"Actor: Williams"

• Kramer vs Kramer | DVD | (02/05/2011) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  It might have started out as a small, rather arty divorce drama but Kramer vs Kramer was the biggest cinema hit of 1979. It confirmed Dustin Hoffman's status as a major star in a performance that combined his trademark twitchy intensity with deep sensitivity. And it provided Meryl Streep with a pivotal role in her rise to big-screen greatness. Both won Oscars, as did director Robert Benton and the film itself scooped the Best Picture award. Kramer vs Kramer has worn well into the 21st century. Although clearly of its time--by the late 1970s, microscopic relationship analysis had become the theme of commercial cinema--it stands on the strength of its central performances. Hoffman's Ted Kramer is a vision of the Graduate grown up: serious, focused and thrown by anything that threatens his upwardly mobile professional trajectory. The news that his wife, who he has failed to notice teetering on the edge of a breakdown, is leaving him and their son sends him into a tailspin. The film is as much about his resilience and fulfilment as it is the story of a divorce and custody battle. Justin Henry is extraordinary as Billy, the boy caught in the middle, and turns in a remarkably complex, thoughtful performance, which is light years from the archetypal all-American kid you might anticipate. And in just a handful of scenes, Streep is mesmerising as Joanna, the deserting wife and mother who you just can't bring yourself to hate. Yes, this is soap opera. But it belongs up there with all the finest cinematic human dramas. On the DVD: The widescreen presentation ensures a theatrically authentic experience, with some fantastic shots of New York city coming into their own. The mono sound is adequate for the relative intimacy of most of the dialogue. But the real bonus is the retrospective documentary in which director and writer Benton, producer Stanley Jaffe and the cast look back with touching satisfaction at a piece which clearly meant a great deal to them all. Hoffman's initial reluctance (he was going through a real-life divorce) to get involved, the process of working with a gifted child actor and Streep's desire to make Joanna understood are all recalled in fascinating detail. --Piers Ford

• One False Move (CriterionCollection) - UK Only | Blu Ray | (06/11/2023) from £22.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  A small-town police chief (Bill Paxton) concealing an explosive secret. A pair of ruthless drug dealers (cowriter Billy Bob Thornton and Michael Beach) who leave a bloody trail in their wake as they make their way from Los Angeles to Arkansas. And an enigmatic woman (Cynda Williams) caught in the middle. The way these desperate lives converge becomes a masterclass in slow-burn tension thanks to the nuanced direction of Carl Franklin, whose haunting film travels a crooked road across America's most fraught divisions of urban and rural, Black and white while imbuing noir conventions with a wrenching emotional depth. Product Features DIRECTOR-APPROVED BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES New 4K digital restoration, approved by director Carl Franklin, with 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack Audio commentary from 1999 featuring Franklin New conversation between Franklin and cowriter-actor Billy Bob Thornton Trailer English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing PLUS: An essay by author William Boyle

• Soul Food | DVD | (01/03/2004) from £13.82   |  Saving you £-0.83 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Soul Food is the kind of movie that seems to have been blessed throughout its low-budget production and it has got a quality of warmth and charm that fits perfectly with its authentic drama about a large African-American family in Chicago. Twenty-eight-year-old writer-director George Tillman Jr. drew autobiographical inspiration from his upbringing in Milwaukee, and on a well-spent $6.5 million budget he succeeded where similar films (including Waiting to Exhale and How Stella Got Her Groove Back) fell short: he depicts his many characters with such depth and sympathy that, by the time they have weathered several family crises, we've come to care and feel for them and the powerful ties that bind them together. As seen through the eyes of Tillman's young alter ego Ahmad (Brandon Hammond), the film primarily focuses on the rivalries and affections that rise and fall among Ahmad's mother (Vivica A. Fox) and her two sisters (Vanessa L. Williams and Nia Long). Through them, and through the weekly Sunday dinners cooked with love by their mother, Big Mama (Irma P. Hall), we witness marital bliss and distress, infidelity, success, failure ... in short, the spices of life both bitter and sweet. But when Big Mama falls into a diabetic coma, Ahmad watches as his family begins to fall apart without the stability and love that Big Mama provided with every Sunday meal. Tillman's touch can be overly nostalgic, melodramatic and cloyingly sentimental, but never so much that the movie loses its firm grip on reality. As a universal portrait of family life, Soul Food ranks among the very best films of its kind--believable, funny, emotional and always approaching its characters (well-played by a uniformly excellent cast) with a generous spirit of forgiveness and understanding. As satisfying as one of Big Mama's delicious dinners, Soul Food is the kind of movie that keeps you coming back for more. --Jeff Shannon

• Norbit | DVD | (09/07/2007) from £6.50   |  Saving you £13.49 (207.54%)   |  RRP £19.99

  A mild-mannered guy who is engaged to a monstrous woman meets the woman of his dreams, and schemes to find a way to be with her.

