"Actor: Mary Alice"

• Matrix Revolutions | DVD | (03/04/2004) from £4.90   |  Saving you £9.09 (185.51%)   |  RRP £13.99

  In this final explosive third installment of the Matrix trilogy the city of Zion last bastion of the human race defends itself against the massive invasion of the machines as Neo attempts to fulfill his prophecy as 'The One'. As the Machine Army wages devastation on Zion its citizens mount an aggressive defense - but can they stave off the relentless swarm of Sentinels long enough for Neo adrift in a no man's land between the Matrix and the Machine world to harness the full exte

• Housesitter | DVD | (14/04/2003) from £9.43   |  Saving you £0.56 (5.94%)   |  RRP £9.99

  A slick, smart vehicle for Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn, Housesitter offers an acceptably daffy premise and enough inventive business to sustain it through to the, not unexpected, happy ending. Architect Martin builds a dream home for his childhood sweetheart (Dana Delaney) only to be rejected when he proposes marriage. After a one-night stand, Hawn--a daffy waitress with a gift for making up improbable but convincing lies--moves into Martin's house and tells his parents (Donald Moffatt, Julie Harris) and the whole community that she is his surprise new wife. When he sees how this impresses Delaney, Martin goes along with the charade, encouraging wilder and wilder fictions and doing his best to join in so that he can rush through to a divorce and move on to the woman he has always wanted. Hawn has to recruit a couple of winos to pose as her parents and impress Martin's boss into giving him a promotion, but we glimpse her real misery at his eventual intention to toss her out of the make-believe world she has created because her own real background is so grim. Its sit-com hi-jinx are manic enough not to be strangled by an inevitable dip in to sentiment towards the end, and Hawn, who always has to work hard, is better matched against the apparently effortless Martin than in their subsequent pairing in Out-of-Towners. Martin, often wasted in comparatively straight roles, has a few wild and crazy scenes as Hawn prompts him into joining her improvised fantasies. Director Frank Oz, a frequent Martin collaborator (Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Little Shop of Horrors, Bowfinger), is the model of a proper, competent, professional craftsman when he sets out to put a comedy together--but the film misses streaks of lunacy or cruelty that might have made it funnier and more affecting. On the DVD: The disc offers a pristine widescreen non-anamorphic transfer, letterboxed to 1.85:1. There are no extra features to speak of, just text-based production notes, cast and director bios, plus a trailer and an assortment of language and subtitle options. --Kim Newman

• Shirley Temple: The Collection | DVD | (25/10/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £7.39

  A collection of classic Shirley Temple films! Heidi (1937) When her aunt tires of caring for her orphan Heidi is taken into the Swiss mountains to live with her gruff grandfather (Jean Hersholt) a hermit who comes to adore her. But the aunt returns to steal Heidi away selling her to a family whose invalid daughter (Marcia Mae Jones) needs a companion. Bullied by an evil governess (Mary Nash) Heidi still charms the entire household and never stops trying to returnito her

• To Kill A Mockingbird (2 Disc Special Edition) | DVD | (28/11/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Ranked 34 on the American Film Institute's list of the 100 Greatest American Films, To Kill a Mockingbird is quite simply one of the finest family-oriented dramas ever made. A beautiful and deeply affecting adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Harper Lee, the film retains a timeless quality that transcends its historically dated subject matter (racism in the Depression-era South) and remains powerfully resonant in present-day America with its advocacy of tolerance, justice, integrity and loving, responsible parenthood. It's tempting to call this an important "message" movie that should be required viewing for children and adults alike, but this riveting courtroom drama is anything but stodgy or pedantic. As Atticus Finch, the small-town Alabama lawyer and widower father of two, Gregory Peck gives one of his finest performances with his impassioned defence of a black man (Brock Peters) wrongfully accused of the rape and assault of a young white woman. While his children, Scout (Mary Badham) and Jem (Philip Alford), learn the realities of racial prejudice and irrational hatred, they also learn to overcome their fear of the unknown as personified by their mysterious, mostly unseen neighbour Boo Radley (Robert Duvall, in his brilliant, almost completely nonverbal screen debut). What emerges from this evocative, exquisitely filmed drama is a pure distillation of the themes of Harper Lee's enduring novel, a showcase for some of the finest American acting ever assembled in one film, and a rare quality of humanitarian artistry (including Horton Foote's splendid screenplay and Elmer Bernstein's outstanding score) that seems all but lost in the chaotic morass of modern cinema. --Jeff Shannon

