"Actor: Alec Su"

• The Bridge on the River Kwai (UHD & BD - 2 DISCS) (NON UV) | Blu Ray | (04/12/2017) from £19.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Spectacularly produced, and the winner of seven Academy Awards® (1957), including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor (Alec Guinness), THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI continues to be one of the most memorable cinematic experiences of all time. Experience director David Lean's legendary classic like never before with this 60th anniversary edition.

• The Bridge On The River Kwai | DVD | (04/12/2000) from £4.65   |  Saving you £18.34 (394.41%)   |  RRP £22.99

  Based on the true story of the building of a bridge on the Burma railway by British prisoners-of-war held under a savage Japanese regime in World War II, The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) is one of the greatest war films ever made. The film received seven Oscars, including Best Picture, Director, Performance (Alex Guinness), for Sir Malcolm Arnold's superb music, and for the screenplay from the novel by Pierre Boulle (who also wrote Monkey Planet, the inspiration for Planet of the Apes). The story does take considerable liberties with history, including the addition of an American saboteur played by William Holden, and an entirely fictitious but superbly constructed and thrilling finale. Made on a vast scale, the film reinvented the war movie as something truly epic, establishing the cinematic beachhead for The Longest Day (1962), Patton (1970) and A Bridge Too Far (1977). It also proved a turning-point in director David Lean's career. Before he made such classic but conventionally scaled films as In Which We Serve (1942) and Hobson's Choice (1953). Afterwards there would only be four more films, but their names are Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Dr Zhivago (1965), Ryan's Daughter (1970) and A Passage to India (1984). On the DVD: Too often the best extras come attached to films that don't really warrant them. Not so here, where a truly great film has been given the attention it deserves. The first disc presents the film in the original extra-wide CinemaScope ratio of 2.55:1, in an anamorphically enhanced transfer which does maximum justice to the film's superb cinematography. The sound has been transferred from the original six-track magnetic elements into 5.1 Dolby Digital and far surpasses what many would expect from a 1950s' feature. The main bonus on the first disc is an isolated presentation of Malcolm Arnold's great Oscar-winning music score, in addition to which there is a trivia game, and maps and historical information linked to appropriate clips. The second disc contains a new, specially produced 53-minute "making of" documentary featuring many of those involved in the production of the movie. This gives a rich insight into the physical problems of making such a complex epic on location in Ceylon. Also included are the original trailer and two short promotional films from the time of release, one of which is narrated by star William Holden. Finally there is an "appreciation" by director John Milius, an extensive archive of movie posters and artwork, and a booklet that reproduces the text of the film's original 1957 brochure. --Gary S Dalkin

• Along Came Polly | DVD | (05/07/2004) from £3.20   |  Saving you £14.79 (462.19%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Ben Stiller stars as an over-cautious risk assessor who falls in love with Jennifer Aniston's adventure-craving, ferret-loving free spirit.

• Hanover Street | DVD | (16/09/2002) from £10.85   |  Saving you £2.14 (19.72%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Written and directed by Peter Hyams 'Hanover Street' stars Harrison Ford as David a WWII American bomber pilot who meets and falls in love with a beautiful nurse during an air raid in London. Unbeknownst to him she is married. David is then shot down behind enemy lines while accompanying a British agent into France. In the midst of danger David comes to realise that the agent is his lover's husband...

• Downsizing | DVD | (28/05/2018) from £5.85   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  When scientists discover how to shrink humans to five inches tall as a solution to over-population, Paul (Matt Damon) and his wife Audrey (Kristen Wiig) decide to abandon their stressed lives in order to get small and move to a new downsized community a choice that triggers life-changing adventures.

• Oliver Twist -- Special Edition | DVD | (26/09/2008) from £12.98   |  Saving you £3.01 (23.19%)   |  RRP £15.99

