"Actor: Peter Allen"

• Manhunter | DVD | (01/10/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Released to box-office indifference in 1986, Manhunter introduced Hannibal Lecter and established the rules of the modern race to find serial killer thriller five years before The Silence of the Lambs packed cinemas everywhere. This was Michael Mann's third feature, reuniting William L Petersen and Dennis Farina from his debut Thief (1981) as FBI agents hunting the killer dubbed "The Tooth Fairy". Petersen's Will Graham is the man who put Lecktor (as it is spelt here) behind bars, and as in Lambs consults with the Doctor, played with understated malevolence by Brian Cox. Manhunter is an exceptionally well-photographed film: Mann's regular cinematographer Dante Spinotti created sparse, elegantly framed, often mono-chromatically lit compositions which are essential to the shifting psychological moods. The performances are very good, and the typically 1980s, Vangelis-esque electronic score effectively sustains tension. Once the killer is introduced the scenes with Joan Allen have a genuinely unsettling, almost surreal quality. There is at least one serious plot flaw--how does "The Red Dragon" get his letter to Lecktor? Manhunter never packs the sheer excitement of Lambs, nevertheless, it is a powerful and compelling thriller which remains far superior to the third instalment in the series, Hannibal (2001). On the DVD: In addition to the trailer there is a revealing 10-minute conversation with Dante Spinotti in which he explains how he created the very distinctive look of Manhunter. Also included is a more general 17-minute retrospective "making-of" documentary. This is good but too short, the extras failing to live up to the wealth of material on the Lambs and Hannibal DVDs. The anamorphically enhanced 2.35:1 image is generally very good, being just a little soft in one or two early scenes. The sound is listed as Dolby Digital 5.1, but appears to replicate the main stereo signal in the rear channels. Audio is none the less powerful and clear, though lacks the sheer edge and atmospherics of some more recent thrillers. --Gary S Dalkin

• Undisputed | DVD | (18/08/2003) from £6.47   |  Saving you £8.52 (131.68%)   |  RRP £14.99

  In Undisputed, Rocky gets a prison-block makeover and the generic combination packs a vicious one-two punch. Owing much to the macho, gut-busting B-movies of Hollywood's golden age, this no-nonsense drama gets right down to business, beginning when heavyweight champ "Iceman" Chambers (Ving Rhames) enters Sweetwater prison on a rape charge. The prison has a boxing programme, and convicted killer Monroe Hutchen (Wesley Snipes) is the 10-year undefeated champion. A challenge bout is coordinated by an aging mobster prisoner (Peter Falk) and the head guard (Michael Rooker), and Undisputed pummels its way to its brutal and unpredictable conclusion. Colourful characters abound (foul-mouthed Falk is the hilarious standout), and seasoned director Walter Hill (coscripting with his Alien partner David Giler) brings them together with invigorating focus. There's not an ounce of fat on this tough-minded movie, and even its inevitable outcome seems freshly unexpected. Obviously inspired by Mike Tyson's ill-fated escapades, Undisputed turns fact into potent cell-block fiction. --Jeff Shannon

• Carry On Columbus (DVD) | DVD | (30/01/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  It is 1492 and the Sultan of Turkey controls overland trade from the Far East to Europe. Christopher Columbus looking to make his fortune persuades the King and Queen of Spain to finance an expedition to find a new sea route to India.

• Night Of The Big Heat | Blu Ray | (28/07/2014) from £16.98   |  Saving you £7.00 (46.70%)   |  RRP £21.99

  While mainland Britain shivers in deepest winter the northern island of Fara bakes in the nineties. The boys at the Met station have no more idea what is going on than the regulars at the Swan pub. Only a stand-offish visiting scientist suspects aliens are to blame. Meanwhile the new secretary to the local best-selling author is raising the temperature in her own way...

