"Actor: Van"

• Nosferatu (1922) - Two-disc set | DVD | (22/01/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Nosferatu ... the name alone can chill the blood!". F.W. Murnau's Nosferatu, released in 1922, was the first (albeit unofficial) screen adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula. Nearly 80 years on, it remains among the most potent and disturbing horror films ever made. The sight of Max Schreck's hollow-eyed, cadaverous vampire rising creakily from his coffin still has the ability to chill the blood. Nor has the film dated. Murnau's elision of sex and disease lends it a surprisingly contemporary resonance. The director and his screenwriter Henrik Gaalen are true to the source material, but where most subsequent screen Draculas (whether Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee, Frank Langella or Gary Oldman) were portrayed as cultured and aristocratic, Nosferatu is verminous and evil. (Whenever he appears, rats follow in his wake.)The film's full title--Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (Nosferatu, A Symphony of Horror)--reveals something of Murnau's intentions. Supremely stylised, it differs from Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1919) or Ernst Lubitsch's films of the period in that it was not shot entirely in the studio. Murnau went out on location in his native Westphalia. As a counterpoint to the nightmarish world inhabited by Nosferatu, he used imagery of hills, clouds, trees and mountains (it is, after all, sunlight that destroys the vampire). It's not hard to spot the similarity between the gangsters in film noir hugging doorways or creeping up staircases with the image of Schreck's diabolic Nosferatu, bathed in shadow, sidling his way toward a new victim. Heavy chiaroscuro, oblique camera angles and jarring close-ups--the devices that crank up the tension in Val Lewton horror movies and edgy, urban thrillers such as Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice--were all to be found first in Murnau's chilling masterpiece. --Geoffrey MacnabOn the DVD: This two-disc set gives you the choice of watching Nosferatu in either a sepia-tinted version or the original black & white. Both, however, feature the same modern electronic music score by Art Zoyd (at the movie's lavish 1922 premiere a live orchestra performed a newly composed, quasi-Wagnerian score by Hans Erdmann). The anonymous commentary track is a scholarly critical appraisal of the movie that exhaustively documents every aspect of it, from Murnau's aesthetic use of framing devices to the homoerotic subtext of the Hutter-Orlock relationship. In the "Nosferatour" featurette the movie's locations (principally, the Baltic cities of Wismer and Lubeck) are shown as they are today, and there is also a look at the original artwork that served as Murnau's inspiration. Two text features provide a brief history of the vampire myth from Vlad the Impaler onwards, as well as a discussion of the controversy caused by the movie's release. Appropriately, a trailer for the John Malkovich-Willem Dafoe movie Shadow of the Vampire, which imagines that "Max Schreck" actually was a vampire employed by Murnau in his obsessive pursuit of verisimilitude, is also included. --Mark Walker

• Night At The Museum: Battle Of The Smithsonian (with Bonus Digital Copy) | Blu Ray | (09/11/2009) from £5.28   |  Saving you £19.71 (373.30%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Night has fallen on the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. The guides have gone home the lights are out the school kids are tucked in their beds... yet something incredible is stirring as former night guard Larry Daley (Ben Stiller) finds himself lured into his biggest most imagination-boggling adventure yet in which history truly comes alive. In this second installment of the Night at the Museum saga Larry faces a battle so epic it could only unfold in the corridors of the world's largest museum. Now Larry must try to save his formerly inanimate friends from what could be their last stand amid the wonders of the Smithsonian all of which from the famous paintings on the walls to the rocket ships in the halls suddenly have a mind of their own. The first ever film shot in the Smithsonian complex the fun begins as Larry has left behind the low-paying world of guarding museums to become a sought-after inventor of Daley Devices infomercial products. He seems to have it all - but something is missing in his life something that draws him back to his old haunt the Museum of Natural History where he once had the magical night of a lifetime. There he makes an unsettling discovery. His favourite exhibits indeed some of his truest friends have been deemed out-of-date. Packed into crates they await shipment to the vast archives of the Smithsonian. Their fate is unknown - that is until Larry recieves a distress call from the miniature cowboy Jebediah (Owen Wilson) who informs him of an impending disaster. It seems the newcomers have awoken their new digs including the Egyptian ruler Kahmunrah (Hank Azaria) who's in a particularly nasty mood after 3 000 years of slumber. Now he and a trio of history's most heinous henchmen - namely Ivan the Terrible (Christopher Guest) Napoleon Bonaparte (Alain Chabat) and Al Capone (Jon Bernthal) - are plotting to take over the museum (and then the globe) as they unleash the Army of the Underworld. Speeding to the nation's capital larry is clearly in over his head. But he's got some impressive new friends - from the brilliant Albert Einstein to honest Abe Lincoln to the one exhibit who takes his breath away - the irrepressible Amelia Earhart (Amy Adams) who spurs Larry to rediscover his missing sense of fun adventure. Along with his old buddies including Teddy Roosevelt (Robin Williams) Octavious (Steve Coogan) Sacajawea (Mizuo Peck) Attila The Hun (Patrick Gallagher) and the Neanderthals - Larry will stop at nothing to regain his friends and restore order to the National Mall from the Lincoln Memorial to the Air and Space Museum before the stroke of dawn.

