"Actor: David Rappaport"

• Time Bandits | DVD | (30/09/2002) from £9.07   |  Saving you £13.91 (228.78%)   |  RRP £19.99

  With Time Bandits, only his second movie as director, Terry Gilliam's barbed humour and hyperactive visual imagination got themselves gloriously into full gear. Sketched out in a matter of weeks over Michael Palin's kitchen table while Gilliam struggled to get his dream project Brazil off the ground, this is a children's film made by a director who "hates kid films" and all the "mawkish sentimental crap" that goes with them. The 11-year-old hero, Kevin, finds himself lugged out of his suburban bedroom and off through a series of wormholes in time and space by a gang of rapacious, bickering midgets in search of loot, en route encountering (and casually despoiling) a gallery of eminent historical figures that include Agamemnon, Napoleon and Robin Hood, along with assorted ogres, giants and monsters. As co-screenwriters, Gilliam and Palin cheerfully filch ideas from everyone from Homer and Jonathan Swift to Lewis Carroll and Walt Disney, while the sets--as always with Gilliam--ingeniously work towering miracles on puny budgets. "The whole point of fairy tales", according to Gilliam, "is to frighten the kids" and Time Bandits taps into some archetypal nightmare imagery. But the whole farrago is much too good-humoured to be seriously scary. Not least of the movie's pleasures are a series of ripe cameos from the likes of Ian Holm as an irascible Bonaparte, Sean Connery good-humouredly spoofing his own image as Agamemnon, John Cleese's version of Robin Hood as inanely condescending minor royalty ("So you're a robber too! Jolly good!"), David Warner hamming it up gleefully as the Evil Genius, and the great Ralph Richardson playing the Supreme Being as a tetchy public-school headmaster. On the DVD: Time Bandits on disc comes with a generous wealth of extras. Along with the expected trailer--sent up Python-style by a disaffected voice-over--we get excerpts from Gilliam's storyboard and notated script, filmographies for Gilliam, Palin, Connery and David Rappaport (the leader of the vertically challenged gang), stills, production shots, a scrapbook with cast photos and drawings, notes on the film and plenty more background data, plus a cheerfully relaxed 27-minute interview with Gilliam and Palin. There's also an informative and appealingly unpretentious full-length commentary shared between Gilliam, Palin, Cleese, Warner and Craig Warnock, who played Kevin. The transfer, clean and crisp, is in the original full-width ratio, and there's a choice of Dolby Stereo or Dolby 5.1 sound. --Philip Kemp

• Time Bandits | DVD | (06/02/2006) from £13.98   |  Saving you £-7.99 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  All the dreams you've ever had.... and not just the good ones. The first of three Terry Gilliam films collectively referred to as his Trilogy of the Imagination (along with Brazil and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen) Time Bandits is a wonderfully inventive fantasy with a massive cult following and universal appeal. A sleeper hit in 1981 the film grossed well over eight times its million budget. Co-written by Gilliam and fellow Monty Python veteran Michael Palin (who also appears in the film) Time Bandits tells the story of Kevin (Craig Warnock) a young imaginative boy kidnapped by a band of mischievous dwarves who have stolen a map of the universe detailing the locations of holes in the space-time continuum from the Supreme Being (Ralph Richardson). The dwarves with Kevin in tow set off on a bizarre journey back and forth though time with the intention of looting the fortunes of history's rich and famous. Along the way they meet the likes of King Agamemnon (Sean Connery) Robin Hood (John Cleese) and Napoleon (Ian Holm) among others and even get to sail on the Titanic moments prior to its unfortunate encounter with an iceberg. Unknowingly the diminutive bandits are being watched by the spectre of Evil Genius (David Warner) who wants the map for his own typically wicked purposes...

• The Bride | DVD | (03/10/2005) from £11.35   |  Saving you £-5.36 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  A Woman Born Of Electricity - A Man Driven By Obsession Available on DVD for the first time! In this update of James Whale's classic The Bride of Frankenstein pop star Sting furthers his burgeoning film career by portraying cinema's signature mad scientist. Disgusted by his dim-witted and ugly original creation (Clancy Brown) Dr. Frankenstein sets out to animate an improved version. Though lovely on the outside Eva (Jennifer Beals) begins her new life as litt

• Nuns On The Run / Time Bandits | DVD | (06/02/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Nuns On The Run (Dir. Jonathan Lynn 1990): Following in the great Carry On... tradition with a bit of Monty Python thrown in for good measure Nuns On The Run is a classic slice of slapstick comedy starring Eric Idle and Robbie Coltrane. Brian and Charlie work for a gangster. When the boss learns they want to leave he sets them up to be killed after they help rob the local Triads of their drug dealing profits. Brian and Charlie decide to steal the money for themselves but when their escape doesn't go to plan they have to seek refuge in a nuns' teacher training school. Disguised as nuns Brian and Charlie have to avoid their boss Triads police and Brian's girlfriend. There's also the problem of them being men disguised as nuns in an all women institution. Time Bandits (Dir. Terry Gilliam 1981): All the dreams you've ever had.... and not just the good ones. The first of three Terry Gilliam films collectively referred to as his Trilogy of the Imagination (along with 'Brazil' and 'The Adventures of Baron Munchausen') 'Time Bandits' is a wonderfully inventive fantasy with a massive cult following and universal appeal. A sleeper hit in 1981 the film grossed well over eight times its million budget. Co-written by Gilliam and fellow Monty Python veteran Michael Palin (who also appears in the film) 'Time Bandits' tells the story of Kevin (Craig Warnock) a young imaginative boy kidnapped by a band of mischievous dwarves who have stolen a map of the universe detailing the locations of holes in the space-time continuum from the Supreme Being (Ralph Richardson). The dwarves with Kevin in tow set off on a bizarre journey back and forth though time with the intention of looting the fortunes of history's rich and famous. Along the way they meet the likes of King Agamemnon (Sean Connery) Robin Hood (John Cleese) and Napoleon (Ian Holm) among others and even get to sail on the Titanic moments prior to its unfortunate encounter with an iceberg. Unknowingly the diminutive bandits are being watched by the spectre of Evil Genius (David Warner) who wants the map for his own typically wicked purposes...

• Peter Gunn | DVD | (10/01/2005) from £7.24   |  Saving you £-3.25 (N/A%)   |  RRP £3.99

  Peter Gunn a connoisseur of beautiful women and cool jazz is an ex-cop turned private eye who's caught in the middle of a dangerous gang war.

• Time Bandits | UMD | (06/03/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

• Time Bandits | DVD | (19/02/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  They are timeless yet always late; immortal; yet destructible; capable of intergalactic inter-cosmic travel yet unable to tie their own shoelaces. Six cheeky dwarves steal a precious map showing a series of time holes scattered across the universe enabling them to travel back in time. Whilst visiting the past they cause havoc and rob famous historical figures of their riches in the process. Watching from afar is the Evil genius who will stop at nothing to get his hands on their map for his own evil purpose. With 11 year old Kevin in tow a great time travelling adventure ensues full of superb make believe characters and very famous faces!