"Actor: Gwen Verdon"

• Cocoon / Cocoon The Return | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £12.55   |  Saving you £2.44 (19.44%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Cocoon: A group of senior citizens residing in a rest home find their lives turned upside down after they are offered the gift of eternal youth by benevolent aliens in Ron Howard's wonderful tribute to the human spirit. Brian Dennehy is Walter an alien who returns to earth to rescue 20 of his friends now hibernating in cocoons off the coast of Florida. With the help of a charter boat captain (Steve Guttenberg) the cocoons are stored in a deserted swimming pool. When three men

• Walking Across Egypt | DVD | (04/03/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £3.99

  Picking Up The Pieces: Tex (Woody Allen) a kosher butcher from New York under the witness protection program in Arizona has a problem. He has just killed his wife Candy (Sharon Stone) in a jealous rage after discovering she's having an affair with the local sheriff (Keifer Sutherland). He's cut her body into pieces and has taken them to the Mexican border but he's lost one of her hands! A blind old village woman stumbles upon the hand hits her head and miraculously regains her eyesight. Soon thousands are flocking to the local church to see the hand of the 'Madonna' and miracles are granted to all who ask. But the village priest (David Schwimmer) who is in love with the town hooker (Maria Grazia Cucinotta) senses that the hand's origin is not quite 'virginal'. Tex the Sherrif and the Priest all want something done with the hand and the unpredictable outcome proves to be both magical and hilarious. Miss Firecracker: Comedy about Carnelle (Hunter) a sexually-loose hellraiser who enters the Miss Firecracker contest in the very old-fashioned town where she was raised Yazoo City Mississippi. Carnelle's not the usual kind of contestant -- but her cousin is a famous winner -- and Carnelle's determined to equal her no matter what the obstacles.

• Damn Yankees | Unknown | (02/09/2024) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Cocoon | DVD | (30/06/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  In 1985 Cocoon was a significant trend-bucker amongst summer blockbusters. Whereas other genre efforts were devised to lure a teenage audience into FX extravaganzas, this looked like one for their grandparents. Except that it turned out to be a gentle, affecting tale for all ages. Adapted from David Saperstein's novel, director Ron Howard took great delight in focusing on family relationships and the encroachment of old age (themes that reappeared in nearly all his work from here on). The plot is rather surreal in summary: a group of Florida OAPs befriend aliens in next-door's swimming pool and are rejuvenated to youthful well-being. It's in the FX and characterisations that the story comes alive. Both were acknowledged with Academy Awards; with Don Ameche's supporting role deserving praise for more than just the moment when he does some bodypopping on the dance floor. Wilford Brimley is the real star, a bluff old codger wanting to do right by everyone. Steve Guttenberg provides comic support and allows for a little non-wrinkly nudity with foxy space gal Kitty (Tahnee Welch). ILM's visuals remain polished and inspired, but never allowing us to lose sight of the characters basking in their dazzle. --Paul Tonks

• Alice | DVD | (11/02/2002) from £7.45   |  Saving you £8.54 (114.63%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Critics greeted Woody Allen's 1990 opus Alice with sighs of resignation. Here was yet another of Allen's bemused heroines-at-a-crossroads/crisis, falling prey to all kinds of temptation and fantasy and emerging at the other end a more complete, fulfilled or at least self-aware human being. But, though it's a minor work by his highest standards, it has weathered rather well. This is a softer exploration of territory Allen had previously covered rather more intensely and seriously in Another Woman (1988). It's often very funny and ultimately affirms one of Allen's most persistent themes: however confused you think you are, the answer probably lies somewhere inside you rather than in anybody else. As Alice, Mia Farrow gives one of her most versatile and unmannered performances, revealing a real gift for comedy. However bitter the breakdown of her long personal relationship with Allen, there is no doubt that he took her to new professional heights in their cinematic collaborations. At the start, Alice is little more than a well-heeled housewife and mother, a lady who lunches with bitchy friends. Her dissatisfaction with her marriage (to patronising rich guy William Hurt) leads her into the path of Chinese herbalist Dr Yang, whose potions set her off on a series of experiences which include the affair she has been considering, becoming invisible (cue some great gags, especially one involving a New York cab) and a brief flirtation with opium (here Allen's trademark soundtrack of old standards includes the evocative "Limehouse Blues"). There's also some great dialogue. "He's very deep," says Farrow of her putative lover (Joe Mantegna). "Yeah, and very deep is where he wants to put it", cracks back her visiting muse (a glittering cameo from Bernadette Peters). On the DVD: Presented in widescreen (1.85:1) format with a Dolby Digital stereo soundtrack, Alice on DVD replicates the hallmark intimacy of Allen's films in the cinema with good picture and lush sound quality (the importance of his romantic, referential musical choices should never be underestimated). There are no extras, apart from the original theatrical trailer. --Piers Ford

