"Actor: Daniel Francis"

• From Russia with Love | DVD | (03/11/2003) from £5.28   |  Saving you £14.71 (278.60%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Directed with consummate skill by Terence Young, From Russia With Love, the second James Bond spy thriller, is considered by many fans to be the best of them all. Certainly Sean Connery was never better as the dashing Agent 007, whose mission takes him to Istanbul to retrieve a top-secret Russian decoding machine. His efforts are thwarted when he gets romantically distracted by a sexy Russian double agent (Daniela Bianchi), and is tracked by an assassin (Lotte Lenya) with switchblade shoes, and by a crazed killer (Robert Shaw), who clashes with Bond during the film's dazzling climax aboard the Orient Express. From Russia with Love is classic James Bond, before the gadgets, pyrotechnics and Roger Moore steered the movies away from the more realistic tone of the books by Ian Fleming. --Jeff ShannonOn the DVD: The "making of" documentary details the many problems that beset this production: actor Pedro Armendariz (Kerim Bey) was diagnosed with terminal cancer halfway through shooting so all his scenes had to be done before he became too ill to work (he died shortly afterwards); a helicopter carrying the director and designer crashed into a lake, but despite being narrowly rescued from drowning Young was shooting half an hour later; and Italian actress-model Daniela Bianchi's car crashed en route to location. Key scenes had to be reshot after the production had wrapped, and because of script problems and rewrites, much of the film's structure was assembled in the editing room. The audio commentary is another montage of interviews from cast and crew that is alternately absorbing and irritating (exhaustive biogs of every player too often run over key scenes that would have benefited from analysis). An appreciation of flamboyant co-producer Harry Saltzman, trailers and stills complete the package. --Mark Walker

• The Boys In Blue | DVD | (18/10/2004) from £3.99   |  Saving you £6.00 (150.38%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Sgt. Cannon and PC Ball 'run' the police station in the sleepy town of Little Botham. When the station is threatened with closure due to the lack of crime they decide to invent some crimes to justify their positions. In response they try to steal a painting from a local businessman (Kinnear) and accidentally stumble across a gang of real art thieves who have just stolen one million pounds worth of paintings. It is up to the two inept cops to stop them escaping with their haul!

• C.R.A.Z.Y. | DVD | (21/08/2006) from £14.83   |  Saving you £5.16 (34.79%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Extraordinary lives of ordinary people in search of love and happiness, "C.R.A.Z.Y." is a family drama unlike any other.

• Homefront | DVD | (05/11/2012) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Former drug enforcement agent, Phil Broker is a family man who moves off the grid with his daughter, to a seemingly quiet bayou backwater to escape his troubled past.

• 36 (Quai des Orfevres) | DVD | (18/09/2006) from £14.99   |  Saving you £5.00 (33.36%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Director Oliver Marchal is a former Parisian policeman and the story of 36 Quai des Orfevres draws on his own experiences of the police force as well as those of Dominique Loiseau who was a senior member of the BRI (Search and action Squad) in the mid-eighties and worked as a consultant on the film. Leo Vrinks (Auteuil) and Denis Klein (Depardieu) are at the head of two different departments of the Paris police force located at Quai des Orfevres. Once close they are no longer friends mainly due to their differing work methods and Vrinks' wife Camille. An audacious gang of robbers stage seven armed robberies throughout Paris leaving a bloody trail in their wake. After a year of terror the Chief of Police orders that Vrinks and Klein bring the criminals to justice with a substantial boon to the man who brings them in... His job. As the competition between the two men hots up the lines between right and wrong become blurred. Both men find themselves sinking into a hellish place not far removed from that of the criminals...

• Bad Education | DVD | (27/12/2004) from £3.75   |  Saving you £16.24 (433.07%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The new film from Academy award-winning director Pedro Almodovar narrates the reunion of two young men who discovered sensuality and a common hatred of priests at their Catholic school fifteen years earlier.

