"Actor: Pete Ham"

• Brassed Off | DVD | (10/09/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Take The Full Monty, add a sharper emotional edge and replace the strutting strippers with a dignified British band. That's the essence of Brassed Off, a bittersweet gem released in 1996, a year before its more popular (and Oscar-nominated) counterpart. In the Yorkshire town of Grimley, there has always been a coal mine, just as for the last 111 years there has been a brass band and it seems that Danny (the wondrous Pete Postlethwaite) has been the director for every one of those years. Tory economic policies, however, are closing coal mines around the country in favour of nuclear power and Grimley appears to be next on the list. Danny is unfazed by the threat, claiming, "It's music that matters." But some of the men are about to quit the band until the appearance of Gloria (Tara Fitzgerald at her most radiant), who dazzles the all-male group (including old flame Andy, played by Ewan McGregor) first with her beauty, then with her flügelhorn playing. The new member gives the band a boost as they continue to perform and compete but closure remains very real, as director Mark Herman (Little Voice) accompanies the band's performances (played with gusto by the Grimethorpe Colliery Band) with scenes of angry labour-management confrontations and family strife. In this context, some of the characters claim that the music is an irresponsible form of escapism. It becomes clear, however, from a touching performance of "Danny Boy" to the stirring conclusion at Royal Albert Hall, that music is an expression of the human spirit, a bit of beauty and sanity in a harsh world. With defiance, the band can play "Land of Hope and Glory" even when the land offers them neither. --David Horiuchi

• One Fine Day | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £7.19   |  Saving you £5.80 (80.67%)   |  RRP £12.99

  This gentle comedy almost seems like something out of Hollywood's Golden Age, a movie that might have been made by a talented contract director, perhaps featuring Don Ameche and Claudette Colbert. But in fact One Fine Day stars George Clooney as an investigative columnist for a New York newspaper and Michelle Pfeiffer as an architect. Both single parents, the two meet and bicker and develop a relationship over the course of a day while their young children play together. Michael Hoffman (Restoration) directs with a good sense of what's funny about harried caretakers and kids who do whatever they want to do. The story stretches out of shape a bit when Clooney's character has to rally to prove some point of corruption at City Hall; nobody involved seems quite up to making that subplot believable, but all that really matters about this very nice movie is the winning love story. --Tom Keogh

• Brassed Off | DVD | (17/09/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  It's 1992 and the miners of Grimley Colliery are facing uncertainty. Not only is their pit under threat but the Grimley Colliery Band is on the verge of breaking up - that is until Gloria (Tara Fitzgerald) arrives. As the only female member of the band she somehow manages to rekindle their enthusiasm for the forthcoming National Championship as well as rekindling a childhood romance with Andy (Ewan McGregor).

• Concert For Bangladesh (Deluxe Version) | DVD | (24/10/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £121.48

  The famous fundraising concert for Bangladesh featuring George Harrison and a whole host of his celebrity music friends on the star-studded set list. Disc 1 - The Concert For Bangladesh 1971: 1. Intro by George Harrison and Ravi Shankar 2. Bangla Dhun 3. Wah-Wah 4. My Sweet Lord 5. Awaiting On You All 6. That's The Way God Planned It 7. It Don't Come Easy 8. Beware Of Darkness 9. Band Introduction 10. While My Guitar Gently Weeps 11. Jumpin' Jack Flash 12. Young Blood 13. Here Comes The Sun 14. A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall 15. It Takes A Lot To Laugh/It Takes A Train To Cry 16. Blowin' In The Wind 17. Just Like A Woman 18. Something 19. Bangla Desh

• Down With Love / One Fine Day | DVD | (31/01/2005) from £11.85   |  Saving you £4.14 (34.94%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Down With Love: When best-selling feminist author Barbara Novak (Zellweger) becomes the target of dashing playboy Catcher Block (McGregor) the sparks they generate will fly you to the moon and back! Set in the early sixties every frame pops with 60's technicolour. One Fine Day: In this charming romantic comedy three-time Academy Award nominee Michelle Pfeiffer and ""ER"" star George Clooney find that opposites attract whether they like it or not... Melanie Parker (P

• The Dead Next Door | DVD | (24/09/2001) from £25.63   |  Saving you £-1.64 (-6.80%)   |  RRP £23.99

  This well-known film financed by Sam 'Evil Dead' Raimi follows the effects of a deadly virus which turns corpses into flesh-eating zombies. A crack team of soldiers called The Zombie Squad fight a non-stop struggle for life and death....

• Rat | DVD | (20/08/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  The premise of Rat is simple enough: when hard-drinking Hubert Flynn comes home late and bedraggled for the umpteenth time, he wakes up transformed into the rat he truly is. Flynn's family is upset and surprised, but somehow they recognise the appropriateness of this turn of events--Flynn's wife Conchita (Imelda Staunton) even takes a smug satisfaction in her husband's fate. When a writer arrives and offers to help Conchita write a bestselling book about this odd turn of events, she seizes on the opportunity to squeeze something positive from the man who's made her so miserable--and in the process, becomes a bit of a rat herself. Rat takes a little while to establish its comic tone, but once it settles into a kind of Irish magic realism, the deadpan reactions of the family becomes strikingly funny. For example, when Conchita takes the rat to visit Flynn's favourite tavern, one barfly blithely comments, "Still, all things considered, he's not looking so bad". Pete Postlethwaite plays Flynn in his brief time as a non-rat, and all the performances are excellent; particularly charming is Kerry Condon as Flynn's daughter, who desperately tries to preserve some sense of dignity for her altered dad. With its whimsical humour and sardonic streak, Rat is no doubt destined to become a cult favourite. Fans of Monty Python will appreciate the film's sly verbal wit. --Bret Fetzer, Amazon.com