"Actor: JAMES MARTIN"

• Archive | Blu Ray | (12/07/2021) from £5.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  2038: George Almore is working on a true human-equivalent AI. His latest prototype is almost ready, an android version of his wife who died in a car crash. Is this romantic or something much more sinister? George is playing God, creating a woman not from a rib but from electrical components, This sensitive phase is also the riskiest. Especially as he has a goal that must be hidden at all costs. The plot certainly has elements of Bride of Frankenstein as Theo James's George seeks to bring his wife back from the dead. Transferring her consciousness from an Archive unit to a A.I. humanoid.

• 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi 4K | Blu Ray | (08/07/2019) from £19.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Joe Dziemianowicz, New York daily news A riveting and exhilarating true story. A masterpiece. Stephen Hayes, The weekly standard- When everything went wrong, six men had the courage to do what was right. Visionary director Michael Bay delivers a Rock-solid action drama* you won't soon forget in 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi. Follow the elite ex-military operators who fought back against overwhelming odds to save American lives in this visceral, powerful, pulse-pounding portrayal of true heroism.

• Another 48 Hours | DVD | (04/12/2000) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  The boys are back in town! Conman Reggie Hammond and cop Jack Cates team up once again and turn San Francisco inside out to nail an elusive druglord. Sequel to the smash hit ""48 Hours"".

• The Lavender Hill Mob | DVD | (21/06/2004) from £7.09   |  Saving you £9.90 (139.63%)   |  RRP £16.99

  Directed by Charles Crichton, who would much later direct John Cleese in A Fish Called Wanda (1988), 1951's The Lavender Hill Mob is the most ruefully thrilling of the Ealing Comedies. Alec Guinness plays a bowler-hatted escort of bullion to the refineries. His seeming timidity, weak 'r's and punctiliousness mask a typically Guinness-like patient cunning. "I was aware I was widiculed but that was pwecisely the effect I was stwiving to achieve". He's actually plotting a heist. With more conventionally cockney villains Sid James and Alfie Bass in tow, as well as the respectable but ruined Stanley Holloway, Guinness' perfect criminal plan works in exquisite detail, then unravels just as exquisitely, culminating in a nail-biting police car chase in which you can't help rooting for the villains. The Lavender Hill Mob depicts a London still up to its knees in rubble from World War II, a world of new hope but continued austerity, a budding new order in which everything seems up for grabs; as such it could be regarded as a lighter hearted cinematic cousin to Carol Reed's 1949 masterpiece The Third Man. The Lavender Hill Mob also sees the first, fleeting on-screen appearance of Audrey Hepburn in the opening sequence. --David Stubbs

• Boys On Film 19: No Ordinary Boy | DVD | (25/02/2019) from £7.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  As BOYS ON FILM reaches the end of its teenage years we take a look at those unique boys; the boys who make the world a better and more exciting place. The boys who will go one step further and always impress. The boys who are not always what they seem

• I Love Trouble | DVD | (05/08/2002) from £9.48   |  Saving you £8.50 (130.97%)   |  RRP £14.99

  The writer-producer-director team of Charles Shyer and Nancy Meyers (Father of the Bride) can't lift this sugary ode to Howard Hawks's His Girl Friday to a believable--let alone enjoyable--plateau. Neither, unfortunately, can its two great and perfectly cast leads, Nick Nolte and Julia Roberts. As competing newspaper reporters after the same story, there should be enough sparks and brilliantly barbed dialogue flying between them to resurrect the screwball comedy genre of classic Hollywood. But the material isn't there, the charisma isn't there, and the direction (by Shyer) certainly isn't there. At more than two hours, I Love Trouble begins to dismantle itself, and the cute factor becomes a pain. --Tom Keogh

