"Actor: Ella Jones"

• Eddie Murphy Box Set - Trading Places / Coming To America | DVD | (20/10/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Eddie Murphy's 1988 vehicle Coming to America was probably the point at which his status as a mainstream big-screen comedian finally gelled, following the highly successful 48 Hours pairing with Nick Nolte. Never mind the hackneyed storyline: under John Landis's tight direction, he turns in a star performance (and several brilliant cameos) that is disciplined and extremely funny. Murphy plays an African prince who comes to New York officially to sow his wild oats. Privately, he is seeking a bride he can marry for love rather than one chosen by his parents. With his companion (Arsenio Hall, who pushes Murphy all the way in the comedy stakes), he settles in the borough of Queens and takes a job in a hamburger joint. A succession of hilarious satire-barbed adventures ensue, plus the required romantic conclusion. The script is crammed with ripe one-liners , but "Freeze, you diseased rhinoceros pizzle" has to be the most devastating hold-up line of all time. Film buffs will appreciate a brief appearance by Don Ameche as a down-and-out, but this is Murphy's film and he generates warmth enough to convert the most ambivalent viewer. On the DVD: The only--rather pointless--extra on offer is the original theatrical trailer which adds nothing apart from a rapid recap of the story. But the 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen presentation (the picture quality is diamond sharp) and Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack recreate the original authentic cinematic experience. The choreography of 1980s pop diva Paula Abdul in the lavish wedding scenes and Nile Rodgers' pounding musical score are the main beneficiaries. --Piers Ford

• Poirot - Agatha Christie's Poirot - Hickory Dickory Dock | DVD | (14/07/2003) from £6.98   |  Saving you £3.01 (43.12%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Petty thefts are followed by brutal but mysterious murders at a student hostel in Hickory Road. Even the ingenious little grey cells of Poirot's mind find the circumstances difficult to comprehend. What is the significance of the slashed rucksack the stolen lightbulbs and the lethal morphine tartrate which is substituted for an unsuspecting student's sleeping powder?

• Poirot - Agatha Christie's Poirot - Plymouth Express / Wasp's Nest | DVD | (12/05/2003) from £4.98   |  Saving you £5.01 (100.60%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Plymouth Express: A train journey ends in tragedy forcing Poirot to instigate an investigation. Wasps' Nest: Poirot visits a garden fete bumping into the son of an old friend and mysterious beautiful girlfriend...

• Cadillac Man | DVD | (12/08/2002) from £9.99   |  Saving you £3.00 (30.03%)   |  RRP £12.99

  A fast-paced comedy that shifts hilarity into overdrive! Whether he's pitching himself or the high-priced luxury cars at Turgeon Auto Sales Joey O' Brien (Robin Williams) never let's a day go by without ""doing"" someone good. But Joey's schmoozed through life on cruise control for way too long... and now he's riding in the hot seat! Co- Starring Tim Robbins (The Player) Pamela Reed (Kindergarten Cop) and Fran Drescher (""The Nanny"") Cadillac Man is a non-stop joy ride of comic lun

• Poirot - Agatha Christie's Poirot - Evil Under The Sun | DVD | (14/07/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  It seems that Hercule Poirot's luxuriant lifestyle catches up with him when at the opening of his good friend Captain Hasting's new restaurant he suffers a minor heart-attack. He's overweight and has a poor diet and on doctors orders he's sent along with trusty Hastings to the island retreat Sandy Cove to aid his recovery. Upon their arrival Poirot is immediately struck by the eccentric characters already there in particular Arlena Stuart the famous yet scandalous socialite. Despite his orders to relax he observes Arlena openly flauting her affair in her front of her husband with a grief stricken younger man. As his little grey cells work over time he forsees tragedy...