  There have been many film and TV adaptations of Oliver Twist but this 1948 production from director David Lean remains the definitive screen interpretation of the Charles Dickens classic. From the ominous symbolism of its opening storm sequence (in which Oliver's pregnant, ill-fated mother struggles to reach shelter before childbirth) to the mob-scene climax that provokes Bill Sikes's dreadful comeuppance, this breathtaking black-and-white film remains loyal to Dickens while distilling the story into its purest cinematic essence.Every detail is perfect--Lean even includes a coffin-shaped snuffbox for the cruel Mr. Sowerberry--and as young Oliver, eight-year-old John Howard Davies (who would later produce Monty Python's Flying Circus for the BBC) perfectly expresses the orphan's boyish wonderment, stern determination and waifish vulnerability. Best of all is Alec Guinness as Fagin, so devious and yet so delightfully appealing under his beak-nosed (and, at the time, highly controversial) make-up. (Many complained that Fagin's huge nose and greedy demeanour presented an anti-Semitic stereotype, even though Lean never identifies Fagin as Jewish; for this reason, the film wasn't shown in the US until three years after its British release.) Likewise, young Anthony Newley is artfully dodgy as Fagin's loyal accomplice, the Artful Dodger. Guinness's performance would later provide strong inspiration for Ron Moody's equally splendid portrayal of Fagin in the Oscar-winning Oliver! and while that 1968 musical remains wonderfully entertaining, it is Lean's film that hews closest to Dickens' vision. The authentic recreation of 19th-century London is marvellous to behold; Guy Green's cinematography is so shadowy and stylised that it almost qualifies as Dickensian film noir. Lean is surprisingly blunt in conveying Dickens's theme of cruelty but his film never loses sight of the warmth and humanity that Oliver embodies. --Jeff Shannon

• Scrooge | DVD | (22/11/2004) from £5.45   |  Saving you £10.54 (193.40%)   |  RRP £15.99

  A mixed bag as variations on A Christmas Carol go, this 1970 British musical tells the usual story of Scrooge (Albert Finney) and his spirits on Christmas Eve, although the whole thing is set to music by Leslie Bricusse. Except for Finney's feisty and involved performance, however, there isn't much to recommend this. The songs, which absorb so much of the evolving story line and emotions, are not all that good. Plenty of support, however, from the likes of Roy Kinnear (Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory) and Dame Edith Evans (Tom Jones), the handsome production is directed by veteran Ronald Neame (The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie). --Tom Keogh

• Walking with Cavemen | DVD | (31/03/2003) from £24.74   |  Saving you £-6.75 (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Breaking the mould of previous "Walking with" offerings, the BBC's Walking with Cavemen sees Professor Robert Winston follow in the footsteps of ancient man in a series that traces the history of humanity from bipedal ape-men (Australopithecus Aphaeresis) to the awakening of the human mind's potential with Homo Erectus. Spread over four fascinating half-hour instalments, Wilson presents an accessible and populist, but still suitably anthropological study on how apes became human and the traits that we inherited from our earliest ancestors. Unlike Dinosaurs and Beasts, Cavemen combines CGI with actors to portray the characters in the story of man. Initially this seems to make it far less technically impressive than the earlier programmes--memories of Kubrick's 2001 are inevitable--but fortunately the acting is superb and the viewer soon forgets that these are people in monkey suits. The series also makes use of a special effect called "deep time-lapse", which shows in a matter of dramatic seconds the thousands of years of geological changes that sped up our ancestors' evolution. Wilson himself takes part in the action as if he is a modern-day naturalist following lions across the Serengeti rather than creatures long extinct. This approach makes for a more immediate as well as poignant interpretation of history: the result is an enlightening and moving tribute to the human journey. On the DVD: Walking with Cavemen on disc has production interviews with series producer Peter Georgi, executive producer and director Richard Dale, director of animated extras Ben Palmer and actor David Rubin. There are also location interviews, the best of which is two of the actors in full costume explaining the difficulties involved in eating lunch. There are sequences explaining the creation of the digital effects, and the original score can be accessed as an audio-only option. A fact file for each episode and a picture gallery complete the extras package. --Kristen Bowditch

• Motherless Brooklyn | DVD | (13/04/2020) from £7.19   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Set against the backdrop of 1950s New York, Motherless Brooklyn follows Lionel Essrog (Edward Norton), a lonely private detective afflicted with Tourette's Syndrome, as he ventures to solve the murder of his mentor and only friend, Frank Minna (Bruce Willis). Armed only with a few clues and the powerful engine of his obsessive mind, Lionel unravels closely-guarded secrets that hold the fate of the whole city in the balance. In a mystery that carries him from gin-soaked jazz clubs in Harlem to the hard-edged slums of Brooklyn and, finally, into the gilded halls of New York's power brokers, Lionel contends with thugs, corruption and the most dangerous man in the city to honour his friend and save the woman who might be his own salvation.

• David Lean Collection | DVD | (17/10/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  A collection of classic films from famed British director David Lean. Bridge On The River Kwai (1957): When British P.O.W.s build a vital railway bridge in enemy occupied Burma Allied commandos are assigned to destroy it in David Lean's epic World War II adventure The Bridge on the River Kwai. Spectacularly produced The Bridge on the River Kwai captured the imagination of the public and won seven 1957 Academy Awards including Best Picture Be

• Downsizing | Blu Ray | (28/05/2018) from £5.95   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  When scientists discover how to shrink humans to five inches tall as a solution to over-population, Paul (Matt Damon) and his wife Audrey (Kristen Wiig) decide to abandon their stressed lives in order to get small and move to a new downsized community a choice that triggers life-changing adventures.

