"Actor: John A"

• Prick Up Your Ears | DVD | (10/10/2005) from £9.18   |  Saving you £-1.19 (N/A%)   |  RRP £7.99

  Based on John Lahr's biography of the same name and co-written by Alan Bennett, Prick Up Your Ears charts the 16-year relationship between the monstrously talented but deeply selfish playwright Joe Orton (Gary Oldman), author of West End farces such as Loot and What the Butler Saw, and his neurotic but nevertheless wronged lover and collaborator Kenneth Halliwell (Alfred Molina). Halliwell introduced Orton to art, literature and gay sex only to see his protégeacute; outstrip his mentor with innate and rampant talent for sexual conquest. By turns hilarious and excoriatingly painful, it's as much a tribute to an anti-hero of our times-Orton's ruthless frankness and anarchic mindset helped form the basis of what's called the "queer" sensibility today--as it is a portrait of the Swinging 60s just after the reform of anti-homosexuality laws irrevocably changed society. The modern-day framing device has Lahr (Wallace Shawn) researching his book through interviews with Peggy Ramsay (Vanessa Redgrave), Orton's agent and the diary he wrote, a nimble device which ends up drawing a provocative parallel between Orton and Halliwell's relationship and that of Lahr and his wife (Lindsay Duncan). Director Stephen Frears, fresh off the back of the also-gay-themed My Beautiful Laundrette, nimbly balances our sympathies for both the protagonists while the leads give what may in retrospect look like the standout performances of their careers: Oldman was never more feral and charming, while Molina, foppishingly fretting over his wig and decrying that his lover "even sleeps better than I do" is simply heartbreaking. --Leslie Felperin

• The Dirty Dozen | DVD | (19/06/2006) from £12.71   |  Saving you £3.28 (25.81%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Train them! Excite them! Arm them!...Then turn them loose on the Nazis! Atten-hut! Twelve jailbirds will earn their freedom... if they survive a suicide mission against the Nazi brass. Tough-as-nails Lee Marvin leads a nothing-to-lose convict squad in this all-time action trendsetter. They don't make 'em like this anymore!

• Doctor Who - Series 3 Vol. 4 | DVD | (20/08/2007) from £5.82   |  Saving you £12.17 (209.11%)   |  RRP £17.99

  David Tennant returns to his role as The Doctor along with his new companion Martha Jones (Freema Ageyman).

• WWE - Royal Rumble 2006 | DVD | (10/04/2006) from £17.98   |  Saving you £2.01 (11.18%)   |  RRP £19.99

  All the high octane action and bravado from the 2006 Royal Rumble. Bout List: Cruiserweight Invitational: Kid Kash vs Funaki vs Jaime Noble vs Paul London vs Nunzio vs Gregory Helms Ashley Massaro vs Mickie James (with Trish Stratus as Special Guest Referee) JBL vs Boogeyman WWE Championship: Edge (C) vs John Cena World Heavyweight Championship: Kurt Angle (C) vs Mark Henry The 2006 Royal Rumble: Rey Mysterio vs Simon Dean vs Psicosis vs Ric Flair vs Big Show vs Jonathan

• Argo | 4K UHD | (12/12/2016) from £34.99   |  Saving you £-15.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Set against the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979 and 1980, Ben Affleck’s Argo is a nerve-jangling footnote to the birth of Ayatollah Khomeini’s Islamic Republic. The movie opens at the crest of the 1979 revolution--the storming of the US embassy in Tehran, and the escape of six diplomats to the precarious safety of the Canadian ambassador’s residence. To the rescue is Tony Mendez--a composed CIA agent whose heroism remained classified until 1997--and his state-approved plan to get the stranded embassy staff out of Iran under a brazen cover story: they’re an innocent film crew on a location hunt for the fake sci-fi blockbuster Argo. Hollywood is usually pressed into the service of the state in the name of comedy (either burying dictators in Team America: World Police or just bad news in Barry Levinson’s Wag the Dog), but Argo is a true story, and the tone of Affleck's Oscar-winning script is carefully split, switching between mounting tension in consular Tehran and a satire of the Hollywood machine as fronted by Alan Arkin and John Goodman--two raffish producers hired by Mendez to reverse-engineer some convincing buzz for the Argo movie. Affleck himself takes the role of Mendez, the steady-eyed agent betting everything on Hollywood’s age-old efficiency at creating a media circus for a project long before it exists. ‘History starts out as farce and ends up a tragedy’, remarks Goodman, but Argo ends on a patriotic upbeat, and doesn’t reflect much on history. It politely nods at the context of Iran’s attitude to the West, and we’re told about but not shown--bar the blank rage of the revolutionary mob--Iran’s anger at the Westerly flow of resources under Shah Pahlavi. Instead, Argo concentrates on the eggshell complexities of deception in plain sight, including a climactic set-piece in which Mendez’ team must fend their way through layers of suspicious Iranian airport security--with imminent capture, execution and political calamity only on the other side of their paper-thin pretext. It may have the ring of historical escapism, but Argo holds its nerve as a great Hollywood escape. --Leo Batchelor

