Road Trip is a mostly agreeable, by-the-numbers teen flick with a handful of inspired sequences, most of them involving MTV's resident disturbed soul, Tom Green. It concerns a sleepy University of Ithaca student named Josh (Breckin Meyer) who accidentally mails a video of his sexual encounter with an infatuation (Amy Smart) to his long time girlfriend (Rachel Blanchard), who's seemingly avoiding him while at school in Austin, Texas. Naturally, he recruits some pals-Seann William Scott as the lech, DJ Qualls as the hopeless nerd and Paulo Costanzo as the doper genius-to hit the open highway and intercept the package. Even more naturally, mayhem ensues: a car explodes, a bus is stolen, a nerd is deflowered, French toast is horribly violated and an elderly man bogarts both pot and Viagra. The film's humour is more democratic than politically correct, as everyone-women and minority characters, not just the hipster white guys-have a hand in the high jinks. Green plays Barry Manilow (no, not that one), a professional student (eight years and counting)-he relates the film's story to sceptical prospective students while leading them on a tour of the college. In particular, in an already justly famous sequence of scenes, he sadistically anticipates and endeavours to accelerate a mouse's demise at the jaws of a python. It's very much in the vein of American Pie, perhaps a smidgen tamer, but at least its characters don't really learn any dopey lessons in the end. Director and co-screenwriter Todd Phillips, who earlier made the much-questioned documentary Frat House, again proves he's more adept at staging fictional comic sequences than real ones. -David Kronke, Amazon. [+]

This re-mastered, pan-and-scan 30th-anniversary edition of that kiddie-car caper is flawed but solid family fare. It retains a quaint charm while some of the songs-including the title tune-are quite hummable. A huge plus is Dick Van Dyke, who is extremely appealing as an eccentric inventor around the turn of the century. With nimble fingers and a unique way of looking at the world, he invents for his children a magic car that floats and flies. Or does he? The special effects are tame by today's standards, and the film is about 20 minutes too long-but its enthusiasm charms. The script was cowritten by Roald Dahl and based on the novel by Ian Fleming, best known for his James Bond adventures. -Rochelle O'Gorman Chitty Chitty Bang Bang entranced and thrilled children and their parents when it puttered into the cinema in 1968. More than three decades later, and despite the eventual arrival of a stage version that throws the full weight of blockbuster effects at the story, the original remains the real thing for fans of all ages. The flying car is the star and it's impossible not to feel a surge of thrilling relief as the wings kick in when she plunges over the cliff and soars off on her great adventure. The songs might not be the greatest in musical history, but they are delivered with great charm by Dick Van Dyke as Caractacus Potts (a toned-down version of his infamous Bert in Mary Poppins), Sally Ann Howes (Truly Scrumptious) and the children. [+]

In his book, Robert C. O'Brien called his brave widow mouse "Mrs. Frisby", but Disney escapee animator Don Bluth must have thought children would laugh the wrong way at that. They renamed her "Mrs. Brisby" for The Secret of NIMH. That acronym stands for the National Institute of Mental Health, and the rats that live near Mrs. Brisby came from NIMH-they have strange ways. But they're the only ones who can save her house and her children, so Brisby seeks them out with the help of a humorous crow (Dom DeLuise). The magic gets laid on a little thick but this is Don Bluth's most successful attempt to achieve a complete, sincere, animated film. It's often forgotten, but it's a true surprise and a rare treat in the vast wasteland of insubstantial children's fare. [+]

Sidney Poitier directed (sadly without much distinction) this 1980 comedy teaming Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor as New York knuckleheads who try their luck in California and are accused of robbing a bank. Most of the laughs concern their survival strategies in prison (at one point, Wilder decides to "reach out and talk" to some hulking murderer) and their plans to escape. Both performers are so brilliant in any situation that they give this film plenty of funny moments (one or two of which became instantly classic), but this is not exactly a film for the ages. -Tom Keogh.

This gentle comedy almost seems like something out of Hollywood's Golden Age, a movie that might have been made by a talented contract director, perhaps featuring Don Ameche and Claudette Colbert. But in fact One Fine Day stars George Clooney as an investigative columnist for a New York newspaper and Michelle Pfeiffer as an architect. Both single parents, the two meet and bicker and develop a relationship over the course of a day while their young children play together. Michael Hoffman (Restoration) directs with a good sense of what's funny about harried caretakers and kids who do whatever they want to do. The story stretches out of shape a bit when Clooney's character has to rally to prove some point of corruption at City Hall; nobody involved seems quite up to making that subplot believable, but all that really matters about this very nice movie is the winning love story. -Tom Keogh.

