"Actor: Richard O"

• Curb Your Enthusiasm - Series 4 | DVD | (26/09/2005) from £10.87   |  Saving you £15.12 (139.10%)   |  RRP £25.99

  Larry David has it all - money security famous friends a nurturing wife a devoted agent a new oceanfront home. So why is he still so intent on making a mess out of his life? Just because you've made it doesn't mean you've got it made. Curb Your Enthusiasm folks - it's the HBO comedy series starring Larry David...as Larry David! Episodes comprise: 1. Mel's Offer 2. Ben's Birthday Party 3. The Blind Date 4. The Weatherman 5. The 5 Wood 6. The Car Pool Lane 7. The S

• The Barbra Streisand Collection -- What's Up Doc / Up The Sandbox / Nuts / The Main Event | DVD | (25/08/2003) from £14.00   |  Saving you £21.99 (157.07%)   |  RRP £35.99

  The Barbra Streisand Collection consists of four movies: What's Up, Doc? (1972), Up the Sandbox (1972), The Main Event (1979) and Nuts (1987) In What's Up, Doc?, director Peter Bogdanovich tipped his hat to the classic screwball comedies of the 1930s, and especially the most glorious of them all, Howard Hawks' Bringing Up Baby. Barbra Streisand plays a charming flake who distracts a self-absorbed musicologist (Ryan O'Neal). He's engaged to be married, but soon Streisand's character has him chasing after stolen jewellery and getting into one madcap fix after another. --Tom Keogh Up the Sandbox springs from the early 1970s, when Streisand's career was in full stride. She stars as Margaret, a stay-at-home mum in the middle of New York who's feeling the strain of her narrow life. Frustrated by her self-involved husband and the mentally unstimulating tasks of motherhood, she escapes into fantasies--such as being chatted up by a cross-gendered Fidel Castro, bombing the Statue of Liberty with black militants and having a furious catfight with her overbearing mother. The movie's strength lies in these fantasies' slippery nature; some are over the top, but others are so subtle you're not always sure where they start and stop, making the portrait of Margaret's psyche intriguingly complex. --Bret Fetzer The Main Event is a comedic misfire from the mid-1970s, a futile attempt to bottle the same lightning that struck when Streisand teamed with Ryan O'Neal in What's Up, Doc? Here, Streisand plays a spoiled rich girl, the head of a bankrupt cosmetics company, who discovers she's lost everything--except her ownership of the contract of a washed-up boxer (O'Neal). So she tries to rally this dispirited pug into a comeback that will earn the kinds of purses that will put her back on her feet. Naturally, in the process, romantic sparks are kindled. But despite a loud and energetic performance by Streisand, the comedy doesn't add up to much. --Marshall Fine In Nuts Streisand is a mad high-priced "escort" accused of murder, but whether she's mad as hell or mad as a hatter is the question in this courtroom drama, adapted from the play by Tom Topor. While her doting, wilfully uncomprehending mother (Maureen Stapleton) and stepdad with a secret (Karl Malden) try to have her judged incompetent and sent to an asylum, she fights for her day in court with the help of a hapless legal aid attorney (a refreshingly understated Richard Dreyfuss). James Whitmore presides over the hearing with a compassion and sense of justice that gives one faith in the system, and la Streisand (who developed and produced the project) sinks her teeth into the tempestuous role like a starving actress. The plot holds few surprises, but the drama lies in the characters; veteran director Martin Ritt brings out the best in a top-flight cast. --Sean Axmaker

• Gift Horse (Vintage Classics) | DVD | (04/04/2022) from £10.35   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• West Side Story | Blu Ray | (17/10/2011) from £7.99   |  Saving you £8.00 (100.13%)   |  RRP £15.99

