"Actor: Robert"

• Doctor Who - Series 13 - Flux | DVD | (24/01/2022) from £9.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  She's back. The Thirteenth Doctor is returning for the thirteenth series, a six-part Event Serial. Since their last epic battle in Revolution of the Daleks, the Doctor (Jodie Whittaker) and Yaz (Mandip Gill) have been exploring the universe together but with the Doctor now questioning everything about her past she will undoubtedly be searching for answers. This adrenalin fuelled, universe-spanning series will also see an addition to the TARDIS with actor and comedian John Bishop (Accused) joining the cast as Dan Lewis. Dan will quickly learn there's more to the Universe than he could ever believe. Jacob Anderson (Game of Thrones, Broadchurch) is also set to make his debut on Doctor Who as recurring character, Vinder. Jacob's new role will see him join forces with the Doctor, Yaz and Dan as the Doctor faces her biggest ever adventure. Series 13 will introduce some terrifying new adversaries and the return of truly iconic old enemies. Expect action, fun, scares and extraordinary new worlds as the Doctor and her friends confront a deadly evil.

• Mickey 17 | Blu Ray | (26/05/2025) from £19.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  From The Academy Award-winning writer/director of Parasite , Bong Joon Ho, comes his next groundbreaking cinematic experience, Mickey 17. The unlikely hero, Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson) has found himself in the extraordinary circumstance of working for an employer who demands the ultimate commitment to the job... to die, for a living.

• The Abyss | DVD | (05/07/2004) from £8.25   |  Saving you £9.74 (118.06%)   |  RRP £17.99

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

• Papillon | DVD | (04/12/2000) from £5.39   |  Saving you £7.60 (141.00%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Franklin J Schaffner's Papillon is quite possibly the definitive prison escape drama. Not as thrilling as The Great Escape, nor as emotionally cathartic as The Shawshank Redemption, its unflinching emphasis on the barbarism of "civilised" societies is nevertheless unparalleled. Significantly, the only characters to display any real kindness in this film are the social outcasts: the lepers and native Indians; everyone else has been corrupted and debased by the true villain, the penal system itself. Based on Henri Charrière' s heavily fictionalised "autobiography", the film's timeless themes of man's insatiable desire for freedom and the indomitability of the human spirit are thankfully not dependent for their impact on the source material's veracity. Dalton Trumbo's liberal-minded screenplay echoes the themes of his earlier script for Spartacus, and Schaffner's innate gift for epic cinema (this was made just two years after his great war biography Patton) is fully equal to the task of realising it on screen. The director's painterly eye for widescreen composition and his careful pacing impart a gravitas to proceedings even during the film's most squalid depictions of brutality, of which there are many emphasising the cheapness of human life among the convicts and their equally criminal prison guards in the penal colony of French Guiana. Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman form a remarkable screen pairing, with Hoffman outstanding as the pusillanimous Dega. McQueen magnificently overcomes his tough-guy persona in the extraordinary solitary confinement sequences as he is gradually reduced to a shambling, cockroach-eating wreck. Longtime collaborator Jerry Goldsmith, who had previously scored Schaffner's Planet of the Apes and Patton, attained yet another career high with his music. On the DVD: The anamorphic widescreen print of the original Panavision 2. 35:1 ratio looks fine without being as stunning as some more modern prints; the Dolby 5.1 audio does however do great service to Jerry Goldsmith's score, which can also be selected separately from the Audio Setup menu as an isolated track (note that there's no music at all in the first 20 minutes of the film). The 12-minute "Magnificent Rebel" featurette was made at the time of the film's release , and includes some fascinating footage of Henri Charrière touring the prison se t, reminiscing about his experiences and pontificating ("Society does not want free men, society wants conditioned men"). --Mark Walker

• Mythica Boxset | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £8.95   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  THE COMPLETE 5 FILM COLLECTION OF THE EPIC FANTASY SERIES The Mythica series follows the adventures of Marek, a wizard born with the dark power of necromancy, as she learns to harness the magic that threatens to corrupt her. She recruits a team of adventurers to battle Szorlok, the legendary Necromancer, and thwart his goal of uniting the four shards of the Darkspore to unleash an undead plague on the land. Mythica is a sweeping adventure featuring monsters, magic, romance, betrayal and hard-hitting action. Starring Melanie Stone, Adam Johnson, Jake Stormoen, Nicola Posener, Matthew Mercer, Robert Jayne and Kevin Sorbo.