• To Sleep With Anger (1990) | Blu Ray | (25/03/2019) from £14.38   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Charles Burnett's 1990 masterpiece, a family drama suffused with magical realism. A slowburning masterwork of the early 1990s, this third feature by Charles Burnett (Killer of Sheep) is a singular piece of American mythmaking. In a towering performance, Danny Glover (The Color Purple) plays the enigmatic southern drifter Harry, a devilish charmer who turns up out of the blue on the South Central Los Angeles doorstep of his old friends. In short order, Harry's presence turns a seemingly peaceful household upside down, exposing smouldering tensions between parents and children, tradition and change, virtue and temptation. Interweaving evocative strains of gospel and blues with rich, poeticrealist images, To Sleep with Anger is a sublimely stirring film from an autonomous artistic sensibility, a portrait of family resilience steeped in the traditions of black mysticism and folklore. Features: New, restored 4K digital transfer, approved by director Charles Burnett, with 2.0 surround DTSHD Master Audio soundtrack New interview programme featuring Burnett, actors Danny Glover and Sheryl Lee Ralph, and associate producer Linda Koulisis A Walk with Charles Burnett, a new hourlong conversation between Burnett and filmmaker Robert Townsend that revisits Burnett's films and shooting locations Short video tribute to Burnett produced for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Governors Awards ceremony in 2017 PLUS: An essay by critic Ashley Clark

• Beat Street | DVD | (12/04/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  A slightly dated but nonetheless fascinating snap shot of musical history, Beat Street is an urban musical detailing the roots of hip-hop. Set in early 1980s New York, the film focuses on the lives of a small group of young people setting their experiences against the larger backdrop of the city's burgeoning music scene. The story of up and coming DJ Kenny and his relationship with jazz musician Tracy may only be a device, but it's surprisingly effective, as is the ultimately tragic tale of graffiti artist Remo. The movie's real raison d'être, however, is to showcase the sounds of the street and thus is full of some of hip-hop's most influential names--Melle Mel, Doug E Fresh, Kool Moe Dee, The Rocksteady Crew, Jazzy Jeff and Arthur Baker--and while the combination of electro and rapping may sound a little crude to modern ears, there can be no doubt that Beat Street is the sight and sound of history being made. On the DVD: Beat Street on disc comes with pretty basic picture quality, but the soundtrack has benefited greatly from the digital remastering. The extras are limited to a collection of stills from the film and an amusing guide to break beats, which seems like a wasted opportunity. Given the nature of the movie, it's something of a shame that this disc doesn't go deeper into the subject matter. For a far more detailed examination of how the music of Kraftwerk blended with the sounds of American city streets, go to Volume 3 of the excellent BBC series Dancing in the Street. --Phil Udell

• The Women Of Brewster Place | DVD | (04/03/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £3.99

  The Women Of Brewster Place is a gripping and loving group portrait of seven women whose backs are literally against the wall: a surrounding wall whose brick facade has turned the address of Brewster Place into both a real and symbolic dead end. It is a street overflowing with tales of courage and anguish. For the women who call this home (played by Oprah Winfrey Robin Givens and Cicely Tyson among others) Brewster Place is a source of conflicts amid the dark and overcrowded tenements. Despite their different backgrounds these women are ultimately united in a single act of courage against the walls of racism sexism and violence in a stirring climax.

• Life With Mikey | DVD | (19/07/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Mikey is a former child star having a little trouble with his new role as a kids' talent agent. He's desperate to find a way to keep his third-rate talent agency from going under when he meets Angie a young con artist. With her streetwise smarts she's a natural for TV commercials and could be their ticket to the big time; that is if they don't drive each other crazy first! Count on big laughs with Life With Mikey a fun filled comedy treat that's sure to entertain everyone!