  The winner of 10 Academy Awards, this 1961 musical by choreographer Jerome Robbins and director Robert Wise (The Sound of Music) remains irresistible. Based on a smash Broadway play updating Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet to the 1950s era of juvenile delinquency, West Side Story stars Natalie Wood and Richard Beymer as the star-crossed lovers from different neighbourhoods--and ethnicities. The film's real selling points, however, are the highly charged and inventive song-and-dance numbers, the passionate ballads, the moody sets, colourful support from Rita Moreno, and the sheer accomplishment of Hollywood talent and technology producing a film so stirring. Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim wrote the score. --Tom Keogh

• Desert Fox, The / The Desert Rats | DVD | (02/06/2003) from £5.95   |  Saving you £9.04 (151.93%)   |  RRP £14.99

  James Mason plays Field Marshal Erwin Rommel in both The Desert Fox (1951) and The Desert Rats (1953), a WWII double-bill on DVD. The Desert Fox, released six years after the end of the War, is a solemnly respectful tribute to Erwin Rommel, Germany's most celebrated military genius. James Mason's portrayal of this gallant warrior became a highlight of his career iconography. The film itself is oddly disjointed, though: a pre-credit commando raid to liquidate Rommel is followed by a flashback to the field-marshal's lightning successes commanding the Afrika Korps--a compressed account via documentary footage and copious narration (spoken by Michael Rennie, who also dubs Desmond Young, the Rommel biographer and one-time British POW appearing briefly as himself). The dramatic core is Rommel's growing disenchantment with Hitler (Luther Adler), his involvement in the plot to assassinate the Fuhrer, and his subsequent martyrdom. The Desert Rats stars Richard Burton in only his second Hollywood role (between Oscar-nominated turns in My Cousin Rachel and The Robe), as a Scottish commando put in charge of a battalion of the 9th Australian Division defending Tobruk. The Aussies don't like him, and with a year of grim North African duty already under his belt, he's not too crazy about his new responsibilities either. The outfit is charged with staving off the battering assaults of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel for two months, to give the British Army time to regroup in Cairo and prepare for a counterattack. In the end, the "desert rats" play hell with the Desert Fox for 242 days, during which time they and their commander develop some mutual respect. This is a solid, workmanlike World War II picture that, having been made in 1953 rather than 1943, can acknowledge a degree of eccentric humanity and soldierly professionalism in the enemy. Featured guest star James Mason reprises his Rommel from The Desert Fox, playing all his scenes in German except for a scene of ironical repartee with Burton. Another distinguished Brit, Robert Newton, gets costar billing as a boozy, self-confessed coward who used to be Burton's schoolmaster. However, a goodly number of Australians--including Chips Rafferty and Charles "Bud" Tingwell rate at least as much screen time. Robert Wise directed, with a trimness that reminds us he started out as an editor, and the pungent black-and-white cinematography is by Lucien Ballard. --Richard T. Jameson

• Mrs Miniver | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £6.62   |  Saving you £7.37 (111.33%)   |  RRP £13.99

  A wartime drama which depicts the lives of ordinary English housewives. Based on a book by Jan Struther.

• Porridge | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £5.85   |  Saving you £4.14 (70.77%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Times are hard for habitual guest of Her Majesty Norman Stanley Fletcher (Ronnie Barker). The new prison officer Beale makes Mackay (Fulton Mackay) look soft and what's more an escape plan is hatching from the cell of prison godfather Grouty and Fletcher wants no part of it. The breakout is set for the day of a morale-raising football match between a ""celebrity"" football team and the inmates of Slade. Everything is going to plan until Godber (Richard Beckinsale) is injured on th

• Earthquake | Blu Ray | (27/01/2020) from £11.89   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Various interconnected people struggle to survive when an earthquake of unimaginable magnitude hits Los Angeles, California.

