"Actor: Van"

• Zachariah | DVD | (08/04/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Advertised in 1970 as "the first electric Western", Zachariah is an endearingly pretentious effort that prefigures such genre oddities as Jodorowsky's El Topo and Alex Cox's Straight to Hell. The story is the archetypal one about two friends who become gunslingers and must inevitably face off against each other in the finale, but it's treated here as if it Meant Something Deeper--which means that after enjoying 75 minutes of violence we can all agree that peace and love and harmony is on the whole better for children and other living things. Curly haired farmboy Zachariah (John Rubinstein) and eternally grinning apprentice blacksmith Matthew (Don Johnson) are the fast friends who run away from home to join up with a gang of outlaws known as the Crackers (played by hippie folk-rock collective Country Joe and the Fish). These apparent 19th-century Westerners tote electric guitars and are given to staging free festival freak-outs at one end of town to distract from the bank robbery at the other. The boys soon hook up with Job Cain (Elvin Jones), an all-in-black master gunfighter who is also an ace drummer (his solo is impressive), but then drift apart as Zachariah has a liaison with Old West madame Belle Starr (Pat Quinn) in a town that consists of fairground-style brightly painted wooden cut out buildings (a gag reused in Blazing Saddles), then gets rid of his outrageous all-white cowboy outfit to settle down on a homestead and grow his own dope and vegetables. Matthew, of course, goes for the black leather look after outdrawing Cain, and comes a gunning for the only man who might be faster than him, but the hippie-era message is once these kids have killed everyone else they can still make peace with each other and the desert or something, man. Aside from a Beatle-haired teenage Johnson making a fool of himself by over-emoting to contrast with Rubinstein's non-performance, the film offers a lot of beautiful "acid Western" scenery and excellent prog rock and bluegrass music from the James Gang, White Lightnin' and the New York Rock Ensemble. Comedy troupe the Firesign Theatre (huge on album in 1970) provided the script, which explains satirical touches like the horse-and-buggy salesman (Dick Van Patten) spieling like a used car dealer and the madame's claim to have had affairs with gunslingers from Billy the Kid to Marshal McLuhan. The DVD extras are skimpy, but the print quality is outstanding. --Kim Newman

• The Bouncer | Blu Ray | (08/04/2019) from £6.14   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Jean-Claude Van Damme stars as Lukas, a tough nightclub bouncer struggling to raise his 8-year-old daughter. One day, Lukas loses control during an altercation with a client and ends up in jail, while his daughter is taken away from him. Things take an unexpected turn when Interpol recruits Lukas to bring down a Dutch ringleader operating from Belgium in exchange for his daughter's custody. Includes subtitles for the Hard Of Hearing

• The Long Goodbye | Blu Ray | (16/12/2013) from £16.55   |  Saving you £3.44 (20.79%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Raymond Chandler's cynically idealistic hero of The Long Goodbye, Philip Marlowe, has been played by everyone from Humphrey Bogart to James Garner--but no one gives him the kind of weirdly affect-less spin that Elliott Gould does in this terrific Robert Altman reimagining of Chandler's penultimate novel. Altman recasts Marlowe as an early 70s Los Angeles habitué, who gets involved in a couple of cases at once. The most interesting involves a suicidal writer (Sterling Hayden in a larger-than-life performance) whom Marlowe is supposed to keep away from malevolent New-Ageish guru Henry Gibson. A variety of wonderfully odd characters pop up, played by everyone from model Nina Van Pallandt to director Mark Rydell to ex-baseballer Jim Bouton. And yes, that is Arnold Schwarzenegger (in only his second movie) popping up as (what else?) a muscleman. Listen for the title song: it shows up in the strangest places. --Marshall Fine

• The Octagon | DVD | (06/08/2012) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Scott's (Chuck Norris) life is plagued by memories of his accidentally injuring a friend during the rigorous training he endured under a martial arts master. A wealthy heiress, who seeks revenge against an international terrorist training camp known as The Octagon, enlists his help through suspense and intrigue, because he is the only one who can defeat his adopted brother running the operation. As Scott becomes perilously drawn to The Octagon he realizes his brother has turned to the dark side while training many different terrorist groups in the ninja style of killing using electrifying techniques and secrets only the two of them share.

• Sudden Death | DVD | (18/10/1999) from £6.73   |  Saving you £3.26 (32.60%)   |  RRP £9.99

  International action superstar Jean Claude Van Damme teams with Powers Boothe in a Tension-packed suspense thriller set against the back-drop of a Stanley Cup game. Van Damme portrays a father whose daughter is suddenly taken during a championship hockey game. With the captors demanding a billion dollars by game's end Van Damme frantically sets a plan in motion to rescue his daughter and abort an impending explosion before the final buzzer...