• Tales From The Darkside - Season 2 | DVD | (20/02/2012) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Created by horror legend George A. Romero, Tales from the Darkside was a syndicated television series adapted from his Creepshow feature franchise. Similar in style and themes to shows such as The Twilight Zone, Night Gallery and Tales from the Crypt, each episode told a dark tale that ventured into horror, fantasy, sci-fi and black comedy, and ended with an unexpected twist.

• WWE - Royal Rumble 2010 | Blu Ray | (03/05/2010) from £23.99   |  Saving you £-4.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  WWE: Royal Rumble 2010 (2 Discs)

• Augustus - the First Emperor | DVD | (22/08/2005) from £7.04   |  Saving you £-5.05 (N/A%)   |  RRP £1.99

  As the empire kneeled in defeat one man stood in triumph. In 42 BC Rome is in the middle of a civil war. Together with his friend Agrippa the young Augustus goes to Spain in order to help Julius Caesar in his struggle against the troops of Pompey. Caesar honours his adopted son Augustus with a triumphal entry into Rome and then sends him to Greece together with his friends Agrippa and Maecenas. There Augustus hears the news of Caesar's assassination and he returns to Rome with his friends. Back in Rome he is able to gain both the support of the people and political power. In his struggle with the conspirators against Caesar he finds an ally in Marc Antony. Augustus and Marc Antony are able to defeat the forces of Brutus and Cassius at the battle of Phillipi. But now Augustus has to share his empire with Marc Antony who in the meantime has become the lover of the Egyptian queen Cleopatra. Augustus declares war on both of them and after a successful military campaign he becomes the sole ruler of the Roman Empire. During his rule Rome not only experiences a period of peace and prosperity it is also an age in which both art and culture flourish. His new wife Livia Drusilla becomes his most important political advisor. It is she who discovers that Iullus (the son of Marc Antony and lover of Augustus' daughter Julia) is plotting to murder the emperor...

• TARANTULA (BLU-RAY) - VARIOUS | Blu Ray | (12/06/2014) from £6.59   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• The Omega Factor - The Complete Series | DVD | (20/06/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £34.99

  One of the BBC's most powerful and controversial science fiction series of the 1970's is brought to DVD for the first time! There is a highly-secret government organisation called Department 7. Its existence is known only to the Prime Minister and some members of the Cabinet. Its brief is to investigate the Supernatural - to discover the Omega Factor. Journalist Tom Crane has been given the same brief by a Sunday newspaper and suddenly finds himself confronting inexplicable and even

• Animal Games | DVD | (09/08/2004) from £5.00   |  Saving you £-0.01 (N/A%)   |  RRP £4.99

  Which is the world's fastest animal? The best swimmer? The strongest weight lifter? The animal kingdom's athletic champions are revealed at this spectacular animal version of the Olympics to coincide with the 2004 international event. The world's creatures representing different regions of the world compete for gold silver and bronze in the real Olympic stadium. BBC sport's commentators impart facts and figures about the various performances as if discussing human athletes. The co

