"Actor: James"

• Sapphire And Steel - Assignments 1-3 | DVD | (12/08/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £40.99

  One of the oddest shows ever mounted for mainstream UK television, Sapphire & Steel was one of ITV's many short-lived attempts at grabbing the sci-fi cult status of the BBC's Doctor Who. Ex-Man From U.N.C.L.E. David McCallum and ex-Avenger Joanna Lumley play human-looking incarnations of the eponymous substances, mysterious investigators working at the behest of an apparent God of Order and zipping about TARDIS-like to cope with anomalies in the time-stream that manifest as apparent supernatural forces in remote English locales like an isolated farmhouse (Adventure One), a deserted rural railway station (Adventure Two) and a high-rise block of flats (Adventure Three). McCallum and Lumley play their "medium atomic weights" with blank style and a few touches of baffled humour, not to mention visual flair in the case of Lumley's blue fashions and occasional glowing eyes. But the lengthy serial format, strictly limited guest casts and claustrophobic confinement to studio floor sets tend to mean individual serials straggle on with a great deal of repetition, providing longeurs as six or eight-part stories seem to take forever to get moving and then resolve. Shot on video, with a few strange 1970s effects (evil follow-spots, floating pillows), this remains prime cult material, though it's hard to sit still for more than one episode at a time. It will take an extremely devoted fan to get through all three adventures in under six months. On the DVD: Sapphire & Steel on disc has to be reckoned a disappointment when compared with the wealth of extra material included on the Gerry Anderson or Doctor Who DVDs. This set stretches only to a few press releases and a TV Times article from the launch of the series that tries hard to build up a mystique about the show which it would take some years to actually acquire. There are basic bios of the two stars, and some unresonant stills. Image quality-wise, this looks much the same as previous VHS releases: shot on video, with only a few tiny film inserts for Adventure Three (on the roof of a London building), the series' transfer to DVD is plagued by artefacting of various kinds (some of which can just about be passed off as visual effects), but then again so were the original transmissions. The pristine look is especially unfortunate in exposing the extremely ordinary trickery as far less terrifying than the onscreen characters make them out to be. --Kim Newman

• Babe | DVD | (08/09/2014) from £7.98   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  The surprise hit of 1995, this splendidly entertaining family film was nominated for six Academy Awards, including best picture, director, and screenplay, and deservedly won the Oscar for its subtly ingenious visual effects. Babe is all about the title character, a heroic little pig who's been taken in by the friendly farmer Hoggett (Oscar nominee James Cromwell), who senses that he and the pig share "a common destiny." Babe, a popular mischief-maker the Australian farm, is adopted by the resident border collie and raised as a puppy, befriended by Ferdinand the duck (who thinks he's a cockerel), and saves the day as a champion "sheep-pig." Filled with a supporting cast of talking barnyard animals and a chorus of singing mice (courtesy of computer enhancements and clever animatronics), this frequently hilarious, visually imaginative movie has already taken its place as a family classic with timeless appeal. --Jeff Shannon

• Taken | DVD | (21/04/2003) from £63.99   |  Saving you £-44.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Steven Spielberg's alien abduction opus Taken is what happens when you cross-breed Close Encounters of the Third Kind with The Waltons. Obviously flushed with the success of the TV mini-series Band of Brothers, Spielberg's Dreamworks studio has created an equally epic 10-part story chronicling 50 years of habitual abduction over several generations of three American families. Beginning with the most notorious alien cover-up in US history, the 1947 "crash" at Roswell, New Mexico, Taken introduces the "Greys" and the families they routinely abduct, probe and, in a couple of cases, impregnate over the course of the ten hour-and-a-half-long episodes. The three families are: the Keys, from which first Russell, then his son Jessie, then grandson Danny, are all abducted; the Clarkes, who are descended from a liaison between lonely put-upon housewife Sally Clarke and one of the Roswell crash survivors; and the Crawfords, the ruthless G-men who are committed to uncovering the purpose behind the alien visitations at any cost. But even though the Greys' actions are at best ambiguous and at worst hostile, Taken is basically a soap opera, lacking the sinister undercurrent of either Dark Skies or The X-Files despite its science-fiction trappings. Nevertheless, this is an engaging series which has decent performances--most notably Joel Gretsch as psychotic Owen Crawford--special effects and an engaging enough storyline to make it entertaining, if somewhat disposable, TV. --Kristen Bowditch

• I, Claudius | DVD | (20/09/1976) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Varsity Blues | DVD | (04/09/2000) from £5.95   |  Saving you £7.04 (118.32%)   |  RRP £12.99

