"Actor: Jens Peter"

• Dark Angel: Complete Season 1 | DVD | (24/02/2003) from £19.99   |  Saving you £20.00 (100.05%)   |  RRP £39.99

  One of TV's more interesting tough-girl action shows, Dark Angel is a distinctive blend of the personal, the adventurous and the politically aware. Cocreators James Cameron (yes, that James Cameron) and Charles Eglee present a complex scenario of biological super-science and social collapse in which their gene-manipulated heroine and hacker/journalist hero can genuinely make a difference. In this first series they also provide an adversary who is a lot more than just a conventional villain. Jessica Alba is impressive as Max, bred and trained as a super-soldier but reclaiming her individual humanity; Michael Weatherly is scruffily attractive as Eyes Only, who sits semi-paralysed in his eyrie above Seattle uncovering crime, corruption and other skulduggeries and sending the woman whom he hopelessly loves out on deadly errands. Jon Savage has real authority as Lydeker, a man who has stretched his conscience to breaking point, but is not personally corrupt. Some of the best episodes here--"Prodigy" for example--are ones in which Lydeker and Max are forced into temporary alliance. Early on the relationship between Max and the other workers at Jam Pony--the courier firm that provides her with a cover identity--is a little forced, but later on the two parts of Max's life are more successfully integrated: "Shorties in Love", for example, is a genuinely touching tale about Diamond, the doomed criminal ex-lover of Max's lesbian roommate. Dark Angel was never a perfect show, but at its occasional best it manages to be simultaneously funny and dramatic. On the DVD: Dark Angel, Series 1's Region 2 DVD is ungenerous with special features, providing only short interviews with James Cameron and Charles Eglee and with the stars, and giving us a preview of the Dark Angel computer game. The episodes are presented in widescreen and have excellent Dolby Digital sound which gives vivid presence to both the dialogue and the hard-driving contemporary rock score that is part of the show's style. --Roz Kaveney

• Dark Angel - Season 2 | DVD | (02/06/2003) from £25.99   |  Saving you £14.00 (53.87%)   |  RRP £39.99

  The second and last series of Dark Angel, the inventive James Cameron show about mutants during a future Depression, has some real strengths, as well as having one or two bad ideas that partly explain its much-regretted cancellation. Among the strengths are Alex, the thoroughly unreliable mutant charmer whose flirtations with heroine Max complicate her doomed love for Logan, the crippled newshound whom she cannot now even touch--she has been infected with a deadly virus tailored specifically to kill him. The distrust this sows between the doomed couple does not always avoid soap opera clichés, but often produces fine performances, especially from Jessica Alba as Max. On the down side, John Savage's memorably ambiguous villain Lydeker from Series 1 (who is alternately the mutants' nemesis and their protector), disappears to be replaced by the melodramatically sinister Agent White. White appears to be just a shoot-to-kill operative of the state but turns out to be another sort of superhuman, a product of an occultist breeding programme going back to the dawn of history. After White's first ruthless killing, Max's reluctance to use deadly force is tested to near implausible limits. The show ends with a rousing and moving finale, "Freak Nation", in which a theme often neglected in this final year--Max's relationship with her fellow couriers at Jam Pony--reaches a powerful climax. On the DVD: Dark Angel's Series 2 release is ungenerous with special features, giving us an interesting but short documentary in which James Cameron, producer Charles Eglee and various designers describe how they created this rundown future Seattle with a mixture of location shots, set dressing and CGI, as well as a preview of the Dark Angel game. --Roz Kaveney

• Friday the 13th Collection | Blu Ray | (13/10/2020) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Turn Up The Heat | DVD | (02/03/2009) from £5.38   |  Saving you £14.61 (271.56%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Turn Up The Heat

• End Game | DVD | (15/05/2006) from £5.63   |  Saving you £14.36 (255.06%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The Assassination Was Only The Beginning... A secret Service agent and a hardbitten news reporter investigate the conspiracy behind the assassination of the President and find the truth is not only closer but also deadlier than they ever imagined...

• The Kingdom | DVD | (27/05/2002) from £4.04   |  Saving you £19.21 (691.01%)   |  RRP £21.99

