"Actor: David Paymer"

• Mighty Joe Young | DVD | (22/01/2001) from £5.99   |  Saving you £12.00 (200.33%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Charlize Theron is the latest stunning blonde to be hanging around some big ape in a Hollywood movie, this one a remake of the 1949 semi-classic with echoes of the superior King Kong. Theron plays the daughter of an American researcher killed by poachers in Africa. The baby gorilla left in her care grows up to become a hugely tall and broad specimen named Joe, living in the mountains as a mostly unseen legend among people who live there. Along comes an eco-minded emissary (Bill Paxton) from a California sanctuary, who talks the jungle girl into providing safe haven for Joe at the LA facility. The transition is not without discomfort but everything is aggravated via a conspiracy of poachers to get Joe into their own greedy hands. Director Ron Underwood (City Slickers) uses a combination of special-effects techniques to give Joe life and personality, and he succeeds quite effectively. The requisite giant-ape-goes-amok scenes are all in place-a couple of them pretty intense--as is a conclusion that finds the simian hero performing a stunning feat of escalation. Underwood attempts to give a little modern spin to some classic Hollywood conventions regarding wild hearts lost in civilization and the results are pretty agreeable family fare. --Tom Keogh

• The American President | DVD | (01/03/2010) from £7.96   |  Saving you £11.02 (221.73%)   |  RRP £15.99

  What sounds like a high-concept romantic comedy pitch from hell--widower president falls for smart lobbyist while the world watches--is actually intelligent, charming, touching and quite funny. Granted, it's wish fulfilment all the way (when was the last time you saw a president who was truly presidential?) but in the capable hands of writer Aaron Sorkin (TV's Sports Night) and director Rob Reiner, TheAmerican President is incredibly enjoyable entertainment with quite a few ideas about both romance and the government. Michael Douglas stars as the president, who after three years in office starts thinking about the possibility of dating. When he auspiciously encounters cutthroat environmental lobbyist Sydney Ellen Wade (Annette Bening), sparks begin to crackle and the two begin a tentative but heartfelt romance. Of course, his job gets in the way--their first kiss is interrupted by a Libyan bombing--but darn it if these two kids aren't going to try and make it work! However, they hadn't counted on the president's Republican antagonist (Richard Dreyfuss), who starts carping about family values. The predictable plot--Douglas finally goes to bat for his lady and his country--is leavened by Sorkin's wonderful, snappy dialogue and a light touch from the usually subtle-as-a-sledgehammer Reiner. Both manage to create a believable White House-office atmosphere (with a crack staff including Martin Sheen, Michael J. Fox, Anna Deavere Smith and Samantha Mathis) as well as a plausible and funny dating scenario. The true success of the movie, though, rides squarely on Douglas and Bening; this is unequivocally Douglas's best comedic performance (ergo his best performance, period) and Bening, usually such a good bad girl, takes a standard career-woman role and fleshes it out magnificently. You can see in an instant why Douglas would fall for her. One of the best unsung romantic comedies of the 90s. --Mark Englehart

• Accident Man | DVD | (16/04/2018) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Mike Fallon (Scott Adkins) is the Accident Man a stone cold killer and the best at what he does. But when a loved one is dragged into the London underworld and murdered by his own crew, Fallon is forced to rip apart the life he knew in order to avenge the one person who actually meant something to him. Based on the popular UK comic book, Toxic!, the film also stars Ashley Greene, Michael Jai White, Ray Park, Ray Stevenson, David Paymer, Nick Moran, Perry Benson, Ross O'Hennessy and Amy Johnston.