  James Van Der Beek (Dawson's Creek) leads the action in this exciting funny coming-of-age story about a small-town high schooler confronting the pressures and temptations of grid-iron glory. At first backup quarterback Jonathan 'Mox' Moxon (Van Der Beek) is nowhere close to being a football star. He's perfectly content to stay on the bench and out of the win-at-all-cost strategies of coach Bud Kilmer (Jon Voight in a powerful performance). But when the starting quarterback is inj

• King Kong - The Eighth Wonder Of The World | DVD | (15/01/2001) from £7.25   |  Saving you £2.74 (37.79%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Now you see it. You're amazed. You can't believe it. Your eyes open wider. It's horrible, but you can't look away. There's no chance for you. No escape. You're helpless, helpless. There's just one chance, if you can scream. Throw your arms across your eyes and scream, scream for your life!" And scream Fay Wray does most famously in this monster classic, one of the greatest adventure films of all time, which even in an era of computer-generated wizardry remains a marvel of stop-motion animation. Robert Armstrong stars as famed adventurer Carl Denham, who is leading a "crazy voyage" to a mysterious, uncharted island to photograph "something monstrous ... neither beast nor man". Also aboard is waif Ann Darrow (Fay Wray) and Bruce Cabot as big lug John Driscoll, the ship's first mate. King Kong's first half-hour is steady going, with engagingly corny dialogue ("Some big, hard-boiled egg gets a look at a pretty face and bang, he cracks up and goes sappy") and ominous portent that sets the stage for the horror to come. Once our heroes reach Skull Island, the movie comes to roaring, chest-thumping, T-rex-slamming, snake-throttling, pterodactyl-tearing, native-stomping life. King Kong was ranked by the American Film Institute as among the 50 best films of the century. Kong making his last stand atop the Empire State Building is one of the film's most indelible and iconic images. --Donald Liebenson, Amazon.comOn the DVD: Although a little light on extras, this is happily the Director's Cut, restoring scenes that were censored after the film's original 1933 run, including Kong peeling off Fay Wray's clothes like a banana, and our hirsute hero using unfortunate natives as dental floss. The ratio of 4:3 is correct for a film of this age; the picture and (mono) sound are perfectly acceptable without being revelatory. The 25-minute "making of" documentary from 1992 is a 60th anniversary tribute to the film, which details all of Kong's many ground-breaking contributions to cinema, from Willis O'Brien's use of stop-motion and rear projection effects to Max Steiner's music score. There are contributions from film historians, modern admirers of the film including composer Jerry Goldsmith--who admits that Steiner created a template that Hollywood composers are still following--and a few surviving participants such as sound effects man Murray Spivak. Apparently, director Merian C. Cooper's original idea was to capture live gorillas, transport them to the island of Komodo and film them fighting the giant lizards! Thanks to Willis O'Brien's pioneering effects work good sense prevailed and a cinema classic was born. --Mark Walker

• Girls' Night | DVD | (07/06/2004) from £30.55   |  Saving you £-24.56 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  The Girls' Night of the title refers to Friday night, the one time of escape from the daily grind for longstanding best friends and factory co-workers, Dawn and Jackie. And Friday night means bingo. One evening their dream comes true when Dawn (the cautious, caring one) scoops £100,000, but the savage twist in the tale is that even before she gets the cheque she discovers she has an inoperable brain tumour. Cue Jackie (the spontaneous, irresponsible one) fulfilling Dawn's lifetime ambition with a holiday in Las Vegas ("Come on, we've got an hour to get the plane"). And from then on it's a buddy movie with inescapable resonances of Thelma and Louise, though the difference here is that the protagonists are two ordinary middle-aged women. Brenda Blethyn and Julie Walters are a magical pairing, with both giving mesmerising moving performances (honorary mention should also be made of Cody, the one sympathetic male character in the film, magnificently played by Kris Kristofferson). Though death is ever-present, this is by no means a depressing movie; rather the opposite, in fact, with a remarkably upbeat ending. If there's a message to be found here, it's that even the most apparently ordinary people can be extraordinary given the right circumstances. On the DVD: As well as the original trailer, there is on-location feature

• Nixon | DVD | (01/01/2001) from £10.27   |  Saving you £5.72 (55.70%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Nixon takes a riveting look at a complex man whose chance at greatness was ultimately destroyed by his passion for power - when his involvement in conspiracy jeopardized the nation's security and the presidency of the United States! With a phenomenal all-star cast.

• Stephen King's Cat's Eye | DVD | (21/10/2002) from £14.98   |  Saving you £1.01 (6.74%)   |  RRP £15.99

  What does a stray cat have in common with a radical technique to quit smoking the window ledge of a sky scraper and an evil goblin? Three of Stephen King's most imaginatively terrifying tales brought to life in this chilling trilogy of short stories...