• Bach: Cantatas | DVD | (02/11/2001) from £14.98   |  Saving you £5.01 (33.44%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Taking the Bach Cantatas as a basis for a year-long pilgrimage in 2000, conductor Sir John Eliot Gardiner led the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists on an emotional and artistically triumphant world tour to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the composer’s death. Many of the Cantatas were performed in religious buildings throughout Europe and even in New York, at appropriate times in the liturgical calendar. These performances feature Cantatas 179, 199 and 113, all composed for the 11th Sunday after Trinity, in marvellously dramatic interpretations by the Choir and soloists including soprano Magdalena Kozen, alto William Towers, tenor Mark Padmore and Stephan Loges. Gardiner’s mission to expose the delicacy of emotion at the heart of Bach’s deceptively simple melodies pays dividends in settings which range from baroque German cathedrals to the austere bleakness of Iona. Filmed by BBC Wales, the concerts create a moving spiritual journey in which the music itself is allowed to take centre stage thanks to the passion of the performances and, above all, to Gardiner’s vision of Bach’s continuing relevance in the modern world at the beginning of a new millennium. On the DVD: thanks to the crystal clarity of the PCM Stereo soundtrack and Surround Sound, it’s possible to reproduce at home the distinctive acoustics of the different venues where the cantatas are performed. The picture quality (anamorphic 16:9 ratio) makes for the standard television viewing experience but it’s the music which counts. Extras include a 60-minute documentary explaining Gardiner’s vision for the pilgrimage, with further performance extracts, giving a sense of the sheer size and ambition of the project--not least the logistical issues of moving a large group of performers around such a diverse range of locations. It also shows the extent to which the performers become absorbed by Bach’s music and through it, discover new aspects of their own spirituality. Extensive booklet notes include full texts of the featured Cantatas and the double-sided disc allows viewing in PAL or NTSC format.--Piers Ford

• Out - The Complete Series (Two Discs) | DVD | (02/06/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  For his part in a failed bank robbery Frank Ross has served years in prison. Now he's out and looking for the cuplrit responsible for his incarceration...

• The Sheltering Sky | DVD | (29/04/2002) from £18.91   |  Saving you £-8.92 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Master filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci applies his considerable talent to this haunting adaptation of the Paul Bowles novel. John Malkovich and Debra Winger play Port and Kit Moresby, characters loosely based on Bowles and his wife Jane, who flee New York for North Africa, where they hope to find mystical truths that will reignite the spark of their marriage. But instead they lose their moral bearings (with help from a friend, played by Campbell Scott, who has an affair with Kit) while travelling deeper and deeper into the Sahara. Before long, what started as a vacation at exotic lodgings has descended into a tour of hell, as they stumble farther and farther into an unknowable spiritual territory. Though long and at times slow-moving, The Sheltering Sky features marvellously nuanced acting by Malkovich and Winger and visionary filmmaking that makes the landscape at once picturesque and threatening. --Marshall Fine

• Catherine Cookson - Birth, Death, Love And Marriage | DVD | (21/08/2006) from £29.99   |  Saving you £10.00 (33.34%)   |  RRP £39.99

  Catherine Cookson was born Catherine McMullen in 1906. Her life began in poverty and she grew up believing her real mother was her sister. In a life that could have been taken from any of her own novels Catherine aspired to achieve more than many of her time. From poverty to wealth she left the sadness behind to start a new life in Hastings where she was to meet her husband Tom Cookson. As a form of therapy Catherine began to write and never stopped and became one of the world's be

• The Desperate Trail | DVD | (25/07/2005) from £6.73   |  Saving you £12.26 (64.60%)   |  RRP £18.99

  Amiable con man Jack Cooper (Craig Sheffer) is on a westbound stagecoach headed for the next batch of suckers who will mistake them for an easy mark. Fiery Sarah O'Rourke (Linda Fiorentino) rides the same coach handcuffed to lawman Bill Speakes (Sam Elliott) and headed for the hangman. In a few hours all should reach their destinations. But the trail they travel takes an unexpected turn: Cooper and O'Rourke are soon off the stage and running for their lives. The law ends and the ch

• Treme - Season 1 (HBO) | Blu Ray | (30/05/2011) from £12.59   |  Saving you £37.40 (297.06%)   |  RRP £49.99

