"Actor: Chris James"

• Super Mario Bros Super Show - Volume 1 | DVD | (31/05/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £2.99

  Episodes comprise: The Bird The Bird / Butch Mario And The Luigi Kid / King Mario Of Cramalot / Mario's Magic Carpet / Rollin' Down The River / The Great Gladiator Gig

• Video Nasties: The Definitive Guide - Standard Limited Edition | DVD | (22/11/2010) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Prepare to be corrupted and depraved once more as Nucleus Films releases the definitive guide to the Video Nasties phenomenon - one of the most extraordinary and scandalous eras in the history of British film. For the first time ever on DVD trailers to all 72 films that fell foul of the Director of Public Prosecutions are featured with specially filmed intros for each title in a lavish three-disc collector's edition box-set alongside the critically acclaimed documentary Video Nasties: Moral Panic Censorship And Videotape. Disc One: The era-defining and critically acclaimed documentary Video Nasties: Moral Panic Censorship And Videotape directed by Jake (Doghouse) West and produced by Marc Morris features interviews with filmmakers Neil Marshall ('The Descent' 'Doomsday') Christopher Smith ('Severance' 'Black Death') and MP Graham Bright as well as rare archive footage featuring James Ferman (director of the BBFC 1975-1999) & Mary Whitehouse. Taking in the explosion of home video the erosion of civil liberties the introduction of draconian censorship measures hysterical press campaigns and the birth of many careers born in blood and videotape West's documentary also reflects on the influence this peculiar era still exerts on us today. Disc Two: Presents the 39 titles that were successfully prosecuted in UK courts and deemed liable to deprave and corrupt. These included: 'Absurd' 'Cannibal Holocaust' 'The Driller Killer' 'I Spit on Your Grave' 'Nightmares in a Damaged Brain' 'Snuff' & 'Zombie Flesh-Eaters'. Disc Three: Presents the 33 titles that were initially banned but then subsequently acquitted and removed from the DPP's list. These included: 'Death Trap' 'Deep River Savages' 'The Evil Dead' 'Human Experiments' 'The Toolbox Murders' & Zombie Creeping Flesh.

• The Man with the Golden Gun | DVD | (03/11/2003) from £5.76   |  Saving you £5.49 (122.00%)   |  RRP £9.99

  The British spy with a licence to kill takes on his dark underworld double, a classy assassin who kills with golden bullets at £1 million a hit. Roger Moore, in his second outing as James Bond, meets Christopher Lee's Scaramanga, one of the most magnetic villains in the entire series, in this entertaining but rather wan entry in the 007 sweepstakes. Bond's globetrotting search takes him to Hong Kong, Bangkok, and finally China, where Scaramanga turns his island retreat into a twisted theme park for a deadly game of wits between the gunmen, moderated by Scaramanga's diminutive man Friday Nick Nack (Fantasy Island's Hervé Villechaize). Britt Ekland does her best as an embarrassingly inept Bond girl, a clumsy, dim agent named Mary Goodnight who looks fetching in a bikini, while Maud Adams is Scaramanga's tough but haunted lover and assistant. Clifton James, the redneck sheriff from Live and Let Die, makes an ill-advised appearance as a racist tourist. He briefly teams up with 007 in what is otherwise the film's highlight, a high-energy chase through the crowded streets of Bangkok that climaxes with a breathtaking mid-air corkscrew jump. Bond and company are let down by a lazy script, but Moore balances the overplayed humour with a steely performance and Lee's charm and enthusiasm makes Scaramanga a cool, deadly, and thoroughly enchanting adversary. --Sean Axmaker, Amazon.com

• Balls Of Fury | DVD | (02/02/2009) from £6.49   |  Saving you £13.50 (208.01%)   |  RRP £19.99

  In the unsanctioned, underground, and unhinged world of extreme Ping-Pong, the competition is brutal and the stakes are deadly.