• The Magnificent Seven | DVD | (11/06/2001) from £8.99   |  Saving you £5.00 (71.53%)   |  RRP £11.99

  Akira Kurosawa's rousing Seven Samurai was a natural for an American remake--after all, the codes and conventions of ancient Japan and the Wild West (at least the mythical movie West) are not so very far apart. Thus The Magnificent Seven effortlessly turns samurai into cowboys (the same trick worked more than once: Kurosawa's Yojimbo became Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars). The beleaguered denizens of a Mexican village, weary of attacks by banditos, hire seven gunslingers to repel the invaders once and for all. The gunmen are cool and capable, with most of the actors playing them just on the cusp of '60s stardom: Steve McQueen, James Coburn, Charles Bronson, Robert Vaughn. The man who brings these warriors together is Yul Brynner, the baddest bald man in the West. There's nothing especially stylish about the approach of veteran director John Sturges (The Great Escape), but the storytelling is clear and strong, and the charisma of the young guns fairly flies off the screen. If that isn't enough to awaken the 12-year-old kid inside anyone, the unforgettable Elmer Bernstein music will do it: bum-bum-ba-bum, bum-ba-bum-ba-bum... Followed by three inferior sequels, Return of the Seven, Guns of the Magnificent Seven, and The Magnificent Seven Ride! --Robert Horton

• Captain America: Civil War | Blu Ray | (05/09/2016) from £8.85   |  Saving you £1.14 (12.88%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Marvel's Captain America: Civil War finds Steve Rogers leading the newly formed team of Avengers in their continued efforts to safeguard humanity. But after another incident involving the Avengers results in collateral damage, political pressure mounts to install a system of accountability, headed by a governing body to oversee and direct the team. The new status quo fractures the Avengers, resulting in two campsone led by Steve Rogers and his desire for the Avengers to remain free to defend humanity without government interference, and the other following Tony Stark's surprising decision to support government oversight and accountability.

• In A Lonely Place | DVD | (27/01/2003) from £79.99   |  Saving you £-67.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  One of the classics of the noir psychological thriller, In a Lonely Place is one of Humphrey Bogart's finest performances. He is almost unbearably intense as Dixon Steele, a screenwriter with high standards and a nasty temper who finds himself under suspicion when Mildred, a hat-check girl he knows, is found murdered. Immediately he gets an alibi from a neighbour, Laurel, and equally quickly, he recognises that this is a woman who meets his standards: the question is, as suspicion of his involvement in Mildred's death continues, can he make himself meet hers? This is a wonderful study in trust and suspicion and the limits of love; Bogart's performance is impressive simply because he is prepared to go well over the limits of our sympathy in the name of emotional truth. The scene where he explains imaginatively to a cop and his wife how the murder might have happened is a spine-chilling, creepy portrait of amoral artistic brilliance. Gloria Grahame is equally fine as the woman who lets herself love him, for a while. On the DVD: In a Lonely Place comes with an excellent documentary in which Curtis Hanson (LA Confidential) explains the importance of the film to him and discusses its place in the work of Bogart and the director Nicholas Ray; there is also a quick interesting documentary about the restoration and digitisation of classic films. The film is presented with a visual aspect ratio of 1.33:1 and with restored Dolby Surround sound that does full justice to the film's snappy dialogue and the moody George Antheil score. --Roz Kaveney

• Scarface 1983 - 35th Anniversary | Blu Ray | (21/10/2019) from £21.95   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  NOTICE: Polish Release, cover may contain Polish text/markings. The disk has English audio.

• The Inn of the Sixth Happiness | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £8.99   |  Saving you £3.00 (42.92%)   |  RRP £9.99

  An epic and extraordinary true story--or, at least, an extraordinary story based on a novel (Alan Burgess's The Small Woman) based on a true story. Gladys Aylward (an improbably mesmerizing Ingrid Bergman) is a British would-be missionary with an obsession about China. As she has no experience, the Missionary Society won't let her go, but she goes anyway, alone, to a remote northern province. She is hated, then loved; finally she becomes both a significant political figure and the heroine of a miraculous escape in which she shepherds 100 children to safety across the mountains just ahead of a Japanese invasion. Curt Jurgens is suitably stony as Lin Nan, the half-Dutch, half-Chinese military officer who falls in love with her, and a visibly ailing Robert Donat (who died before this, his final film, was released) is the wily local mandarin who sees and makes use of her extraordinary abilities. Directed by Mark Robson, The Inn of the Sixth Happiness is a sweeping, stirring tearjerker, a big tale told in a big landscape with acres of orchestrated strings by Malcolm Arnold. A beautiful and beautifully made film that's a classic of the "everyone said I couldn't but I did it anyway" genre. --Richard Farr

• Mulholland Drive (Digitally Restored) | Blu Ray | (22/05/2017) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  After a car wreck, an amnesiac woman sets out to learn what happened to her with the help of a wannabee actress.

