"Actor: Robin Brown"

• Flubber | DVD | (05/02/2001) from £5.70   |  Saving you £12.29 (215.61%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Wacky Professor Philip Brainard (Robin Williams) has just invented a revolutionary new compound. Its green it flies and it looks like rubber. Its Flubber! And it has the ability to save his financially troubled college as well as his broken engagement to his girlfriend Sara. That is until the gooey substance is stolen right from under the nose of his beloved but jealous robot assistant Weebo! Now the professor's got to get the goo and the girl back where they belong. Mix one

• Vertical Limit | DVD | (06/06/2005) from £6.96   |  Saving you £6.02 (151.64%)   |  RRP £9.99

  A spectacular action movie set on K2, one of the highest and most dangerous mountains in the world. Chris O'Donnell stars as a mountaineer who has less than a day to rescue his sister, trapped on the mountain.

• The Dish | DVD | (12/11/2001) from £10.18   |  Saving you £3.81 (37.43%)   |  RRP £13.99

  This offbeat Australian comedy is based on the real life events of 1969, when a huge satellite dish in the middle of a sheep paddock in Australia was used to pick up the TV signals from the first moon landing!

• The Bee Gees - How Can You Mend a Broken Heart? (DVD) | DVD | (14/12/2020) from £7.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  THE BEE GEES: HOW CAN YOU MEND A BROKEN HEART takes audiences on a unique cinematic journey through the brotherhood of the Bee Gees and their ever-enduring musical accomplishments. The story of Barry, Maurice and Robin is one of phenomenal success, of loss and heartbreak, and a continual spirit of creative reinvention. From the award-winning producers behind The Beatles: Eight Days A Week and Sinatra: All Or Nothing At All, How Can You Mend A Broken Heart features newly shot interviews, rarely seen archive and remastered performances across the Bee Gees' five-decade long career.

• Topaz | DVD | (17/10/2005) from £6.48   |  Saving you £3.51 (54.17%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Alfred Hitchcock hadn't made a spy thriller since the 1930s, so his 1969 adaptation of Leon Uris's bestseller Topaz seemed like a curious choice for the director. But Hitchcock makes Uris's story of the West's investigation into the Soviet Union's dealings with Cuba his own. Frederick Stafford plays a French intelligence agent who works with his American counterpart (John Forsythe) to break up a Soviet spy ring. The film is a bit flat dramatically and visually, and there are sequences that seem to occupy Hitchcock's attention more than others. A minor work all around, with at least two alternative endings shot by Hitchcock. --Tom Keogh

• Little Bear - What Will Little Bear Wear | DVD | (15/03/2004) from £14.96   |  Saving you £-3.98 (N/A%)   |  RRP £7.99

  Come and join in with Little Bear Duck Owl Cat and others in twelve enchanting adventures. Episodes comprise: What Will Little Bear Wear? Hide And Seek Little Bear Goes To The Moon Birthday Soup Polar Bear Gone Fishing Up All Night Little Bear's Bath Father Bear Comes Home A Flu Exploring Fishing With Father Bear.

• What's The Worst That Could Happen? | DVD | (23/09/2002) from £5.25   |  Saving you £12.74 (242.67%)   |  RRP £17.99

  What's the worst that could happen? Probably being forced to watch What's the Worst That Could Happen? from start to finish without a pause button: it's more lame than a three-legged dog. The plot is straightforward enough: two men, each as crooked as the other, come into conflict when petty thief Kevin Caffrey (Martin Lawrence) breaks into the apparently unoccupied beach house of wealthy and unscrupulous businessman Max Fairbanks (Danny DeVito). The house turns out not to be empty: Fairbanks calls the cops, claims that Caffrey has stolen his ring and coolly claims it back in front of his uniformed audience. It's a ring that Caffrey values because it has just been given to him by his new girlfriend Amber (Carmen Ejogo). He's so desperate to get it back that he hounds Fairbanks through the rest of the film, breaking into various Fairbanks properties as he goes. Words like "zany" and "madcap" could be used in the interests of charity, but actually the film falls flat on its face. Lawrence is certainly no Eddie Murphy and the plot would need an injection of major talent to give it a chance. DeVito yet again relies on his stature to provide the laughs. John Leguizamo plays Caffrey's sidekick as best he can but the fake sheikhs-in-tea-towels scene induces more groans than laughs. This is one for diehard fans of the lead actors only. On the DVD: What's the Worst That Could Happen? comes to DVD with a choice of two spoken languages (English or French) and many subtitle options. There's also a generous selection of outtakes, an alternative ending, a music video ("Music" by Erick Sermon) and the original theatrical trailer. It's just a shame that the film itself isn't better. --Harriet Smith

