"Actor: Claudia"

• Daybreakers | Blu Ray | (31/05/2010) from £20.98   |  Saving you £6.00 (31.60%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Ethan Hawke stars as a researcher in a near-future world where the entire population has been turned into vampires by a new virus. And the last remaining humans find themselves on the bottom of the food chain!

• Ben 10 Secret of the Omnitrix | DVD | (10/11/2009) from £5.91   |  Saving you £10.08 (170.56%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Ben 10: Secret Of The Omnitrix

• Babylon 5: Season 4 | DVD | (19/04/2004) from £13.58   |  Saving you £41.41 (304.93%)   |  RRP £54.99

  The fourth series of Babylon 5 begins on a high point with Centauri Prime in the grip of the insane Emperor Cartagia (Wortham Krimmer) and a run of six shows leading to the climax of the war against the Shadows in "Into the Fire". If this colossal narrative is resolved a little too easily and the ultimate aim of the Shadows turns out to be a tad disappointing, it's still one of the most powerful slices of space opera ever to grace the small screen. In the aftermath the sheer scale drops back a little but the pace never slows as the rest of the year plays out in one relentless cycle of conspiracy, betrayal and conflict, Babylon 5 siding with the rebel Mars colony against the totalitarian Earth regime. Meanwhile, Delenn finds herself increasingly in conflict with her own people and, paralleling her relationship with Sheridan, Garibaldi becomes involved with his ex-fiancée Lise Hampton (Denise Gentile); in addition, an intense platonic love grows between Ivanova and Marcus Cole. On an unstoppable wave fuelled by roller-coaster plot twists and spectacular action shows from "No Surrender, No Retreat"--when Sheridan avows to overthrow EarthGov--to "Rising Star"--when the aim is realised--this series of Babylon 5 achieved a consistent excellence rare in television. Yet within that run "Intersections in Real Time" stands out as a bold experiment; essentially a two-hand drama taking place entirely within one dimly lit room. Then in "The Deconstruction of Falling Stars", a descendant of humanity one million years hence reviews excerpts from the history of Babylon 5. In one sequence set in 2762 a Brother is devoted to the preservation of history some time after the "Big Burn". In a homage to Walter M Miller's SF classic A Canticle for Leibowitz, Sheridan and Delenn have themselves become the stuff of legend. --Gary S DalkinOn the DVD: All 22 episodes of Season 4 of Babylon 5 are presented on six DVDs. Anamorphically enhanced for widescreen TV, the picture is significantly stronger than on the original TV broadcasts, if not up to blockbuster movie standards. The remixed Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack is punchy and richly impressive, if again not quite state-of-the-art. As with previous seasons the main extras are three commentaries. The first, by actors Bruce Boxleitner, Jerry Doyle, Peter Jurasik and Patricia Tallman, finds these leading cast members having a great time joshing around on Falling Towards Apotheosis and failing to say anything very interesting. Series creator and writer J Michael Straczynski and director Michael Vejar discuss The Face of the Enemy, the conversation tending towards a technical scene-by-scene analysis, while by far the most interesting commentary is J Michael Straczynski alone on The Deconstruction of Falling Stars. JMS covers many aspects of the show, going into depth explaining both his ideas behind the series and the practicalities of realising his vision. Celestial Sounds is an interesting but too-short five-minute look at the scoring process with composer Christopher Franke, complemented by a powerful six-minute musical suite. The package also includes a six-minute introduction, a three-minute gag reel and video data files of characters, organisations and places. An Easter egg offers a comparison between untextured and completed CGI models of Babylon 5 itself. There is an optional French soundtrack, plus English, English for Hearing Impaired, French and Netherlands subtitles. --Gary S Dalkin

• Pitch Black | DVD | (28/05/2001) from £5.75   |  Saving you £8.50 (189.31%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Vin Diesel creates a cult icon as Riddick in this epic sci-fi adventure. The new Special Edition DVD comes complete with a range of exclusive extra features.

