Drama

• My Girl / My Girl 2 | DVD | (15/04/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £22.99

  Doubling My Girl with its sequel makes sense since they tell a two-part tale. In the first film, 11-year-old Vada Sultenfuss (astounding newcomer Anna Chlumsky) lives with her widowed father, a distracted tuba-playing mortician (Dan Aykroyd). Rather understandably Vada is confused and disturbed about the nature of death. In her narration to camera we learn what it feels like to be a girl growing up in Pennsylvania in the early 1970s, as her father become involved with make-up artist Jamie Lee Curtis. Macaulay Culkin (in a performance reminding us that once there was a good child actor behind the name) is the best friend who assists her rite of passage. Jumping forwards two years into the sequel, My Girl 2, Culkin is replaced by Austin O'Brien. Now 13 and with a baby on the way in the Aykroyd /Jamie Lee Curtis home, Vada's growing-up continues further afield. She investigates the life of her mother in an attempt to understand her own. Los Angeles becomes the backdrop as she deals with the inevitable problems of puberty. Ultimately this is the story of a teenager's grounding in the ways of the world told simply and with charm. On the DVD: My Girl/My Girl 2 on disc sadly has no extras beyond a trailer for each film. It's also a shame the 1.85:1 transfer remains grainy for both. At least the three-channel surround picks out the period songs nicely. --Paul Tonks

• Death Of A Salesman | DVD | (02/06/2008) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £28.99

  Death Of A Salesman is the outstanding adaptation of Arthur Miller's stage masterpiece about Willie Loman - the emotionally broken-down salesman coming to terms with his life and his family after being fired from his life-long job. This drama remains one of the most poignant and powerful stories in modern theatre...

• Public Access | DVD | (25/03/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Into the idyllic town of Brewster comes Whiley Pritcher an intense and enigmatic stranger who begins a public access show that asks the question 'What's wrong with Brewster?' The question soon has neighbour turning on neighbour and before long there are some that are ready to confide in Whiley and reveal the town's darker secrets. But is it wise to talk to strangers?

• Breach Of Trust | DVD | (22/09/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £1.99

  Mark and Cassie Woodman (William Russ and Roma Downey) could be just the perfect couple. They married young and although they've had their problems there proud of their teenage son Kevin and are still as happy as they were on the day they first got married. But when Mark takes a short buisness trip Cassie and Kevin's secure family world is lost when they see a TV news report that Marks plane has crashed with loss of many lives. After an anxious wait they hear the news they've been praying for - Mark is alive although badly injured and unconscious. However Cassie is stunned to discover that Mark had a travelling companion listed as Mrs C.Whitman who didnt survive the crash. The shocks don't end there leaving her wondering if she knew her loving husband at all...

• The Boy with the Top Knot | Blu Ray | (04/12/2017) from £7.49   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Born to Punjabi parents in the West Midlands, Sathnam's memoirs are a humorous, touching and emotional story of a second-generation Indian growing up in Britain. The Boy with the Topknot is an account of his childhood and facing up to a bunch of painful family secrets and truths in his twenties not least that his father and sister had suffered from schizophrenia and that he was going to defy expectations of an arranged marriage. This stunning film is hilarious and heart-rending in equal measure, and this adaptation paints an authentic portrait of an everyday family, capturing how they work, love and fight like any other, and how they learn how to live with mental illness. The Boy with the Topknot is something truly fresh and uproariously life-affirming. Includes subtitles for the Hard Of Hearing.

• Beyond Silence | DVD | (06/09/2010) from £32.37   |  Saving you £-16.38 (-102.40%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Caroline Link casts the brilliant Sylvie Testud (Lourdes) as the daughter of deaf parents in this powerful and life affirming Oscar nominated drama. Given a clarinet as a child Lara becomes a passionate and talented musician something her parents cannot begin to understand. As she acts as communicator between her parents and the world her passion for music intensifies and she becomes determined to follow her dreams. Soon her gift threatens to tear the once close family apart and they must learn to separate their differences and expectations to bring their two worlds together again. Beyond Silence deals with the emotional minefield of family relationships with great intelligence and honesty. Boasting phenomenal performances from deaf actors Howie Seago and Emmanuelle Labroit Beyond Silence is inspirational and thoroughly captivating.

