The beloved sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond would be as brutal as a Strindberg drama if it didn't make familial bitterness so genuinely funny. Stand-up comedian Ray Romano (Ice Age) plays Ray Barone, a sportswriter married to Debra (the sharp and sexy Patricia Heaton) who has the misfortune to live just across the street from his invasive, bickering parents Frank and Marie (Peter Boyle, Young Frankenstein, and Doris Roberts, Remington Steele). Rounding out the cast is Ray's neglected older brother Robert (Brad Garrett, Gleason), whose every accomplishment has been ignored because his parents prefer to dote on the younger, cuter Ray. Robert, whose gloomy mug and huge size makes him loom over Ray like some malevolent alter-ego, is actually more honest and sensitive to the needs of others than is Ray, who's both self-centered and too eager to please-an impossible balance that Romano spins to great comic effect. The fifth season presents the show at the peak of its strength. The season opener, a two-part story about a trip to Italy, degenerates into schmaltz, but immediately afterward Everyone Loves Raymond regains its bearings and launches into series of deftly played and skillfully written domestic skirmishes between husband and wife or parent and child. Episodes range from an explosive fight over wallpaper (a fan favorite) to anxiety over Ray's twin sons playing fairies in a school performance to the separation of Debra's seemingly perfect parents (Katherine Helmond, Brazil, and Robert Culp, I Spy). It's hard to imagine that any other show could get away with such a morbid view of marriage. In one episode, Ray and Debra panic when they realize they're running out of things to talk about; but after they witness Ray's parents having a meal without speaking a single word (a hypnotic pas de deux between Boyle and Roberts), Debra persuades herself that being quiet with each other is true intimacy. [+]

One of the last decent Carry On movies, Carry On Abroad is a 1972 venture into the world of package holidays. After this, the series descended into unfunny coarseness as opposed to camply laboured double entendre, culminating in the dreadful Carry On Emanuelle. Here, publican Sid James and dutiful mother's son turned sex maniac Charles Hawtrey are among a brace of Brits heading for the "paradise island" of Elsbels. Kenneth Williams is the out-of-his-depth tour operator, reverting to the sort of effete types he played in the 1950s, Peter Butterworth a pre-Manuel-style manager of a half-built hotel. A series of disasters ensue, with the entire gang landing up in jail following a fracas in a brothel at one point, but everyone finds romantic and sexual fulfilment in a quaint disco finale. This includes a gay character who is "dissuaded" from his homosexuality in a typical example of the thoroughly reactionary subtext that constitutes the really naughty bit of most Carry On films. Nonetheless, this throwback to an imaginary time when the lewdest innuendo of a dirty old man was greeted by young females with a flirty "Ooh, saucy!" is enjoyable on condition that you enter into its seaside-postcard spirit. June Whitfield is fine as a sexually uptight wife, Kenneth Connor a model of red-faced frustration as her wimpish husband. On the DVD: Sadly, no extra features except scene selection. The picture is a 4:3 ratio full-screen presentation. [+]

Look who became a star. Barbie comes to life in the computer-animated Barbie in the Nutcracker, taking the longtime-favorite doll into a new realm. The 76-minute tale is a slight variation on the traditional story based on Tchaikovsky's music. Instead of an open-ended dream, Barbie and her escort, the Nutcracker (soon to be Ken, natch), are on an adventurous quest. Along the way there are more creatures and derring-do than the original. The sole known voice talent, Tim Curry, has a good old time as the Mouse King, and the animated dancing is gracefully adapted from New York City Ballet members. A few clever characters, bright animation and wonderful music should entrance any Barbie fan from age three to nine. -Doug Thomas, Amazon. com.

It seemed a good idea at the time: to celebrate the end of the millennium by resurrecting Edmund Blackadder for a one-off special Blackadder: Back and Fourth. Unfortunately, those responsible for Back and Forth got the cart before the horse. The Blackadder television series worked by recasting the same characters in different times, thereby reinforcing the dynamic between Blackadder and the buffoons who ran his life (World War One generals, various idiot royalty) and the troglodytes whose lives he ran (Baldrick). Given that most of us feel most of the time like the people we work for are useless and the people that work for us are even more useless, Blackadder's concept had a huge appeal. A special feature looking at Blackadders through the ages might, therefore, have been a worthwhile enterprise. In Back and Forth, however, the character-a modern-day descendant of the Blackadder line-is merely briefly imposed on a variety of historical circumstances; he is no longer the victim of circumstances but the creator of them, and far less appealing for it. The script is lame and formulaic, and the conclusion unbelievably lazy. Okay, so it's a comedy, but if he really had returned to an England which had been conquered by France at the battle of Waterloo, shouldn't everyone there have been speaking French? On the DVD: There are three sound options Dolby 2. 0 and 5. 1, and DTS 5. [+]

Professional tennis makes an unlikely but surprisingly effective backdrop for a lively romantic comedy in Wimbledon. Peter Cort (Paul Bettany, Master and Commander), once ranked 11th in the world, has slipped to 119th and is heading into his last Wimbledon tournament when he runs into Lizzie Bradbury (Kirsten Dunst, The Virgin Suicides, Spider-Man), a rising star. The two strike up a whirlwind romance that gives his game new life-but she insists it's going to be nothing but a passing fling. Their affair heats up and Cort finds himself steadily rising through the competition while Lizzie stumbles. Of course, the ending is never really in doubt-but Bettany is a unique cinematic presence, pale and lithe, doubtful of life but also hungry for it. Thanks to him and the ever-engaging Dunst, Wimbledon is funnier, more suspenseful, and more touching that anyone might expect, turning a conventional flick into a genuine charmer. -Bret Fetzer.

