"Actor: John H"

• The Deer Hunter: Special Edition (2 discs) | DVD | (04/08/2003) from £5.79   |  Saving you £11.20 (193.44%)   |  RRP £16.99

  The Deer Hunter is an expansive portrait of friendship in a Pennsylvania steel town, and of the effects of the Vietnam War. Led by the trio of Robert De Niro, John Savage and Christopher Walken (who won a supporting actor Oscar), the first hour is dominated by an engrossing Russian Orthodox wedding and reception. When the drama moves overseas it switches from anthropologically realistic documentation of a community's rituals to highly controversial and still shocking Russian Roulette scenes, symbolising the random horror of war. Unforgettable as they are, the Vietnam sequences occupy less than a third of the three-hour running time; defying movie convention The Deer Hunter is fundamentally a before-and-after ensemble character study anchored by De Niro's great performance. Although it was the first serious Hollywood feature to address the Vietnam War, the plausibility of some of the later plot developments raises awkward questions. But the film remains powerfully effective, its deliberate pace, naturalistic overlapping dialogue and unflinching seriousness marking it very much a product of the 1970s. With nine Oscar nominations and five wins, including Best Picture and Director, it's a cinematic landmark that stands the test time, almost incidentally setting Meryl Streep on the road to superstardom in her first leading role. On the DVD: The Deer Hunter: Special Edition has the film on the first disc with a serious yet amiable Region 2 exclusive discussion track between director Michael Cimino and critic SX Finnie. The picture is anamorphically enhanced at 2.35:1, and perfectly reproduces Vilmos Zsigmond's deliberately desaturated, necessarily grainy cinematography. The Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack clearly reveals the mono original, being largely focused on the centre speaker and while it does a good job, some of the choral music does sound harsh. Dialogue is sometimes indecipherable, but that's due to the naturalistic nature of the original sound recording and mixing. Disc 2 offers excellent new interviews with Jon Savage (15 mins), Vilmos Zsigmond (15 mins) and Michael Cimino (23 mins). Also included is the original trailer (anamorphically enhanced 2.35:1), a routine photo gallery and a DVD version of the original press brochure. There's no trace of the 40 minutes of deleted material referred to by Cimino, but this presentation is still an object lesson in how quality of extras triumphs over quantity. --Gary S Dalkin

• Terms Of Endearment | DVD | (05/11/2001) from £6.40   |  Saving you £6.59 (102.97%)   |  RRP £12.99

  When Terms of Endearment was released in 1983, director and writer James L Brooks was lauded for his depiction of a complex mother/daughter relationship. For his leading ladies he chose actresses with two of the strongest personalities in Hollywood, but armed with an exceptionally witty script and endless patience he eventually drew magnificent performances from Shirley Maclaine as Aurora and Debra Winger as her daugher Emma, assisted considerably by Jack Nicholson's considerate professionalism. As the philandering retired astronaut who beds Maclaine and then provides her with surprising support in the film's dark later moments, Nicholson shines with comic brilliance which earned him an Oscar. It was no secret that Maclaine and Winger could barely contain a mutual antipathy on set. Yet they strike sparks off each other on screen. When comedy turns to tragedy with the development of Emma's cancer, the laughs continue even while the tear ducts are being given a good work out. In the glory days of Hollywood, this would have been acknowledged a great "women's picture" and its weepy credentials are impeccable. It stands out as a warm, accessible work that admirably rejects sugary sentiment in favour of the realistic rough edges that characterise most human relationships. On the DVD: Presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen with a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, this DVD is ideal for home cinema viewing. The picture and sound quality are fine, benefiting Michael Gore's gentle, memorable music and bringing the best out of Andrzej Bartkowiak's luminous photography. In addition to the original theatrical trailer, the major extra is the director's commentary in which James L Brooks reminisces with coproducer Penney Finkelman and production designer Polly Platt. They look back at their impressive work with a touching degree of wonder and apprentice directors should take note when Brooks recalls his steep learning curve in managing his leading ladies. --Piers Ford

• Kramer vs Kramer / Lorenzo's Oil / Born Free - A New Adventure | DVD | (06/09/2004) from £19.99   |  Saving you £-5.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Kramer vs. Kramer: Kramer vs Kramer is the box office smash that gathered 5 Oscars including Best Picture Best Actor for Dustin Hoffman and Best Supporting Actress for Meryl Streep. Returning home late from work one night a career-obsessed Ted Kramer is told by his wife that she is leaving him. After a life of being 'somebody's daughter' or 'somebody's wife ' she's going off to find herself - leaving Ted to care for their 6 year-old son. Ted while trying to hold down his job gets to really know his son: cooking his meals taking him to the park understanding every need and fear. For the first time in his life he feels like a fulfilled parent. But then Joanna returns. And she wants her son back... Born Free: A New Adventure: Set in the heart of Africa Elsa the Lioness tranforms the lives of two American teenagers struggling to come to terms with a family move from downtown Chicago. Lorenzo's Oil: A five-year-old boy Lorenzo Odone is diagnosed as having a brain disease known as ALD a condition so rare that no medical body has undertaken to research the ailment and develop a cure. Desperate Lorenzo's parents (Nolte and Sarandon) embark on a desperate search for a cure and must battle the medical establishment when they make astounding progress using humble olive oil...