• Eddie Murphy - Raw / Coming To America / Trading Places | DVD | (10/10/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Raw (1987): Uncensored. Uncut. Irresistible! 'Raw' the record-setting No 1 stand up concert film of all time is Eddie Murphy doing what he does best: making people laugh! Filmed live at New York's Felt Forum Murphy delights shocks and entertains with dead-on celebrity impersonations observations on '80s love sex and marriage a remembrance of Mum's hamburgers and much more. Take a front-row centre seat for the hottest show in town and the hottest comedian in recent ent

• Never Let Go | DVD | (07/10/2002) from £11.98   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Remembered dimly as Peter Sellers' only venture into "serious" acting, Never Let Go has a lot of other things to recommend it, mostly because it manages to include a lot of the lurid elements that gained it an X certificate in 1960. It has a near-demented melodrama plot, as two desperate obsessives collide in a bizarre feud. Richard Todd, doing meek and put-upon, is a sales rep for smug Peter Jones' cosmetics firm whose life is turned upside-down when his Ford Anglia, bought on hire purchase and uninsured, is stolen by teddy boy Adam Faith. Looking like an inhabitant of Royston Vasey in The League of Gentlemen, Sellers plays a grinning, jumped-up spiv who runs a legitimate garage which is a front for the car thieves and is sugar daddy to teenage tartlet Carol White. Typical of Sellers' demonic rottenness is a scene in which he breaks down-and-out Melvyn Johns' heart by stamping on his beloved terrapin. "Peanut" Todd's crusade to get back his motor (catchphrase "what about my car?") brings trouble too: he gets repeatedly beaten up, abandoned by his wife (Elizabeth Sellars) and dragged to the edge of madness for a final punch-up in a garage. With a delightfully sleazy, jazzy John Barry score, lots of local colour in the caffs and gaffs of criminal London circa 1960 and a parade of welcome character actors (John le Mesurier, David Lodge, Noel Willman, Nigel Stock), this has its soapy spells, but it's a fascinating relic. On the DVD: Never Let Go's menu plays under Faith's theme song ("When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again--Oh Yeah Oh Yeah!"). The print is slightly letterboxed but looks a few generations away from the master with some careless transfer work that greys shadows and overexposes some scenes. --Kim Newman

• Poirot - Agatha Christie's Poirot - The Hollow | DVD | (13/09/2004) from £14.98   |  Saving you £-1.99 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Poirot joins Sir Henry Angkatell and fellow guests at Sir Henry's country retreat The Hollow. When the handsome doctor John Christow is found dead Poirot investigates and in doing so uncovers a love triangle. A crime of passion or a pack of lies? Confused by the different stories told by the family and guests Poirot starts to believe that he is deliberately being kept from the truth.

• She Fought Alone | DVD | (25/09/2000) from £17.48   |  Saving you £-11.49 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Caitlin Rose wants to be part of the 'in' crowd at Lockhart High School and will do anything to achieve this. She is not prepared however for rape and when she accuses her attacker her friends turn against her. She is regarded as an outcast by the school and town but she begins a long fight to clear her name...

• Fahrenheit 451 | Blu Ray | (01/10/2018) from £5.18   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  A dazzling, high-tech thriller that infuses Ray Bradbury's classic novel of the same name with a decidedly 21st Century sensibility, the HBO Films presentation of Fahrenheit 451 depicts an American future where the media is an opiate, internet bots control everyday routines, history is truncated or rewritten, and brigades of celebrity firemen engage in televised search-and-destroy missions to burn books and bring their shamed owners to justice. Within this paranoid world, a zealous fireman (Michael B. Jordan) who's being groomed to replace his longtime captain (Michael Shannon) begins to question long-held assumptions about the practice of torching books and other graffiti that leaders say caused widespread dissent and, as a result, a Second Civil War where millions perished. After meeting a young informant (Sofia Boutella) who's on probation for supporting those who value literature and history, the fireman makes a dangerous decision to assist a group of underground Eels who have a bold plan for preserving the contents of thousands of classic books, arts and culture if they can outwit the all-seeing forces intent on destroying them.