• Confidence | DVD | (01/03/2004) from £6.44   |  Saving you £11.55 (179.35%)   |  RRP £17.99

  A consumate con-man, Jake Vig (Edward Burns) has just pulled his biggest trick yet. But then he finds out he's conned an eccentric crime boss Winston King (Dustin Hoffman) and there'll be more than hell to pay.

• The Bridge at Remagen | Blu Ray | (20/12/2022) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Shalako | DVD | (19/07/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £13.99

  A group of ultra-civilised European aristocrats on a hunting tour of New Mexico have to face a violent conflict with the real West...

• Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues: Red, White and Blues | DVD | (29/03/2004) from £10.98   |  Saving you £-0.99 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Director Mike Figgis joins musicians such as Van morrison Eric Clapton Jeff Beck and Tom Jones performing and talking about the British blues boom from the late 1950's onwards. A Thoughtful and musically uplifting analysis of the influence of the blues on British musicians and the re-export of the music to America.

• Monteverdi: L'Orfeo -- Savall | DVD | (31/10/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  For this production of L'Orfeo, stage director Gilbert Deflo attempts to recreate the atmosphere of the first performance of Monteverdi's 1607 opera in the plush 19th-century setting of Barcelona's Gran Teatre del Liceu. On the whole he's extremely successful: the scenery consists of painted flats which are used imaginatively (Caronte's cavern is a particular coup de theatre) and the delightful costumes look like ancient Hellenic robes viewed through a 17th century lens. What's most remarkable, though, is the sensitive level of recording, for the light orchestral textures and small voices only once, in the Caronte scene, seem to get swamped by the gilt and velvet. Jordi Savall, looking uncannily like Monteverdi himself, conducts with energy and draws some committed, focused playing from the band. Zanasi makes a fine Orfeo, but all the voices have all the graceful and limpid qualities that are standard now in early music, and the whole company gets the stylised acting manner demanded by the production just right without becoming too arch. On the DVD: L'Orfeo is presented in 16:9 anamorphic ratio, with a choice of Dolby Surround Sound or LPCM Stereo. Within the limitations of a live relay from a large theatre, the picture quality is excellent: the colours of the costumes seem particularly vivid. There are subtitles in English, French, German and Spanish. Special features include an interview with the stage director, an illustrated synopsis and a gallery of cast photos. --Warwick Thompson

• Wrong Side of Town | DVD | (15/03/2010) from £6.40   |  Saving you £6.59 (102.97%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Ex-Navy Seal Bobby Kaliinowski lives a quiet peaceful life as a landscape architect in an LA suburb with his wife Dawn and 16 year old daughter Brianna. Tonight they are invited out for an evening on the town by new neighbors Clay and Elise Freeman to a happening club downtown. Little did they know that this would be the start of a life or death ordeal for the group.