• A Farewell To Arms | DVD | (26/01/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  This dense adaption of Ernest Hemmingway's novel features Gary Cooper as American soldier Lt. Henry and his illfated love affair with British Nurse Catherine portrayed by Hellen Hayes during World War I. Filmed in beautiful Italy the two lovers will stop at nothing to be together but Lt. Henry's internal struggles ultimately threaten the relationship. Hemmingway's theme of questioning the nature of war and fighting is fully recognised under Frank Borzage's direction.

• Housesitter | DVD | (25/06/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  A slick, smart vehicle for Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn, Housesitter offers an acceptably daffy premise and enough inventive business to sustain it through to the, not unexpected, happy ending. Architect Martin builds a dream home for his childhood sweetheart (Dana Delaney) only to be rejected when he proposes marriage. After a one-night stand, Hawn--a daffy waitress with a gift for making up improbable but convincing lies--moves into Martin's house and tells his parents (Donald Moffatt, Julie Harris) and the whole community that she is his surprise new wife. When he sees how this impresses Delaney, Martin goes along with the charade, encouraging wilder and wilder fictions and doing his best to join in so that he can rush through to a divorce and move on to the woman he has always wanted. Hawn has to recruit a couple of winos to pose as her parents and impress Martin's boss into giving him a promotion, but we glimpse her real misery at his eventual intention to toss her out of the make-believe world she has created because her own real background is so grim. Its sit-com hi-jinx are manic enough not to be strangled by an inevitable dip in to sentiment towards the end, and Hawn, who always has to work hard, is better matched against the apparently effortless Martin than in their subsequent pairing in Out-of-Towners. Martin, often wasted in comparatively straight roles, has a few wild and crazy scenes as Hawn prompts him into joining her improvised fantasies. Director Frank Oz, a frequent Martin collaborator (Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Little Shop of Horrors, Bowfinger), is the model of a proper, competent, professional craftsman when he sets out to put a comedy together--but the film misses streaks of lunacy or cruelty that might have made it funnier and more affecting. On the DVD: The disc offers a pristine widescreen non-anamorphic transfer, letterboxed to 1.85:1. There are no extra features to speak of, just text-based production notes, cast and director bios, plus a trailer and an assortment of language and subtitle options. --Kim Newman

• To Sleep With Anger | DVD | (24/05/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  When Harry comes to town he brings good times bad times...and a lot of trouble!

• Matrix Revolutions | UMD | (07/01/2008) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  The opening reels of Matrix Revolutions do nothing to dispel the feeling of exhausted disappointment that set in during the second half of The Matrix Reloaded. There's plenty more talky guff combined with the picking-up of hard-to-remember plot threads as Neo (Keanu Reeves) lies in a coma in the "real" world and is stranded on a tube station in a limbo "beyond the Matrix" while his allies do a reprise of the shooting-their-way-past-the-bodyguards bit from the last film (this time, the baddies can walk on the ceiling). A new Oracle (Mary Alice) makes some pronouncements about the end being near and more things happen--including the evil Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving) manifesting in reality by possessing a minor character and perfidiously blinding our hero, who wears a becoming ribbon over his wounded eyes and perceives the world in an impressive "flaming truth vision". What about the action? The equivalent of the last film's freeway chase scene is a huge face-off as the Sentinels (robot squids) finally breach the caverns of Zion, "the last human city", and swarm against a battalion of pilot-manipulated giant robots: here, the effects are seamless and the images astonishing, though the fact that none of the major characters are involved and the whole thing goes on so long as if designed to top any previous robot-on-robot screen carnage means that it becomes monotonously amazing, like watching someone else play a great computer game. After a too-easily-managed major realignment of the enmities, the film--and the series--finally delivers a sign-off sequence that's everything you could want as Neo and Smith get into a kung fu one-on-one in a rain-drenched virtual city, flying as high as Superman and Brainiac in smart suits. It comes too late to save the day and the wrap-up is both banal and incoherent, but at least this single combat is a reward for hardy veterans who've sat through seven hours of build-up. --Kim NewmanOn the DVD: when the first Matrix DVD was released, with never-before-seen features such as the "Follow the White Rabbit" option, it set a benchmark against which subsequent discs were judged. But neither sequel has lived up to the original's high standards. The Matrix Revolutions two-disc set is an unexceptional package, with a routine "making of" featurette being the main bonus item. Amid all the usual backslapping guff about how great everyone is and what a great time they've all had, it's possible to glean some nuggets of useful information about the baffling plot--though cast and crew can't repress a note of weariness creeping in when discussing the horribly protracted shooting schedule. The feature on the CG Revolution is the most informative for people who like to know how everything was done, and, in the same vein, there's also a multi-angle breakdown of the Super Burly Brawl. A 3-D timeline gives a handy summary of the story so far, and there's a plug for The Matrix Online game. The anamorphic 2.40:1 picture is, of course, a real treat to look at, even if the movie is mostly shades of dark grey and dark green; soundwise the dynamic range of the Dolby Digital surround is extreme: all conversations are conducted in throaty whispers, while the action sequences will push your speakers to the limit. No DTS option, though. And as with Reloaded, there's no audio commentary either: the Wachowski's policy of not talking about their creation begins to seem like a ploy to avoid answering awkward questions. --Mark Walker

