Drama

• King Solomon's Mines | DVD | (02/02/2004) from £19.93   |  Saving you £-3.95 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  King Solomon's Mines had been filmed several times before, but this 1985 adaptation of H Rider Haggard's novel is far and away the most absurdly tongue-in-cheek. Making no disguise of riding Indiana Jones's coattails, the adventure starts fast and grows ever wilder. Richard Chamberlain wears Allan Quatermain's fedora and expression of grim determination. Supposedly concerned with the novel's quest for lost gold, the movie is really an excuse to string together numerous sight gags and low-budget attempts to upstage Raiders of the Lost Ark (hardly surprisingly, it fails). Pursued by a wax-moustachioed and Wagner-obsessed Herbert Lom, Quatermain and a dizzily blonde Sharon Stone escape an avalanche and crocodiles before being boiled in a cauldron with plastic vegetables at the Village of the Upside Down People. Nothing lingers in the memory, though, than the sight of Chamberlain skiing behind a locomotive. Cheap and rudely plagiaristic it may be, but Indy never got to be as (un)intentionally hilarious. On the DVD: King Solomon's Mines has come up exceptionally well on disc in this widescreen print. Sound is in Dolby 2.0 and is a faithful representation of the effort put into the film's sound design. The only extra is the original trailer. --Paul Tonks

• The Forger | DVD | (07/10/2013) from £7.18   |  Saving you £5.81 (80.92%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Light drama starring Josh Hutcherson and Hayden Panettiere. Joshua (Hutcherson) has a talent - he is able to recreate any painting given to him. So when local art forger Everly (Alfred Molina) promises Joshua he can make him millions, he agrees to forge a specific painting which is apparently lost but in doing so gets tangled in a web of lies and betrayal.

• Shogun | DVD | (05/04/2004) from £46.99   |  Saving you £-9.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £37.99

  From the golden age of the miniseries comes Shogun, the 10-hour, Golden Globe-winning saga based on James Clavell's bestselling epic novel. In his award-winning performance, Richard Chamberlain stars as John Blackthorne, the 17th-century English navigator on a Dutch trading ship. A storm runs the ship aground off the coast of Japan, a "torn and cruelly divided country" locked in a power struggle between Toranaga (the venerable Toshiro Mifune) and Ishido, two warlords who would be Shogun. Blackthorne gets over his initial culture shock ("I piss on you and your country", he defiantly proclaims to his samurai captors, which to his humiliation turns out to be an unfortunate choice of words) to become a trusted ally of Toranaga and the lover of the beautiful interpreter Lady Mariko (Yoko Shimada). Their forbidden, ill-fated romance--and Blackthorne's total assimilation into Japanese culture--is set against political intrigue as Toranaga prepares for the inevitable showdown with Ishido, and Blackthorne's growing influence threatens the local Jesuits who had built up a lucrative trade monopoly. Shogun was a production blessed with good karma, and it remains an awesome achievement from a bygone era when the miniseries was king. --Donald Liebenson

• Hit & Miss | DVD | (02/07/2012) from £12.98   |  Saving you £9.00 (81.89%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Mia is a contract killer with a secret: she's a transgender woman. After a young life where she never quite fitted in, Eddie, an underworld linchpin, took Mia under his wing and created a brilliant assassin.But Mia's life is turned upside down when she receives a letter from her ex, Wendy, who reveals that she's dying from cancer - and that when they were together Mia fathered a son, 11-year-old Ryan. Now Mia is his legal guardian.Travelling to a tiny village in West Yorkshire to see the boy, Mia meets the rest of Wendy's farmhouse clan: 16-year-old Riley, 15-year-old Levi, and 6-year-old Leonie.Hit & Miss follows Mia's attempts to mix her killer instincts with her new maternal ones, in a search for her own identity. A lethal killer at the heart of a troubled family in the middle of nowhere is where the series begins.