• Payback | DVD | (20/09/1999) from £11.99   |  Saving you £2.00 (16.68%)   |  RRP £13.99

  If it weren't for the fact that John Boorman's Point Blank was already a definitive take on Richard Stark's novel The Hunter (reissued under the title Payback), Payback would be a well-above-average 90s action movie. The original toughness is diluted: Mel Gibson's Porter, replacing Lee Marvin's Walker and Stark's Parker, comes on like a hardnut but turns into a softie when he hooks up with call-girl Maria Bello (and he even likes dogs). Double-crossed and wounded after shifty Gregg Henry dupes Porter's wife (Deborah Kara Unger) into betraying him, Porter sets out to get back the $70,000 share of a heist that he feels he is owed. Because Henry has used the money to buy his way into "the Outfit", he has to deal not only with the squirming scumbag but a hierarchy of corporate mobsters (William Devane, James Coburn, Kris Kristofferson) for whom it would be bad business practice to hand over even the trivial sum. Director-writer Brian Helgeland gives it a steely-blue look and gets good performances all round (with room for Lucy Liu as an amusing dominatrix) while constructing a story in which everything fits. But it's just a good thriller, since the masterpiece potential has already been staked out. --Kim Newman

• Cheers - Series 4 | DVD | (18/07/2005) from £14.83   |  Saving you £20.16 (135.94%)   |  RRP £34.99

  For its fourth season, Cheers served up a new bartender. Following the death of Nicholas Colasanto, who had played Coach, the season premiere introduced Woody Boyd (Woody Harrelson), the Indiana hick who certainly didn't raise the bar's collective IQ but had his own brand of endearing goofiness. That episode, "Birth, Death, Love and Rice", also explained what happened at the end of season 3 when Sam (Ted Danson) chased Diane (Shelley Long) and Frasier (Kesley Grammer) to Italy in hopes of preventing their marriage. The end result is that Diane returns to work at the bar and resumes her sexually charged flirtation with Sam, and Frasier becomes a brooding presence always looking for a way to win her back. Jennifer Tilly guest-stars as one of Sam's ex-girlfriends who actually hits it off with the petulant psychiatrist, but stealing the show in the same episode ("Second Time Around") was Dr. Lilith Sternin (Bebe Neuwirth), in what was supposed to be a five-minute one-shot role. The impossibly buttoned-up Sternin was such a perfect match for Frasier that she later became a regular cast member and won two Emmys. In other memorable episodes, Andy Andy (Derek McGrath) returns to terrorize Diane ("Diane's Nightmare"), the gang tries to turn the tables on Gary's Old Town Tavern in a bowling match ("From Beer to Eternity"), and Frasier sets up a night at the opera ("Diane Chambers Day"). In the three-part season finale ("Strange Bedfellows"), Sam begins dating a politician (Kate Mulgrew, later of Star Trek: Voyager) running for reelection. Diane decides to work for her opponent before taking a more drastic step, leading to Sam's memorable telephone call that served as a cliffhanger leading to season 5. Unlike previous seasons, the DVD set has no extras. --David Horiuchi

• Amistad | DVD | (29/01/2001) from £6.77   |  Saving you £13.22 (195.27%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Steven Spielberg's most simplistic, sanitised history lesson, Amistad, explores the symbolic 1840s trials of 53 West Africans following their bloody rebellion aboard a slave ship. For most of Schindler's List (and, later, Saving Private Ryan) Spielberg restrains himself from the sweeping narrative and technical flourishes that make him one of our most entertaining and manipulative directors. Here, he doesn't even bother trying, succumbing to his driving need to entertain with beautiful images and contrived emotion. He cheapens his grandiose motives and simplifies slavery, treating it as cut- and-dry genre piece. Characters are easy Hollywood stereotypes--"villains" like the Spanish sailors or zealous abolitionists are drawn one-dimensionally and sneered upon. And Spielberg can't suppress his gifted eye, undercutting normally ugly sequences, such as the terrifying slave passage, which is shot as a gorgeous, well-lit composition. At its core, Amistad is a traditional courtroom drama, centred by a tired, clichéd narrative: a struggling, idealistic young lawyer (Matthew McConaughey) fighting the crooked political system and saving helpless victims. Worse yet, Spielberg actually takes the underlying premise of his childhood fantasy, E.T. and repackages it for slavery. Cinque (Djimon Hounsou), the leader of the West African rebellion, is presented much like the adorable alien: lost, lacking a common language, and trying to find his way home. McConaughey is a grown-up Elliot who tries communicating complicated ideas such as geography by drawing pictures in the sand or language by having Cinque mimic his facial expressions. Such stuff was effective for a sci-fi fantasy about the communication barriers between a boy and a lost alien; here, it seems like a naive view of real, complex history. --Dave McCoy, Amazon.com