• Mary Poppins | DVD | (08/07/2002) from £8.98   |  Saving you £11.01 (122.61%)   |  RRP £19.99

  A pioneering film within Animation, Musicals and Fantasy, Walt Disney's Mary Poppins is possibly one of the warmest and dearest films ever made. Based on a story by PL Travers we find Julie Andrews on fine form in her debut lead role (for which she would win the "Best Actress" Oscar). She is practically perfectly teamed with Dick Van Dyke as the lovable chimney sweep Burt, whose cockney accent is endearingly inaccurate. Along with a fine supporting cast, where even the child actors hold their own without appearing like stage school wannabes, Poppins and her crew take you on a magical ride through chalk pictures, the roof tops of London and show you that laughter is not always the best medicine (even with a spoon full of sugar) when you can't get down. In total Mary Poppins clocked up five Academy Awards including Best Song and Best Visual Effects and has made it into the staple diet of family viewing across the world. On the DVD: Mary Poppins has certainly cleaned up a treat, restoring her to 1.85:1 widescreen glory and 5.1 Dolby digital sound--which is guaranteed to be music to your ears. The special features are "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" with the "Sing Along with the Movie" subtitles for all your favourite songs when they appear in the movie and the "I Love to Laugh" game offering Uncle Albert flying high in his parlour once more. "The Movie Magic of Mary Poppins" lets you look behind the scenes at how the magic was done and is fun, informative and easily understandable--pity the same cannot be said about the narrator. "Hollywood goes to a World Premiere" is a warm and amusing reminder about how premieres and stars used to be in 1964. The only disappointment is the lack of commentary--Dick Van Dyke would surely have offered a gem of a cockney voice-over! --Nikki Disney

• Death Warrant | Blu Ray | (21/03/2016) from £14.49   |  Saving you £1.50 (10.35%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Jean-Claude Van Damme stars as maverick cop Lou Burke, the only lawman tough enough to go undercover in a prison recently plagued by suspicious deaths. Posing as a prisoner, Burke encounters brutal inmates, corrupt guards, death and betrayal at every turn. But when he unearths the shocking secret behind the penitentiary's inner workings, Burke must attempt a daring escape that pits him against not only hundreds of murderous inmates...but also a deadly enemy from his own past.

• Airwolf - Complete Season 4 (5 disc set) | DVD | (08/09/2014) from £20.15   |  Saving you £19.84 (98.46%)   |  RRP £39.99

• Dorothy | DVD | (10/05/2010) from £5.19   |  Saving you £10.80 (208.09%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Following the accidental death of her son Jane Morton a bereaved psychiatrist from Dublin is assigned to work on the case of Dorothy Mills a teenage girl accused of attempted infanticide. Jane diagnoses that Dorothy has multiple personality disorder but when Dorothy appears to speak with the voice of Jane's dead son events take a dark and sinister turn.

• Brigadoon | DVD | (16/05/2005) from £9.69   |  Saving you £4.30 (44.38%)   |  RRP £13.99

  The highland village of Brigadoon normally remains invisible sleeping in the Scottish mists. But one day in every one hundred years the town magically materializes. And when that day of joyful celebration ends Brigadoon vanishes from the countryside and returns to its slumber. There's only one catch: no native can leave the village or it will disappear forever. A pair of American hunters stumble upon Brigadoon on the single day it's come to life and when one of them falls for a

• Die Entfuhrung Aus Dem Serail - The Royal Opera - Mozart | DVD | (01/11/1997) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Mozart's comic masterpiece is set in a Turkish palace and tells the exciting and amusing story of the 'escape from the harem'. In this acclaimed production from The Royal Opera by Elijah Moshinsky filmed in 1988 the Turkish atmosphere is created by Timothy O'Brien's imaginative set of garden and crumbling palace strikingly complemented by Sir Sidney Nolan's colourful front and backcloths. The Spanish nobleman Belmonte is ably sung by Deon van der Walt and his beloved Konstanze is sung by Inga Nielsen with both dramatic conviction and brilliant secure coloratura. The actor Oliver Tobias gives a sensuous and powerful performance in the speaking role of Pasha Selim and Lillian Watson is a charming Blonde.