• Madeline / Matilda / A Simple Wish | DVD | (03/10/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Madeline (Dir. Daisy von Scherler Mayer 1998): Madeline and her eleven friends live at school run by Miss Clavel (Frances McDormand) in an old house in Paris. The smallest of the girls Madeline is also the most adventurous! She loses her appendix but gains an awesome scare falls into the River Seine only to be rescued by a dog called Genevieve and matches wits with Pepito the devilish son of a Spanish Ambassador who moves in next door. However when stuffy Lord Covington puts the future of the school in jeopardy it's up to Madeline and her friends to save the day! Matilda (Dir. Danny DeVito 1996) Unfortunately for Matilda her father Harry (Danny DeVito) is a used car salesman who bamboozles innocent customers and her mother Zinnia (Rhea Perlman) lives for bingo and soap operas. Far from noticing what a special child Matilda is they barely notice her at all! They bundle Matilda off to Cruncham Hall a bleak school where students cower before the whip hand and fist of a hulking monster headmistress Miss Trunchball (Pam Ferris). But amid Crunchem's darkness Matilda discovers remarkable skills - including a very special talent that allows her to turn the table on the wicked grown ups in her world! A Simple Wish (Dir. Michael Ritchie 1997): Tells the sweet-natured story of Murray a bumbling fairy godfather who has good intentions but not much else. Technically Murray is a fairy godmother--the only male member of the North American Fairy Godmother Association. After barely passing his godmother's exam he is sent to New York City to watch after Anabel a young girl who wishes that her father Oliver will land a part in a Broadway musical so that the family won't have to move to Nebraska. But when the district's previous godmother a nefarious spellcaster named Claudia arrives with her wacky sidekick Boots her plans to cripple Murray and Anabel's magical association and monopolize the wish market wreak havoc on the already unstable Murray. It's up to Murray and Anabel to pool their resources and get rid of Claudia and Boots once and for all. Director Michael Ritchie turns the fairytale knob up a notch with 'A Simple Wish' also taking the time to poke fun at Broadway musicals. Featuring spectacular special effects and an extremely engaging performance by Wilson this is a children's fable with a fresh twist.

• My Parents Are Aliens - Best Of | DVD | (24/07/2006) from £22.98   |  Saving you £-9.99 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Terrific fun for all the family with My Parents are Aliens featuring 6 amazing episodes! Simply out of this world entertainment!

• Witness For The Prosecution | DVD | (01/05/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  A young man is on trial for a wealthy widow's murder after he suspiciously profits from her will. His only hope for aquital is his wife's testimony but his airtight alibi shatters when she reveals some shocking secrets of her own...

• Gen X Cops | DVD | (07/10/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £2.99

  Produced by Jackie Chan (who also makes an uncredited cameo), Gen-X Cops is an attempt to kick-start a franchise that will play well in the international market--hence the odd mix of Cantonese and English dialogue throughout. Match, Alien and Jack are three unruly students kicked out of cadet college and adopted as a crack undercover unit of delinquent Gen-X Cops by a put-upon police inspector given to epileptic fits in times of stress. Augmented by token hacker chick Y2K, they are assigned to a case involving a shadowy, arms-dealing Yakuza and double-crossing Triad warlords. The principal cast, mainly made up of unknowns, models and Cantonese pop stars, inject their roles with an infectious charm and enthusiasm while Benny Chan (Code of Honour) admirably keeps a handle on the non-stop plot twists. The action relies more on gunplay and pyrotechnics than martial arts. The three leads dodge bullets and bomb blasts without the aid of stuntmen. Among several stunning set pieces are a gun battle in a labyrinthine boat warehouse, skydiving from skyscrapers and an explosive finale in Hong Kong's famed conference centre. On the DVD: Fully-animated menus and 30-chapter scene selection are just the tip of the iceberg with this feature-packed DVD. Extras include "No Pain No Gain", a 30-minute "making of" documentary, a music video for the Gen-X theme tune "You Can't Stop Me", in which the actors make like the Shanghai Sex Pistols but come off like Boyzone gone bad. There are also extensive cast and crew features and production notes. The transfer of the main feature is sharp and clear, presented in letterboxed widescreen with Dolby sound. An impressive selection of viewing options includes Cantonese dialogue with removable English sub-titles or an alternative English-dubbed audio track. --Chris Campion

