"Actor: John M"

• Sharknado - The Ultimate Collection | Blu Ray | (26/02/2024) from £33.05   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Dad's Army - The Complete Series 3 | DVD | (09/05/2005) from £4.96   |  Saving you £11.03 (222.38%)   |  RRP £15.99

  The complete collection of the third series of episodes (in colour) featuring the inept Captain Mainwaring (Arthur Lowe) and his unruly Home Guard platoon... Episodes comprise: 1. The Armoured Might Of Lance Corporal Jones 2. Battle School 3. The Lion Has Phones 4. The Bullet Is Not For Firing 5. Something Nasty In The Vault 6. Room At The Bottom 7. Big Guns 8. The Day The Balloon Went Up 9. War Dance 10. Menace From The Deep 11. Branded 12. Man Hunt 13. No Spring

• JAG Season 3 | DVD | (09/02/2009) from £9.99   |  Saving you £15.00 (150.15%)   |  RRP £24.99

  The men and women of the Navy's Judge Advocate General (JAG) Corps are back for 24 more action-packed episodes in the third season of the long-running hit series JAG. Commander Harm Rabb (David James Elliot) and Major Mac MacKenzie (Catherine Bell) both find romance this season but also suffer heartache. And while they might take on Cuban terrorists they still manage to make it to the wedding between Bud (Patrick Labyorteaux) and Harriet (Karri Turner)! Co-starring John M. Jackson as Admiral A.J. Chegwidden JAG digs deep to portray the human side of the military experience and show the bravery of those who give all for their country!

• National Lampoon's Animal House (1979) | DVD | (04/02/2002) from £10.83   |  Saving you £5.16 (47.65%)   |  RRP £15.99

  A groundbreaking screwball caper, 1978's National Lampoon's Animal House was in its own way a rite of passage for Hollywood. Set in 1962 at Faber College, it follows the riotous carryings-on of the Delta Fraternity, into which are initiated freshmen Tom Hulce and Stephen Furst. Among the established house members are Tim Matheson, Peter Riegert and the late John Belushi as Bluto, a belching, lecherous, Jack Daniels guzzling maniac. A debauched house of pranksters (culminating in the famous Deathmobile sequence), Delta stands as a fun alternative to the more strait-laced, crew-cut, unpleasantly repressive norm personified by Omega House. As cowriter the late Doug Kenney puts it, "better to be an animal than a vegetable". Animal House is deliberately set in the pre-JFK assassination, pre-Vietnam era, something not made much of here, but which would have been implicitly understood by its American audience. The film was an enormous success, a rude, liberating catharsis for the latter-day frathousers who watched it. However, decades on, a lot of the humour seems broad, predictable, boorish, oafishly sexist and less witty than Airplane!, made two years later in the same anarchic spirit. Indeed, although it launched the Hollywood careers of several of its players and makers, including Kevin Bacon, director John Landis, Harold Ramis and Tom Hulce, who went on to do fine things, it might well have been inadvertently responsible for the infantilisation of much subsequent Hollywood comedy. Still, there's an undeniable energy that gusts throughout the film and Belushi, whether eating garbage or trying to reinvoke the spirit of America "After the Germans bombed Pearl Harbour" is a joy. On the DVD: Animal House comes to disc in a good transfer, presented in 1.85:1. The main extra is a featurette in which director John Landis, writer Chris Miller and some of the actors talk about the making of the movie. Interestingly, 23 years on, most of those interviewed look better than they did back in 1978, especially Stephen "Flounder" Furst. --David Stubbs

• Alien Quadrilogy | DVD | (08/12/2003) from £24.99   |  Saving you £35.00 (140.06%)   |  RRP £59.99

