When Percy Brand, a habitual confidence trickster, keeps being sent down, he goes to great lengths to ensure that his son Colin, does not find out about his criminal past. But when Colin becomes an assistant to the Judge, who is about to try Percy for his latest escapade, Percy and his gang have to come up with a plan, to stop them meeting in court.

The Green Man is a charming film that carries a wickedly subversive streak of black humour sqarely on the back of Alastair Simms' disgruntled criminal mastermind. Planning to assassinate a windbag MP, his dastardly plot is embroiled in a comedy of errors when George Cole's vacuum cleaning demonstration turns up a corpse in the piano at Simms' Windyridge cottage. Teaming up with the long-legged neighbour Cole tracks down the bomb to a secret hideaway for the MP-a pub called the Green Man. This is the sort of masterful comedy that deftly gets away with confusing the audience who are never sure whose side they should be cheering. When Simms' carefully timed explosive device threatens to decimate a lounge bar trip of old dears, it is hilarious fun to be manipulated into hoping he can speed up their performance enough to whisk them to the safety of a gin and tonic elsewhere. This is a gem in both British comedy and the great Alastair Simms treasury. -Paul Tonks.

With sidesplitting dialogue and rampant profanity, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back reunites Kevin Smith's dynamic duo in supreme lowbrow style. It's the fifth comedy in Smith's celebrated New Jersey "trilogy". Here Quick-Stop potheads Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (Smith) wreak vengeance on Hollywood, where Miramax is making a "Bluntman & Chronic" feature inspired by J and SB, but without their permission. En route from Jersey to La La Land, Jay and his "hetero lifemate" encounter sexy jewel thieves (including the delightful Shannon Elizabeth), a precocious orang-utan, a dimwit wildlife marshal (Will Ferrell), and a non-stop parade of in-jokes, harmless (yet controversial) gay jokes, and splendid celebrity cameos. While gently biting the Miramax hand that feeds him, and paying affectionate homage to the Star Wars saga, Smith sheds all inhibitions to give Jay and Silent Bob a stellar send off that's nasty, sassy and undeniably hilarious. -Jeff Shannon.

Sharper and deeper than Robin Williams's previous road material, Live on Broadway is a mature comedian's view of all things to do with power, prejudice and paranoia in the 21st century. On the anthrax scare of 2001: "The Senate cleared out of their building but told the rest of us 'Get on with your normal lives'!" On his solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over Jerusalem: "Time share!" On the pitfalls of America's deepening alliance with Britain: "The House of Commons is like Congress with a two-drink minimum". A viewer may have to slog through Williams's tedious breast fetishism, but patience is quickly rewarded with bitchy takes on Martha Stewart facing prison, solid satire about French existentialist judges at the Olympics and subversive op-eds about the Bush administration's inability to clarify terrorist threats to the public ("Has the CIA become the Central Intuitive Agency?"). -Tom Keogh.

To the Manor Born is another BBC sitcom from the genre's golden age, one that came to dominate the ratings during its initial three series run from 1979-80. Providing Penelope Keith with her first major role after The Good Life, the show focuses on a way of life that now appears hard to comprehend, with storylines concerning hunt balls, village committees and eccentric brigadiers only adding to the dated feel. What provided the programme's key interest, however, was not the terribly quaint Little England setting but the burgeoning relationship between Keith's Audrey Fforbes-Hamilton and Richard De Vere (Peter Bowles), the new owner of Audrey's old home, Grantleigh Manor. It's all very, very English (the show is set in a village called Cricket St Thomas) and the continuing use of farce almost creates a sense of parody: but look beyond the infuriating stereotypes and there is some sharp writing going on, predating the city vs countryside debate by nearly two decades. Penelope Keith is, as ever, fantastic value and while new viewers may simply not get the joke, those after a spot of nostalgia could do far worse. -Phil Udell.

