"Actor: B"

• The X Files: Season 2 | DVD | (11/10/2004) from £14.93   |  Saving you £20.06 (134.36%)   |  RRP £34.99

  Season Two, the 1994-95 run, of The X Files was the one where creator Chris Carter, having had a surprise hit when he expected a one-season wonder, started trying to make sense of all the storylines he had thrown into the pile in the first year. Moreover, he had to cope with Gillian Anderson's maternity leave by having Scully get abducted by aliens (back then, a pretty fresh device) for a few episodes and come back strangely altered. The season also inaugurated the tradition of opening ("Little Green Men") and closing ("Anasazi") with the show's worst episodes, both pot-boiling attempts to keep the alien infiltration/government conspiracy balls up in the air while seeming to offer narrative forward-thrusts or revelations. But it's also a show noticeably surer of itself than Season One, with its stars reading from the same page in terms of their characters' relationship and attitudes to the wondrous. Scully's no-longer-workable scepticism finally starts to erode in the face of Mulder's increasingly cracked belief. There are fewer marking-time leftover-monster-of-the-week shows--although we do get a human fluke ("The Host"), vampires ("3"), an invisible rapist ("Excelsius Dei") voodoo ("Fresh Bones")--and the flying-saucer stories at last seem to be going somewhere. The powerful two-episode run ("Duane Barry", "Ascension") features Steve Railsback as Mulder's possible future, an FBI agent burned out after a UFO abduction who has become a hostage-taking terrorist, which climaxes with Scully's disappearance into the light. The standout episode is also a stand-alone--"Humbug"--the first and still most successful of the show's self-parodies (written by Darin Morgan, who had played the Flukeman in "The Host"), in which the agents investigate a murder in a circus freakshow, allowing the actors to make fun of the mannerisms they have earnestly built up in a run of solemn, even somnolent, explorations of the murk. Other worthy efforts: "Aubrey", about genetic memory; "Irresistible", a rare (and creepy) straight psycho-chiller with little paranormal content; and "The Calusari", a good ghost/mystery. Rising deputy characters include Nicholas Lea as the perfidious Krycek and Brian Thompson as the shapeshifting alien bounty hunters. Notable guest stars: Charles Martin Smith, C.C.H. Pounder, Leland Orser, Terry O'Quinn, Bruce Weitz, Daniel Benzali, John Savage, Vincent Schiavelli, Tony Shalhoub. --Kim Newman

• Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. - Season 1 (Limited Edition Digipack) | Blu Ray | (20/10/2014) from £21.25   |  Saving you £16.74 (78.78%)   |  RRP £37.99

  The mind-blowing saga that began in Marvel’s The Avengers continues in ABC’s action-packed series Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. — The Complete First Season. In the wake of The Battle of New York the world has changed forever. An extraordinary landscape of wonders has been revealed! In response mysteriously resurrected Agent Phil Coulson assembles an elite team of skilled agents and operatives: Melinda May Grant Ward Leo Fitz Jemma Simmons and new recruit/computer hacker Skye. Together they investigate the new the strange and the unknown across the globe protecting the ordinary from the extraordinary. But every answer unearths even more tantalizing questions that reverberate across the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe: Who is “The Clairvoyant”? What is Hydra’s sinister master plan; what dark secret lies behind Skye’s puzzling origins and most importantly of all who can be trusted?

• SOUL POWER (Masters of Cinema) (DVD) | DVD | (10/09/2012) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  "Soul Power" is a verite documentary, entirely composed of footage shot in 1974 at the legendary music festival (dubbed "Zaire '74"). It shows the experiences and performances of such musical luminaries as James Brown and BB King among others.

• Taxi | DVD | (14/10/2002) from £5.84   |  Saving you £4.14 (145.26%)   |  RRP £6.99

  Daniel, a former pizza-delivery guy now working as a taxi-driver, is speed crazy.

• Land Of Mine | DVD | (09/10/2017) from £6.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Danish historical drama written and directed by Martin Zandvliet. After Germany's surrender in May 1945 signals the end of World War II, a group of young German prisoners are handed over to Danish sergeant Carl Leopold Rasmussen (Roland Moller) to clear the Danish coastline of thousands of live landmines. Promising them that they will be free to return home once the job is done, Rasmussen quickly sends the boys out onto the beaches to begin their dangerous assignment. However, as the group's inexperience starts to show, Carl soon finds himself forming a strong bond with his young charges as they attempt to carry on with their daunting task.