  The Alien Quadrilogy is a nine-disc box set devoted to the four Alien films. Although previously available on DVD as the Alien Legacy, here the films have been repackaged with vastly more extras and with upgraded sound and vision. For anyone who hasn't been in hypersleep for the last 25 years this series needs no introduction, though for the first time each film now comes in both original and "Special Edition" form. Alien (1979) was so perfect it didn't need fixing, and Ridley Scott's 2003 Director's Cut is fiddling for the sake of it. Watch once then return to the majestic, perfectly paced original. Conversely the Special Edition of James Cameron's Aliens (1986) is the definitive version, though it's nice finally to have the theatrical cut on DVD for comparison. Most interesting is the alternative Alien3 (1992). This isn't a "director's cut"--David Fincher refused to have any involvement with this release--but a 1991 work-print that runs 29 minutes longer than the theatrical version, and has now been restored, remastered and finished-off with (unfortunately) cheap new CGI. Still, it's truly fascinating, offering a different insight into a flawed masterpiece. The expanded opening is visually breathtaking, the central firestorm is much longer, and a subplot involving Paul McGann's character adds considerable depth to the story. The ending is also subtly but significantly different. Alien Resurrection (1997) was always a mess with a handful of brilliant scenes, and the Special Edition just makes it eight minutes longer. On the DVD: Alien Quadrilogy offers all films except Alien3 with DTS soundtracks, the latter having still fine Dolby Digital 5.1 presentation. All four films sound fantastic, with much low-level detail revealed for the first time. Each is anamorphically enhanced at the correct original aspect ratio, and the prints and transfers are superlative. Every film offers a commentary that lends insight into the creative process--though the Scott-only commentary and isolated music score from the first Alien DVD release are missing here--and there are subtitles for hard of hearing both for the films and the commentaries. Each movie is complemented by a separate disc packed with hours of seriously detailed documentaries (all presented at 4:3 with clips letterboxed), thousands of photos, production stills and storyboards, giving a level of inside information for the dedicated buff only surpassed by the Lord of the Rings extended DVD sets. A ninth DVD compiles miscellaneous material, including a Channel 4 hour-long documentary and even all the extras from the old Alien laserdisc. Exhaustive hardly beings to describe the Alien Quadrilogy, a set which establishes the new DVD benchmark for retrospective releases and which looks unlikely to be surpassed for some time. --Gary S Dalkin

• Mike Oldfield - Tubular Bells II / Tubular Bells III - Live | DVD | (01/01/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Side 1 - Tubular Bells II Recorded Live at Edinburgh Castle. Includes: Introduction Sentinel Dark Star Clear Light Blue Saloon Sunjammer Red Dawn The Bell Weightless The Great Plain Sunset Door tattoo Altered State Maya Gold Moonshine Reprise. Side 2 - Tubular Bells III Recorded Live at Horse Guards Parade London. Includes: Introduction The Source of the Secrets The Watchfull Eye Jewel In The Crown Outcast Serpent Dream The Inner Child Man In The Rain Th

• The Last Emperor | DVD | (25/10/1999) from £17.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Bernardo Bertolucci does the nearly impossible with this sweeping, grand epic that tells a very personal tale. The story is a dramatic history of Pu Yi, the last of the emperors of China. It follows his life from its elite beginnings in the Forbidden City, where he was crowned at age three and worshipped by half a billion people. He was later forced to abdicate and, unable to fend for himself in the outside world, became a dissolute and exploited shell of a man. He died in obscurity, living as a peasant in the People's Republic. We never really warm up to John Lone in the title role, but The Last Emperor focuses more on visuals than characterisation anyway. Filmed in the Forbidden City, it is spectacularly beautiful, filling the screen with saturated colours and exquisite detail. It won nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. --Rochelle O'Gorman

• Every Woman Has A Secret | DVD | (02/04/2007) from £5.38   |  Saving you £-1.39 (-34.80%)   |  RRP £3.99

  Heather is a young and very attractive attorney who is given the case of a lifetime when her firm's most prestigious client Harry Fletcher is charged with the murder of his wife Raquel. Harry is an extremely charming and handsome man but unfortunately all the evidence seems to point to him being the murderer. The only thing missing is the body. Heather cannot resist Harry's seductive charm and they engage in a torrid and passionate affair. Who says you shouldn't mix business and

