"Actor: Maria"

• Dekalog - The Ten Commandments - Parts 1-5 | DVD | (27/05/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  A terrible idea, of course", was Krzysztof Kieœlowski's first reaction when his co-scriptwriter, Krzysztof Piesiewicz, first suggested the idea for Dekalog--a series of 10 one-hour films, each inspired by one of the Ten Commandments. But from this unpromising beginning came an edgy, unsettling tour de force, the culmination of Kieœlowski's work in his native Poland and, quite possibly, the last cinematic masterpiece to come out of Communist Eastern Europe. The full Dekalog consists of ten one-hour films: this pair of double discs contains the first five. The links to the specific commandments are often oblique and imprecise, and shouldn't be taken too literally. Kieœlowski is using this framework not as a direct exposition of Mosaic Law, nor even as a commentary on its relevance today, but rather as a series of meditations on the complexity of moral choices. All the films are set in the same drab high-rise Warsaw housing estate, and characters from one story will show up the background of others, passing across the frame as they go about their business. One young man who appears in nearly all the films never plays a leading role nor even speaks a line, but remains a watchful, melancholy presence, haunting and disquieting, gazing at the events unfolding around him like an uneasy conscience. Grim though these stories are, there's often a note of ironic humour leavening the overall bleakness. But this set ends with one of the grimmest of all. In Dekalog 5 a young man murders a taxi driver for no apparent reason, then is executed himself. Both deaths are equally squalid and appalling. This episode was later expanded to feature-film length with the title A Short Film About Killing. The greater length enhanced its impact; it's a pity that room wasn't found for that longer version here. On the DVDs: Dekalog, Parts 1-5 offers very little additional material. The second disc, which contains episodes 4 and 5, also includes a brief on-screen text biography and filmography for Kieœlowski. The films are shown in their original 4:3 ratio, in a crisp clean transfer. --Philip Kemp

• Le Nozze Di Figaro - Mozart | DVD | (09/05/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £21.99

  This luxuriously cast film of Mozart's beloved opera buffa features a host of legendary interpretations including Kiri Te Kanawa's exquisite Countess Almaviva Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau as her philandering husband Hermann Prey as the wily title character Mirella Freni a delight as his no less savvy bride Susanna and Maria Ewing hilarious as the lovesick page Cherubino. Director Jean-Pierre Ponnelle's imaginative camera-work tellingly emphasizes character and mood of this immortal story of love intrigue and class struggle set against the historical background of ancien regime Europe sliding inexorably towards revolution.

• Barnyard | DVD | (19/02/2007) from £6.88   |  Saving you £-0.89 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  A carefree party cow has to find the courage to be a leader in this animated outing.

• Never Say Never Again/Casino Royale | DVD | (19/03/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £8.99

  Never Say Never Again (Dir. Irvin Kershner 1983): Sean Connery is back for his final performance as super agent James Bond in this high-velocity action thriller from the director of 'The Empire Strikes Back'. In this remake of the 1965 spy classic Thunderball two atomic warheads are hijacked by the evil SPECTRE organization forcing agent 007 out of retirement and hurling him into an explosive pulse-pounding race to save the world from nuclear terrorists. Casino Royale (Dir. Val Guest 1967): Things are looking decidedly bleak for British Intelligence in both senses of the term. SMERSH has begun to sabotage global stability no less than 11 agents have been lost and to make matters worse our greatest secret agent 007 is languishing in stately retirement. M - together with the heads of the CIA and KGB - have only one hope: to bring Sir James Bond (David Niven) out of retirement and into the field. Finding himself pitched against an opposition of fiendish intensity - an array of female secret agents armed with explosive grouse; a baccarat-playing illusionist (Orson Welles) and a neurotic megalomaniac (Woody Allen) - Bond launches his brilliant plan... ""from now on all agents will be known as James Bond including the girls"".

• Veronica Guerin | DVD | (26/01/2004) from £9.99   |  Saving you £6.00 (60.06%)   |  RRP £15.99

  The true story of Irish journalist Veronica Guerin who took on the drug dealers of Dublin in the mid-1990s and paid the ultimate price.

