"Actor: James Dale"

• Pink Floyd - The Wall | DVD | (05/06/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £13.99

  By any rational measure, Alan Parker's cinematic interpretation of Pink Floyd's The Wall is a glorious failure. Glorious because its imagery is hypnotically striking, frequently resonant and superbly photographed by the gifted cinematographer Peter Biziou. And a failure because the entire exercise is hopelessly dour, loyal to the bleak themes and psychological torment of Roger Waters' great musical opus, and yet utterly devoid of the humour that Waters certainly found in his own material. Any attempt to visualise The Wall would be fraught with artistic danger, and Parker succumbs to his own self-importance, creating a film that's as fascinating as it is flawed. The film is, for better and worse, the fruit of three artists in conflict--Parker indulging himself, and Waters in league with designer Gerald Scarfe, whose brilliant animated sequences suggest that he should have directed and animated this film in its entirety. Fortunately, this clash of talent and ego does not prevent The Wall from being a mesmerising film. Boomtown Rats frontman Bob Geldof (in his screen debut) is a fine choice to play Waters's alter ego--an alienated, "comfortably numb" rock star whose psychosis manifests itself as an emotional (and symbolically physical) wall between himself and the cold, cruel world. Weaving Waters's autobiographical details into his own jumbled vision, Parker ultimately fails to combine a narrative thread with experimental structure. It's a rich, bizarre, and often astonishing film that will continue to draw a following, but the real source of genius remains the music of Roger Waters. --Jeff Shannon

• Carry On Doctor | DVD | (17/02/2003) from £4.99   |  Saving you £8.00 (160.32%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Bedpan humour rules in Carry On Doctor, the vintage 1968 offering from gang, assisted by guest star Frankie Howerd as bogus faith healer Francis Bigger. Hospitals, of course, always provided the Carry On producers with plenty of material. Today, these comedies induce a twinge of serious nostalgia for the great days of the National Health Service when Matron (Hattie Jacques, naturally) ran the hospital as if it was a house of correction, medical professionals were idolised as if they were all Doctor Kildare and Accident and Emergency Departments were deserted oases of calm. But even if you aren't interested in a history lesson, Talbot Rothwell's script contains some immortal dialogue, particularly when Matron loosens her stays. "You may not realise it but I was once a weak man", says Kenneth Williams' terrified Doctor Tinkle to Hattie Jacques. "Once a week's enough for any man", she purrs back. Other highlights include Joan Sims, excellent as Frankie Howerd's deaf, bespectacled sidekick, Charles Hawtrey suffering from a phantom pregnancy, 1960s singer Anita Harris in a rare film role, and Barbara Windsor at her most irrepressible as nurse Sandra May. --Piers Ford

• Carry On Cowboy | Blu Ray | (02/06/2014) from £8.00   |  Saving you £14.99 (187.38%)   |  RRP £22.99

  A hilarious romp through the bars and bedrooms of the Wild West with the Carry On gang! Sid James is on top form as the Rumpo Kid an outlaw who shakes up the sleepy residents of Stodge City. Kenneth Williams is the puritanical judge and Jim Dale plays Marshall P. Knutt a hapless plumber mistakenly sent to clean up the town. This is classic Carry On with a full cast of Carry On favourites including Charles Hawtrey as the firewater-guzzling Chief Big Heap Joan Sims and Bernard Bresslaw. Special Features: Audio Commentary Trailer

• Carry On Don't Lose Your Head | DVD | (17/02/2003) from £6.64   |  Saving you £6.35 (95.63%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Carry On Don't Lose Your Head parodies the adventures of the Scarlet Pimpernel, with crinkly cackling Sid James as master of disguise the Black Fingernail and Jim Dale as his assistant Lord Darcy. He must rescue preposterously effete aristocrat Charles Hawtrey from the clutches of Kenneth Williams' fiendish Citizen Camembert and his sidekick Citizen Bidet (Peter Butterworth). The Black Fingernail is assisted in his efforts to thwart the birth of the burgeoning republic by the almost supernatural stupidity of his opponents, who fail to recognise the frankly undisguisable Sid James even when dressed as a flirty young woman. What with an executioner who is tricked into beheading himself in order to prove the efficacy of his own guillotine, it's all a little too easy. As usual, no groan-worthy pun is left unturned, or unheralded by the soundtrack strains of a long whistle or wah-wah trumpet. This is pretty silly stuff even by Carry On standards, with most of the cast barely required to come out of first gear and an overlong climactic swordfight sequence hardly raising the dramatic stakes. Most of the humour here resides neither in the script nor the characterisation but in the endlessly watchable Williams' whooping, nasal delivery (occasionally lapsing into broad Cockney) and the jowl movements of the always-underrated Butterworth. --David Stubbs

