"Actor: Glen Charles"

• The Right Stuff (Special Edition) | DVD | (28/07/2003) from £21.99   |  Saving you £-8.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Based on Tom Wolfe's novel of the same name, The Right Stuff is a spectacular and thrilling epic that chronicles the fledgling years of the American space programme, from breaking the sound barrier to putting the first man into orbit. Rather than focusing on the technological advances that made this possible, writer-director Philip Kaufman pays tribute to the daring and heroic air-force test-pilots, most notably Chuck Yeager, John Glenn and "Gordo" Cooper , whose competitive desire to be the fastest and the highest drives them to keep "pushing the outside of the envelope". Despite its grand historical scale, the movie is grounded in the emotional highs and lows of these men and their long-suffering wives, delicately balancing their personal achievements and failures with the invasive media frenzy surrounding NASA's attempts to better the rival Soviet space effort. The Right Stuff has a coherence and pace that belies its sprawling plot, wide array of main characters and a running time of over three hours. This is thanks to an exciting script, a superb cast, Caleb Deschanel's stunning cinematography and--given the dramatic subject matter--a surprisingly humorous edge. Parts of the gruelling astronaut selection process make complete monkeys of the pilots, NASA's unsuccessful first attempts to launch a rocket are shown in all their explosive glory, and Jeff Goldblum and Harry Shearer steal the show as two oddball recruitment officials. On the DVD: The Right Stuff Special Edition comes with a sizeable, if somewhat superficial, second disc of extra features. There are two separate commentary tracks pieced together from a selection of soundbites--one from the cast (including an introduction from technical advisor Yeager) and the other from the production team. Both are played out over an identical, 25-minute sequence of scenes from the film, but only refer occasionally to the action on screen and yield little insight into the film's production. There are also four separate documentaries. The largest of these is John Glenn: American Hero, a 90-minute PBS special charting the legendary astronaut's life and including some great documentary footage of his appearance on Name That Tune (recreated in the film). Realising the Right Stuff (21 mins) and T-20 Years and Counting (10 mins) are both standard selections of cast and crew interviews. The Real Men with the Right Stuff (15 mins) features documentary footage and interviews with the surviving members of the Mercury team (Gordon Cooper, Scott Carpenter and Walter Schirra). Deleted scenes, the theatrical trailer and an "Interactive Timeline to Space" make up the remainder. --Paul Philpott

• The General | DVD | (19/02/2001) from £26.98   |  Saving you £-6.99 (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Buster Keaton's career reached its creative apex with this rousing comic adventure. Not merely one of the finest silent films, this remains one of the great film comedies of all time. The Great Stone Face stars as Southern railroad engineer Johnny Gray, a man with only two loves: the sweet Annabelle Lee (Marion Mack) and his trustworthy engine, the eponymous General. When Fort Sumner is fired upon he is one of the first to enlist, but when the war office rejects him (he's too valuable as a trained engineer) his sweetie rejects him as a coward. Johnny has the opportunity to prove his bravery when Yankee spies steal his engine and inadvertently kidnap Annabelle, and Johnny pursues with all the resources at his disposal: handcar, bicycle and finally railroad engine. Keaton's love/hate relationship with technology and machinery shines as he becomes one with his beloved locomotive and wrestles with a finicky cannon that threatens to blow his engine off the tracks; with tremendous dexterity, he nails the humour with inimitably deadpan takes. Spunky Marion Mack makes a perfect partner for Keaton, not merely a foil but a gifted comedienne in her own right. Other Keaton films contain more laughs and inspired comic stunts, but none combines romance, adventure and comedy into a solid story as seamlessly as this silent masterpiece. --Sean Axmaker, Amazon.com

• Out Of Towners | DVD | (08/12/2003) from £20.00   |  Saving you £-4.01 (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Neil Simon's curious comedy The Out-of-Towners concerns a pair of non-New Yorkers (Jack Lemmon and Sandy Dennis) having a hellish visit to the Big Apple on the eve of a job interview for Lemmon's character. Made in 1970 and directed by Arthur (Love Story) Hiller, this hectic film almost seems ahead of its time when compared to more recent misery-piled-on-misery comedies such as Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. The couple in this film endure everything that can go wrong on a trip, including being forced to spend the night in a mugger-happy Central Park. The strange element in Simon's script, though, is that Lemmon's character is so unpleasant. A middle-class, uptight guy who can't believe that New Yorkers in the service profession don't perform their jobs slavishly, he's kind of a one-note joke that quickly wears thin. It was remade with Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn in 1999. --Tom Keogh

