"Actor: Tres Hanley"

• Richard III | DVD | (08/05/2000) from £17.97   |  Saving you £-4.98 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  This film adaptation of a critically acclaimed stage production of Shakespeare's historical drama stars Ian McKellen in the title role. The setting is a comic-book vision of 1930s London: part art deco, part Third Reich, part industrial-age rust and rot. The play's force is turned into a synthetic high by art directors and storyboard sketchers, all of whom have a field day condensing the material into disposable pop imagery. Richard III is a fun film, more than anything, so infatuated with its own monstrous stitchery that even the most awkward casting (Annette Bening and Robert Downey Jr) seems a part of the ridiculous design. McKellen is the best thing about the movie, his mesmerising portrayal of freakish despotism and poisoned desire a thing to behold. --Tom Keogh

• The Sherlock Holmes Collection (23 Disc Box Set) | DVD | (12/05/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £159.99

  The Sherlock Holmes Collection is a comprehensive box set containing all 36 hour-long episodes plus the five feature-length specials of Granada TV's classic series starring Jeremy Brett. Originally screened in 1984, the series ran intermittently until the mid-1990s, when the leading actor's chronically failing health forced a final end (he died in 1995). Still hailed by many as the definitive Holmes, Brett presented the great detective as a solitary, nervous and depressive personality whose brilliant flashes of inspiration were interrupted by long bouts of introspection and drug-induced lethargy. In the later feature-length episodes, the actor's own ill-health added a poignant extra dimension that both deepened and darkened his portrayal of Holmes. In a welcome departure from earlier adaptations, Dr Watson (originally played by David Burke, then by Edward Hardwicke) is a thoroughly sensible, pragmatic--if rather unimaginative--companion, not at all the bumbling sidekick made famous by Nigel Bruce in the Basil Rathbone era. Aside from impeccable central casting--bolstered by a host of distinguished thespian guest stars--and scripts that remain remarkably faithful to Conan Doyle's original stories, the series also boasts lavish period production design and a haunting music score from Patrick Gowers. Although latterly they both err too far on the side of melodrama, overall both the series and Jeremy Brett's tour de force performances are likely to remain unsurpassed. On the DVD: The Sherlock Holmes Collection DVD box set might be complete, but the individual discs themselves are disappointingly spartan, with no additional features of any kind nor any attempt to clean up the rather scratchy 4:3 picture quality or the dull mono sound. --Mark Walker

• Grim | DVD | (15/03/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £7.99

  The time is now; the place is Woodland Hills Virginia... and Death has come to town. A series of unexplained disappearances from this quiet suburban neighbourhood drive Penny Drake to call upon the specialist skills of her estranged boyfriend Rob Colder. For in the abandoned mines an ancient adversary has awakened - an evil from times long past. Fighting the natural dangers of a maze of underground caverns Penny Rob and a group of friends discover their own strengths and limits as they tackle an enemy more powerful than they could have imagined in their worst nightmares. As they explore deeper underground the peril becomes more acute; and when they decide to turn back they discover that the only way out...is onward. Stalked by terror driven by the dark... who will survive?