There's no rule against rock anthems from the 1970s in the soundtrack for a movie about a medieval jousting champion, but if you're going to attempt such jarring anachronisms, you'd better establish acceptable ground rules. Writer-director Brian Helgeland does precisely that in A Knight's Tale and pulls off this trick with such giddy aplomb that you can't help but play along. Upon witnessing a crowd of peasants at a jousting match, singing and clapping to the beat of Queen's "We Will Rock You", you're either going to love this movie or dismiss it altogether. Other vintage rock hits will follow, but Helgeland-the Oscar-winning co-writer of LA Confidential-handles this ploy with judicious goodwill, in what is an otherwise honest period piece about a peasant named William (Heath Ledger) who rises by grit and determination to the hallowed status of knighthood. As if the soundtrack weren't audacious enough, Helgeland (recovering from the sour experience of his directorial debut, Payback) casts none other than Geoffrey Chaucer (wonderfully played by Paul Bettany) as William's cohort and match announcer, along with William's pals Roland (Mark Addy) and Wat (Alan Tudyk), and feisty blacksmith Kate (Laura Fraser). Of course there must be a fair maiden, and she is Jocelyn (newcomer Shannyn Sossamon), with whom William falls in love while battling the nefarious Count Adhemar (Rufus Sewell) on the European jousting circuit. Add to this an inspiring father-son reunion, Ledger's undeniable charisma, a perfect supporting cast, and enough joyful energy to rejuvenate the film's formulaic plot, and A Knight's Tale becomes that most pleasant of movie surprises-an unlikely winner that rises up, like its hero, to exceed all expectations. -Jeff Shannon, Amazon. comOn the DVD: From "The Rock Music Scene in 1370" to "You Never Know What You'll Find in a Czech Prop House", this disc doesn't scrimp on the special features. Offering a wealth of information regarding the making of this $41million film, from the jousting (which many of the actors actually performed) to justification for the rock soundtrack and Audrey Hepburn-esque dresses in Medieval Europe. [+]

Decent, lighthearted and fully amusing slapstick is hard to come by these days, and 1993's Groundhog Day manages to also be genuinely wise about the human condition. All this and belly laughs too! Bill Murray stars as Phil, a bored, petulant news reporter, who is ordered to give his annual live report from Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania on February 2. Though desperate to get out of the one-horse town and the appallingly sentimental assignment, Phil finds himself reliving the same day over and over again until he finally mends his ways. The film takes an absurd situation and explores its every imaginable comic possibility. Because none of the other characters are aware that Groundhog Day is continually repeating itself, Phil goes through a repertoire of responses, from conniving lust for Rita (Andie MacDowell) to gleeful nihilism to a Zen resignation worthy of Buster Keaton. Murray is reliably good, and this flick gives him a chance to be warm (though never fuzzy). Bill Murray does warmth in Groundhog Day, his most consistently effective post-Stripes comedy, a romantic fantasy about a wacky weatherman forced to relive one strange day over and over again, until he gets it right. Snowed in during a road-trip expedition to watch the famous groundhog encounter his shadow, Murray falls into a time warp that is never explained but pays off so richly that it doesn't need to be. The elaborate loop-the-loop plot structure cooked up by screenwriter Danny Rubin is crystal-clear every step of the way, but it's Murray's world-class reactive timing that makes the jokes explode, and we end up looking forward to each new variation. He squeezes all the available juice out of every scene. [+]

Richard Donner's 1978 epic about the Man of Steel showed how a film about a superhero could be a moving and romantic experience even for people who long ago gave up comic books. Beginning on the icy planet Krypton, the story follows the baby Kal-El, whose rocket ship lands in Smallville, Kansas. He is found there by a childless couple and raised as the shy Clark Kent (the young Kent is played by Jeff East). The film is perhaps most touching in these sequences, with expanses of wheat fields blowing in the wind and with a young man who can't figure out what part in destiny his great powers are meant to play. The second half, with Reeve taking over as Clark/Superman, is bustling, enchanting (the scene in which Superman flies girlfriend Lois Lane-played by Margot Kidder-through the night sky is great date material), and funny, thanks largely to Gene Hackman's sardonic portrayal of nemesis Lex Luthor. -Tom Keogh.