• Silence Of The Lambs | DVD | (20/02/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  To enter the mind of a killer she must challenge the mind of a madman. Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster deliver knockout Oscar-winning performances in this shocking powerful thriller. This terrifying masterpiece of suspense garnered five Adademy Awards including Best Director and the coveted Best Picture. A psychopath known only as Buffalo Bill is kidnapping and murdering young women across the midwest. Believing it takes one to know one the FBI send in Agent Clarice Starling to interview an insane prisoner who may provide psychological Dr. Hannibal Lecter. Brilliant yet psychotic with a taste for cannibalism Lecter will only help Starling in exchange for details and secrets about her own complicated life. This twisted relationship forces Starling not only to face her own inner demons but leads her face-to-face with a demented killer an incarnation of evil so overwhelming she may not have the courage or strength to stop him. Horrific disturbing spellbinding. This thriller set the standard by which all others are measured.

• Power Rangers Ninja Storm - Samurai's Journey | DVD | (27/12/2004) from £17.53   |  Saving you £-5.54 (N/A%)   |  RRP £11.99

  Continuing to gorge with an appetite for destruction Lothor and his alien minions mount an all-out attack led by Madtropolis to drain the Wind and Thunder Rangers of their power! It's all jammin' and no slammin' even in Megazord mode when Cam must travel in time to snag the ultimate power source -- a Samurai amulet that unlocks the mystery of the 'ancient warrior of evil.' Meanwhile with things frozen in time Lothor unleashes Operation Alien Outreach to take advantage of a d

• Will Hay - Ask A Policeman | DVD | (03/12/2001) from £9.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Ask a Policeman is arguably Will Hay's all-round best film, not so much for the qualities of his familiar star performance but for the mix of laughs and thrills in the manner of The Ghost Train or The Cat and the Canary. Hay plays Sgt Doubtfoot, commander of the police station in the coastal hamlet of Turnbotham Round, who hasn't made an arrest in 10 years. This is not because of the area's low crime rate, but because most of the poaching, pilfering and swindling in the village is the responsibility of his own constables, the geriatric Harbottle (Moore Marriott) and literal wide-boy Albert (Graham Moffatt). When the Chief Constable threatens to close the station, the bumbling coppers set out to investigate some crimes and go after a smuggling squire who has been using a local legend as a cover story (and planting his signal light on top of the police station itself). Director Marcel Varnel, working from a script by Sidney Gilliatt and Val Guest, manage some fine semi-horror business with "the 'earse of the 'headless 'orseman", a flaming carriage which dashes about the landscape, and a risky venture into Devil's Cave to find the old smuggler's route that turns out to lead to the cellar of Harbottle's general stores. Hay and his sidekicks are in top form, squabbling surreally over every possible filched coin from the police outing fund box or trying to sort out the plot, and there's a sublime scene as they try to get a clue out of the impossibly ancient Harbottle's even more elderly Dad (also Marriott). --Kim Newman

• Angels Hard As They Come | DVD | (12/07/2004) from £8.99   |  Saving you £-4.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £4.99

  Raw violent action when two gangs of bikers and some hippies meet up in an old ghost town... Definitely not for the squeamish - this hard hitting and powerful movie follows biker Long John riding into trouble after being invited to a party in a ghost town. The gathering isn't for the faint hearted as Hells Angels and a group of hippies party hard with booze and sex replacing conversation. But trouble looms as a girl is murdered and Long John and his pals are the chief suspects an

• Power Rangers Ninja Storm - Cyber Clash | DVD | (21/03/2005) from £20.00   |  Saving you £-8.01 (N/A%)   |  RRP £11.99

  Rangers can always smell a rat - even from space - and just as Cam busts out a wild cyber version of himself to handle his double duties the Fragra monster is turning everyone into perfume! Things get more brutal when Lothor and Mr. Ratwell unleash a love potion to chill Lothor's bad boy image. Meanwhile Lothor's nasty nieces accidentally trade away his P.A.M. (personal alien manager) wreaking unearthly havoc when it falls into the wrong hands. But it's Marah and Queen Beevil who d

