"Actor: Van"

• Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues: Red, White and Blues | DVD | (29/03/2004) from £11.63   |  Saving you £-1.64 (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 £5.19   |  Saving you £7.80 (150.29%)   |  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 £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  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 £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  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 £19.77   |  Saving you £-2.78 (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 £20.00   |  Saving you £-10.01 (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 £7.39   |  Saving you £-1.40 (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.

• JCVD | Blu Ray | (02/02/2009) from £10.45   |  Saving you £14.54 (139.14%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Washed-up fighting bankruptcy and caught in the midst of a desperate struggle to win his daughter back from the jaws of a bitter custody battle Van Damme unwittingly becomes embroiled in a dangerous bank robbery led by a gang of armed and violent criminals. Trapped inside Van Damme is framed for the robbery and the murder of innocent hostages. Now he must win the approval of the crowd as well as the trust of the police if he is to survive this deadly heist! With a killer mix of action murder mayhem and no shortage of laughs JCVD delivers with the impact of a roundhouse kick to the face! Van Damme is back and this time he's taking no prisoners!

• The Purple Rose Of Cairo | Blu Ray | (09/01/2017) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  "I've just met a wonderful new man. He's fictional but you can't have everything." So says Cecilia (Mia Farrow), the central figure in Woody Allen's lyrically humorous Purple Rose of Cairo. The era is the Great Depression, and she is the bullied wife who finds escape in romantic movies, falling in love with the explorer hero, Tom Baxter (Jeff Daniels), of the eponymous film. So far, nothing remarkable. But Allen has Baxter spot her in the audience, fall in love with her, and desert the picture, much to the irritation of the other characters. The surreal quality of the situation develops further when Gil Shepherd--the actor who played Baxter (Daniels again)--seeks out his fictional alter ego to persuade him back into the film and thus save both their reputations. Naturally Shepherd, too, falls in love with Cecilia, and she's left to choose between fiction and reality, chooses the latter and is then cruelly jilted. The message seems clear: fairytales are just that, make-believe. There's no such thing as a happy ending. Dating from 1985 (after Broadway Danny Rose and immediately before Hannah and her Sisters), this is one of the few movies in which Allen doesn't actually appear, though he's recognisable in every line of Farrow's character. It's also a nostalgic tribute to the era that defined movie glamour, the close-up of Cecilia's face at the end a moment of pure Hollywood. At 81 minutes, this is a small but brilliant gem. On the DVD: Aside from the technological improvement of DVD over video, the new format adds little by way of features: you can view the original trailer, scan the film scene by scene, and there's a choice of subtitles in eight languages.--Harriet Smith

• Intruders | DVD | (21/05/2012) from £5.99   |  Saving you £10.00 (166.95%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Intruders tells parallel stories of two families whose lives are disrupted by menacing apparitions: in Spain, a mother tries to protect her son from a faceless stranger, while in Britain, a young girl has terrifying dreams of a demon (Hollowface) who becomes a real danger to her and her family. Special Features: Deleted Scenes Reality vs. fantasy Two Stories. Two cities Directed By Who is Hollowface: The Making of Intruders

• Timecop | DVD | (13/12/1999) from £15.97   |  Saving you £0.01 (0.08%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Pay no attention to the fact that Timecop is an insult to intelligent science fiction, and that it gradually succumbs to an acute case of the sillies. It is a Jean-Claude Van Damme movie, after all, so check your brain at the door and enjoy this action flick set in the year 2004. Van Damme plays an officer in the Time Enforcement Police, assigned to prevent criminals from travelling to the past with the intent of altering the future. Ron Silver plays the evil politician who plots to retrieve a stockpile of gold from the Civil War to finance his latest campaign. The film is clever to a point, and entertaining if you can ignore the dumb jokes and inconsistencies. Best of all, it's an above-average vehicle for Van Damme (relatively speaking), who gets to kick some villainous butt and share a few scenes with Mia Sara, who plays the Timecop's wife. As Van Damme fans can tell you, this is one of the action star's better movies. -- Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com

• Posse | DVD | (01/03/2004) from £6.73   |  Saving you £6.26 (48.20%)   |  RRP £12.99

  It's 1892: Jesse Lee (Van Peebles) is a marksman who has fought at the frontline in the Spanish-American war only to find himself turned in by his corrupt colonel (Billy Zane). He joins forces with Lieutenant Little J (Stephen Baldwin) the giant Obobo (`Tiny' Lister) Weezie (Charles Lane) the riverboat gambler Father Time; with revenge and justice in mind this gang charges through the West!