• Vertical Limit --Superbit | DVD | (14/10/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Vertical Limit is the film for all those mountain-climbing aficionados who devoured Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air and similar books. It attempts to translate man-against-the-mountain adventure into compelling, albeit fictional, drama. But while the climbing action is pretty darn breathtaking, somebody forgot to put the brakes on the cliché machine while penning the screenplay. Two siblings (Chris O'Donnell and Robin Tunney) are mentally scarred by a climbing accident in which their father died to save them. She becomes a famous mountain climber; he never climbs again. On one of her climbs an avalanche leaves her stranded and only her determined brother can bring her back, along with a ragtag team of rescuers. It's easy to pick out the rest of the story from here, but Vertical Limit is less about the hackneyed plot than it is about putting its characters into increasingly dangerous situations and hanging them precariously over various mountainsides. It's a credit to director Martin Campbell (GoldenEye) that the impressive action keeps the film moving along past the bordering-on-absurd plot twists. O'Donnell tosses his mane of fluffy hair admirably, but it's still disheartening to see this once-promising actor turning into a pretty-boy stand-in; only Glenn manages to overcome his character's predictability. Mountaineering enthusiasts will recognise a cameo by world-renowned climber Ed Viesturs, who as an actor proves that he's... a very good mountain climber. --Mark Englehart, Amazon.com

• Stormy Weather | DVD | (30/01/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  A musical vehicle for 'Mr Bojangles' Bill Robinson which pays tribute to some of the greatest jazz stars of all time. Hit songs include: 'Stormy Weather' 'Jumping Jive' and 'Ain't Misbehavin'.

• The Stranger | DVD | (07/03/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £3.99

  The Stranger, according to Orson Welles, "is the worst of my films. There is nothing of me in that picture. I did it to prove that I could put out a movie as well as anyone else." True, set beside Citizen Kane, Touch of Evil, or even The Trial, The Stranger is as close to production-line stuff as the great Orson ever came. But even on autopilot Welles still leaves most filmmakers standing. The shadow of the Second World War hangs heavy over the plot. A war crimes investigator, played by Edward G Robinson, tracks down a senior Nazi, Franz Kindler, to a sleepy New England town where he's living in concealment as a respected college professor. The script, credited to Anthony Veiller but with uncredited input from Welles and John Huston, is riddled with implausibilities: we're asked to believe, for a start, that there'd be no extant photos of a top Nazi leader. The casting's badly skewed, too. Welles wanted Agnes Moorehead as the investigator and Robinson as Kindler, but his producer, Sam Spiegel, wouldn't wear it. So Welles himself plays the supposedly cautious and self-effacing fugitive--and if there was one thing Welles could never play, it was unobtrusive. What's more, Spiegel chopped out most of the two opening reels set in South America, in Welles' view, "the best stuff in the picture". Still, the film's far from a write-off. Welles' eye for stunning visuals rarely deserted him and, aided by Russell Metty's skewed, shadowy photography, The Stranger builds to a doomy grand guignol climax in a clock tower that Hitchcock must surely have recalled when he made Vertigo. And Robinson, dogged in pursuit, is as quietly excellent as ever. On the DVD: not much in the way of extras, except a waffly full-length commentary from Russell Cawthorne that tells us about the history of clock-making and where Edward G was buried, but precious little about the making of the film. Print and sound are acceptable, but though remastering is claimed, there's little evidence of it. --Philip Kemp

• Two Can Play That Game | DVD | (03/03/2003) from £4.97   |  Saving you £15.02 (302.21%)   |  RRP £19.99

  When it comes to matters of the heart, keeping her man happy and committed is all in a day's work for Shante Smith.

