"Actor: Donovan Leitch"

• Glory | DVD | (19/06/2000) from £7.25   |  Saving you £12.74 (175.72%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The negroes fought gallantly and were headed by as brave a Colonel as ever lived", was one Confederate soldier's eyewitness verdict on the 54th Massachusetts Volunteers immediately after 247 of their 600-man regiment had fallen in bloody swathes beneath the withering fire from Fort Wagner near Charleston, South Carolina in 1863. Glory is their story: the mustering of the first black regiment in the US Army, their battles with the Southerners as well as with the Northern military authorities, and their own moment of glory when they paid a terrible price for the opportunity to demonstrate to the world their courage. In telling this little-known story, director Ed Zwick single-handedly changed perceptions of the American Civil War: when a Grand Review of the Armies was held in Washington at the end of the war, none of the almost 180,000 coloured troops who fought for the Union were present; when that parade was restaged in 1990 a year after the movie was released, the 54th Massachusetts re-enactors were at the front of the procession. Zwick's stirring, factually accurate account is greatly enhanced by obsessive period detail and frighteningly realistic battle reconstructions (which were not to be surpassed in scale until 1993's Gettysburg). But Zwick also illuminates individual characters in the regiment with great sensitivity. As crucial as the military set-pieces are the scenes of the men together: talking in the tent or baring their souls in song. Denzel Washington, as the embittered ex-slave, gives a performance of real depth; he richly deserved his Oscar win for the heartbreaking flogging scene alone. Morgan Freeman brings great gravitas to his paternalistic role, and Matthew Broderick's idealistic Colonel Shaw is the centre around which the story revolves. With a clutch of remarkable lead performances, a sensitive and touching script, one of James Horner's finest musical scores, and a director with both the vision and heart to pull it off it's easy to agree with the backcover blurb: "Glory is one of the greatest war movies ever made". Without even a hint of hyperbole, it undoubtedly is. On the DVD: This is a superb looking (anamorphic) and sounding (Dolby 5.1) print, and the disc has some excellent additional features. Ed Zwick's commentary is insightful and extremely detailed: here's a director who obviously cares deeply about this movie. Of the three featurettes, one is a short-ish promo piece but the other two are genuinely impressive: there's a 20-minute "Making of" feature with major contributions from Zwick, Freeman and Broderick, and best of all a 45-minute "The True Story Continues" feature narrated by Freeman which tells the complete story of the 54th Massachusetts from beginning to end using footage from the movie as well as archive material and film of battle re-enactments. Also included are two deleted scenes, although a third scene which was shot for the movie but not used (the Frederick Douglass' speech) crops up in the "True Story" piece. James Horner's emotive score gets an isolated track all to itself and there are also some filmographies and trailers. All in all, this is a superb DVD. --Mark Walker

• Sex And The City - Series 1 To 6 | DVD | (31/10/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £129.99

  All 94 episodes from the six series of the acclaimed comedy/drama! Join Carrie Samantha Miranda and Charlotte as they plot a course through Manhattan's tricky social scene in a search for the perfect relationship - or orgasm!

• The Blob (Collector's Edition) | Blu Ray | (17/10/2023) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• And God Created Woman | DVD | (24/09/2007) from £11.60   |  Saving you £5.65 (54.64%)   |  RRP £15.99

  On The Seventh Day He Got Creative. A beautiful free spirit whose only want is to play Rock 'n' Roll finds her spontaneous style always gets her in trouble. With a smitten politician in one hand and a husband in the other she creates her own rules - then breaks them. Director Roger Vadim's (Barbarella) remake of his 1956 Bardot classic And God Created Woman achieves the right balance between retaining the original eroticism whilst accounting for an independent modern woman's approach to life.

• I Shot Andy Warhol | DVD | (10/07/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  You only get one shot at fame. He was the world-renowned King of Pop Art - and his life was about to take a dramatic turn in exchange for someone else's fifteen minutes of fame! Starring Lili Taylor and Jared Harris I Shot Andy Warhol explores the provocative story behind the shooting of the titular icon. Valerie Solanas (Taylor) a lesbian writer loner and prostitute has come to the Big Apple with one goal in mind: to spread the gospel of her radical feminism. Desp

• Cutting Class | DVD | (13/10/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Welcome to Wurleigh High School, where the pressures of student life can be seriously crushing. The night janitor hates teenagers, the students are turning to drink. Brian's just returned from a mental hospital, and everyone else is losing their mind. Somebody is cutting classes at Wurleigh High, and the bodycount's rising.

• The 60s | DVD | (02/06/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

• And God Created Woman | DVD | (24/09/2001) from £14.08   |  Saving you £5.91 (29.60%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Despite being directed by Roger Vadim, this And God Created Woman is not the 1956 classic but a loose remake from some 30 years later (1987) which attempts to update the original's themes. Rebecca De Mornay takes the central role, this time as Robin, a woman released from jail on parole due to her recent marriage to Billy (Vincent Spano). Once on the outside, she pursues her dreams of rock stardom and enters into a love triangle with state governor elect, James Tiernan (Frank Langella). Whereas Vadim's own original film may have exuded unspoken sexual tension (in no small part due to its star, Brigette Bardot), any pretence of subtlety here is lost as De Mornay sheds her clothes at every possible opportunity in the film's series of soft porn sex scenes, all accompanied--as indeed is virtually every moment of the film--by an appalling 80s rock soundtrack. The acting is uniformly awful, with De Mornay taking the prize for the worst performance of all, fighting a losing battle for the viewer's attention with her seemingly ever-growing hair. Indeed, And God Created Woman is best recommended to those who gleefully indulge in the worst that the cinematic arts have to offer and it would easily feature in a top ten of most awful films of recent years.On the DVD: Alongside the chapter selection facility, the various filmographies point to what a waste of potential talent this film is. With the picture quality unable to improve on the TV-movie feel of the whole project, the audio presents the horrible American rock backing in all its glory--despite that fact the music sequences are amongst the most laughingly unconvincing ever committed to celluloid. --Phil Udell

• Love Kills | DVD | (12/10/1999) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Deceipt and treachery about inside the walls of the magnificent Heiss family mansion. Evelyn Heiss a recently widowed gold-digging trophy wife has fallen for her smooth-talking younger new age masseur Poe Finklestein. Poe is a striking hunk who massages his way first into Evelyn's affections and soon after her bed. The rest of her family are a source of constant irritation as they await with increasing anticipation the reading of the will. The eccentric Heiss family are heirs to a European dynasty with its fabulous wealth and jewels worth millions. What they hadn't counted on is the underbelly of Hollywood who have their own plans for the Heiss family fortune...

• Cutting Class | DVD | (08/10/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99