• The Cotton Club | DVD | (08/09/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  The Cotton Club is routinely eclipsed by the controversies that surrounded its tumultuous production, but the film itself offers abundant pleasures that should not be overlooked. If Apocalypse Now represents the triumph of director Francis Coppola's perilous ambition, then The Cotton Club represents the ungainly glory of uncontrolled genius, as brilliant as it is out of its depth. As an upscale homage to classic gangster films it's frequently astonishing, cramming a thick novel's worth of plot and characters into 129 minutes, gloriously serviced by impeccable production design, elegant cinematography, and stylistic flourishes that show Coppola at the top of his game. What The Cotton Club lacks is cohesion. Written by Coppola and novelist William Kennedy (then enjoying the peak of his critical acclaim), the film struggles to exceed the narrative scope of The Godfather, but its multiple early-'30s plotlines fail to form any strong connective tissue. It's three (or four) movies in one, with cornet player Dixie Dwyer (Richard Gere, playing his own jazzy solos) drifting from one story to the next--loving a young, ambitious vamp (Diane Lane, with whom Gere shares precious little chemistry), enjoying the success of a hot-shot hoofer (Gregory Hines), and protecting his brazen brother (Coppola's then-newcomer nephew, Nicolas Cage) from the deadly temper of mob boss "Dutch" Schultz (James Remar). Bob Hoskins and Fred Gwynne also score big in grand supporting roles, but The Cotton Club is perhaps best appreciated for its meticulous recreation of Harlem's Cotton Club heyday, and the brilliant music (Ellington, Calloway, etc.) that brought rhythm to gangland's rat-a-tat-tat. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com

• Marvin's Room | DVD | (14/10/2002) from £9.16   |  Saving you £8.82 (142.95%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Leonardo DiCaprio gives an electrifying performance as the criminally rebellious son in this funny and stirring tale of one family's humor and heartache. Seventeen years ago fiercely independent Lee ((Meryl Streep) left home...and left behind her kindhearted sister Bessie (Diane Keaton) to care for their father Marvin (Hume Cronyn). But now Lee is returning with her teenage son (Leonard DiCaprio) for a homecoming that's sure to turn the entire household upside down! Also starring Ro

• Cocoon - Limited Edition Steelbook | Blu Ray | (03/03/2014) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  A group of delightful and very human people meet up with some very bizarre and not-so-human beings who are visitors from a distant galaxy. They have come to Earth on a rescue mission to retrieve a secret which has laid hidden on the ocean floor for thousands of years. They share a more wondrous adventure of love and friendship that they could ever have imagined.

• Cocoon II - The Return | DVD | (15/08/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Journey to the most wonderful place in the universe...home. In director Daniel Petrie's sequel to the smash hit 'Cocoon' the retirees who chose to leave earth to live forever return home for a temporary visit with their loved ones while their alien escorts attempt to rescue a cocoon dislodged by a pesky oceanographer (Courteney Cox). Don Ameche is back as Art Selwyn with his friends Ben Luckett (Wilford Brimley) and Joe Finley (Hume Cronyn) and their wives Bess (Gwen Verd