• The Falcon And The Snowman | DVD | (08/01/2001) from £10.69   |  Saving you £2.30 (21.52%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Academy Award Winner Timothy Hutton and Sean Penn deliver 'superb performances' Variety in a true-story spy thriller that is 'scathing arresting' (The New York Times) and laced with white-knuckle excitement. From Oscar winning director John Schlesinger and writer Steven Zaillian the film blows the lid off the modern-day American dream with its riveting story of two young men of privilege money and ambition who end up selling out their country ruining their families and destroyi

• Pi | DVD | (19/07/2004) from £7.32   |  Saving you £5.67 (77.46%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Patterns exist everywhere: in nature, in science, in religion, in business. Max Cohen (played hauntingly by Sean Gullette) is a mathematician searching for these patterns in everything. Yet, he's not the only one, and everyone from Wall Street investors, looking to break the market, to Hasidic Jews, searching for the 216-digit number that reveals the true name of God, are trying to get their hands on Max. This dark, low-budget film was shot in black and white by director Darren Aronofsky. With eerie music, voice-overs, and overt symbolism enhancing the somber mood, Aronofsky has created a disturbing look at the world. Max is deeply paranoid, holed up in his apartment with his computer Euclid, obsessively studying chaos theory. Blinding headaches and hallucinogenic visions only feed his paranoia as he attempts to remain aloof from the world, venturing out only to meet his mentor, Sol Robeson (Mark Margolis), who for some mysterious reason feels Max should take a break from his research. Pi is complex--occasionally toocomplex--but the psychological drama and the loose sci-fi elements make this a worthwhile, albeit consuming, watch. Pi won the Director's Award at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival. --Jenny Brown

• Lone Wolf McQuade | Blu Ray | (29/01/2024) from £13.79   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  J.J. McQuade (Chuck Norris) is a legendary Texas Ranger feared by outlaws and respected by other lawmen, until a state trooper, Kayo Ramos (Robert Beltran) needs his help to find out who hijacked a U.S. Army convoy and hurt Ramosʼ daughter. With the help of FBI agent Jackson (Leon Isaac Kennedy), the team tracks down American drug trafficker and arms dealer Rawley Wilkes (David Carradine). After Wilkes kills a federal agent, McQuade wreaks havoc on all those who come between him and the law as he battles the criminal using all of his skills and training, including guns and martial arts.

• Joe Vs The Volcano | Blu Ray | (10/06/2024) from £14.98   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Laughs erupt when Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan fall in love - and fall in lava - in Joe Versus the Volcano, a stylish comedy written and directed by Moonstruck Academy Award® winner* John Patrick Shanley. This first teaming of the peerless stars of Sleepless in Seattle and You've Got Mail follows the follies of a stressed-out guy (Hanks) in a dead-end job who is told he has a terminal brain cloud. A zany jillionaire (Lloyd Bridges) makes him an offerthat gives him a fl eeting taste of the good life. In exchange, he must journey to a Pacific island and leap into a volcano. Is Joedoomed to be the last of the red-hot lovers? Not if the forces of imagination, romance and the charm of Ryan in three roles as the women in Joe's life have their way. On-Disc Special FeaturesBehind-the-Scenes DocumentaryEric Burdon Sixteen Tons Music Video

• Better Than Chocolate | DVD | (21/01/2002) from £14.98   |  Saving you £5.01 (33.44%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Many lesbian movies are long on charm and short on production values; Better Than Chocolate has a solid dose of both and steamy sex scenes to boot. Our heroine Maggie (Karyn Dwyer), a clerk at a lesbian bookshop, meets footloose butch Kim (Christina Cox) and, after Kim's van is towed away, they move in together. Unfortunately for their romantic bliss, Maggie's mother, Lila (Wendy Crewson), and teenage brother move in that very evening thanks to Lila's impending divorce. But what really complicates matters is that Maggie can't bring herself to come out to her mother. Even when she tries, Lila steamrollers through the conversation, as if she knows what's coming and doesn't want to hear it. Interwoven with this is the struggle of Judy (Peter Outerbridge), a male-to-female transsexual who's in love with the bookshop's owner, Frances (Ann-Marie MacDonald), who's freaking out because customs officers are holding a list of books at the border that they claim are obscene. The overlapping plots are deftly juggled, the personal and political are compellingly interwoven, and, most satisfying of all, the characters have problems that aren't going to be easily resolved. A handful of candy-coloured lip-synching musical numbers give the movie some flash and the sex scenes give it some heat, but it's the elements of sorrow and ambiguity that really make the joy in Better Than Chocolate something to savour. --Bret Fetzer, Amazon.com