• The Son's Room | DVD | (27/01/2003) from £4.03   |  Saving you £15.96 (396.03%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The Son's Room, which picked up the 2001 Palme d'Or at Cannes, marks a departure for writer-director Nanni Moretti. The films that made his name outside Italy, Dear Diary and Aprile, were both highly personal and politicised semi-documentaries, and a strong political sense underlies the half-dozen or so features he made before them. By contrast, The Son's Room is a subtle, intense study of a family cracking apart under the impact of grief, with no overt political element. For all that, it's the most moving film that Moretti's yet made. "It captured me" he says "more than any other [story] I'd worked on previously. It's a film in which the director shares his emotions with the audience, without imposing his own feelings." As usual, the director plays his own lead character. Here he's Giovanni, a successful psychiatrist in a provincial Italian city (Ancona on the Adriatic coast). He has a beautiful wife, happy in her own career, and two bright, good-looking teenage children, a son and a daughter. Then, out of nowhere, tragedy strikes and in its aftermath, the fissures begin to show in the idyllic façade. Giovanni in particular reveals the insecurities and neuroses lurking behind his tolerant, easy-going demeanour. Moretti homes in on his characters with clear-eyed compassion, never milking the tragedy for facile sentiment but sparing us nothing of the gut-wrenching grief they feel. Nor does he succumb to the temptation of a feel-good happy ending: we are left with a hint of hope for the future, but no more. This is intelligent, mature filmmaking that respects its audience. On the DVD: The Son's Room comes to disc with just the trailer--and the flabby US trailer at that. A commentary from Moretti would have been more than welcome. Still, the transfer, in the original 1.66:1 ratio, is impeccable, with Dolby Digital 2.0 sound to match. --Philip Kemp

• Farscape: Peacekeeper Wars | DVD | (06/04/2015) from £15.99   |  Saving you £-1.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

• Babylon 5 : In The Beginning | DVD | (08/04/2002) from £11.99   |  Saving you £8.00 (66.72%)   |  RRP £19.99

  In the gap between seasons four and five of Babylon 5, fans suffering withdrawal symptoms were sated by this first TV movie. As a prequel to the series' timeline, creator J. Michael Straczynski had an awful lot of continuity to consider. Amazingly, there's only one inconsistency throughout (a matter of who met whom and when), making this an essential part of the overall storyline. The tale is told cleverly from the future as the remembrances of Londo (Peter Jurasik), who is now Emperor of a dying Centauri homeworld. He looks back at the beginnings of the Earth-Minbari war and links together many clues strewn throughout the shows' early years. We see exactly how Delenn contributed to the first blows, the death of dignitary Dukhat, and most importantly what really happened to Sinclair (Michael O'Hare) at the Battle of the Line. The FX showcased by the battle are genuinely spectacular, but overshadowed by the make-up department which had the thankless task of making everyone look younger. Their best success is on an uncredited Claudia Christian who appears as an 18-year-old Susan Ivanova dealing with the death of her brother. Being a prequel there's little in the way of a surprise finale, but there's plenty of intrigue along the way. --Paul Tonks

• Farscape: Peacekeeper Wars | Blu Ray | (06/04/2015) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

• Fellini's 8.1/2 | DVD | (19/11/2012) from £22.94   |  Saving you £-2.95 (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Federico Fellini's 8 1/2, his 1963 semi-autobiographical story about a worshipped filmmaker who has lost his inspiration, is still a mesmerising mystery tour that has been quoted (Woody Allen's Stardust Memories, Paul Mazursky's Alex in Wonderland) but never duplicated. Marcello Mastroianni plays Guido, a director trying to relax a bit in the wake of his latest hit. Besieged by people eager to work with him, however, he also struggles to find his next idea for a film. The combined pressures draw him within himself, where his recollections of significant events in his life and the many lovers he has left behind begin to haunt him. The marriage of Fellini's hyper real imagery, dreamy sidebars and the gravity of Guido's increasing guilt and self-awareness make this as much a deeply moving, soulful film as it is an electrifying spectacle. Mastroianni is wonderful in the lead, his woozy sensitivity to Guido's freefall both touching and charming--all the more so as the character becomes increasingly divorced from the celebrity hype that ultimately outpaces him. --Tom Keogh

• All Roads Lead To Rome | DVD | (29/02/2016) from £3.44   |  Saving you £13.31 (792.26%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Maggie is an uptight, single mother and college writing teacher from New York City. In an effort to reconnect with her troubled teen daughter Summer, she decides to embark on a journey to a Tuscan village where she frequented in her younger days. Upon arrival, Maggie runs into Luca, a handsome former lover who is still a bachelor and lives with his eighty-year-old mother, Carmen. Summer (missing her bad boy boyfriend in NYC) and Carmen (secretly planning a wedding against Luca's wishes to Marcelino, her one true love in Rome) impulsively steal Luca's car and race off to Rome. Maggie and Luca quickly pursue allowing the two mismatched couples to spend some time together and develop a new understanding of each other.