• Resident Evil: The Complete Collection | DVD | (12/06/2017) from £14.99   |  Saving you £10.00 (66.71%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Given that Resident Evil is a Paul Anderson movie based on a computer game which was itself highly derivative (especially of George A Romero and James Cameron films), it's probably unfair to complain that it hasn't got an original idea or moment in its entire running time. In the early 1980s, Italian schlock films such as Zombie Flesh Eaters and Zombie Creeping Flesh tried to cram in as many moments restaged from American originals as possible, strung together by silly characters wandering between monster attacks. This is a much-improved, edited, photographed and directed version of the same gambit. As amnesiac Milla Jovovich remembers amazing kung fu skills and anti-globalist Eric Mabius mutters about evil corporations, a gang of clichéd soldiers with nary a distinguishing feature between them (except for Michelle Rodriguez as a secondary tough chick) are trapped in an underground scientific compound at the mercy of a tyrannical computer--which manifests as a smug little-girl-o-gram--fending off flesh-eating zombies (though gore fans will be disappointed by the film's need to stay within the limits of the 15 certificate) and CGI mutants, not to mention the ever-popular zombie dogs. It's tolerably action-packed, but zips past its borrowings (Aliens, Cube, Deep Blue Sea) without adding anything that future schlock pictures will want to imitate. On the DVD: Resident Evil on disc has the expected trailers, both teaser and theatrical; a half-hour making-of; zombie make-up tests; featurettes on music (with Marilyn Manson), production design and costume. A lively commentary track features Anderson, Jovovich, Rodriguez and producer/zombie Jeremy Bolt--Jovovich upbraids Anderson for talking about different gradings of film stock over her nude scene and everyone else talks about how much she hurt them by punching them out during action sequences. Anderson mentions an alternate commentary track with visual effects designer Richard Yuricich, but it isn't included. --Kim Newman

• Dexter: Original Sin - Season One | Blu Ray | (09/06/2025) from £24.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Miami, 1991. When his bloodthirsty urges can't be ignored any longer, young Dexter Morgan must learn to channel his inner darkness as he transitions from student to avenging serial killer with the guidance of his father, Harry.

• Penance | DVD | (29/04/2019) from £6.82   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  1969, Northern Ireland, and Father Eoin O'Donnell is praying for atonement, but the past always catches up in the end. Decades have passed since 1916, a time when British rule is ripping apart communities, and Eoin is a young priest preaching passionately from the pulpit in favour of violence if necessary to kick the English out. Falling under the his influence, teenager Antaine is recruited to join the fight for independence. However, the terrible price for his ideals proves much greater than he, or anyone, could ever have imagined. Now, after over fifty years of silence, Father Eoin again comes face to face with Antaine, since twisted by personal grief into a hardened IRA gunman, still unrepentant and looking for his old mentor's loyalty. But Eoin knows things can never be the same. The time has finally arrived for the old priest to make the hardest choice of his life. The time has come for his penance. From award-winning director TOM COLLINS, twice Ireland's entry for the Oscars and nominated a record 14 times at the Irish Film and Television Awards, comes this gripping action film starring PETER COONAN (Love/Hate) and GERARD McSORLEY (Omagh). Includes subtitles for the Hard Of Hearing

• Get Shorty | DVD | (01/02/2000) from £7.50   |  Saving you £8.49 (113.20%)   |  RRP £15.99

  John Travolta is the standout in this somewhat cartoonish adaptation of Elmore Leonard's novel about a smalltime Miami enforcer (Travolta) who decides to get into the movie business in LA. The cast sparkles--Gene Hackman as a failing cut-rate-movie producer, Rene Russo as a failed actress, Danny DeVito as a vain thespian, Delroy Lindo as a mobster who wants a cut of Travolta's film action--and the script is clever. But not clever enough: this isn't Robert Altman's The Player, as far as satires about Hollywood go. But director Barry Sonnenfeld (Men in Black) keeps Get Shorty cute and brisk and that makes for an enjoyable experience. Travolta is great as a vaguely dangerous, supremely self-confident man whose love of movies makes him almost cuddly. --Tom Keogh

• Dexter: Original Sin - Season One Steelbook | Blu Ray | (09/06/2025) from £34.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Miami, 1991. When his bloodthirsty urges can't be ignored any longer, young Dexter Morgan must learn to channel his inner darkness as he transitions from student to avenging serial killer with the guidance of his father, Harry.

• A Star Is Born - 2 Disc Special Edition | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £4.87   |  Saving you £9.12 (187.27%)   |  RRP £13.99

  A musical remake of the classic 1937 film of the same name, A Star is Born was designed as Judy Garland's comeback vehicle after she had been cruelly axed by MGM studios for professional unreliability. Her erratic moods caused serious production delays this time around, too, but the behind-the-scenes turmoil was certainly worth it--Garland gives just about the greatest one-woman show in movie history. The story is the stuff of pure Hollywood legend. Aspiring actress-singer Esther Blodgett meets fading matinee idol Norman Maine (James Mason), who navigates her to stardom under the more melodious handle of Vickie Lester. As she rises meteorically, he declines into alcoholic self-pity--and the result, if you haven't guessed, is plenty of heartbreak. Mason lends subtle support in a role Cary Grant refused as too downbeat for his image, but Garland grabs centre stage with an all-out emotional performance that rivets the attention. Director George Cukor was famous for coaxing the very best out of screen divas, and A Star is Born must be counted as his crowning achievement. The lush visual style that he contributes provides a suitable setting for Garland's deep, rich voice--throbbing with melancholy in the Harold Arlen-Ira Gershwin ballad "The Man That Got Away", then capering joyfully in the gargantuan musical number "Born in a Trunk". Moss Hart's script takes many cynical swipes at the pretensions of Tinsel Town--perhaps too many for the taste of studio boss Jack Warner, who ordered drastic cuts in the film after its premiere. --Peter Matthews

