"Actor: Robert Lloyd"

• Dead Poets Society | DVD | (13/05/2002) from £6.95   |  Saving you £9.04 (130.07%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Robin Williams stars as an English teacher who doesn't fit into the conservative prep school where he teaches but his charisma and love of poetry inspires several boys to revive a secret society with a bohemian bent. The script is well-meaning but a little trite, though director Peter Weir (The Truman Show) adds layers of emotional depth in scenes of conflict between the kids and adults. (A subplot involving one father's terrible pressure on his son--played by Robert Sean Leonard--to drop his interest in the theatre reaches heartbreaking proportions). Williams is given plenty of latitude to work in his brand of improvisational humour, though it is all well-woven into his character's style of instruction. --Tom Keogh

• Bull Durham | DVD | (06/05/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  The Durham Bulls are in a slump and have spent a hefty sum of money acquiring an untested young pitcher in the hopes of reversing their standings. Crash Davis a 12-year veteran ballplayer who has spent most of his time bumming around as a minor league catcher is assigned to mature the rookie pitching phenom named ""Nuke."" But a beautiful and enigmatic team groupie comes between the tutor and his student enlightening both with her game of life love and verse.

• Airplane! | DVD | (05/03/2001) from £5.99   |  Saving you £10.00 (166.94%)   |  RRP £15.99

  The quintessential movie spoof that spawned an entire genre of parody films, the original Airplane! still holds up as one of the brightest comedic gems of the 1980s, not to mention of cinema itself (it often tops polls of the funniest movies ever made). The humour may be low and obvious at times, but the jokes keep coming at a rapid-fire clip and its targets--primarily the lesser lights of 1970s cinema, from disco films to star-studded disaster epics--are more than worthy for send-up. If you've seen even one of the overblown Airport movies then you know the plot: the crew of a filled-to-capacity jetliner is wiped out and it's up to a plucky stewardess and a shell-shocked fighter pilot to land the plane. Robert Hays and Julie Hagerty are the heroes who have a history that includes a meet-cute á la Saturday Night Fever, a surf scene right out of From Here to Eternity, a Peace Corps trip to Africa to teach the natives the benefits of Tupperware and basketball, a war-ravaged recovery room with a G.I. who thinks he's Ethel Merman (a hilarious cameo)--and those are just the flashbacks! The jokes gleefully skirt the boundaries of bad taste (pilot Peter Graves to a juvenile cockpit visitor: "Joey, have you ever seen a grown man naked?"), with the high (low?) point being Hagerty's intimate involvement with the blow-up automatic pilot doll, but they'll have you rolling on the floor. The film launched the careers of collaborators Jim Abrahams (Big Business), David Zucker (Ruthless People) and Jerry Zucker (Ghost), as well as revitalising such B-movie actors as Lloyd Bridges, Peter Graves, Robert Stack and Leslie Nielsen, who built a second career on films like this. A vital part of any home film collection. --Mark Englehart, Amazon.com

• The Abyss | Blu Ray | (26/04/2024) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Who Dares Wins (Uncut Special Edition) Blu-Ray | Blu Ray | (14/06/2021) from £12.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Who Dares Wins | DVD | (06/01/2003) from £11.22   |  Saving you £-5.23 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Who Dares Wins starring Lewis Collins Edward Woodward and Richard Widmark is an uncompromising and exciting action thriller which dramatises the activities of the SAS. When a British government undercover agent is assassinated a radical anti-nuclear group is held responsible. SAS agent Skellen is called upon to infiltrate the group and put an end to their terrorist activities. However the group raids the American embassy and Skellen from within the residence must use his skill and courage to support and guide his SAS colleagues. It will require the full force of the world's most lethal fighting unit to save the lives of several high-ranking hostages...

• The First Great Train Robbery | DVD | (19/03/2001) from £16.80   |  Saving you £-3.81 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  A lively, humorous caper film of the first order, The First Great Train Robbery is Michael Crichton's ambitious adaptation of his own novel, which was inspired by the facts of the first known train robbery. Crichton sets this attractive, highly enjoyable film in London in 1855, where Edward Pierce (Sean Connery) and Agar (Donald Sutherland) plot to steal £25,000 in gold that is being transported by train to pay British troops in the Crimean War. Lesley-Anne Down plays Miriam, Pierce's sophisticated paramour and the third partner in the scheme; while Pierce and Agar make copies of four keys for the train's closely guarded safes, she uses her feminine wiles to distract a variety of officials and businessmen with connections to the gold.The film boasts a vividly authentic recreation of mid-Victorian England, all the more remarkable since the production was filmed primarily in Ireland on a budget of $6 million--a miraculously modest sum (even in 1978) for such a lavish-looking film. Credit is due to the splendid cinematography of Geoffrey Unsworth and Jerry Goldsmith's ebullient score, both of which enhance the film's look and feel. Although Crichton's directorial style seems somewhat detached and bloodless, he maintains a vivid respect for place and time, and his three leads are splendid in their charismatic roles. Meticulous attention to details of costuming and production design enhance the breezy fun of the heist, which climaxes with an exciting sequence on the rushing train, with Connery performing his own stunt work. While the later hit Mission: Impossible would take a similar sequence to its high-tech, high -velocity extreme, The First Great Train Robbbery remains an entertaining study of crime in a less hectic age, allowing Crichton to emphasise ingenuity over special effects. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com

