"Actor: J"

• The World At War - Vol. 2 | DVD | (28/08/2000) from £7.94   |  Saving you £20.04 (404.85%)   |  RRP £24.99

  When this epic series was first broadcast in 1973 it redefined the gold standard for television documentary; it remains the benchmark by which all factual programming must judge itself. Originally shown as 26 one-hour programmes, The World at War set out to tell the story of the Second World War through the testimony of key participants. The result is a unique and unrepeatable event, since many of the eyewitnesses captured on film did not have long left to live. Each hour-long programme is carefully structured to focus on a key theme or campaign, from the rise of Nazi Germany to Hitler's downfall and the onset of the Cold War. There are no academic "talking heads" here to spell out an official version of history; the narration, delivered with wonderful gravitas by Sir Laurence Olivier, is kept to a minimum. The show's great coup was to allow the participants to speak for themselves. Painstaking research in the archives of the Imperial War Museum also unearthed a vast quantity of newsreel footage, including on occasion the cameraman's original raw rushes which present an unvarnished and never-before-seen picture of important events. Carl Davis' portentous main title theme and score underlines the grand scale of the enterprise. The original 26 episodes were supplemented three years later by six special programmes (narrated by Eric Porter), bringing the total running-time to a truly epic 32 hours. Now digitally remastered The World at War looks even more of an impressive achievement on DVD. Available in five volumes, each handsomely packaged double-disc set comes with a detailed menu that places the individual programmes along a chronological timeline. Better yet, chapter access is laid out to allow you to select key speeches or maps or newsreel footage. The World at War was a landmark television event; its DVD incarnation underlines its importance as an historical document. --Mark Walker

• Solty Rei Collection | DVD | (30/08/2010) from £29.99   |  Saving you £10.00 (33.34%)   |  RRP £39.99

  Solty Rei: Complete Collection (6 Discs)

• And Now You're Dead | DVD | (23/04/2001) from £4.00   |  Saving you £11.99 (299.75%)   |  RRP £15.99

  And Now You're Dead may nominally be a heist movie about two rival gangs out to steal a diamond, but in reality it's an excuse for a series of exceptional action set-pieces as only Hong Kong cinema knows how to do. The film is actually set in Prague and features both a mixed Chinese and European cast, and some fairly horrendous dubbing. Fortunately no one is going to be watching for the dialogue, and the plot--assorted gangsters betray each other, while others find friendship and redemption--has been replayed endlessly since John Woo's A Better Tomorrow (1986). While Michael Wong makes an acceptable Chow Yun Fat substitute as professional thief Marty, Shannon Lee's ruthless assassin is a revelation. She is Bruce Lee's daughter, and having already appeared in Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story (1993) and Blade (1998), she delivers perhaps the toughest action heroine since Linda Hamilton's Sarah Connor in T2. It's a breathtaking performance, especially in a deliriously extended police station battle which recalls the original Terminator. Overlook the clumsy comic relief and the sub-Bond finale, and settle back to enjoy an insanely frenzied bloodbath packed with over-the-top stunts and razor-sharp martial arts. --Gary S. Dalkin

• The Complete Naked Gun Collection | DVD | (05/11/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The Naked Gun series must be the only successful big-screen franchise to have been a spin-off from a spectacularly unsuccessful TV series. Although Police Squad went on to become a cult favourite, at the time the American TV network was so unimpressed they only showed four of the six episodes before cancelling it. But Leslie Nielsen's bumbling Lt Frank Drebin just wouldn't go away. Supported in masterly deadpan style by George Kennedy and Priscilla Presley, Nielsen cemented his reputation as a gifted comic actor with The Naked Gun decades after he had first become known as a minor Hollywood leading man (in 1955's Forbidden Planet for example). The first movie appeared in 1988 and spawned two sequels that replayed exactly the same routines: in The Naked Gun series sight gags (some of which are worthy of the Marx Brothers, some not) combine with excruciating puns and lots of toilet humour to follow the same hit formula as the creators' earlier slapstick masterpiece, Airplane. By the third film the formula may have become more than a little overworked, and few including the filmmakers cared much about the increasingly creaky scenarios, but Nielsen's easygoing idiotic charm goes a long way towards saving the day. There are still a lot of laughs to be found in all three Naked Gun movies, even if some of them are the unintentional result of seeing OJ Simpson before notoriety overtook his budding film career. On the DVDs: All three features are anamorphically enhanced 1.78:1 widescreen ratios, with Dolby Digital 5.1 sound. Each disc also has a jovial ensemble commentary featuring co-creator David Zucker with other producers and writers, which is only intermittently informative but is at least intermittently funny, too. --Mark Walker

• TC 2000 | DVD | (11/09/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £3.99

  TC 2000 is the action packed tale of a chaotic society where the guardians of the rich and powerful are set in action against the brutal tribe-like criminal gangs of the underclass.