• Poirot - Agatha Christie's Poirot - One, Two, Buckle My Shoe | DVD | (14/07/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Poirot's dentist Morley is found dead in surgery. It appears to be a simple case of suicide but why has Morley's secretary received a hoax phone call claiming her Aunt was ill? And who is the woman with the broken shoe buckle masquerading as Miss Sainsbury Seale? When a Mr Amberiotis is found dead in his hotel room with an overdose of Novocaine Poirot begins to assemble the evidence...

• Poirot - Agatha Christie's Poirot - Double Sin / The Adventure Of The Cheap Flat | DVD | (12/05/2003) from £9.75   |  Saving you £0.24 (2.46%)   |  RRP £9.99

  David Suchet and Hugh Fraser team up again as the great detective Hercule Poirot and trusty Captain Hastings for more engaging adventures in Double Sin / The Adventure of the Cheap Flat. The Adventure of the Cheap Flat blends international intrigue with the gentle comic relief of a foolish American FBI agent. Double Sin contains a novel twist: Poirot announces his retirement and Hastings is left to solve the case by himself. The cast has the easy rapport of old friends and as always Philip Jackson as Chief Inspector Japp and Pauline Moran as the remarkable Miss Lemon are welcome companions. Brew some tea, check it for arsenic and get ready for a thoroughly entertaining evening. --Ali Davis

• Poirot - Agatha Christie's Poirot - The Adventure Of The Italian Nobleman / The Chocolate Box | DVD | (16/06/2003) from £8.13   |  Saving you £1.86 (22.88%)   |  RRP £9.99

  More intriguing investigations for Agatha Christie's famed Belgian detective... The Adventure Of The Italian Nobleman: Hastings decides to buy an elegant car from Mr Vizzini's showroom. Whilst he is there Vizzini receives a message saying that his time is up. Later that day the messenger is found dead in his flat and Poirot and Hastings are drawn into the gangland underworld of London's Little Italy in a baffling case of elaborate blackmail. The Chocolate Box: Poirot is in Brussels accompanying Japp on a trip to receive the 'Branch d'Or' for services to Belgium. They meet up with some former colleagues who still have memories of a case that has apparently remained unresolved for twenty years.

• Poirot - Agatha Christie's Poirot - Peril At End House Parts 1 And 2 | DVD | (12/05/2003) from £13.48   |  Saving you £-3.49 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  While the little Belgian detective and his English sidekick are enjoying their holidays on the Cornish Riviera a chance meeting with Miss Buckley of nearby End House provides Poirot with the stimulation on which his little grey cells thrive.

• Poirot - Agatha Christie's Poirot - The Mysterious Affair At Styles | DVD | (16/06/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Another intriguing investigation for Agatha Christie's famed Belgian detective... The Mysterious Affair At Styles was Agatha Christie's debut novel and was first published in 1920. The story introduced Poirot her eccentric and fastidious creation to an enthusiastic public. Lieutenant Hastings is recovering from his war injuries when he receives an invitation to visit his old friends the Cavendish family at Styles St Mary. Staying nearby as guests of the Cavendishs' are a group of Belgian refugees including much to Hastings' surprise his old acquaintance from the Belgian Police Hercule Poirot. Before long the pair are pitting their little grey cells against family machinations and manipulation; murder and mayhem; money and mendacity.

• Sgt. Bilko | DVD | (18/09/2017) from £4.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  The army is known for churning out lean mean fighting machines intent on protecting our great nation. But at Fort Baxter, there s one unit that can t even form a straight line... Steve Martin stars with Dan Aykroyd and Phil Hartman in an outrageous comedy from Imagine Entertainment. Martin is the inexplicable, the incorrigible, the invincible Sgt. Bilko, leader of a ragtag group of the sorriest soldiers ever to enlist in the armed forces. Instead of training his troops for battle, he passes on his legacy of gambling and shunning responsibility. Times get tough however, when the base is threatened with a shutdown, and a by-the-book adversary, Major Thorn (Hartman), is intent on taking Bilko s reputation down with it. Now, all bets are on Bilko to drum up his biggest scheme yet to save Fort Baxter...and clear his name!

