"Actor: Walter James"

• Drive | DVD | (02/06/2003) from £8.67   |  Saving you £-2.68 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Drive takes the standard American mismatched-buddies action comedy formula and turbo-charges it with furious Hong Kong wirework and martial arts. The result is a three-and-a-half million dollar "B" picture which looks like it cost 10 times more. The perfunctory story crosses Universal Solider (1992) with Rush Hour (1997) as a biologically enhanced Mark Dacascos flees a small army of Hong Kong assassins through California, teaming up with comedian Kadeem Hardison and delivering an almost unbelievable amount of bang per buck. Director Steve Wang stages the action with flair and clarity, the stunts, wirework and fights being exceptionally well-choreographed and shot. With Hardison's patter, two offbeat redneck assassins and a TV show about a frog with Einstein's brain there's abundant surprisingly genial humour, aided by Brittany Murphy's ditzy performance as a Twin Peaks-like teenager with hormones in overdrive. The cyborg aspect simply justifies the superhuman combat, but nevertheless a huge showdown in a retro-space age club is clearly styled after the "Tech Noir" bar sequence in The Terminator (1984), adding motorcycle killersstraight out of Rollerball (1975). Drive captures the rush of Hong Kong action movies yet almost has the feel of a musical, the mayhem replacing song and dance and offering more popcorn entertainment than many a bloated summer blockbuster.On the DVD: For such a low budget movie the 2.35:1 anamorphically enhanced image puts many far bigger features to shame, being pin-sharp throughout, with strong and accurate colours and minimal grain. The Dolby Digital 5.1 sound is equally strong, with sound-effects and music both having considerable impact, explosions ripping thorough the room like the latest Arnie shoot 'em up. There is a 47-minute retrospective documentary which is particularly interesting on the way the film was cut and restored for American release--this DVD presenting the director's cut which runs over 16 minutes longer than the US version. Six deleted/extended scenes are presented in a variety of formats, and it's easy to see why they were deleted. Also included are the original theatrical trailer, three photo galleries, cast and crew biographies and interview galleries with director Steve Wang and four of the main stars totalling about 20 minutes of material. The informative commentary track has Wang, Dacascos, Hardison and stunt co-ordinator Koichi Sakamoto revelling in their sheer enthusiasm for the movie and for Hong Kong action in general. --Gary S Dalkin

• Holiday Inn | DVD | (20/02/2006) from £5.38   |  Saving you £7.61 (141.45%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Holiday Inn is the perennial Christmas-season favourite from 1942 that teams Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire as entertainers (and rival suitors of Marjorie Reynolds) running an inn that is only open on holidays. It's a great excuse for lots of singing and dancing, seamlessly wrapped in a catchy story, and Astaire's frequent director Mark Sandrich (Top Hat, Shall We Dance) doesn't let us down. The Irving Berlin numbers (each one connected to a different holiday) are winners, with Crosby's warm performance of "White Christmas" a movie touchstone. --Tom Keogh

• Charade | DVD | (23/05/2005) from £4.97   |  Saving you £8.02 (161.37%)   |  RRP £12.99

  In Charade Audrey Hepburn plays a Parisienne whose husband is murdered and who finds she is being followed by four men seeking the fortune her late spouse had hidden away. Cary Grant is the stranger who comes to her aid, but his real motives arent entirely clear--could he even be the killer? The 1963 film is directed by Stanley Donen, but it has been called "Hitchcockian" for good reason: the possible duplicities between lovers, the unspoken agendas between a man and woman sharing secrets. Charade is nowhere as significant as a Hitchcock film, but in terms of suspense it holds its own; and Donens glossy production lends itself to the welcome experience of stargazing. You want Cary Grant to be Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn to be no one but Audrey Hepburn in a Hollywood product such as this, and they certainly dont let us down. --Tom Keogh, Amazon.com

• The Men's Room: The Complete Series | DVD | (20/05/2013) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  United Kingdom released, PAL/Region 2 DVD: LANGUAGES: English ( Dolby Digital Stereo ), SPECIAL FEATURES: 2-DVD Set, Interactive Menu, Scene Access, SYNOPSIS: Charity Walton seems to have everything she could want: a husband, four children, a lovely house in London, and a successful career as a sociologist. Then she meets Mark Carleton, the incoming Head of the Sociology Department where she works: clever, handsome, and interested. Having devoted herself for years to her family, Charity finds herself surrendering to Carleton's charisma. Their sex is frequent, passionate and sometimes violent; their feelings for each other consuming and volatile. And Charity, having abandoned all she has known, realises that love isn't guaranteed. Mark is energetically unfaithful, a serial womaniser, and the torturous disintegration of their life together is both comical and poignantly sad. This hard-hitting five-part serial, set during the Thatcher years, launched Bill Nighy's career. ...The Men's Room - 2-DVD Set