• The Notebook | DVD | (23/03/2009) from £6.96   |  Saving you £11.68 (294.21%)   |  RRP £15.65

  A sweeping love story about a 1940s romance between two teens from very different worlds.

• Murder So Sweet | DVD | (02/08/2004) from £8.99   |  Saving you £-5.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £3.99

  Steve Catlin was known as a real lady-killer. But it's his new bride's mysterious death that causes his former wife Edie Ballew to question how accurate that nickname really is. With little more than a hunch and the help of an out-of-town detective Edie finds clues that reveal her cunning and smooth ex husband as a cold methodical killer. But can she warn his latest wife and can she convince the local police...

• La Strada (Criterion Collection) | Blu Ray | (02/11/2021) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Divergence Eve - Vol. 2 | DVD | (17/10/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Murder mayhem and mystery hurl the young heroes of Watcher's Nest into an epic adventure that will have them fighting for their lives as dark forces move to attack. Secrets betrayals and cosmic revelations raise more questions for Misaki - who ultimately becomes an unwilling element of a forbidden experiment. What more could you ask for than a bevy of beauties forced to put their lives on the line to answer the call of duty?

• The Search | DVD | (15/02/2016) from £11.49   |  Saving you £8.50 (42.50%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The Second Chechen War. 1999. THE SEARCH recounts, on a human scale, a powerful story of conflict told through four lives that will be brought together by a shocking twist of fate. After his parents are killed in their village, a small boy flees, joining the flood of refugees. He meets Carole, a European Union delegation head and little by little, with her help, he will return to happiness. At the same time, his elder sister Raïssa searches tirelessly for him amongst the civilian exodus. Then there's 20-year-old Kolia, a new recruit to the Russian army who will gradually be overwhelmed by the daily struggles of wartime. Directed by Academy Award® Winner Michel Hazanavicius* (The Artist), THE SEARCH is a compelling war drama starring Academy Award®Nominees Bérénice Bejo* (The Artist)and Annette Bening* (The Kids Are All Right).

• Anna Pavlova | DVD | (01/01/1975) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Anna Pavlova is a beautiful film about the most famous dancer of the world. A little girl from St. Petersburg dreams to become a ballet dancer. And when she is barely 16 years old, she manages to dance Giselle at the Marinsky Teatre and becomes an international star, and soon her fame spread all over the world. She travels to France, England, America, Australia and all over Latin America. Everywhere she goes, the theatres are full and critics consider her a phenomenon. Tragically she develops pleurisy. She refuses treatment as she knows she will never dance again. She dies in Holland, aged 50 years old.

• The Element Of Crime | DVD | (29/07/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Way, way before he dreamt up his famous Dogme manifesto, Lars von Trier launched his feature-film career with The Element of Crime and proved that, 400 years after Hamlet, the Danes can still do melancholy like nobody else. Less a film noir than a film jaune sale, this ultra-enigmatic thriller is shot entirely in tones of grimy sepia in a world where nightfall seems to be an unceasing condition. A police detective, Fisher (Michael Elphick), is summoned from Cairo to "Europe" (the location never gets any more specific than that) to investigate a series of gory child-murders. He comes to suspect that the killer may be a mysterious character called Harry Grey and sets out to retrace Grey's movements. The film takes its title from a treatise written by Fisher's old mentor Osborne (Welsh actor Esmond Knight, a veteran of Powell and Pressburger's films), but it might as well refer to water. Von Trier conjures up a world not only permanently benighted, but dank, sodden and dripping both indoors and out, cluttered with mouldy, antiquated industrial machinery. There are echoes (or pre-echoes) here of half-a-dozen other movies--Blade Runner, City of Lost Children, Tarkovsky's Stalker, Welles' The Trial--and at times it feels as though von Trier has just set out to show he can do art house as well as anybody and possibly better. The plot makes no sense whatever and clearly isn't meant to, and Elphick's bemused expression, one suspects, derives from the actor as much as from the character he's playing. As always with von Trier you can't help wondering if whole thing isn't an elaborate put-on, especially since the director himself shows up, epicene and shaven-headed, playing a personage called "Schmuck of Ages". But what it lacks in coherence (either narrative or visual) Element of Crime makes up for in atmosphere, which it has, literally, by the bucketful. This release, incidentally, is the English-language version. --Philip Kemp