• Hart Of Dixie: The Complete Fourth Season | DVD | (12/10/2015) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £29.99

  Take a trip to quirky BlueBell, Alabama, as Hart of Dixie continues for a fourth fun-filled season. At the end of season three, Zoe finally admits that she loves Wade but does he return her feelings? Meanwhile, George and Lavon each realize they are in love with Lemon who has just set sail on a singles cruise. So set your course for season four of this dramedy, because any outcome is possible!

• Carry On Constable | DVD | (27/08/2001) from £7.20   |  Saving you £9.79 (135.97%)   |  RRP £16.99

  Made in 1960, Carry On Constable is one of the earliest Carry On comic romps, arriving before they'd carved out their bawdy niche in British cinema. In fact, this Gerald-Thomas-directed effort isn't dissimilar to most of the mainstream Brit-com of its era. A flu epidemic has forced a police station to take on a brace of callow recruits: Kenneth Connor, a superstitious bag of nerves; Leslie Phillips, playing his usual rapscallion self; the ludicrously effete Charles Hawtrey and Kenneth Williams. The "plot" is a sequence of thoroughly creaky gags at the expense of this bumbling quartet. The staple characters hadn't settled into their "classic" personae yet. Here, Sid James is an exasperated sergeant, not the sort of crinkly rogue he played in later years, Kenneth Williams is dry, detached and supercilious, while Hattie Jacques is no matron but a sympathetic sergeant, whose every walk-on is not yet accompanied by the portly strains of tubas and bassoons. The comedy here is, frankly, dismal--banana skins are slipped upon and officers' legs urinated upon bydogs, all to a rueful soundtrack of wah-wah trumpets. The main appeal of this movie is as a period slice of damp, pre-Beatles London in glorious black and white.On the DVD: Although picture and sound are adequate (though poorly dubbed in places), there are no extras at all, a shame for the hardcore Carry On aficionados to whom this release would surely, perhaps exclusively, appeal. --David Stubbs

• Smokey and the Bandit | Blu Ray | (31/05/2021) from £19.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Starring Burt Reynolds, Jackie Gleason, Sally Field and Jerry Reed, Smokey and the Bandit delivers outrageous laughs in one of the biggest box-office hits of all time. Bandit (Reynolds), a fun-loving, fast-talking trucker, takes on his craziest haul yet - delivering 400 cases of beer from Texarkana to Atlanta in just 28 hours. With Sheriff Buford T. Justice (Gleason) hot on his trail and eager to teach him some respect for the law, the Bandit joins forces with good ol' boy, Cledus (Reed) and runaway bride Carrie (Field). Gear up for huge laughs, pedal-to-the-metal action, and some of the wildest car crashes ever filmed! Bonus Features Loaded Up and Truckin': Making Smokey And The Bandit Snowman, What's Your 20?: The Smokey And The Bandit CB Tutorial 100 Years of Universal: The '70s 100 Years of Universal: The Lot Theatrical Trailer

• Lie to Me - Season 2 | DVD | (03/01/2011) from £11.93   |  Saving you £23.06 (193.29%)   |  RRP £34.99

  So just how come it took Tim Roth so long to get the lead role in a major television series? Once they’d taken one look at Lie To Me, it’s a fair bet that many casting directors were asking the same question, as Roth manages to breathe plenty of life into the central role of Dr Cal Lightman. Inspired by a real life character, Lightman is the head of The Lightman Group, where he works alongside a team of experts as they go about their chosen business: detecting lies. We quickly learn that in Lie To Me, Lightman is the king of his craft, and the skills of he and his team are then bolted on to what would otherwise be a fairly standard police drama. For whether it’s helping the cops, the FBI or other US government agencies, Lightman and his crew quickly prove to be brilliant at spotting the slightest hint of dishonesty from microscopic movements and gestures, and their particular skills are thus in high demand. Fortunately for the drama in Lie To Me, there are plenty of skilled fibbers to practice their work on, and thanks to some excellent writing, the show doesn’t take long to become compulsive viewing. And, let’s not understate this, Roth is brilliant as Lightman, heading up a clever, intelligent show that’s well worth discovering. A treat. --Jon Foster