• Poirot - Agatha Christie's Poirot - The Adventure Of The Clapham Cook / Murder In The Mews | DVD | (12/05/2003) from £4.98   |  Saving you £5.01 (100.60%)   |  RRP £9.99

  The Adventure Of The Clapham Cook: Mrs Todd from Clapham comes to ask Poirot if he will help her to find her cook Eliza who has disappeared. Poirot is at first insulted by such a trivial request for his talents but then decides the case could be intriguing. Murder In The Mews: Chief Inspector Japp calls on Poirot to assist in the investigation of the suicide of a young woman Mrs Allen who has been found in her London mews home on Guy Fawkes night. Poirot soon suspects that Mrs Allen is the victim of foul play.

• Urban Gothic - Series 1 | DVD | (08/09/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Urban Gothic is an interesting and original horror short story anthology format, uniting standard horror material with contemporary urban London settings. Writer Tom De Ville has a good ear for streetwise chatter and a reasonably acute sense of class and ethnic difference; his pieces that are essentially character-driven tend to be more successful than those that depend rather more on sensation and plot device. The London locations and young cast combine to make something surprisingly creepy. Highlights include the opening episode, "Deadmeat", in which a group of sensation-seeking young people, on the run from drug dealers and sexually rapacious employers, find a corpse with a look of horror on its face and decide to experiment with necromancy. In the fly-on-the wall documentary parody "Vampirology" a film crew follows a vampire on his nightly round of drinks with yuppie friends, before devouring a lost tourist. Keith-Lee Castle's portrait of a lost soul is remarkable, and the guest appearance of Ingrid Pitt, every vampire's favourite starlet, is hilarious. --Roz Kaveney

• Far From The Madding Crowd | DVD | (13/09/2004) from £17.98   |  Saving you £-4.99 (-38.40%)   |  RRP £12.99

  John Schlesinger's solid adaptation of Thomas Hardy's novel sees three rival suitors vying for the affections of the beautiful Bathsheba Everdene (Julie Christie decked out in a variety of bonnets and frilly dresses), who has just inherited a farm. The men in her life are stout, whiskered yeoman Gabriel Oak (Alan Bates), an impoverished local farmer; neurotic, repressed squire William Boldwood (Peter Finch); and handsome rascal Sgt Troy (Terrence Stamp), who dresses as if he's Flashman and breaks women's hearts for a hobby.Thanks to cameraman Nic Roeg and production designer Richard MacDonald (who also worked for Joseph Losey), 19th-century Dorset looks as pretty and as picturesque as a John Constable reproduction on top of a biscuit tin. Not that Schlesinger or screenwriter Frederic Raphael underplay the duress of rural life. We see the hardship of the farm workers' lives as the seasons turn. The film opens with a spectacular sequence in which Gabriel Oak's dog drives his flock of sheep over a cliff, thereby forcing him into penury. Whether hunger or heartbreak, every character here suffers. Bathsheba (like the model Christie plays in Darling) is a free-spirit in a society in which women's rights are severely restricted. --Geoffrey Macnab

• Poirot - Agatha Christie's Poirot - The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd | DVD | (12/05/2003) from £10.09   |  Saving you £-0.10 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  The Murder of Roger Ackroyd opens with a retired Poirot (David Suchet) cursing vegetable marrows in his country garden. When his old friend is found stabbed in the neck, Poirot begins an investigation that reunites him with Chief Inspector Japp (Philip Jackson) and uncovers a chain of furtive phone calls and secret romances. Unfortunately, the restructuring necessary to adapt the story from text to film takes away some of the shock value of Christie's original ending, which caused quite a controversy when the book was first published in 1926. --Larisa Lomacky Moore