"Actor: Magee"

• Peter Cushing - Deluxe Collection (4 Dvds) | DVD | (24/11/2023) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Horror Triple | DVD | (20/10/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £30.99

  A box set of three spine tingling horror tales: Masque Of The Red Death: As a deadly plague ravages Europe sadistic Prince Prospero hosts a lavish banquet for noble devil-worshippers in the sanctuary of his castle. But in the midst of their cruelly wanton revelry there is an uninvited masked guest; Death! Night Of The Eagle: Norman Taylor is hated by other university lecturers when rumours of a major promotion circulate. Hated so much in fact that someone pervades his life with sinister occult spells... Zoltan Hound Of Dracula: In the event of a bizarre find a group of Russian soldiers bring back to life the Dog of Dracula. The evil hound then travels to Los Angeles where the last descendants of the deadly clan still survive...

• Butterfly Man | DVD | (15/12/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Adventure / romance about an English backpacker whose world falls apart when he meets and falls in love with a beautiful girl on an exotic Thai island.... 'Butterfly Man' is an endearing island term for someone who 'goes from lady to lady to lady'. So when Adam meets and falls in love with Em 'the girl of his dreams' and then screws up he has to confront who he is and what he really wants from her. Beyond the sun sea and sand charismatic characters and fascinating cultural d

• Stealing Harvard | DVD | (22/09/2003) from £5.42   |  Saving you £15.83 (380.53%)   |  RRP £19.99

  A middle-class man turns to a life of crime in order to finance his niece's first year at Harvard University.

• Dementia 13 | DVD | (08/09/2003) from £3.99   |  Saving you £1.00 (20.00%)   |  RRP £4.99

  John Haloran dies from a heart attack leaving his wife Louise with something of a problem; she won't get to inherit any of the Haloran family money when Lady Haloran dies if John is already dead. So Louise forges a letter from John in order to convince the rest of his family that he has been called away urgently on business to New York whilst she journeys to the ghostly ancestral home in Ireland. It is her intention to ingratiate herself into the family and ensure a cut of the inheri

• Mozart: Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro) -- Berlin/Barenboim | DVD | (05/04/2000) from £22.97   |  Saving you £2.02 (8.10%)   |  RRP £24.99

  A massive success from its premiere on May 3, 1786, Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro ("The Marriage of Figaro") downplays the social satire in Beaumarchais' original tale of romantic intrigue and revenge between the classes, instead emphasising the psychological dimensions. Here in a live production from the Staatsoper, Berlin, director Alexandre Tarta employs simple sets, focusing all attention on a very fine cast as they spin-out the farcical ironies. The result is one of the most acclaimed interpretations of recent years, with soprano Dorethea Röschmann reprising her star-making 1995 Salzburg debut as the sensual and flirtatious Susanna. Rene Papé makes a fine Figaro, and there are no weak links, with not just the singing but the performances uniformly excellent. The humour on show makes the sorrow all the more genuinely affecting. Of course Mozart's music is marvellous, packed with great arias and duets, and under Daniel Barenboim the State Opera Choir Berlin "Staatskapelle Berlin" are on splendid form.On the DVD: With the opera lasting 190 minutes the only other feature on the disc is a plot synopsis. However, the subtitles can be switched on or off. The booklet also provides a synopsis, together with some background on the opera and the performers. Filming a live production with theatre lights is never going to result in the most detailed images, and under these circumstances the anamorphically enhanced picture fares well, being far superior to VHS. The Dolby Digital 5.1 sound is realistic, detailed and absorbing without ever being unnecessarily showy. --Gary S. Dalkin

• Galileo | DVD | (20/09/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  This film is about Galileo the 17th century Italian who laid the foundations for modern science. He made one of the world's first telescopes and discovered the moons of Jupiter he also supported Copernicus' theory that the Earth revolved around the Sun and suffered persecution at the hands of the Inquisition...

• The Calling | DVD | (01/09/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  A Satanic thriller in the vein of 'Rosemary's Baby' 'The Calling' tells the chilling story of a human woman who realizes that the child she gave birth to during a strange dreamlike event is actually the child of Satan. Put on earth in order to wreak havoc and bring the evil of her father to the world this seemingly cute young boy is actually a vessel for the greatest darkness in the world!

