"Actor: John S"

• Later With Jools Holland - Later - Giants | DVD | (20/10/2003) from £20.23   |  Saving you £-0.24 (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Later... with Jools Holland--Giants is a collection of classic live performances from a decade of the late-night BBC music show. Everyone will have their favourites and, no doubt, differing opinions on what constitutes a musical "giant". What is indisputable here is the sheer volume and variety of artists and styles on offer. The 32 performers range from Pete Towshend to Blondie; Paul Weller to Willie Nelson; Leonard Cohen to Jeff Beck; Page and Plant to Ronnie Spector and the Divine Comedy. The acts vary in quality--Brian Ferry's posturing, staccato rendition of "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?" and Georgie Fame's futile, asthmatic efforts to keep up with the beat on "Yeh! Yeh!" are notable low points--but thankfully the few weaker moments are more than compensated for by tour de force performances from the likes of Al Green, REM, Tony Bennett, Dusty Springfield and George Benson. Your enjoyment will obviously depend on a desire to see these greats play, but where else are you going to get both Robbie Williams belting out an impromptu performance of "Suspicious Minds" and Solomon Burke singing "Cry to Me" from an enormous golden throne? On the DVD: Later... with Jools Holland--Giants comes with a desirable selection of interviews with 10 of the featured performers. Sadly, they are tantalisingly short--never longer than three minutes, some little more than a minute--and never stretch beyond Holland's stock questions or brief, if entertaining, anecdotes. Also included are: a "playlist" feature, which allows you to select six of your favourite tracks and play them in an order of your choice, normal track selection, subtitles and a credit list. --Paul Philpott

• The Office - An American Workplace - Season 6 | DVD | (30/01/2012) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £29.99

  Based on the British hit, this razor sharp Emmy-winning workplace comedy lays bare the lives of a handful of listless, young and middle-aged adults who toil in a paper supply company. As they discuss their respective personal lives, the gang shares daily concerns about layoffs, rivalries and promotions - and keeps a watchful eye on the inevitable office politics, common to us all. Emmy-nominee Steve Carell stars as regional manager Michael Scott, who believes he's the office funny-man and a fountain of business wisdom, although his staff may not agree. One of the most acclaimed series on television, The Office is a consistently hilarious and intelligently written comedy that can at times be as heartbreaking as it is laugh-inducing. The Office continues with its sixth season.

• Regan | DVD | (10/09/2012) from £13.38   |  Saving you £-0.39 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Before The Sweeney there was Regan. Rough, tough and politically incorrect in the way that only the best '70s dramas can be, Regan was a pilot film for The Sweeney - one of the major television successes of the last fifty years. Featuring John Thaw as the irascible Detective Inspector Regan and Dennis Waterman as his loyal 'oppo', Detective Sergeant Carter, Regan was an immediate critical and ratings hit, resulting in four series of The Sweeney and two successful feature films. For the first time ever, Regan has been remastered and restored in High Definition for this Blu-ray release and has never looked better. Jack Regan is a good copper, but his tough, intuitive style is becoming unfashionable in a Scotland Yard seeking a new image. When a policeman is mysteriously murdered, Regan breaks all the rules to find the killer - but he finds there are men in the Flying Squad prepared to break him.

• Picture Perfect | DVD | (19/07/2004) from £6.97   |  Saving you £6.02 (86.37%)   |  RRP £12.99

  As adorable as she is ambitious Kate is determined to turn her mid-level advertising job into an executive position - and equally determined to snare Sam the agency's ultra-suave Romeo who prefers illicit affairs with attached women. She achieves both goals by pretending she's getting married to Nick a man she met at a wedding and barely knows. But her carefully constructed fictional life comes face to face with reality when her boss wants to meet Nick sending Kate's personal and

• Robocop Trilogy | DVD | (04/02/2002) from £39.99   |  Saving you £-7.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £32.99