• 633 Squadron | DVD | (05/05/2003) from £7.20   |  Saving you £7.05 (118.69%)   |  RRP £12.99

  With the fate of Europe still hanging in the balance a disparate bunch of brave Mosquito pilots are ordered on a near suicide low-level mission to destroy a Nazi rocket fuel depot in Norway... To make the film which was based on a true story a squadron of legendary de Havilland Mosquito fighter-bombers was resurrected from near extinction. Dazzling flying sequences bone-shaking sound and superb special effects help to make this one of the most realistic air combat films ever to

• The Fast Show - Series 2 | DVD | (18/08/2003) from £3.11   |  Saving you £12.88 (414.15%)   |  RRP £15.99

  The second series of The Fast Show races on from where the first series left off, taking the now-familiar characters and projecting them into new and unusual situations. The "Suits You" men are let loose as waiters in a restaurant, Indecisive Dave finally makes his mind up, Unlucky Alf tries his hand at courting, Bob Fleming splutters his way through a midnight Badger Watch and Channel 9 branches out into light-entertainment with predictably incomprehensible results. The seven episodes also add further depth to many of the catchphrase-reliant characters. Rowley Birkin QC finds a touching reason to wish he hadn't been "very, very drunk", Ted and Ralph's romance stutters on, Brilliant! gets depressed and things turn sour for Which Was Nice. All our favourites are present and correct, but the freshest laughs come from the new characters and less-established sketches, such as an inept croupier blundering through his first day on the job, Brilliant!'s dad ("Rubbish!"), haughty, mistake-prone history presenter Gideon Soames, and the world-weary Carl Hooper's unspectacular show "That's Amazing!". On the DVD: The Fast Show, Series 2 comes to DVD with no extras, aside from some nicely animated menus, episode and scene selection. --Paul Philpott

• The Sound of Music Live | DVD | (22/02/2016) from £6.50   |  Saving you £8.49 (130.62%)   |  RRP £14.99

  The BAFTA nominated director Coky Giedroyc and the Tony award winning Martin Koch bring to life the ITV dramatisation of the world's most popular musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein, The Sound of Music. The ambitious two and a half hour drama, filmed and transmitted live, stars the spectacular Kara Tointon (Mr Selfridge, EastEnders) as former nun Maria who becomes the governess for a large family who live in the shadow of their domineering and repressed widower father Captain Georg von Trapp (Julian Ovenden, Downton Abbey). Along with the required discipline Maria brings love, music and excitement into the children's lives and also eventually begins to have an effect on their father. But just when things are looking up, the rise of Nazism and the looming threat of war darkens all of their futures. Supported by Katherine Kelly (Mr Selfridge, Coronation Street) as Baroness Elsa Schraeder and Alexander Armstrong (Armstrong and Miller, Danger Mouse) as Max Detweiler the production became the must see event on the year.

• Orphée (Blu-ray) | Blu Ray | (28/01/2019) from £14.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  This magical re-telling of the Orpheus myth turns the lyre-playing singer of Greek legend into a famous left-bank poet in post-war Paris. Fallen out of favour and lost for poetic inspiration, Orphée becomes obsessed with a mysterious black-clad princess who first claims the life of a rival poet, and then Eurydice, his wife. With its unforgettable imagery - the dissolving mirror through which characters pass into the next world, the leather-clad, death-dealing motorcyclists, and Cocteau's magical special effects, Orphée is a work of haunting beauty that follows the poetic logic of a dream . This new photochemical and 2K restoration of the film from the original nitrate negative was carried out by SNC (Groupe M6) with the support of the Archives françaises du film. Special Features: Audio commentary by Roland-François Lack Souvenirs de tournage de Jean Pierre Mocky (16 mins): actor Jean Mocky looks back on Orphée Jean Cocteau raconté par Pierre Bergé et Dominique Marny (36 mins) Jean Cocteau and His Tricks (2008, 14 mins): assistant director Claude Pinoteau discusses the special effects Jean Cocteau used in his films La villa Santo-Sospir (1951, 38 mins): a short film directed by Jean Cocteau about the villa Santo-Sospir, on Côte d'Azur, which he decorated, and his home in Villefranche-sur-mer The Queer Family Tree - Reflections on Jean Cocteau (2018, 15 mins): A newly recorded interview with director John Maybury (Love is the Devil, The Edge of Love) Theatrical trailer 2018 re-release trailer Reversible sleeve with new artwork by Edward Kinsella Fully illustrated booklet with an essay by Ginette Vincendeau, an interview with Jean Cocteau from 1950, and full film credits