• The Ship That Died of Shame (Vintage Classics) | Blu Ray | (11/09/2023) from £10.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Based on a short story by Nicholas Monsarrat (author of The Cruel Sea) and directed by Basil Dearden (The Blue Lamp, The League Of Gentleman) The Ship That Died Of Shame takes place during the bleak aftermath of the Second World War a crew of navy veterans, played by screen legend Richard Attenborough, George Baker (The Dam Busters) and Bill Owen (Last Of The Summer Wine), are forced into smuggling black market goods across the English Channel to make ends meet. But it isn't long before wine and cigarettes are replaced by more lucrative cargo. A crisis of conscience lies upon the horizon when one of the crew refuses to turn a blind eye after discovering that the mysterious stranger, they've been asked to smuggle into England hides a dark and harrowing secret. Product Features Interview with Author/Professor of Film Neil Sinyard Behind the scenes stills gallery

• Villain | DVD | (03/09/2007) from £9.95   |  Saving you £3.04 (30.55%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Murderous sadistic London gang leader Vic Dakin a mother-obsessed homosexual modeled on real-life gangster Ronnie Kray is worried about potential stool pigeons that may bring down his criminal empire. The brutal Vic cuts the throat of one bloke who has been a little too loose-lipped afraid that his gossiping may turn into a grand operatic performance for the coppers. Vic who enjoys playing at rough trade with his sidekick Wolfe plans a payroll robbery and directs the blackmail

• Gormenghast | DVD | (05/06/2000) from £6.99   |  Saving you £-0.99 (N/A%)   |  RRP £6.00

  The BBC's lavish, glowingly designed adapation of Mervyn Peake's eccentrically brilliant novels Titus Groan and Gormenghast is a triumph of casting. Ian Richardson's Lear-like depiction of the mad earl of a remote, vast, ritual-obsessed building is matched by the brutal pragmatism of Celia Imrie as his wife, the synchronised madness of Zoe Wanamaker and Lynsey Baxter as his twin sisters and the duplicitous charm of Jonathan Rhys-Meyer as Steerpike, the kitchen-boy determined to take over no matter how many deaths it costs. John Sessions is surprisingly touching as Prunesquallor, the family doctor who realises almost too late what Steerpike intends. It is always tricky to film a book dear to the hearts of its admirers: Wilson and his design team achieve a look rather more pre-Raphaelite than Peake's own illustrations, shabby velvets, garish sunlight and dank stone passages. The score by Richard Rodney Bennett is full of attractive surprises--fanfares and waltzes and apotheoses--and John Tavener's choral additions are plausibly parts of the immemorial ritual of Gormenghast. On the DVD: The double DVD comes with scene selection, an informative half-hour documentary on the making of the serial and a slide gallery of costume designs, characters and their dooms. --Roz Kaveney

• The Nutty Professor 2 - The Klumps | DVD | (03/11/2008) from £5.33   |  Saving you £10.66 (200.00%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Eddie Murphy takes on a plethora of roles in this hit comedy, as Professor Sherman Klump finds his life once again being taken over by his suave alter ego Buddy Love.

• The Flintstones | DVD | (13/12/1999) from £9.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  This pleasant, lightweight live-action version of the popular cartoon is about as good as you might expect. The kids should love the broad humour and the Henson Studios creatures but like The Addams Family movies, the look and the cast are the best things going for it. Considering that the nature of the material is so sparse, the thinly plotted story works better than other TV-to-movie fare. Our fabulous Stone Age man is promoted per a calculated move by a scheming exec (Kyle MacLachlan, whose casting ensured at least one cute guy). As a comedy, the humour is one-note and flat for anyone older than 12. The special-effects creatures look wondrous, though not as seamless as in other movies, such as in Roger Rabbit. The most joyous moments come during the full-scale re-creations of the famous credits. The Flintstones provided a major launching pad for Halle Berry as a vamping secretary. --Doug Thomas

• Top Gear - The Great Challenges 4 | DVD | (07/06/2010) from £5.93   |  Saving you £10.06 (169.65%)   |  RRP £15.99

  The challenges are considered by the fans to be the best bit of Top Gear. The Challenges 4 will contain some of the highlights from Series 13 and 14 which were broadcast in 2009.