  Paul Verhoeven was almost unknown in Hollywood prior to the release of RoboCop in 1987. But after this ultra-violent yet strangely subversive and satirical sci-fi picture became a huge hit his reputation for extravagant and excessive, yet superbly well-crafted filmmaking was assured. Controversial as ever, Verhoeven saw the blue-collar cop (Peter Weller) who is transformed into an invincible cyborg as "an American Jesus with a gun", and so the film dabbles with death and resurrection imagery as well as mercilessly satirising Reagan-era America. No targets escape Verhoeven's unflinching camera eye, from yuppie excess and corporate backstabbing to rampant consumerism and vacuous media personalities. As with his later sci-fi satire Starship Troopers the extremely bloody violence resolutely remains on the same level as a Tom and Jerry cartoon. The inevitable sequel, competently directed by Irvin Kershner, thankfully continues to mine the dark vein of anti-consumerist satire while being reflexively aware that it is itself a shining example of that which it is lampooning. Sadly the third instalment in the series, now without Peter Weller in the title role, is exactly the kind of dumbed-down production-line flick that the corporate suits of OCP might have dreamed up at a marketing meeting. Its only virtue is a decent music score from regular Verhoeven collaborator Basil Poledouris, whose splendid march theme returned from the original score. On the DVD: Packaged in a fold-out slipcase these three discs make a very collectable set. All are presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic prints, although only the first movie has any extra material worth mentioning. Here the Director's Cut option allows the viewer to see Paul Verhoeven's more explicitly violent versions of Murphy's "assassination", ED-209's bloody malfunction and the shootout finale. These extended sequences are handily signposted in the scene selection menu, and the filming of them can be seen in a sequence of Director's Cut footage. Deleted scenes include "Topless Pizza" ("I'll buy that for a dollar!") and there are two contemporary "making of" featurettes plus a good, new half-hour retrospective. Both the latter and the director's commentary make abundantly clear the Reagan-era satire and are chock full of quotable lines from Verhoeven--"I wanted to show Satan killing Jesus"--and his producer--"Fascism for liberals". Stop-motion animator Phil Tippett gives a commentary on the storyboard-to-film comparisons, and there are the usual trailers and photos. Showing just how much the sequels are rated in comparison, the second and third discs have nothing but theatrical trailers and their sound is just Dolby 2.0 whereas the original movie has been remastered into Dolby 5.1.--Mark Walker

• Red Dwarf - Series XI | Blu Ray | (14/11/2016) from £13.85   |  Saving you £11.14 (80.43%)   |  RRP £24.99

  The Emmy-winning comedy returns for an 11th outing, with the original cast and a host of guest stars on board. The series sees two of the Dwarfers' dreams come true: Rimmer accidentally saves a Space Corp Captain and is promoted to Officer, while Cat takes time off from loving himself to fall in love with a female cat with a very big secret. Lister wakes up to discover a deranged droid has stolen his body parts and Kryten has a mid-life crisis and changes his body cover from grey to Ferrari red. With big laughs and dazzling effects, Red Dwarf XI continues on from the award-winning Red Dwarf X and recaptures the show's golden age.

• The Dirty Dozen | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £7.31   |  Saving you £6.68 (91.38%)   |  RRP £13.99

  A model for dozens of action films to follow, this box-office hit from 1967 refined a die-hard formula that has become overly familiar, but it's rarely been handled better than it was in this action-packed World War II thriller. Lee Marvin is perfectly cast as a down-but-not-out army major who is offered a shot at personal and professional redemption. If he can successfully train and discipline a squad of army rejects, misfits, killers, prisoners, and psychopaths into a first-rate unit of specialised soldiers, they'll earn a second chance to make up for their woeful misdeeds. Of course, there's a catch: to obtain their pardons, Marvin's band of badmen must agree to a suicide mission that will parachute them into the danger zone of Nazi-occupied France. It's a hazardous path to glory, but the men have no other choice than to accept and regain their lost honor. What makes The Dirty Dozen special is its phenomenal cast including Charles Bronson, Donald Sutherland, Telly Savalas, George Kennedy, Ernest Borgnine, John Cassavetes, Richard Jaeckel, Jim Brown, Clint Walker, Trini Lopez, Robert Ryan, and others. Cassavetes is the Oscar-nominated standout as one of Marvin's most rebellious yet heroic men, but it's the whole ensemble--combined with the hard-as-nails direction of Robert Aldrich--that makes this such a high-velocity crowd pleaser. The script by Nunnally Johnson and Lukas Heller (from the novel by E.M. Nathanson) is strong enough to support the all-star lineup with ample humour and military grit, so if you're in need of a mainline jolt of testosterone, The Dirty Dozen is the movie for you. --Jeff Shannon

