"Actor: Gary"

• Vera Cruz | Blu Ray | (02/09/2013) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Vera Cruz was only director Robert Aldrich's second Western (his first, made a few months earlier, was the revisionist, pro-Native-American Apache), but it's such an assured, stylish affair that he might have been roaming the sagebrush for decades. In the aftermath of the American Civil War two lone adventurers make their way south of the border, where Mexico is fighting a civil war of its own to rid the country of the French-imposed Emperor Maximilian. Neither the dour Benjamin Trane (Gary Cooper) nor the grinning, devil-may-care Joe Erin (Burt Lancaster) has much in the way of idealism, but Trane still retains a thin bitter edge of integrity, a quality quite alien to the cheerfully amoral Erin. In uneasy alliance, constantly looking to outwit or double-cross each other, the two find themselves escorting a beautiful French countess (Denise Darcel) and a shipment of gold across country. Cooper and Lancaster create a superb double-act, using their contrasted screen personas to point up the humour and the cynicism of the two mercenaries' relationship. Darcel makes less than she might of the femme fatale role, but there are relishable cameos from Cesar Romero as a suavely duplicitous aristo and Ernest Borgnine as another gringo with an exceptionally vicious streak. The script, according to Aldrich, was written on the run, "always finished about five minutes before we shot it", but you wouldn't guess it from the laconic wit of the dialogue. It looks great, too--Ernest Laszlo's widescreen photography makes the most of the handsome Mexican locations. With its irreverent take on the accepted moral conventions of the genre, Vera Cruz ushered in a new kind of Western, and its central love-hate relationship would be replayed in Sam Peckinpah's Ride the High Country (1962) and Sergio Leone's The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966). On the DVD: Not much in the way of extras but the mono sound has been expertly remastered to the benefit of Hugo Friedhofer's spirited score. Above all, the film's presented in its full Superscope ratio (16:9), a blessed relief after all those years when it showed up panned-and-scanned on BBC1. If ever a movie needed widescreen, it's this one--if only to fit in all Burt's teeth. You can see why they called him "Crockery Joe". --Philip Kemp

• Chef - Season 1 | DVD | (01/08/2005) from £8.98   |  Saving you £7.01 (43.80%)   |  RRP £15.99

  ""I am Gareth Blackstock. I am seriously unpleasant. My bark is worse than my bite and my bark is atrocious!"" Introducing Gareth ""I don't do reasonable"" Blackstock (Lenny Henry) the 2 Michellin starred chef/slavedriver of 'Le Chateau Anglais'. Woe betide anyone who gets in the way of his pursuit of gastronomic perfection... This release contains all the deliciously funny episodes from the first series of the smash hit TV sitcom! Episodes comprise: 1. Personnel 2. Bey

• Macbeth | DVD | (19/04/2010) from £8.08   |  Saving you £-2.09 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  The Melbourne underworld present time. Macbeth a loyal henchman to his crime boss Duncan is told by teenage witches that he will one day assume great power. Driven by their prophecy he plots with his wife to kill Duncan and takes the leadership of the gang for himself. Maintaining his power will require more murders and violence finally driving his surviving enemies to unite and destroy him.

• Hardy Classics | DVD | (27/10/2008) from £19.98   |  Saving you £5.00 (29.43%)   |  RRP £21.99

• CSI: Crime Scene Investigation - Complete Season 2 (Amazon.co.uk Exclusive) | DVD | (03/11/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £59.99

