"Actor: Hamilton"

• Jaws | DVD | (24/07/2000) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Jaws revolutionised Hollywood, single-handedly invented the summer blockbuster, spawned three increasingly poor sequels, and became the first film to gross more than 100 million dollars. Unlike many recent blockbusters, however, in Jaws the audience really cares about the fate of the men engaged in their duel with the monster. Granted the shark looks fake, but we willingly suspend our disbelief as storytelling and character development count for far more than mere special effects, adding enormously to the movie's suspense, excitement and sheer terror. The cast and screenplay are exemplary, but it was Steven Spielberg who emerged as the film's true star, while John Williams' unforgettable Oscar-winning score made him almost as much of as household name as the young director.On the DVD: For a Steven Spielberg movie and an all-time classic, this 25th Anniversary Edition release is impressive, but not all it could be. The anamorphically enhanced 2.35:1 ratio picture is superb, as is the re-mixed Dolby Digital 5.1 sound (the film was originally released in mono). It is a joy to see the film's picture and sound quality rescued from years of television and VHS screenings, offering a reminder of what all the fuss was about in the first place. The deleted scenes are quite interesting, offering more background on Brody, Hooper and Quint, including the latter's bizarre vocal duel with a boy playing the recorder! The four photo galleries are good, but some captions would have helped enormously. Disappointingly, there's no director's commentary, the best extra being a 50-minute documentary, "The Making of Jaws". This is excellent, and quite different from the BBC television production, "In the Teeth of Jaws". Even if you've seen that, there's much more to learn here. --Gary S. Dalkin

• Terminator 2: Judgment Day (Two Disc Ultimate Edition) | DVD | (29/10/2001) from £8.99   |  Saving you £16.00 (177.98%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Arguably the finest movie of its kind, Terminator 2: Judgment Day captured Arnold Schwarzenegger at the very apex of his Hollywood celebrity and James Cameron at the peak of his perfectionist directorial powers. Nothing the star did subsequently measured up to his iconic performance here, spouting legendary catchphrases and wielding weaponry with unparalleled cool; and while the director had an even bigger hit with the bloated and sentimental Titanic, few followers of his career would deny that Cameron's true forte has always been sci-fi action. With an incomparably bigger budget than its 1984 precursor, T2 essentially reworks the original scenario with envelope-stretching special effects and simply more, more, more of everything. Yet, for all its scale, T2 remains at heart a classic sci-fi tale: robots running amok, time travel paradoxes and dystopian future worlds are recurrent genre themes, which are here simply revitalised by Cameron's glorious celebration of the mechanistic. From the V-twin roar of a Harley Fat Boy to the metal-crunching Steel Mill finale, the director's fascination with machines is this movie's strongest motif: it's no coincidence that the character with whom the audience identifies most strongly is a robot. Now that impressive but unengaging CGI effects have come to over-dominate sci-fi movies (think of The Phantom Menace), T2's pivotal blending of extraordinary live-action stuntwork and FX looks more and more like it will never be equalled. On the DVD: Oh, if only every DVD could be like this. Here is a DVD package worthy of this monumental movie, with so many extra features the viewer will spend hours simply trying to find them all (the animated menus alone are worth watching over and over again.) On the second disc there are three extensive documentaries (all good, all relatively straightforward), but things get more complicated as you burrow down through the menu layers of Cyberdyne Systems into the "Data Hub": the entire screenplay, storyboards, text features, dozens and dozens of video clips, deleted scenes, and thousands of stills. The movie disc itself will cause even hardened surround-sound enthusiasts to gasp with joy as these explosive soundscapes come alive in Dolby 5.1 or DTS (hear that Harley roar!), while the anamorphic widescreen picture of the original theatrical 2.35:1 ratio is jaw-droppingly impressive. The exhaustive commentary is a patchwork of interviews with various key cast and crew members. The only disappointment here is that, unlike the almost identical Region 1 version, this Region 2 package does not include the DVD-ROM features nor the option to play the original theatrical release and the hidden "Ultimate Edition"--the only version here is the Director's Cut Special Edition, although the few extra scenes that make up the "Ultimate" edit can still be found in the "Data Core" section of the second disc. --Mark Walker

