"Actor: Ricky Jay"

• James Bond - Tomorrow Never Dies (Ultimate Edition 2 Disc Set) | DVD | (17/07/2006) from £6.30   |  Saving you £10.69 (169.68%)   |  RRP £16.99

  Pierce Brosnan leaps into action as Agent 007 in this spectacular thrill ride of death-defying stunts unstoppable action and amazing high-tech gadgets in the most electrifying Bond film yet. Someone is pitting the world's superpowers against each other - and only James Bond can stop it. When a British warship is mysteriously destroyed in Chinese waters the world teeters on the brink of World War III - until 007 zeros in on the true criminal mastermind. Bond's do-or-die mission takes him to Elliot Carver (Jonathan Pryce) a powerful industrialist who manipulates world events as easily as he changes headlines from his global media empire. After soliciting help from Carver's sexy wife Paris (Teri Hatcher) Bond joins forces with a stunning yet lethal Chinese agent Wai Lin. In a series of explosive chases brutal confrontations and breathtaking escapes they race to stop the presses on Carver's next planned news story: global pandemonium! With powerhouse action sequences including a wild motorcycle pursuit through (and over!) Saigon Tomorrow Never Dies sees Bond back to his best in this high-octane action adventure.

• Tomorrow Never Dies | DVD | (03/11/2003) from £5.19   |  Saving you £14.80 (285.16%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Pierce Brosnan returns for his second stint as James Bond in Tomorrow Never Dies and he's doing it in high style with an invigorating cast of co-stars. It's only appropriate that a Bond film from 1997 would find Agent 007 pitted against a media mogul (Jonathan Pryce) who's going to start a global war--beginning with stolen nuclear missiles aimed at China--to create attention-grabbing headlines for his latest multimedia news channel. It's the information age run amok and Bond must team up with a lovely and lethal agent from the Chinese External Security Force (played by Hong Kong action star Michelle Yeoh) to foil the madman's plot of global domination. Luckily for Bond, the villain's wife (Teri Hatcher) is one of his former lovers and, at the behest of his superior "M" (Judi Dench), 007 finds ample opportunity to exploit the connection. Although it bears some nagging similarities to many formulaic action films from the 90s, Tomorrow Never Dies (with a title song performed by Sheryl Crow) boasts enough grand-scale action and sufficiently intelligent plotting to suggest the Bond series has plenty of potential to survive into the next millennium. Armed with the usual array of gadgets (including a remote-controlled BMW), Brosnan settles into his role with acceptable flair and the dynamic Yeoh provides a perfect balance to the sexism that once threatened to turn Bond into a politically incorrect anachronism. He's still Bond, to be sure but he's saving the world with a bit more sophisticated finesse. --Jeff Shannon --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. On the DVD: Somewhat disappointingly there is no specific "making-of" documentary for Tomorrow Never Dies: instead we get a generic "Secrets of 007" made-for-US-television feature, a promotional piece that does however include footage from the set of TND. There is also a very brief special effects reel, which highlights the novel (for a Bond movie) use of CGI, as well as a breakdown of key sequences with their storyboards. Elsewhere, composer David Arnold enthuses about writing Bond music from a fan's perspective and Sheryl Crow's music video is included as are theatrical trailers and a text piece on some of the gadgets. There are two commentaries: the first from producer Michael Wilson and stunt coordinator Vic Armstrong; the second has director Roger Spottiswoode in conversation with "friend and colleague" Dan Petrie Jr. Only die-hard fans would have wanted both, the rest may find themselves switching between the two. The film, of course, looks and sounds stunning. --Mark Walker

• Magnolia - Two Disc Set (1999) | DVD | (02/10/2000) from £9.16   |  Saving you £1.83 (19.98%)   |  RRP £10.99

  24 hours in L.A.; it's raining cats and dogs. Two parallel and intercut stories dramatize a man about to die: both men are estranged from a grown child, both want to make contact, and neither child wants anything to do with dad.

• Heartbreakers | DVD | (11/02/2002) from £6.15   |  Saving you £9.10 (186.09%)   |  RRP £13.99

  In this comedy, Sigourney Weaver and Jennifer Love Hewitt play Max and Page, a mother and daughter who operate as con artists, using their good looks to lure a succession of rich men.