• What About Bob? | DVD | (29/06/2004) from £6.99   |  Saving you £8.00 (114.45%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Bob a troubled but loveable therapy patient who fears everything calls upon a noted psychiatrist who helps him overcome his fears. When the doctor takes a quiet family holiday in New Hampshire Bob terrified of being alone keeps popping up unexpectedly at the family's retreat. That's right about when the fun begins....

• Dark Angel: Complete Season 1 | DVD | (24/02/2003) from £19.99   |  Saving you £20.00 (100.05%)   |  RRP £39.99

  One of TV's more interesting tough-girl action shows, Dark Angel is a distinctive blend of the personal, the adventurous and the politically aware. Cocreators James Cameron (yes, that James Cameron) and Charles Eglee present a complex scenario of biological super-science and social collapse in which their gene-manipulated heroine and hacker/journalist hero can genuinely make a difference. In this first series they also provide an adversary who is a lot more than just a conventional villain. Jessica Alba is impressive as Max, bred and trained as a super-soldier but reclaiming her individual humanity; Michael Weatherly is scruffily attractive as Eyes Only, who sits semi-paralysed in his eyrie above Seattle uncovering crime, corruption and other skulduggeries and sending the woman whom he hopelessly loves out on deadly errands. Jon Savage has real authority as Lydeker, a man who has stretched his conscience to breaking point, but is not personally corrupt. Some of the best episodes here--"Prodigy" for example--are ones in which Lydeker and Max are forced into temporary alliance. Early on the relationship between Max and the other workers at Jam Pony--the courier firm that provides her with a cover identity--is a little forced, but later on the two parts of Max's life are more successfully integrated: "Shorties in Love", for example, is a genuinely touching tale about Diamond, the doomed criminal ex-lover of Max's lesbian roommate. Dark Angel was never a perfect show, but at its occasional best it manages to be simultaneously funny and dramatic. On the DVD: Dark Angel, Series 1's Region 2 DVD is ungenerous with special features, providing only short interviews with James Cameron and Charles Eglee and with the stars, and giving us a preview of the Dark Angel computer game. The episodes are presented in widescreen and have excellent Dolby Digital sound which gives vivid presence to both the dialogue and the hard-driving contemporary rock score that is part of the show's style. --Roz Kaveney

• Where Eagles Dare | Blu Ray | (17/04/2019) from £8.75   |  Saving you £9.24 (105.60%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Scorned by reviewers when it came out, Where Eagles Dare has acquired a cult following over the years for its unashamed and highly concentrated dose of commando death-dealing to legions of Nazi machine-gun fodder. In 1968 Clint Eastwood was just getting used to the notion that he might be a world-class movie star; Richard Burton, whose image had been shaped equally by classical theatre and his headline-making romance with Elizabeth Taylor, was eager to try his hand at the action genre. Author Alistair MacLean's novel The Guns of Navarone had inspired the film that started the 1960s vogue for World War II military capers, so he was prevailed upon to write the screenplay (his first). The central location, an impregnable Alpine stronghold locked in ice and snow, is surpassing cool, but the plot and action are ultra-mechanical, and the switcheroo gamesmanship of just who is the undercover double (triple?) agent on the mission becomes aggressively silly. --Richard T Jameson

• Who Dares Wins (Uncut Special Edition) Blu-Ray | Blu Ray | (14/06/2021) from £12.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Streets Of Fire | DVD | (03/08/2009) from £31.89   |  Saving you £-21.90 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  The Bombers motorcycle gang headed by the vicious Raven Shaddock kidnap diva Ellen Aim. Her hope for rescue lies with unlikely heroes: soldier of fortune Tom Cody and his sidekick the two-fisted beer-guzzling McCoy. Joined by Ellen's manager Billy Fish the trio plunge headfirst into a world of rain-splattered streets hot cars and deadly assassins.

• The Sleeping Dictionary | DVD | (29/03/2004) from £9.99   |  Saving you £10.00 (100.10%)   |  RRP £19.99

  A young English colonial and the Sarawak tribeswoman he takes as his tutor and his concubine fall in love. They are forced to separate but when the young man returns with his new bride the passions between the two reignite...