• A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints | DVD | (13/04/2009) from £5.99   |  Saving you £10.00 (166.95%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Robert Downey Jr stars in this coming-of-age drama about a boy growing up in Astoria, N.Y., during the 1980s.

• The Lovejoy Collection - Vol. 23 | DVD | (19/09/2005) from £5.98   |  Saving you £7.01 (117.22%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Three episodes from the much loved series starring Ian McShane as rogue antiques dealer. Including Double Edged Sword Guns And Roses and The Last Of The Uzkoks.

• Humanity And Paper Balloons | DVD | (25/07/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Widely regarded as Yamanaka's greatest achievement Humanity and Paper Balloons [Ninjo kami fusen] was tragically his last film and only one of three that survive today. In a short six year 22 film career Yamanaka quickly earned a reputation for exceptionally fluid editing and a beautiful visual form likened to the paintings of Japanese masters. The story develops in the Tokugawa era of the 18th century in a poor district of Tokyo where impoverished samurai live from hand to

• Comrades | DVD | (27/07/2009) from £31.03   |  Saving you £-8.04 (N/A%)   |  RRP £22.99

  Bill Douglas' beautiful film Comrades tells the epic story of the Tolpuddle Martyrs six Dorset labourers deported to Australia in the 183's for forming a trade union. Unfolding in the pastoral haze of Dorset and the blinding light of Australia Douglas has created a film rich with carefully layered visual illusions and nuances. With lovely profound performances throughout the story - a compelling account of struggle and injustice - becomes an epic tale about history storytelling and the way we see our world.

• Storm Boy | DVD | (02/11/2011) from £5.38   |  Saving you £10.61 (197.21%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Storm Boy is a charming Australian film, based on the novel of the same name by Colin Thiele. Mike 'Storm Boy' Kingsley lives with his father on the lonely coast of South Australia's Coorong. One day he finds 3 orphaned pelican chicks which he lovingly hand rears and names Mr Proud, Mr Ponder and Mr Percival. After their release, Mr Percival returns to Storm Boy, and become his cherished companion.Known as the 'Kes' of Australia, this heartwarming classic is truly one for the whole family.

• Mausam | DVD | (03/03/2008) from £14.98   |  Saving you £-8.99 (-150.10%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Mausam involves a young medical student who falls for the daughter of a heeler after seeking his help with an injured leg.

• Hendrix | DVD | (12/04/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Hendrix. The man the musician the legend. From his youth in Seattle to his death in London Jimi Hendrix (Wood Harris - Remember the Titans The Siege) was a unique talent who never compromised his dream of making music that brought the people together. Jimi soon finds his own band to play at the hip 'Cafe Wha?' where Jimi meets Chas Chandler a musician and record producer. The pair head to England where his new band The Jimi Hendrix Experience captivates the British music scene. During one incredible performance Jimi catches the eye of manager Michael Jeffrey (Billy Zane - Titanic The Phantom) and soon after they sign a contract. In 1969 Jimi reaches the apex of his career with his classic rendition of the 'Star Sprangled Banner' at Woodstock. Soon however his drug abuse takes it's toll and in 1970 he dies of asphxia while in a barbiturate-induced sleep. In the end his dream did come true... even today Hendrix fans are united around the world by the love of his music.