"Actor: Suzie Plakson"

• Wag The Dog | DVD | (01/10/1999) from £19.85   |  Saving you £0.14 (0.71%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Wag the Dog (1997) is a rarity: an intelligent, sophisticated and very funny film about American politics. Just before an election the President--in an uncanny anticipation of real life--gets sexually involved with a young woman, leaving spin-doctor Robert De Niro to think of something quick. He enlists Hollywood producer Dustin Hoffman to help him concoct a war against Albania to take the public's mind off the President's peccadilloes. Both stars are in top form, with Hoffman particularly funny as the larger than life producer. Scripted by David Mamet (House of Games, Glengarry Glen Ross) and directed by Barry Levinson, (whose previous comedies include Good Morning, Vietnam with Robin Williams and Tin Men with Danny De Vito) Wag the Dog manages to make you laugh even while you're thinking about how true the insights are, and how politics is getting more like the media every day. On the DVD: The so-called platinum DVD is packed with features. There is a series of production shots, assembled in no particular order, some showing the director watching filming on his monitor. There are interview clips with Hoffman, De Niro, Anne Heche, William H Macy and Barry Levinson talking about the film, plus scrolled filmographies. There's an audio commentary on the whole film by Levinson and Hoffman, occasionally rambling but with some interesting insights. In another feature, Macy talks at some length about David Mamet. There are extensive scroll-down production notes giving useful information (such as the film's budget), and finally a 50-minute documentary in which producer Jane Rosenthal talks about the relationship between the film and real-life politics. Her comments are supplemented by such luminaries as writer Budd Schulberg, director John Frankenheimer, newscaster Tom Brokaw and Dee Dee Myers, former White House press secretary. The Dolby Digital soundtrack is good quality, as is the image in 16:9 ratio. --Ed Buscombe

• Disclosure | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £6.35   |  Saving you £7.64 (120.31%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Michael Crichton's bestselling novel was both a high-tech thriller and source of controversy with its hot-button plot about a man's charge of sexual harassment against a female colleague and former lover. The movie, directed by Barry Levinson, turned these issues into a prurient thriller dressed up in glossy production values, virtual reality computer graphics and steamy sex between Michael Douglas and Demi Moore. Having cornered the market on roles for men whose brains are located south of their waistline, Douglas is well cast as the computer-industry guy who loses a plush promotion to the opportunistic Moore, and he's perfected the expression of paranoid panic. If you don't think about it too much, this is one of those films that can draw you into its manipulative web and really grab your attention. Disclosure is more entertaining than thought provoking (because the filmmakers basically danced around the story's potential controversy), but there's enough star power and visual glitz to make this an enjoyable ride. --Jeff Shannon

• Red Eye | DVD | (30/01/2006) from £20.28   |  Saving you £-2.29 (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  A woman is kidnapped by a stranger on a routine flight. Threatened by the potential murder of her father, she is pulled into a plot to assist her captor in offing a wealthy executive.

• Bingo | DVD | (03/10/2005) from £7.32   |  Saving you £-1.33 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  A shaggy-dog spoof about a boy and his dog separated by a continent! Bingo the lovable pooch becomes involved in a variety of adventures and misdemeanours and even ends up in jail (with his own green uniform yet) followed by a court appearance. That doesn't stop the boy's faithful best friend from trying to make his way home...