• Swingers - Special Edition (2 disc boxset) | DVD | (06/06/2005) from £7.85   |  Saving you £12.14 (154.65%)   |  RRP £19.99

  For anyone who wants to catch a glimpse of the Los Angeles "lounge" scene that was in vogue during the early and mid-1990s, Swingers is the movie that virtually defined that brief but colorful nightlife milieu. As an added bonus, it just happens to be a very funny, observant story about love, loss, and male bonding among a group of friends who struggle to find decent jobs by day, and lurk through Hollywood's hottest nightclubs by night. A sort of latter-day Rat Pack, they include Mike (writer-actor Jon Favreau) and his closest buddy, Trent (Vince Vaughn), who are waiting for the big show-biz break that seems to be eluding them. Mike's twisted up about the girlfriend he left back East to pursue his going-nowhere standup comedy career, and Trent uses the word "money" as an adjective ("Man, we look totally money tonight") with such frequency that you may find yourself slipping into lounge-lizard mode after watching the movie. One of the most noteworthy indie-film success stories of the '90s, this time-capsule comedy seized its moment in the spotlight, launched several promising careers, and continues to maintain its lasting appeal. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com

• Dracula (1931)/House of Dracula/Dracula | DVD | (09/04/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Dracula (1931 & 1999 version with new soundtrack by Phillip Glass) : Although there have been numerous screen versions of Bram Stoker's classic tale none is more enduring than this 1931 original. Towering ominously among the shadows of the Carpathian Mountains Castle Dracula strikes fear in the hearts of the Transylvanian villagers below... Illuminated by the haunting presence of Bela Lugosi as the Count Tod Browning's direction makes full use of crisp black and white cinem

• Verdi: Don Carlos | DVD | (20/11/2000) from £9.18   |  Saving you £10.81 (117.76%)   |  RRP £19.99

  This is a 1996 all-star-cast version from Paris of the original French version of Verdi's epic five-act opera, Don Carlos. First produced in 1867, only Wagner would write musical drama on a grander scale, and due to the three-and-a-half-hour running time most subsequent productions have made substantial cuts. This is therefore a rare opportunity to witness Verdi's tragedy in its entirety.Set in the 16th century in the aftermath of war between Spain and France, Don Carlo (Roberto Alagna), the heir to the Spanish throne comes to France to meet with his beloved Elizabeth de Valois (Karita Mattila). Inevitably politics divide the lovers, and while Rodrigue (Thomas Hampson) falls in with Flemish rebels, the Inquisition is determined to be the power behind the peace. This is certainly not Verdi's greatest work, but it contains great music and the stars are allowed to shine with strong characterisations in an elegantly designed production. There are no gimmicks or attempts at spurious contemporary relevance here, simply singers of the calibre of Alagna, Mattila, Hampson, plus the outstanding Eric Halfvarson as the Grand Inquisitor. This is a production that continues in the 19th-century tradition, and in the process delivers the frisson of world-class opera. --Gary S. DalkinOn the DVD: While the running time precludes much in the way of special features, via DVD-ROM the libretto can be printed in French, together with an article and biographies. The picture is presented at approximately 1.7:1 and while far superior to video could still benefit from anamorphic enhancement. The sound is stereo or excellent Dolby Digital 5.0. The booklet offers a detailed synopsis in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish and there are subtitles in the same languages. The disc is encoded for regions two to six. --Gary S. Dalkin

• New Jack City | DVD | (23/01/2006) from £17.99   |  Saving you £-1.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £16.99

  There's a new kind of criminal on the streets - ruthless gangsters who have turned drug trafficking into highly lucrative inner-city corporations and who got a ""New Jack"" way of dress music and culture. There's a new kind of cop too. They're the tough young New Jack cops who grew up on the streets and who alone know how to bring these ruthless mobsters down...

• Carlton-Browne Of The F.O. | DVD | (08/07/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  A perennial afternoon telly treat, Carlton-Browne of the F.O. is a little less tart and smart in its assault on British diplomacy than the earlier John and Roy Boulting satires. The much-loved Terry Thomas, is the idiot son of a great ambassador, given a sinecure in the Foreign Office that becomes a hot seat when crises rock the almost-forgotten former colony of Gaillardia. Clod-hopping "dance troupes" of every world power dig for cobalt, a line of partition is painted across the entire island, and the young King (Ian Bannen) is undermined by his wicked uncle (John le Mesurier) and unscrupulous Prime Minister Amphibulos (Peter Sellers). There's a touch of Royal romance as the King gets together with a rival princess (the winning Luciana Paoluzzi), but it's mostly mild laughs at the expense of British ineptitude, with Thorley Walters as the dim army officer who sends his men to put down a rebellion with orders that lead them to turn in a circle and capture his own command post, Miles Malleson as the gouty consul who should have come home in 1916, and a snarling Raymond Huntley as the minister appalled that the new monarch of a British ally was a member of the Labour Party at Oxford. The film finds Sellers' non-specific foreign accent unusually upstaged, with Terry Thomas walking off with most of the comedy scenes, blithely inspecting a line of shabby crack troops who keep passing out at his feet. It fumbles a bit with obvious targets, especially in comparison with similar films like Passport to Pimlico and The Mouse That Roared, but you can't argue with a cast like this. Down in the ranks are: John Van Eyssen, Irene Handl, Nicholas Parsons, Kenneth Griffith, Sam Kydd and Kynaston Reeves. On the DVD: Carlton-Browne of the F.O. comes to disc in fullscreen, with a decent-ish quality print. The film is also available as part of the four-disc Peter Sellers Collection.--Kim Newman

