"Actor: Ron Rifkin"

• Wolf | DVD | (01/10/1999) from £9.98   |  Saving you £-3.99 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Sophisticated to a point, this well-executed wolf-man tale works due to its clever setting and enormous star power. We all know Jack Nicholson can go nuts but the script makes his character aware of his changes, sometimes for the better, early on. The setting, a publishing house in the middle of a takeover, gives the characters dramatic life before the horror elements kicks in. A senior editor about to get the boot, Nicholson's character becomes a new man after being bitten by a wolf. He takes on challenges at work, lives a more robust life and attracts a new love. But will his new-found energy consume him? Director Mike Nicholson keeps the action alive in the first half but the film peters out at the end with cheap theatrics and the overuse of slow motion. Michelle Pfeiffer has little to do as simply the love interest with a grittier than average personality. Better is James Spader as a smarmy colleague. Nicholson is in fine form, relying on his keen gift to spark interest (a twitch of the head, a look in the eyes), instead of heavy doses of movie make-up. Giuseppe Rotunno's sweeping camerawork sets the mood quite well. Wolf is easy to recommend, with the added feature it's hardly gratuitous. --Doug Thomas

• L.A. Confidential | DVD | (02/10/2017) from £8.25   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  In a time when it seems that every other movie makes some claim to being a film noir, LA Confidential is the real thing--a gritty, sordid tale of sex, scandal, betrayal and corruption of all sorts (police, political, press--and, of course, very personal) in 1940s Hollywood. The Oscar-winning screenplay is actually based on several titles in James Ellroy's series of chronological thriller novels (including the title volume, The Big Nowhere and White Jazz)--a compelling blend of LA history and pulp fiction that has earned it comparisons to the greatest of all Technicolour noir films, Chinatown. Kim Basinger richly deserved her Supporting Actress Oscar for her portrayal of a conflicted femme fatale; unfortunately, her male costars are so uniformly fine that they may have canceled each other out with the Academy voters: Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, Kevin Spacey and James Cromwell play LAPD officers of varying stripes. Pearce's character is a particularly intriguing study in Hollywood amorality and ambition, a strait-laced "hero" (and son of a departmental legend) whose career goals outweigh all other moral, ethical and legal considerations. If he's a good guy, it's only because he sees it as the quickest route to a promotion. --Jim Emerson

• Manchurian Candidate, The / Rules Of Engagement / The Sum Of All Fears | DVD | (03/10/2005) from £5.99   |  Saving you £18.00 (300.50%)   |  RRP £23.99

  The Manchurian Candidate (Dir. Jonathan Demme 2004): When his army unit was ambushed during the first Gulf War Sergeant Raymond Shaw (Liev Schreiber) saved his fellow soldiers just as his commanding officer Major Ben Marco (Denzel Washington) was knocked unconscious. Brokering the incident for political capital Shaw eventually becomes a vice-presidential nominee while Marco is haunted by dreams of what happened or indeed didn't happen in Iraq. Searching for peace from

• Sum Of All Fears, The / Along Came A Spider / Kiss The Girls | DVD | (11/10/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The Morgan Freeman Collection containing three of his best known films. Kiss The Girls: North Carolina police detective Dr. Alex Cross (Morgan Freeman) tracks an elusive psychopath whose modus operandi is not necessarily killing the young women he abducts but ""collecting"" them as trophies. Unfortunately his quarry includes the detective's own law-student niece so his race against time with the help of a no-nonsense medical intern Dr. Kate McTiernan (Ashley Judd) who esca

• Brothers And Sisters - Seasons 1-4 - Complete | DVD | (11/10/2010) from £39.99   |  Saving you £69.00 (172.54%)   |  RRP £108.99

  Touted as the next great family drama Brothers And Sisters explores the highs and lows of The Walkers - a postmodern American family and their delicate relationships. This is the complete season 1 - 4 collection.

• Silent Running | Blu Ray | (14/11/2011) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £29.99

  After creating many of the innovative special effects for 2001: A Space Odyssey, Douglas Trumbull tried his hand at directing, and 1971's Silent Running marked an impressive debut. (In addition to creating the visual effects for Close Encounters of the Third Kind and directing 1983's Brainstorm, Trumbull later turned to the creation of high-tech cinematic amusement park rides.) One of the best science-fiction films of the 1970s, Silent Running stars Bruce Dern as Freeman Lowell, a nature-loving crewmember aboard the Valley Forge, a gigantic spaceship in a small fleet that carries the last surviving forests of the Earth, which has fallen victim to overpopulation and ecological neglect.Freeman's name reflects his nonconformist philosophy, which runs counter to the prevailing recklessness of his three ill-fated crewmates, who are eager to jettison their precious payload and return to the bleakness of Earth. Before they can sabotage the forests, Freeman does what he must, and spends the remainder of his mission with three robotic "drones" as his only companions, struggling to maintain his sanity in the vastness of space. Dern is superb in this memorable role, representing the lost soul of humankind as well as the back-to-nature youth movement of the 1960s and the pre-Watergate era. (Appropriately, Joan Baez sings the film's theme song.) A rare science-fiction film that combines bold adventure with passionate social conscience, Silent Running will remain relevant as long as the Earth is threatened by the ravages of human carelessness. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com

• Norma Jean And Marilyn | DVD | (20/04/2004) from £6.73   |  Saving you £8.26 (122.73%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Mira Sorvino and Ashley Judd deliver stunning performances in this acclaimed psychological drama that takes a revealing look at the two personalities of Marilyn Monroe.

• Courage | DVD | (04/03/2002) from £2.58   |  Saving you £1.41 (54.65%)   |  RRP £3.99

  Marianna's son's life is being ravaged by his dependency on heroin and cocaine. Her husband is angry skeptical and confused. With her back to the wall Marianna vows to take desperate measures to save her crumbling home. Aided by a hotshot drug agent she fights her way through a life-threatening battle in the New York City underworld. Based on a true story.

• Tadpole | DVD | (22/03/2004) from £9.98   |  Saving you £5.01 (50.20%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Everyone tells 15-year-old Oscar Grubman he should date girls his own age. But with his eye on his stepmother Eve, Oscar respectfully disagrees.

• Awake and Sing | DVD | (01/02/2011) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Walter Matthau heads the cast of this television recreation of Clifford Odets' 1935 hit Broadway play, the first full-length work performed on the commercial stage by the legendary Group Theatre. This portrait of a Jewish family in a Bronx tenement perfectly captures the spirit of the Depression years, and is suffused with details of character and place that combine to be affecting even now. The Bergers, burdened by financial difficulties, have taken in a boarder - Max Axelrod (Matthau) - ...