• Zodiac | DVD | (24/09/2007) from £4.95   |  Saving you £15.04 (303.84%)   |  RRP £19.99

  From David Fincher, director of "Seven" and "Fight Club" comes this new thriller about four investigators obsessed with finding a serial killer who is terrifying the San Francisco Bay Area.

• Mighty Joe Young | DVD | (22/01/2001) from £5.99   |  Saving you £12.00 (200.33%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Charlize Theron is the latest stunning blonde to be hanging around some big ape in a Hollywood movie, this one a remake of the 1949 semi-classic with echoes of the superior King Kong. Theron plays the daughter of an American researcher killed by poachers in Africa. The baby gorilla left in her care grows up to become a hugely tall and broad specimen named Joe, living in the mountains as a mostly unseen legend among people who live there. Along comes an eco-minded emissary (Bill Paxton) from a California sanctuary, who talks the jungle girl into providing safe haven for Joe at the LA facility. The transition is not without discomfort but everything is aggravated via a conspiracy of poachers to get Joe into their own greedy hands. Director Ron Underwood (City Slickers) uses a combination of special-effects techniques to give Joe life and personality, and he succeeds quite effectively. The requisite giant-ape-goes-amok scenes are all in place-a couple of them pretty intense--as is a conclusion that finds the simian hero performing a stunning feat of escalation. Underwood attempts to give a little modern spin to some classic Hollywood conventions regarding wild hearts lost in civilization and the results are pretty agreeable family fare. --Tom Keogh

• The Awful Truth | DVD | (24/03/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  One of the top five screwball comedies of the 1930s, this helped to cement a genre that waxed golden until the end of the Second World War. Director Leo McCarey won an Oscar for Best Director for this 1937 romantic comedy--one of the most successful films of his career. Irene Dunne and Cary Grant are a squabbling couple who separates because of supposed infidelities on both sides. They part, but cannot really keep away from each other. Grant finds himself hooked up with a socialite, Dunne becomes engaged to a millionaire hick played by the hapless Ralph Bellamy (as if he ever stood a chance as the "other" man!). When not dating others or baiting one another in a verbal war, Grant and Dunne wage a custody battle over their pathetic pooch. Gags, double entendre, witty remarks, snide comments, and fast-paced dialogue helped this to garner six Academy Award nominations. The Awful Truth was awfully good to Dunne and Grant, as both were breaking out of much more serious moulds and this secured their positions. --Rochelle O'Gorman

• Taxi Driver | DVD | (22/11/1999) from £6.63   |  Saving you £13.36 (201.51%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Taxi Driver is the definitive cinematic portrait of loneliness and alienation manifested as violence. It is as if director Martin Scorsese and screenwriter Paul Schrader had tapped into precisely the same source of psychological inspiration ("I just knew I had to make this film", Scorsese would later say), combined with a perfectly timed post-Watergate expression of personal, political and societal anxiety. Robert De Niro, as the tortured, ex-Marine cab driver Travis Bickle, made movie history with his chilling performance as one of the most memorably intense and vividly realised characters ever committed to film. Bickle is a self-appointed vigilante who views his urban beat as an intolerable cesspool of blighted humanity. He plays guardian angel for a young prostitute (Jodie Foster), but not without violently devastating consequences. This masterpiece, which is not for all tastes, is sure to horrify some viewers, but few could deny the film's lasting power and importance. --Jeff Shannon

• Normans | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £13.05   |  Saving you £6.94 (53.18%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The Normans is a three-part series on BBC Two that will examine the extraordinary expansion and unchecked ambition of this warrior race between the 10th and 13th Centuries. Presented by Professor Robert Bartlett the series brings the history of the Normans to life by uncovering the personal stories of shadowy figures like Tancred of Hauteville best remembered as a poor 11th Century Norman lord who fathered no less than 12 sons two of whom left their homeland and risked their lives to become great rulers in the Mediterranean and Middle East. Sweeping across borders and centuries Bartlett journeys from the stormy shores of Great Britain via Jerusalem to the Kingdom of Sicily explaining how and why a dynasty of dukes and warriors became conquerors and kings. Bursting with colourful manuscripts documents and artefacts this series gives voice to an unfamiliar world of princess historians and mixed-race monks.

