"Actor: Mark Erickson"

• American Gothic | DVD | (06/03/2006) from £7.92   |  Saving you £2.07 (26.14%)   |  RRP £9.99

  A group of yuppies charter a plane for a camping getaway only to find themselves making an emergency landing on an isolated island. They are taken in for the night by the only inhabitants the rabidly-religious ""Ma & Pa"" who seem trapped in a Rockwellian time-warp. This proves to be every bit as unpleasant as it seems.

• Wagner: Das Rheingold -- Metropolitan/Levine | DVD | (14/10/2002) from £19.99   |  Saving you £-3.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £16.99

  It takes a certain amount of forethought if Das Rheingold is to be more than a series of special effects scenes, though moments like the appearance of the giants through the mist or Alberich's transformations need to be as thrilling as they are here. As always in his Wagner, and perhaps especially in this very traditional 1990 Metropolitan Opera production of the Ring cycle, James Levine keeps to the forefront the underlying humanity of Wagner's gods and monsters. In the first scene, for example, he brings out the thoughtless, callous frivolity of the Rhine maidens as they precipitate the events of the four operas by taunting the gnome Alberich: it helps that they swirl around, green and gold, in a convincing representation of the bottom of the Rhine, but the emotions are the point. Ekkehaard Wlaschiha is a convincingly menacing Alberich partly because Levine brings out his vulnerability as well as his evil temper. James Morris is splendid as the younger less care-worn Wotan and Siegfried Jerusalem as Loge enjoys the sarcasm of his cynical commentary on Wotan's aspirations. The smaller parts have luxury casting: Matti Salminen as Fafner and Christa Ludwig as Fricka, for example. On the DVD: Das Rheingold comes with a photo gallery of the Metropolitan Opera production and with menus and subtitles in German, French, English, Spanish and Chinese. Disappointingly though it is presented in American NTSC format with standard TV 4:3 visual ratio. But it does have an excellent clear acoustic in all three of its audio options: PCM stereo, Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS 5.1. --Roz Kaveney

• The Snake Pit | DVD | (23/08/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  The story of Virginia Cunningham who finds herself in an insane asylum and has no idea how she got there. Her husband Robert attempts to explain their relationship both before and after marriage and how her symptoms developed. Doctor Mark Kick struggles to get to the root of her problems but a relapse puts her back into 'The Snake Pit'... A touching central performance from Olivia de Havilland in this riveting exploration of mental illness.