• Rollerball | DVD | (24/04/2000) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  In the year 2018, violence and crime have been totally eliminated from society and given outlet in the brutal blood sport of rollerball, a high-velocity blend of football, hockey, and motor-cross racing sponsored by the multinational corporations that now control the world following the collapse of traditional politics. James Caan plays Jonathan ., the reigning superstar of rollerball, whose corporate controllers fear that Jonathan's popularity has endowed him with too much power. They begin to pressure him according to their own ruthless set of rules, but Jonathan has rules of his own--ones for a man determined to retain his soul in a world gone mad. As directed by Norman Jewison (who was enjoying a peak of success during the early and mid-1970s), Rollerball creates a believable society that's been rendered passive and compliant by the homogenisation of corporate dictatorships, where the control and flow of information is the only currency of any importance. It's a world in which natural human aggressions have been sublimated and vented through the religious fervour toward rollerball and its players. Rollerball now looks like one of those 1970s science fiction films (another example being Logan's Run) that seems a bit dated and quaint, but its ideas are still provocative and fascinating, and the production is visually impressive. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com

• Howards End | Blu Ray | (27/11/2017) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Howards End is E M Forster's beautifully subtle story of the criss-crossing paths of the privileged and those they disdain--and of a remarkable pair of women who can see beyond class distinctions. Dramatic and tragic but also surprisingly funny, this James Ivory film focuses on a pair of unmarried sisters (Emma Thompson, who won an Oscar, and Helena Bonham Carter) who befriend a poor young clerk (Sam West) and, without meaning to, ruin his life. Meanwhile, Thompson also makes the acquaintance of a dying neighbour (Vanessa Redgrave), who leaves her a family home in her will--which her husband (Anthony Hopkins) destroys. But, ironically, he meets and falls in love with Thompson, even as their paths once more intersect with the increasingly miserable young clerk. Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's beautifully economical script also won an Oscar.--Marshall Fine

• Wild Bill | DVD | (01/03/2004) from £9.33   |  Saving you £3.66 (39.23%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Audiences overlooked Wild Bill at the cinema, but it's one of the better Westerns of the 1990s, featuring yet another terrific performance by Jeff Bridges, America's most underrated movie actor. As James Butler Hickock, he captures the sense of a man at the end of his career, one of the first media superstars who discovers that his legend is more burden than blessing. As he heads toward his final hand of poker in Deadwood, South Dakota, he flashes back to his younger days and the events that built his reputation, even as he copes with encroaching blindness caused by syphilis. Walter Hill blends action and elegy, utilising a screenplay based both on Pete Dexter's novel Deadwood and Thomas Babe's play Fathers and Sons. Wild Bill features strong supporting performances by John Hurt (as a Hickock sidekick) and Ellen Barkin (as the tough, lusty Calamity Jane)--but the centrepiece is the sad, manly performance by Bridges, who more than measures up to the part. --Marshall Fine

• I - Proud To Be An Indian | DVD | (16/02/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  I a young Indian is forced to migrate to London with his father staying with his older brother and his family. Once in London he starts to discover that on account of the National Front the middle class Asian families are living a frightened existance...

• Genius Of Britain | DVD | (07/06/2010) from £4.92   |  Saving you £15.07 (306.30%)   |  RRP £19.99

  In this major new science series from Channel 4 Richard Dawkins James Dyson Stephen Hawking David Attenborough and Robert Winston celebrate the great thinkers and moments in British science from Newton to the present day. Britain's great inventors and scientists have led the world and been at the forefront of some of history's greatest advances. From the steam engine to the world wide web from the theory of evolution to the discovery of the atom British science and ingenuity have helped shape the modern world. The Genius of Britain tells the stories of the people behind these pivotal moments of the men and women who overcame all obstacles in search of scientific advancement. Their tales range from accounts of pure genius when the apple fell and the secrets of the universe were unlocked to dark tales of obsession deception and even bodysnatching. Tackling the areas closest to their hearts and using hands-on demonstrations the five co-presenters tell the human stories behind the scientific and engineering discoveries that we so often take for granted.