• Step Up - 1-5 Box Set | DVD | (01/12/2014) from £11.99   |  Saving you £3.00 (25.02%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Boxset includes: Step Up, Step Up 2: The Streets, Step Up 3, Step Up 4: Miami Heat, Step Up 5: All In

• Jaws 2 | DVD | (06/04/2009) from £5.38   |  Saving you £4.61 (85.69%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Judged entirely on its own merits, Jaws 2 isn't a bad film. It even has some passably scary moments (Brody discovering a charred body in the waves; the swimming boy racing the shark back to his dinghy). But it's absolutely impossible to judge this movie on its own merits. Despite being given a great big Panavision camera to play with director Jeannot Szwarc can't hide his TV-movie origins, nor can the script, both of which spend far too long landlocked with the bickering inhabitants of Amity Island. Where the original film boldly set out to sea with Robert Shaw's Ahab-like Quint, in a misplaced desire to attract a teenage audience this movie dwells at interminable length on the courting rituals of the local youth; where Spielberg's original is a masterpiece of pacing and carefully timed tension-building, Jaws 2 sags terribly whenever the plastic shark swims out of sight. Roy Scheider comes off best, reprising his role as Chief Brody, while Lorraine Gary's role as his wife is expanded (she must be a glutton for punishment: she also starred in Jaws 4: The Revenge). Taken as a sequel Jaws 2 is inferior in every way; taken as an unassuming TV movie it's a respectable, workmanlike effort; but looking forward at what was to follow, it begins to look like a minor masterpiece. --Mark Walker

• Wayne's World 2 | DVD | (11/12/2001) from £3.75   |  Saving you £12.24 (326.40%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Wayne's World 2 was a successful follow-up for Wayne and Garth's Adventures, full of the same madcap humour from their TV characters and previous film. Somewhere in the world, there are probably people who don't understand why Mike Myers' eponymous Wayne's World character is funny--feel sorry for them. Granted, the laughs are often cheap and silly, but there's no one who can embody a comic character and riff within that character the way Myers does. Wayne and his pal Garth (Dana Carvey) were fixtures on Saturday Night Live before the unexpected success of Wayne' s World, a movie about what happened when they tried to take their local cable-access citywide. This time, they want to stage Waynestock, a mammoth rock festival in their little Chicago suburb, even as Wayne copes with girlfriend Tia Carrere's interest in record-company exec Christopher Walken. For extra fun, Garth gets involved with the babelicious Kim Basinger. Yes, the humour is scattershot and the plot is lame--but you'll find yourself laughing none the less. --Marshall Fine, Amazon.com

• Osiris | Unknown | (01/09/2025) from £14.98   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Special Forces commandos are abducted mid-operation by a mysterious spacecraft and, upon awakening, find themselves prey to a relentless alien race in a fight for survival.

• Mission Impossible 88 | DVD | (23/07/2012) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Your mission, should you decide to accept it....IMF missions are based on a need-to-know basis... and you need to know that Mission: Impossible The '88 Tv Season is now available on DVD for the first time ever in the UK! The spy show that revived the classic series stars Peter Graves, in the reprisal of his role as Jim Phelps, brilliant leader of the Impossible Missions Force. This collectible 5-disc set includes all 19 thrilling episodes that put Jim and his new team on call to save the world... one pulse-pounding mission at a time. Do you accept this mission?Contains all 19 episodes of the First Season.

• Louis Theroux Collection | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £7.86   |  Saving you £22.13 (281.55%)   |  RRP £29.99

  Join Louis For another look at some of his best 'Weird weekends'.

• Life | DVD | (16/11/2020) from £6.37   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Life is an emotionally loaded primetime drama for BBC One, that explores the human capacity for connection in an increasingly splintered society. Manchester, England. The residents of a large suburban house go about their very different lives. The walls that divide their flats keep them apart. But life has a way of bringing people together. Like all ordinary lives, theirs are filled with the extraordinary. And as their stories begin to intersect, hidden secrets connect these characters in ways that could never have been anticipated. Created by multi-award-winning writer Mike Bartlett. Featuring a stellar on-screen cast, including: Alison Steadman (Gavin & Stacey); Peter Davison (Doctor Who), Adrian Lester (Hustle) and Victoria Hamilton (Doctor Foster) and Melissa Johns (Coronation Street).