• The Pacific: Complete HBO Series | Blu Ray | (01/11/2010) from £13.97   |  Saving you £0.44 (3.15%)   |  RRP £14.41

  Unsurprising attracting awards attention, The Pacific is a ten-part series set in the midst of World War II, that follows the actions of three US Marines In the Pacific Theatre Of War. It’s a series not a million miles away from its spiritual predecessor, Band Of Brothers, which is understandable given the crossover of creative talent. Yet The Pacific is still a show with an identity of its own. It boasts the same sky-high production values of Band Of Brothers, but it also has a broader canvas, and a slightly slower pace to it. It’s absorbing drama, though, and the standard of it is kept high right throughout the ten-episode run. During that time, it takes in many key events of the time, and presents them with staggering confidence and strength. All of this, of course, makes you hope that the high definition transfer can do all of this justice. Fortunately, the news here is good. Few television shows have been treated to anywhere near the love that The Pacific has been in its 1080p transfer, and matched by surround sound work that’d put many blockbuster movies to shame, Is it Band Of Brothers 2? Absolutely not. Instead, The Pacific is a wonderful drama series in its own right, and one well worth picking up. --Jon Foster

• The Pacific - Complete HBO Series | DVD | (01/11/2010) from £14.99   |  Saving you £2.01 (13.41%)   |  RRP £17.00

  Unsurprising attracting awards attention, The Pacific is a ten-part series set in the midst of World War II, that follows the actions of three US Marines In the Pacific Theatre Of War. It’s a series not a million miles away from its spiritual predecessor, Band Of Brothers, which is understandable given the crossover of creative talent. Yet The Pacific is still a show with an identity of its own. It boasts the same sky-high production values of Band Of Brothers, but it also has a broader canvas, and a slightly slower pace to it. It’s absorbing drama, though, and the standard of it is kept high right throughout the ten-episode run. During that time, it takes in many key events of the time, and presents them with staggering confidence and strength. All of this, of course, makes you hope that the high definition transfer can do all of this justice. Fortunately, the news here is good. Few television shows have been treated to anywhere near the love that The Pacific has been in its 1080p transfer, and matched by surround sound work that’d put many blockbuster movies to shame, Is it Band Of Brothers 2? Absolutely not. Instead, The Pacific is a wonderful drama series in its own right, and one well worth picking up. --Jon Foster

• One Chance | Blu Ray | (03/10/2015) from £3.99   |  Saving you £21.00 (526.32%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Biopic starring James Corden as 'Britain's Got Talent' winner Paul Potts. The film charts Potts' rise to fame, from his humble beginnings as a timid shop assistant to an internationally-renowned opera singer thanks to his success on the 2007 British talent show. Following a string of failed chances, dismissals from his idol Pavarotti and unforeseeable accidents, Paul's determination and talent enabled him to battle through against the odds and achieve his lifelong dream.

• World War Z (Blu-ray 3D + Blu-ray) | Blu Ray | (21/10/2013) from £10.99   |  Saving you £19.00 (172.88%)   |  RRP £29.99