• That Awkward Moment | DVD | (02/06/2014) from £7.05   |  Saving you £8.94 (126.81%)   |  RRP £15.99

  When Mikey (Michael B. Jordan) is dumped by his wife his best friends Jason (Zac Efron) and Daniel (Miles Teller) make a pact to remain single with him until he gets back into the whirlwind of the New York dating game. But when Jason meets Ellie (Imogen Poots) and Daniel's friendship with Chelsea (Mackenzie Davis) turns into something more the guys realise that the line between casual dating and a serious relationship is more complicated than they thought.

• 8 Women | DVD | (18/08/2003) from £8.14   |  Saving you £11.85 (145.58%)   |  RRP £19.99

  In this French comedy a man is murdered. The suspects: eight different woman from his life.

• Mr Smith Goes To Washington | DVD | (26/02/2001) from £8.90   |  Saving you £11.09 (124.61%)   |  RRP £19.99

  In Frank Capra's bright, funny and beautifully paced satire Mr Smith Goes to Washington political heavyweights decide that Jefferson Smith (James Stewart), an obscure scoutmaster in a small town, would be the perfect dupe to fill a vacant US Senate chair. Surely this naïve bumpkin can be easily controlled by the senior senator (Claude Rains) from his state, a respectable yet corrupted career politician. Capra fills the film with Smith's wide-eyed wonder at the glories of Washington, all of which ring false for his cynical secretary (Jean Arthur) who doesn't believe for a minute this rube could be for real. But he is. Capra was repeating the formula of a previous film, Mr Deeds Goes to Town, but this one is even sharper. Stewart and Arthur are brilliant, and the former cowboy-star Harry Carey lends a warm presence to the role of the vice-president. Mr Smith Goes to Washington is Capra's ode to the power of innocence--an idea so potent that present-day audiences may find themselves wishing for a new Mr Smith in the halls of power. The 1939 US Congress was none too thrilled about the film's depiction of their august body, denouncing it as a caricature; but even today, Capra's jibes about vested interests and political machines look as accurate as ever. --Robert Horton, Amazon.com

• Blues Brothers 2000 | Blu Ray | (26/06/2017) from £7.49   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Eighteen years after the Brothers original mission from God , Elwood Blues (Dan Aykroyd) is getting out of prison and discovering that much has changed in the time he s been away. His partner Jake is gone, his band is no longer together and the orphange where he grew up has been demolished. Elwood soon realises that he must embark on a whole new mission- to assemble the old band, this time with the help of a soulful bartender (John Goodman), compete at Queen Moussette s (Erykah Badu) Battle of the Bands and set a wayward orphan named Buster on the path to redemption. Special appearances by B.B King, Aretha Franklin, James Brown, Johnny Lang, Blues Traveler, Eric Clapton and many more. It s an action packed comedy with lots of Rythmn and Blues.

• Chronicle | DVD | (20/08/2012) from £5.35   |  Saving you £14.64 (273.64%)   |  RRP £19.99

  If you should come upon a glowing, possibly extraterrestrial object buried in a hole, go ahead and touch the thing--you might just get superpowers. Or so it goes for the three high-school buds in Chronicle, an inventive excursion into the teenage sci-fi world. Once affected by the power, the guys exercise the joys of telekinesis: shuffling cars around in parking lots, moving objects in grocery stores, that kind of thing. Oh yeah--they can fly, too: and here director Josh Trank takes wing, in the movie's giddiest sequence, as the trio zips around the clouds in a glorious wish-fulfillment. It goes without saying that there will be a shadow side to this gift, and that's where Chronicle, for all its early cleverness, begins to stumble. Broody misfit Andrew (Dane DeHaan), destined to be voted Least Likely to Handle Superpowers Well by his graduating class, is documenting all this with his video camera, which is driving him even crazier (the movie's in "found footage" style, so everything we see is from a camcorder or security camera, an approach that gets trippy when Andrew realises he can levitate his camera without having to hold it). Trank and screenwriter Max Landis (son of John) seem to lose inspiration when the last act rolls around, so the movie settles for weightless battles around the Space Needle and a smattering of mass destruction. Still, let's give Chronicle credit for an offbeat angle, and a handful of memorable scenes. --Robert Horton