• Friday After Next | DVD | (22/09/2003) from £7.36   |  Saving you £12.63 (171.60%)   |  RRP £19.99

  It is Christmas Eve for most of the Christian world but when Craig (Ice Cube) and Day-Day (Mike Epps) are rudely awaken by a burglar in a Santa suit it is definitely another FRIDAY in the ghetto. The phony Santa gets away with all the cousins' Christmas gifts and their overdue rent money after assaulting Craig with a paltry Christmas tree. Cops are called in and do little more than confiscate Craig and Day-Day's pot stash. Though the cousins may be used to such adversity in the 'hood they have never before had to think about getting real jobs in order to pay the bills. This third installment in the hip-hop stoner series follows L.A.'s lovable losers through their first day as rent-a-cops at a South Central strip mall.

• Goodnight Sweetheart - Series 2 | DVD | (26/09/2005) from £6.51   |  Saving you £13.48 (207.07%)   |  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! Episodes comprise: 1. Don't Get

• Gregory's Two Girls | DVD | (27/07/2009) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  'Gregory's 2 Girls' is part thriller, part romantic comedy and finds Gregory still dreaming his way through life and still looking for romance.

• In Darkness | DVD | (09/07/2012) from £10.35   |  Saving you £9.64 (93.14%)   |  RRP £19.99

  A dramatization of one man's rescue of Jewish refugees in the Nazi-occupied Polish city of Lvov.

• Dead or Alive Trilogy | Blu Ray | (27/03/2017) from £24.69   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Beginning with an explosive, six-minute montage of sex, drugs and violence, and ending with a phallus-headed battle robot taking flight, Takashi Miike's unforgettable Dead or Alive Trilogy features many of the director's most outrageous moments set alongside some of his most dramatically moving scenes. Made between 1999 and 2002, the Dead or Alive films cemented Miike's reputation overseas as one of the most provocative enfants terrible of Japanese cinema, yet also one of its most talented and innovative filmmakers. In Dead or Alive, tough gangster Ryuichi (Riki Takeuchi) and his ethnically Chinese gang make a play to take over the drug trade in Tokyo's Shinjuku district by massacring the competition. But he meets his match in detective Jojima (Show Aikawa), who will do everything to stop them. Dead or Alive 2: Birds casts Aikawa and Takeuchi together again, but as new characters, a pair of rival yakuza assassins who turn out to be childhood friends; after a botched hit, they flee together to the island where they grew up, and decide to devote their deadly skills to a more humanitarian cause. And in Dead or Alive: Final, Takeuchi and Aikawa are catapulted into a future Yokohama ruled by multilingual gangs and cyborg soldiers, where they once again butt heads in the action-packed and cyberpunk-tinged finale to the trilogy. Each of them unique in theme and tone, the Dead or Alive films showcase Miike at the peak of his strengths, creating three very distinct movies connected only by their two popular main actors, each film a separate yet superb example of crime drama, character study, and action filmmaking. SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS: High Definition digital transfers of all three films Original uncompressed stereo audio Optional English subtitles for all three films New interview with actor Riki Takeuchi New interview with actor Sho Aikawa New interview with producer and screenwriter Toshiki Kimura New audio commentary for Dead or Alive by Miike biographer Tom Mes Archive interviews with cast and crew Archive making-of featurettes for DOA2: Birds and DOA: Final Original theatrical trailers for all three films Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Orlando Arocena

• Flavia The Heretic | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £13.98   |  Saving you £1.00 (8.34%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Flay Me Baby One More Time! Witness the most notoriously graphic and nasty descent into the nunsploitation genre with Gianfranco Mingozzi's unforgettable masterpiece of shock cinema that is Flavia The Heretic. Set during 15th Century Italy when brutality was wielded mercilessly in the name of God young Flavia (Florinda Bolkan) is imprisoned in a monastery by her tyrannical father. Rather than the years of quiet contemplation she might expect the sexually frustrated Flavia instead gets a crash course in hell on earth as rape torture castration bondage and worse becomes her world but that is nothing compared to what will become of her! Beautifully filmed by Alfio Contini (The Night Porter) and boasting a score by Oscar-winning composer Nicola Piovani this disturbingly cruel exploration of religiously condoned sexual violence is as well made as it is sadistic on the senses.