  Few monsters lend themselves better to allegory than the zombie. In the years since George Romero first set the shambling mold with Night of the Living Dead, filmmakers have been using the undead as handy substitutes for concepts as varied as mall-walking consumers, punk rockers, soccer hooligans, and every political movement imaginable. (All this, plus brain chomping.) World War Z, the mega-scale adaptation of Max Brooks's richly detailed faux-historical novel, presents a zombie apocalypse on a ginormous level never seen before on film. Somehow, however, the sheer size of the scenario, coupled with a distinct lack of visceral explicitness, ends up blunting much of the metaphoric impact. While the globe-hopping action certainly doesn't want for spectacle, viewers may find themselves wishing there was something more to, you know, chew on. Director Marc Forster and his team of screenwriters (including J. Michael Straczynski and Lost's Damon Lindelof) have kept the basic gist of the source material, in which an unexplained outbreak results in a rapidly growing army of the undead. Unlike the novel's sprawling collection of unrelated narrators, however, the film streamlines the plot, following a retired United Nations investigator (Brad Pitt) who must leave his family behind in order to seek out the origins of the outbreak. While the introduction of a central character does help connect some of Brooks's cooler ideas, it also has the curious effect of narrowing the global scale of the crisis. By the time of the third act, in which Pitt finds himself under siege in a confined space, the once epic scope has decelerated into something virtually indistinguishable from any other zombie movie. Even if it's not a genre changer, though, World War Z still has plenty to distinguish itself, including a number of well-orchestrated set pieces--this is a movie that will never be shown on airplanes--and the performances, with Pitt's gradually eroding calm strengthened by a crew of supporting actors (including Mireille Enos, James Badge Dale, and a fantastically loony David Morse) who manage to make a large impression in limited time. Most importantly, it's got those tremendous early scenes of zombie apocalypse, which display a level of frenetic chaos that's somehow both over-the-top and eerily plausible. When the fleet-footed ghouls start dogpiling en masse, even the most level-headed viewer may find themselves checking the locks and heading for the basement. --Andrew Wright

• Miss Meadows | DVD | (27/07/2015) from £7.98   |  Saving you £11.00 (220.44%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Katie Holmes stars as a vigilante school teacher in this drama written and directed by Karen Leigh Hopkins. Beneath her do-gooder, old-fashioned exterior, newly-arrived substitute primary teacher Miss Meadows (Holmes) moonlights as a violent vigilante who murders local criminals. Although the kids warm to her teaching methods, the local police are in hot pursuit of the suburban vigilante. While Miss Meadows begins a risky relationship with the local sheriff (James Badge Dale) trying to catch her, she is stalked by an ex-convict named Skylar (Callan Mulvey) whom she suspects may put her students in danger.

• Cold Feet Series 1-7 | DVD | (20/11/2017) from £10.49   |  Saving you £14.50 (138.23%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Watch the nation's favourite couples in the BAFTA award winning drama series as it celebrates its 20th anniversary.

• World War Z 4K UHD | Blu Ray | (12/05/2025) from £24.97   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  The suspense is killer! raves Peter Travers of Rolling Stone in this fast-paced, pulse-pounding action epic.Former United Nations investigator Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt) is in a race against time to save both his family and the world from a pandemic that is toppling governments and threatening to destroy humanity itself. David Denby of The New Yorker calls World War Z the most gratifying action spectacle in years! SPECIAL FEATURES:Behind-the-Scenes Featurettes: A compelling insider's look at the creation of the WWZ apocalypse

• Tommy and Tuppence - Partners in Crime | DVD | (20/07/2015) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

• Only The Brave BD | Blu Ray | (12/03/2018) from £5.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  All men are created equal then, a few become firefighters. Only the Brave, based on the True Story of the Granite Mountain Hotshots, is the heroic story of one unit of local firefighters that through hope, determination, sacrifice, and the drive to protect families, communities, and our country become one of the most elite firefighting teams in the country. As most of us run from danger, they run toward it they watch over our lives, our homes, everything we hold dear, as they forge a unique brotherhood that comes into focus with one fateful fire.

• Jude | DVD | (01/01/2001) from £4.49   |  Saving you £5.50 (55.10%)   |  RRP £9.99

  This curiously dry adaptation of Thomas Hardy's last novel, Jude is a good example of Michael Winterbottom's inability to make a particularly good film until Welcome to Sarajevo. Christopher Eccleston plays Jude Fawley, a self-educated stonemason who holds the dream of attending university but identifies with the working class. Kate Winslet is enlisted to play his cousin Sue Bridehead, a young woman with suffragette leanings and a position as a teacher's assistant. When the two enter into an illicit union, they are condemned to the margins of society, ultimately resulting in a horrifying tragedy. Winterbottom takes an oddly lean approach to Hardy's deterministic story, which leaves a viewer feeling short on emotion just when one needs it for the from-bad-to-worse third act. Welcome to Sarajevo proved that Winterbottom needs a whole other level of personal involvement to make a film that inspires him. Jude isn't one of those lucky films. --Tom Keogh, Amazon.com