  As Treme opens, a group of New Orleans residents are celebrating their first "second-line parade" since Hurricane Katrina blew through the city and across the Gulf Coast just three months earlier. Folks are strutting and dancing, a brass band is blowing a joyful noise--it's a celebration of "NOLA's" resilience and proud spirit ("Won't bow--don't know how," as they say). But there's darkness just below this shiny surface, and anyone familiar with The Wire, cocreator-writer David Simon's last show, won't be a bit surprised to find that he and fellow Treme writer-producer Eric Overmyer aren't shy about going there. The New Orleans we see is a city barely starting to recover from what one character calls "a man-made catastrophe… of epic proportions and decades in the making." Many people's homes are gone, and insurance payments are a rumor. Other locals haven't come back, and still others are simply missing. The people have been betrayed by their own government, and New Orleans's reputation for corruption is hardly helped by the fact that the police force is in such disarray that the line between cop and criminal is sometimes so fine as to be nonexistent. Bad, but not all bad. NOLA still has its cuisine, its communities, and best of all its music, which permeates every chapter, from the Rebirth Brass Band's "I Feel Like Funkin' It Up" in episode 1 to Allen Toussaint and "Cha Dooky-Doo" in episode 10. There's Dixieland and zydeco, natch, but also hip-hop and rock; there are NOLA stalwarts like Dr. John, Ernie K-Doe, Lee Dorsey, and the Meters (as well as appearances by Elvis Costello, Steve Earle, and others), but plenty of younger, lesser knowns, too. Whether we hear it in the street, in a club or a recording studio, at home, or anywhere, music is the lifeblood of the city and this series, and it's handled brilliantly. Treme has a lot of characters and their stories to keep up with. There's trombonist Antoine Batiste (Wendell Pierce), a wonderful player but kind of a dog, especially to his current baby mama and his ex-wife, LaDonna (Khandi Alexander), a bar owner who's desperately searching for her missing brother. There's Creighton Bernette (John Goodman), a writer preoccupied with telling the world what's really going on in the city, and his wife Toni (Melissa Leo), a lawyer and thorn in the side of the authorities. There's Davis McAlary (Steve Zahn), a well-meaning but annoyingly clueless radio DJ, his occasional girlfriend Janette (Kim Dickens), who's struggling to keep her restaurant open, and Albert Lambreaux (Clarke Peters), who returns from Houston, finds his house in ruins, and sets about rebuilding it. You might not like all of them. Not all get through the series unscathed, or even alive. But that's part of the deal. The show feels authentic: dialogue (natural, plain, and profane), story lines, locations, camera work, the utter lack of gloss and glamour--this is no Chamber of Commerce travelogue. It's not a documentary either, but there are moments when it's just down and dirty enough to pass for one. --Sam Graham

• The Princess and the Frog Combi Pack (Blu-ray + DVD) | Blu Ray | (21/06/2010) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £23.99

  After the visual bombast of many contemporary CGI and motion-capture features, the drawn characters in The Princess and the Frog, Walt Disney Studio's eagerly awaited return to traditional animation, feel doubly welcome. Directed by John Musker and Ron Clements (The Little Mermaid, Aladdin), The Princess and the Frog moves the classic fairy tale to a snazzy version of 1920s New Orleans. Tiana (voice by Anika Noni Rose), the first African-American Disney heroine, is not a princess, but a young woman who hopes to fulfill her father's dream of opening a restaurant to serve food that will bring together people from all walks of life. Tiana may wish upon a star, but she believes that hard work is the way to fulfill your aspirations. Her dedication clashes with the cheerful idleness of the visiting prince Naveen (Bruno Campos). A voodoo spell cast by Dr. Facilier (Keith David) in a showstopping number by composer Randy Newman initiates the events that will bring the mismatched hero and heroine together. However, the animation of three supporting characters--Louis (Michael-Leon Wooley), a jazz-playing alligator; Ray (Jim Cummings), a Cajun firefly; and 197-year-old voodoo priestess Mama Odie (Jenifer Lewis)--is so outstanding, it nearly steals the film. Alternately funny, touching, and dramatic, The Princess and the Frog is an all-too-rare example of a movie a family can enjoy together, with the most and least sophisticated members appreciating different elements. The film is also a welcome sign that the beleaguered Disney Feature Animation Studio has turned away from such disasters as Home on the Range, Chicken Little, and Meet the Robinsons and is once again moving in the right direction. --Charles Solomon

• Virgin of the Secret Service - The Complete Series | DVD | (01/04/2013) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £39.99

  Spectacular adventure exotic locations beautiful girls dare-devil heroes dastardly villains humour and romance: these are the ingredients of Virgin of the Secret Service an all-action drama series with a difference!

• Agatha Christie's Marple - The Moving Finger | DVD | (17/07/2006) from £7.19   |  Saving you £2.80 (38.94%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Agatha Christie's classic sleuth Miss Marple (here essayed by Geraldine McEwan) takes on another case of murder most foul.... After a serious motorcycle accident the dashing Jerry Burton (James D'Arcy) arrives in the sleepy village of Lymstock with his sister Joanna (Emilia Fox) to recuperate. Their expectations of peace and quiet are quickly dashed when they discover a poison pen-writer is at large in the village. Together Miss Marple and Jerry set out to stop the malicious mess