• Dementia 13 | DVD | (27/03/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Francis Ford Coppola's feature debut co-written with blaxploitation legend Jack Hill (Coffy) and produced by the grand-master of independent cinema Roger Corman. The Haloran family gather at a sinister Irish castle to memorialize the death of the youngest sister Kathleen. While various family members plot and connive an axe-murderer is terrorizing the grounds and Kathleen's body shows up at just the wrong time. Slowly the family members become increasingly suspicious o

• Mozart - Da Ponte Box Set (Metzmacher) | DVD | (02/06/2008) from £6.79   |  Saving you £32.20 (474.23%)   |  RRP £38.99

  Cosi Fan Tutti/La Nozze Di Figaro/Don Giovanni

• Tchaikovsky: Pique Dame | Blu Ray | (31/05/2011) from £25.65   |  Saving you £4.34 (16.92%)   |  RRP £29.99

  Pique Dame

• The Roger Corman Horror Collection | DVD | (03/02/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Siren DVD's three-disc Roger Corman Collection contains The Little Shop of Horrors and The Terror, which Corman directed, as well as Dementia 13, which he produced. Though he has a reputation as one of the craftiest businessmen in Hollywood, Corman was too cheapskate in the 1960s to bother copyrighting a bunch of his films and so the same titles have been showing up on video and now DVD from many different distributors. All these films were thrown together in odd circumstances to take advantage of leftover sets, contracted performers or tied-up production funds. Little Shop of Horrors (a disguised remake of A Bucket of Blood) was famously made over a three-day weekend "because it was raining and we couldn't play tennis". The Terror exists because Boris Karloff owed a few days' work after completing The Raven and castle sets were still standing. Dementia 13 was written and directed by a young Francis Coppola in Ireland to take advantage of a European trip made for Corman's The Young Racers. All the films are interesting, in themselves and as footnotes to distinguished filmographies. Little Shop of Horrors has a lasting cult reputation for its blackly comic tale of codependency between a skid-row botanist (Jonathan Haze, relying a bit too much on a Jerry Lewis impersonation) and a blood-drinking, flesh-hungry mutant plant voiced by screenwriter Chuck Griffith ("feed meeee!"), with a creepy cameo from a young Jack Nicholson as a masochist who loves to visit the dentist. The Terror, which has Nicholson as the bewildered lead, is a wilfully incomprehensible Gothic picture made up on the spot by Corman and a handful of other directors (including Coppola and Monte Hellman), climaxing with Karloff's bogus baron and a decaying spectre woman swept away by a flood in the dungeons. Dementia 13, a saga of axe murders and mad sculptors, is brisk grand guignol with a lot of creepy imagery to do with drowned children and family rituals. On the DVD: The Roger Corman Collection limply claims the films are "digitally mastered" (note, not "remastered") as they are simply copies of low-quality video onto disc. Because these titles are public domain no one seems willing to take any care with transfers, and all three films are in terrible state. The Terror, the only colour film, looks especially atrocious (Vistascope cropped to full-frame) but the black-and-white films also suffer all manner of damage. The packaging is classy, but it's a shame more work wasn't done on the films themselves.--Kim Newman

• Strauss: Ariadne Auf Naxos | Blu Ray | (03/06/2013) from £32.38   |  Saving you £-2.39 (-8.00%)   |  RRP £29.99

  ARTH 108045; ARTHAUS MUSIK - Germania; Classica Lirica

• Strauss: Arabella (2012 Vienna State) (Emily Magee/ Genia Kuhmeier/ Tomasz Konieczny/ Orchestra of the Vienna State Opera/ Franz Welser-Möst/ Sven-Eric Bechtolf) (Electric Picture: EPC04BD) | Blu Ray | (15/10/2012) from £32.30   |  Saving you £-2.31 (N/A%)   |  RRP £29.99

• Zulu: Paramount Centenary Edition (Steelbook) (Blu | Blu Ray | (14/05/2013) from £21.98   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Zulu is one of the great movies, an epic adventure of courage in the face of incredible odds. Based on a true story, it tells the amazing tale of 100 British soldiers who stood fast against an overwhelming force of 4,000 of the Zulu nation's mightiest warriors in the defence of Rorkes Drift in 1879.Set amongst the stunning South African scenery, Zulu is a landmark action film and a fitting tribute to some of the most magnificent acts of heroism in the history of warfare. Michael Caine's role as the arrogant but courageous Lt. Bromhead brought him international fame, and there are powerful performances from other great British actors including Stanley Baker and Jack Hawkins.