• Shower Of Blood | DVD | (20/09/2004) from £21.58   |  Saving you £-14.59 (N/A%)   |  RRP £6.99

  Five sexy college friends venture out on a road trip. A detour to Lisa's uncle's house leads them into the Galloway Forest which is known for mysterious disappearances and rumours of cannibalism. Uncle Marty does not appear to be home as Lisa finds a hidden key which unlocks the door to a night full of terror. As Lisa experiences bizarre visions she wonders about her darkest family secrets. The mysterious Uncle Marty has a taste for beauty and blood. Nothing is as it seems as th

• Flubber | DVD | (05/02/2001) from £17.46   |  Saving you £2.53 (14.49%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Disney couldn't resist the temptation to remake 1961's popular comedy The Absent Minded Professor, so they cast Robin Williams as Professor Philip Brainard (a role vaguely related to the character originated by Fred MacMurray), and the result is a comedy that, frankly, doesn't fully deserve its modest success. It's admittedly clever to a point, and certainly the digitally flubberised special effects provide the kind of movie magic that's entertaining for children and adults alike. The professor can't even remember his own wedding day (much to the chagrin of his fiancée, played by Marcia Gay Harden), and now his academic rival (Christopher McDonald) is trying to steal his latest and purely accidental invention-flying rubber, or ... flubber. The green goo magnifies energy and can be used as an amazing source of power, but in the hands of screenwriter John Hughes it becomes just another excuse to recycle a lot of Home Alone-style slapstick humour involving a pair of bumbling would-be flubber thieves. There's also a floating robot named Weebo and some catchy music by Danny Elfman to accompany dancing globs of flubber, but the story's too thin to add up to anything special. Lightweight fun, but, given the title, it lacks a certain bounce. Of course, that didn't stop Disney's marketing wizards from turning it into a home video hit. --Jeff Shannon

• Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael | DVD | (17/09/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £6.99

  In 1990, Welcome Home Roxy Carmichael showed Winona Ryder as cinema's top teenage role model. Her edge was a delinquency-equals-sympathy angle that held true throughout Beetlejuice, Mermaids, Heathers and Edward Scissorhands. Here as Dinky Bossetti she's chasing the ghosts of a past no one can explain. She's adopted; her town of Clyde, Ohio is mysteriously stuck in the 1950s; but weirder still is everyone's fixation with the imminent return of once-famous homecoming girl Roxy Carmichael. Dinky's school peers conform to the John Hughes 80s look and mindset, but it's the retro adult population that really winds her up. Jeff Daniels ought to be a perfectly conditioned suburbanite, but can't get over having once been married to Roxy. Imparting the secret that they'd had a child and given it away, Dinky's own confusions and obsessions suddenly make sense. The tangle of B-plots are given purpose at the same time she is. Her silent admirer (Thomas Wilson Brown) is able to approach her at last, and her school guidance counsellor becomes the friend she's never had. Ultimately the story's about the notion that no teenager ever feels like they fit in. Of course the real problem facing Ryder, Dinky and any viewer is that all teens grow up. What then? On the DVD: This is a bare-bones package with a simple two-channel stereo and 16:9 anamorphic ratio transfer. That said, it looks and sounds just fine. There's only one trailer, but someone's tried with the diner-style menu at least. --Paul Tonks

• The World According To Garp | DVD | (21/11/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £18.99

  This is the splendid film adaptation of John Irving's bestseller. Robin Williams plays the role of T.S. Garp a complex and unpredictabale young man at odds with a violent and cruel world... The World According To Garp earned two Oscar nominations for Best Supporting Actor: one for John Lithgow; and the other for Glenn Close as Best Supporting Actress.