• A Farewell To Arms | DVD | (01/07/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £3.99

  The 1932 version of A Farewell to Arms owes as much to the shimmering house style of Paramount Pictures as it does the novel by Ernest Hemingway. If Hemingway purists can get past the romanticising of the book, however, this film offers its own glossy appeal. On the Italian front in World War I an American ambulance driver (Gary Cooper) falls in love with a nurse (Helen Hayes). Cooper was a Hemingway friend in real life, and later played the hero of Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls; his boyish simplicity is just right for director Frank Borzage's heartfelt approach. The Oscar-winning cinematography of ace cameraman Charles Lang is the kind of lush black and white that can capture the glow from a cigarette as it plays across Cooper's darkened face--a breathtaking touch. The jaded battle scenes show the influence of the hit film version of All Quiet on the Western Front, especially in a gripping montage depicting Cooper's progress alone through the war zone. Hemingway would have none of it, of course; he once disdainfully wrote that "in the first picture version Lt. Henry deserted because he didn't get any mail and then the whole Italian Army went along, it seems, to keep him company". This is first and foremost a love story, however, and as such it succeeds beautifully, right through to the remarkably intense ending. --Robert Horton, Amazon.com

• The Inkwell | DVD | (05/04/2004) from £5.38   |  Saving you £9.61 (178.62%)   |  RRP £14.99

  At Inkwell Beach summer's never been so much fun! It's a time and a place where cool clothes hot music and good friends turn a dull family trip into the summertime vacation of a lifetime! Critics everywhere praised this film - the hot big-screen comedy treat that delivers outrageous summertime fun and good time entertainment all set to an irresistible soundtrack! Spend some time down at the shore with the funniest folks you're ever going to meet - summer fun doesn't get any bette

• The Women of Brewster Place | DVD | (02/04/2007) from £9.59   |  Saving you £-3.61 (N/A%)   |  RRP £2.99

  A gripping and loving portrait of seven women who's back are literally against the wall; a surrounding wall whose brick facade has turned the address of Brewster Place into both a real and symbolic dead end.

• A Farewell To Arms | DVD | (18/02/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £16.99

  This dense adaption of Ernest Hemmingway's novel features Gary Cooper as American soldier Lt. Henry and his ill-fated love affair with British Nurse Catherine portrayed by Hellen Hayes during World War I. Filmed in beautiful Italy the two lovers will stop at nothing to be together but Lt. Henry's internal struggles ultimately threaten the relationship. Hemmingway's theme of questioning the nature of war and fighting is fully recognised under Frank Borzage's direction.

• A Farewell To Arms | DVD | (01/09/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £3.99