• Gunsmoke: The Complete Series | DVD | (05/05/2020) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• The Grey | Blu Ray | (21/05/2012) from £7.12   |  Saving you £17.87 (250.98%)   |  RRP £24.99

  The plane crashes (boy, does it crash) in the remote Alaskan nowhere, and the rough-and-tumble oil wildcatters who survive must fight their way to safety. That in itself might be enough from which The Grey could fashion a suspenseful thrill-ride, but the movie has one more ace up its sleeve. Wolves! A pack of them, starving and considerably irritated that these outsiders have blundered into their territory. And while it is true that most real-world wolves are hardly man-eaters, director Joe Carnahan and cowriter Ian Mackenzie Jeffers are really not all that interested in reality. Despite some hair-raising moments and a healthy spattering of gore, The Grey is an existential action picture, and the wolves function only as all-purpose predator (being computer-generated, they never really look real anyway). What's really at stake are the souls of these men--how they get along together, and how they face death. Yes, there is always something faintly absurd hanging around this movie; it's like a Jack London story adapted by Luc Besson. But out of its pulpy mash, Carnahan extracts something gutsy. It certainly helps that he's got the mighty Liam Neeson on board as the most capable of the survivors; Neeson exudes the kind of authority that the average action hero can only play-act. Dallas Roberts and Dermot Mulroney add colour, and Frank Grillo jumps off the screen as the most belligerent of the desperate crew. It's possible for a movie to have an absurd premise yet carve something unexpectedly philosophical out of that: The Incredible Shrinking Man and Rise of the Planet of the Apes come to mind. Add this one to that oddball list. --Robert Horton

• Carry On Cabby | DVD | (27/08/2001) from £6.46   |  Saving you £10.53 (163.00%)   |  RRP £16.99

  A rare Carry On with more interest in having a proper plot than tossing off gags every line, Cabby is also one of the friendliest of the series, built around the relationship between a cackling but good-hearted Sid James and an unusually touching Hattie Jacques. Sid's so obsessed with his taxi business that he neglects his wife, spending their wedding anniversary driving expectant father Jim Dale to and from the maternity hospital on a false alarm that naturally pays off with a delivery in the back of the cab. This drives Hattie to set up her own rival firm ("Glam Cabs"), employing dolly birds in tailored uniforms to undercut the likes of Kenneth Connor and Charles Hawtrey. It ends happily, with a pair of hold-up men trapped in a ring of taxis and the marriage saved. Among the expected Carry On bits: Connor in drag, Amanda Barrie in a corset, Hawtrey in a leather jacket as a devout rambler ("We like to go as far as we can"), Liz Fraser as Connor's perky intended. Kenneth Williams is missed, but his role as the obnoxious shop steward (Carry On producer Peter Rogers never missed a chance to be nasty about the unions) is ably taken by Norman Chappell. Other familiar faces are Bill Owen, Peter Gilmore, Milo O'Shea, Renee Houston and Michael Ward as the tweedy businessman who has apparently left a pearl earring in the back of Connor's cab. On the DVD: No extras, but it's a smashing widescreen presentation of a pristine black and white print. --Kim Newman

• Carry On Vol.1 | DVD | (01/09/2008) from £17.53   |  Saving you £-4.54 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  This Carry On collection includes the following films: Carry On Up The Khyber: British India 1895. The Burpas are revolting but then again 'The Devils In Skirts' who guard the Khyber Pass are not too inviting either! Can Sir Sidney Ruff-Diamond (Sid James) prevent the scheming Khasi of Kalabar (Kenneth Williams) from starting a full blown rebellion massacring thousands of innocent people ending British rule and making his kushy job obselete? Can he rely on the help of the wayward Brother Belcher (Peter Butterworth)? And can he prevent the secret concerning the 3rd Foot and Mouth Regiment from becoming common knowledge among the natives? All will be revealed in this masterly tale of passion greed and missing underpants! Carry On Doctor: Frankie Howerd plays Francis Bigger a charlatan faith healer who ends up in hospital and what a hospital it is! Dr. Kilmore (Jim Dale) seems more interested in the staff nurses and Dr. Tinkle (Kenneth Williams) dismisses all ill health as a weakness. The Matron (Hattie Jaques) can cure any medical problem with a frosty glance and the nurses are always raising the blood pressure of the patients in the male ward.... much to their delight of course. Carry On Don't Lose Your Head: Carry On laughing until you have hysterics but...Don't Lose Your Head as the Carry On team destroy everything sacred about the classic story of the Scarlet Pimpernel set during the French Revolution. Sid James stars as the Black Fingernail always one jump ahead of Citizen Camembert and Citizen Bidet... Carry On Follow That Camel: When the carry on team head for the sea of sand there's a legion of laughs to be had plus pure gold in the raucous performance of 'Bilko' star Phil Silvers as Sergeant Nocker. Can fresh Foreign Legion recruits 'B.O.' West (Jim Dale) and his faithful manservant Simpson (Peter Butterworth) help defeat the ruthless Sheikh Abdul Abulbul (Bernard Bresslaw)? Find out in the hysterical historical spectacular featuring a host of harem beauties a bevy of blood thirsty Bedouins and a troupe of Legionnaires getting the hump!