• The Secret Life Of Us - Series 2 Complete | DVD | (22/01/2007) from £15.19   |  Saving you £19.80 (130.35%)   |  RRP £34.99

  The second chapter in the lives of Alex Evan Kelly Gabriella Jason Richie ad Will.In going after what they want they first have to decide what it is they want. Episodes Comprise: 1. A New World Order 2. Free Will 3. The Dance 4. An Ill Wind 5. The Grand Delusion 6. It's Not Easy 7. A Fine Line 8. Make Up Your Mind 9. Controlling the Universe 10. Between a Rock and a Hard Place 11. The Funny Side 12. Who Do You Want to Be Today? 13. From Little Things Big Things Grow 14. Rose Coloured Glasses 15. Have a Little Faith 16. The Great Divide 17. Sweet Revenge 18. Signs of Life 19. The Searchers 20. Walpurgisnacht 21. Do the Right Thing 22. Truth Is Beautiful... But So Are Lies

• Detour (1945) | Blu Ray | (01/04/2019) from £12.75   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Edgar G. Ulmer's legendary B movie, the quintessence of film noir, newly restored and on Bluray for the first time. From Poverty Row came a movie that, perhaps more than any other, epitomizes the dark fatalism at the heart of film noir. As he hitchhikes his way from New York to Los Angeles, a downonhisluck nightclub pianist (Tom Neal) finds himself with a dead body on his hands and nowhere to runa waking nightmare that goes from bad to worse when he picks up the most vicious femme fatale in cinema history, Ann Savage's snarling, monstrously conniving drifter Vera. Working with noname stars on a bargain basement budget, B auteur Edgar G. Ulmer (People on Sunday) turned threadbare production values and seedy, lowrent atmosphere into indelible pulp poetry. Long unavailable in a format in which its hardboiled beauty could be fully appreciated, Detour haunts anew in its first major restoration. Special Edition Features: New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack Edgar G. Ulmer: The Man OffScreen, a 2004 documentary featuring interviews with filmmakers Roger Corman, Joe Dante, and Wim Wenders and actor Ann Savage New interview with film scholar Noah Isenberg, author of Edgar G. Ulmer: A Filmmaker at the Margins New programme about the restoration of Detour Trailer PLUS: An essay by critic and poet Robert Polito

• Stargate S.G -1: Season 2 (Vol. 6) | DVD | (24/07/2000) from £5.23   |  Saving you £14.76 (282.22%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The 1994 movie Stargate was originally intended as the start of a franchise, but creators Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin were distracted celebrating their Independence Day. Episodic TV treatment was the natural next step. Since neither Kurt Russell nor James Spader would be able to commit, it gave the producers licence to tinker with the cast and the universe they'd explore. Replacing the roles of Colonel Jack O'Neill and Dr. Daniel Jackson respectively are Richard Dean Anderson and Michael Shanks. They're joined by Captain Samantha Carter (Amanda Tapping) and guilt-stricken former alien baddie Teal'c (Christopher Judge) to form the teacher's pet primary unit SG-1 With a seemingly endless network of Stargates found to exist on planets all across the known universe, their mission is to make first contact with as many friendly races as possible. Chasing their heels at almost every turn are the "overlord" pharaohnic Goa'uld--the ancient Egyptian Gods who are none too chummy after the events of the original film. The welcome notion of a continued plot thread sees offshoots that follow the reincarnation of Daniel's wife, Sam's father literally joining a renegade faction of the Goa'uld, and Jack in an unending quest to out-sarcasm everyone. There's something of The Time Tunnel to the show's premise, but amid a dearth of derivative look-a-likes, Stargate has held its own with stories that put the science fiction back into TV sci-fi. "The Serpent's Song" is a cry for help from the team's nemesis--Apophis--who they've been fighting since the beginning. It's a morality showcase all-round. Although deserving a "Holiday", the team just can't leave alien artefacts alone, which gets them into all manner of trouble playing with Ma'chello's body-swapping machine. This episode gives everyone a fantastic opportunity to impersonate one another. "One False Step" of another kind lays a guilt trip on them all for accidentally infecting a race with a disease. Then in "Show and Tell" the central story arc takes a dramatic turn when a child arrives to warn that some survivors of a Goa'uld attack are determined to eliminate anyone who might host their enemy--which means Earth as a whole. --Paul Tonks