• Miracle Maker | DVD | (30/10/2000) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  This animated feature-length life of Jesus boasts a stellar pedigree. Originally a BBC Wales production, it showcases the voices of some of Britain's finest actors in any medium: Ralph Fiennes as a brooding and humble Jesus, Miranda Richardson as Mary Magdalene, Richard E. Grant as John the Baptist and David Thewlis as Judas. The lovely, flute-heavy score is by Oscar-winner Anne Dudley (The Full Monty). And clearly a lot of expense has gone into the Claymation-like animation. But while it's hard to find fault with the rendering of this familiar story--it is respectful and definitely done, you might say, by the Book--it would have been nice if there had been a tad more joy, if it walked a bit lighter in its sandals. As it is, all the characters seem consistently subdued, whether they are expressing angst, rage, terror or bliss--none of which is helped by the figures' blank-eyed stares (if animators are becoming ever more sophisticated, why can't they get rid of those creepy blank gazes once and for all?). Still, the weight of having such formidable actors play these familiar roles lends the production a certain credibility, and parents looking for good religious videos that won't insult their kids' intelligence will be thrilled. --Anne Hurley

• The Wedding Date/My Big Fat Greek Wedding/The Wedding Singer | DVD | (24/10/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The Wedding Date (Dir. Clare Kilner 2005): In this sparkling romantic comedy Debra Messing plays Kat a never-married New Yorker who is invited to her parents' London home for her younger sister's wedding. What should be a joyous occasion bodes disaster for Kat however when she discovers that the best man will be none other than her ex-fianc who two years before inexplicably dumped her. In a desperate attempt to face the ordeal with dignity Kat hires Nick (Dermot Mulroney) a charming and handsome professional male escort to pose as her new boyfriend and escort her to the wedding. Even more valuable to Kat than Nick's good looks and charisma is his keen insight into human behavior--a well-learned trick of his trade. Over the course of the weekend Nick takes on the role of the bride's therapist the father's ideal son-in-law the groom's new best friend and the object of every woman's affection. For Kat what starts out as a pretend relationship with Nick begins to turn into something entirely unexpected: a second chance at love. My Big Fat Greek Wedding (Dir. Joel Zwick 2002): In this hit ethnic comedy Toula (Nia Vardalos) is a thirty-year-old ugly duckling whose life is going nowhere while she works long hours in her family's Greek diner (called Dancing Zorba's). She then decides to give herself a radical makeover lands a new job in her aunt's travel agency and falls for a hunky sensitive vegetarian teacher (John Corbett). They soon decide to get married but her family have a history of getting hitched exclusively to other Greeks. My Big Fat Greek Wedding is a warm funny comedy adapted by writer/star Vardalos from her own one-woman show. The Wedding Singer (Dir. Frank Coraci 1998): It's 1985 and Robbie Hart (Adam Sandler) is the ultimate master of ceremonies until he is left at the altar at his own wedding. Devastated he becomes a newlywed's worst nightmare - an entertainer who can do nothing but destroy other people's weddings. It's not until he meets a warm-hearted waitress named Julia (Drew Barrymore) that he starts to pick up the pieces of his heart. The only problem is Julia's about to have a wedding of her own and unless Robbie can pull off the performance of a lifetime the girl of his dreams will be gone forever...

• The Queen & I | DVD | (30/09/2019) from £4.00   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Made-for-TV comedy drama based on the novel by Sue Townsend. Following the election of the Republican Party, the United Kingdom's new Prime Minister, Jack Barker (David Walliams), carries out his campaign promise to abolish the country's monarchy. Stripped of their vast wealth, the Royal Family is forced to relocate to a council estate in the Midlands, where they struggle to fit in and adjust to their new surroundings.

• Eight Men Out | DVD | (07/06/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Director John Sayles's 'Eight Men Out' explores one of the darkest moments in the history of baseball: 1919's infamous Black Sox scandal when eight players on the heavily favored Chicago White Sox agreed to throw the World Series. Based on Eliot Asinof's 1963 book of the same name the film investigates why the players including the great 'Shoeless' Joe Jackson who many believe belongs in the Hall of Fame would purposely lose the most important game of their lives...

• The Hunted (1995) | DVD | (05/10/2009) from £12.98   |  Saving you £-2.99 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  An American businessman in Japan meets a beautiful young woman and goes to bed with her; his life turns upside down when a Ninja suddenly enters and kills her. The powerful Ninja and his Ninja cohorts set out to silence the businessman the only witness to the murder but he finds support from a samurai who protects him as an excuse to settle a centuries-old score.