• Father Brown Series 11 | Blu Ray | (11/03/2024) from £19.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• The Dogs Of War | DVD | (11/02/2002) from £11.93   |  Saving you £2.32 (21.74%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Based on the novel by Frederick Forsyth, The Dogs of War is an uneasy mix of espionage and combat that never really succeeds in either role. Based around the character of Paul Shannon, the film follows events in the fictional African state of Zagaro. Hired on a reconnaissance mission by a nameless multi-national corporation, Shannon is captured and tortured before his release, only to return to the country to lead a small band of mercenaries (the dogs of the title) in a bloody coup. The first section of the movie works best, building a real sense of tension and unease, not least through a typically understated performance by Christopher Walken as the paranoid loner who keeps a pistol in his fridge (watch too for a brief appearance from a young Jim Broadbent). There are obvious references to the by-then obsolete school of Vietnam filmmaking in the second section, with the Asian enemy replaced by an African one. The gung-ho mentality of the soldiers is, however, so two-dimensional that the viewer develops little empathy for their plight. The action is slow and drawn out, with the seemingly endless pregnant pauses operating as a means for enabling the film to achieve a reasonable running time. On the DVD: little is on offer here aside from the usual scene selection, audio and subtitle options and original cinema trailer. --Phil Udell

• Smokey And The Bandit 3 | DVD | (05/12/2016) from £6.95   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Second sequel to the 1977 comedy. Two entrepreneurs hire truck driver Cletus (Jerry Reed) to deliver a replica shark from Miami to a seafood restaurant in Texas. On the way, Cletus is mistaken by Sheriff Buford T. Justice (Jackie Gleason) for his old enemy The Bandit (Burt Reynolds), and a high-speed chase ensues as Buford and his son set out to apprehend him.

• Good Will Hunting | Blu Ray | (19/09/2011) from £12.13   |  Saving you £12.86 (106.02%)   |  RRP £24.99

  For the first time on Blu-ray. From highly acclaimed director Gus Van Sant this triumphant story was nominated for 9 Academy Awards - winning Oscars for Robin Williams and hot newcomers Matt Damon and Ben Affleck and also features nominee Minnie Driver. Will Hunting (Damon) is a headstrong, working-class genius. After one too many run-ins with the law, Will's last chance is a psychology professor (Williams). Experience this powerful and unforgettable movie.

• Danielle Steel's Message From Nam | DVD | (17/04/2006) from £4.03   |  Saving you £1.96 (48.64%)   |  RRP £5.99

  In this compelling feature length movie from bestselling author Danielle Steel Paxton Andrews a young idealistic woman faces love loss and the harsh realities of war. Thrown into the radical 1960's campus life at Berkley she believes she has found a true soulmate in a bright idealistic law student called Peter. But when fate gets him drafted and killed in Vietnam grief motivates Paxton to become a war correspondent for a San Francisco newspaper. In a career move that will event

• The Deep End Of The Ocean | DVD | (28/02/2000) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Beth Cappadora (Michelle Pfeiffer) is at her high school reunion when her three-year-old son disappears from his brother's care. The little boy never turns up, and the family has to deal with the devastating guilt and grief that goes along with it. Nine years later, the family has relocated to Chicago. By a sheer fluke, the kid turns up, living no more than two blocks away. The authorities swoop down and return the kid to his biological parents, but things are far from being that simple. The boy grew up around what he has called his father, while his new family are strangers to him; the older son, now a teenager, has brushes with the law and behavioural problems. His adjustment to his lost brother is complicated by normal teenage churlishness, and the dad (Treat Williams) seems to expect everything to fall into place as though the family had been intact all along. It's a tightrope routine for actors in a story like this, being careful not to chew the scenery while at the same time not being too flaccid or understated. For the most part, the members of the cast deal well with the emotional complexity of their roles. Though the story stretches credulity, weirder things do happen in the real world. The family's pain for the first half of the film is certainly credible, though the second half almost seems like a different movie. Whoopi Goldberg plays the detective assigned to the case; casting her is a bit of a stretch, but she makes it work. All in all, a decent three-hanky movie in the vein of Ordinary People. --Jerry Renshaw, Amazon.com