• The Howling | DVD | (09/10/2017) from £9.70   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  An instant werewolf classic, The Howling was directed by Joe Dante, a graduate of Roger Corman's school of low-budget ingenuity who had gained enough momentum with 1978's Piranha to rise to this bigger challenge. He brought along Piranha screenwriter John Sayles, too, and recruited makeup wizard Rob Bottin to create what was then the wildest on-screen transformation ever seen. With Gary Brandner's novel The Howling as a starting point, Sayles and Dante conceived a werewolf colony on the California coast, posing as a self-help haven led by a seemingly benevolent doctor (Patrick Macnee), and populated by a variety of "patients", from sexy, leather-clad sirens (Elisabeth Brooks) to an old coot (John Carradine) who's quite literally long in the tooth. When a TV reporter (Dee Wallace) arrives at the colony to recover from a recent trauma, the resident lycanthropes prepare for a howlin' good time. Dante handles it all with equal measures of humour, sex, gore, and horror, pulling out all the stops when the ravenous Eddie (Dante favourite Robert Picardo, later known as The Doctor on Star Trek: Voyager) transforms into a towering , bloodthirsty werewolf. (Bottin's mentor Rick Baker would soon raise the make-up ante with An American Werewolf in London.) As usual in Dante's movies (qv. Gremlins), in-jokes abound, from characters named after werewolf movie directors, amusing cameos (Corman, Sayles, Forrest J Ackerman), and hammy inserts of wolfish cartoons and Allen Ginsberg's "Howl". It's best appreciated now as a quintessential example of early-80s horror, with low-budget limitations evident throughout, but The Howling remains a giddy genre milestone. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com

• Sliding Doors | DVD | (13/03/2006) from £8.99   |  Saving you £7.00 (77.86%)   |  RRP £15.99

  There are two sides to every story. Helen is about to live both of them... at the same time. Romance was never this much fun. The split-second moments that can take a life down one path instead of another form the tantalising 'what if?' in this delightful romantic comedy starring Gwyneth Paltrow. Paltrow plays London publicist Helen effortlessly sliding between parallel storylines that show what happens if she does or does not catch a morning train back to her apartment. Lo

• Daddy's Home: 2-Movie Collection | Blu Ray | (19/03/2018) from £7.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  (Daddy's Home) A mild-mannered radio executive strives to become the best stepdad to his wife's two children, but complications ensue when their freewheeling and freeloading real father arrives, forcing him to compete for the affection of the kids. (Daddy's Home 2) Father Dusty (Mark Wahlberg) and stepfather Brad's (Will Ferrell) newfound partnership is put to the test when Dusty's old-school, macho Dad (Mel Gibson) and Brad's gentle Dad (John Lithgow) arrive just in time to turn the holidays upside down.

• Thunderbirds: Volume 5 | DVD | (19/07/2004) from £9.21   |  Saving you £6.78 (73.62%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Filmed in VIDECOLOR [explosions, drum roll, music builds to a climax] and SUPERMARIONATION"! The opening sequence of Thunderbirds is itself a masterclass in Gerry Anderson's marionette hyperbole: who else would dare to make a virtue out of the fact that (a) the show is in colour and (b) it's got puppets in it? But everything about this series really is epic: Thunderbirds is action on the grandest scale, pre-dating such high-concept Hollywood vehicles as Armaggedon by 30 years and more (the acting is better, too), and fetishising gadgets in a way that even the most excessive Bond movies could never hope to rival. Unsurprisingly, it transpires that the visual effects are by Derek Meddings, whose later contributions to Bond movies like The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker echo his pioneering model work here.As to the characters, the clean-cut Tracey boys take second place in the audiences' affections to their cool machines--the real stars of the show--while comic relief is to be found in the charming company of Lady Penelope and her pink Rolls (number plate FAB1), driven by lugubrious chauffeur Parker, whose "Yes, milady" catch phrase resonated around school playgrounds for decades. (Spare a thought for poor old John Tracey, stuck up in space on Thunderbird 5 with only the radio for company.) The puppet stunt-work is breathtakingly audacious, and every week's death-defying escapade is nail-bitingly choreographed in the very best tradition of disaster movies. First shown in 1964 and now digitally remastered, Thunderbirds is children's TV that still looks and sounds like big-budget Hollywood.On this DVD: The four episodes are: "The Man from MI5", "Cry Wolf", "Danger at Ocean Deep" and "Move and You're Dead".

• My Hero Academia: Season Three Part Two Blu-ray | Blu Ray | (09/09/2019) from £11.98   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Deku and his fellow classmates take on the Provisional Hero License Exam in Season 3 Part 2.

