"Actor: Topher Cox"

• The Lord of the Rings (Animated Version) | DVD | (26/11/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Ralph Bakshi's 1978 animated adaptation of The Lord of the Rings is a bold, colourful, ambitious failure. Severely truncated, this two-hour version tackles only about half the story, climaxing with the battle of Helm's Deep and leaving poor Frodo and Sam still stuck on the borders of Mordor with Gollum. Allegedly, the director ran out of money and was unable to complete the project. As far as the film does go, however, it is a generally successful attempt at rendering Tolkien's landscapes of the imagination. Bakshi's animation uses a blend of conventional drawing and rotoscoped (traced) animated movements from live-action footage. The latter is at least in part a money-saving device, but it does succeed in lending some depth and a sense of otherworldly menace to the Black Riders and hordes of Orcs: Frodo's encounter at the ford of Rivendell, for example, is one of the movie's best scenes thanks to this mixture of animation techniques. Backdrops are detailed and well-conceived, and all the main characters are strongly drawn. Among a good cast, John Hurt (Aragorn) and C3PO himself, Anthony Daniels (Legolas), provide sterling voice characterisation, while Peter Woodthorpe gives what is surely the definitive Gollum (he revived his portrayal a couple of years later for BBC Radio's exhaustive 13-hour dramatisation). The film's other outstanding virtue is avant-garde composer Leonard Rosenman's magnificent score in which chaotic musical fragments gradually coalesce to produce the triumphant march theme that closes the picture. None of which makes up for the incompleteness of the movie, nor the severe abridging of the story actually filmed. Add to that some oddities--such as intermittently referring to Saruman as "Aruman"--and the final verdict must be that this is a brave yet ultimately unsatisfying work, noteworthy as the first attempt at transferring Tolkien to the big screen but one whose virtues are overshadowed by incompleteness. --Mark Walker

• Promising Young Woman | DVD | (02/08/2021) from £4.29   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  From visionary director Emerald Fennell (Killing Eve) comes a delicious new take on revenge. Everyone said Cassie (Carey Mulligan) was a promising young woman...until a mysterious event abruptly derailed her future. But nothing in Cassie's life is what it appears to be: she's wickedly smart, tantalizingly cunning, and she's living a secret double life by night. Now, an unexpected encounter is about to give Cassie a chance to right the wrongs of the past in this thrilling and wildly entertaining story.

• Promising Young Woman | Blu Ray | (02/08/2021) from £11.98   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  From visionary director Emerald Fennell (Killing Eve) comes a delicious new take on revenge. Everyone said Cassie (Carey Mulligan) was a promising young woman...until a mysterious event abruptly derailed her future. But nothing in Cassie's life is what it appears to be: she's wickedly smart, tantalizingly cunning, and she's living a secret double life by night. Now, an unexpected encounter is about to give Cassie a chance to right the wrongs of the past in this thrilling and wildly entertaining story.

• The Brady Bunch Movie | DVD | (07/07/2003) from £19.50   |  Saving you £-3.51 (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Mike and Carol have just one week to come up with $20 000 in back taxes or they'll lose their house to a scheming neighbor. To make matters worse Marcia gets a swollen nose on date night Cindy's addicted to tattling and Jan's hearing a psychotic inner voice crying ""Marcia Marcia Marcia!"" Of course these are The Brady's and when the kids enter a talent contest with a $20 000 purse...well let's just say ""It's A Sunshine Day!""

• The Scarlet Pimpernel - Series 1 | DVD | (21/07/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Suspecting that the Pimpernal is an English aristocrat Chauvelin is sent to England to discover the identity of the mystery man. Once there Chauvelin meets his former lover the beautiful French actress Marguerite who is married to a foppish English aristocrat. Marguerite reluctantly gives Chauvelin information to find the elusive Pimpernel and has unwittingly betrayed him...