• Carry On - Doctors And Nurses Collection - Digi Stack 2 | DVD | (14/03/2005) from £17.28   |  Saving you £17.71 (50.60%)   |  RRP £34.99

  Carry On Camping (1969): Sid (Sid James) and his reluctant mate Bernie (Bernard Bresslaw) hit on the idea of a nudist camping holiday to spice things up with their girlfriends! The arrival of Dr Soaper (Kenneth Williams) headmaster of the Chayste Place Finishing School his matron Miss Haggard (Hattie Jacques) in charge of eleven nubile girls including star pupil Babs (Barbara Windsor) set the scene for one of the funniest frolics in the Carry On repertoire. Carry On Abroad (1972): The Carry On team take a package holiday that starts disastrously and rapidly goes downhill. The paradise island of Elsbels is not all it's cracked up to be.... The hotel isn't finished the staff are abit thin on the ground - in fact Pepe (Peter Butterworth) is the staff - and the locals are far from friendly! Carry On Follow That Camel (1967): Can fresh Foreign Legion recruits 'B.O.' West (Jim Dale) and his faithful manservant Simpson (Peter Butterworth) help defeat the ruthless Sheikh Abdul Abulbul (Bernard Bresslaw)? Find out in the hysterical historical spectacular featuring a host of harem beauties a bevy of blood thirsty Bedouins and a troupe of Legionnaires getting the hump! Carry On Girls (1973): You might think that a beauty contest would be the perfect place for the Carry On team to discover new heights of hilarity and new depths of depravity - well you'd be right! Sidney Fiddler brings a beauty contest to a quiet seaside resort. His problems start with two curvaceous Hells Angels Miss Easy Rider and Miss Dawn Brakes. There's Major Bumble Bernard Bresslaw as Britain's first drag beauty queen and last but not least Mrs Angel Prodworthy who is fighting on behalf of Women's Lib. Carry on Behind (1975): Archaelogists Professors Anna Vooshka (Elke Sommer) and Roland Crump (Kenneth Williams) are desparate to begin poking round the remains of a Roman encampment. Unfortunately the local caravan site has been built over the historic site. Holiday pals Ernie Bragg (Jack Douglas) and Fred Ramsden (Windsor Davies) have their sites set on the local beauty spots - campers Sandra (Carol Hawkins) and Carol (Sherrie Hewson)! Carry On At Your Convenience (1971): The Carry On team throw caution to the wind and present an hour and a half of good clean lavatorial humour. Kenneth Williams is WC Boggs the troubled owner of a small company trying to manufacture fine toiletware. Incompetent management and a bolshy union are just about the least of Bogg's problems as you'll soon discover in this hysterical comedy that tells you everything you always wanted to know about your home's most vital convenience.

• Parkland | DVD | (31/03/2014) from £5.98   |  Saving you £10.01 (167.39%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Dramatic retelling of former US President John F. Kennedy's assassination directed by Peter Landesman. Captured on camera by amateur film-maker and photographer Abraham Zapruder (Paul Giamatti), Kennedy (Brett Stimely)'s assassination was an event which shocked the whole world. A firm believer in the need for a transparent government, Kennedy had made as many friends as he had enemies which led to speculation on the identity of his killer, widely thought to have been a lone gunman. Following ...