• Very Important Person | DVD | (13/02/2017) from £10.46   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Comedy set in World War Two, starring James Robertson-Justice and Leslie Phillips. Sir Ernest Pease (Robertson-Justice) is a self-important scientist who is sent undercover on a bombing mission to monitor the effectiveness of his latest invention, a new-fangled radar. When the plane is attacked, he parachutes to safety - only to be sent to a POW camp, where he takes on the alias of Lieutenant Farrow. There, the somewhat happy-go-lucky bunch of Brits suspect their acerbic new fellow prisoner of being a spy, and all sorts of culture clashes and misunderstandings ensue.

• The Invisible Man - Vol. 1 | DVD | (12/04/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Dr. Peter Brady (Tim Turner) is a brilliant English scientist who working with the principles that govern the reflection of light has developed a theory that every form of matter can be reduced to invisibility just as a jellyfish becomes invisible in water. During an accident in the laboratory Brady himself becomes invisible but his experiments have not yet gone far enough for him to reverse the process and regain visibility!

• Frank Sinatra | DVD | (03/07/2006) from £14.98   |  Saving you £-0.58 (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.40

  Tony Rome: Tony Rome a tough Miami PI living on a houseboat is hired by a local millionaire to find jewelry stolen from his daughter and in the process has several encounters with local hoods as well as the Miami Beach PD. The Detective: A hard-boiled mystery starring Frank Sinatra as the tough-as-nails Detective Joe Leland 'The Detective' was based on a novel by Roderick Thorp. Called in to investigate the murder of Teddy Leikman the homosexual son of a well-conn

• The Naked Gun 2 1/2 - The Smell Of Fear | DVD | (09/04/2001) from £4.98   |  Saving you £11.01 (221.08%)   |  RRP £15.99

  It's more of Leslie Nielsen's Lt Frank Drebin, the bumbling cop from the old Police Squad! television series. This time, Drebin uncovers a plot--led by supervillain Robert Goulet!--to sabotage America's energy policy. The jokes don't stick as well as those of the first film (Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!), but there are some very funny slapstick moments, including several involving former First Lady Barbara Bush (played by an actress, of course). --Tom Keogh

• Airplane | DVD | (29/05/2006) from £5.96   |  Saving you £10.03 (168.29%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Voted ""one of the 10 funniest movies ever made"" by the American Film Institute Airplane! is a masterpiece of off-the-wall comedy. Featuring Robert Hays as an ex-fighter pilot forced to take over the controls of an airliner when the flight crew succumbs to food poisoning; Julie Hagerty as his girlfriend/ stewardess/ co-pilot; and a cast of all-stars including Robert Stack Lloyd Bridges Peter Graves Leslie Nielsen Kareem Abdul-Jabbar...and more! Their hilarious high jinks spook a

• King Lear | DVD | (06/06/2005) from £16.00   |  Saving you £-10.01 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  There have been a number of notable cinematic versions of King Lear and Peter Brook's depiction of Shakespeare's epic tragedy is no exception. The majesticl Paul Scofield tackles the role of Lear with such aplomb that it is clear to see why many of his contemporaries consider him to be the finest Shakespearian actor to emerge from the RSC (Royal Shakespeare Company).

• Batman - The Animated Series - The Legend Begins | DVD | (26/07/2004) from £3.99   |  Saving you £7.00 (175.44%)   |  RRP £10.99

  He rules the night as Gotham City's shadowy protector - a crusading Dark Knight defending the innocent and striking fear into the hearts of evildoers. The legend of Batman begins in this thrilling collection of the first five landmark episodes of the Emmy award-winning 'Batman: The Animated Series'. From the perilous punchlines of The Joker's latest pranks to the nightmarish Scarecrow and Poison Ivy's deadly embrace this is Batman at his action-packed best! Episodes comprise: O

• Boris Godunov - Mussorgsky | DVD | (05/08/2002) from £17.29   |  Saving you £-2.30 (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  The legendary Russian film director Andrei Tarkovsky helmed his one and only opera in 1983 with this famed production of Mussorgsky's 'Boris Godunov'. Staged at London's famed Royal Opera House the staging features Robert Lloyd giving a masterful performance in the title role. Conductor Valery Gergiev known primarily for his fine work leading St. Petersburg's Kirov Opera takes the baton.