• Water for Elephants | Blu Ray | (05/09/2011) from £9.70   |  Saving you £15.29 (157.63%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Sara Gruen's bestselling novel comes to glossy life in this period romance. A sparkle-free Robert Pattinson plays Jacob Jankowski, who studies veterinary medicine during the Great Depression. After a family tragedy, he loses everything, including the chance to graduate from prestigious Cornell, so he hops a train, where he finds himself part of the struggling Benzini Brothers Circus. Ringleader August (Christoph Waltz, echoing his Oscar®-winning Inglourious Basterds performance) has doubts about the softhearted lad, but a fellow Pole smoothes the way, and Jacob becomes the company vet, which leads him to platinum-blonde equestrian Marlena (Reese Witherspoon), August's wife. The two make eyes at each other, but an affair would surely end badly, so they concentrate on their work. When Marlena's prize steed falls ill, August purchases an elephant, hoping Rosie will turn their fortunes around, and enlists Jacob to train her. Unfortunately, she's slow to respond to commands until Jankowski unlocks her secret--and after August has beaten the poor thing into submission. After that, things start to look up until Jacob steals a kiss from his dream girl. As in The Notebook, the film it most closely resembles, an elderly version of the central character (Hal Holbrook, touching) narrates in the present day (screenwriter Richard LaGravenese also adapted The Bridges of Madison County). He tells an interesting tale, so it's too bad the leads strike so few sparks. For those who find big-top classics like Nightmare Alley too dark, however, Francis Lawrence's feel-better variant may be just the ticket. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

• Adventures Of Bailey - Christmas Hero | DVD | (04/11/2013) from £4.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £4.99

  It's Christmastime at the Baker household and Bailey is at it again. Worried that he won't get any presents from Santa Bailey learns about a mysterious Native American brave who can make his holiday wishes come true. But when Bailey's actions threaten his family's plans he is forced to make a big decision... one that just might help him to finally understand the 'true' meaning of Christmas.

• Back To The Future Trilogy | DVD | (02/12/2002) from £26.99   |  Saving you £-7.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Before he grew up and started to become a serious filmmaker, Robert Zemeckis created arguably the most unashamedly entertaining film trilogy ever with his Back to the Future series. It's here that Zemeckis came closest to emulating his mentor Steven Spielberg, and here, too, that he showed his own talent for combining flashy visual effects and knock-about comedy. The vivacious screenplays, cowritten with Bob Gale, are chock full of forwards and backwards-looking jokes, 1950s nostalgia and wry nods to other movies. Michael J Fox and Christopher Lloyd, both alumni of successful small-screen sitcoms (Family Ties and Taxi respectively), bring a frenetic energy to their roles, but also the warmth and likability needed to carry the audience with them through time. Don't try and unravel the time-travel thread running throughout, as that way lie paradoxes: just accept its inherent absurdity and enjoy the ride. Marty McFly travels from 1985 to 1955 in a souped-up DeLorean sports car (Back to the Future), then forward in time to 2015 and back to 1955 again (Back to the Future II), before going all the way back to the Old West of 1885 (Back to the Future III). Matters become progressively more complicated as actions in the past have repercussions for the future, and vice versa. Marty learns life-lessons and Doc finds love at last; the joyful, helter-skelter pace never slackens for an instant. --Mark Walker On the DVD: Back to the Future travels through time to the DVD era with a three-disc set charting the much-loved trilogy in full, along with an abundance of special features. The real joy in this box set is the "Making of the Trilogy" featurette, which spans the three discs and offers a wealth of information on the films. The deleted scenes have not faired well with age, with the visuals and sound suffering immensely. On Disc One the anecdotes can be played along with the film as subtitles, which is more than can be said for the commentary with Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale recorded at the California University, which is simply a Q & A session--not played along with the movie--and would have been stronger as a filmed special feature. But all in all as three-disc sets go it doesn't get much better than this--and you won't need 1.21 gigawatts of electricity to enjoy it. --Nikki Disney

• The Scarlet Pimpernel - Series 1 | DVD | (21/07/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Suspecting that the Pimpernal is an English aristocrat Chauvelin is sent to England to discover the identity of the mystery man. Once there Chauvelin meets his former lover the beautiful French actress Marguerite who is married to a foppish English aristocrat. Marguerite reluctantly gives Chauvelin information to find the elusive Pimpernel and has unwittingly betrayed him...

• Goodbye Mr Chips | DVD | (21/05/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  James Hilton's beloved novel Goodbye Mr Chips is tenderly remade here in this 2002 TV production. Martin Clunes plays the schoolteacher over a 50-year period, from his first day as a novice Latin instructor until his death at 83 as retired headmaster. The world and Mr Chipping change dramatically over the decades. He marries a proto-feminist (Victoria Hamilton) who nicknames him "Chips" and gives him courage to test his humanitarian impulses. World War I hits home in many ways--a long list of the school's graduates die or are maimed and Chips struggles with the discriminatory exile of his best friend, the German teacher. Despite obvious breaks for commercials, this film has a graceful honesty that transcends the sometimes sentimental storyline. The casual cruelty at the all-boys' school may make parents flinch more than their children, rendering this a safe choice for family viewing. --Kimberly Heinrichs

• The Last Station | Blu Ray | (21/06/2010) from £6.99   |  Saving you £16.00 (228.90%)   |  RRP £22.99

  "The Last Station" is a love story set during the last year of the life and turbulent marriage of the great Russian writer Leo Tolstoy and his wife the Countess Sofya.