• The Railway Children | DVD | (14/04/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  The Railway Children (1970) and Swallows and Amazons (1974) are perfect bedfellows: two classic children's novels, simply and faithfully adapted for the big screen. Together they evoke a poignant nostalgia for the periods in which they are set--Edwardian and 1920s England, respectively--and for the childhood of anyone who has grown up watching them. Sentimentality reigns, of course, but it's never cloying. The truthfulness of the juvenile performances, balanced with restrained sympathy from the adults, sees to that. Flourishing under Lionel Jeffries' delicate direction, Jenny Agutter dominates The Railway Children as the oldest daughter of a family thrown on hard times when their father is wrongly sent to prison. They avert a train disaster, save an imperilled steeple chaser and reunite an exiled Russian with his wife, all with equal enterprise. Happy endings prevail after every crisis. And no number of repeat viewings can ever diminish the impact of father's return. One of the most expert tear-duct work-outs in film history, it hits the spot every time. Perhaps the lack of such a pivotal scene has kept Swallows and Amazons in the relative shade. But its gentle appeal survives with equal charm, not least in the resourcefulness of the eponymous children and the period detail. Together this pairing makes a double bill to treasure, and a piquant reminder that Disney doesn't have a complete monopoly on the rich heritage of children's cinema. On the DVD: The Railway Children and Swallows and Amazons is presented in standard 4:3 picture format, from so-so prints, and with acceptable mono soundtracks. Both films envelope the viewer in a comforting Sunday-afternoon haze. There are no extras, apart from scene indexes. --Piers Ford

• Terminator 2 - Judgment Day | Blu Ray | (01/06/2009) from £10.48   |  Saving you £14.51 (138.45%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Before the Salvation comes revisit James Cameron's classic Judgement Day!

• The Crown - Season 1 (Amazon Excl.) | DVD | (02/11/2020) from £10.00   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• The Swimmer | DVD | (26/05/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Burt Lancaster gives one of his most daringly complex performances in The Swimmer, a fascinating adaptation of John Cheever's celebrated short story. At first it seems that middle-aged businessman Ned Merrill (Lancaster) is merely enjoying a spontaneous adventure, swimming from pool to pool among the well-tended estates of his affluent Connecticut neighbourhood. But as Ned encounters a variety of neighbours, we see from their reactions that he's on an entirely different kind of journey, balanced on the edge of some mysterious psychosis that we can't fully understand until the film's final, devastating image. A compelling portrait of loss, refracted memories, and deep-rooted emotional denial, The Swimmer sprung from the same late-60s soil that yielded similarly ground-breaking literary films such as The Graduate and Goodbye, Columbus. It's an egotistical showcase for the physical prowess of its 55-year-old star, but Lancaster turns it into something deeper, more disturbing, and completely unforgettable. --Jeff Shannon

• Starsky And Hutch - The Complete Third Season | DVD | (28/02/2005) from £21.58   |  Saving you £13.41 (62.14%)   |  RRP £34.99

  The complete third season of undercover adventures with Starsky and Hutch as they use their iconic Gran Torino to bust criminals following tip-offs from coolest informer on the streets Huggy Bear... Episodes comprise: 1. Starsky & Hutch on Playboy Island (a.k.a. Murder on Voodoo Island) (1) 2. Starsky & Hutch on Playboy Island (a.k.a. Murder on Voodoo Island) (2) 3. Fatal Charm 4. I Love You Rosey Malone 5. Murder Ward 6. Death in a Different Place 7. The Crying Child 8

• Evilspeak | DVD | (26/07/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Life sucks for Stanley Coppersmith (Howard) a teenage outcast who's bullied by everybody at the strict military academy to which he was sent following the death of his parents. When Stanley discovers the crypt of a 16th century Satanist beneath the school's chapel he creates a computerised Black Mass that unleashes unholy revenge upon his tormentors. Now all Hell is breaking loose and Stanley's flesh-eating demon pigs are just the beginning! Disc one contains the U.S. feature length

