though it's by no means a waste of time, it's undeniably disappointing. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com