"Actor: James Ho"

• Miracle Maker | DVD | (30/10/2000) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  This animated feature-length life of Jesus boasts a stellar pedigree. Originally a BBC Wales production, it showcases the voices of some of Britain's finest actors in any medium: Ralph Fiennes as a brooding and humble Jesus, Miranda Richardson as Mary Magdalene, Richard E. Grant as John the Baptist and David Thewlis as Judas. The lovely, flute-heavy score is by Oscar-winner Anne Dudley (The Full Monty). And clearly a lot of expense has gone into the Claymation-like animation. But while it's hard to find fault with the rendering of this familiar story--it is respectful and definitely done, you might say, by the Book--it would have been nice if there had been a tad more joy, if it walked a bit lighter in its sandals. As it is, all the characters seem consistently subdued, whether they are expressing angst, rage, terror or bliss--none of which is helped by the figures' blank-eyed stares (if animators are becoming ever more sophisticated, why can't they get rid of those creepy blank gazes once and for all?). Still, the weight of having such formidable actors play these familiar roles lends the production a certain credibility, and parents looking for good religious videos that won't insult their kids' intelligence will be thrilled. --Anne Hurley

• Miami Vice - Series 1 | DVD | (25/04/2005) from £28.71   |  Saving you £21.28 (74.12%)   |  RRP £49.99

  The cops. The cars. The clothes. The music. From executive producer Michael Mann (Heat Collateral) comes the first season of the explosive groundbreaking detective show that redefined the word cool. Set against the seamy and steamy Miami underworld ride shotgun with suave Vice cops Sonny Crockett (Golden Globe winner Don Johnson) and Rico Tubbs (Phillip Michael Thomas) as they battle a never-ending gallery of criminals drug dealers and lowlifes. Episodes comprise: 1. Brother's Keeper (Parts 1 & 2) 2. Heart of Darkness 3. Cool Runnin' 4. The Hit List 5. Calderone's Demise 6. One-Eyed Jack 7. No Exit (a.k.a. Three-Eyed Turtle) 8. The Great McCarthy 9. Glades 10. Give a Little Take a Little 11. Little Prince 12. The Milk Run 13. Golden Triangle (Part 1) (a.k.a. Score) 14. Golden Triangle (Part 2) 15. Smuggler's Blues 16. Rites of Passage 17. The Maze 18. Made for Each Other 19. The Home Invaders 20. Nobody Lives Forever 21. Evan 22. Lombard

• London's Burning - The Complete Second Series | DVD | (24/10/2005) from £19.89   |  Saving you £0.10 (0.50%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The complete second series of ITV's London's Burning which followed the lives and tribulations of Blackwall Fire Station's Blue Watch. Viewers loved the quirky but human characters that put their lives on the line with every episode and this set features some of the most fondly remembered including female fire-fighter Josie Ingham 'Bayleaf' 'Sicknote' and 'Charisma'. This set features all eight episodes of the second series originally transmitted in 1989.

• The Final Countdown | DVD | (04/02/2002) from £8.37   |  Saving you £-4.38 (N/A%)   |  RRP £3.99

  With a tantalising "what-if?" scenario and a respectable cast of Hollywood veterans, The Final Countdown plays like a grand-scale episode of The Twilight Zone. It's really no more than that, and time-travel movies have grown far more sophisticated since this popular 1980 release, but there's still some life remaining in the movie's basic premise: what if a modern-era navy aircraft carrier--in this case the real-life nuclear-powered USS Nimitz--was caught in an anomalous storm and thrust 40 years backwards in time to the eve of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor? Will the ship's commander (Kirk Douglas) interfere with history? Will the visiting systems analyst (Martin Sheen) convince him not to? Will a rescued senator from 1941 (Charles Durning) play an unexpected role in the future of American politics? Veteran TV director Don Taylor doesn't do much with the ideas posed by this potentially intriguing plot; he seems more interested in satisfying aviation buffs with loving footage of F-14 "Jolly Roger" fighter jets, made possible by the navy's generous cooperation. That makes The Final Countdown a better navy film than a fully fledged time-travel fantasy, but there's a nice little twist at the end, and the plot holes are easy to ignore. James Cameron would've done it better, but this popcorn thriller makes an enjoyable double bill with The Philadelphia Experiment. --Jeff Shannon

• Inspector Morse - Disc 19 And 20 - Greeks Bearing Gifts / Promised Land | DVD | (12/08/2002) from £11.98   |  Saving you £5.00 (50.05%)   |  RRP £14.99