• Maximum Overdrive | DVD | (08/09/2003) from £12.94   |  Saving you £0.05 (0.39%)   |  RRP £12.99

  A comet comes within range of earth and begins circling the planet. But a strange chain reaction comes to force. Suddenly machines everywhere have become their own masters beginning a horrifying deathly and violent revolt against their masters. Can the shell shocked survivors escape to a place where the mad machines cannot reach them?

• Landlock (Animated) | DVD | (07/04/2003) from £11.12   |  Saving you £4.86 (59.78%)   |  RRP £12.99

  On A Fiery Stage Illuminated With Blood And Tragedy... An Epic Tale Is About To Unfold! Mysticism and technology unite in this great 2-part anime series featuring character designs by Masamune Shirow (Ghost In The Shell). The land of Zer'lue is in turmoil ravaged by the technological might of Chairman Sana'ku and his evil militaristic Zul'earth forces. In a rapidly unfolding story of treachery deceit and betrayal only one boy holds the power to defeat such overwhelming odds.

• Van Helsing (Two Disc Collector's Edition) | DVD | (11/10/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Like a roller coaster ready to fly off its rails, Van Helsing rockets to maximum velocity and never slows down. Having earned blockbuster clout with The Mummy and The Mummy Returns, writer-director Stephen Sommers once again plunders Universal's monster vault and pulls out all the stops for this mammoth $148-million action-adventure-horror-comedy, which opens (sans credits) with a terrific black-and-white prologue that pays homage to the Universal horror classics that inspired it. The plot pits legendary vampire hunter Van Helsing (Hugh Jackman) against Dracula (the deliciously campy Richard Roxburgh), his deadly blood-sucking brides, and the Wolfman (Will Kemp) in a two-hour parade of outstanding special effects (980 in all) that turn Sommers' juvenile plot into a triple-overtime bonus for CGI animators. In alliance with a Transylvanian princess (Kate Beckinsale) and the Frankenstein monster (Shuler Hensley), Van Helsing must prevent Dracula from hatching his bat-winged progeny, and there's so much good-humored action that you're guaranteed to be thrilled and exhausted by the time the 10-minute end-credits roll. It's loud, obnoxious, filled with revisionist horror folklore, and aimed at addicted gamers and eight-year-olds, but this colossal monster mash (including Mr. Hyde, just for kicks) will never, ever bore you. A sequel is virtually guaranteed. --Jeff Shannon

• The Christmas Devil | DVD | (06/11/2017) from £9.77   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Aftermath | DVD | (11/05/2015) from £5.15   |  Saving you £7.84 (152.23%)   |  RRP £12.99

  It's the beginning of the end. When the USA become embroiled in World War 3 a young doctor named Hunter survives the nuclear attack and is thrown together by happenstance with a group of wounded and frightened victims. Together they try to survive the nuclear holocaust in a makeshift shelter, but time and food is running out and something evil is waiting outside.

• Walker Texas Ranger - Series 2 | DVD | (13/07/2009) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £34.99

  The hirsute hardman Chuck Norris takes the reins as the titular deep south law man dishing out the justice where applicable. Cordell Walker (Norris) his young partner James Trivette (Clarence Gilyard Jr.) his best friend C.D. Parker (Noble Willingham) and County Assistant District Attorney Alex Cahill (Sheree J. Wilson) will stop at nothing to catch the bad guys - whether they are battling bank robbers the FBI hit men or their own emotions. The high-kicking adrenaline-charged action never stops in Walker Texas Ranger!

• Love Liza | DVD | (14/07/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Winner of the Waldo Salt Screenwriting award at the 2002 Sundance film festival, Love Liza features a tour de force performance by Philip Seymour Hoffman, as Wilson Joel - a man in trouble.