• Robocop - Limited Edition Steelbook | Blu Ray | (17/02/2014) from £49.99   |  Saving you £-27.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £22.99

  When it arrived on the big screen in 1987, Paul Verhoeven's RoboCop was like a high-voltage jolt of electricity, blending satire, thrills, and abundant violence with such energized gusto that audiences couldn't help feeling stunned and amazed. The movie was a huge hit, and has since earned enduring cult status as one of the seminal science fiction films of the 1980s. Followed by two sequels, a TV series, and countless novels and comic books, this original RoboCop is still the best by far, largely due to the audacity and unbridled bloodlust of director Verhoeven. However, the reasons many enjoyed the film are also the reasons some will surely wish to avoid it. Critic Pauline Kael called the movie a dubious example of "gallows pulp," and there's no denying that its view of mankind is bleak, depraved, and graphically violent. In the Detroit of the near future, a policeman (Peter Weller) is brutally gunned down by drug-dealing thugs and left for dead, but he survives (half of him, at least) and is integrated with state-of-the-art technology to become a half-robotic cop of the future, designed to revolutionize law enforcement. As RoboCop holds tight to his last remaining shred of humanity, he relentlessly pursues the criminals who "killed" him. All the while, Verhoeven (from a script by Edward Neumeier and Michael Miner) injects this high-intensity tale with wickedly pointed humour and satire aimed at the men and media who cover a city out of control. --Jeff Shannon, amazon.com

• The Rat Pack | DVD | (14/10/2002) from £17.66   |  Saving you £-7.67 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  An irresistible melange of showbiz and politics, The Rat Pack is a sprawling HBO TV movie about the late-50s axis between Frank Sinatra's cool-talking cronies and the White House-bound Kennedy clan. Ray Liotta, William L Petersen and Joe Mantegna manage to give real performances as opposed to impersonations as Frankie, JFK and Dean Martin, and there's a stand-out turn from Don Cheadle as Sammy Davis Jr, who fantasises a blazing, gunslinging rendition of "I've Got You Under My Skin" as delivered to the cross-burning Nazi pickets outside his hotel campaigning against his marriage to a white Swedish starlet. Naturally the story goes over a lot of familiar ground (Marilyn Monroe, and so on,) but the Hollywood-Vegas angle, with the obvious criminal tie-ins, lends it a freshness. Angus McFadyen remains typecast as real-life actors, following up his Orson Welles (Cradle Will Rock) and Richard Burton (Liz, the Elizabeth Taylor biopic) by doing a squirming, but funny take on Peter Lawford, caught between the White House and Sinatra's vast, demanding ego. Its general style is somewhere between a Scorsese gangland epic and made-for-TV muckraking biopic and a lot of material from Shawn Levy's fine book Rat Pack Confidential is worked into the weave. On the DVD: The Rat Pack is a no-frills disc presented in a good-looking 16:9 anamorphic transfer, though as it's a TV movie this means trimming the top and the bottom of the image. --Kim Newman

• Sins - Complete | DVD | (25/09/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Helene Junot is rich beautiful powerful and envied for her success but is surrounded by enemies who seek to destroy her. As a young girl Helene witnessed the murder of her mother was seperated from her brother and sister and was herself both beaten and raped by the Nazi's in Paris. Helene now a fully grown woman meets a photographer who puts her on the road to fame as the hottest model in Paris until she turns her hand to design and becomes a director of a top fashion house. Helene attracts many men both good and bad especially in the case of Count De Ville but she meets an American Officer on his way to Vietnam and falls madly in love but happiness eludes her as she is forced to borrow money to pay a famed Nazi hunter to track down her long lost brother who has spent 15 years in a mental institution. Helene's empire flourishes but the ruthlessness and calculative ambition in business and her quest for revenge costs her dear as she has to deal with her many enemies as her life enters a new dimension when she has to fight for her own survival and that of her empire.