• House Of Games | DVD | (02/02/2004) from £9.43   |  Saving you £3.56 (37.75%)   |  RRP £12.99

  David Mamet's 1987 directorial debut House of Games is mesmerising study of control and seduction between two kinds of detached observers: a gambler who is also a con artist and a psychotherapist who is also an emerging pop-psych guru in the book market. The latter (played by Lindsay Crouse) meets the former (Joe Mantegna) when one of her clients is driven to despair from his debts to the card shark. Mantegna's character agrees to drop the IOUs in exchange for Crouse's attention at the seedy House of Games in Seattle, a mecca for conmen to talk shop and hustle unsuspecting customers. The shrink gets so caught up in the arcane rules and world view of her guide over subsequent days that she observes--with no false rapture--various stings in progress inside and outside the club. Mamet's story finally becomes a fascinating study of two people protecting and extending their respective cosmologies the way rival predators fight for the same piece of turf. The psychological challenge is compelling; so is the stylised dialogue, with its pattern of pauses and hiccups and humming meter. Mostly shooting at night, Mamet also gave Seattle a different look from previous filmmakers, turning its familiar puddles into concentrations of liquid neon and poisonous noir. --Tom Keogh

• Heist | DVD | (27/05/2002) from £17.53   |  Saving you £-2.54 (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Gene Hackman stars as an ex-con who decides to pull off the biggest jewelry heist of his career, but mayhem ensues when the gang of jewel thieves he teams up with turn on him.

• The Spanish Prisoner | DVD | (30/06/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Joe Ross (Campbell Scott) is a man on the brink of something big. He has designed a process that will make his company millions and him a very wealthy man. Unnerved by a lack of commitment from his boss a chance meeting with a weathly jetsetter Dell (Steve Martin) causes him to further suspect the true intentions of his colleagues. But with such a money-spinning opportunity at stake is there anyone he can trust? Writer/director David Mamet's 'The Spanish Prisoner' is a film that

• State and Main | DVD | (24/09/2007) from £9.43   |  Saving you £6.56 (69.57%)   |  RRP £15.99

  A big-budget movie crew descends upon the sleepy town of Waterford Vermont. Soon money will change hands careers will be jeopardised and love will bloom. Pity the poor film director (William H. Macy) who's arrive only to discover that the local mill - a crucial location for his movie The Old Mill - burned down in 1960. On top of this he is faced with a problematic cast and crew. The idealistic screenwriter (Philip Seymour Hoffman) would rather pursue a pure-hearted local girl (Rebecca Pidgeon) than do a last-minute rewrite; the bimbo starlet (Sarah Jessica Parker) is now baulking at her contractual nude scene; and a local teenager (Julia Stiles) is only too willing to exploit the indiscretions of the film's skirt-chasing star (Alec Baldwin). And of course the power-wielding producer (David Paymer) is panicking about everything. David Mamet's State and Main is a hilarious screwball comedy and movie satire.

• Last Days | DVD | (09/01/2006) from £11.13   |  Saving you £11.85 (145.58%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Michael Pitt stars in a Seattle-set rock & roll drama as a musician whose life and career is reminiscent of Kurt Cobain's

• Hard Rain | DVD | (01/10/1999) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  It may not exactly be a disaster movie, but this terminally silly thriller is certainly disastrous, and would be pointless without the novelty of its setting in a flooding Midwestern town during a torrential rainfall. Physically impressive but idiotic in every other respect, the movie pits an armoured truck courier (Christian Slater) against a smart leader of thieves (Morgan Freeman) and a corruptible town sheriff (Randy Quaid) who are vying for possession of $3 million in cash. A waterlogged game of cat and mouse, the plot is so contrived that even the most impressive action sequences--such as a jet-ski chase through flooded high-school corridors--are robbed of their already tenuous credibility. Before long you'll be yawning as incompetent accomplices are systematically dispatched by their own stupidity, in the kind of movie where the use of power boats inevitably leads to at least one death by outboard motor. What's impressive here is the physical production itself--the effect of flooding was created by building a huge replica of downtown Huntington, Indiana, in a huge, watertight aircraft hangar in Palmdale, California! --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com

• State And Main | DVD | (20/08/2001) from £6.54   |  Saving you £7.45 (53.30%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Alec Baldwin, Sarah Jessica Parker and William H Macy star in acclaimed writer/director David Mamet's latest comedy about a Hollywood film crew that goes on location to a small rural town in Virginia.

• Elephant / Last Days | DVD | (09/01/2006) from £19.42   |  Saving you £5.57 (22.30%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Elephant (2003): Winner of the Palme d'Or and Best Director prizes at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival Gus Van Sant's realistic drama takes us inside an American high school on one single ordinary day that very rapidly turns tragic... Last Days (2005): Introspective artist Blake is buckling under the weight of fame professional obligations and a mounting feeling of isolation. Many people are looking for Blake - his friends his managers and record label even a private