"Actor: David Willoughby"

• Conspiracy | DVD | (15/09/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Based on the only surviving record of the infamous 1942 Wannsee Conference, the BBC/HBO produced Conspiracy reconstructs the two-hour meeting during which leading members of the SS and the Nazi government made definitive plans for the genocide of Europe's Jews. Sixteen men sit around a table and politely discuss the mechanics and ramifications of murdering millions. As SS General Reinhard Heydrich, overall architect of the Final Solution, Kenneth Branagh is brilliant, charming, manipulative and threatening, a cultured man seemingly without a soul. As his aid, SS Colonel Adolf Eichmann, Stanley Tucci is the incarnation of the banality of evil, an efficient and self-effacing bureaucrat in a fine performance marred only by a hint of the actor's American accent. Colin Firth is a powerful foil for Branagh as Dr Wilhelm Stuckart, author of Nazi Germany's race laws and a stickler for the rule of law, no matter how insane the law may have become; while David Threlfall makes a striking impression as the one man who comes closest to taking a moral stand, Dr Wilhelm Kritzinger. Directed in an elegantly controlled style by Frank Pierson, Conspiracy is the Janus face of the 1957 classic 12 Angry Men and a chilling companion to the BBC/HBO Churchill drama The Gathering Storm (2002). On the DVD: Conspiracy comes to DVD with text profiles of the four leading actors and the director and two featurettes, one running two minutes, the other four, neither of which is any more than an electronic press-kit. Sound is clear, perfectly good Dolby Surround, while the picture, though anamorphically enhanced at 16:9, is no more than adequate. --Gary S Dalkin

• View to a Kill | DVD | (03/11/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  A View to a Kill, Roger Moore's last outing as James Bond, is evidence enough that it was time to pass the torch to another actor. Beset by crummy action (an out-of-control fire engine?) and featuring a fading Moore still trying to prop up his mannered idea of style, A View to a Kill is largely interesting for Christopher Walken's quirky performance as a sort-of super-villain who wants to take out California's Silicon Valley. Grace Jones has a spookily interesting presence as a lethal associate of Walken's (and who, in the best Bond tradition, has sex with 007 before trying to kill him later), and Patrick Macnee (Steed!) has a warm if brief bit. Even directed by John Glen, who brought some crackle to the Moore years in the Bond franchise, this is a very slight effort. --Tom Keogh, Amazon.com On the DVD: For Roger Moore's final Bond outing the production crew faced the usual quota of difficulties and disasters, the "making-of" documentary reveals: from base jumpers off the Eiffel tower whose antics threatened to jeopardise fragile relations with the Parisian authorities, to Ridley Scott thoughtlessly burning down the 007 at Pinewood right before production was due to start. Patrick MacNee, who has a supporting role in the movie, hands over narrative duties on this one to Rosemary Ford. The commentary is one of those less-than-satisfying montages of comments from various members of cast and crew. Also included is Duran Duran's "A View to a Kill" video (sounding hopelessly dated now), the usual trailers and a brief deleted scene of comic relief inside a Parisian police station. The second documentary concerns the music of Bond--always a crucial ingredient--although it manages the neat diplomatic trick of interviewing both Monty Norman and John Barry without giving the least hint of any controversy about the famous James Bond theme. --Mark Walker

• James Bond - A View to A Kill (Ultimate Edition 2 Disc Set) | DVD | (17/07/2006) from £11.04   |  Saving you £8.94 (111.06%)   |  RRP £16.99

  Agent 007 (Roger Moore in his final outing as James Bond) races against time to stop a power-mad industrialist (Christopher Walken) who plots to kill millions in order to corner the world's microchip supply. From the Eiffel Tower to the top of the Golden Gate Bridge James Bond can't be stopped.

• Shameless - Series 2 | DVD | (16/01/2006) from £11.98   |  Saving you £15.00 (150.15%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Paul Abbott's Shameless returns to DVD for a second series. Seven months on from the first series and Manchester's favourite son Frank Gallagher is expecting another addition to the clan this time with his agoraphobic lover Sheila. On the back of a fiddled insurance claim the Gallagher children have extended their home into the house next door. Fiona and boyfriend Steve are now hopeful for a bit of privacy; but Lip Ian Debbie Carl and Liam cause havoc everywher

• Porterhouse Blue | DVD | (15/07/2002) from £17.99   |  Saving you £-8.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Based on Tom Sharpe’s satirical novel and set in a fictional, all-male Cambridge College, 1987’s Porterhouse Blue is a crusty delight. Ian Richardson stars as the austere moderniser who takes over as master of Porterhouse with a view to bringing in radical changes; David Jason is Skullion, head porter for 45 years and a bulldog-style traditionalist.Porterhouse Blue is a wonderfully grotesque and not inaccurate depiction of an Oxbridge college that has set itself resolutely and decadently against the modern world. Crammed with hoggish, port-swilling dons who are more concerned that the college stay "head of the river" than with academic achievement, the highlight of Porterhouse’s year is the Founder’s Feast, in which students and tutors gorge debauchedly on roast swan stuffed with widgeon, to the horror of the new vegetarian master. Jason’s Skullion looks on approvingly: he’s a stickler for Porterhouse’s inverted values, disapproving, for instance, of student Zipser (John Sessions), the only fellow at the college actually there to work. When the master eventually fires Skullion, the forces of traditionalism gather in sympathy and attempt their revenge.Unfolding over 190 leisurely minutes, Porterhouse Blue is an elegantly turned comedy in which practically every morsel of dialogue is to be savoured for its delicious tang. Jason and Richardson are reliably excellent in what is an overall exhibition of British TV thespianism at its finest. --David Stubbs