• Europa | DVD | (29/07/2002) from £17.99   |  Saving you £2.00 (11.12%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The unquiet twin spirits of Fritz Lang and Franz Kafka preside over Europa, Lars von Trier's sardonic, saturnine vision of just-post-WWII Germany. In 1945 Leo Kessler, a young American of German descent, returns to the shattered land of his forebears to help in its reconstruction. Through his uncle, who works for the huge railway network Zentropa, he gets a job as a trainee sleeping-car conductor and also meets the seductive Katharina Hartmann, daughter of Zentropa's owner Max. But acts of sabotage and murder are being planned by unregenerate young Nazis calling themselves Werewolves, and very soon Leo's hapless innocent abroad starts finding out that, in this time and place of shifting loyalties, nothing and no one are what they seem. As if to accentuate this mood of nervous ambiguity, von Trier constantly switches from black and white to colour, and from English to (subtitled) German dialogue, often right in the middle of a scene. The cast boasts several iconic figures of European cinema, including Barbara Sukowa (a Fassbinder favourite) as femme fatale Katharina, and Eddie Constantine (from Godard's Alphaville) as a manipulative American colonel, while a literally hypnotic voice-over is spoken by the great Bergman actor Max von Sydow. There's more than a hint that von Trier intends a mischievous side-glance at today's Europe, and today's European film industry, in resentful thrall to the might of Hollywood. And while Europa is gripping and richly atmospheric, it's never without humour. The long, final episode is a tour de force of tragicomedy, with poor Leo juggling the competing demands of love and loyalty, life and death, while being harassed by his uncle who, horrified that Leo has lost his official peaked cap, forces him to wear a knotted handkerchief on his head, as well as by a pair of punctilious railroad inspectors demanding to know how long it takes him to make up a sleeping-car bunk. Lang and Kafka, sure, but maybe a touch of the Marx Brothers, too. --Philip Kemp

• Two Evil Eyes | Blu Ray | (24/08/2021) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - Vol. 4 | DVD | (21/06/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  A fourth volume of adventures with those heroes in a half-shell! Episodes Comprise: 1. The Shredder Strikes (Part One) 2. The Shredder Strikes (Part Two) 3. The Unconvincing Turtle Titan

• Chill Factor | DVD | (01/10/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £13.99

  August 18 Horn Island. The peace and quiet of a tiny tropical South Pacific island is shattered when a covert scientific-military research operation goes horribly wrong. The only survivors include the scientist behind the formula and the now disgraced officer in charge - the former out to protect the world from his creation and the latter out for revenge. Ten years later two young men find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time when Tim Mason (Skeet Ulrich) and Arlo (Cuba

• The Puppet Masters | DVD | (27/04/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Here's the edge-of-your-seat thriller that delivers unrelenting suspense and nonstop action! Donald Sutherland leads a team of top-level government agents who make a chilling discovery: extraterrestrial beings have landed and are quickly taking control of the residents of a small midwestern town - manipulating their bodies and minds like puppets! Faced with an escalating crisis as the creatures multiply the team must somehow eliminate the seemingly unstoppable aliens!

• I'm Still Waiting For You | DVD | (08/03/2004) from £5.98   |  Saving you £-2.99 (N/A%)   |  RRP £2.99

  Thirteen years ago on Valentine's Day two young lovers were brutally murdered at the local Lovers Lane. The killer a maniac wielding a steel hook was arrested by the police and incarcerated in a nearby state institution for the criminally insane. But the murders left a permanent mark on two families; the dead lovers were married...but not to each other. Psychiatrist Jack Grefe has devoted the last thirteen years to keeping the killer behind bars as at the time the killer (aka The Hook) was his patient. Now it's Valentine's Day again and The Hook has escaped.

• In The Blink Of An Eye | DVD | (22/09/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £2.99

  They were childhood friends close as sisters and bound by a special promise. But now Sunny Jacobs (Mimi Rogers) is branded a cop killer. She's spent 15 years in a grim penitentiary. She swears she's innocent but only one person her friend Micki (Veronica Hamel) believes her. Micki alone has the courage to enter the corridors of power and fight for her friends freedom. Its a murky world where witnesses are bribed vital evidence is supressed and innocent people die in the electric chair. So lives are at stake and its a race agsinst time. And for Micki theres an ever present doubt; can she really trust her childhood friend to tell the truth?

• Knucklehead | Blu Ray | (28/05/2013) from £5.92   |  Saving you £14.07 (237.67%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Knucklehead