"Actor: Maria"

• My Brother is a Dog | DVD | (12/09/2011) from £3.99   |  Saving you £9.00 (69.30%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Lighthearted German drama about a ten-year-old girl whose wish for a pet dog leads to havoc within the family. Marietta (Maria Erich) wants nothing more in the world than a pet dog, but her parents keep refusing. Little wonder when she receives a magical stone for her birthday she retreats to her room and wishes upon that stone her desire to have a dog. To her delight and amazement the wish is granted and she is soon playing with friendly schnauzer Tobi, but there is a catch. Marietta's four-year-old brother Tobias (Hans-Laurin Beyerling) has disappeared and her new dog shares certain physical characteristics with Tobias which convinces her that her brother has been transformed. Will Marietta be able to get her human brother back? And will little Tobias even want to come back to the human world after his adventures as a canine?

• Monteverdi: L'Incoronazione di Poppea -- Glyndebourne | DVD | (26/04/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Peter Hall's lavishly staged L'Incoronazione di Poppea celebrated the 50th Anniversary of Glyndebourne in 1984 with a performance of Monteverdi's most celebrated and also most controversial opera. The score is conductor Raymond Leppard's "enhanced" edition, which he had premiered at Glyndebourne back in 1962, fully scored for a large orchestra. Much debate circles around the forces appropriate for performing Monteverdi's decidedly minimalist work, but one thing at least is certain: it didn't sound anything like this in the 17th century! Never mind, however inauthentic it may be, Leppard's big and beefy orchestral updating--including a fulsome continuo group with pairs of harpsichords, organs and cellos, as well as lute, guitar and harp--supports the weighty melodrama nicely. The singers, too, are full-bodied, led by a fruity Maria Ewing as Poppea (in various revealing outfits) sounding suitably seductive, and Dennis Bailey, oddly lovely of voice as Nero (one of the opera's controversial aspects is the heroic central role accorded to these two thoroughly wicked characters). Perhaps best of all is Robert Lloyd as Seneca, who not only boasts a profound, reverberant bass, but also looks the part under beard and toga. With an onstage chorus to lament him, Seneca's death scene is the most moving in the opera. Peter Hall's clever staging keeps the Olympians--Love, Fortune and Virtue--permanently watching from above as the venal humans below act out this tragedy of poisoned love. The no-frills DVD has subtitles in English, French, German and Spanish. --Mark Walker

• Last Tango in Paris | Blu Ray | (16/04/2012) from £9.59   |  Saving you £0.40 (4.17%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Brace yourself for the uncut, uncensored version of the most controversial film of its era. As scandalous as it scintillating, Bernardo Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris still resonates as a landmark in cinematic history, featuring an Oscar- Nominated performance by Marlon Brando that ranks among the best of his career. He (Brando) is a 45-year-old American living in Paris, haunted by his wife's suicide. She (Maria Schneider) is a 20-year-old Parisian beauty engaged to a young filmmaker. Though nameless to each other, these tortured souls come together to satisfy their sexual cravings in an apartment as bare as their dark, tragic lives.

• Face Of An Angel | DVD | (07/06/2004) from £7.42   |  Saving you £-1.43 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  She was everything America wanted a movie star to be...except white Actress dancer singer. Here was a woman with talent beauty and ambition. Dorothy Dandridge owed it to herself to make it to the top. And make it she would. An acclaimed stage performer Dorothy still struggled with the challenge of her color in a time that wouldn't let some stars in by the front door. Yet against the odds she beat out many more famous rivals for the role of Carmen Jones becoming the first black woman ever nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award. Marriages and affairs would break her heart but her heart was strong. Seductive and easily seduced she was born to be a star - with all the glory and all the pain of being loved abused cheated glorified undermined and undefeated. Here was a woman who wouldn't wait in the wings. Halle Berry stars as Dorothy Dandrige.

• The Sect | Blu Ray | (27/12/2016) from £19.98   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Michele Soavi directs this '70s Italian horror. In Frankfurt, schoolteacher Miriam Kreisl (Kelly Leigh Curtis) is inducted into the Sect of the Faceless Ones, seduced by the charisma of its leader Moebius Kelly (Herbert Lom), and faces a series of terrifying ceremonies and ritualistic killings. After nearly running over the old man and innocently offering him a place to stay, Miriam has no idea what the satanic cult has lying in store for her...

• Cavalli - La Calisto | DVD | (30/10/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £22.99

• History Of Violence | Blu Ray | (09/05/2018) from £9.99   |  Saving you £5.00 (50.05%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Viggo Mortensen stars in this stylized thriller from director David Cronenberg.

• The Girl from Rio | DVD | (21/01/2013) from £20.00   |  Saving you £-7.01 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

• Tancredi | DVD | (01/08/2005) from £6.30   |  Saving you £19.95 (395.83%)   |  RRP £24.99

• Mad Dogs - Series 1 and 2 | DVD | (12/03/2012) from £5.64   |  Saving you £22.35 (396.28%)   |  RRP £27.99

  Series One Four friends, Woody (Max Beesley), Quinn (Philip Glenister), Baxter (John Simm), and Rick (Marc Warren) arrive in Majorca to visit their old mate Alvo, who is now a wealthy property tycoon enjoying the trappings of an ex-pat lifestyle. One by one Alvo asks his friends what they've done with their lives, whether they're truly happy, wouldn't they rather live like him? The hedonistic mood of the friends soon turns sour when they realise Alvo isn't quite the man they thought he was. The luxury yacht they have borrowed turns out to be stolen; Alvo has dragged them into something dangerous. When murder is committed they realise their nightmare has only just begun. Series Two In an attempt to rescue their friend, the boys enter into a Faustian pact involving drugs, money, witchcraft and goats. How far would you go for your friends, not least when you can't remember why you liked them in the first place? Mad Dogs madness prevails in what is becoming the worst holiday of anyone's lifetime.