• Platoon | DVD | (10/09/2001) from £5.83   |  Saving you £14.16 (242.88%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Winning a raft of awards, not least of which four Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director, Oliver Stone's Platoon was a box-office smash heralding Hollywood's second wave of Vietnam war films. Where predecessors The Deer Hunter (1978) and Apocalypse Now (1979) were elaborate epics, Platoon simply showed the daily reality of the war from the point of view of ordinary soldiers. Stone's own service in Vietnam gives his work a unique authenticity. Charlie Sheen gives his best performance to date, enduring a series of increasingly large-scale and bloody battles which retrospectively make one wonder why Saving Private Ryan was hailed as so new. Against this gruelling verity the film falters over the symbolic conflict between good and evil sergeants played by Willem Dafoe and Tom Berenger. Even though this was also based in real life, it strikes a too conventionally Hollywood-like note in a film which otherwise maintains much of the raw power of Stone's other film from 1986, Salvador. Johnny Depp fans should look out for an early appearance by the star. Stone would return to Vietnam with the more sophisticated Born on the Fourth of July (1989) and Heaven and Earth (1993). On the DVD: The 50-minute documentary "Tour of the Inferno" goes beyond the usual "making-of" to present a personal account both of the film and of Stone's own time in Vietnam. Likewise the two audio commentaries--one by Stone, the other by Captain Dale Dye, fellow veteran and military technical advisor--range between the making of the film and the degree to which the actors came to inhabit their parts, to their own wartime experiences. Both commentaries bring a fresh level of appreciation and understanding to the film. Also included is the original trailer and three TV commercials, together with well-presented stills galleries of behind-the-scenes photos and poster art. Following a credit sequence marred by dirt on the print, the anamorphically enhanced 1.77:1 image is sharp and clear. The many night scenes are very dark but remain easily comprehensible. The three-channel Dolby Digital sound is suitably raw and powerful, though an early sequence featuring rain in the jungle suffers from very distracting repeated drop-outs in the left channel. --Gary S Dalkin

• Next Friday | DVD | (25/09/2000) from £8.88   |  Saving you £11.11 (125.11%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Written by and starring Ice Cube, this sequel to his 1995 smash Friday is an engaging farce that plays on the ludicrous charm of the original. It's Next Friday and Craig Jones (Ice Cube) has to pay the consequences for despatching Debo, the neighbourhood bully, to jail at the close of the first film. Hearing a rumour that Debo is to break out of the pen, Craig's father decides it would be safer if he holed up at his cousin Day-Day's house in the 'burbs. But as Craig finds out, this is one suburb that is filled with as much drama as the ghetto. Craig's Uncle Elroy is a layabout lottery winner with a sexually voracious young wife who has designs on her nephew. Day-day (Mike Epps) is being stalked for child support by a pregnant former girlfriend and lives in fear of his boss Pinky, a former pimp who runs a record store. His neighbours, a trio of pumped-up Chicano gangsters, are out for his blood after Craig is caught flirting with their sister Karla, and to top everything, Elroy's house is due to be repossessed in 24 hours due to tax violation. The ensuing hilarity centres around Craig's attempts to raise the necessary funds by fair means or foul. Much to Ice Cube's credit, this silly and scabrous comedy is laugh-out-loud funny without lapsing into American Pie-style frat-boy humour. On the DVD: The main feature is presented in 16:9 anamorphic format in an immaculate print with the choice of either Dolby Digital 2.0 or 5.1 sound and optional English subtitles. Among the special features is an alternate ending which features several small dialogue changes and a re-appearance by Cube's love interest Karla that provides a more satisfying conclusion than the actual ending to the film, which has been left intentionally open for a possible sequel, Friday After Next. Music videos by Ice Cube ("You Can Do It") and Lil' Zane ("Money Stretch") seem to have been included as an incentive to buy the all-star rap soundtrack. Additional features include a theatrical trailer and cast and crew filmographies. The "making-of" featurette advertised on the sleeve does not app ear anywhere on the disc. --Chris Campion