• Planet Of The Apes - The Television Series | DVD | (18/08/2003) from £17.05   |  Saving you £-6.81 (N/A%)   |  RRP £10.24

  Set around a dozen years after the 1967 Charlton Heston-starring Oscar winner of the same name, this Planet of the Apes is a 1974 TV spin-off that attempts to recapture the appeal of the original apes films. A second spaceship arrives on the planet, the basic plot being the same as in 67, as two surviving humans go on the run with a renegade chimpanzee, Galen (Roddy McDowell essentially reprising his Cornelius character under another name). The actor provides the strongest lead, while Booth Colman as Zaius (replacing Maurice Evans from the original film), offers fine support. The humans Ron Harper and James Naughton are relatively bland, a buddy duo very much anticipating Starsky and Hutch, while the stories, in which our heroes have a new adventure each week and then move on, fall very much into the formula that dominated earlier shows such as The Fugitive, Star Trek and Alias Smith and Jones. This is a post-apocalyptic world where everyone has perfect hair and make-up. But if the action and effects are limited, at least that gives the stories room to concentrate on some moral debates about the nature of human violence. A show finally hamstrung by the tight limitations of its formula, Planet of the Apes: The Television Series lasted only 14 episodes and was cancelled so abruptly it lacks any resolution. Nevertheless its reappearance offers a welcome chance to reassess it in context with the classic movies it apes. On the DVD: Planet of the Apes: The Television Series is presented on four discs, including all 14 episodes. The sound is good mono and the 4:3 colour picture is excellent considering the show's age. Print damage is minor though occasionally quite noticeable, and there is some fading in a few shots. Otherwise this is the best these shows have ever looked. The only extras are trailers for the movie box set and for Tim Burton's 2001 cinema "reimagining". --Gary S Dalkin

• The Godfather Trilogy | DVD | (08/10/2001) from £26.99   |  Saving you £33.00 (122.27%)   |  RRP £59.99

  Despite making many other distinguished films in his long, wandering career, Francis Ford Coppola will always be known as the man who directed The Godfather trilogy, a series that has dominated and defined their creator in a way perhaps no other director can understand. Coppola has never been able to leave them alone, whether returning after 15 years to make a trilogy of the diptych, or re-editing the first two films into chronological order for a separate video release as The Godfather Saga. The films are an Italian-American Shakespearian cycle: they tell a tale of a vicious mobster and his extended personal and professional families (once the stuff of righteous moral comeuppance), and they dared to present themselves with an epic sweep and an unapologetically tragic tone. Murder, it turned out, was a serious business. The first film remains a towering achievement, brilliantly cast and conceived. The entry of Michael Corleone into the family business, the transition of power from his father, the ruthless dispatch of his enemies--all this is told with an assurance that is breathtaking to behold. And it turned out to be merely prologue; two years later The Godfather, Part II balanced Michael's ever-greater acquisition of power and influence during the fall of Cuba with the story of his father's own youthful rise from immigrant slums. The stakes were higher, the story's construction more elaborate and the isolated despair at the end wholly earned. (Has there ever been a cinematic performance greater than Al Pacino's Michael, so smart and ambitious, marching through the years into what he knows is his own doom with eyes open and hungry?) The Godfather, Part III was mostly written off as an attempted cash-in but it is a wholly worthy conclusion, less slow than autumnally patient and almost merciless in the way it brings Michael's past sins crashing down around him even as he tries to redeem himself. --Bruce Reid, Amazon.com On the DVD: Contained in a tasteful slipcase, the three movies come individually packaged, with the second instalment spread across two discs. The anamorphic transfers are acceptable without being spectacular, with Part 3 looking best of all. Francis Ford Coppola--obviously a DVD fan--provides an exhaustive and enthusiastic commentary for all three movies, although awkwardly these have to be accessed from the Set Up menu. The fifth bonus disc is a real goldmine: the major feature is a 70-minute documentary covering all three productions, which includes fascinating early screen-test footage. There's also a 1971 making-of featurette about the first instalment, plus several shorter pieces with Coppola, Mario Puzo and others talking about specific aspects of the series, including a treasurable recording of composer Nino Rota performing the famous theme. Another section contains all the Oscar-acceptance speeches and Coppola's introduction to the TV edit, plus a whole raft of additional scenes that were inserted in the 1977 re-edited version. Text pieces include a chronology, a Corleone family tree and biographies of cast and crew. Overall, this is a handsome and valuable package that does justice to these wonderful movies. --Mark Walker