• Get Shorty | DVD | (01/02/2000) from £7.50   |  Saving you £8.49 (113.20%)   |  RRP £15.99

  John Travolta is the standout in this somewhat cartoonish adaptation of Elmore Leonard's novel about a smalltime Miami enforcer (Travolta) who decides to get into the movie business in LA. The cast sparkles--Gene Hackman as a failing cut-rate-movie producer, Rene Russo as a failed actress, Danny DeVito as a vain thespian, Delroy Lindo as a mobster who wants a cut of Travolta's film action--and the script is clever. But not clever enough: this isn't Robert Altman's The Player, as far as satires about Hollywood go. But director Barry Sonnenfeld (Men in Black) keeps Get Shorty cute and brisk and that makes for an enjoyable experience. Travolta is great as a vaguely dangerous, supremely self-confident man whose love of movies makes him almost cuddly. --Tom Keogh

• City Hall | DVD | (21/08/2000) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £13.99

  This complex 1996 drama directed by Harold Becker (Sea of Love) attempts to explore big-city corruption and the flexibility of what's right and wrong in the political arena. John Cusack plays the senior aide to mayor John Pappas (Al Pacino), a popular and seasoned politician whose administration is threatened when what seems to be an accidental shooting of a child reveals a nest of corruption and lifelong personal debts. This tests Cusack's loyalty to the man he thought he knew. Pacino turns in a finely textured performance as a man who has his own lofty ideals, but whose pragmatism sets in motion a series of events with tragic results. Cusack admirably captures the essence of someone polished and savvy at his job but must cope with fundamental disillusionment. This political thriller suffers at times from a lack of focus, but still offers an insightful and poignant treatise on the quagmire of politics in the modern age and the human toll it sometimes exacts. --Robert Lane

• City Slickers | DVD | (11/03/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Comic genius Billy Crystal (When Harry Met Sally) stars in this hilarious film about cowboys careers and mid-life crises. Co-starring Daniel Stern Bruno Kirby and Jack Palance in an Academy Award-winning role City Slickers is ""the rowdiest western jokefest since Blazing Saddles (Rolling Stone). It'll rope you in...and keep you laughing from first frame to last. New Yorker Mitch Robbins (Crystal) is 39 and miserable. He's tired of his job and bored with his life. And his two bes

• Quiz Show | DVD | (08/04/2002) from £5.38   |  Saving you £9.61 (178.62%)   |  RRP £14.99

  This vigorously entertaining film, sharply directed by Robert Redford fr om Paul Attanasio's brilliant screenplay, is based on the game-show scandals of the 1950s, when TV quiz shows were rigged to attract higher ratings and lucrative sponsorships. The fact-based story focuses on the quiz show Twenty-One and popular contestant Charles Van Doren (Ralph Fiennes), a charming, well-bred intellectual who agreed to win the game by using answers supplied by the show's producers. This unfair advantage turned Van Doren into a prototypical media darling at the expense of reigning Twenty-One champion Herbie Stempel (John Turturro, in a bravura performance), a working-class Jewish contestant who, according to the show's sponsors, had worn out his welcome in the public eye. When a congressional investigator (Rob Morrow) catches on to the scam and Stempel blows the whistle on this backstage manipulation, Quiz Show becomes a smart, political exposè about the first generation of television, the corrupting effect of celebrity and success, and the ongoing loss of innocence in American society. Bristling with superior dialogue and energized by an excellent cast including Paul Scofield as Van Doren's morally upstanding father, Quiz Show succeeds as history lesson, intelligent thriller, and morality tale, setting the stage for the countless scandals that would follow in a nation addicted to television. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com

• Nixon | DVD | (01/01/2001) from £10.27   |  Saving you £5.72 (55.70%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Nixon takes a riveting look at a complex man whose chance at greatness was ultimately destroyed by his passion for power - when his involvement in conspiracy jeopardized the nation's security and the presidency of the United States! With a phenomenal all-star cast.