• Sister Act | DVD | (06/11/2001) from £4.95   |  Saving you £10.04 (202.83%)   |  RRP £14.99

  In Sister Act Whoopi Goldberg plays a Reno lounge singer who hides out as a nun when her villainous boyfriend (Harvey Keitel) goes gunning for her. Maggie Smith is the mother superior who has to cope with Whoopi's unorthodox behaviour, but the cute script turns the tables and shows the latter energising the stodgy convent with song and attitude. A real crowd-pleaser and a perfect vehicle for Goldberg, this is a happy experience all around. --Tom Keogh, Amazon.com

• House - Season 6 | DVD | (20/09/2010) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £34.99

  House M.D.: Season 6 (6 Discs)

• Witchfinder General | DVD | (01/09/2003) from £7.94   |  Saving you £-1.95 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Witchfinder General is one of those cult British films that, like The Wicker Man, seemed to herald a renaissance in the fortunes of the British film industry in the late 1960s and early 70s. With only his third film, director Michael Reeves displayed an assured grasp of technique and a confident ability to mix and match genres that marked him out as a homegrown wunderkind to rival the Spielbergs and Coppolas who were just graduating from film school across the Atlantic. Sadly, this promise remained unfulfilled as Reeves died suddenly, soon after completing the film, from a lethal cocktail of prescription drugs; Witchfinder General remains his only significant work Veteran Vincent Price is wonderfully cast as the titular witchfinder, Matthew Hopkins, whose bloody and usually sexually motivated persecutions across civil war-torn East Anglia are carried out with much relish, graphic fake blood and lots of screaming. Ian Ogilvy, an old school pal of the director's, is the upright new model soldier who swears vengeance against Hopkins for the rape of his betrothed (Hilary Dwyer, who in true Hammer Horror fashion gets to take her top off and scream a lot). Lascivious depictions of burning witches and gratuitous sex aside, what draws the viewer into the film is the setting as Reeves' camera roams lovingly across the East Anglian countryside. The opening-hanging scene, for example, depends strongly on location for its effect, and Ogilvy's quest for revenge takes on a John Ford-style Western aura in the director's hands. Perhaps not quite the masterpiece some seem to think it is, Witchfinder General remains a sturdy piece of distinctively British filmmaking. On the DVD: This disc allows the viewer to select the slightly extended "Export cut" of the movie, which has a little more graphic blood than the censored UK release, although the restored sequences are of markedly inferior quality. The anamorphic picture and mono sound are decent, even if too many murky nighttime scenes and badly dubbed actors' voices betray the film's restrictively low budget. The major extra is a documentary about the life and short career of Michael Reeves, while other fill-ups include text notes from critic Kim Newman, a music video, trailer, filmographies and stills. All in all, it's a welcome restoration of a genre classic. --Mark Walker

• Born Free / Living Free | DVD | (12/01/2004) from £14.24   |  Saving you £-1.25 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Born Free is a bona fide family classic. The tale of how Kenya game warden George Adamson and his wife Joy (on whose book the film is based, with Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers in the principal roles) adopted and raised three orphaned lion cubs, taking a particular shine to the one they call Elsa before helping her return to the wild, is familiar by now; so is John Barry's Oscar-winning title song. And while the movie has its flaws (it contains references to "Bwana George" and such that would be considered frightfully un-PC nowadays), the animal footage, especially that of the lions in their various stages of development, is extraordinary and timelessly entertaining. The 1972 sequel doesn't quite measure up to its predecessor but, in an era when most "family entertainment" tends toward the insipid at best, Living Free is still a worthwhile venture. Susan Hampshire and Nigel Davenport take over the roles of Joy and George Adamson, the British couple who, while stationed in Kenya, adopted three orphaned lion cubs. Living Free finds the dying Elsa, their favourite of the original three and now a mother herself, returning to the Adamsons, who must figure out what to do with Elsa's three cubs, who develop an unfortunate appetite for domestic livestock. The film is on the slow side, but once again it's the animals who steal the show; the footage of the young lions interacting with other beasts, from wild giraffes and rhinos to a pet dog, is remarkable. --Sam Graham