• Time Bandits | DVD | (12/10/2015) from £7.99   |  Saving you £9.00 (150.25%)   |  RRP £14.99

  From a script cowritten with his fellow Monty Python veteran Michael Palin, Terry Gilliam pulled out all the stops on his prodigious imagination for this comedy-fantasy from 1981. Film critic Pauline Kael was right when she wrote, "This may be one of those rare pictures that suffers from a surfeit of good ideas," because there's not enough plot to keep pace with the sheer inventiveness of Gilliam's filmmaking. That hasn't stopped Time Bandits from becoming a classic, of sorts, attracting a cult following as a semi-reunion of the Python gang (with Palin and John Cleese making splendid appearances) and a rousing adventure of near-epic proportions. It's about a kid named Kevin (Craig Warnock) who joins a band of mischievous dwarves on a jaunt through various eras and epochs. They've stolen a map to holes in the space-time continuum that belongs to the Supreme Being (suitably played by Sir Ralph Richardson), and as Kevin survives a variety of heroic adventures, including an encounter with King Agamemnon (Sean Connery) and an Evil Genius (David Warner) who pursues the coveted map using his nefarious magical powers. As a warm-up for Gilliam's later, even more ambitious fantasies, Brazil and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, this is a dazzling dose of cinematic whimsy, and Gilliam doesn't compromise the darkness of his tale with an artificially upbeat ending. There's as much menace in Time Bandits as there is an awesome sense of wonder, and that gives the movie an extra kick of timeless appeal. --Jeff Shannon

• The Frankie Howerd Collection | DVD | (16/10/2006) from £14.99   |  Saving you £15.00 (100.07%)   |  RRP £29.99

  Featuring four of the comic's great shows Up Pompeii Further Up Pompeii Then Churchill Said To Me and The Best Of Frankie Howerd; which includes sketches from An Evening With Frankie Howerd and the Royal Variety Performances and chatshow appearances on Parkinson and Wogan.

• The Conversation | Blu Ray | (18/11/2024) from £18.10   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Francis Ford Coppola's 1974 seminal neo-noir thriller THE CONVERSATION symbolises the uneasy line between technology and privacy a topic more relevant than ever today. Nominated for 3 Academy Awards® and winner of the prestigious 1974 Cannes Film Festival Palme D'or THE CONVERSATION is a tense, paranoid thriller, regarded as one of Coppola's greatest films. Harry Caul (Gene Hackman) is an expert surveillance expert in San Francisco. His routine wiretapping job turns into a nightmare when he hears something disturbing in his recording of a couple; he may have captured something a lot more important than adulterous goings-on. His investigation of the tape and how it might be used sends Harry spiralling into a web of secrecy, murder and paranoia. THE CONVERSATION is a harrowing psychological thriller that co-stars Cindy Williams, Frederic Forrest and Harrison Ford.

• The Walking Dead Season 1-8 | DVD | (29/10/2018) from £45.79   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  After Rick Grimes wakes up from a coma to discover the world has been ravaged by a zombie apocalypse, he leads a group of survivors as they attempt to sustain and protect themselves, not only against attacks by walkers but by other groups willing to ensure their survival by any means necessary. Based on one of the most successful and popular comic books of all time, written by Robert Kirkman, The Walking Dead vividly captures the tension, drama and devastation following a zombie apocalypse.

• Chicago (Special Edition) | DVD | (12/09/2005) from £5.99   |  Saving you £12.00 (200.33%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Rene Zellweger, Catherine Zeta Jones and Richard Gere star in the big screen version of the hit musical about a nighclub star who finds herself on Chicago's death row and recruits the town's slickest lawyer.