  When Inspector Morse first appeared on television in 1987, nobody could have predicted that it would run into the next century, maintaining throughout a quality of scripts and story lines that raised the genre of the detective series to a new level. Much of its success can be attributed to John Thaw's total immersion in the role. Morse is a prickly character and not obviously easy to like. As a detective in Oxford with unfulfilled academic propensities, he is permanently excluded from a world of which he would dearly love to be a part. He is at odds with that world--and with his colleagues in the police force--most of the time. Passionate about opera and "proper beer", he is a cultural snob for whom vulgarity causes almost physical pain. As a result, he lives from one disillusionment to another. And he is scarred--more deeply than he would ever admit--by past relationships. But he also has a naïve streak and, deep-down sensitivity, which makes him a fascinating challenge for women. At the heart of Morse's professional life is his awkward partnership with Detective Sergeant Lewis, the resolutely ordinary, worldly sidekick who manages to keep his boss in an almost permanent state of exasperation while retaining his grudging respect. It's a testament to Kevin Whateley's consistently excellent performance that from such unpromising material, Lewis becomes as indispensable to the series as Barrington Pheloung's hypnotic, classic theme music. Morse's investigations do occasionally take him abroad to more exotic locations, but throughout 14 successful years of often gruesome murders, the city of Oxford itself became a central character in these brooding two-hour dramas: creator Colin Dexter stating he finally had to kill Morse off because he was giving Oxford a bad reputation as a dangerous place! --Piers Ford

• Agent Cody Banks 2 - Destination London | DVD | (06/09/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Teen super spy Cody Banks (Frankie Muniz) has to go undercover at an elite London boarding school to track down a missing mind control device.

• The Killer Elite | DVD | (21/07/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Best friends Mike Locken and George Hansen are the 'Killer Elite' undertaking jobs that are too dangerous even for the CIA. But when one of the duo is betrayed by the other things get tricky...

• The Queen & I | DVD | (30/09/2019) from £4.89   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Made-for-TV comedy drama based on the novel by Sue Townsend. Following the election of the Republican Party, the United Kingdom's new Prime Minister, Jack Barker (David Walliams), carries out his campaign promise to abolish the country's monarchy. Stripped of their vast wealth, the Royal Family is forced to relocate to a council estate in the Midlands, where they struggle to fit in and adjust to their new surroundings.

• Jesus of Nazareth: Complete Mini Series | Blu Ray | (08/07/2016) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Roughnecks - Starship Troopers Chronicles - Vol. 1 - The Pluto Campaign | DVD | (07/05/2001) from £14.98   |  Saving you £5.01 (33.44%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Roughnecks is the computer-animated TV spin-off from director Paul Verhoeven's live-action sci-fi shoot-'em-up Starship Troopers. Verhoeven had already seen his Robocop movie spun-off into animated television with mixed results, so when it came to Starship Troopers he wanted Roughnecks to be a little different (the director acted as Executive Producer on the series). The style of computer animation here recalls, if anything, the little green soldiers from the Toy Story movies. Backed by an unending techno-based score (despite which the series has won several awards for sound editing), the 20-minute episodes are like viewing brilliantly conceived "cut scenes" from computer games. The series concept begins by taking the movie's characters, giving them different origins---and then forgets about a bug home-world in favour of a mobile threat that can appear anywhere. With souped-up combat suits that better acknowledge Robert Heinlein's original novel, the technological look and feel also owes a significant debt to Aliens. This first collection edits together the opening five episodes to make a 100-minute self-contained movie about a crawling infestation on Pluto. You'll know where shows start and end by the narration. The story is all to do with set-up as we meet the titular Roughnecks: Rico, Dizzy, Doc, Jenkins, Higgins and Razak. Between missions of rescue and mercy, a love triangle is established, Rico's heroics and Higgins' cowardice are explored and more bugs are wasted than you can possibly keep count of. The finale's discovery of "Bug City" will test anyone for arachnophobia. --Paul Tonks

• Amityville Horror | UMD | (24/10/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  There's no place like home...for bloodcurdling horror! James Brolin Margot Kidder and Academy Award winner Rod Steiger fall prey to the powers of darkness in this spine-tingling tale of a house possessed by unspeakable evil. One of the most talked-about haunted-house stories of all time The Amityville Horror will hit you where you live. For George and Kathy Lutz the colonial home on the river's edge seemed ideal: quaint spacious and amazingly affordable. Of course six brutal murders had taken place there just a year before but houses don't have memories....or do they? Soon the Lutz dream house becomes a hellish nightmare as walls begin to drip blood and satanic forces threaten to destroy them. Now the Lutzes must try to escape or forfeit their lives - and their souls!

• JAG - The Complete First Season | DVD | (16/10/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £44.99

  Get ready for action adventure and suspense in Season One of TV's longest-running military drama JAG. The first season of its 10-year reign introduces former flying ace Harmon ""Harm"" Rabb of the Navy's Judge Advocate General. Now an attorney Harm investigates prosecutes and defends military criminals in cases that often take him behind enemy lines...both in Washington and overseas. Catch the action from the beginning with all 22 episodes including the rarely seen ""Skeleton Crew."" Starring David James Elliott this Emmy Award-winning series is one of television's best. Episodes Comprise: 1. Pilot: Part 1 2. Pilot: Part 2 3. Shadow 4. Desert Son 5. Deja Vu 6. Pilot Error 7. War Cries 8. Brig Break 9. Scimitar 10. Boot 11. Sightings 12. The Brotherhood 13. Defensive Action 14. Smoked 15. Hemlock 16. High Ground 17. Black Ops 18. Survivors 19. Recovery 20. The Prisoner 21. Ares 22. Skeleton Crew

• Long Time Dead | DVD | (02/05/2005) from £12.78   |  Saving you £-6.79 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  A young Londoner and his friends use a Ouija board to hold a seance, triggering a chain of mysterious deaths that may be caused by an otherwordly force.