• Pirates Of Penzance / Mikado / HMS Pinafore | DVD | (03/10/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Gilbert And Sullivan's Pirates Of Penzance: Having mistakenly been sent as an apprentice to pirates young Frederic is happy to leave his indentures on his 21st birthday. Falling in love with the beautiful Mabel one of the many daughters of Major-General Stanley he decides to marry. However the pirates are all to keen to marry the rest of Stanley's daughters! A spectacular interpretation of the Gilbert and Sullivan classic! Gilbert And Sullivan's Mikado: A lavish 1982 production of the Gilbert and Sullivan opera in which Nanki-Poo the son of the Mikado escaping a distasteful marriage arrives in the town of Titipu disguised as a musician... Gilbert And Sullivan's HMS Pinafore: A sailor falls for the captain's daughter. They become thwarted in their attempt to keep their love alive but a strange twist in the tale offers these lovers another chance... A thrilling adaptation of Gilbert and Sullivan's opera.

• The John Cassavetes Collection | DVD | (12/09/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £49.99

  A collection of films from famed actor and independent director John Cassavetes comprising: Shadows (1959): A depiction of the struggle of three black siblings to survive the mean streets of Manhattan 'Shadows' was Cassavetes' jazz-scored improvisational film exploring interracial friendships and relationships in Beat-Era (1950s) New York City made from a script entirely improvised by the talented cast heralding a vital new era in independent filmmaking. Faces (1968):

• Robocop | Blu Ray | (24/12/2007) from £17.40   |  Saving you £2.59 (14.89%)   |  RRP £19.99

  He's RoboCop. And in the near future he's law enforcement's only hope. A sadistic crime wave is sweeping across America. In Old Detroit the situation is so bad a private corporation Omni Consumer Products (OCP) has assumed control of the police force. The executives at the company think they have the answer - until the enforcement droid they create kills one of their own. Then an ambitious young executive seizes the opportunity. He and his research team at Security Concepts create a law enforcement cyborg from the body of a slain officer. All goes well at first. Robocop stops every sleazeball he encounters with deadly piercing and sometimes gruesome accuracy. But there are forces on the street and within Security Concepts itself that will stop at nothing to see this super cyborg violently eliminated... Prepare yourself for non-stop action and adventure in one of the most explosive sci-fi stories you'll ever witness: Robocop.

• The Supergrass | DVD | (14/07/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Who is Dennis Carter? Well Dennis is a moron. His mum knows it his friends know it and even he knows it. But the police don't. So when Dennis tries to impress Andrea with his fantasies about multi-million pound drug deals Dennis gets nabbed and finds himself a supergrass. The trouble is Dennis doesn't know anything; or does he?

• The Stunt Man | DVD | (24/02/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Vietnam veteran Cameron (Steve Railsback) is on the run from the police when he stumbles onto the set of a war movie directed by megalomaniac Eli Cross (Peter O'Toole). But when the young fugitive is forced to replace a dead stunt man he falls in love with the movies leading lady (Barbara Hershey) while trying to avoid getting arrested or killed. Is Eli trying to capture Cameron's death on film? And what happens to a paranoid stunt man when illusion and reality change places?

• Mission Impossible - Season 1 | DVD | (20/11/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £44.99

  An elite covert operations unit known as the Impossible Mission Taskforce (IMF) carries out highly sensitive missions subject to official denial in the event of failure capture or death. Their mission should they choose to accept it is given by the unseen figure known only as the 'Secretary' who instructions are relaid on a tape guaranteed to self-destruct in five seconds... Episodes Comprise: 1. Pilot episode 2. Memory 3. Operation Rogosh 4. Old Man Out (Part 1) 5. Old Man Out (Part 2) 6. Odds On Evil 7. Wheels 8. The Ransom 9. A Spool There Was 10. The Carriers 11. Zubrovnik's Ghost 12. Fakeout 13. Elena 14. The Short Tail Spy 15. The Legacy 16. The Reluctant Dragon 17. The Frame 18. The Trial 19. The Diamond 20. The Legend 21. Snowball In Hell 22. The Confession 23. Action! 24. The Train 25. Shock 26. A Cube Of Sugar 27. The Traitor 28. The Psychic