• The Thick Of It - Series 3 | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £4.60   |  Saving you £15.39 (334.57%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The Prime Minister decides to reshuffle his cabinet in an attempt to look like he's doing something. Except no-one with any sense wants to join him on the bridge as the ship appears to be going down. So his chief enforcer Malcolm Tucker is having a hard time finding ministers prepared to volunteer for suicide watch in the run up to the general election. Enter Nicola Murray MP: a woman so far down the list that Malcolm doesn't even have a file on her but who can be flattered and bullied into accepting the Cabinet post that no-one wants: Secretary of State for Social Affairs and Citizenship. Nicola's got plenty of ideas though - but ideas cost money and in the current climate that means trouble. This series follows Nicola and her used-up team of advisors as they struggle to achieve anything at all under Malcolm's watchful eye. Elsewhere Nicola's opposite number Peter Mannion and his team finally sense victory is within their grasp even if they aren't too sure what to do with it when they get it. Being in power is a good thing right?

• Magnum PI - Complete Series 3 | DVD | (30/01/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £34.99

  Hawaii's foremost moustache-wearing private investigator returns for another season of Magnum P.I. Thomas Magnum a former Naval Officer in Vietnam lives in the guest house of - strangely absent - millionaire author Robin Masters on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. However he finds himself forever under the watchful eye of Higgins ex-British Army and estate manager. In exchange for testing the estate's security he gets plenty of perks fore his Private investigation g

• Dockers | DVD | (29/03/2004) from £4.98   |  Saving you £1.01 (20.28%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Dockers is a landmark one-off drama suspended somewhere between Ken Loach and Alan Bleasdale's Boys from the Blackstuff. A striking Channel Four production Dockers dramatises the infamous struggle that developed when five Merseyside dockworkers were fired for refusing to work overtime with no pay, and gained the support of co-workers who wouldn't cross their picket line. As a result, those who stood in solidarity with the original five were sacked as well--500 in total--leading to a two-year stand-off. Co-written by award-winning screenwriters Jimmy McGovern (Cracker) and Irvine Welsh (Trainspotting), the two-year ordeal is brought home with startling reality, not least because of the contribution of the real-life Liverpool dockers who helped develop the script in extensive writing workshops, lending the film an authenticity it might have otherwise lacked. While the narrative hangs around the moving central story of one family in which both father and son are caught up in the strike, dramatic conflicts develop on multiple levels: between father and son; between the families of the sacked workers (this is particularly well realised as one long-time friend, played by The Royle Family's Ricky Tomlinson, turns scab); and between the workers and the union that betrays them. Ken Stott and Crissy Rock (Ladybird, Ladybird) are outstanding as the central working-class couple, old before their time at 47, and if nothing else, the film reveals one further reason why Liverpool loved Robbie Fowler quite so ferociously: during post-goal celebrations, Fowler lifts his jersey to reveal a T-shirt emblazoned with a message of support for the wronged dockers, ensuring national attention for the action at a time when all hope seemed lost. --Tricia Tuttle

• The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner | DVD | (14/04/2003) from £39.99   |  Saving you £-20.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Following the success of Karel Reisz's 'Saturday Night and Sunday Morning' Alan Sillitoe adapted another of his works for the screen this time a short story of a disillusioned teenager rebelling against the system to make Tony Richardson's 'The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner' one of the great British films of the 1960s. Newcomer Tom Courtenay is compelling as the sullen defiant Colin refusing to follow his dying father into a factory job railing against the capitalist bosses and preferring to make a living from petty thieving. Arrested for burglary and sent to borstal Colin discovers a talent for cross-country running earning him special treatment from the governor (Michael Redgrave) and the chance to redeem himself from anti-social tearaway to sports day hero. With Colin a favourite to win against a local public school tensions build as the day approaches...

• Return From Witch Mountain | DVD | (22/03/2004) from £8.86   |  Saving you £7.13 (80.47%)   |  RRP £15.99

  An entire city teeters on the brink of nuclear disaster when greedy criminals manipulate a young boy's supernatural powers for their own devious gain.