• Williams & Mansell: Red 5 | Blu Ray | (18/09/2023) from £22.49   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Sabrina | Blu Ray | (10/09/2013) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Audrey Hepburn is the delightful, young, eponymous Sabrina, the daughter of a chauffeur who is hopelessly in love with David Larrabee (William Holden), the playboy younger son in the rich Long Island household her father works for. In order to help her forget her woes, Sabrina is shipped off to cooking school in Paris. While there, she befriends a baron who provides a bit of culture--and the encouragement to snip off her childlike ponytail. Upon her return to New York, Sabrina is transformed into a sophisticated woman, and David is entranced by her. However, his older brother Linus (Humphrey Bogart) has arranged David's marriage to Elizabeth Tyson in order to seal a business merger and thus must steer David away from Sabrina. To do this, Linus takes on the task of wooing her for himself. Full of great dialogue ("A woman happy in love, she burns the soufflé; a woman unhappy in love, she forgets to turn on the oven") and wonderful performances, this film is a romantic masterpiece. Also enjoyable is the 1995 remake, starring Julia Ormond and Harrison Ford. --Jenny Brown

• The Crew | DVD | (12/01/2009) from £4.95   |  Saving you £8.04 (162.42%)   |  RRP £12.99

  As a major heist approaches and with betrayal all around him a respected crime boss has to summon all his street nous and killer instinct as he fights for survival.

• New Jack City | DVD | (01/06/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Some pundits called it a flawed, exploitative action film that glamorised drug dealing and the luxury of a lucrative criminal lifestyle, spawning a trend of films that attracted youth gangs and provoked violence in cinemas. Others hailed it as a breakthrough movie that depicted drug dealers as ruthless, corrupt, and evil, leading dead-end lives that no rational youth would want to emulate. However you interpret it, New Jack City is still one of the first and best films of the 1990s to crack open the underworld of cocaine and peer inside with its eyes wide open. It's also the film that established Wesley Snipes as an actor to watch, with enough charisma to bring an insidious quality of seduction to his role as coke-lord Nino Brown, and enough intelligence to portray a character deluded by his own sense of indestructible power. Director Mario Van Peebles stretched his otherwise-limited talent to bring vivid authenticity and urgency to this crime story, and subplots involving a pair of tenacious cops (Ice-T, Judd Nelson) and a recovering coke addict (Chris Rock) provide additional dramatic tension. Although some critics may hesitate to admit it, New Jack City deserves mention in any serious discussion about African American filmmakers and influential films. --Jeff Shannon

• Khartoum | DVD | (31/03/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Set in the expanse of the Sudan desert in the midst of holy war, Khartoum (1966) plays like an attempt to work the Lawrence of Arabia magic on the (mostly) true story of eccentric British general Charles "Chinese" Gordon in 1884 North Africa. The magnificent opening desert battle suggests David Lean's epic sweep, at least until the film settles into a more modest story of political games, military standoffs, and a battle of wits and wiles between two fierce leaders. Charlton Heston plays the Christian soldier as cocky, unconventional maverick, and Laurence Olivier (behind heavy make-up and a thick black beard) is almost as good as his cagey nemesis the Mahdi, the Islamic holy warrior on a mission of annihilation. More talk than spectacle, the film falls short of Lawrence but is nonetheless a compelling story of colonial politics, cynical manoeuvring and the unconventional heroics of another colourful British maverick abroad. --Sean Axmaker

• The Postman | DVD | (25/09/1998) from £14.98   |  Saving you £-0.99 (N/A%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Falling from the Oscar-winning glory of Dances with Wolves to the opposite end of the critical and box-office scale, Kevin Costner must have been deeply humbled when this three-hour postapocalyptic tale--his sophomore effort as a director--was greeted with a critical thrashing and tepid audience response. One of the most conspicuous flops of its decade, the 1997 release must have seemed like a sure thing on paper: a kind of futurist Western starring Costner as a charismatic drifter-turned-hero who leads the resistance against a military tyrant (Will Patton) by reviving the long-dormant postal system to reunite isolated communities in their fight for freedom. The movie bombed, but, like many audacious failures, it's got qualities that make it at least partially endearing, and its earnestness (although bordering on corny) keeps it from being entirely silly. Faint praise, perhaps, but Costner's ode to patriotism is occasionally stirring and visually impressive. --Jeff Shannon