"Director: Henry Bronchtein"

• Law And Order Special Victims Unit - Series 3 | DVD | (23/07/2007) from £35.99   |  Saving you £-23.86 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.13

  Join the force along with the 2006 Emmy-Award winner for Outstanding Lead Actress Mariska Hargitay Emmy nominee Christopher Meloni and the rest of the elite squad of New York City detectives as they investigate sexual crimes ripped from today's headlines. Renowned producer Dick Wolf brings you all 23 riveting episodes each packed with powerful storylines and provocative plot twists. Joining the incredible cast is a compelling roster of guests including Eric Stoltz John Ritter Henry Winkler Bobby Canavale and Martha Plimpton in the role that earned her an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Guest Actress. The recipient of 12 Emmy nominations and tremendous critical acclaim Law & Order: Special Victims Unit - The Third Year delivers the quality that viewers have come to expect from this intelligent hard-hitting franchise. Episodes Comprise: 1. Repression 2. Wrath 3. Stolen 4. Rooftop 5. Tangled 6. Redemption 7. Sacrifice 8. Inheritance 9. Care 10. Ridicule 11. Monogamy 12. Protection 13. Prodigy 14. Counterfeit 15. Execution 16. Popular 17. Surveillance 18. Guilt 19. Justice 20. Greed 21. Denial 22. Competence 23. Silence

• The Sopranos: Complete Series 4 | DVD | (11/03/2003) from £14.49   |  Saving you £47.50 (76.60%)   |  RRP £61.99

  Unlike the previous three, this fourth series of The Sopranos largely eschews an overriding story arc in favour of developing several interrelated plot strands, most of which are then left dangling tantalisingly at the end. This year Tony's many extra-marital affairs finally come home to roost, even as he faces challenges to his leadership from within and without. Paulie Walnuts simmers with resentment over his perceived neglect, a resentment only exacerbated by Christopher's promotion; while Christopher's growing drug habit undermines Tony's trust in him. Paulie makes overtures to Johnny Sack and the New York family; Sack himself bears a deadly grudge against Ralph Cifaretto, and also embroils Tony in a dispute between the two families. Ralph and Tony clash over a shared interest in both a race horse and a goomar--you just know it's going to end in something much worse than tears. The women have as many problems, though: Adriana has reluctantly turned FBI informer, a drug-addled Christopher squashes her dog, and she has to confess that she can't have children; Carmela falls maddeningly, frustratingly in love with one of Tony's closest companions; Janice inveigles herself into Bobby's affections in a display of breathtaking emotional manipulation; while Meadow can no longer conceal the disgust she feels about her father's business, and Dr Melfi is increasingly sidelined, since Tony's behavioural issues have become, to all practical purposes, untreatable. The whole ends on a downbeat note as personal disillusionment overshadows the mob politics. With the imminent arrival of Steve Buscemi to the cast, the fifth series is primed to be an explosive one. --Mark Walker

• The Sopranos: Complete Series 2 | DVD | (29/10/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £59.99

  The second series of The Sopranos, David Chase's ultra-cool and ultra-modern take on New Jersey gangster life, matches the brilliance of the first, although it's marginally less violent, with more emphasis given to the stories and obsessions of supporting characters. Sadly, the programme makers were forced to throttle back on the appalling struggle between gang boss Tony Soprano and his Gorgon-like Mother Livia, the very stuff of Greek theatre, following actress Nancy Marchand's unsuccessful battle against cancer. Taking up her slack, however, is Tony's big sister Janice, a New Age victim and arrant schemer and sponger, who takes up with the twitchy, Scarface-wannabe Richie Aprile, brother of former boss Jackie, out of prison and a minor pain in Tony's ass. Other running sub-plots include soldier Chris (Michael Imperioli) hapless efforts to sell his real-life Mafia story to Hollywood, the return and treachery of Big Pussy and Tony's wife Carmela's ruthlessness in placing daughter Meadow in the right college. Even with the action so dispersed, however, James Gandofini is still toweringly dominant as Tony. The genius of his performance, and of the programme makers, is that, despite Tony being a whoring, unscrupulous, sexist boor, a crime boss and a murderer, we somehow end up feeling and rooting for him, because he's also a family man with a bratty brood to feed, who's getting his balls busted on all sides, to say nothing of keeping the Government off his back. He's the kind of crime boss we'd like to feel we would be. Tony's decent Italian-American therapist Dr Melfi's (Loraine Bracco) perverse attraction with her gangster-patient reflects our own and, in her case, causes her to lose her first series cool and turn to drink this time around. Effortlessly multi-dimensional, funny and frightening, devoid of the sentimentality that afflicts even great American TV like The West Wing, The Sopranos is boss of bosses in its televisual era. --David Stubbs

• The Sopranos: Series 2 (Vols. 4-6) | DVD | (25/06/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £33.99