• Mr. 73 | DVD | (03/05/2010) from £10.98   |  Saving you £8.00 (100.12%)   |  RRP £15.99

  A washed-up Marseilles cop (Auteuil) earns a chance at redemption by protecting a woman from the man who killed her parents as he is about to be released from prison.

• Epicenter | DVD | (05/07/2005) from £20.98   |  Saving you £-16.99 (-425.80%)   |  RRP £3.99

  FBI agent Amanda Foster is escorting Nick Constantine to prison when a massive earthquake hits LA. The unlikely couple are forced to team up to survive whilst being pursued by ruthless assassins and corrupt cops.

• 2000 AD | DVD | (03/09/2001) from £8.94   |  Saving you £11.05 (123.60%)   |  RRP £19.99

  2000 AD reunites Aaron Kwok and Andrew Lin from the ferociously pyrotechnic Black Sheep Affair (1998) for a slick but muddled Hong Kong/Singapore co-production conspiracy thriller about computer espionage. Kwok and Lin make fine adversaries, and have one excellent martial arts battle on a vertigo-inducing rooftop. Otherwise the action involves powerfully staged Heat-style gun play rather than martial arts, one set-piece car chase/shoot-out being strongly influenced by the Riviera pursuit in Ronin (1997). Beginning as a serious thriller, Kwok's nerdish computer games designer transforms into an invulnerable action hero, and any sense of plausibility is sacrificed for regulation mayhem. Cluttered with more characters than it knows what to do with, 2000 AD combines aspects of The Net (1995) and Entrapment (1999) into a largely nonsensical plot. Lin's villain is given vital information which later he is completely ignorant of. We never find out exactly what he is planning, or who he is really working for, and in one mystifying sequence he crashes the Singapore stock exchange, yet the event has absolutely no effect on anything. Though the cast is engaging and the direction polished the finale is an anti-climax, symptomatic of a highly entertaining movie which promises more than it delivers. On the DVD: The 1.77:1 anamorphically enhanced transfer is clean and generally free from grain; the Dolby Digital 5.1 audio is as powerful as any heard on a Hong Kong movie, although listen though headphones and a fair degree of background hiss is clearly audible in the quiet scenes. The film can be viewed with the original Cantonese dialogue and English subtitles, or dubbed into English. Either way, a surprisingly large amount of the original dialogue is in English. There is a 19-minute "making of" documentary, though this is bland made-for-television promotional fare. Much better is the 14-minute interview with director Gordon Chan and a 17-minute interview with Andrew Lin who reveals how once shooting had begun his originally heroic part was re-written to make him the villain, thus explaining why the plot makes so little sense. Best of all is the commentary by Chan and Hong Kong film expert Bey Logan, which is packed with information about the movie, Hong Kong cinema and filmmaking in general. By itself it makes the DVD a worthwhile purchase. --Gary S Dalkin

• Mefistofele - Boito | DVD | (30/06/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  An exceptional performance of Arrigo Boito's 'Mefistofele' conducted by Maurizo Arena.

• Zoot Suit | DVD | (07/03/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Part fact and part fiction 'Zoot Suit' is the film version of Luis Valdez's critically acclaimed play based on the actual Sleepy Lagoon murder case and the zoot suit riots of 1940s Los Angeles. Henry Reyna (Daniel Valdez) is the leader of a group of Mexican-Americans being sent to San Quentin without substantial evidence for the death of a man at Sleepy Lagoon. As part of the defense committee Alice Bloomfield (Tyne Daly) and George Shearer (Charles Aidman) fight the blatant misc

• 2000 AD | DVD | (24/07/2006) from £6.99   |  Saving you £-1.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99