• El Cid | DVD | (16/05/2011) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Sumptuous in every way, visually magnificent, with grandiose sets, panoramic Spanish vistas and intricately detailed costumes, possessor of one of cinema's greatest music scores, boasting vast and astonishingly kinetic battles, and breathing heroic virtue in every scene, El Cid is the very epitome of epic. For this reworking of the medieval legend of the Cid (Arabic for "Lord") who united warring factions and saved 11th-century Spain from invasion, producer Samuel Bronston and director Anthony Mann insisted every set had to be created from scratch, every costume specially made for this movie alone; they also shot entirely on location in La Mancha and along the Mediterranean coast of Spain to enhance the film's authenticity. The cinematography is saturated with the burnished hues of the Spanish landscape, as are the palatial sets and rich costumes; Miklos Rozsa's resplendent score is also the result of painstaking research into medieval Spanish sources. The screenplay is imbued with knightly gravitas and more than a little salvation imagery, from the opening scene of the young Rodrigo rescuing a cross from a burning church, to the movie's indelible finale as The Cid rides "out of the gates of history into legend". Charlton Heston is at his most indomitable as Rodrigo, "The Cid", a natural leader of men and the embodiment of every manly virtue (note that he fathers twins--a sure token of his virility); Sophie Loren is ravishing as Chimene, the woman whose love for Rodrigo conflicts with her filial instincts after he kills her father, the king's champion, over a point of honour. Their scenes together create a humane warmth at the heart of this vast movie: the moment when Chimene finally declares her love (beneath a shrine of three crosses--more symbolism) to the exiled Rodrigo forms a pivotal and very intimate centrepiece. Shortly thereafter he must rise from their rural marriage bed to lead his followers into battle, and the tension between his public and private lives adds a piquancy to the film's stunning battle sequences. The international supporting cast sometimes look like makeweights, especially when chewing on the occasionally stilted dialogue, but any such faults are easily forgiven as the scale and spectacle of El Cid carries the viewer away on a tide of chivalry. --Mark Walker

• Die Another Day | Blu Ray | (20/10/2008) from £19.93   |  Saving you £0.05 (0.25%)   |  RRP £19.98

  Pierce Brosnan returns as James Bond, who comes up against a North Korean Generan, who gets his hands on a device that lets him change his facial features. Bond must travel to Iceland to unmask the traitor and prevent a war of catastrophic consequence.

• Contact | DVD | (25/09/1998) from £7.19   |  Saving you £6.80 (94.58%)   |  RRP £13.99

  The opening and closing moments of Robert (Forrest Gump) Zemeckis's Contact astonish viewers with the sort of breathtaking conceptual imagery one hardly ever sees in movies these day--each is an expression of the heroine's lifelong quest (both spiritual and scientific) to explore the meaning of human existence through contact with extraterrestrial life. The movie begins by soaring far out into space, then returns dizzyingly to earth until all the stars in the heavens condense into the sparkle in one little girl's eye. It ends with that same girl as an adult (Jodie Foster)--her search having taken her to places beyond her imagination--turning her gaze inward and seeing the universe in a handful of sand. Contact traces the journey between those two visual epiphanies. Based on Carl Sagan's novel, Contact is exceptionally thoughtful and provocative for a big-budget Hollywood science fiction picture, with elements that recall everything from 2001 to The Right Stuff. Foster's solid performance (and some really incredible alien hardware) keep viewers interested, even when the story skips and meanders, or when the halo around the golden locks of rising-star-of-a-different-kind Matthew McConaughey (as the pure-Hollywood-hokum love interest)reaches Milky Way-level wattage. Ambitious, ambiguous, pretentious, unpredictable--Contact is all of these things and more. Much of it remains open to speculation and interpretation but whatever conclusions one eventually draws, Contactdeserves recognition as a rare piece of big-budget studio film making on a personal scale. --Jim Emerson

