In the sensible yet elegant hands of actresses Helen Mirren and Julie Walters, Calendar Girls walks a fine line between sappiness and snickering and ends up both wonderfully funny and gently touching. When her best friend Annie (Walters) loses her husband, Chris (Mirren) cooks up a scheme to commemorate him: they and their friends-all fiftysomething women-will make a nude calendar to raise money for the hospital where he died. The calendar becomes hugely popular, but the success may drive a wedge between the two women's friendship. Based on a true story, Calendar Girls carefully balances the stories of several women as it follows the calendar's media explosion, becoming a surprisingly moving fable of loss, determination and the perils of fame. And let's face it-Helen Mirren is one of the wittiest and sexiest women alive, clothes on or not. -Bret Fetzer.

Like an airport running at peak efficiency, The Terminal glides on the consummate skills of its director and star. Having refined their collaborative chemistry on Saving Private Ryan and Catch Me if You Can, Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks mesh like the precision gears of a Rolex, turning a delicate, not-very-plausible scenario into a lovely modern-age fable (partly based on fact) that's both technically impressive and subtly moving. It's Spielberg in Capra mode, spinning the featherweight tale of Victor Navorski (Hanks, giving a finely tuned performance), an Eastern European who arrives at New York's Kennedy Airport just as his (fictional) homeland has fallen to a coup, forcing him, with no valid citizenship, to take indefinite residence in the airport's expansive International Arrivals Terminal (an astonishing full-scale set that inspires Spielberg's most elegant visual strategies). Spielberg said he made this film in part to alleviate the anguish of wartime America, and his master's touch works wonders on the occasionally mushy material; even Stanley Tucci's officious terminal director and Catherine Zeta-Jones's mixed-up flight attendant come off (respectively) as forgivable and effortlessly charming. With this much talent involved, The Terminal transcends its minor shortcomings to achieve a rare degree of cinematic grace. -Jeff Shannon.

Bad romantic comedies make you scoff at their absurdity; good ones make you wish your life was that absurd. Just Like Heaven is just smart and likable enough to trigger that wishing. David (Mark Ruffalo, Collateral, You Can Count On Me) finds an amazing apartment in San Francisco-only to discover it's haunted by the spirit of the previous tenant, an overachieving doctor named Elizabeth (Reese Witherspoon, Legally Blonde, Election). There's something not quite right about Elizabeth's afterlife; against his better judgement, David agrees to help her investigate her life. but finds himself digging into his own as well. The plot takes a twist that some viewers will see coming, but Just Like Heaven doesn't rely on the surprise alone; the revelation takes the story in a new and just as entertaining direction. Witherspoon and Ruffalo are two of the best romantic leads around, but the surprise is how well their contrasting flavors (perky and moody, respectively) mesh, creating a sparky, engaging chemistry. Also featuring Dina Waters (Freaky Friday), Donal Logue (The Tao of Steve), Ben Shenkman (Angels in America), and Jon Heder (Napoleon Dynamite). [+]

When local wag Jackie O'Shea (Ian Bannen) discovers that one of his neighbours in the village of Tulaigh Mohr is a lottery winner he sees a chance to share in the wealth. Things get complicated when Jackie and his pal Michael O'Sullivan (David Kelly) discover that the winner, Ned Devine, died of shock at the very moment he learned of becoming a millionaire. Undaunted, Jackie and Michael dispose of the lucky stiff and hatch a plot to impersonate him and claim the prize. Soon the whole village is involved and the plot rapidly thickens. This film has been compared to The Full Monty, but it lacks the vein of desperation that added depth to that film. Instead, Waking Ned is closer in tone to classic British comedies like Whisky Galore!, with its cast of eccentrics gleefully conspiring to outwit the authorities. Those with a low tolerance for twinkly eyed Irish charm might be tempted to steer clear, although the movie is saved, for the most part, by its central performances. Bannen is superb as an old man who is clearly hungry for any excitement he can drum up and David Kelly is remarkable as his scrawny sidekick. Kelly has had a long career as a character actor in film and television, but here he has a chance to really let loose. His naked motorcycle ride is a marvellous set-piece and in all of his other scenes his twitchy, perfectly timed performance quite simply steals the movie. [+]