• The Stranger | DVD | (18/03/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £4.99

  The Stranger, according to Orson Welles, "is the worst of my films. There is nothing of me in that picture. I did it to prove that I could put out a movie as well as anyone else." True, set beside Citizen Kane, Touch of Evil, or even The Trial, The Stranger is as close to production-line stuff as the great Orson ever came. But even on autopilot Welles still leaves most filmmakers standing. The shadow of the Second World War hangs heavy over the plot. A war crimes investigator, played by Edward G Robinson, tracks down a senior Nazi, Franz Kindler, to a sleepy New England town where he's living in concealment as a respected college professor. The script, credited to Anthony Veiller but with uncredited input from Welles and John Huston, is riddled with implausibilities: we're asked to believe, for a start, that there'd be no extant photos of a top Nazi leader. The casting's badly skewed, too. Welles wanted Agnes Moorehead as the investigator and Robinson as Kindler, but his producer, Sam Spiegel, wouldn't wear it. So Welles himself plays the supposedly cautious and self-effacing fugitive--and if there was one thing Welles could never play, it was unobtrusive. What's more, Spiegel chopped out most of the two opening reels set in South America, in Welles' view, "the best stuff in the picture". Still, the film's far from a write-off. Welles' eye for stunning visuals rarely deserted him and, aided by Russell Metty's skewed, shadowy photography, The Stranger builds to a doomy grand guignol climax in a clock tower that Hitchcock must surely have recalled when he made Vertigo. And Robinson, dogged in pursuit, is as quietly excellent as ever. On the DVD: not much in the way of extras, except a waffly full-length commentary from Russell Cawthorne that tells us about the history of clock-making and where Edward G was buried, but precious little about the making of the film. Print and sound are acceptable, but though remastering is claimed, there's little evidence of it. --Philip Kemp

• Edward G. Robinson - Scarlet Street / The Stranger | DVD | (18/03/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  In a way, Scarlet Street is a remake. It's taken from a French novel, La Chienne (literally, "The Bitch") that was first filmed by Jean Renoir in 1931. Renoir brought to the sordid tale all the colour and vitality of Montmartre; Fritz Lang's version shows us a far harsher and bleaker world. The film replays the triangle set-up from Lang's previous picture, The Woman in the Window, with the same three actors. Once again, Edward G Robinson plays a respectable middle-aged citizen snared by the charms of Joan Bennett's streetwalker, with Dan Duryea as her low-life pimp. The plot closes around the three of them like a steel trap. This is Lang at his most dispassionate. Scarlet Street is a tour de force of noir filmmaking, brilliant but ice-cold. The Stranger, according to Orson Welles, "is the worst of my films. There is nothing of me in that picture". But even on autopilot Welles still leaves most filmmakers standing. A war crimes investigator, played by Edward G Robinson, tracks down a senior Nazi to a sleepy New England town where he's living in concealment as a respected college professor. Welles wanted Agnes Moorehead as the investigator and Robinson as the Nazi Franz Kindler, but his producer, Sam Spiegel, wouldn't wear it. So Welles himself plays the supposedly cautious and self-effacing fugitive--and if there was one thing Welles could never play, it was unobtrusive. Still, the film's far from a write-off. Welles' eye for stunning visuals rarely deserted him and, aided by Russell Metty's skewed, shadowy photography, The Stranger builds to a doomy grand guignol climax in a clocktower that Hitchcock must surely have recalled when he made Vertigo. And Robinson, dogged in pursuit, is as quietly excellent as ever. On the DVD: sparse pickings. Both films have a full-length commentary by Russell Cawthorne which adds the occasional insight, but is repetitive and not always reliable. The box claims both print have been "fully restored and digitally remastered", but you'd never guess. --Philip Kemp

• The Stranger | DVD | (18/10/1999) from £4.99   |  Saving you £8.00 (160.32%)   |  RRP £12.99

  The legendary story that hovers over Orson Welles' The Stranger is that he wanted Agnes Moorehead to star as the dogged Nazi hunter who trails a war criminal to a sleepy New England town. The part went to Edward G. Robinson, who is marvellous, but it points out how many compromises Welles made on the film in an attempt to show Hollywood he could make a film on time, on budget and on their own terms. He accomplished all three, turning out a stylish if unambitious film noir thriller, his only Hollywood film to turn a profit on its original release. Welles stars as unreformed fascist Franz Kindler, hiding as a schoolteacher in a New England prep school for boys and newly married to the headmaster's lovely if naive daughter (Loretta Young). Welles, the director, is in fine form for the opening sequences, casting a moody tension as agents shadow a twitchy low-level Nazi official skulking through South American ports and building up to dramatic crescendo as Kindler murders this little man, the lovely woods becoming a maelstrom of swirling leaves that expose the body he furiously tries to bury. The rest of the film is a well designed but conventional cat-and-mouse game featuring an eye-rolling performance by Welles and a thrilling conclusion played out in the dark clock tower that looms over the little village. --Sean Axmaker