• Unforgiven | DVD | (02/02/2009) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Unforgiven is the story of Ruth Slater (Suranne Jones) a woman released from prison on license after serving 15 years for the murder of two policemen. Ruth has spent half of her life imprisoned and now faces the daunting prospect of rebuilding her life whilst being irresistibly drawn to the place that haunts her Upper Hanging Stones Farm. In spite of trying to focus on the future and her new boyfriend Brad (Will Mellor) Ruth is unable to forget her past and the sister Katie who she was forced to leave behind. Outraged to hear that the woman who killed their father has been released Kieran (Jack Deam) and Steve Whelan (Matthew McNulty) are eager to seek revenge. Believing that life should mean life the two brothers decide to take the law into their own hands. But just how far are they capable of going? Can they really do to her what she did to their father? As the details about Ruth's past become known maintaining a job friendship and a relationship become increasingly arduous. Ruth soon realises that the ramifications of her release spread further than she could have imagined with far reaching implications for everyone involved. Unforgiven also stars Peter Davison and Siobhan Finneran as John and Izzie Ingram who now live at Upper Hanging Stones Farm; Faye McKeever as Steve's wife Hannah and Douglas Hodge and Jemma Redgrave as Michael and Rachel Belcombe the adoptive parents of Emily (Flora Spencer-Longhurst) and Ruth's sister Katie who they have renamed Lucy (Emily Beecham).

• Dog Day Afternoon | DVD | (13/02/2006) from £10.78   |  Saving you £-0.79 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  A gripping true crime yarn, a juicy slice of overheated New York atmosphere and a splendid showcase for its young actors, Dog Day Afternoon is a minor classic of the 1970s. The opening montage of New York street life (set to Elton John's lazy "Amoreena") establishes the oppressive mood of a scorching afternoon in the city with such immediacy that you can almost smell the garbage baking in the sun and the water from the hydrants evaporating from the sizzling pavement. Al Pacino plays Sonny, who, along with his rather slow-witted accomplice Sal (John Cazale, familiar as Pacino's Godfather brother Fredo), holds hostages after a botched a bank robbery. Sonny finds himself transformed into a rebel celebrity when his standoff with police (including lead negotiator Charles Durning) is covered live on local television. The movie doesn't appear to be about anything in particular, but it really conveys the feel of wild and unpredictable events unfolding before your eyes, and the whole picture is so convincing and involving that you're glued to the screen. An Oscar winner for original screenplay, Dog Day Afternoon was also nominated for best picture, actor, supporting actor (Chris Sarandon, as a surprise figure from Sonny's past), editing, and director (Sidney Lumet of Serpico, Prince of the City, The Verdict and Running on Empty). --Jim Emerson

• Deadwood: Seasons 1-3 | Blu Ray | (02/03/2015) from £29.99   |  Saving you £-2.50 (N/A%)   |  RRP £27.49

  Season 1 1876. The Black Hills Indian Cession, two weeks after Custer's last stand. Witness the birth of an American frontier townand the ruthless power struggle between its just and unjust pioneers. In an age of plunder and greed, the richest gold strike in American history draws a mob of restless misfits to an outlaw set tlement where everything and everyone has a price. The settlers, ranging from an ex-lawman to a scheming saloon owner to the legendary Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane, share a constant restlessness of spirit, and survive by any means necessary. W elcome to Deadwood... a hell of a place to make your fortune. Season 2 1877. A new day is dawning in the Black Hills outlaw camp of Deadwood. F or better or worse, times are changing, and the transformation from camp to town is imminent. Unsavoury new arrivals looking to cash in on the lucrative anarchy and a government of outsiders usher in an era of hard decisions and brutal power struggles among the camp's founders. Seth Bullock is the new Sheriff and forced to stand his ground against two conniving brothel owners: cutthroat Al Swearengen, and his chief rival, the cunning Cy T olliver. The women of Deadwood prove their mettle as Calamity Jane, Alma Garret, T rixie and Joanie stake their claim in this dangerous town of scheming misfits, all learning the hard way fortune comes with a price Season 3 The lawless era in Deadwood is coming to an end. As the town's first elections approach, it becomes apparent that, like it or not, civilisation is on its way. But a civilised town is not necessarily a peaceful town, and the power struggles that determine the fate of Deadwood have never been more brutal. A ruthless newcomer, businessman George Hearst, threatens to reshape the town in his own image, forcing Deadwood's settlers including the steadfast lawman Seth Bullock and the cutthroat saloon owner Al Swearengen to form strategic alliances if they expect to thrive, and survive. While bloody conflicts change the face and fate of the town, the citizens of Deadwood come to the harsh realisation... some fortunes are better left unclaimed.