• Innocent Moves | DVD | (22/09/2003) from £22.94   |  Saving you £-6.95 (-43.50%)   |  RRP £15.99

  A prepubescent chess prodigy under pressure from his sports reporter father (Mantegna) and also his mentor (Kingsley) refuses to harden himself in order to become a champion like the famous but unfathomable Bobby Fischer...

• Get Shorty (Special Edition) | DVD | (21/03/2005) from £42.19   |  Saving you £-22.20 (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Drug Smuggling. Racketeering. Loan Sharking. Welcome to Hollywood! A hysterical comedy that insists it doesn't take much to make it in the movies...just a background with the mob. Loanshark Chili Palmer (Golden Globe Winner Travolta) has done his time as a gangster. So when ""business"" takes him to LA to collect a debt from down-and-out-filmmaker (Gene Hackman) Chili jumps headfirst into the Hollywood scene: he smoozes a film star (Danny Devito) romances a ""B"" movie queen (Rene Rus

• State and Main | DVD | (24/09/2007) from £9.43   |  Saving you £6.56 (69.57%)   |  RRP £15.99

  A big-budget movie crew descends upon the sleepy town of Waterford Vermont. Soon money will change hands careers will be jeopardised and love will bloom. Pity the poor film director (William H. Macy) who's arrive only to discover that the local mill - a crucial location for his movie The Old Mill - burned down in 1960. On top of this he is faced with a problematic cast and crew. The idealistic screenwriter (Philip Seymour Hoffman) would rather pursue a pure-hearted local girl (Rebecca Pidgeon) than do a last-minute rewrite; the bimbo starlet (Sarah Jessica Parker) is now baulking at her contractual nude scene; and a local teenager (Julia Stiles) is only too willing to exploit the indiscretions of the film's skirt-chasing star (Alec Baldwin). And of course the power-wielding producer (David Paymer) is panicking about everything. David Mamet's State and Main is a hilarious screwball comedy and movie satire.

• In Good Company | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £5.32   |  Saving you £14.67 (275.75%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Dennis Quaid and Topher Grace star in this modern day tale about corporate takeovers and falling for your colleague's daughter.

• Gang Related | DVD | (14/07/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

• The 6th Man | DVD | (29/03/2004) from £12.94   |  Saving you £2.05 (15.84%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Kenny and Antoine share the same dream of leading their college basketball team to the championship game. After Antoine's death Kenny has to go on alone but this proves tough as Antoine's ghost keeps popping up on court making shots only Kenny can see! His team shoots up to first position in the league and Kenny has a real problem asking his brother to step aside and let the team win fair and square.

• Conspiracy Theory / Payback | DVD | (24/04/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £10.99

  Conspiracy Theory: New York cab driver and conspiracy buff Jerry Fletcher (Mel Gibson) knows about the secret movers shakers and assassins who really control things. Trying to put Justice Department attorney Alice Sutton (Julia Roberts) in the know he's run out of her of office. Soon both will run for their lives. The two stars conspire for suspense romance and twists that click like a rush-hour taximeter. (Dir. Richard Donner 1997 Cert. 15) Payback: Mel Gibson po

• Be Cool / Get Shorty | DVD | (12/09/2005) from £33.73   |  Saving you £-8.74 (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Be Cool (2005): Everyone is looking for the next big hit... Disenchanted with the movie industry Chili Palmer (Travolta) decides to try his hand in the music industry he romances the sultry widow (Thurman) of a recently whacked music exec poaches a hot young singer (Christina Milian) from a rival label and discovers that the record industry is packin' a whole lot more than a tune! Get Shorty (1995): Drug Smuggling. Racketeering. Loan Sharking. Welcome to Hollywood!

• Alex And Emma | DVD | (12/07/2004) from £5.99   |  Saving you £8.00 (133.56%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Faced both with an empty page and Cuban loan sharks out for his blood, an author with writer's block employs a stenographer to help write his novel, get paid by his publishers and save his skin.