Fantastical writer Gary Ross (Big, Dave) makes an auspicious directorial debut with this inspired and oddly touching comedy about two 90s kids (Tobey Maguire and Reese Witherspoon) thrust into the black-and-white TV world of Pleasantville, a Leave It to Beaver-style sitcom complete with picket fences, corner malt shop and warm chocolate chip cookies. When a somewhat unusual remote control (provided by repairman Don Knotts) transports them from the jaded real world to G-rated TV land, Maguire and Witherspoon are forced to play along as Bud and Mary Sue, the obedient children of George and Betty Parker (William H Macy and Joan Allen). Maguire, an obsessive Pleasantville devotee, understands the need for not toppling the natural balance of things; Witherspoon, on the other hand, starts shaking the town up, most notably when she takes football stud Skip (Paul Walker) up to Lover's Lane for some modern-day fun and games. Soon enough, Pleasantville's teens are discovering sex along with-gasp!-rock & roll, free thinking and soul-changing Technicolour. Filled with delightful and shrewd details about sitcom life (no toilets, no double beds, only two streets in the town), Pleasantville is a joy to watch, not only for its comedy but for the groundbreaking visual effects and astonishing production design as the town gradually transforms from crisp black and white to glorious colour. Ross does tip his hand a bit about halfway through the film, obscuring the movie's basic message of the unpredictability of life with overloaded and obvious symbolism, as the black-and-white denizens of the town gang up on the "coloureds" and impose rules of conduct to keep their strait-laced town laced up. Still, the characterizations from the phenomenal cast-especially repressed housewife Allen and soda-shop owner Jeff Daniels, doing some of their best work ever-will keep you emotionally invested in the film's outcome and waiting to see Pleasantville in all its final Technicolor glory. -Mark Englehart.

There are three periods to Carry On. Early on, they were typical British light comedy capers, hardly risqué. By the 1970s, the loveable double-entendres had been replaced by an almost nasty sleaziness, culminating in 1977's Carry On Emanuelle. 1969's Carry On Camping, thankfully, belongs to the Golden Years. Pretty much everybody is present and correct, if not politically. Sid James is a likely-ish, if slightly elderly lad, persuading Joan Sims to join him at what he secretly expects to be a nudist colony. Terry Scott is a put-upon suburbian, coerced into outdoor vacations by his ghastly, horsey-laughed wife, while Charles Hawtrey is the campest of campers who befriends them. Kenneth Williams, who alone makes this worth watching, is gloriously ridiculous as head of a girl's school, Chayste Place, with Hattie Jacques as Matron and Barbara Windsor as one of the 30 year old fifth formers in their charge. Technically it's terrible stuff, with Barbara Windsor's flying bra, laboured puns galore, peeping tomfoolery, punchlines visible two miles off, "comedy" incidental music and a reactionary denouement in which they chase off a bunch of hippies. Yet if you don't chuckle at least half a dozen times during this, however many times you've seen it, there's probably something wrong with you. [+]

John Hughes's popular 1985 teen drama finds a diverse group of high school students-a jock (Emilio Estevez), a metalhead (Judd Nelson), a weirdo (Ally Sheedy), a princess (Molly Ringwald), and a nerd (Anthony Michael Hall)-sharing a Saturday in detention at their high school for one minor infraction or another. Over the course of a day, they talk through the social barriers that ordinarily keep them apart, and new alliances are born, though not without a lot of pain first. Hughes (Sixteen Candles), who wrote and directed, is heavy on dialogue but he also thoughtfully refreshes the look of the film every few minutes with different settings and original viewpoints on action. The movie deals with such fundamentals as the human tendency toward bias and hurting the weak, and because the characters are caught somewhere between childhood and adulthood, it's easy to get emotionally involved in hope for their redemption. Preteen and teenage kids love this film, incidentally. -Tom Keogh.

