"Actor: Tom Dillon"

• The Money Pit | DVD | (06/09/2010) from £6.75   |  Saving you £3.24 (48.00%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Steven Spielberg produced this underwhelming 1986 effort at a slapstick spin on Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House. The pre-Oscar Tom Hanks stars with Shelley Long as a married couple whose efforts to finish construction on their home are sabotaged by costly and sporadically funny accidents. The unfinished domicile becomes a metaphor for their troubled relationship, as evidenced by the attraction of Long's character to a madman violinist (Alexander Godunov). Hanks is the only reason at this point to check this film out. Richard Benjamin (My Favorite Year) directs but with no flair or distinction. --Tom Keogh, Amazon.com

• Platoon | DVD | (18/09/2000) from £7.19   |  Saving you £8.80 (122.39%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Based on the first-hand experience of director Oliver Stone, this is powerful, intense and starkly brutal. Harrowingly realistic and completely convincing, it is a dark, unforgettable memorial to every soldier whose innocence was lost in Vietnam.

• In And Out | DVD | (09/04/2001) from £17.98   |  Saving you £-4.99 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Writer Paul Rudnick knows a good idea when he hears one. When Tom Hanks talked about his openly gay high school drama teacher after winning the Oscar for Philadelphia, Hanks had already warned the teacher about the prime-time speech. For Rudnick's comedy, golden-boy star Cameron Drake (Matt Dillon) announces at the Oscars (in a great lampoon of the ceremony) that his high school teacher was his inspiration, and by the way, he's gay. It's a shock to Howard Brackett's (Kevin Kline) small world in the corn belt. That includes his students, parents, coworkers and most importantly, his soon to be bride (Joan Cusack). Rudnick, the most successful and outspoken gay screenwriter-playwright (Jeffrey, The Addams Family) working today has hit cinematic gold. Besides Brackett's running around in crisis control, Rudnick allows a great deal of time to what others think. A typical line: "Mr Brackett's not gay! He just likes poetry and Shakespeare and uses his napkin!" In & Out is a screwball comedy first, a banter of how society deals with homosexuality second. Kline is at the top of his comedic talents here; a weaker actor would permit Joan Cusack to steal the entire movie as the bemused bride. Cusack, an Oscar nominee for the role, nails some of the funniest moments from any film that year. Seemingly forgotten as a cinematic presence, a clean-shaven Tom Selleck and his 24-carat gold personality is something to reckon with again. As a Hollywood reporter on the case, Selleck, without moustache, comes off more as George Clooney's older brother than as Magnum PI. The movie is helmed by Frank Oz, the voice of Miss Piggy, who has quietly put together a very impressive list of comedies: Little Shop of Horrors, Housesitter and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. --Doug Thomas

• Platoon | DVD | (10/09/2001) from £5.83   |  Saving you £14.16 (242.88%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Winning a raft of awards, not least of which four Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director, Oliver Stone's Platoon was a box-office smash heralding Hollywood's second wave of Vietnam war films. Where predecessors The Deer Hunter (1978) and Apocalypse Now (1979) were elaborate epics, Platoon simply showed the daily reality of the war from the point of view of ordinary soldiers. Stone's own service in Vietnam gives his work a unique authenticity. Charlie Sheen gives his best performance to date, enduring a series of increasingly large-scale and bloody battles which retrospectively make one wonder why Saving Private Ryan was hailed as so new. Against this gruelling verity the film falters over the symbolic conflict between good and evil sergeants played by Willem Dafoe and Tom Berenger. Even though this was also based in real life, it strikes a too conventionally Hollywood-like note in a film which otherwise maintains much of the raw power of Stone's other film from 1986, Salvador. Johnny Depp fans should look out for an early appearance by the star. Stone would return to Vietnam with the more sophisticated Born on the Fourth of July (1989) and Heaven and Earth (1993). On the DVD: The 50-minute documentary "Tour of the Inferno" goes beyond the usual "making-of" to present a personal account both of the film and of Stone's own time in Vietnam. Likewise the two audio commentaries--one by Stone, the other by Captain Dale Dye, fellow veteran and military technical advisor--range between the making of the film and the degree to which the actors came to inhabit their parts, to their own wartime experiences. Both commentaries bring a fresh level of appreciation and understanding to the film. Also included is the original trailer and three TV commercials, together with well-presented stills galleries of behind-the-scenes photos and poster art. Following a credit sequence marred by dirt on the print, the anamorphically enhanced 1.77:1 image is sharp and clear. The many night scenes are very dark but remain easily comprehensible. The three-channel Dolby Digital sound is suitably raw and powerful, though an early sequence featuring rain in the jungle suffers from very distracting repeated drop-outs in the left channel. --Gary S Dalkin