• Bandolero! | DVD | (04/07/2005) from £16.00   |  Saving you £-3.01 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  It's a Wild West clash of personalities in Val Verde Texas for the warring Bishop brothers (Dean Martin and James Stewart) who must now join forces to escape a death sentence. Featuring an all-star cast including Raquel Welch and George Kennedy and exploding with action Bandolero! packs a smoking six-gun wallop from its first tense show-down to its last exciting shootout.

• Resident Evil | DVD | (14/04/2003) from £4.96   |  Saving you £13.03 (262.70%)   |  RRP £17.99

  This prequel to the popular video game stars Milla Jovovich and Michelle Rodriguez as the leaders of a command team into The Hive, a lab where where a deadly virus has killed all the scientists and, in three hours, could destroy the world.

• The Game | DVD | (09/11/2007) from £8.65   |  Saving you £7.34 (84.86%)   |  RRP £15.99

  It's not quite as clever as it tries to be, but The Game does a tremendous job of presenting the story of a rigid control freak trapped in circumstances that are increasingly beyond his control. Michael Douglas plays a rich, divorced, and dreadful investment banker whose 48th birthday reminds him of his father's suicide at the same age. He's locked in the cage of his own misery until his rebellious younger brother (Sean Penn) presents him with a birthday invitation to play "The Game" (described as "an experiential Book of the Month Club")--a mysterious offering from a company called Consumer Recreation Services. Before he knows the game has even begun, Douglas is caught up in a series of unexplained events designed to strip him of his tenuous security and cast him into a maelstrom of chaos. How do you play a game that hasn't any rules? That's what Douglas has to figure out, and he can't always rely on his intelligence to form logic out of what's happening to him. Seemingly cast as the fall guy in a conspiracy thriller, he encounters a waitress (Deborah Unger) who may or may not be trustworthy, and nothing can be taken at face value in a world turned upside down. Douglas is great at conveying the sheer panic of his character's dilemma, and despite some lapses in credibility and an anticlimactic ending, The Game remains a thinking person's thriller that grabs and holds your attention. Thematic resonance abounds between this and Seven and Fight Club, two of the other films by The Game 's director David Fincher. -- Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com

• Bandolero! | DVD | (05/11/2012) from £9.96   |  Saving you £0.03 (0.30%)   |  RRP £9.99

  It's a Wild West clash of personalities in Val Verde, Texas for the warring Bishop brothers (Dean Martin and James Stewart), who must now join forces to escape a death sentence. Featuring an all-star cast, including Raquel Welch and George Kennedy, and exploding with action, Bandolero! packs a smoking six-gun wallop from its first tense show-down to its last exciting shootout.

• Charlotte Gray | DVD | (05/01/2004) from £5.58   |  Saving you £4.41 (79.03%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Set in Nazi-occupied France at the height of World War Two the story centres on a young Scottish woman (Cate Blanchett) working with the French Resistance in the hope of rescuing her lover, a missing RAF pilot shot down behind enemy lines.

• For The Boys | DVD | (07/06/2004) from £13.14   |  Saving you £2.84 (27.98%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Bette Midler poured her heart and soul into For the Boys, the story of a pair of entertainers who repeatedly took time from their careers to entertain US troops at war, from World War II to Vietnam--and it sank like a stone at the box office. Granted, it's corny and emotionally over the top. It is the tale of an unlikely team of singer and comedian (played by Midler and James Caan), who are brought together for a reunion show in their dotage. As they nervously anticipate seeing each other for the first time in years, they are flooded with memories of their earlier days as a hot show-biz couple whose own troubles always took second place to their patriotic urge to buoy the boys in uniform. Some say this was a veiled film version of the Martha Raye story; Midler gives it her all and Caan isn't bad. But director Mark Rydell lays on the schmaltz so thickly at times that it overpowers the tougher material. --Marshall Fine, Amazon.com