Patricia Rozema is a Canadian director with the nerve to helm smart, big budget movies, as she proves again in Mansfield Park. She had her first hit with the quirky I've Heard the Mermaids Singing (1987) in which the heroine, a mouse among art gallery sharks, eventually comes into her own, surpassing the mentor who's risen on her back. Similarly, in Mansfield Park, adapted from Jane Austen's strongly autobiographical novel, penniless city mouse Fanny Price (Frances O'Connor) comes to live in a handsome country manor with the Bertrams, her heartless, class-conscious relations. After many cruel setbacks, Fanny manages, by dint of writing talent and moral integrity, to win the day and the love of her life Edmund (Trainspotting's Jonny Lee Miller). Unlike filmmakers who dress up Austen's money-driven world in sweetness and light, Rozema rubs our noses in the fact that the Bertrams' wealth flows from the blood and sweat of faraway slaves. The adaptation never euphemises the down-and-dirty slum life which has swallowed up Fanny's mother and threatens Fanny if she refuses to marry the handsome but hollow fortune hunter (Alessandro Nivola) chosen for her by her benefactors. Playwright Harold Pinter is compelling as Mansfield Park's patriarch, Sir Thomas Bertram, capable of kindness but stone-cold when his aristocratic will is crossed. Embeth Davidtz (playing Mary, the amoral sibling of Fanny's suitor, with wonderfully seductive verve) and O'Connor almost resemble each other-and they are sisters of a sort, each vying, according to her talents, in a stock market where women must parlay sex to stay alive. In this entertaining ride in the socioeconomic fast lane circa 1806, Jane Austen comes across as a full-blooded proto-feminist with savvy charm. -Kathleen Murphy, Amazon. [+]

After the tight plotting and quirky intensity of Fargo, this casually amusing follow-up from the prolifically inventive Coen (Ethan and Joel) brothers seems like a bit of a lark, and the result was a box-office disappointment. The good news is, The Big Lebowski is every bit a Coen movie, and its lazy plot is part of its laidback charm. After all, how many movies can claim as their hero a pot-bellied, pot-smoking loser named Jeff "The Dude" Lebowski (Jeff Bridges) who spends most of his time bowling and getting stoned? And where else could you find a hairnetted Latino bowler named Jesus (John Turturro) who sports dazzling purple footgear, or an erotic artist (Julianne Moore) whose creativity consists of covering her naked body in paint, flying through the air in a leather harness, and splatting herself against a giant canvas? Who else but the Coens would think of showing you a camera view from inside the holes of a bowling ball, or an elaborate Busby Berkely-styled musical dream sequence involving a Viking goddess and giant bowling pins? The plot-which finds Lebowski involved in a kidnapping scheme after he's mistaken for a rich guy with the same name-is almost beside the point. What counts here is a steady cascade of hilarious dialogue, great work from Coen regulars John Goodman and Steve Buscemi, and the kind of cinematic ingenuity that puts the Coens in a class all their own. Be sure to watch with snacks in hand, because The Big Lebowski might give you a giddy case of the munchies. -Jeff Shannon.

The blitz-bombing of London in World War II provides the serious backdrop for the uplifting entertainment of Mrs. Henderson Presents, a delightful comedy anchored by the flawless performances of Judi Dench and Bob Hoskins. After losing a son in World War I, and becoming a widow in 1937, the wealthy and respectable Mrs. Henderson (Dench) decides that the best way to support soldiers going off to battle is to give them a wartime send-off they'll never forget. Thus, she buys and renovates the Windmill Theatre in London's Soho district, hires Mr. Vivian Van Damm (Hoskins) as the impresario of an all-day musical variety show called "Revudeville," and secures permission from the censorious Lord Cromer (Christopher Guest) to include naked women in the stage show-on the condition that the ladies remain still onstage to qualify as "art," like nude portraits in a gallery, with the "foliage" of their "midlands" discreetly obscured. "Revudeville" is an instant hit, British propriety remains tastefully intact, and as The Windmill's fortunes rise, fall, and rise again, Mrs. Henderson Presents develops an emotional depth and good-natured nobility that's perfectly matched to the comedy of tweaking British manners. Working from an eloquently witty, fact-based screenplay by Martin Sherman, director Stephen Frears (High Fidelity) brings out the best in a well-chosen cast, and Andrew Dunn's cinematography (enhanced by judicious use of digital effects to show the London blitz in progress) casts a warm, inviting glow over this winning tale of show-biz tenacity in the best and worst of times. -Jeff Shannon.