• Presumed Innocent | DVD | (26/07/1999) from £6.99   |  Saving you £7.00 (100.14%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Rich with ambiguity, this smooth adaptation of Scott Turow's bestselling mystery novel stars Harrison Ford as Rusty Sabich, the prosecuting attorney assigned to a case involving the murder of a beautiful, seductive lawyer (Greta Scacchi) with whom he'd been having a secret affair. After the investigation gets off to a slow start, damning evidence points to Rusty as the prime suspect. His career is destroyed when his superior and secondary suspect Raymond Horgan (Brian Dennehy) sets him up for the fall. Bonnie Bedelia plays Rusty's wife Barbara, who is not above suspicion herself. While Ford's performance rides a fine line between presumed innocence and possible guilt, director Alan J Pakula (All the President's Men) maintains a consistent tone of uncertainty that keeps the viewer guessing. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com

• The Tunnel | DVD | (25/04/2011) from £39.99   |  Saving you £-24.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  This incredible true story takes place in Berlin 1961. Germany is a country divided. Harry Melchior has narrowly escaped the communist regime of East Berlin and now in the West is determined to free his sister who was not so lucky. Joined by others also desperate to free their loved ones they have an audacious plan; to tunnel beneath the wall ant the 'death strip' patrolled by border guards. But not everyone can be trusted and they are soon digging for their lives in a nerve-racking race against time.

• Fierce Creatures | DVD | (14/04/2003) from £6.24   |  Saving you £3.75 (60.10%)   |  RRP £9.99

  In an attempt to catch lightning in a bottle, John Cleese wrote Fierce Creatures with the purpose of reuniting the comedic cast of A Fish Called Wanda. Media mogul (Kevin Kline) owns a London zoo. He demands that the park raise more profit, so the new zoo director (Cleese) orders that only dangerous animals be displayed in order to maximize ticket sales. In a dual role, Kline also plays the mogul's son, who plans to run the zoo with the help of displaced employees (including Michael Palin) and zoo programmer Willa Weston (Jamie Lee Curtis). The situation lends itself to comedic confusion and split-second timing, and for a few good laughs the film is a pretty safe bet. It's not as hilarious as A Fish Called Wanda (that's a pretty tall order), but Cleese knows comedy, and his efforts are worth a look. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com

• The Shamer's Daughter | DVD | (19/09/2016) from £5.25   |  Saving you £10.74 (204.57%)   |  RRP £15.99

  When the family of the king are found murdered, the Kingdom of Dunark descends into anarchy. Whispers point to the sole heir to the throne as the killer, who quickly proves his innocence, leaving the truth behind the murders unsolved. Dina, the young daughter of a Shamer, is summoned to the castle from the outskirts of her village. Having inherited the supernatural ability to look into the soul of others, she is tasked with finding the killer's true identity. But as Dina struggles to source the truth and put the rightful heir to the Kingdom on the throne, the castle is taken over by dragons, witchcraft and magic and she quickly finds her own life in peril.

• Striking Out - Series Two | DVD | (23/04/2018) from £19.98   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  As the hit Irish legal drama returns, solicitor Tara Rafferty (Amy Huberman, The Clinic) is embattled but not beaten. She has built a new life for herself after leaving her cheating fiancé, Eric (Rory Keenan, War & Peace), and the high-powered law firm where they both worked. But with one of her employees betraying her and another in jail, she struggles to keep her fledgling practice afloat. Convinced that her former boss Eric s scheming father is behind it all, Tara decides to strike back. To pay the bills, Tara takes on clients whose legal problems range from deportation, to divorce from a bigamist, to a lawsuit against a convent. As she frequently faces off against Eric and her former colleagues in court, Tara s mentor Vincent (Neil Morrissey, Line of Duty) leads a high-level corruption inquiry that could endanger them both. The stellar cast also features Emmet Byrne (Burning Wishes), Fiona O'Shaughnessy (Utopia), and Maria Doyle Kennedy (The Commitments) as a formidable solicitor.