• Secret Agent | DVD | (07/07/2003) from £19.10   |  Saving you £-12.11 (N/A%)   |  RRP £6.99

  One of Alfred Hitchcock's finest pre-Hollywood films, the 1936 Secret Agent stars a young John Gielgud as a British spy whose death is faked by his intelligence superiors. Reinvented with a new identity and outfitted with a wife (Madeleine Carroll), Gielgud's character is sent on assignment with a cold-blooded accomplice (Peter Lorre) to assassinate a German agent. En route, the counterfeit couple keeps company with an affable American (Robert Young), who turns out to be more than he seems after the wrong man is murdered by Gielgud and Lorre. Dense with interwoven ideas about false names and real identities, about appearances as lies and the brutality of the hidden, and about the complicity of those who watch the anarchy that others do, Secret Agent declared that Alfred Hitchcock was well along the road to mastery as a filmmaker and, more importantly, knew what it was he wanted to say for the rest of his career. --Tom Keogh

• Red 2 | Blu Ray | (25/11/2013) from £10.82   |  Saving you £12.17 (112.48%)   |  RRP £22.99

  Retired CIA agent Frank Moses (Bruce Willis) reunites his team of elite operatives in the highoctane action-comedy RED 2.

• Chicago PD S8 | DVD | (06/09/2021) from £7.69   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  All 16 Season Eight Episodes From Emmy®-winning producer Dick Wolf and the team behind Chicago Fire comes Chicago P.D., a gripping police drama about those who put it all on the line to serve and protect. District 21 of the Chicago Police Department is made up of two distinctly different groups: the uniformed cops who patrol the beat and deal with street crimes, and the intelligence unit, the team that combats the city's major offenses, such as organized crime, drug trafficking and high-profile murders. Leading the intelligence team is Sgt. Hank Voight (Jason Beghe), a man not against skirting the law in the pursuit of justice. Demanding and tough, only those who can take the heat survive under Voight's command. From the street cops with dreams of moving up to the elite crew who are already in, life on the job is a daily challenge.

• Family Guy Presents Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story | DVD | (24/10/2005) from £6.06   |  Saving you £9.93 (163.86%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Join Stewie Lois Peter Meg Chris and Brian in their most subversive shocking and hysterically funny adventure yet with this full-length adaptation of the cult TV Show. When Stewie everybody's favourite maniacal baby genius has a near-death experience at his first swimming lesson he is temporarily distracted from his plans for world domination. Determined to make the most of his time on the planet Stewie decides to turn his back on his evil ways forever and start anew! With

• Marry Me | DVD | (16/05/2022) from £6.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Packed with original songs by Jennifer Lopez and global Latin music star Maluma, Marry Me features Lopez starring as musical superstar Kat Valdez and Owen Wilson as Charlie Gilbert, a maths teacher - total strangers who agree to marry and then get to know each other. An unlikely romance about two different people searching for something real in a world where value is based on likes and followers, Marry Me is a modern love story about celebrity, marriage and social media.

• Ready Player One | DVD | (06/08/2018) from £8.95   |  Saving you £1.04 (11.62%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Stephen Spielberg directs the worldwide phenomenon Ready Player One. When an unlikely young hero, Wade Watts decides to join the ultimate contest to find the digital Easter eggs to win the Oasis, an expansive virtual reality universe where anything is possible, he is hurled into a breakneck, reality-bending treasure hunt through a fantastical universe of mystery, discovery, and danger.

• The Adventures of Mark Twain (1986) | Blu Ray | (31/10/2011) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  The Adventures of Mark Twain is an amazing journey of imagination humour and heart and a must for fans of Aardman Studios. The film features a series of vignettes extracted from several of Mark Twain's works built around a plot that features Twain's attempts to keep his appointment with Halley's Comet. Tom Sawyer Becky Thatcher and Huck Finn stow away with Mark Twain on an incredible journey in Twain's airship. The journey introduces the three friends to a variety of the author's characters from; The Diary of Adam and Eve Huckleberry Finn The Mysterious Stranger The Famous Jumping Frog of Caliverous County and Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven. The sequence based on The Mysterious Stranger reportedly received over ten million views upon being posted on YouTube. The sequence was allegedly banned from TV due to its disturbing content