In 1941, when Frank Capra filmed Arsenic and Old Lace, he was in the midst of his string of social-concern pictures. So this uncharacteristic property must have seemed like a vacation; it's a straight farce, played at full tilt and closely adapted from the Broadway play. Almost all of the action takes place on a single set: the old home of the Brewster sisters (Josephine Hull and Jean Adair), those dear, dotty old ladies who mix up a very special elderberry wine. Very special. As their nephew Mortimer (Cary Grant) discovers on the eve of his wedding, the two ladies have been spiking the wine with poison and sending lonely gentleman callers off to the great beyond. More specifically, they've been burying them in the cellar with the help of nutty Uncle Teddy, who thinks he's Teddy Roosevelt (and thus digging the Panama Canal down in the basement). The ominous happenings are made more sinister with the arrival of another menacing relative (RaymondMassey) and his quack doctor (Peter Lorre), who look and act like refugees from a horror movie. Played completely over the top, this movie offers up lots of bracing slapstick, with Grant run to near exhaustion by the galloping insanity of his family. Although Capra shot the film in 1941, prior to his making military films during World War II, the film was not released until 1944; the contract stipulated that the movie not come out before the play ended its enormously successful run. -Robert Horton.

"When you look at me, what do you see?" pontificates football star Joe Kingman, then provides the answer: "Greatness. " Well, clearly an ego like that needs to be brought down to size-pint-size. The winning family comedy The Game Plan has a whole lot going for it, including star Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, who is a natural comedic actor (and the camera loves him), and the young actress (Madison Pettis) who plays the daughter he didn't know he had, Peyton. The plot doesn't break much new ground, since many films have mined the territory of the self-indulgent child-adult who suddenly "inherits" a child (from Three Men and a Baby to Baby Boom to Big Daddy to Raising Helen). But thanks to the charismatic performance of Johnson, the film is winsome and uplifting. Johnson's comic timing and straight-man face are spot-on, as is his warm chemistry with the sweet-faced Pettis. Also giving notable performances are the lovely Roselyn Sanchez as Peyton's ballet teacher, and Kyra Sedgwick as Kingman's hard-nosed agent who's aghast at the appearance of an out-of-wedlock child. Children and adults both can enjoy the movie's warm-and-fuzzy moral of making family where you find it-or where it finds you. -A. T. [+]

Only Joel and Ethan Coen, masters of quirky and ultra-stylish genre subversion, would dare nick the plotline of Homer's Odyssey for O Brother, Where Art Thou?, their comic picaresque saga about three cons on the run in 1930s Mississippi. Our wandering hero in this case is one Ulysses Everett McGill, a slick-tongued wise guy with a thing for hair pomade (George Clooney, blithely sending up his own dapper image) who talks his chain-gang buddies (Coen-movie regular John Turturro and newcomer Tim Blake Nelson) to light out after some buried loot he claims to know of. En route they come up against a prophetic blind man on a railroad truck, a burly one-eyed baddie (the ever-magnificent John Goodman), a trio of sexy singing ladies, a blues guitarist who's sold his soul to the devil, a brace of crooked politicos on the stump, a manic-depressive bank robber, and-well, you get the idea. Into this, their most relaxed film yet, the Coens have tossed a beguiling ragbag of inconsequential situations, a wealth of looping, left-field dialogue and a whole stash of gags both verbal and visual. O Brother (the title's lifted from Preston Sturges' classic 1941 comedy Sullivan's Travels) is furthermore graced with glowing, burnished photography from Roger Deakins and a masterly soundtrack from T-Bone Burnett that pays loving homage to American 30s folk-styles: blues, gospel, bluegrass, jazz and more. And just to prove that the brothers haven't lost their knack for bad-taste humour, we get a Ku Klux Klan rally choreographed like something between a Nuremberg rally and a Busby Berkeley musical. -Philip KempOn the DVD: This two-disc set duplicates the original single-disc release of the film which included a handful of cast and crew interviews, and adds an additional disc with more interviews, two brief behind-the-scenes featurettes about the production design and the post-production digital colouring of the film, a couple of storyboard-to-scene comparisons and a music video of "Man of Constant Sorrow". There's also a 16-minute documentary to promote the companion Down from the Mountain concert. Frankly there's not a lot here to justify spreading it across two discs: a more pleasing not to say generous offering would have been to cram all these extras onto Disc 1 and give us Down from the Mountain as the second disc. -Mark Walker.