  The second series of The Sopranos, David Chase's ultra-cool and ultra-modern take on New Jersey gangster life, matches the brilliance of the first, although it's marginally less violent, with more emphasis given to the stories and obsessions of supporting characters. Sadly, the programme makers were forced to throttle back on the appalling struggle between gang boss Tony Soprano and his Gorgon-like Mother Livia, the very stuff of Greek theatre, following actress Nancy Marchand's unsuccessful battle against cancer. Taking up her slack, however, is Tony's big sister Janice, a New Age victim and arrant schemer and sponger, who takes up with the twitchy, Scarface-wannabe Richie Aprile, brother of former boss Jackie, out of prison and a minor pain in Tony's ass. Other running sub-plots include soldier Chris (Michael Imperioli) hapless efforts to sell his real-life Mafia story to Hollywood, the return and treachery of Big Pussy and Tony's wife Carmela's ruthlessness in placing daughter Meadow in the right college. Even with the action so dispersed, however, James Gandofini is still toweringly dominant as Tony. The genius of his performance, and of the programme makers, is that, despite Tony being a whoring, unscrupulous, sexist boor, a crime boss and a murderer, we somehow end up feeling and rooting for him, because he's also a family man with a bratty brood to feed, who's getting his balls busted on all sides, to say nothing of keeping the Government off his back. He's the kind of crime boss we'd like to feel we would be. Tony's decent Italian-American therapist Dr Melfi's (Loraine Bracco) perverse attraction with her gangster-patient reflects our own and, in her case, causes her to lose her first series cool and turn to drink this time around. Effortlessly multi-dimensional, funny and frightening, devoid of the sentimentality that afflicts even great American TV like The West Wing, The Sopranos is boss of bosses in its televisual era. --David Stubbs

• The Sopranos: Series 2 (Vol. 5) | DVD | (25/06/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  The second series of The Sopranos, David Chase's ultra-cool and ultra-modern take on New Jersey gangster life, matches the brilliance of the first, although it's marginally less violent, with more emphasis given to the stories and obsessions of supporting characters. Sadly, the programme makers were forced to throttle back on the appalling struggle between gang boss Tony Soprano and his Gorgon-like Mother Livia, the very stuff of Greek theatre, following actress Nancy Marchand's unsuccessful battle against cancer. Taking up her slack, however, is Tony's big sister Janice, a New Age victim and arrant schemer and sponger, who takes up with the twitchy, Scarface-wannabe Richie Aprile, brother of former boss Jackie, out of prison and a minor pain in Tony's ass. Other running sub-plots include soldier Chris (Michael Imperioli) hapless efforts to sell his real-life Mafia story to Hollywood, the return and treachery of Big Pussy and Tony's wife Carmela's ruthlessness in placing daughter Meadow in the right college. Even with the action so dispersed, however, James Gandofini is still toweringly dominant as Tony. The genius of his performance, and of the programme makers, is that, despite Tony being a whoring, unscrupulous, sexist boor, a crime boss and a murderer, we somehow end up feeling and rooting for him, because he's also a family man with a bratty brood to feed, who's getting his balls busted on all sides, to say nothing of keeping the Government off his back. He's the kind of crime boss we'd like to feel we would be. Tony's decent Italian-American therapist Dr Melfi's (Loraine Bracco) perverse attraction with her gangster-patient reflects our own and, in her case, causes her to lose her first series cool and turn to drink this time around. Effortlessly multi-dimensional, funny and frightening, devoid of the sentimentality that afflicts even great American TV like The West Wing, The Sopranos is boss of bosses in its televisual era. --David Stubbs

• The Sopranos: Series 1 (Vol. 5) | DVD | (16/04/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  The Sopranos, writer-producer-director David Chase's extraordinary television series, is nominally an urban gangster drama, but its true impact strikes closer to home: This ambitious TV series chronicles a dysfunctional, suburban American family in bold relief. And for protagonist Tony Soprano, there is the added complexity posed by heading twin families, his collegial mob clan and his own, nouveau riche brood.The series' brilliant first season is built around what Tony learns when, whipsawed between those two worlds, he finds himself plunged into depression and seeks psychotherapy--a gesture at odds with his mid-level capo's machismo, yet instantly recognisable as a modern emotional test. With analysis built into the very spine of the show's elaborate episodic structure, creator Chase and his formidable corps of directors, writers and actors weave an unpredictable series of parallel and intersecting plot arcs that twist from tragedy to farce to social realism. While creating for a smaller screen, they enjoy a far larger canvas than a single movie would afford, and the results, like the very best episodic television, attain a richness and scope far closer to a novel than movies normally get.Unlike Francis Coppola's operatic dramatisation of Mario Puzo's Godfather epic, The Sopranos sustains a poignant, even mundane intimacy in its focus on Tony, brought to vivid life by James Gandolfini's mercurial performance. Alternately seductive, exasperated, fearful and murderous, Gandolfini is utterly convincing even when executing brutal shifts between domestic comedy and dramatic violence. Both he and the superb team of Italian-American actors recruited as his loyal (and, sometimes, not-so-loyal) henchman and their various "associates" make this mob as credible as the evocative Bronx and New Jersey locations where the episodes were filmed.The first season's other life force is Livia Soprano, Tony's monstrous, meddlesome mother. As Livia, the late Nancy Marchand eclipses her long career of patrician performances to create an indelibly earthy, calculating matriarch who shakes up both families; Livia also serves as foil and rival to Tony's loyal, usually level-headed wife, Carmela (Edie Falco). Lorraine Bracco makes Tony's therapist, Dr Melfi, a convincing confidante, by turns "professional", perceptive and sexy; the duo's therapeutic relationship is also depicted with uncommon accuracy. Such grace notes only enrich what is not merely an aesthetic high point for commercial television, but an absorbing film masterwork that deepens with subsequent screenings. --Sam Sutherland, Amazon.com