• The Sea Inside | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £6.98   |  Saving you £15.00 (300.60%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Spanish language film from director of "The Others" with an award winning performance from Javier Bardem. The real life story of a man who fought a 30 year campaign in favour of euthanasia and his own right to die.

• Le Cercle Rouge 4K | Blu Ray | (23/11/2020) from £21.98   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  ALAIN DELON, GIAN MARIA VOLONTÈ and YVES MONTAND star as the elegant, mis-matched trio, locked in an elaborate and dangerous game of cat-and-mouse with the inscrutable police inspector (ANDRÉ BOURVIL), who is determined to foil their attempts to pull off the perfect crime, despite being drawn irresistibly to his prey. As the day of the heist dawns, the story unfolds, with all four players determined to cheat fate. Extras: The Perfect Circle Under the Name of Melville Interview with Bernard Stora Interview with José Giovanni Ginette Vincendeau Presentation of Le Cercle Rouge

• The Warrior And The Sorceress | DVD | (05/11/2007) from £14.14   |  Saving you £-6.15 (N/A%)   |  RRP £7.99

  The mighty warrior Kain (David Carradine) crosses the barren wastelands of the planet Ura where two arch enemies Zeg (Luke Askew) and the evil degenerate Balcaz (William Marin) fight incessantly for control of the village's only well. Kain sees his opportunity and announces that his sword is for hire... but his eyes stay clearly on the beautiful captive sorceress Naja (Maria Socas) and his newly awakened purpose.

• The Passenger | DVD | (03/07/2006) from £15.99   |  Saving you £-3.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Antonioni's suspenseful and haunting portrait of David Locke (Jack Nicholson) a drained journalist whose deliverance is an identity exchange with a dead man. He embarks on a treacherous journey through Africa Spain Germany England Spain. Possibly one of the greatest road movies of all-time.

• Classic Archive - Carlo Maria Giulini | DVD | (03/10/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Carlo Maria Giulini: The Classic Archive

• Nabucco - Verdi | DVD | (07/02/2005) from £14.38   |  Saving you £5.60 (49.17%)   |  RRP £16.99

  Verdi - Nabucco

• Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves | DVD | (30/08/2010) from £20.00   |  Saving you £-4.01 (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  All the excitement of the Arabian Nights is orchestrated in this thrilling tale of romance revenge and high drama. Orphaned as a young child and adopted by a band of notorious thieves the now-grown Ali Baba (Jon Hall) sets out to avenge his father's murder reclaim the royal throne and rescue his childhood love Amara (Maria Montez) from the clutches of his treacherous enemy.

• Sing Street | Blu Ray | (08/08/2016) from £7.99   |  Saving you £17.00 (212.77%)   |  RRP £24.99

  A boy growing up in Dublin during the 1980s escapes his strained family life by starting a band and moving to London.

• Rossini: Tancredi | DVD | (22/06/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Tancredi was the work on which Rossini's reputation as a composer of tragic operas rested, just as L'Italiana in Algeri ("The Italian Girl in Algiers") had been his first comic masterpiece. Inevitably, given the opera seria conventions within which he was working, it can seem terribly static nowadays--this is a work whose stage action consists almost exclusively of entrances and exits, and of characters emoting in various combinations--but when the emotions are as powerful as those here it hardly matters. The breeches part of Tancredi is one of Rossini's most powerfully lyrical: Bernadette Manca de Nisa is especially moving in the famous aria "Di Tanti Palpiti". The heroine Amenaide, wrongfully accused of treason, has the most to do emotionally, and Maria Raul is suitably touching, collapsing decorously to the floor as a way of conveying extremes of shame or incredulous hurt. Ildebrando D'Arcangelo does what he can with the stiff villain, Orbazzano. In some ways, the star of the performance is Raul Giménez in the unpromising role of Amenaide's much-deceived father Argirio, combining authority with pain and making both highly musical. Throughout, Gianluigi Gelmetti's intelligent conducting of the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra makes the delicate sides of the scoring matter most:he has learned from original instrument performances how to bring out the plangency of Rossini's woodwind writing.On the DVD: The DVD has no additional features except for subitles in Italian, French, German, English and Spanish and menus in French, Spanish, German and English. The sound is presented perfectly adequately but unexcitingly in PCMstereo and the picture ratio is 4:3. --Roz Kaveney

• Cargo | DVD | (05/07/2010) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  On rusty space-freighter KASSANDRA on its way to Station 42 young medic Laura is the only one awake on board while the rest of the crew lies frozen in hibernation sleep. In 4 months time Laura's shift will be over and it will be time to wake another member of the crew. During her daily patrols through the eerily empty ship Laura begins to get the feeling that she is not alone on-board...