"Actor: Sid Mitchell"

• Henry VIII | DVD | (14/03/2005) from £6.30   |  Saving you £6.69 (106.19%)   |  RRP £12.99

  At the heart of Henry VIII stands a towering performance by Ray Winstone, who literally grows into the role, impressively doubling in size and ageing 40 years over the course of two feature-length episodes. Focusing on Henry's relationships with his six wives, this lavish mini-series also makes a good job of explaining the complex court intrigues of the period, detailing Henry's split with Rome and the political crisis following the creation of the Church of England. Winstone initially seems to play the King as little more than a London gangster, but he gradually unfolds a complex, brutal, manipulative, romantic, dedicated and driven man with great skill. In a role which harks back to Lady Jane (1986), Helena Bonham Carter makes an intelligent and sardonic Anne Boleyn, her bold performance contrasting strongly with Geneviève Bujold in Anne of the Thousand Days (1969). Emily Blunt impresses as the sexpot Katherine Howard, and Emilia Fox is compelling as Henry's greatest love, Jane Seymour. There's fine support from an all-star cast, including Sean Bean, Charles Dance and David Suchet. The production is unflinching, with burnings, torture, marital violence and executions graphically portrayed. If there's a weakness it lies in too-modern dialogue and an uncertain visual style, with noticeable borrowings from John Boorman's Excalibur and Ridley Scott's Gladiator, as well as setting Shakespeare in Love-style elegance against the ugly colours and graininess of reality TV. Ultimately Henry VIII plays most like a prequel to Elizabeth (1999)--right down to using the same piece of Elgar to underscore the finale--and has most of the same faults and virtues as that Oscar-winning film. --Gary S Dalkin

• Buck and the Preacher (1972) (Criterion Collection) UK Only | Blu Ray | (26/09/2022) from £21.84   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  !With his rousingly entertaining directorial debut, SIDNEY POITIER (Guess Who's Coming to Dinner) helped rewrite the history of the western, bringing Black heroes to a genre in which they had always been sorely underrepresented. Combining boisterous buddy comedy with blistering, Black Powerera political fury, Poitier and a marvellously mischievous HARRY BELAFONTE (Carmen Jones) star as a tough and taciturn wagon master and an unscrupulous, pistol-packing preacher, who join forces in order to take on the white bounty hunters threatening a westward-bound caravan of recently freed enslaved people. A superbly crafted revisionist landmark, Buck and the Preacher subverts Hollywood conventions at every turn and reclaims the western genre in the name of Black liberation. Special Features New digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack New interview with Mia Mask, author of Black Rodeo: A History of the African American Western Behind-the-scenes footage featuring actor-director Sidney Poitier and actor Harry Belafonte Interviews with Poitier and Belafonte from 1972 episodes of Soul! and The Dick Cavett Show New interview with Gina Belafonte, daughter of Harry Belafonte English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing PLUS: An essay by critic Aisha Harris

• Demons Of The Mind (Doubleplay) | Blu Ray | (30/10/2017) from £12.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Baron Zorn (Robert Hardy) believes his son Emil (Shane Briant) and daughter Elizabeth (Gillian Hills) are suffering from a madness they inherited from their late mother. He keeps his children locked up, but at night Emil is released and murders women in the local village. Discredited psychologist Falkenberg (Patrick Magee - Dementia 13, The Masque of the Red Death) analyses the family and it transpires that the children witnessed their mother cut her own throat. The villagers, driven on by a manic priest (Michael Hordern) identify Zorn as the ˜demon' responsible for killing their daughters. The deranged Emil escapes with Elizabeth, but the murderous Zorn pursues them. Blood, he vows, will have blood One of the most ambitious and unusual horror films produced by Hammer, Demons of the Mind was directed by Peter Sykes (Venom, To the Devil a Daughter) and released in 1972. The distinguished cast includes Shane Briant, who would go on to appear in three further films for Hammer. EXTRAS: NEW FEATURETTE - Blood Will Have Blood: Inside Demons of the Mind ORIGINAL TRAILER

• Buck And The Preacher | DVD | (28/07/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Buck (Poitier) an ex-Union Army Cavalry sergeant becomes a scout for freed slaves heading to the Colorado frontier. Tagging along with him are his wife (Ruby Dee) and a Bible-thumping con artist known as the Preacher (Belafonte). Attacked by racist bounty hunters determined to return the former slaves to a life of sharecropping in Louisiana Buck and his followers must summon all the courage they have in order to reach their destination and help settle the Wild West...

• Ray Winstone - Vincent / Henry VIII / Births, Deaths And Marriages | DVD | (15/10/2008) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £29.99

  This fantastic box set of dramas featuring Ray Winstone in leading roles includes: Vincent Winstone's latest ITV drama; Births Marriages And Deaths; as well as Henry VIII.

• All American Murder | DVD | (07/04/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Artie Logan (Schlatter) is about to enter a jungle of sex sleaze and murder. He's going to college! Christopher Walken stars in this suspense-filled thriller that explores the dark and twisted obsessions of a brutal killer. The killer's world is a world where the line between right and wrong is a jagged one....