• Mahler-Complete Symphonies | DVD | (24/10/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £63.99

• Blood Simple | DVD | (30/10/2017) from £5.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  The debut film of director Joel Coen and his brother-producer Ethan Coen, 1983's Blood Simple is grisly comic noir that marries the feverish toughness of pulp thrillers with the ghoulishness of even pulpier horror. (Imagine the novels of Jim Thompson somehow fused with the comic tabloid Weird Tales and you get the idea.) The story concerns a Texas bar owner (Dan Hedaya) who hires a seedy private detective (M Emmett Walsh) to follow his cheating wife (Frances McDormand in her first film appearance) and then kill her and her lover (John Getz). The gumshoe turns the tables on his client and suddenly a bad situation gets much, much worse, with some violent goings-on that are as elemental as they are shocking. (A scene in which a character who has been buried alive suddenly emerges from his own grave instantly becomes an archetypal nightmare.) Shot by Barry Sonnenfeld before he became an A-list director in Hollywood, Blood Simple established the hyperreal look and feel of the Coens' productions (undoubtedly inspired a bit by filmmaker Sam Raimi, whose The Evil Dead had just been coedited by Joel). Sections of the film have proved to be an endurance test for art-house movie fans, particularly an extended climax that involves one shock after another but ends with a laugh at the absurdity of criminal ambition. This is definitely one of the triumphs of the 1980s and the American independent film scene in general. --Tom Keogh, Amazon.com

• Breathless | DVD | (22/06/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Michel Poiccard (Jean-Paul Belmondo), an ex-airline steward turned hoodlum, steals a car and heads to Paris. Discovering a gun in the car's glove department, he uses it to shoot and kill a cop who tries to wave him down. He wants to escape to Italy with his American girlfriend Patricia (Jean Seberg), but the police are after him, and he is distracted by all the pleasures Paris has to offer.Story-wise, Jean-Luc Godard's A Bout De Souffle (1960) (aka Breathless) is pretty thin, but as its director always proclaimed, you don't need much in the way of narrative to make a movie. Sometimes a girl and a gun are quite enough. The effortlessly cool and laconic Belmondo mirrors the director's mischief and flamboyance. With his fat cigarette stub perched on his bottom lip, his shades, his felt hat and white socks, he looks like a cross between a left-bank intellectual and an American gumshoe (perhaps his beloved Bogart). With her close-cropped hair and New York Herald Tribune T-shirt, his girlfriend (Jean Seberg) is equally stylish. A Hollywood star (she had appeared in the lead in Otto Preminger's Saint Joan in 1957 when she was still a teenager), the Iowa-born Seberg is turned by Godard into the lithe embodiment of European radical chic.The film has a spontaneity that studio-bound offerings of the time missed by a mile. Cameraman Raoul Coutard uses natural light and real locations whenever possible. Lots of the pet tricks in the movie--jump cuts, whip pans and improvised tracking shots--have been copied relentlessly by imitators ever since. A Bout De Souffle, though, is unique: anarchic, liberating and hugely stylish, "the best film around now", as its trailer proclaimed. It made Godard, almost overnight, into "the world's most discussed, interviewed and quoted filmmaker". --Geoffrey MacnabOn the DVD: Godard's greatest movie has been lovingly transferred to disc by Optimum, and comes with several extras including trailers and production notes and an old Godard short, Charlotte Et Son Jules, also starring the swaggering, arrogant Belmondo. --Geoffrey Macnab

• The Only Way Is Essex - Series 4 | DVD | (07/05/2012) from £10.98   |  Saving you £11.00 (122.36%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Get a spray tan, put on your tightest clothes and be reem as we return with some more diamante-clad drama from everyone's favourite county

• For A Few Dollars More (Special Edition) | DVD | (18/04/2005) from £11.73   |  Saving you £8.26 (70.42%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The man with no name is back... The man in black is waiting... a walking arsenal - he uncoils strikes and kills! Clint Eastwood had proven so successful in his first foray into European Westerns with 'A Fistful Of Dollars' that a follow up sequel was inevitable. Superbly scripted by Luciano Vincenzoni featuring an unforgettable alliance between ruthless gun-slingers Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef. 'For A Few Dollars' More tells the tale of a ruthless quest to track down the no

• Night At The Museum: Battle Of The Smithsonian | DVD | (09/11/2009) from £5.47   |  Saving you £17.51 (706.05%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Ben Stiller, Robin Williams, Owen Wilson, Ricky Gervais, Steve Coogan and a host of fun new characters all return in this wild comedy adventure where everything comes back to life in ways you've never imagined.

• Ben | DVD | (30/10/2017) from £9.98   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Valkyrie | Blu Ray | (08/06/2009) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Tom Cruise stars as a high ranking German officer, who along with a small group of peers hatches a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler in an attempt to end the war.

• No Retreat, No Surrender | Blu Ray | (13/09/2021) from £7.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Karate student Jason Stillwell vows to take revenge on infamous gangster Ivan ˜The Russian' Krachinsky (Van Damme) after his father is brutally beaten for refusing to surrender his dojo to the crime syndicate. Forced to relocate to Seattle, Jason continues to be harassed by thugs until he awakens the spirit of his hero, the legendary Bruce Lee. Under his tutelage, Jason seizes the chance to conquer both his fears and his enemies.