An extraordinary comic performance from Reese Witherspoon makes Legally Blonde a winner. Witherspoon's Elle is a ditzy blonde forced by circumstances to metamorphose into a strong-minded and academic lawyer, without losing her strong sense of self in the process. After majoring in fashion sales, she applies to Harvard Law School to pursue the boy who jilted her, and discovers that she is smart as well as beautiful. Much of this is standard fish-out-of-water fare, with drab "intellectuals" snubbing the colourful and well-meaning Elle. Yet feminists will be disconcerted to discover that, apparently, a life of manicures and accessorising will teach you as much about female solidarity as decades of consciousness-raising! Recruited to the defence team of a fitness guru, she takes the defendant's innocence for granted rather than feeling superior to her. Gradually, she and her ex's new fiancée build a fragile friendship that matters to both of them; Selma Blair is excellent as the snobbish vulnerable Vivienne. It might be a predictable self-help fairytale, but it's also well-observed, cute and funny. On the DVD: the DVD is presented in 1. 78:1 ratio with 5. 1 Dolby digital sound as standard. [+]

Seven years after he earned his first screen credit as the writer of Fast Times at Ridgemont High, former Rolling Stone writer Cameron Crowe made his directorial debut with this acclaimed romantic comedy starring John Cusack and Ione Skye as unlikely lovers on the cusp of adulthood. The casting is perfect and Crowe's rookie direction is appropriately unobtrusive, no doubt influenced by his actor-loving, Oscar-winning mentor, James L. Brooks. But the real strength of Crowe's work is his exceptional writing, his timely grasp of contemporary rhythms and language (he's frequently called "the voice of a generation"), and the rich humour and depth of his fully developed characters. In Say Anything, Cusack and Skye play recent high-school graduates enjoying one final summer before leaping into a lifetime of adult responsibilities. Lloyd (Cusack) is an aspiring kickboxer with no definite plans; Diane (Skye) is a valedictorian with plans to further her education in Europe. Together they find unlikely bliss, but there's also turbulence when Diane's father (John Mahoney)-who only wants what's best for his daughter-is charged with fraud and tax evasion. Favouring strong performances over obtrusive visual style, Crowe focuses on his unique characters and the ambitions and fears that define them; the movie's a treasure trove of quiet, often humorous revelations of personality. Lili Taylor and Eric Stoltz score high marks for memorable supporting roles, and Cusack's own sister Joan is perfect in scenes with her on- and offscreen brother. A rare romantic comedy that's as funny as it is dramatically honest, Say Anything marked the arrival of a gifted writer-director who followed up with the underrated Singles before scoring his first box-office smash with Jerry Maguire. [+]

From a visual standpoint, this CG feature starring the venerable '80s and '90s superheroes the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is nothing short of slam-bang; the computer animation has a scope and look that transcends both the original comics and animated series and the three live-action features that preceded it. Writer/director Kevin Munroe creates a striking animated world for the four heroes in a half-shell to live, play, and fight in, and the action sequences are occasionally breathtaking in their speed and complexity. But where TMNT stumbles is its bland plot, which picks up after the last of the live-action features with all four teen turtles in disarray, and abandons longtime villain Shredder in favor of an industrialist (well voiced by Patrick Stewart) who recruits the Foot Clan (including Karai, played by Zhang Ziyi) to revive thirteen ancient monsters to aid in his world domination scheme. It's a simple and fun story for kids, but longtime Turtles fans will miss the wry humour and smart sense of irony of the original comics (created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, who gets an executive producer credit here) in this storyline. Still, for most adolescent audience members, such concerns won't matter a whit in the face of the abundant action. -Paul Gaita.

The Care Bears Movie was essentially a 75-minute commercial to introduce a new toy range, the Care Bear Cousins, disguised as a smarmy story about sharing feelings. The film ushered in a spate of cheap animated films created solely to sell merchandise to children. The plot interweaves the stories of Kim and Jason, two lonely orphans who have given up caring, and of Nicholas, a friendless magician's assistant who is seduced by an evil spirit. The Care Bears resolve everyone's problems, naturally. Years later, the Care Bears' popularity has waned and the film stands as a reminder of one of the less admirable uses of animation. The stars, hearts, rainbows and saccharine songs can't disguise the barefaced commercialism behind the threadbare story. -Charles Solomon.