• The General | DVD | (22/10/1999) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Buster Keaton's career reached its creative apex with this rousing comic adventure. Not merely one of the finest silent films, this remains one of the great film comedies of all time. The Great Stone Face stars as Southern railroad engineer Johnny Gray, a man with only two loves: the sweet Annabelle Lee (Marion Mack) and his trustworthy engine, the eponymous General. When Fort Sumner is fired upon he is one of the first to enlist, but when the war office rejects him (he's too valuable as a trained engineer) his sweetie rejects him as a coward. Johnny has the opportunity to prove his bravery when Yankee spies steal his engine and inadvertently kidnap Annabelle, and Johnny pursues with all the resources at his disposal: handcar, bicycle and finally railroad engine. Keaton's love/hate relationship with technology and machinery shines as he becomes one with his beloved locomotive and wrestles with a finicky cannon that threatens to blow his engine off the tracks; with tremendous dexterity, he nails the humour with inimitably deadpan takes. Spunky Marion Mack makes a perfect partner for Keaton, not merely a foil but a gifted comedienne in her own right. Other Keaton films contain more laughs and inspired comic stunts, but none combines romance, adventure and comedy into a solid story as seamlessly as this silent masterpiece. --Sean Axmaker, Amazon.com

• Biography Channel - Cheers | DVD | (25/09/2006) from £12.54   |  Saving you £-6.55 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  The story of the sitcom that was a ratings disaster when it debuted but went on to become one of the most successful series in TV history. Ted Danson Shelley Long and Bebe Neuwirth reminisce about their unforgettable roles and series creators James Burrows Les Charles and Glen Charles talk about the bar ""where everybody knows your name.""

• TV Party: Color Show | DVD | (10/11/2008) from £9.61   |  Saving you £2.38 (24.77%)   |  RRP £11.99

  TV Party's final season was broadcast live in color on Channel J a public access commercial station. TV Party tried to pay the extra expense of going to color by selling ads to downtown clubs and underground record companies. Everything here is for sale Glenn announces. Desperation is in the air. Glenn is missing a tooth and needs a haircut. The party is spunky but the cast is depleted and possibly drugged. The TV Party theme music by Walter Steding and rap by Glenn O'Brien opens the show. The show features the TV Party Orchestra with Lenny Ferrari and guitarist Karen Geniece joined by Charles Rocket on heavy metal accordion played through a stack of Marshall amps and an array of guitar pedals. Rocket had just been fired from Saturday Night Live for swearing live on air and his performance of Wild Thing is a triumph of post-modern drollness. He actually gets screaming feedback out of his squeezebox. Jeffrey Lee Pierce of Gun Club shows up with a broken guitar but borrows one and does a soulful Robert Johnson country blues. The half Japanese New York band Eel Dogs plays. Lothar Manteuffel one of Germany's top new wavers ends the show jamming with Rocket on one of the latter's compositions Why Can't I Get Laid. Who knows what he's singing in German. Tracklist: 1.Eel Dogs 2.Loose Joints 3.Al Aronowitz 4.Iraqi princess 5.'I Would Like To' - Walter Steding

• Coming Home - An Evening Of Gospel | DVD | (22/10/2007) from £20.23   |  Saving you £4.76 (19.00%)   |  RRP £24.99

  A star-studded jam-packed gospel celebration featuring some of the greatest performers of modern gospel. Hosted by country megastar Glen Campbell (who also performs in five of the numbers) the show features Andrae Crouch Deniece Williams and the Hawkins Family among others - with an amazing special appearance by the legendary Ray Charles singing 'All Night and All Day' with his characteristic soul and elegance. The contemporary design of the massive Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove California makes an inspiring setting for the evening which also features the full-scale gospel intensity of the Church of God in Christ International Choir the country-gospel harmony vocals of the Imperials and Andrae's twin sister Sandra Crouch singing sharp call-and-response with the choir. Music ranges from rousing traditional songs to the most advanced modern settings - and Campbell and Crouch get together for a duet that brings to devotional sensibility to a search for racial harmony. The evening closes with all the performers onstage for two huge climactic numbers (both composed by Andrae Crouch) showcasing each performer's remarkable talents in a moving and infectious group effort - a fitting closer for a remarkable evening. Track List: 1. The Hawkins Family - Coming Home 2. Andrae Crouch - Dreaming 3. Church of God in Christ International Choir - Praises 4. Deniece Williams - I Believe in Miracles 5. Glen Campbell - He 6. The Imperials - Trumpet of Jesus 7. Andrae Crouch - Save the People 8. Ray Charles - All Night All Day 9. Sandra Crouch & The Church of God in Christ International Choir - I'm Glad I Found You 10. Glen Campbell & Andrae Crouch - When Can Brown Begin 11. The Hawkins Family - Feel Like Singing 12. Deniece Williams - God Is Amazing 13. Glen Campbell - A Few Good Men 14. All performers - Soon and Very Soon 15. All performers - Hallelujah Gospel