• Swallows And Amazons | DVD | (25/07/2016) from £3.82   |  Saving you £14.17 (370.94%)   |  RRP £17.99

  The Railway Children (1970) and Swallows and Amazons (1974) are perfect bedfellows: two classic children's novels, simply and faithfully adapted for the big screen. Together they evoke a poignant nostalgia for the periods in which they are set--Edwardian and 1920s England, respectively--and for the childhood of anyone who has grown up watching them. Sentimentality reigns, of course, but it's never cloying. The truthfulness of the juvenile performances, balanced with restrained sympathy from the adults, sees to that. Flourishing under Lionel Jeffries' delicate direction, Jenny Agutter dominates The Railway Children as the oldest daughter of a family thrown on hard times when their father is wrongly sent to prison. They avert a train disaster, save an imperilled steeple chaser and reunite an exiled Russian with his wife, all with equal enterprise. Happy endings prevail after every crisis. And no number of repeat viewings can ever diminish the impact of father's return. One of the most expert tear-duct work-outs in film history, it hits the spot every time. Perhaps the lack of such a pivotal scene has kept Swallows and Amazons in the relative shade. But its gentle appeal survives with equal charm, not least in the resourcefulness of the eponymous children and the period detail. Together this pairing makes a double bill to treasure, and a piquant reminder that Disney doesn't have a complete monopoly on the rich heritage of children's cinema. On the DVD: The Railway Children and Swallows and Amazons is presented in standard 4:3 picture format, from so-so prints, and with acceptable mono soundtracks. Both films envelope the viewer in a comforting Sunday-afternoon haze. There are no extras, apart from scene indexes. --Piers Ford

• Brubaker | DVD | (04/10/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  The most wanted man in Wakefield prison is the warden! Posing as a new prisoner Brubaker (Redford) discovers vast corruption in a state penitentiary before revealing himself to be theinew warden. His personal crusade to bring reform puts him in grave danger especially when he insists on exposing a series of secret murders that took place years earlier. Powerful and disturbing 'Brubaker' won acclaim for its gritty realism and Oscar-nominated screenplay based on the real life stor

• Big Cat Diaries - Series 4 | DVD | (06/10/2008) from £15.98   |  Saving you £-2.99 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  The series that brought Kenya's big cats into our homes is back. Presenters Simon King and Jonathan Scott are joined by Saba Douglas-Hamilton in an adventure series starring the big cats of Kenya's Masai Mara. This is high-octane cat action. Every day their exploits are witnessed as they happen. The unfolding stories are compiled into a true-life diary of the adventures of totally wild animals.

• Riding Giants | Blu Ray | (21/06/2021) from £13.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  First time on Blu-Ray in the UK. Three years after Dogtown and Z-Boys, Stacy Peralta came back with another spectacular doc - this time on the history of big-wave surfing. Widely regarded as one of the best surf documentaries ever made, it can now be viewed in high definition for the first time. Breaking the mold of traditional documentary filmmaking, Riding Giants uses its dynamic, cross-generational approach to profile the lives and times of the intrepid surfers who over the decades have dedicated themselves to finding and successfully challenging the biggest waves on earth. We meet Greg Noll, the pioneer, whose relentless push into Hawaii's big surf in the late 1950s earned him the nickname The Bull. There's Jeff Clark, Northern California's lone frontiersman, who, after discovering the massive waves of Maverick's near San Francisco, rode there alone for over a decade. And finally Hawaii's Laird Hamilton, the prototypical extreme surfer, a rare breed of athlete/innovator considered as the best big wave rider who ever waxed a board.

• Terminator: Dark Fate 4K UHD + BD | Blu Ray | (02/03/2020) from £19.95   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Linda Hamilton (Sarah Connor) and Arnold Schwarzenegger (T-800) return in their iconic roles in Terminator: Dark Fate, directed by Tim Miller (Deadpool) and produced by visionary filmmaker James Cameron and David Ellison. Following the events of Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Terminator: Dark Fate also stars Mackenzie Davis, Natalia Reyes, Gabriel Luna, and Diego Boneta.