• Magnolia | Blu Ray | (29/06/2015) from £7.98   |  Saving you £11.27 (167.71%)   |  RRP £17.99

  A handful of people in California's San Fernando Valley are having one hell of a day. TV mogul Earl Partridge (Jason Robards) is on his deathbed and his trophy wife (Julianne Moore) is stockpiling tranquilliser prescriptions all over town with alarming determination. Earl's nurse (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is trying desperately to get in touch with Earl's only son, sex-guru Frank TJ Mackey (Tom Cruise), who's about to have his carefully constructed past blown by a TV reporter (April Grace). Whiz kid Stanley (Jeremy Blackman) is being goaded by his selfish dad into breaking the record for the game show What Do Kids Know? Meanwhile, Stanley's predecessor, the grown-up quiz kid Donnie Smith (William H. Macy) has lost his job and is nursing a severe case of unrequited love. And the host of What Do Kids Know?, the affable Jimmy Gator (Philip Baker Hall), like Earl, is dying of cancer, and his attempt to reconcile with his cokehead daughter (Melora Walters) fails miserably. She, meanwhile, is running hot and cold with a cop (John C. Reilly) who would love to date her, if she can sit still for long enough. And over it all, a foreboding sky threatens to pour something more than just rain. This third feature from Paul Thomas Anderson (Boogie Nights) is a maddening, magnificent piece of film-making, and an ensemble film to rank with the best of Robert Altman (Short Cuts, Nashville)--every little piece of the film means something, solidly placed for a reason. Deftly juggling a breathtaking ensemble of actors, Anderson crafts a tale of neglectful parents, resentful children, and love-starved souls that's amazing in scope, both thematically and emotionally. Part of the charge of Magnolia is seeing exactly how many characters Anderson can juggle, and can he keep all those balls in the air (indeed he can, even if it means throwing frogs into the mix). And it's been far too long since we've seen a film-maker whose love of making movies is so purely joyful. This electric energy is reflected in the actors, from Cruise's revelatory performance to Reilly's quietly powerful turn as the moral centre of the story. While at three hours it's definitely not suited to everyone's taste, Magnolia is a compelling, heartbreaking, ultimately hopeful meditation on the accidents of chance that make up our lives. The soundtrack features eight wonderful songs by Aimee Mann, including "Save Me", around which Anderson built the script. --Mark Englehart

• Capone | DVD | (31/05/2021) from £4.32   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Platoon (Ultimate Edition) | DVD | (01/09/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Based on the first-hand experience of director Oliver Stone, this is powerful, intense and starkly brutal. Harrowingly realistic and completely convincing, it is a dark, unforgettable memorial to every soldier whose innocence was lost in Vietnam.

• The Conquest Of Everest | DVD | (09/07/2007) from £8.64   |  Saving you £4.35 (50.35%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Nominated for the Oscar and winner of the BAFTA for Best Documentary Feature this is the inspiring story of man's first conquest of the world's highest mountain. Made in 1953 the film documents the breathtaking ascent of Everest by Hunt Hillary Tensing et al directed by a fellow expedition member .

• 3 Classic Sherlock Holmes Films Of The Silver Screen - Sherlock Holmes And The Secret Weapon / Terror By Night | DVD | (06/06/2006) from £4.03   |  Saving you £0.96 (23.82%)   |  RRP £4.99

  The Secret Weapon: The inventor of a secret weapon and its prototype are abducted leaving the wartime Allies in dire need of assistance. Sherlock Holmes is called and begins to do battle with Professor Moriarty who will later become his arch-enemy... Terror By Night: A precious jewel 'The Star Of Rhodesia' is stolen from a train. The master detective is forced to use all his powers of deduction with the help of his trusty aid Dr. Watson in this fast paced thriller.