  Exclusively available at Amazon.co.uk, this box set contains the complete second series of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. The second series consolidates the show's well-deserved popular appeal, while beginning to explore (gently at first) beneath the slickly professional surface of the investigators themselves. Gradually we learn more about what makes Grissom and his astonishingly gifted forensics team tick, beyond merely that they are workaholics who seem to require no sleep at all. The show's trademark reveals of vital evidence--be it on the autopsy slab or under the microscope--add a fresh spin to what is, at heart, a good old-fashioned whodunit series. And just when CSI starts to seem a little too pat, just when the trail of clues seems too neat, the show always seems able to throw a surprise or two at us: perhaps there has been no crime after all; perhaps the evidence concerns a completely different crime altogether; or perhaps, as in one brave episode concerning brothers implicated in multiple murders, the evidence simply isn't good enough to convict the right man, even when Grissom knows which one really is guilty. Thanks to its focus on more single-case episodes, the latter episodes provide an even more highly concentrated dose of forensic puzzle-solving. With the whole team working together on one puzzle crime (or series of crime puzzles), the group dynamic is elaborated and the audience drawn deeper into each investigation. "Identity Crisis" sees the return of Grissom's nemesis, serial killer Paul Millander; in "The Finger", Catherine is caught up in an elaborate kidnap plot; in "Burden of Proof", a stray body in a "body farm" leads to a difficult case of child abuse; while "Chasing the Bus" brings the team together to unravel the mystery of a bus crash in the desert. "Stalker" is possibly the show's most terrifying episode to date, with a woman found murdered behind the safely locked doors of her apartment. The season concludes with "Cross Jurisdictions", a rather unsubtle way of introducing the spin-off show CSI: Miami and, finally, "The Hunger Artist", a somewhat strained attempt to comment on our society's obsession with glamour and self-image. --Mark Walker

• 2 Point 4 Children - Series 3 | DVD | (22/08/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £16.99

  Statistically the Porters may just be an ordinary family. But there's nothing average about this razor-sharp comedy an endearingly demented portrait of modern family life by Andrew Marshall writer of the Emmy-winning Alexei Sayle's Stuff. Head of the household is Ben a dedicated central-heating engineer and easy-going husband and father. His idea of helping in the house is to change TV channels provided the remote control is within easy reach. Mainstay of the household is Bill a

• The Backwoods | DVD | (19/05/2008) from £11.41   |  Saving you £4.58 (40.14%)   |  RRP £15.99

  A heart-pounding ode to thrillers such as "Straw Dogs" as two mild-mannered couples find themselves trapped in a whirlpool of violence.

• Python | DVD | (13/09/2002) from £15.97   |  Saving you £-10.99 (N/A%)   |  RRP £1.99

  Created By Nature...Redesigned By Man. Sleepy New Haven California is a small town with a big problem. A sixty foot slithering horror has arrived and shattered the town's tranquility on it's path of death and destruction.. Growing violent and more savage with each attack the gigantic creature soon becomes an unstoppable feeding machine raging beyond the control of its creator leaving only the stripped bones of its victims in its wake.

• Decision Before Dawn | DVD | (31/01/2011) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Tense spy drama about a German traitor who offers his services to the Allies towards the end of WWII. Claiming he wants to help save his country German prisoner Karl Maurer (Oskar Werner) offers himself as a spy to the American forces. But shortly after he is sent behind enemy lines his overseer Lt. Dick Rennick (Richard Basehart) begins to have serious doubts about whether he can trust the new recruit. With Rennick becoming ever more suspicious about Maurer's motives the pair soon find themselves in the thick of battle but uncertainty remains as to who the common enemy is.

• Batman Begins - Limited Edition Steelbook | Blu Ray | (24/06/2013) from £17.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  In Batman Begins acclaimed director Christopher Nolan explores the origins of the legendary Dark Knight. In the wake of his parents' murders disillusioned heir Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) travels the world seeking the means to fight injustice and turn fear against those who prey on the fearful. With the help of his trusted butler Alfred (Michael Caine) detective Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman) and his ally Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman) Wayne returns to Gotham City and unleashes his alter ego: Batman a masked crusader who uses strength intellect and an array of high-tech weaponry to fight the sinister forces that threaten the city.

• Diamond Geezer | DVD | (15/01/2007) from £12.93   |  Saving you £0.05 (0.50%)   |  RRP £9.99

  The story of Des a career criminal pulling off a big scam while in prison.

• Meet John Doe | DVD | (19/05/2008) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £1.99

  In protest at the corruption and hypocrisy he sees all around him an unemployed man calling himself John Doe has written to the New Bulletin newspaper pledging to throw himself from the top of City Hall on Christmas Eve. Written by a discharged journalist as a publicity stunt and as a parting shot at the paper's new editor the premise of the letter unexpectedly fires the imagination of the bulletin's readers and the wider American public. Its real author Ann Mitchell (Barbara Stanwyck) is rehired and now needs to find someone to play the part of the fictional John Doe... Meet John Doe is often held to be part of a thematic trilogy that includes Mister Deeds Goes To Town and Mister Smith Goes To Washington. It explores a recurring notion in Capra's work that of the universal everyman exploited by a corrupt and powerful establishment. The film's reflections on corporate control of both the media and of ordinary people's lives is still as resonant as ever.