• The Devil And Daniel Webster | DVD | (25/07/2016) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  A classic morality tale, William Dieterle's The Devil and Daniel Webster, combines European expressionism with quintessential Americana and is based on a short story by celebrated author Stephen Vincent Benét. Echoing the legend of Faust, a poor farmer Jabez Stone (James Craig) makes a pact with the devil for seven years of prosperity in return for his soul. When the devil incarnate Mr. Scratch (Walter Huston) comes a-calling, Stone begins to have second thoughts, enlisting famed orator and folk hero Daniel Webster (Edward Arnold) to fight what becomes a case of life and death. The Devil and Daniel Webster won an Oscar for Best music score and Huston was nominated for Best Actor.

• Fifth Avenue Girl | DVD | (25/07/2011) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Ginger Rogers (Vivacious Lady Kitty Foyle) stars in this sparkling screwball comedy as a young lady determined to shake up polite society! Ginger plays Mary Grey cheerful but unemployed. Wandering in central park she meets and befriends Alfred Borden (comedy legend Walter Connolly - It Happened One Night Nothing Sacred). Alfred's a millionaire but money can't buy him happiness - his family all ignore him. Wanting to spice things up he hires Mary to pose as his mistress but even he isn't prepared for the hilarious consequences that will ensue from the offer!

• Colour Blind | DVD | (14/04/2003) from £9.99   |  Saving you £-2.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £7.99

  In the Depression era passions rise when Bridget McQueen arrives home with a black husband and their mixed race daughter Rose Angela faces many difficulties...

• Star Trek 2 - The Wrath Of Khan | Blu Ray | (11/05/2009) from £5.96   |  Saving you £14.03 (235.40%)   |  RRP £19.99

  It is the 23rd century. The Federation Starship U.S.S. Enterprise is on routine training manoeuvres and Admiral James T. Kirk seems resigned to the fact that this inspection may well be the last space mission of his career. But Khan is back... Aided by his exiled band of genetic supermen Khan - the brilliant renegade of 20th century Earth - has raided Space Station Regula One stolen a top secret device called Project Genesis wrestled control of another Federation starship and now schemes to set a most deadly trap for his old enemy Kirk . . . with the threat of a universal Armageddon!

• It Happened One Night | DVD | (26/02/2001) from £14.98   |  Saving you £-8.99 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Director Frank Capra (Mr. Smith Goes to Washington) took home every Oscar in the book (well, okay, all the major ones) for this seminal 1934 comedy starring Clark Gable as a hard-bitten reporter who stays close to a runaway heiress (Claudette Colbert) so not to lose a good story. Funny and sexy, the film is full of memorable scenes often referred to in other films, such as the "Wall of Jericho" (a mere bedcover hung on a clothesline down the middle of the room), and Colbert's famous flash of thigh to stop a speeding car in its tracks. Capra's brisk, urbane brand of wit was a perfect complement to his populist faith in the common man (in this case, Gable's character), and this inspiration makes this film a spirited entertainment and an uplifting experience. --Tom Keogh, Amazon.com

• Charade (Dual Format Edition) | Blu Ray | (24/10/2011) from £24.28   |  Saving you £-4.29 (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  With elements of screwball comedy, this sparkling thriller has been called the best Hitchcock movie Hitchcock never made. Stanley Donen's 1963 Academy Award-nominated and BAFTA-winning feature Charade is a romantic suspense thriller starring Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn. Filmed on location in Paris, the story centres on a young woman who meets a charming stranger on a skiing holiday. She returns home, planning to ask her husband for a divorce, but finds all of their possessions gone. The police notify her husband has been murdered and when she discovers that he was responsible for stealing from the US government, an elaborate charade begins, in which nothing is what it seems to be.