• A Very Brady Sequel | DVD | (07/07/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  This second ironic send-up of the old 70s American sitcom is even funnier than the first, The Brady Bunch Movie. Shelley Long and Gary Cole return as the married heads of the merged family known as the Bradys, while Christopher Daniel Barnes and Christine Taylor reprise their roles as eldest stepsiblings Greg and Marcia. As with the first film, the clever premise finds the Brady clan caught in a kind of 1970s time warp, while the rest of the world has moved well into the 90s. Greg is still looking for a "groovy girlfriend", Mr. Brady thinks the idea of a cable that sends 50 channels to one's TV set must be a joke, and Mrs. Brady spends hours at the beauty shop only to look exactly the same as she went in. There's a plot involving an imposter (Tim Matheson) who claims to be Carol's long-lost husband, but the real charge in this comedy comes from the way these pseudo-hip characters deal with sexual taboos (is there any real reason that Greg and Marcia shouldn't get it on?) and the incredulous reactions of other people. --Tom Keogh

• The Scarlet Pimpernel | DVD | (23/09/2002) from £5.98   |  Saving you £0.01 (0.17%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Richard E. Grant stars as the foppish English aristocrat Sir Percy Blakeney who has a secret identity as the daring and swashbuckling Scarlet Pimpernel rescuing noblemen from the clutches of the guillotine during the height of the French Revolution...

• Stargate SG-1: Season 7 (Vol. 36) | DVD | (31/05/2004) from £6.09   |  Saving you £13.90 (69.50%)   |  RRP £19.99

  More adventures with the SG1 crew. Featuring the four thrilling episodes: Heroes (Part 1): The Air Force sends a documentary crew to capture the historical importance of the Stargate programme. Members of the Stargate Command greet the crew with resistance. Tensions rise when an off world emergency forces General Hammond to restrict the crews access to SGC. Heroes (part 2): The documentary crew is given a true look at the heroic nature and bond between the soldiers of SGC when a key member of the Stargate Crew is killed in action. Resurrection: The team are sent to investigate the murder of a group of rogue NID scientists. Whilst piecing together the events of the crime SG-1 discover the scientists may have experimented and combined DNA to create the ultimate evil: a human being that possesses the conscience of a Goa'uld. Inauguration: On his first day in office the newly elected President of the United States is told about the Stargate programme and must be brought up to speed on the past seven years of it's existence.

• Death And The Compass | DVD | (15/02/2005) from £14.91   |  Saving you £-5.93 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  An adaptation of the José Luis Borges short story, Death and the Compass is a baroque murder mystery with a comic touch. Plagued by his involvement in a prior investigation, weary and embittered Police Commissioner Treviranus (played by Cox regular Miguel Sandoval, Straight to Hell, Three Businessmen) attempts to set a peculiar history straight. When his star detective Lonnrot (Peter Boyle), an intuitive, blue-suited Buddhist, is stumped as to the motive behind a series of unsolved psycho-geographical murders with Kabbalistic overtones, Treviranus suspects master criminal Scharlach (Christopher Eccleston), at large in the city. But Lonnrot rejects this thesis and, with the aide of enthusiastic, atheist journalist, Zunz (Chistopher Eccleston), he is lead to believe that the crimes are allied to points on the compass. Drawn fatefully to where he believes a final crime will be committed, Lonnrot and Zunz search for the solution within a mysterious deserted mansion to the South of the city. Shot with a comic book sensibility (like a 1930s movie serial) on richly coloured modernist sets with futurist flourishes, Cox's film looks sumptuous and follows the style of Borges' labryinthine scenario to the letter without losing the plot. The three leads all acquit themselves admirably. Boyle's mystical detective is awkward and aloof in contrast to Sandoval's cunning, career-minded police inspector, while Ecceleston shape-shifts between three roles with alarming ease. On the DVD: An audio commentary by Alex Cox and composer Dan Wool of Pray for Rain (who also scored Cox's Straight to Hell and Three Businessmen) primarily examines the relationship between sound and setting. Paul Miller's "Spiderweb", the featurette advertised on the sleeve and liner notes, does not appear on this disc. --Chris Campion

• A Room To Die For | DVD | (16/01/2017) from £5.00   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Marcus Crowe is a failed writer who struggles with reality. His girlfriend, Jill, is desperate for Marcus to pursue a proper career. Broke, the couple find a perfect room to rent owned by an old couple, Henry and Josephine Baker, who take a keen interest in the young couple's lives. They are shocked when told the old couple have a new born baby. Stuck in the house 24-7 Marcus spirals into paranoia and believes the old couple is spying on them. When he finds the horrifying truth behind the baby, the old couple's real reason for renting the room is revealed.