• Conquest of Everest - Revisited 1953 - 2003 | DVD | (04/03/2008) from £12.98   |  Saving you £-2.99 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  What drove the men who risked and lost their lives to conquer the world's highest mountain for Britain? Fifty years on Penny Mallory whose ancestor George Leigh Mallory lost his life tells the story of this extra-ordinary adventure undertaken with primitive equipment in often terrifying weather conditions against an unstable brooding and often lethal adversary - Mount Everest. Did Mallory in fact reach the summit 29 years before Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay? Mallory's frozen body was found in 1999. Using authentic footage of the ascent we revisit this unique adventure 50 years on alongside the men who pitted their wits and lives for the privilege of being the first to say that they had stood on the roof of the world. Which of us could have climbed persevered and ultimately stood beside them beneath the Union Jack on that glorious sun-drenched May morning in 1953? Featuring biographies of the expedition's members and a chronology of those other brave men and women who have lost their lives on subsequent dashes for the summer.

• Night Tide | DVD | (31/10/2011) from £18.49   |  Saving you £-5.50 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Seaman Johnny Drake (Dennis Hopper) on shore leave finds a Mermaid sideshow attraction at the marina operated by Captain Murdock (Gavin Muir). The Mermaid Mora (Linda Lawson) who lives in a hotel above the marina merry-go-round (the movie was filmed at the Santa Monica pier) and Johnny fall for each other. Everyone around them is wary of the romance as her previous lovers have died mysteriously. Filmed in an interesting era for independent cinema in Los Angeles beginning with John Parker's Dementia (1955) director Curtis Harrington was influenced by Edgar Allen Poe making use of Arcane overtones murder and mystery all are at play in this work of screen art. Dennis Hopper (Easy Rider 1969) displays his early genius and intensity touched with a gritty navet'. Shot against the backdrop and landscape of 1950's LA Noir. Thanks to the diligence of Roger Corman this film has been preserved and digitally remeastered from a new 35mm print for posterity and this is it's first UK release.

• Magnolia | DVD | (25/01/2010) from £20.23   |  Saving you £-5.24 (-35.00%)   |  RRP £14.99

  24 hours in L.A.; it's raining cats and dogs. Two parallel and intercut stories dramatize a man about to die: both men are estranged from a grown child, both want to make contact, and neither child wants anything to do with dad.

• Oliver Stone Ultimate Collection | DVD | (06/12/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £99.99

  This 13-disc set is at least the third massive DVD collection with the Oliver Stone moniker. New to this set are two documentaries: Looking for Fidel (2004), Stone's second film shadowing the Cuban leader, focusing on the regime's iron-fisted defector policy. Persona Non Grata (2003) is an examination of Palestinian conflict. Both of the films have a constantly moving camera, giving us a you-are-there feel to the subjects including Stone, who is seen often. His warts and all interviews are certainly a different type than the usual newsmagazines and are especially interesting in Non Grata since we've seen too many cut-and-dried interviews with these players over the years. The main theatrical films on single discs have been released before although several of them have been released previously with more content and bonus discs, creating a debate on how "ultimate" this collection is. Otherwise, all his films are here, from his Vietnam trilogy (Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July, Heaven & Earth), his iconic pop culture films (The Doors, Wall Street, Any Given Sunday), experimental films (Natural Born Killers, U-Turn, Talk Radio), and political operas (JFK, Nixon, Salvador), plus the documentary Oliver Stone's America. --Doug Thomas

• Platoon (Limited Edition Steelbook) BLU-RAY | Blu Ray | (18/09/2018) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• P.S. Your Cat Is Dead | DVD | (14/11/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Life. Love. And a little payback! It's New Years Eve and poor Jimmy Zoole is having a day from hell. His all puppet Shakespeare play is a flop his beautiful girlfriend has just dumped him his beloved cat is in hospital and his flat has been broken into almost daily. But Jimmy takes the world by the throat when he captures a burglar in the act and decides to change from victim to boss! Actor Steve Guttenberg's directorial debut of comic misadventures is a hilarious pitch

• Conquest Of Everest - Revisited 1953-2003 | DVD | (17/05/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £10.99

  What drove men who risked their lives to conquer the world's highest mountain for Britain? Fifty years on, Penny Mallory, whose ancestor, George Leigh Mallory lost his life, tells the story of this extra-ordinary adventure, undertaken with primitive equipment in often terrifying weather conditions against an unstable, brooding and often lethal adversary - Mount Everest. Did Mallory in fact reach the summit 29 years before Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay? Mallory's frozen body was found in 1...

• Sherlock Holmes - Dressed To Kill | DVD | (26/07/2004) from £4.63   |  Saving you £1.36 (22.70%)   |  RRP £5.99

  A beautiful woman and her gang of criminals attempt to match their wits with Sherlock Holmes in this murder/mystery set in Dartmoor and London's antique auction rooms.

• Platoon (Collector's Edition) | Blu Ray | (13/09/2022) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A