• Jazz - A Film By Ken Burns | DVD | (08/10/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £79.99

  The BBC, sceptical about the British appetite for extended documentary programmes, edited Ken Burns' epic 17-hour history Jazz back to around 12 hours. That's what's presented in this box set of the series, and while the flow of the original is preserved, so are its idiosyncrasies. The film dwells at length on early jazz, particularly on its origins in New Orleans, and there's a good deal of absorbing history here. On the other hand, in suggesting that the important work of jazz was done by 1975, Burns gives us cause to question how much of his earlier research is awry too. There isn't much here to reflect the brimming vitality of post-1960s jazz, and many listeners and musicians have been enraged by Burns' neglect of such pivotal figures as Joe Zawinul, Keith Jarrett, Jan Garbarek, Pat Metheny and Michael Brecker--all players whose work responds vigorously to the question that Burns thinks nobody can answer: "Where are the modern equivalents of Armstrong, Ellington, Parker and Coltrane?" Armstrong and Ellington are the touchstones of Burns' film, providing the narrative thread around which the stories of other major figures turn, among them Bechet, Basie, Goodman, Parker, Miles Davis and Coltrane. Burns also finds populist mileage in the politicisation of jazz, making dramatic capital out of racial divides that most jazz players, black and white, have ignored. The fact is that almost all jazz players, regardless of race, have felt like outsiders. Despite such distractions, Jazz is the longest jazz documentary yet produced, and it's rich in musical examples and classic, rare and unseen footage. Even when working with simple stills, Burns uses seductive camera work and Keith David's epigrammatic narration to maximum effect. There's plenty to enjoy here, but viewers should be aware, as Joshua Redman points out in Musicians' Views in our Ken Burns' Jazz shop, that Burns' film is an often compelling perspective on jazz, not a definitive study. --Mark Gilbert

• Tekken 2 | Blu Ray | (19/10/2015) from £7.99   |  Saving you £8.00 (100.12%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Suffering from amnesia, a young man trying to discover his true identity is kidnapped by an underground crime organization and turned into a ruthless assassin.

• Gang Law | DVD | (20/12/2002) from £4.98   |  Saving you £9.01 (180.92%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Kool finds out the dangers of life in the streets where drugs gangs and a corrupt justice system are a distubing way of life. Kool is a young kid trying to do right in this world of chaos through the disciplines of the martial arts. He is befriended by his mentor ""Master Koyangi"" is deeply in love with his girlfriend Lashawana and his dream of becoming a rap star has guided him positively toward his goal. But when Lashawana is wrongfully charged with the murder of a police office

• Minkus: La Bayadere | Blu Ray | (04/01/2011) from £25.65   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Octane | DVD | (28/02/2005) from £5.01   |  Saving you £9.98 (199.20%)   |  RRP £14.99

  "Octane" is the story of Senga, a woman plunged into a dark, deranged world when her teenage daughter Nat is lured away by a blood-obssessed cult.

• The Singing Kettle - Pirate Island | DVD | (21/04/2008) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £10.99

• The Producers - A Musical Romp with Mel Brooks | DVD | (11/10/2004) from £13.10   |  Saving you £-0.11 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  The exuberant atmosphere of the Broadway blockbuster is captured in Recording The Producers: A Musical Romp With Mel Brooks a new 85 minute film from the Emmy Award-winning director Susan Froemke and Maysles Films. The film candidly captures the excitement of translating the show into a complete experience for the recording's audience and showcases the antics of the entire cast and crew including director Susan Stroman plus stars Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick with Roger Bart

• Phantom Of The Paradise | DVD | (30/06/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  The Phantom Of The Paradise boasts director Brian De Palma's trademark visual inventiveness and is an hilarious send-up of the glam rock era. Paul Williams wrote the acclaimed rock and roll score for this musical horror classic and stars as an evil record tycoon haunted and taunted by a disfigured composer he once wronged.