• Stargate SG-1: Season 7 (Vol. 37) | DVD | (28/06/2004) from £5.98   |  Saving you £14.01 (234.28%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Make it your mission to seek out STARGATE SG-1 Season 7's feature-length finale - a stunning adventure which sees our intrepid space travellers including heart throbs Richard Dean Anderson and Michael Shanks fighting to save Earth from destruction. Volume 37 is the very last release of the superb Season 7 and includes the feature length season climax Lost City which also sets up the story for the all-new Stargate spin-off series Atlantis which is currently being filmed. In Lost City the SG-1 team makes an amazing discovery- information which will lead them to learn the location of the Lost City of the Ancients and use that race's technology to save the galaxy from evil Goa'uld oppression. Just as they are about to remove the vital information however evil forces launch an attack...

• The Lord of the Rings -- Limited Edition Box Set | DVD | (26/11/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Ralph Bakshi's 1978 animated adaptation of The Lord of the Rings is a bold, colourful, ambitious failure. Severely truncated, this two-hour version tackles only about half the story, climaxing with the battle of Helm's Deep and leaving poor Frodo and Sam still stuck on the borders of Mordor with Gollum. Allegedly, the director ran out of money and was unable to complete the project. As far as the film does go, however, it is a generally successful attempt at rendering Tolkien's landscapes of the imagination. Bakshi's animation uses a blend of conventional drawing and rotoscoped (traced) animated movements from live-action footage. The latter is at least in part a money-saving device, but it does succeed in lending some depth and a sense of otherworldly menace to the Black Riders and hordes of Orcs: Frodo's encounter at the ford of Rivendell, for example, is one of the film's best scenes thanks to this mixture of animation techniques. Backdrops are detailed and well conceived, and all the main characters are strongly drawn. Among a good cast, John Hurt (Aragorn) and C3PO himself, Anthony Daniels (Legolas), provide sterling voice characterisation, while Peter Woodthorpe gives what is surely the definitive Gollum (he revived his portrayal a couple of years later for BBC Radio's exhaustive 13-hour dramatisation). The film's other outstanding virtue is avant-garde composer Leonard Rosenman's magnificent score in which chaotic musical fragments gradually coalesce to produce the triumphant march theme that closes the picture. None of which makes up for the incompleteness of the movie, nor the severe abridging of the story actually filmed. Add to that some oddities--such as intermittently referring to Saruman as "Aruman"--and the final verdict must be that this is a brave yet ultimately unsatisfying work, noteworthy as the first attempt at transferring Tolkien to the big screen but one whose virtues are overshadowed by incompleteness. --Mark Walker

• Stargate SG-1: Season 6 (Vol. 30) | DVD | (28/07/2003) from £6.57   |  Saving you £13.42 (204.26%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Disclosure: General Hammond and the Pentagon are forced to reveal the existence of the Stargate to other world governments. Playing off fears that the U.S. military has too much control Senator Kinsey suggests that General Hammond be relieved of his command and that the civilian-run NID oversee the Stargate program. Forsaken: Exploring an off-world planet SG-1 discovers a crashed ship and three human survivors who claim to be under constant attack by hostile aliens. While Carter helps repair the ship's computer she learns that the survivors are hiding a secret and things may not be all they seem. The Changeling: Teal'c mysteriously begins to lose his grip on reality and is haunted by visions of an alternate existence where he is a normal human being. As his paranoia deepens Teal'c must rely on the help and comfort of his old friend Daniel Jackson to determine where his dreams end... and his reality begins. Memento: SG-1 accompanies the X-303 on its maiden voyage into deep space. When the ship suddenly drops out of hyperspace SG-1 is stranded with no means of getting back to Earth. Their only option lies in exploring a nearby planet where a Stargate is thought to be located. But O'Neill must first convince its inhabitants that they come in peace - a debate that could mean the end of SG-1.