• Robocop - Limited Edition Steelbook (Blu-ray + DVD) | Blu Ray | (01/04/2013) from £17.98   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  There's a new law enforcer in town... and he's half-man, half-machine! From the director of Total Recall and Basic Instinct comes a sci-fi fantasy with sleek, high-powered drive (Time) about an indestructible high-tech policeman who dishes out justice at every turn! When a good cop (Peter Weller) gets blown away by some ruthless criminals, innovative scientists and doctors are able to piece him back together as an unstoppable crime-fighting cyborg called RoboCop. Impervious to bullets and bombs, and equipped with high-tech weaponry, RoboCop quickly makes a name for himself by cleaning up the crime-ridden streets of violence-ravaged Detroit. But despite his new hardened exterior, RoboCop is tormented by scraps of memories of his former life, and relives vivid nightmares of his own death at the hands of the vicious killers. Now he is out to seek more than justice... he wants revenge!

• Robocop | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £6.99   |  Saving you £3.00 (42.92%)   |  RRP £9.99

  When a good cop (Peter Weller) gets blown away by some ruthless criminals innovative scientists and doctors are able to piece him back together as an unstoppable crime-fghting cyborg called “Robocop.” Impervious to bullets and bombs and equipped with high-tech weaponry Robocop quickly makes a name for himself by cleaning up the crime-ridden streets of violence-ravaged Detroit. But despite his new hardened exterior Robocop is tormented by scraps of memory of his former life and relives vivid nightmares of his own death at the hands of the vicious killers. Now he is out to seek more than just justice...he wants revenge!

• Peter Sellers | DVD | (27/02/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Peter Sellers Collection

• The Stunt Man | DVD | (23/10/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Vietnam veteran Cameron (Steve Railsback) is on the run from the police when he stumbles onto the set of a war movie directed by megalomaniac Eli Cross (Peter O'Toole). But when the young fugitive is forced to replace a dead stunt man he falls in love with the movies leading lady (Barbara Hershey) while trying to avoid getting arrested or killed. Is Eli trying to capture Cameron's death on film? And what happens to a paranoid stunt man when illusion and reality change places?

• Royal Wedding | DVD | (05/03/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Fred Astaire dances on the ceiling in this 1951 Alan Jay Lerner musical for MGM, directed by Stanley Donen (Singin' in the Rain). The appealing story finds Astaire as part of a brother-and-sister act (along with Jane Powell) that travels to London at the time of Queen Elizabeth II's wedding. Astaire and Powell each find romances that threaten to break up the act, but that's mostly fun window dressing in a movie better known for some truly creative sequences made vivid by Donen, including Astaire's famous dance with a hat rack and his duet with Powell, "How Could You Believe Me When I Said I Loved You (When You Know I've Been a Liar All My Life)?" --Tom Keogh, Amazon.com

• Night Of The Big Heat | DVD | (22/03/2004) from £47.95   |  Saving you £-31.96 (-199.90%)   |  RRP £15.99

  A freak heatwave sends the temperature soaring on the remote island of Fara. The locals including Dr Vernon (Peter Cushing) and novelist Jeffrey Callum (Patrick Allen) are left dazed by the rising temperature. When Callum is reunited with his former mistress Angela Roberts (Jane Merrow) the atmosphere becomes even more tense. It falls to Godfrey Hanson (Christopher Lee) another visitor to the island to solve the mystery. The unbearable temperature is the result of a heat ray dire

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

  Sequel to Westworld where the robots have rebuilt the theme park. Not content with the simple aims of capitalism the robots led by the indomitable Duffy (Hill) are bent on complete global domination. When powerful leaders are invited to the park they uncover a sinister cloning plan to carry out the mission.