• John Wick 1&2 | Blu Ray | (12/06/2017) from £25.64   |  Saving you £14.35 (55.97%)   |  RRP £39.99

  John Wick When a retired hit man is forced back into action by a brutal Russian mobster, he hunts down his adversaries with the ruthlessness that made him a crime underworld legend in John Wick, a stylish tale of revenge and redemption. After the sudden death of his beloved wife, John Wick receives one last gift from her, a beagle puppy named Daisy, and a note imploring him not to forget how to love. But John's mourning is interrupted when his 1969 Boss Mustang catches the eye of sadistic thug Iosef Tarasov who breaks into his house and steals it, beating John unconscious and leaving Daisy dead. Unwittingly, they have just reawakened one of the most brutal assassins the underworld has ever seen. John's search for his stolen vehicle takes him to a side of New York City that tourists never see, a hyper-real, super-secret criminal community, where John Wick was once the baddest guy of all. John Wick: Chapter Two In this next chapter following the 2015 hit, legendary hitman John Wick [Keanu Reeves] is forced back out of retirement by a former associate plotting to seize control of a shadowy international assassins' guild. Bound by a blood oath to help him, John travels to Rome where he squares off against some of the world's deadliest killers.

• Alone With Her | DVD | (23/03/2009) from £3.96   |  Saving you £3.29 (121.85%)   |  RRP £5.99

  When a young woman begins to have a series of problems the man who helps her out soon becomes a fixture in her life. However it soon becomes clear that it is he who is causing the problems in the first place...

• Danielle Steel's Kaleidoscope | DVD | (17/04/2006) from £5.98   |  Saving you £0.01 (0.17%)   |  RRP £5.99

  After the shocking death of her parents Hilary (Jaclyn Smith) and her two younger sisters are torn apart and separated for over 30 years. Loving families take in the youngest girls but Hilary is left behind to endure a terrible childhood of cruel abuse and desperate poverty. Yet with iron determination Hilary achieves her dream of success... but erases all trace of her traumatic past. Then approaching death an old friend of their parents hires private detective John Chapman to tr

• The Pink Panther | DVD | (02/02/2009) from £6.73   |  Saving you £-0.74 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  When the famous Pink Panther diamond goes missing the bumbling Inspector Clouseau goes on the trail of notorious jewel thief The Phantom but looks everywhere except in the right place!

• Atlantis: The Lost Empire -- Two-Disc Collector's Edition (Disney) | DVD | (04/03/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  The Disney Studio was built on innovation in animation, so it seems ironic that Atlantis is both a bold departure and highly derivative, borrowing heavily from anime, video games and graphic novels. Instead of songs and fuzzy little animals, the artists offer an action-adventure set in 1914: nerdy linguist Milo Thatch (Michael J Fox) believes he's found the location of the legendary Lost Continent. An eccentric zillionaire sends Milo out to test his hypothesis with an anachronistic crew that includes tough Puerto Rican mechanic Audrey (Jacqueline Obradors), demolition expert Vinnie (Don Novello), and butt-kicking blonde adventurer Helga (Claudia Christian). When they find Atlantis, its culture is dying because the people can no longer read the runes that explain their mysterious power source--but Milo can. Nasty Commander Rourke (James Garner) attempts to steal that power source, leading to the requisite all-out battle. Atlantis offers some nifty battle scenes, including an attack on a Jules Verne-esque submarine by a giant robotic trilobites and fishlike flying cars. But the film suffers from major story problems. If Princess Kida (Cree Summer) remembers her civilisation at its height, why can't she read the runes? Why doesn't Milo's crew notice that the Atlanteans live for centuries? The angular designs are based on the work of comic book artist Mike Mignola (Hellboy), and the artists struggle with the characters' stubby hands, skinny limbs and pointed jaws. The result is a film that will appeal more to 10-year-old boys than to family audiences. --Charles Solomon, Amazon.com