  The Kingdom has been described as "ER meets Twin Peaks", and seldom can the standard and the surreal have met in more perfect accord. The hospital that conceals dark secrets is the premise for this riveting "soap"--seen on Danish TV in 1994--in which science and civilisation are eroded by superstition and instinct. Lars von Trier is not a director who aims to please, and the claustrophobic visuals he draws from handheld cameras and natural lighting anticipate the stripped-down film work of his Dogme 95 movement. Yet there's nothing cerebral about the goings-on here, thanks to the rich variety of characters who people the labyrinthine corridors and functional wards. The Minister's visit and the Haiti jaunt are slapstick humour worthy of the best Python sketches, and Trier is never afraid to mix the prosaic with the profound. There are wonderfully observed performances from Ernst Hugo Jaregard as chequered Swedish surgeon Stig Helmer, and Kirsten Rolffes as common-sense psychic Sigrid Drusse. These are only the first five episodes: having seen them, you'll be awaiting the remainder with impatience. This is persuasive, provocative filmmaking. On the DVD: The Kingdom on disc has audio and visual reproduction that is authentically Trier, with English subtitles and 10 access points per episode. Each part is viewable separately or in sequence, though make sure you don't lose some of the director's amusingly offbeat postscripts. The first disc also features Tranceformer, a frank insight into the mind and movies of Lars von Trier with extracts from his features between 1984 and 95. --Richard Whitehouse

• Extras - Series 1 | DVD | (31/10/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £21.99

  Extras is the hotly-anticipated new comedy series from the creators of The Office Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant. Ricky plays Andy Millman who having given up his day job to be an actor finds he just can't land the big parts. In fact he rarely gets a speaking role so spends most of his days stuck in a green room with other extras envying the A-list stars with his fellow actor Maggie Jacobs (Ashley Jensen). Each week Extras has a

• Friday The 13th: Part 8 - Jason Takes Manhattan | DVD | (02/12/2002) from £9.99   |  Saving you £3.00 (30.03%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Start spreadin' the news; Jason's making a brand new start of it in the city that doesn't sleep...

• Wild Orchid | DVD | (16/09/2002) from £44.32   |  Saving you £-31.33 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Soft-porn impresario Zalman King's Wild Orchid is supposed to be an "erotic drama", but it fails because there isn't the faintest semblance of chemistry between the three main players. "From the creators of 9 ½ Weeks comes the most eagerly awaited film of the year", trumpets the voice-over on the trailer, but therein lies the problem: in 9 ½ Weeks Mickey Rourke smouldered with Kim Basinger. In Wild Orchid, things have wilted before he even gets on screen. There is a vague semblance of plot: young, naïve, beautiful multilingual lawyer Emily (Carré Otis) is hired to help the obnoxious Claudia (Jacqueline Bisset), a big-time developer, to close a major property deal in Rio. Wheeler (Mickey Rourke) is the poor kid made good who proves the fly in the ointment. Bisset is supposed to have developed an obsession with the emotionally constipated Rourke after he rejected her. And Otis is supposed to be the one who eventually gets under his skin. But child-model turned actress Otis seems to be having trouble getting her swollen lips round a whole sentence at a time, let alone acting. The film dates from 1990 yet seems firmly stuck in the 1980s, from the obsession with all things commercial to the ludicrous fashion-sense (Rourke: big jacket, no shirt, lots of gold jewellery; Otis: virginal flowing dresses and tresses to match). And the sex scene, when it finally arrives in the dying moments, is brief and entirely unerotic. Brazil looks good though. On the DVD: Wild Orchid on disc has acceptable sound and picture, but the lack of any extra features is not impressive. When you get bored you can always amuse yourself by selecting from the substantial list of subtitles. --Harriet Smith

• Friday The 13th - Part 8 - Jason Takes Manhattan | DVD | (09/02/2009) from £3.31   |  Saving you £5.94 (289.76%)   |  RRP £7.99

  Start spreadin' the news; Jason's making a brand new start of it in the city that doesn't sleep...

• The Boss Of It All | DVD | (08/04/2013) from £8.13   |  Saving you £7.86 (96.68%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Black comedy from acclaimed director Lars von Trier. Jens Albinus plays the boss of an IT company who, on the firm's startup, invents a fake CEO to take the flak when potential employee problems threaten to raise their head. Everything rolls along nicely, until the time when he decides that he wants to sell the business. With negotiations about to begin, the prospective new owners insist on dealing with the CEO face-to-face, causing a major headache for the 'real' owner. With time running out, he decides to follow the old adage of 'in for a penny, in for a pound', and sets about hiring an out of work actor in a desperate attempt to pull off the deception.

• Herold - La Fille Mal Gardee | DVD | (10/04/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £16.99

  Herold: La Fille Mal Gardee (Lanchbery Wiener Symphoniker)

• Spongebob SquarePants - Viking Sized Adventure | DVD | (05/04/2010) from £5.00   |  Saving you £4.99 (49.90%)   |  RRP £9.99

  SpongeBob SquarePants: Viking Sized Adventure

• The Kingdom | DVD | (27/03/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £39.99

  Acclaimed director Lars Von Trier delves into the world of the supernatural. At The Kingdom Denmark's most technologically advanced hospital a number of otherworldly and uncanny events begin to occur much to the dismay of its doctors and patients... Contains both the original series and the follow-up.