• Detectorists Movie Special | DVD | (30/01/2023) from £9.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Detectorists, the multi award winning comedy series about metal detecting enthusiasts Andy (Mackenzie Crook) and Lance (Toby Jones), returns for a feature length special. The Danebury Metal Detecting Club is in trouble; developers are sniffing around, and after losing out on a big finder's fee, the club is going to need a miracle to help save their beloved scout hall. So when Lance manages to secure a permission to search ten acres of prime, undetected land, it looks like things could be on the up. But when a mysterious relic is unearthed, Lance breaks protocol, threatening his friendship with Andy and the future of the DMDC.

• It Happened Here | DVD | (30/01/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  The Story of Hitler's England ""The German invasion of England took place in July 1940 after the British retreat from Dunkirk. Strongly resisted at first the German army took many months to restore order. But the resistance movement lacking outside support was finally crushed. Then in 1944 the resistance movement reappeared."" In Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo's brilliant and chilling re-write of history Germany has won World War II and Nazi troops occupy England. Paulin

• Mystic River | Blu Ray | (08/02/2010) from £8.99   |  Saving you £9.00 (100.11%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Clint Eastwood's story of three men whose dark, interwoven history forces them to come to terms with a brutal murder on the mean streets of Boston.

• Countryman | DVD | (06/02/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  A young woman smuggling marijuana crash-lands her plane in Jamaica. A local named Countryman rescues her and leads her away from the authorities who have been pursuing the plane. Features a fantastic soundtrack with the likes of Bob Marley 'Natural Mystic' Wally Badarou 'Obeah Man Dub' and Human Cargo with 'Carry Us Beyond'.

• The Pacific - Complete HBO Series | DVD | (01/11/2010) from £29.39   |  Saving you £-12.39 (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.00

  Unsurprising attracting awards attention, The Pacific is a ten-part series set in the midst of World War II, that follows the actions of three US Marines In the Pacific Theatre Of War. It’s a series not a million miles away from its spiritual predecessor, Band Of Brothers, which is understandable given the crossover of creative talent. Yet The Pacific is still a show with an identity of its own. It boasts the same sky-high production values of Band Of Brothers, but it also has a broader canvas, and a slightly slower pace to it. It’s absorbing drama, though, and the standard of it is kept high right throughout the ten-episode run. During that time, it takes in many key events of the time, and presents them with staggering confidence and strength. All of this, of course, makes you hope that the high definition transfer can do all of this justice. Fortunately, the news here is good. Few television shows have been treated to anywhere near the love that The Pacific has been in its 1080p transfer, and matched by surround sound work that’d put many blockbuster movies to shame, Is it Band Of Brothers 2? Absolutely not. Instead, The Pacific is a wonderful drama series in its own right, and one well worth picking up. --Jon Foster

• Heartland - The Complete First Season | DVD | (26/04/2010) from £21.66   |  Saving you £8.33 (38.46%)   |  RRP £29.99

  A family ranch... A horse whisperer... A fight to save a dream... The hit family series based on the best-selling books by Lauren Brooke. The town of Hudson in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains is home to Heartland a family ranch dedicated to rescuing and rehabilitating troubled horses. After a tragedy puts the ranch in jeopardy fifteen-year-old Amy (Amber Marshall) must use her talents as a horse healer to save the family business. Her sister Lou (Michelle Morgan) reluctantly leaves city life behind to help Amy and their grandfather Jack (Shaun Johnston) run the ranch. With tough times ahead the family now must pull together to keep the dream of Heartland alive.