• The Mind Snatchers | DVD | (01/10/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Christopher 'Barking Mad' Walken in his first leading role. In this his first leading role Christopher Walken plays a misfit G.I. who finds himself as a guinea pig in a bizarre brain research experiment. A compelling tale of mind-numbing drugs boisterous soldiers and a sinister German scientist. Hailed as One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest meets A Clockwork Orange The Mind Snatchers is adapted from the Broadway play The Happiness Cage and features a very young Walken showing his early talent for spontaneous menace giving a chilling performance as Private James Reese who has his mental stability stolen from him. It seems that Walken never really got it back as he went on to build an illustrious film career playing killers gangsters and plain barking mad psychos. Reese is a constant offender sociopathic bordering on schizophrenic. His wild behaviour means he has inadvertently caught the attention of the army shrinks who have sinister plans for him. A German scientist Dr. Frederick (Joss Ackland) is working on a way to pacify overly aggressive soldiers by developing implants that directly stimulate the pleasure centres of the brain. Reese is 'volunteered' by his superiors for the secret medical experiment and finds himself in a military hospital. There are two other patients only one of whom Sgt. Boford Miles (Ronny Cox) can speak. Reese's attempts to discover the nature of the experiment are unsuccessful - he knows that Miles and the other patient have fatal diseases and that the work has been sanctioned by The Major (Ralph Meeker) but when enlightenment finally comes Reese wishes he had been kept from the truth after all. In 1970 Walken had screentested for the Ryan O'Neil part in Love Story. They didn't think he was right for the part but things could have been so very different if they had. Following a brief appearance in The Anderson Tapes as Sean Connery's sidekick Walken's mesmerisingly dark performance in The Mind Snatchers in 1972 meant that he was never going to play the romantic lead and instead went on to become our favourite screen weirdo. Daring Brilliant - NEW YORK TIMES

• Stargate S.G -1: Season 5 (Vol. 22) | DVD | (24/06/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Stargate SG-1 is the TV spin-off from the 1994 big-screen movie. In the roles of Colonel Jack O'Neill and Dr Daniel Jackson respectively are Richard Dean Anderson and Michael Shanks. They're joined by Captain Samantha Carter (Amanda Tapping) and guilt-stricken former alien baddie Teal'c (Christopher Judge) to form the primary unit SG-1. With a seemingly endless network of Stargates found to exist on planets all across the known universe, their mission is to make first contact with as many friendly races as possible. Episodes on this DVD:"Between Two Fires". If there's one lesson SG-1 has learned, it's to always look a gift horse in the mouth. So when old acquaintances the Tollan offer Earth a brace of advanced weaponry, Jack's the first to raise a questioning hand and wonder if they aren't "Between Two Fires". Some James Bond-style sneaking about soon unravels the mystery. "2001". A lot of behind-the-scenes political machinations occur during "2001". There's another gloriously menacing cameo from Ronny Cox as Senator Kinsey who's desperately trying to dismantle the Stargate programme. All of which makes the A-plot about a new ally somewhat insignificant! But as always with newcomers on the show, the Aschen may not be all they appear to be. "Desperate Measures". Driven to "Desperate Measures", the perpetrator behind the kidnap of Major Carter puts everyone in an ethical quandary. Jack is forced to team up with his old foe Maybourne to find her. As if his cameo isn't insidious and slimy enough, there's another terrifically snake-like appearance by John de Lancie as Colonel Simmons. "Wormhole X-Treme!". Coming soon to network TV is "Wormhole X-Treme!", a science fiction show featuring an intrepid team travelling to other worlds via an intergalactic portal. Sound familiar? It sure does to the SGC, and when Jack and company investigate they discover dear old Willie Garson (Martin Lloyd from Season 4's Point of No Return) has become a whole new form of security problem. This is the show's 100th episode, and was created as a sort of Galaxy Quest parody. Full of crew-member cameos and in-jokes, it's definitely the best fun fans and cast have had amid the more dramatically serious story arc over the year. --Paul Tonks