• Return Of The Living Dead | DVD | (21/10/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  A sudden storm brings a shower of polluted rain and in a downtown cemetery something stirs six feet under the earth. The bad news is the living dead are back. The worse news is that they haven't had a decent meal in years... and as anybody will tell you there's nothing as greedy as a ghoul with a taste for human brains. 'Return Of The Living Dead' is a special effects masterpiece and has its rotting tongue firmly in its ghoulish green cheek.

• Bite The Bullet | DVD | (22/04/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  In 1908 Arizona a newspaper organises an endurance horse race. The course is 700 miles long and there are few days to complete it. Nine different adventurous entrants have their own reasons for winning but some could be destined never to see the finish line...

• The Bridge On The River Kwai | Blu Ray | (04/12/2017) from £19.99   |  Saving you £3.00 (15.01%)   |  RRP £22.99

  Based on the true story of the building of a bridge on the Burma railway by British prisoners-of-war held under a savage Japanese regime in World War II, The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) is one of the greatest war films ever made. The film received seven Oscars, including Best Picture, Director, Performance (Alex Guinness), for Sir Malcolm Arnold's superb music, and for the screenplay from the novel by Pierre Boulle (who also wrote Monkey Planet, the inspiration for Planet of the Apes). The story does take considerable liberties with history, including the addition of an American saboteur played by William Holden, and an entirely fictitious but superbly constructed and thrilling finale. Made on a vast scale, the film reinvented the war movie as something truly epic, establishing the cinematic beachhead for The Longest Day (1962), Patton (1970) and A Bridge Too Far (1977). It also proved a turning-point in director David Lean's career. Before he made such classic but conventionally scaled films as In Which We Serve (1942) and Hobson's Choice (1953). Afterwards there would only be four more films, but their names are Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Dr Zhivago (1965), Ryan's Daughter (1970) and A Passage to India (1984). On the DVD: Too often the best extras come attached to films that don't really warrant them. Not so here, where a truly great film has been given the attention it deserves. The first disc presents the film in the original extra-wide CinemaScope ratio of 2.55:1, in an anamorphically enhanced transfer which does maximum justice to the film's superb cinematography. The sound has been transferred from the original six-track magnetic elements into 5.1 Dolby Digital and far surpasses what many would expect from a 1950s' feature. The main bonus on the first disc is an isolated presentation of Malcolm Arnold's great Oscar-winning music score, in addition to which there is a trivia game, and maps and historical information linked to appropriate clips. The second disc contains a new, specially produced 53-minute "making of" documentary featuring many of those involved in the production of the movie. This gives a rich insight into the physical problems of making such a complex epic on location in Ceylon. Also included are the original trailer and two short promotional films from the time of release, one of which is narrated by star William Holden. Finally there is an "appreciation" by director John Milius, an extensive archive of movie posters and artwork, and a booklet that reproduces the text of the film's original 1957 brochure. --Gary S Dalkin

• Rock And Chips - Five Gold Rings | DVD | (28/03/2011) from £6.99   |  Saving you £11.00 (157.37%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Paula Wilcox Shaun Dingwall Phil Daniels Kellie Bright and James Buckley star in Rock & Chips It's Christmas 1960 and the Trotters are settling into their new flat in Sir Walter Raleigh House Peckham. Rodney is a babe in arms Reg is still drawing the dole and hard-working Joan is struggling to keep the family afloat after losing her jobs at the town hall and the cinema. A 16-year-old Del has left school and is exploring employment opportunities around the docks - including a nice line in selling 45s straight off the back of a boat from America - and Freddie Robdal has been temporarily detained in Wormwood Scrubs at Her Majesty's pleasure. Meanwhile Del who has been advised that slipping an engagement ring on a girl's finger can open up a whole new world of lustful opportunity has managed to get himself engaged to half of Peckham. But will any of his engagements lead to a trip up the aisle?

• A Knight In Camelot | DVD | (19/04/2004) from £5.89   |  Saving you £10.10 (171.48%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Whoopi Goldberg stars in this hilarious tale of a modern woman and her comic adventures in medieval time... Inspired by Mark Twain's 'A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court'.

• Narrow Margin - 12 Stunden Angst | Blu Ray | (08/04/2021) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Eight Men Out | DVD | (07/06/2004) from £14.96   |  Saving you £-1.97 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Director John Sayles's 'Eight Men Out' explores one of the darkest moments in the history of baseball: 1919's infamous Black Sox scandal when eight players on the heavily favored Chicago White Sox agreed to throw the World Series. Based on Eliot Asinof's 1963 book of the same name the film investigates why the players including the great 'Shoeless' Joe Jackson who many believe belongs in the Hall of Fame would purposely lose the most important game of their lives...