• The X Files: Season 5 | DVD | (27/12/2004) from £19.73   |  Saving you £15.26 (77.34%)   |  RRP £34.99

  Mulder continues his search for a cure for Scully's illness even as her genetically altered DNA takes her to the brink of death. Scully's DNA comes into play once again when it proves that she is somehow the mother of a little girl named Emily an incident that could only be related to her abduction years earlier. But in the end it is a young boy named Gibson Praise whose body may actually contain the elusive proof Mulder has been searching for so desperately. Episodes comprise:

• Blood From The Mummy's Tomb | DVD | (29/01/2007) from £9.79   |  Saving you £3.20 (32.69%)   |  RRP £12.99

  A severed hand beckons from an open grave! A British expedition team in Egypt discovers the ancient sealed tomb of the evil Queen Tera. But when one of the archaeologists steals a mysterious ring from the corpse's severed hand he unleashes a relentless curse upon his beautiful daughter. Is the voluptuous young woman now a reincarnation of the diabolical sorceress or has the curse of the mummy returned to reveal its horrific revenge? One of Hammer's most notorious productions Blood From The Mummy's Tomb was plagued by the sudden deaths of director Seth Holt and the wife of original star Peter Cushing leading to rumours of a real-life curse. Andrew Keir (Quatermass And The Pit) and the luscious Valerie Leon star in this supernatural shocker based on Bram Stoker's classic novel Jewel Of The Seven Stars.

• Exorcist 2 - The Heretic | DVD | (20/10/2003) from £19.58   |  Saving you £-5.59 (N/A%)   |  RRP £13.99

  When it was released in 1977 The Exorcist II: The Heretic was virtually laughed off the screen. A much-anticipated sequel to the Oscar-winning original, it turned out to be an unintentionally hilarious mishmash and received such terrible reviews that director John Boorman yanked it out of cinemas. He reedited it, cutting eight minutes in hopes of getting the story (written by William Goodhart) to the point of coherency--but to no avail. The film remains a kind of reverse gold standard for sequels. It's still a ridiculously overacted, although at times visually haunting, movie. Richard Burton stars as a troubled priest (something of a speciality of his) who is brought in to follow up on the case of Linda Blair, who is institutionalised, still troubled by her encounter with the devil (who wouldn't be?). By the time they confront Satan's minion in the final struggle, you'll be rooting for evil to win. --Marshall Fine

• The Girl Next Door | DVD | (09/08/2004) from £5.15   |  Saving you £12.84 (249.32%)   |  RRP £17.99

  A straight-arrow high-school student falls in love with the perfect 'girl-next-door', only to discover she's a former porn star.

• Dad's Army - Series 6 | DVD | (08/05/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Vintage comedy by Jimmy Perry and David Croft. As Walmington-on-Sea trembles at the thought of a mighty Nazi invasion the indefatigable Captain Mainwaring and his eager Home Guard are ready and waiting - regardless that some of them are so old they can hardly stand up... Starring Arthur Lowe John Le Mesurier and Clive Dunn. Winner of 3 Writers Guild awards and a BAFTA. Episodes Comprise: 1. The Deadly Attachment 2. My British Buddy 3. The Royal Train 4. We Knows Our Onions

• Christmas Classics Collection | DVD | (23/10/2017) from £13.78   |  Saving you £7.20 (66.73%)   |  RRP £17.99

  It's a Wonderful LifeVoted the # 1 Most Inspiring Film Of All Time by AFI's 100 Years... 100 Cheers, It's A Wonderful Life has had just that. With the endearing message that no one is a failure who has friends, Frank Capra's heartwarming masterpiece continues to endure, and after 70 years this beloved classic still remains as powerful and moving as the day it was made. White ChristmasTwo talented song-and-dance men (Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye) team up after the war to become one of the hottest acts in show business. One winter, they join forces with a sister act (Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen) and trek to Vermont for a white Christmas. Of course, there's the requisite fun with the ladies, but the real adventure starts when Crosby & Kaye discover that the inn is run by their old army general who's now in financial trouble. And the result is the stuff dreams are made of. Holiday InnWith music by Irving Berlin, songs by Bing Crosby and dancing by Fred Astaire, Holiday Inn is one of the most delightful and memorable musicals of all time, nominated* for 3 Academy Awards®. Crosby plays Jim Hardy, a song and dance man who leaves showbiz to open a Connecticut Inn. Astaire plays Ted Hanover, Hardy's former partner and rival in love. And, of course there are girls (Marjorie Reynolds and Virginia Dale), an agent (Walter Abel) and plenty of lavish song and dance routines with spectacular production numbers. Scrooge. The spirit of Christmas becomes a musical celebration of life in this rousing adaptation of Charles Dickens' beloved family classic, A Christmas Carol. Mean-spirited and stingy, Ebenezer Scrooge (Albert Finney) has a sour face and humbug for anyone who crosses his path. But on this Christmas Eve, he will learn the terrible fate that awaits him if he continues his miserly ways. One by one, the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future take the startled Ebenezer on an incredible journey through time - showing him in one magical night what takes most people a lifetime to learn. Filled with joyous songs, this delightful tale is sure to enrich the lives of young and old alike for many more generations.