Attracting yet more star names, while wisely moving the narrative on, the second series of Extras really finds the show maturing nicely, and unsurprisingly, cleaned up more awards in the process. That said, it remains a far more divisive programme than its forerunner, The Office. Written by, directed and featuring Stephen Merchant and Ricky Gervais, its appeal is more concentrated and less broad, following Andy Millman on his progression from background artist to his own TV show. At times, for a programme frequently billed as a comedy, there's a melancholy tone, although that's not to say it doesn't deliver its fair share of laughs in the process. Many of those laughs are oiled by the seemingly never-ending conveyor belt of big names who take part in the show. Extras's first season attracted the likes of Kate Winslet and Samuel L Jackson, but this time, the likes of Daniel Radcliffe, Sir Ian McKellen and David Bowie are quick to join in. There's, er, Barry from EastEnders, too, who adds to the fun. And fun is, ultimately, what Extras serves up, albeit laced with a depth and occasional bout on introspectiveness. As with the first season, it's Ashley Jensen who steals the show from underneath Extras' cavalcade of star names, with a terrific portrayal of Maggie Jacobs. Yet this second series feels and is superior to the first, and already, its creators have announced that they're putting the brakes on the show, save for one final special to sign off with. [+]

After cooking up a winning formula for the first season, this karmic comedy could afford to shake things up. In Earl's equally successful second, there's an episode incorporating clay animation ("Robbed a Stoner Blind" with Christian Slater), an homage to Cops ("Our 'Cops' Is On!" with Kathy Kinney), a two-parter set in Latin America ("South of the Border" with John Leguizamo), and a Tarantino-style whodunnit with narration split between Earl, Randy, Joy, and Crab Man ("Buried Treasure"). As before, Earl (Jason Lee), in cahoots with brother Randy (Ethan Suplee), continues in his quest to become "a better person. " He starts by turning to Camden County strip club owner Richard Chubby (Burt Reynolds) to get ex-wife Joy out of a jam involving stolen merchandise ("Jump for Joy"). Joy's struggle to evade prison will last all year, during which Earl falls for her "hot professional" lawyer (Marlee Matlin). Other highlights include "Sticks & Stones," in which Earl gives a bearded lady (Judy Greer) back her confidence, and "Larceny of a Kitty Cat," in which the allergic Randy dates a feline fancier (Amy Sedaris). When that comes to an end, he finally works up the nerve to tell motel maid Catalina (Nadine Velazquez) how he really feels about her ("Foreign Exchange Student'). From the start, Earl attracted a colourful array of talent. That trend continues with Roseanne Barr as a nun ("Made a Lady Think I Was God") and John Waters as a funeral director ("Kept a Guy Locked in a Truck"). Emmy nominees Giovanni Ribisi and Beau Bridges also return for a few episodes, along with other first-season favourites, like Patty, the Daytime Hooker (Dale Dickey). [+]

The sixth entry in the long-running American Pie franchise anchors its story in the tried-and-true rivalry between nerds and jocks while serving up the non-stop barrage of raunchy gags for which the series has earned its notoriety. The twist in Beta House is that the nerds are actually the heels of the picture, while the heroes (as it were) are hormonally super-charged Erik Stifler (John White) and his pals, who pledge at their college's most chaotic frat during their freshman year. That the fraternity, Beta House, is run by Erik's cousin Dwight (Steve Talley) only works in their favour, but trouble rears its head in the form of the Geek House, a rival frat made up of socially awkward boys with money to burn due to their technological superiority. The apex of their clash is the Greek Olympics (inexplicably presided over by American Pie regular Eugene Levy), which descends into a frenzy of scatological sight gags (one bit, inspired by the Russian Roulette scene in The Deer Hunter, is jaw-droppingly gross). The sweetness that tempered the sex jokes in the original American Pie is completely absent from this entry; that, however, may not be a bad thing for some viewers. The DVD includes a considerable amount of deleted material, including whole story lines removed from the final product; commentary by and interviews with the cast and crew, outtakes, an in-character interview with Levy, and a ridiculous "Yule Log" featurette (a smutty play on the old Video Yule Log) round out the extras. -Paul Gaita.

Danny Kaye spoofs Robin Hood and Scaramouche in this inventive slapstick swashbuckler. Portraying the clownish but good-hearted entertainer Hawkins, he infiltrates the court of the corrupt Basil Rathbone (up to his usual brand of cruel villainy) disguised as the legendary king of jesters, Giacomo. After a court sorceress hypnotises Hawkins into believing he is also a legendary assassin, Hawkins has more identities than he can keep straight, and Kaye zips back and forth between them at, literally, a snap of the fingers. Comic highlights include a wonderful sword fight with Rathbone in which he constantly switches identities, and the classic "chalice from the palace/vessel with pestle" wordplay as Hawkins plays "hide the poison" and forgets where it is. With comely Glynis Johns as his spy-in-arms love interest, Angela Lansbury as the scheming princess, and Mildred Natwick as the dotty spellcaster, this is Danny Kaye at his comic best. -Sean Axmaker, Amazon. com.