• Family Guy, Series 1 | DVD | (29/03/2004) from £4.99   |  Saving you £20.00 (400.80%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Family Guy shouldn't work at all. Even by the witless standards of modern television, it is breathtakingly derivative: does an animated series about the travails of a boorish, suburban yob with a saintly wife, a hopeless son, a clever daughter and a baby sound familiar at all? Even the house in Family Guy looks like it was built by the same architects who sketched the residence of The Simpsons. However, Family Guy does work, transcending its (occasionally annoyingly) obvious influences with reliably crisp writing and the glorious sight gags contained in the surreal flashbacks which punctuate the episodes. Most importantly, the show's brilliance comes from two absolutely superb characters: Stewie, the baby whose extravagant dreams of tyrannising the world are perpetually thwarted by the prosaic limitations of infanthood, and the urbane family dog Brian--Snoopy after attendance at an obedience class run by Frank Sinatra. Family Guy does not possess the cultural or satirical depth of The Simpsons--very little art in any field does. But it is a genuinely funny and clever programme. --Andrew Mueller

• Alice | DVD | (11/02/2002) from £7.45   |  Saving you £8.54 (114.63%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Critics greeted Woody Allen's 1990 opus Alice with sighs of resignation. Here was yet another of Allen's bemused heroines-at-a-crossroads/crisis, falling prey to all kinds of temptation and fantasy and emerging at the other end a more complete, fulfilled or at least self-aware human being. But, though it's a minor work by his highest standards, it has weathered rather well. This is a softer exploration of territory Allen had previously covered rather more intensely and seriously in Another Woman (1988). It's often very funny and ultimately affirms one of Allen's most persistent themes: however confused you think you are, the answer probably lies somewhere inside you rather than in anybody else. As Alice, Mia Farrow gives one of her most versatile and unmannered performances, revealing a real gift for comedy. However bitter the breakdown of her long personal relationship with Allen, there is no doubt that he took her to new professional heights in their cinematic collaborations. At the start, Alice is little more than a well-heeled housewife and mother, a lady who lunches with bitchy friends. Her dissatisfaction with her marriage (to patronising rich guy William Hurt) leads her into the path of Chinese herbalist Dr Yang, whose potions set her off on a series of experiences which include the affair she has been considering, becoming invisible (cue some great gags, especially one involving a New York cab) and a brief flirtation with opium (here Allen's trademark soundtrack of old standards includes the evocative "Limehouse Blues"). There's also some great dialogue. "He's very deep," says Farrow of her putative lover (Joe Mantegna). "Yeah, and very deep is where he wants to put it", cracks back her visiting muse (a glittering cameo from Bernadette Peters). On the DVD: Presented in widescreen (1.85:1) format with a Dolby Digital stereo soundtrack, Alice on DVD replicates the hallmark intimacy of Allen's films in the cinema with good picture and lush sound quality (the importance of his romantic, referential musical choices should never be underestimated). There are no extras, apart from the original theatrical trailer. --Piers Ford

• Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade Of Cartoon Comedy | DVD | (25/01/2010) from £5.99   |  Saving you £7.00 (116.86%)   |  RRP £12.99

  From the creator of Family Guy and the co-creator of American Dad! comes a brand-new animated series of pop culture parodies hilarious shorts and superb non-sequiters. Uncensored uninhibited and unbelievably funny Seth MacFarlane's Calvalcade of Cartoon Comedy is brimming with the kind of smart raunchy and twisted humour you can't see on television no matter how hard you try. So sit back relax and enjoy the show. The possibilities are endless... and so are the laughs!

• The Shadow | DVD | (06/07/2009) from £6.73   |  Saving you £3.26 (48.44%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Another masked avenger is reincarnated as a big budget movie. Idle playboy Lamont Cranston (Alec Baldwin), schooled in Tibetan mysticism, fights crime in late '30s New York while wearing a natty hat and false beak. He finds time to romance telepathic sweetie Margo Lane (Penelope Miller), whose crusty old scientist Dad (Ian McKellen) has just invented an atom bomb which is in danger of falling into the hands of Shiwan Khan (John Lone), conquest-happy last descendent of Genghis Khan.Director Russell Mulcahy turns out the regulation death traps (a locked chamber filling with water, a bomb timer which ticks away during the climax) and the Shadow breezes through via nifty "invisible" effects. It evokes the conventions and charms of 1930s' pulp fiction in rather more nostalgic mode than Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, and adds little of its own attitude, although a sly camp sensibility (notably in the extremely chi-chi Tim Curry and John Lone as the villains) goes for snickering at the expense of tension. A pleasant, eye-pleasing movie but, after the super-heroic likes of Batman, The Crow and The Mask, the merely mysterious Shadow seems somewhat grandfatherly and remote. --Kim Newman