• Goodnight Sweetheart - Series 3 | DVD | (23/01/2006) from £8.25   |  Saving you £11.74 (142.30%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Starring Nicholas Lyndhurst Goodnight Sweetheart became an instant hit with TV viewers of all ages as it charts the life of Gary Sparrow a dealer in memorabilia and antiques of WW2 who has miraculously discovered a portal in time which allows him to travel between the present and wartime Britain. This handy little trick obviously adds to the success of his business but the complications that it adds to Gary's love life are a different matter! Includes all ten episodes from the sitc

• Films at War 2 | DVD | (12/11/2018) from £12.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  CARVE HER NAME WITH PRIDE Following her recruitment by the SOE, Violette Szabo volunteers to be parachuted into occupied France to re-organise a shattered resistance group. She knows only too well that the life expectancy of an undercover operative can usually be measured in weeks and months... OLD BILL AND SON Old Bill has grumbled his way through the trenches of the First World War. Now it is the Second and he decides to enlist! When Young Bill goes missing during a raid, Old Bill shows that there's still life in the old dog yet! A TOWN LIKE ALICE Jean Paget, an English woman taken prisoner by the Japanese, is among a group of women and children forced to trek through Malaya during the Occupation. During her ordeal she meets captive Australian Joe Harman and there is an instant magnetism between them. THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY With the Battle of Britain at its height, a German fighter pilot is shot down over England. Though confined to a POW camp, captivity cannot deter him from the single aim of escaping back to his homeland. After several months, he sees his chance and takes it...

• Lego: Justice League - Gotham Unleashed | Blu Ray | (04/07/2016) from £9.97   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Batman faces his greatest challenge yet: vacation! The caped crusader reluctantly lets Batgirl and Nightwing take him on a long-overdue vacation from crime fighting while Superman and the Justice League watch over Gotham City. When Batgirl and Nightwing take Batman on a trip down memory lane -- literally -- to visit a key mentor from Batman's formative years, the Bat trio encounters old nemeses, and invaders from the center of the earth show Superman and the other Leaguers just how busy Batman is on a regular basis. It's a brick-tastic battle on two fronts as Batman, Batgirl and Nightwing take on Bane and Deathstroke while the Justice League -- with some help from a few Teen Titans -- fends off an assault by many of Batman's infamous adversaries and ensures Gotham City's safety.

• McLintock | DVD | (02/07/2007) from £5.98   |  Saving you £-2.99 (N/A%)   |  RRP £2.99

  He Tamed The West But Could He Tame Her? Cattle baron banker and model citizen George McLintock has the world in his hands. The only thing missing is his wife Katherine who left him two years earlier suspecting him of adultery. In an effort to get on with his life McLintock saves a beautiful but impoverished widow from resettlement and hires her as his cook welcoming both her and her two children into his home. Sparks begin to fly and McLintock's simple and serene lifestyle comes to a crashing halt as an unexpected turn of events results in brawls gunfire an Indian attack the engagement of his only daughter and the return of Mrs. McLintock!

• The Field | DVD | (03/12/2001) from £19.98   |  Saving you £-9.99 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Irish director Jim Sheridan made The Field after scoring an art house hit and Oscar nominations for his previous film, My Left Foot. Set in Ireland during the 1930s, this ambitious and hard-hitting drama is about one man's obsession with a plot of land that his family has tended for generations. The results are decidedly mixed, and it's obvious that this kind of tragic allegory is better suited for the stage (where it originated as a play by John B Keane). What makes the film worthwhile is the Oscar-nominated performance by Richard Harris as "Bull" McCabe, the fiercely stubborn man who's nurtured a prime field of rented land for decades, only to lose it when the owner auctions the land to an unwelcome American (Tom Berenger). Rather than sacrifice his life's work to this brazen invader, McCabe wages a personal war with powerfully tragic results. It's unfortunate that this potent drama never really connects on an emotional level, but Harris is never less than fascinating in a role that virtually seems to consume him as an actor. His performance approaches greatness, even when the film falls somewhat short of its dramatic ambitions. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com

• Swordfish | Blu Ray | (04/12/2006) from £12.39   |  Saving you £12.60 (101.69%)   |  RRP £24.99

  From the director of "Gone in 60 Seconds" comes an action/thriller with John Travolta as the world's most dangerous spy, Halle Berry as his voluptuous girlfriend, and Hugh Jackman as the hacker crucial to their plans to steal billions from the government.

• Treme - Season 1 (HBO) | DVD | (30/05/2011) from £5.55   |  Saving you £34.44 (620.54%)   |  RRP £39.99

  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