• Frogs | DVD | (17/10/2005) from £5.99   |  Saving you £10.00 (62.50%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Today the pond! Tomorrow the world! Jumping with action suspense revenge and Southern Gothic charm Frogs stars Ray Milland Sam Elliott and Joan Van Ark are constantly a lily away from croaking! Joan Crockett (Milland) is an aging physically disable millionaire who invites this family to his island estate for his birthday party. The old man is more than crotchetyhe's crazy! Hating nature Crockett poisons anything that crawls on his property. But on the night

• A Town Like Alice | DVD | (11/10/1999) from £21.24   |  Saving you £-11.25 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  One of the all-time great wartime love stories shot on location in Malaya.

• Messenger Of Death | DVD | (03/05/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Could a simple feud between brothers lead to the brutal massacre of an entire family? Garret Smith (Bronson) travels to a remote Rocky Mountain town to investigate and uncovers far more sinister motives. As he gets closer to the bizarre truth Smith unravels a plot of greed revenge and religious zealotry. But can he get to the bottom of the murders before an 'avenging angel' visits him with an equally deadly message?

• Kiss Me Kate (1953) | DVD | (24/11/2020) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Frogs | Blu Ray | (24/10/2016) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Jason Crockett (Ray Milland, The Big Cock), invites his family to his beautiful island estate for the 4th July weekend and to celebrate his birthday. Crockett hates nature however, and is poisoning anything that crawls around his estate. On the night of his birthday the frogs, and other inhabitants of the swamps, have become bloodthirsty as a result of the pollution and Crockett's family are on the menu. Co-starring Sam Elliott (Road House) and Joan Van Ark (The Last Dinosaur) 88 Films are proud to re-introduce this classic of the nature amok genre, in beautiful hi-definition. Frogs is sure to make the most hardened viewer squirm as cold green skin meets soft, warm flesh!

• The Fantastic Factory Collection (Arrow Video) | DVD | (18/04/2011) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £49.99

  A Bloody Feast of Zombies Demons Spiders & Werewolves! Step into the Fantastic Factory for a festival of gory mayhem and blood-splattered horror. Four twisted tales of terror and carnage await you... In Beyond Re-Animator the evil Dr. Herbert West a medical genius with an overwhelming drive to raise the dead returns to what he knows best: science...and murder. John Jaspers is driven to insanity in Faust and signs a pact with the devil in order to enact a horrible vengeance on the thugs who murdered his girlfriend. Transformed into a sickening beast he stalks the night seeking only to maim and kill. Alien spiders threaten the very existence of man in Arachnid only a team of scientists and mercenaries stand in the way of eight-legged doom for humanity. Trapped on an island with a nest of hungry enemies time is running out before the eggs were laid in every last one of them... A traveller with a girl in every village leaves a trail of murder behind him but is he the killer or is there a beast stalking the night? Romasanta based on a true life murder case is a chilling tale of bloody romance shadowy forests and Werewolves.

• Storm Rider | DVD | (19/05/2007) from £7.09   |  Saving you £-1.10 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Lee Van Cleef stars in this gritty western as Sheriff Clayton a one man judge jury and executioner determined to see justice done. Wrongly accused of murder Philipp Wermeer is a wanted man - dead or alive! His alleged victim was the father of three brothers the Saxon boys who have an iron grip on a small town where the locals live in fear. Clayton must face down bounty hunters and all three of the Saxon brothers to uphold the law in the Wild West.