• The Assassins | DVD | (09/09/2013) from £4.89   |  Saving you £8.10 (165.64%)   |  RRP £12.99

  In the year 198 BC Cao Cao (Chow Yun Fat) The Prime Minister of Han Dynasty ventured to the east and savagely defeated China's greatest warrior Lv Bu terrifying every warlord across the country before crowning himself the King of Wei. Meanwhile young lovers Mu Shun (Tamaki Hiroshi) and Ling Jv (Crystal Liu Yi Fei) were taken from a prison camp to a hidden tomb where they spent five cruel years being trained as assassins for a secret mission. Over twenty years later in the year 220 BC astronomical signs began to predict dramatic change and as a result Cao's son Cao Pi (Qiu Xin Zhi) and his followers urged Cao to become the new Emperor unaware that opposing forces were plotting against him...

• Motherless Brooklyn | Blu Ray | (13/04/2020) from £7.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Set against the backdrop of 1950s New York, Motherless Brooklyn follows Lionel Essrog (Edward Norton), a lonely private detective afflicted with Tourette's Syndrome, as he ventures to solve the murder of his mentor and only friend, Frank Minna (Bruce Willis). Armed only with a few clues and the powerful engine of his obsessive mind, Lionel unravels closely-guarded secrets that hold the fate of the whole city in the balance. In a mystery that carries him from gin-soaked jazz clubs in Harlem to the hard-edged slums of Brooklyn and, finally, into the gilded halls of New York's power brokers, Lionel contends with thugs, corruption and the most dangerous man in the city to honour his friend and save the woman who might be his own salvation.

• Shakespeare: The Animated Tales | DVD | (28/03/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £39.99

  This Animated Shakespeare Box Set winner of 2 Emmy awards contains 12 of the bard's plays that were originally broadcast on BBC2 in 1994. The scripts for the 'Animated Tales' have been adapted from the original Shakespeare by Leon Garfield. A reknowed Shakespearean scholar Garfield worked closely with a panel of academic experts to create plays that are masterfully abridged to only 30 minutes yet are faithful to Shakespeare's language and plots. The 12 episodes are : 1.

• Tunes Of Glory | DVD | (23/07/2007) from £13.92   |  Saving you £2.07 (14.87%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Major Jock Sinclair has been in this Highland regiment since he joined as a boy piper. During the Second World War as Second-in-Command he was made acting Commanding Officer. Now the regiment has returned to Scotland and a new commanding officer is to be appointed. Jock's own cleverness is pitted against his new CO his daughter his girlfriend and the other officers in the Mess.

• Along Came Polly / Win A Date With Tad Hamilton / 50 First Dates | DVD | (03/10/2005) from £12.99   |  Saving you £7.00 (53.89%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Along Came Polly (Dir. John Hamburg 2003): When risk-averse Reuben Feffer's new bride dumps him on their honeymoon for a muscle-bound scuba instructor his plans for love and life are thrown wildly off track. A chance encounter with an adventure craving childhood friend named Polly shoots him into a whirlwind of extreme sports spicy foods ferrets and salsa dancing. Can Reuben the ultimate control freak really change and live in the moment. Win A Date With Tad Hamilton (Dir. Robert Luketic 2004): Imagine meeting your favourite big-screen idol and he winds up idolising you! That's what happens to Rosalee (Kate Bosworth) a star-struck small-town girl who wins a date with handsome Hollywood hunk Tad Hamilton (Josh Dushamel). While it may be Rosalee's dream come true it means complete chaos for her best friend Pete (Topher Grace). He's the boy back home who's deeply hopelessly (and secretly) in love with her too... 50 First Dates (Dir. Peter Segal 2004): Henry Roth (Sandler) the local marina veterinarian only dates tourists because he's afraid of commitment - that is until he meets Lucy (Barrymore). Unfortunately Lucy lost her short-term memory months ago in a car accident and for her each day is October the 13th. She follows the same routine every day - breakfast at the same restaurant pineapple-picking with her dad and eventually bed time where sleep wipes away her short-term memory. Henry however refuses to be forgotten and as his puppy love matures he embarks on a quest to restore her memory or at least be a part of her everyday routine. But vying for Lucy's attention isn't always easy. Henry explores various approaches before making a video for Lucy to watch every morning reminding her of who she is and what she's doing...