• Airplane II - The Sequel | DVD | (05/03/2001) from £5.50   |  Saving you £10.49 (190.73%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Though most of the stars got back together for Airplane II: The Sequel, the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker team passed the torch to new writer-director Ken Finkleman, who manages to reprise the style of the original quite well but is, as perhaps expected, more or less one-third as funny. The premise, alarmingly similar to the dead-straight contemporary Starflight One, is that the first commercial passenger shuttle to the moon has 2001-style computer hassles en route and finds itself headed straight through an asteroid belt into the sun. Cracked-up test pilot Robert Hays and promoted-from-stewardess technical expert Julie Hagerty have to save the day, despite panicking passengers, inept ground staff, complicated trauma flashbacks, deadpan one-liners and deliberately dodgy special effects. Leslie Nielsen is glimpsed only in footage from Airplane that sets up an extended slapping-the-hysterical-passenger gag redone (into the ground) here, but Lloyd Bridges and Stephen Stucker return as the overly-intense airport crisis controller and his happy-go-lucky gay sidekick. There are sterling cameos in the patented agonisingly serious mode from Raymond Burr (a judge), Chuck Connors (cigar-tossing fire chief), William Shatner (who gets the best sight gag) and Sonny Bono (impotent mad bomber). Back in the early 80s, it was still possible to do mild gags about paedophilia (not only Graves's chumminess with the cute kid who visits the cockpit, but also the priest looking at the centrefold of Altar Boy magazine) but aside from some incidental naked breasts, the humour is a touch cleaner than in the first film. Hays and Hagerty are better than the material, and it's all over swiftly enough--the film clocks in at 75 minutes before the slow, padded end credits--to avoid wearing out your patience. The end title promises an Airplane III, but we're still waiting. The 1.78:1 widescreen ratio of the DVD allows you to see gags in the corners of the frame that would be cropped in a full-screen transfer. --Kim Newman

• Millennium | DVD | (16/02/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Whilst investigating a plane crash a government official meets a strange woman but the next day the woman vanishes. Her identity is entwined with the strange object found at the crash site for which she returns only to then vanish once more...

• The Abyss (Special Edition) | DVD | (08/02/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Academy Award winning director and master storyteller James Cameron journeys back to the site of his greatest inspiration -- the legendary wreck of the Titanic.

• Jingle All The Way | DVD | (07/11/2005) from £5.07   |  Saving you £2.92 (57.59%)   |  RRP £7.99

  It's Christmas Eve, and Arnold needs to find a Turbo Man action figure, the craze of the season. Only they're sold out, of course. So the race is on, and the Austrian Oak must do fierce battle with other shoppers and merchants alike, all for the prize toy with which to purchase his son's affections. All of which is unwittingly very sad, on the content level. But the film supposes itself to be amiable enough, on its own shabby terms, even when it climbs out of the screen and starts gnawing at your furniture. If the humour were to get broader it would make HDTV obsolete. The tone can only be termed good-naturedly mean-spirited. Goofy carnival music runs continuously in the background so we never forget that what we're seeing is, er, um, funny. All the action is composed of comic violence, like an unhip Warner Bros. cartoon. Do the filmmakers actually consider this cynical foray to be indicative of the Christmas spirit? Apparently so, because the resolution has Arnold winning quite inadvertently, and offers no clear alternative to the competitive commercialism that drives the film's attempts at humour. In a key scene that's meant to be touching, Arnold and his chief rival Sinbad sit down for a heart-to-heart in which we learn that receiving much-wanted Christmas presents in our formative years is responsible for our success in adulthood. You get that Turbo Man, you'll be a billionaire; don't get it, you'll be a loser. Such is the formidable challenge of parenthood, to cater to the child's whims while it can still make a difference. This is what's wrong with America. --Jim Gay, Amazon.com

• Rossini: Il Barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville) -- Stuttgart | DVD | (06/03/2001) from £26.91   |  Saving you £-1.92 (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  The point of a good production of Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia is to have a Rosina and a Figaro who will knock your socks off in their respective arias, while holding back enough in all those crescendo ensembles in which the farce plot reaches its several culminations that the other stars get a chance to shine too. Cecilia Bartoli and Gino Quilico give full-blooded enough performances when on stage by themselves that self-effacement seems far from imminent, yet both are capable of less, and give it when it is needed. Of the others, David Kuebler is an attractively raffish Almaviva, while Robert Lloyd turns Basilio into a memorable cameo. Gabriele Ferro is one of the most intelligent of Rossini conductors--he understands the relationship between the pulse of the music and its dramatic function, and he is also outstanding in the delicacy of phrasing, even in climaxes, that ensures that every voice, every instrument, gets the moment of glory Rossini intended. Michael Hampe's solid reliable unfussy production keeps everything moving without drawing attention to itself. The DVD has subtitles in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish, as well as trailers for other Arthaus Musik discs. --Roz Kaveney