• Guys And Dolls - Samuel Goldwyn Presents | DVD | (08/05/2017) from £5.74   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  This CinemaScope treatment of Frank Loesser's hit Broadway musical Guys and Dolls is a deeply rewarding visual and musical experience. Frank Sinatra turns in one of his best screen performances running a close second to Marlon Brando and Jean Simmons, looking adorable and singing sweetly. In essence this is a piece of photographed theatre mounted on a handsome scale. The striking set designs and a brilliantly executed soundtrack are courtesy of two Broadway craftsmen Oliver Smith and conductor Jay Blackton. Photographer Harry Stradling brings a meticulous eye for detail when his camera stationed on the auditorium side of the frame, peers into Miss Adelaide's bathroom cupboard as she views the lines of medicine bottles in her celebrated "lament". Sinatra, in his vocal prime, sings a new number to Adelaide (Vivian Blaine)--arranged by Nelson Riddle--and Brando and Simmons strike chords in all their scenes from their opening duet "I'll Know" through to their evening out at a Havana bistro where she gets pie-eyed on a Bacardi milk-shake, tipsily wondering "If I were a Bell". Stubby Kaye also from the Broadway cast recreates the show-stopping "Sit Down You're Rockin' the Boat". Michael Kidd's choreography for "Luck Be a Lady" is razor-sharp and superbly captured in the CinemaScope format, though the formalised staging of the opening ought to have been rethought for this medium. The biggest pity is that Loesser amended some of his lyrics and replaced several tunes from his original score with inferior material. On the DVD: The DVD trailer hosted by Ed Sullivan makes much of the $1,000,000 cheque producer Samuel Goldwyn paid for the rights and the previews of the picture he obtained for his weekly television show. There's no denying that the remastered stereophonic soundtrack captures the Broadway sound to thrilling effect without it being overglamorised. The picture looks splendid too--never settle for the compromise version we've endured all these years on television! --Adrian Edwards

• Taxi | DVD | (11/04/2005) from £7.35   |  Saving you £9.90 (162.56%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Queen Latifah plays the speed demon driver of a tricked out New York taxi forced to team-up with undercover cop Jimmy Fallon, who's on the trail of some deadly Brazilian bank robbers.

• Themroc | Blu Ray | (19/05/2025) from £15.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Living at home with his mother, bachelor house painter Themroc (Michel Piccoli, Belle de Jour) leads a dull life. One day, after an unearned run-in with his boss, the usually docile Themroc rebels and dismantles his myopic world. Made on a shoestring budget with no intelligible dialogue, Claude Faraldo's cult taboo-busting satire about a French blue-collar worker-turned-urban caveman anarchically eviscerates mid-century labour and gender politics. Never released on home video in the UK, Themroc may be familiar to British audiences from Channel 4's infamous Red Triangle showings, intended for adults only; now this savage satire can be seen again, newly presented on Blu-ray from a 4K restoration. LIMITED EDITION BLU-RAY SPECIAL FEATURES 4K Restoration from the original negative by StudioCanal Uncompressed mono PCM audio Interview with critic and filmmaker David Thompson (2025) Archival TV interview with actor Michel Piccoli and director Claude Faraldo (1973) Interview with Manuela Lazic on Michel Piccoli (2025) Gallery Trailer Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Sam Smith Limited edition booklet featuring new writing by Alison Smith, author of French Cinema in the 1970s The echoes of May Limited edition of 3000 copies, presented in full-height Scanavo packaging with removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings

• Tom Clancy's Without Remorse | Blu Ray | (02/05/2022) from £6.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Michael B Jordan stars in the explosive origin story of Tom Clancy's action hero John Kelly, an elite Navy SEAL whose life is changed forever after uncovering an international conspiracy. Torn between personal honor and loyalty to his country, he fights his enemies without remorse if he hopes to avert disaster. Directed by Stefano Sollima (Sicario: Day Of The Soldado) and adapted by Taylor Sheridan (Yellowstone) and Will Staples (Shooter) from the bestselling novel, Without Remorse is a must-see thriller. Product Features John Kelly Rebon Watch Your Six

• They Came to a City (DVD + Blu-ray) | Blu Ray | (23/04/2018) from £18.75   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Nine disparate Britons are transported to a mysterious city where, according to their class and disposition, they find themselves either in an earthly paradise of peace and equality or a hell starved of ambition and riches. From the pen of J B Priestley, this fantastical allegory is a striking expression of post-war utopian impulses and among Ealing's most unusual features. Presented here in a new 2K transfer from the best surviving 35mm element, this rarely seen British classic is available for home viewing for the very first time. Directed by Basil Dearden (The Captive Heart, Victim) and starring John Clements, Googie Withers and Raymond Huntley. Features: Presented in High Definition and Standard Definition Michael Balcon NFT Lecture (audio only, 59 mins): recorded in 1969, the producer discusses the different stages of his career We Live in Two Worlds (Alberto Cavalcanti, 1937, 13 mins): a GPO film about communications technology, narrated by J B Priestley Britain at Bay (Harry Watt, 1940, 7 mins): a wartime propaganda film intended to boost morale, narrated by J B Priestley A City Reborn (1945, 21 mins): a propaganda film written by Dylan Thomas highlighting plans for post-war reconstruction Charley in New Town (Halas & Batchelor, 1948, 8 mins): a short animation on post-war new towns built to address housing shortages Your Very Good Health (Halas & Batchelor, 1948, 9 mins): a short animation on the new National Health Service

• Jakob The Liar | DVD | (08/03/2004) from £11.93   |  Saving you £-5.94 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  In Nazi-occupied Poland during World War II, poor Jewish cafe owner Jakob Heym (Oscar winner Robin Williams) accidentally overhears a forbidden radio news bulletin signaling Soviet military successes against German forces.