• Cheri | DVD | (21/09/2009) from £6.92   |  Saving you £9.07 (131.07%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Michelle Pfeiffer and Rupert Friend engage in a passionate love affair in this lush period piece directed by Stephen Frears

• The Stepford Wives | DVD | (09/08/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Ira Levin's scary novel about forced conformity in a small Connecticut town made the Stepford Wives a compelling 1975 thriller. Katharine Ross stars as a city woman who moves with her husband to Stepford and is startled by how perpetually happy many of the local women seem to be. Her search for an answer reveals a plot to replace troublesome real wives with more accommodating fake ones (not unlike the alien takeover in The Invasion of the Body Snatchers). The closer she gets to the truth, the more danger she faces--not to mention the likelihood that the men in town intend to replace her as well. Screenwriter William Goldman (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) and director Bryan Forbes (King Rat) made this a taut, tense semi-classic with a healthy dose of satiric wit. --Tom Keogh, Amazon.com

• Vigil | Blu Ray | (11/06/2018) from £14.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Vincent Ward once described as the Antipodean Werner Herzog made his feature debut with Vigil, heralding his status as one of New Zealand's most distinctive filmmaking talents and paving the way for such equally remarkable and unclassifiable efforts as The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey and Map of the Human Heart. A stranger appears in a remote New Zealand farmland at the exact time a farmer accidentally falls to his death. The mysterious outsider grows close to some of the dead man's family, to the point where he and the widow become lovers. But her eleven-year-old daughter, Toss, struggling to come to terms with the death of her father as well as her impending womanhood, believes the intruder to be the devil and sets about protecting her family and their homestead. Propelled by Fiona Kay's outstanding performance by as Toss, she would earn a standing ovation when Vigil screened at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival the first time ever that a New Zealand feature played in the main competition. Features: High Definition (Blu-ray) presentation Original mono audio (uncompressed LPCM) Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing Brand-new appreciation by film critic Nick Roddick, recorded exclusively for this release On-set report from the long-running New Zealand television programme Country Calendar Extract from a 1987 Kaleidoscope television documentary on New Zealand cinema, focusing on Vigil and Vincent Ward Theatrical trailer FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated collector's booklet featuring new writing on the film by critic Carmen Gray

• The Girl | DVD | (29/10/2008) from £5.79   |  Saving you £-0.80 (N/A%)   |  RRP £4.99

  In the middle of the 18th Century 18 year old Hannah Boyle and her sick mother are travelling from Newcastle; seeking shelter they hide in a stableyard...

• Saving Face (Criterion Collection) - UK Only | Blu Ray | (01/09/2025) from £22.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  A queer romantic comedy set in vibrant, multicultural New York City, Alice Wu's irresistible feature debut breathed fresh life into the genre by combining snappy dialogue and a swooning love story with a poignant narrative about a mother and daughter coming to terms with each other. Just as Wil (Michelle Krusiec), a harried young surgical resident, begins a promising romance with the flirtatious dancer Vivian (Lynn Chen), her life is turned upside down when her more traditional Chinese mother (Joan Chen)unwed and unexpectedly pregnantmoves in with her, forcing both women to confront the generational and cultural barriers that have long troubled their relationship. Both embracing and cleverly subverting rom-com conventions, Wu delivers a bighearted ode to the Chinese American diaspora, and the liberating joy of living one's truth. United States 2004 97 minutes Colour 1.85:1 English, Mandarin Spine #1276 DIRECTOR-APPROVED BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES: ¢ High-definition digital master, approved by director Alice Wu, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack ¢ Audio commentary featuring Wu ¢ New interviews with Wu and actor Joan Chen ¢ Deleted scenes with optional commentary by Wu ¢ Behind-the-scenes featurette ¢ Program featuring Wu and members of the cast at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival ¢ Trailer ¢ English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing ¢ PLUS: An essay by critic Phoebe Chen