"Actor: Cynthia Stock"

• The Player (The Criterion Collection) | Blu Ray | (24/05/2016) from £31.87   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• The Player | DVD | (30/04/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Robert Altman's a biting satire on the Hollywood industry, The Player, has always been acknowledged by insiders as too close to the truth for comfort. Opening with a self-referential nine-minute tracking shot around the studio lot where producer Griffin Mill (Tim Robbins) works, the story's intrigue begins with the first of several postcard death threats from a writer he's angered. After accidentally killing the wrong man, Mill moves from one star-studded lunch table to another. All the while he's hounded by the real writer and an obsession with "Ice Queen" artist June Gudmundsdotter (Greta Scacchi) who'd been the deceased's girlfriend. Altman's tradition of improvised dialogue makes each of the dozens of cameos a fascinating treat for movie fans. Blink and you'll miss Angelica Houston, John Cusack, Rod Steiger, or Bruce Willis and Julia Roberts who appear in the hilarious movie-within-a-movie finale. There's an endless list of terrific support from the likes of dry-witted Fred Ward, fly-swatting Lyle Lovett, or tampon-twirling Whoopi Goldberg. Aside from the star-spotting and a script that crackles with sharp dialogue, this also warrants acknowledgement for being the movie to set off an explosion of independent film in the Nineties. On the DVD: there's a commentary track (which leaves the film's soundtrack playing a little too loud) from director Altman who talks at length about the poor state of today's industry, and writer Michael Tolkin who contributes about ten minutes of veiled displeasure about the treatment of a writer's work. There are five grainy deleted scenes featuring lost cameos from Tim Curry, Jeff Daniels, and Patrick Swayze. Then in a 16-minute featurette a lot of the deleted footage is repeated around an interview with Altman. A trailer rounds out the package. --Paul Tonks

• Intimate Relations | DVD | (26/01/2015) from £7.98   |  Saving you £4.00 (66.78%)   |  RRP £9.99

  This wry, charming, romantic comedy features a marvellously caddish turn from Garry Marsh as a philandering husband whose wife proves to be every bit as adept as he in the art of deception! Also starring the lovely June Clyde and '30s comedy legend Moore Marriott, with music from acclaimed British bandleader Lew Stone, Intimate Relations is presented here in a brandnew transfer from the original film elements, in its as-exhibited theatrical aspect ratio.George Gommery enjoys slipping up to town to see some little actress, and never suspects that his wife can play the same game just as well as he can. Or at least, he never suspects until he tells his wife that her lover is engaged to the woman whom he has been entertaining in London...