• The Stranger | DVD | (17/11/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £2.99

  The Stranger, according to Orson Welles, "is the worst of my films. There is nothing of me in that picture. I did it to prove that I could put out a movie as well as anyone else." True, set beside Citizen Kane, Touch of Evil, or even The Trial, The Stranger is as close to production-line stuff as the great Orson ever came. But even on autopilot Welles still leaves most filmmakers standing. The shadow of the Second World War hangs heavy over the plot. A war crimes investigator, played by Edward G Robinson, tracks down a senior Nazi, Franz Kindler, to a sleepy New England town where he's living in concealment as a respected college professor. The script, credited to Anthony Veiller but with uncredited input from Welles and John Huston, is riddled with implausibilities: we're asked to believe, for a start, that there'd be no extant photos of a top Nazi leader. The casting's badly skewed, too. Welles wanted Agnes Moorehead as the investigator and Robinson as Kindler, but his producer, Sam Spiegel, wouldn't wear it. So Welles himself plays the supposedly cautious and self-effacing fugitive--and if there was one thing Welles could never play, it was unobtrusive. What's more, Spiegel chopped out most of the two opening reels set in South America, in Welles' view, "the best stuff in the picture". Still, the film's far from a write-off. Welles' eye for stunning visuals rarely deserted him and, aided by Russell Metty's skewed, shadowy photography, The Stranger builds to a doomy grand guignol climax in a clock tower that Hitchcock must surely have recalled when he made Vertigo. And Robinson, dogged in pursuit, is as quietly excellent as ever. On the DVD: not much in the way of extras, except a waffly full-length commentary from Russell Cawthorne that tells us about the history of clock-making and where Edward G was buried, but precious little about the making of the film. Print and sound are acceptable, but though remastering is claimed, there's little evidence of it. --Philip Kemp

• The Stranger | DVD | (02/02/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  The Stranger, according to Orson Welles, "is the worst of my films. There is nothing of me in that picture. I did it to prove that I could put out a movie as well as anyone else." True, set beside Citizen Kane, Touch of Evil, or even The Trial, The Stranger is as close to production-line stuff as the great Orson ever came. But even on autopilot Welles still leaves most filmmakers standing. The shadow of the Second World War hangs heavy over the plot. A war crimes investigator, played by Edward G Robinson, tracks down a senior Nazi, Franz Kindler, to a sleepy New England town where he's living in concealment as a respected college professor. The script, credited to Anthony Veiller but with uncredited input from Welles and John Huston, is riddled with implausibilities: we're asked to believe, for a start, that there'd be no extant photos of a top Nazi leader. The casting's badly skewed, too. Welles wanted Agnes Moorehead as the investigator and Robinson as Kindler, but his producer, Sam Spiegel, wouldn't wear it. So Welles himself plays the supposedly cautious and self-effacing fugitive--and if there was one thing Welles could never play, it was unobtrusive. What's more, Spiegel chopped out most of the two opening reels set in South America, in Welles' view, "the best stuff in the picture". Still, the film's far from a write-off. Welles' eye for stunning visuals rarely deserted him and, aided by Russell Metty's skewed, shadowy photography, The Stranger builds to a doomy grand guignol climax in a clock tower that Hitchcock must surely have recalled when he made Vertigo. And Robinson, dogged in pursuit, is as quietly excellent as ever. On the DVD: not much in the way of extras, except a waffly full-length commentary from Russell Cawthorne that tells us about the history of clock-making and where Edward G was buried, but precious little about the making of the film. Print and sound are acceptable, but though remastering is claimed, there's little evidence of it. --Philip Kemp