• Body Double | DVD | (09/10/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Director Brian De Palma pits sexuality against physical violence in a roller coaster of a thriller starring Craig Wasson and Melanie Griffith. A beautiful young woman performs a seductive striptease at the window of her fabulous Hollywood home. A struggling young actor watches entranced from a house nearby drawn into her obsession. Suddenly he becomes a helpless witness to her savage murder. Compelled to track down the psychopath responsible his investigations lead him into the stark and perverted world of the body double.

• Jesus Christ Superstar | DVD | (16/10/2000) from £4.42   |  Saving you £15.57 (352.26%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Jesus Christ Superstar has been the definitive rock musical ever since its 1972 London stage premiere. Revived to great acclaim in the late 1990s, it has everything you'd expect from a blockbuster: great songs, strong characterisation and, crucially, a cracking story. This video is based on the 1998 London production. Director Gale Edwards pulls few punches in her efforts to draw a truly modern interpretation from a gifted cast. Pilate's cronies are sinister Darth Vader look-alikes. The whole thing has a hard, brutal edge, which both startles and thrills. And anyone who dismisses musicals as lightweight confections could do worse than look at the way Lloyd Webber and Rice treat Judas: this is a complex, well-written role. The performances are largely excellent: Jerome Pradon' Judas shines, and Renee Castle's Mary reinvents "I Don't Know How to Love Him" as a delicate exploration of her dilemma, far removed from its usual overblown treatment. Rik Mayall's relentlessly gurning Herod is less of a bonus than he would like us to believe, but will doubtless appeal to his fans. And the quality of Glenn Carter's singing in the title role makes up for a slight deficiency in the charisma department. --Piers FordOn the DVD: Die-hard groupies will appreciate the inclusion of a documentary about the making of the video, which includes interviews with the cast, the production team and Lloyd Webber and Rice. There are also previews for video productions of Cats and Joseph and his Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

• Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues: A Musical Journey | DVD | (12/12/2008) from £19.99   |  Saving you £3.00 (15.01%)   |  RRP £22.99

  It may have been underrated when first broadcast, but executive producer Martin Scorsese's homage to the blues is a truly significant, if imperfect, achievement. "Musical journey" is an apt description, as Scorsese and the six other directors responsible for these seven approximately 90-minute films follow the blues--the foundation of jazz, soul, R&B, and rock & roll--from its African roots to its Mississippi Delta origins, up the river to Memphis and Chicago, then to New York, the United Kingdom, and beyond. Some of the films (like Wim Wenders's The Soul of a Man and Charles Burnett's Warming by the Devil's Fire) use extensive fictional film sequences, generally to good effect. There's also plenty of documentary footage, interviews, and contemporary studio performances recorded especially for these films. The last are among the best aspects of the DVDs, as the bonus material features the set's only complete tunes. Lou Reed's "See That My Grave Is Kept Clean" and the ElektriK Mud Kats' (with Chuck D. of Public Enemy) hip-hop-cum-traditional updating of Muddy Waters's "Mannish Boy" are among the best of them; on the other hand, a rendition of "Cry Me a River" by Lulu (?!) is a curious choice, even with Jeff Beck on hand. The absence of lengthier vintage clips, meanwhile, is the principal drawback. For that reason alone, Clint Eastwood's Piano Blues is the best of the lot; a musician himself, Eastwood simply lets the players play, which means we get extensive file footage of the likes of Art Tatum, Oscar Peterson, and Nat "King" Cole, as well as new performances by Ray Charles, Dr. John, and others. Overall, this is a set to savor, a worthwhile investment guaranteed to grow on you over the course of repeated viewings. --Sam Graham

• Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion's Revenge (DVD) | DVD | (27/04/2020) from £5.52   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Once a generation, a tournament is held to between the champions of Outworld and Earthrealm. This tournament will determine the fate of Earth and all its citizens. Lord Raiden, protector of Earthrealm, must gather the greatest fighters of his realm to defend it from the evil Shang Tsung in the battle to end all battles - Mortal Kombat!