"Actor: Nigel Fan"

• Amistad | DVD | (29/01/2001) from £6.77   |  Saving you £13.22 (195.27%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Steven Spielberg's most simplistic, sanitised history lesson, Amistad, explores the symbolic 1840s trials of 53 West Africans following their bloody rebellion aboard a slave ship. For most of Schindler's List (and, later, Saving Private Ryan) Spielberg restrains himself from the sweeping narrative and technical flourishes that make him one of our most entertaining and manipulative directors. Here, he doesn't even bother trying, succumbing to his driving need to entertain with beautiful images and contrived emotion. He cheapens his grandiose motives and simplifies slavery, treating it as cut- and-dry genre piece. Characters are easy Hollywood stereotypes--"villains" like the Spanish sailors or zealous abolitionists are drawn one-dimensionally and sneered upon. And Spielberg can't suppress his gifted eye, undercutting normally ugly sequences, such as the terrifying slave passage, which is shot as a gorgeous, well-lit composition. At its core, Amistad is a traditional courtroom drama, centred by a tired, clichéd narrative: a struggling, idealistic young lawyer (Matthew McConaughey) fighting the crooked political system and saving helpless victims. Worse yet, Spielberg actually takes the underlying premise of his childhood fantasy, E.T. and repackages it for slavery. Cinque (Djimon Hounsou), the leader of the West African rebellion, is presented much like the adorable alien: lost, lacking a common language, and trying to find his way home. McConaughey is a grown-up Elliot who tries communicating complicated ideas such as geography by drawing pictures in the sand or language by having Cinque mimic his facial expressions. Such stuff was effective for a sci-fi fantasy about the communication barriers between a boy and a lost alien; here, it seems like a naive view of real, complex history. --Dave McCoy, Amazon.com

• Legend Of 1900 | DVD | (10/12/2001) from £30.00   |  Saving you £-17.01 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  From Giuseppe Tornatore, director of the Academy Award-winning Cinema Paradiso, comes a remarkable fable about a boy raised on a steam ship who never once sets foot on the land.

• Firefox | DVD | (27/01/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £13.99

  The Russians have developed the ultimate sophisticated warplane. Called the MIG-31 it can fly at six times the speed of sound cannot be detected by radar and has a weapon system operated by the pilot's thought-waves. It is an unprecedented achievement and American intelligence would like to lay their hands on it. Clint Eastwood brings his legendary star quality to the role of ace pilot Mitchell Gant. Still haunted by Vietnam Gant is smuggled into Russia to commandeer Firefox and

• The Curse of Robert the Doll | DVD | (12/09/2016) from £9.26   |  Saving you £6.73 (72.68%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Emily Barker is a cash strapped student trying to make money as a cleaner, working nights at the East Falls Museum. But her peaceful graveyard shift turns into a time of terror when she is plagued by the sound of footsteps in empty corridors and mysterious vandalism throughout the building. Emily suspects that one of the exhibits, a creepy vintage doll named Robert, is alive and wreaking havoc after hours. Her reports to the head of security and the museum owner go unheeded, but when members of the night staff turn up dead in sinister circumstances, Emily knows the doll is responsible for the bloodshed. But a local police detective points the finger of suspicion at Emily and she finds herself the prime suspect in the investigation. Can she convince everyone of the truth behind the murders and clear her name? Or will she too fall victim to the Curse of Robert the Doll?