• Class of 1999 | Blu Ray | (25/02/2019) from £13.79   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  The time is the future, and youth gang violence is so high that the areas around some schools have become free fire zones into which not even the police will venture. When Miles Langford (Malcolm McDowell), the principal of Kennedy High School, decides to take his school back from the gangs, robotics specialist Dr. Robert Forrest (Stacy Keach) provides tactical education units. These human-like androids have been programmed to teach and are supplied with weapons to handle discipline problems. These kids will get a lesson in staying alive! Features: Audio Commentary with Producer/Director Mark L. Lester School Safety Interviews with Director/Producer Mark L. Lester and Co-Producer Eugene Mazzola New Rules An Interview with Screenwriter C. Courtney Joyner Cyber-Teachers From Hell Interviews with Special Effects Creators Eric Allard and Rick Stratton Future of Discipline An Interview with Director of Photography Mark Irwin Theatrical Trailer TV Spots Still Gallery Video Promo

• Midsomer Murders - Series 1-2 - Complete | DVD | (06/04/2009) from £18.60   |  Saving you £41.39 (222.53%)   |  RRP £59.99

  This major new Midsomer Murders initiative sees the films released for the first time as series sets with a complete redesign and repackaging. Starring John Nettles (Bergerac) and Daniel Casey (Steel River Blues) this is the complete Series One and Two.

• True Grit | DVD | (06/06/2005) from £6.99   |  Saving you £6.00 (85.84%)   |  RRP £12.99

  John Wayne hams it up as a one-eyed, broken-down marshal in this 1969 adaptation of Charles Portis's bestselling novel. Kim Darby plays the formal-speaking adolescent who goes to Wayne for help tracking down her father's killer, and singer Glen Campbell straps on his guns to join the quest. Directed by old lion Henry Hathaway (Rawhide), True Grit is largely a showcase for Wayne (who finally won an Oscar), but it is also a decent Western with a particularly stirring final act. --Tom Keogh

• WWE: The Rock - The Most Electrifying Man In Sports Entertainment | DVD | (15/11/2021) from £7.49   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Retrospective look at the career of seven times WWE champion, The Rock. Featuring 19 of his greatest contests, highlights include his first RAW championship match against Triple H in 1997, through to his epic encounter with Stone Cold Steve Austin at Wrestlemania XIX.

• Murder On The Orient Express (Re-sleeve) | DVD | (14/08/2017) from £7.05   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Elegant, all-star production, introducing Albert Finney as the first screen Hercule Poirot. A no-good American tycoon lies dead with twelve dagger wounds, but which of the passengers is the guilty party? Includes an Oscar® winning performance from Ingrid Bergman

• Runaway Jury | DVD | (14/06/2004) from £5.20   |  Saving you £10.79 (207.50%)   |  RRP £15.99

  A member of the jury for an explosive trial against a gun manufacturer joins forces with a beautiful woman to manipulate the panel.

• Hercules | Blu Ray | (01/12/2014) from £7.12   |  Saving you £19.87 (279.07%)   |  RRP £26.99

  Please note this is a region B Blu-ray and will require a region B or region Free Blu-ray player in order to play. Sword-and-sandal action epic directed by Brett Ratner and starring Dwayne Johnson as the titular hero. After successfully completing the twelve labours set out for him by King Eurystheus as a means of atoning for previous sinful actions, Hercules is now a legendary mercenary in Greece. Using his reputation and strength to his advantage, he is able to overcome the most powerful of enemies. However, when he is asked by the Thracian King (John Hurt) and his daughter to defeat a particularly savage warlord, Hercules finds himself having to endure the most difficult task set for him yet. Age Rating 12

• Sands of Iwo Jima (John Wayne) | DVD | (05/06/2006) from £7.98   |  Saving you £4.00 (66.78%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Alone and outnumbered they had one thing in their favor... the American dream. Blazing action and spectacle are on the menu as battle-toughened sergeant John M Stryker (John Wayne) prepares a group of soldiers for action in the Pacific. The men have got their biggest test ahead on Iwo Jima where they have to inch their way up Mt. Suribachi under constant Japanese fire.

• Transformers: Dark of the Moon | DVD | (28/11/2011) from £9.43   |  Saving you £10.56 (111.98%)   |  RRP £19.99

  A mysterious event from Earth's past threatens to ignite a war so big that the Transformers alone will not be able to save the planet. Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) and the Autobots must fight against the darkness to defend our world from the Decepticons all-consuming evil in the smash hit from director Michael Bay and executive producer Steven Spielberg.

• Plastic Man - The Complete Series | DVD | (01/06/2009) from £9.99   |  Saving you £3.00 (30.03%)   |  RRP £12.99

  A seemingly happily married man embarks on an affair with devastating consequences.