"Actor: Peter Locke"

• Robocop Trilogy | DVD | (04/02/2002) from £39.99   |  Saving you £-7.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £32.99

  Paul Verhoeven was almost unknown in Hollywood prior to the release of RoboCop in 1987. But after this ultra-violent yet strangely subversive and satirical sci-fi picture became a huge hit his reputation for extravagant and excessive, yet superbly well-crafted filmmaking was assured. Controversial as ever, Verhoeven saw the blue-collar cop (Peter Weller) who is transformed into an invincible cyborg as "an American Jesus with a gun", and so the film dabbles with death and resurrection imagery as well as mercilessly satirising Reagan-era America. No targets escape Verhoeven's unflinching camera eye, from yuppie excess and corporate backstabbing to rampant consumerism and vacuous media personalities. As with his later sci-fi satire Starship Troopers the extremely bloody violence resolutely remains on the same level as a Tom and Jerry cartoon. The inevitable sequel, competently directed by Irvin Kershner, thankfully continues to mine the dark vein of anti-consumerist satire while being reflexively aware that it is itself a shining example of that which it is lampooning. Sadly the third instalment in the series, now without Peter Weller in the title role, is exactly the kind of dumbed-down production-line flick that the corporate suits of OCP might have dreamed up at a marketing meeting. Its only virtue is a decent music score from regular Verhoeven collaborator Basil Poledouris, whose splendid march theme returned from the original score. On the DVD: Packaged in a fold-out slipcase these three discs make a very collectable set. All are presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic prints, although only the first movie has any extra material worth mentioning. Here the Director's Cut option allows the viewer to see Paul Verhoeven's more explicitly violent versions of Murphy's "assassination", ED-209's bloody malfunction and the shootout finale. These extended sequences are handily signposted in the scene selection menu, and the filming of them can be seen in a sequence of Director's Cut footage. Deleted scenes include "Topless Pizza" ("I'll buy that for a dollar!") and there are two contemporary "making of" featurettes plus a good, new half-hour retrospective. Both the latter and the director's commentary make abundantly clear the Reagan-era satire and are chock full of quotable lines from Verhoeven--"I wanted to show Satan killing Jesus"--and his producer--"Fascism for liberals". Stop-motion animator Phil Tippett gives a commentary on the storyboard-to-film comparisons, and there are the usual trailers and photos. Showing just how much the sequels are rated in comparison, the second and third discs have nothing but theatrical trailers and their sound is just Dolby 2.0 whereas the original movie has been remastered into Dolby 5.1.--Mark Walker

• The L-Shaped Room (Digitally Restored) | DVD | (27/11/2017) from £7.65   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  The L-Shaped Room, adapted by writer-director Bryan Forbes from Lynne Reid Banks' novel, unfolds in a dank, depressing London boarding house. Leslie Caron plays Jane Fosset, a 27-year-old French woman, down on her luck, who takes a room. There are bugs in her mattress. The taps drip. The landlady ("the lovely Doris") is a drunken, malicious busybody. Forbes doesn't paint the English in a flattering light. They're covetous, eccentric and xenophobic. "I never close my door to the nigs," Doris tells Fosset, as if to prove that she is no racist. When Fosset reveals that she's pregnant and unmarried, everybody turns against her. The one real friend Fosset makes is Toby (Tom Bell), an impoverished would-be writer who lives in the room downstairs. She starts an affair with him, but for all his protestations to the contrary, he too turns out to be moralistic and conservative--he can't accept the idea that she is having another man's baby.Forbes' dialogue sometimes grates, the film risks running into a dead end (Fosset is stuck with nowhere to go and no prospects), but this is compelling fare all the same. Cameraman Douglas Slocombe (who went on to shoot Raiders of the Lost Ark) makes the boarding house seem as gloomy and oppressive as a Gothic mansion. Forbes doesn't sentimentalise at all. The London he portrays is nothing like the swinging, hedonistic city shown in later British movies of the 60s. --Geoffrey Macnab

• Wilde | DVD | (01/10/1999) from £16.66   |  Saving you £-6.67 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Wilde could easily have been nothing more than another well-dressed literary film from the British costume drama stable, but thanks to a richly textured performance from Stephen Fry in the title role, it becomes something deeper--a moving study of how the conflict between individual desires and social expectations can ruin lives. Oscar Wilde's writing may be justifiably legendary for its sly, barbed wit, but Wilde the film is far from a comedy, even though Fry relishes delivering the great man's famous quips. It takes on tragic dimensions as soon as Wilde meets Lord Alfred Douglas, known as Bosie, the strikingly beautiful but viciously selfish young aristocrat who wins Oscar's heart but loses him his reputation, marriage and freedom. Fry is brilliant at capturing how the intensity of Wilde's love for Bosie threw him off balance, becoming an all-consuming force he was unable to resist. Jude Law expertly depicts both Bosie's allure and his spitefully destructive side, there are subtle supporting performances from Vanessa Redgrave, Jennifer Ehle and Zoe Wanamaker, and the period trappings are lavishly trowelled on. But this is Fry's show all the way: from Oscar the darling of theatrical London to Wilde the prisoner broken on the wheel of Victorian moralism, he doesn't put a foot wrong. It feels like the role he was born to play. --Andy Medhurst

• The L-Shaped Room (Digitally Restored) | Blu Ray | (27/11/2017) from £10.95   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  The L-Shaped Room, adapted by writer-director Bryan Forbes from Lynne Reid Banks' novel, unfolds in a dank, depressing London boarding house. Leslie Caron plays Jane Fosset, a 27-year-old French woman, down on her luck, who takes a room. There are bugs in her mattress. The taps drip. The landlady ("the lovely Doris") is a drunken, malicious busybody. Forbes doesn't paint the English in a flattering light. They're covetous, eccentric and xenophobic. "I never close my door to the nigs," Doris tells Fosset, as if to prove that she is no racist. When Fosset reveals that she's pregnant and unmarried, everybody turns against her. The one real friend Fosset makes is Toby (Tom Bell), an impoverished would-be writer who lives in the room downstairs. She starts an affair with him, but for all his protestations to the contrary, he too turns out to be moralistic and conservative--he can't accept the idea that she is having another man's baby.Forbes' dialogue sometimes grates, the film risks running into a dead end (Fosset is stuck with nowhere to go and no prospects), but this is compelling fare all the same. Cameraman Douglas Slocombe (who went on to shoot Raiders of the Lost Ark) makes the boarding house seem as gloomy and oppressive as a Gothic mansion. Forbes doesn't sentimentalise at all. The London he portrays is nothing like the swinging, hedonistic city shown in later British movies of the 60s. --Geoffrey Macnab

• The Hills Have Eyes | DVD | (29/09/2003) from £7.93   |  Saving you £-1.94 (-32.40%)   |  RRP £5.99

  A classic of shock cinema, Wes Craven's tale follows a family vacation which turns into a holiday from hell.

• Nachts, wenn das Skelett erwacht | DVD | (13/02/2015) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A