• Meet John Doe | DVD | (07/03/2005) from £7.95   |  Saving you £-2.96 (N/A%)   |  RRP £4.99

  In protest at the corruption and hypocrisy he sees all around him an unemployed man calling himself ""John Doe"" has written to the New Bulletin newspaper pledging to throw himself from the top of City Hall on Christmas Eve. Written by a discharged journalist as a publicity stunt and as a parting shot at the paper's new editor the premise of the letter unexpectedly fires the imagination of the bulletin's readers and the wider American public. Its real author Ann Mitchell (Barbara Stanwyck) is rehired and now needs to find someone to play the part of the fictional ""John Doe""... Meet John Doe is often held to be part of a thematic trilogy that includes Mister Deeds Goes To Town and Mister Smith Goes To Washington. It explores a recurring notion in Capra's work that of the universal everyman exploited by a corrupt and powerful establishment. The film's reflections on corporate control of both the media and of ordinary people's lives is still as resonant as ever.

• Charade | DVD | (07/04/2008) from £8.08   |  Saving you £-2.09 (-34.90%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Regina Lambert (Audrey Hepburn) returns to Paris from a holiday in Switzerland to find that her husband Charles has been murdered and her house ransacked. She is later told by a CIA agent that her husband was involved in robbing $250 000 of gold from the U.S. government during World War II and the government wants it back. Later that day she is visited by Peter Joshua (Cary Grant) whom she had met briefly whilst on holiday. When her husband's ex-partners in crime who were double-crossed by Charles start harassing her about the missing money Peter offers to help find it. Thus begins an elaborate charade in which nothing is what it seems to be...

• Audrey Hepburn | DVD | (03/04/2006) from £12.99   |  Saving you £7.00 (53.89%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Robin And Marian (Dir. Richard Lester 1976): Robin Hood (Connery) is an old man when he returns with his best friend Little John to England after the Crusades. Maid Marian (Hepburn) has entered a nunnery King Richard is a raving lunatic his Brother John a moron and the age of great adventure has seemed to have passed Robin by. But when The Sheriff of Nottingham (Shaw) once again threatens Sherwood Robin gathers his faithful men and band of peasants to fight oppression in

• Cary Grant Collection | DVD | (04/06/2007) from £72.88   |  Saving you £77.11 (51.40%)   |  RRP £149.99

  Episodes Comprise: 1. That Touch of Mink (1962) 2. The Grass Is Greener (1960) 3. Indiscreet (1958) 4. Father Goose (1964) 5. Mr Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948) 6. Bringing Up Baby (1938) 7. None But The Lonely Heart (1944) 8. Mr Lucky (1943) 9. Once Upon A Honeymoon (1942) 10. In Name Only (1939) 11. Gunga Din (1939) 12. The Toast Of New York (1937) 13. Sylvia Scarlett (1935) 14. Charade (1963) 15. I'm No Angel (1939) 16. She Done Him Wrong (1933) 17. Blonde Venus (1932) 18. Operation Petticoat (1959) 19. My Favorite Wife (1940) 20. The Last Outpost (1935) 21. Suspicion (1941)

• Charade | DVD | (23/04/2012) from £12.99   |  Saving you £3.00 (18.80%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Beautiful high society wife Regina Lampert (Audrey Hepburn) has everything. And then her wealthy husband turns up dead, her apartment is stripped bare and several mysterious men start following her. Enter dapper gent Peter Joshua (Cary Grant). Can she trust him? And is that even his real name?Stanley Donen’s sexy and breezy screwball comedy thriller brought together European migr Hollywood royalty Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant for the first time to create a caper with real chemistry. Featuring playful performances from Walter Matthau, George Kennedy and James Coburn, Charade is scored by the mighty Henry Mancini, shot by Some Like It Hot cinematographer Charles Lang and features gowns by Givenchy. It’s riotous, glamorous and glorious.

• Plunkett And Macleane | DVD | (24/12/2001) from £14.92   |  Saving you £-1.93 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  No-one will be neutral about Plunkett and Macleane. Either you go with its notion of cheeky, stylish fun or you want to grab first-time director Jake Scott by the ear and slap him silly. Your inclination may depend on whether you recall his dad Ridley's own directing debut, The Duellists (1977), and savour the correspondences. Dad took a Joseph Conrad tale of the Napoleonic Wars, cast it with the ultra-contemporary Keith Carradine and Harvey Keitel, and filmed it with a swooping, mobile camera. Son Jake has made a feisty period piece about a pair of thieves (Robert Carlyle, Jonny Lee Miller) in 1748 London and filled it with blatant anachronisms. A decadent aristo (Alan Cumming), asked whether he "still swings both ways," replies, "I swing every way!" A ballroom full of revellers dances the minuet (or is it the gavotte?) while our ears--if not theirs--are filled with a trance ballad. And so forth. Is this sophomoric? Maybe. But it's also often fresh and inventive. Why shouldn't a filmmaker be allowed to speak directly to a contemporary consciousness, even flaunt it, as long as he also delivers startling imagery and convincing period detail? The solid cast includes Michael Gambon as a corrupt magistrate, Ken Stott as a very nasty enforcer named Mr Chance (who favours a thumb through the eye socket and into the brain as a mode of execution) and Terence Rigby as a philosophical jailer. Even Liv Tyler looks more interesting than usual. In the end pretty frivolous, Plunkett and Macleane is nonetheless a lively debut. --Richard T Jameson, Amazon.com