• Babylon 5: Season 2 | DVD | (26/05/2003) from £13.95   |  Saving you £41.04 (294.19%)   |  RRP £54.99

  Captain John Sheridan (Bruce Boxlietner) arrives on Babylon 5 in the first episode of the second series, "Points of Departure", which marks the handing over of command of B5 to Sheridan from Commander Jeffery Sinclair (actor Michael O'Hare had become a victim of studio politicians who wanted a bigger star in the leading role). This excellent instalment also reveals more about why the Minbari surrendered to Earth at the Battle of the Line when they were on the verge of victory. "Revelations" explains that Sheridan's wife, Anna, died during an archaeological survey of the world Z'ha'dum, the name being just one of many oblique references to Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. "The Geometry of Shadows" introduces the Technomages, characters who featured more significantly in the ill-fated spin-off series Crusade (1999), while "The Coming of Shadows" proved to be Babylon 5's finest hour. The story of political intrigue foreshadowing the fate of two of the major characters won the Hugo award for the Best Dramatic Presentation at the 1996 World Science Fiction Convention and proved so powerful that J Michael Straczynski included it in his Complete Book of Scriptwriting. "And Now for a Word" takes the unusual step of presenting a day-in-the-life of B5 seen through the eyes of a TV news crew, just as the Narn declare war on the Centauri. The inclusion of a PSI-Corps commercial paid homage to Paul Verhoeven's satirical ads in Robocop (1987). In "In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum", Sheridan learns that Morden was on the ship on which Anna died, this episode seeing the Captain pushed to his limits by grief and determination to discover why Morden survived. Three exceptional shows conclude the year. The Narn-Centauri war escalates in "The Long, Twilight Struggle", Sheridan faces a most unusual ordeal in "Comes the Inquisitor", while in "The Fall of Night" all hope of peace is shattered as a nerve-wracking assassination attempt reveals a startling secret about Ambassador Kosh. On the DVD: Babylon 5--Series 2 presents all 22 episodes anamorphically enhanced at 16:9, with Dolby Digital 5.1 sound. Originally shot with eventual widescreen presentation in mind, the programmes looks far better than they did when broadcast. The effects shots, reformatted from full-screen CGI, show occasional pixilation, but the new compositions are more dynamic than the old 4:3. Always a show with powerful audio, the remixed soundtrack is rich and involving, if lacking in the bass punch and complex layering of much more expensive cinema productions. Extras are an introduction to Series 2 (eight mins) and Building Babylon: Blueprint of an Episode (13 mins), is a perfunctory promotional piece. More interesting is Shadows and Dreams, an eight-minute feature on B5's two Hugo Awards. Three episodes have commentaries, with J Michael Straczynski examining the politics, mythology and production of In the Shadow of Z'Ha'Dum and The Fall of Night, and stars Bruce Boxleitner, Claudia Christian and Jerry Doyle have a decidedly low-brow laugh-fest through The Geometry of Shadows. There is an alternative French soundtrack and subtitles for the hard-of-hearing. --Gary S Dalkin

• The Iron Prefect | Blu Ray | (20/11/2023) from £12.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Based on the true story of the Iron Prefect, Cesare Mori, who was sent to Sicily for an Eliot Ness-The Untouchables style clean up of the mafia. Mori approaches organised crime on the island with uncompromising force even in the face of mass murders designed to scare him off. Pasquale Squitieri (The Climber) directs this stunning period piece which won the David di Donatello award for best film and features spaghetti western icon Giuliano Gemma brilliantly playing against type as the titular hero, winning him an award for his performance at the prestigious Karlovy Vary Film Festival. Alongside Gemma are the cream of international film from the period with co-stars Claudia Cardinale (The Day of the Owl) and Francisco Rabal (Sorcerer), the key surveyor of Italy's civic cinema screenwriter Ugo Pirro (The Working Class Goes to Heaven) and legendary composer Ennio Morricone (Once Upon a Time in America). Product Features 2K restoration of the film from the original negative presented with Italian and English audio options Uncompressed mono PCM audio Archival interview with director Pasquale Squitieri and star Giuliano Gemma (2009) New interview with Squitieri biographer Domenico Monetti (2023) New appreciation of Giuliano Gemma and the film by filmmaker Alex Cox (2023) Original trailer New and improved English subtitles for Italian audio and English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing for English audio