• Clockwork Orange (Deluxe Box) | DVD | (12/08/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £39.99

  Stomping whomping stealing singing tap-dancing violating. Derby-topped teddy-boy hooligan Alex has his own way of having a good time. He has it at the tragic expense of others. Alex's journey from amoral punk to brainwashed proper citizen forms the dynamic arc of Stanley Kubrick's future-shock vision of Anthony Burgess' novel. Unforgettable images startling musical counterpoints the fascinating language used by Alex and his pals - Kubrick shapes them into a shattering whole. Hugely controversial when first released A Clockwork Orange won the New York Film Critics Best Picture and Director honors and earned four Academy Award nominations including best picture. The power of its art is such that it still entices shocks and holds us in its grasp.

• Chariots Of Fire (Special Edition) | DVD | (08/02/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  'The British Are Coming!' Britain's finest athletes have begun their quest for glory in the 1924 Olympic Games. Success brings honour to their nation. For two runners, the honour at stake is personal... and their challenge one from within. Winner of four 1981 Academy Awards including Best Picture, 'Chariots Of Fire' is the inspiring, true story of Harold Abrahams, Eric Liddell and the team that brought Britain one of its greatest sports victories. Ben Cross, Ian Charleson, Nigel...

• Black Cat | DVD | (22/10/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Gore guru Lucio Fulci the director behind such films as the entrail ridden 'Zombie Flesh Eaters' and the seriously nasty 'New York Ripper' gets to grips with gothic horror writer Edgar Allan Poe in this gruesome adaptation of his classic story. A detective arrives to investigate a series of grisly murders and finds a few tell-tale paw prints here and there. Patrick Magee stars in one of his last roles as the moggy mastermind.

• Dementia 13 | DVD | (15/08/2013) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  'Dementia 13' will delight all fans who thrive on classics such as 'Night Of The Living Dead' and 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' with the plot revolves around a seemingly benign member of a family who is the mad axe-murderer and is steadily picking off the rest of the relations... 'Dementia 13' is guaranteed to make you double lock all your doors at night!

• Verdi: Otello -- Berlin Staatskapelle/Barenboim | DVD | (15/11/2002) from £13.40   |  Saving you £11.59 (86.49%)   |  RRP £24.99

  One of the chief pleasures of this live production of Otello from the Berlin Staatsoper Unter den Linden is Daniel Barenboim's conducting. From the opening gale-force blast of storm music, through the crunching and stabbing accompaniment of Iago's "Credo" to the shimmering strings of Desdemona's "Willow Song", he doesn't miss a trick. Everything works at the highest pitch of intensity and the orchestra sticks to his beat like glue. It's a necessary compensation for the shortcomings of the staging: the stolid chorus remains unperturbed by the storm and is directed to perform with unison movements; the acting (apart from Valeri Alexejev) is non-committal, and Alexandre Tarta's video direction somewhat flat-footed. She doesn't manage to make much small-screen sense of an impenetrably murky opening scene, for example, and doesn't seem fond of reaction shots. That said, Christian Franz and Emily Magee both have large-scale voices that they know how to shade into mo! ments of intimacy, and George Tsypin's sets are impressive: the murder of Desdemona is set against a brilliant lake of fire. On the DVD: Otello is presented in 1.78:1 ratio with PCM Stereo and Dolby Digital 5.1 sound options. The picture quality is clear, although much of the lighting of this live production is low-level and thus many details do not come over well. Nor does the stage microphone system avoid some muffling of sound. There are subtitles in Italian, English, German, French and Spanish. --Warwick Thompson