• Charade | DVD | (12/02/2008) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £2.99

• Play Misty for Me | DVD | (14/04/2003) from £9.60   |  Saving you £0.38 (5.75%)   |  RRP £6.99

  Clint Eastwood (making his very assured directorial debut) is a poetry-spouting stud-muffin DJ stalked by a maniacally amorous fan after a misguided one-night stand in this enjoyably schlocky, undeniably effective film about good intentions gone murderously wacky. Although many of the very 1970s trappings presented here may ultimately be too dated to be taken seriously (including a highly self-indulgent jazz number and a hilariously gooey seduction number between Eastwood and Donna Mills), the core premise of infatuation taken out of bounds remains uncomfortably plausible--and was influential enough to be appropriated by one of the biggest hits of the 1980s. (Here's a hint--it starred Michael Douglas, Glenn Close, and a very unfortunate bunny rabbit.) A well-staged and occasionally very frightening thriller worth watching for Jessica Walter's peerlessly unhinged performance alone. Frequent Eastwood collaborator Don Siegel (director of Dirty Harry, Coogan's Bluff and The Beguiled, to name but a few) has a nice cameo as Murphy, the moustachioed, chess-playing bartender. --Andrew Wright, Amazon.com

• Star Trek 3 - The Search For Spock | DVD | (01/10/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  The name says it all--Star Trek III: The Search for Spock--so you didn't think Mr. Spock was really dead, did you? When Spock's casket landed on the surface of the Genesis planet at the end of Star Trek II, we had already been told that Genesis had the power to bring "life from lifelessness". So it's no surprise that this energetic but somewhat hokey sequel gives Spock a new lease of life, beginning with his rebirth and rapid growth as the Genesis planet literally shakes itself apart in a series of tumultuous geological spasms. As Kirk is getting to know his estranged son (Merritt Butrick), he must also do battle with the fiendish Klingon Kruge (Christopher Lloyd), who is determined to seize the power of Genesis from the Federation. Meanwhile, the regenerated Spock returns to his home planet, and Star Trek III gains considerable interest by exploring the ceremonial (and, of course, highly logical) traditions of Vulcan society. The movie's a minor disappointment compared to Star Trek II, but it's a--well, logical--sequel that successfully restores Spock (and first-time film director Leonard Nimoy) to the phenomenal Trek franchise ... as if he were ever really gone. With Kirk's wilful destruction of the USS Enterprise and Robin Curtis replacing the departing Kirstie Alley as Vulcan Lt Saavik, this was clearly a transitional film in the series, clearing the way for the highly popular Star Trek IV. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com

• Kotch | DVD | (08/04/2002) from £22.98   |  Saving you £-16.99 (-283.60%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Kotch is a gentle comedy that reunites Walter Matthau with Jack Lemmon (this time behind the camera) in a wry look at the alienation of the elderly. Matthau's character of the title is a retired man who lives with his son and increasingly stressed daughter-in-law, as well as the grandson he dotes on. Finding himself pushed more and more into the sidelines, Kotch sets off on a journey that brings him into contact with pregnant teenager Erica (Deborah Winters), a relationship that re-introduces purpose into his life. Matthau is perfect as the eccentric Kotch, stealing every scene with his rambling monologues, although Winters brings out the caring, paternal side perfectly. It is a little schmaltzy in parts (the opening credits are particularly off putting), but Koch is ultimately an effective work that makes you wonder just why Lemmon never took the director's chair again. On the DVD: Given the wealth of potential material, the half-hearted effort at providing some extra insight is pretty woeful. There are no visual images, just a few production and biographical notes--a huge opportunity missed. --Phil Udell