After more than a decade of false starts and several potential directors, the popular Andrew Lloyd Webber-Tim Rice musical finally made it to the big screen with Alan Parker (The Commitments) at the helm and Madonna in the coveted title role of Argentina's first lady, Eva Perón. A triumph of production design, costuming, cinematography, and epic-scale pageantry, the film follows the rise of Eva Perón to the level of supreme social and political celebrity in the 1940s. Like Madonna, Perón was a material girl (she was only 33 when she died); she was instrumental in the political success of her husband, Juan Perón (Jonathan Pryce). But Eva was also a supremely tragic figure whose life was essentially hollow at its core despite the lavish benefits of her nearly goddess-like status. The film Evita has a similar quality-it's visually astonishing but emotionally distant, and benefits greatly from the singing commentary of Ché (Antonia Banderas), who serves as a passionate chorus to guide the viewer through the elaborate parade of history. -Jeff Shannon.

In Season 4 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Sunnydale high school is left behind in smoking ruins and Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) becomes a college freshman at the (fictitious) University of California Sunnydale campus. The major arc of the season involves a semi-sinister Man from U. N. C. L. E. -type government agency known as The Initiative which has its Bond-style HQ under the campus. Their nefarious plans involve capturing vampires and demons, including the now-regular character Spike (James Marsters), and hacking them to pieces for assembly into a Frankensteinian supermonster or fitting them with chips that mute their killing urges. Buffy's plank-like new boyfriend Riley (Mark Blucas) is deadweight, Giles (Anthony Stewart Head) is shoved into new corners of irrelevance (and turns folkie!), Willow (Alyson Hannigan) breaks up with the werewolf (Seth Green) and comes out, Xander (Nicholas Brendon) whines about not being a student but starts dating a former demon (the amusing Emma Caulfield), Angel (David Boreanaz) has his own series but drops in for crossovers (you'll need to buy the Angel box set to find out how some key plotlines pay off) and previously killed or comatose semi-regulars pop in for dreams or revivals. A run of shaky episodes starts off this season, with the show seemingly uncomfortable with the new setting as it treads water with the same old monsters. [+]

Steven Spielberg had a banner year in 1993. He scored one of his biggest commercial hits that summer with the mega-hit Jurassic Park, but it was the artistic and critical triumph of Schindler's List that Spielberg called "the most satisfying experience of my career". Adapted from the best-selling book by Thomas Keneally and filmed in Poland with an emphasis on absolute authenticity, Spielberg's masterpiece ranks among the greatest films ever made about the Holocaust during World War II. It's a film about heroism with an unlikely hero at its center-Catholic war profiteer Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson), who risked his life and went bankrupt to save more than 1,000 Jews from certain death in concentration camps. By employing Jews in his crockery factory manufacturing goods for the German army, Schindler ensures their survival against terrifying odds. At the same time, he must remain solvent with the help of a Jewish accountant (Ben Kingsley) and negotiate business with a vicious, obstinate Nazi commandant (Ralph Fiennes) who enjoys shooting Jews as target practice from the balcony of his villa overlooking a prison camp. Schindler's List gains much of its power not by trying to explain Schindler's motivations, but by dramatising the delicate diplomacy and determination with which he carried out his generous deeds. As a drinker and womanizer who thought nothing of associating with Nazis, Schindler was hardly a model of decency; the film is largely about his transformation in response to the horror around him. Spielberg doesn't flinch from that horror, and the result is a film that combines remarkable humanity with abhorrent inhumanity-a film that functions as a powerful history lesson and a testament to the resilience of the human spirit in the context of a living nightmare. -Jeff Shannon Both an artistic and a commercial triumph, Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List manages to find some small glimmer of hope for the human spirit amid the abomination that was the Holocaust. [+]

After a slow beginning, in which the complex tangle of relationships is initially confusing, this BBC adaptation of Jane Austen's last novel, Persuasion, develops into an elegant romantic comedy. Austin combines a subtle dissection of the folly of class with a slow-burning, intensely passionate love story. Anne Elliot (Amanda Root) has loved Captain Wentworth (Ciaran Hinds) ever since she was persuaded to reject him years before. Now he has returned from the Napoleonic wars, but will love be allowed to blossom? Especially when Anne is surrounded by the selfish, petty-minded Mary, misguided by Lady Russell, and burdened by a father obsessed with fairness of countenance above all other considerations. Excepting a basic booklet, on-screen character biographies and a Dolby Digital soundtrack, there is nothing to distinguish this DVD from the video version. The picture is very good, but showing some grain, not exceptional, so unless you have a large television there is little advantage over tape. In any format, what makes this adaptation work is the sharp screenplay by Nick Dear and the naturalistic style of director Roger Mitchell (who joined the A-list with Notting Hill, 1999), together eliciting fine performances from the ensemble cast. Less flamboyant than Pride and Prejudice (1995), this is a civilised treat. -Gary S Dalkin.

Television has become so much a part of our lives that it rarely surprises us anymore, so when a series like Queer as Folk comes along-truly shocking and genuinely touching-it's an event to be remembered. Originally broadcast as eight half-hour episodes on Channel 4, QAF follows the lives of three men through life, love and all the travails of such in Manchester. That the protagonists are all gay-and Nathan (Charlie Hunnam) is just 15 years old-is treated as matter of course, and were it not for the fact that every character who is introduced is so vividly realised, it would be the only point. The ultimate triumph of QAF is not that the explicit, explosive subject matter is handled (mostly) tastefully, or that it made it on screen at all-it's that the characters are so intriguing that the unflinching looks at sex and relationships almost fade completely into the background. The series certainly starts with a bang: in the first episode, young Nathan is deflowered, Stuart (Aiden Gillen) becomes a father and Vince (Craig Kelly) pines away with an unrequited love that quickly establishes itself as the series' main theme. (That Vince spends half of QAF with a boyfriend complicates the situation some. ) Nathan has already come to terms with his sexuality by the time the series starts, but that doesn't mean that the rest of his family-or his fellow students-have; Stuart, the biggest (or, at least, busiest) stud in town, and QAF's approaches 30 and starts to re-examine his life; and Vince has to live with the rest of them. The parents, families, friends and co-workers of all involved get plenty of screen time, and occasionally steal the scenes themselves-especially Denise Black (hairdresser Denise Osbourne from Coronation Street). -Randy Silver.

Based on a true story, Rabbit-proof Fence moves with dignified grace from its joyful opening scenes to a conclusion that's moving beyond words. The title refers to a 1,500-mile fence separating outback desert from the farmlands of Western Australia. It's here, in 1931, that three aboriginal girls are separated from their mothers and transported to a distant training school, where they are prepared for assimilation into white society by a racist government policy. Gracie, Daisy, and Molly belong to Australia's "stolen generations", and this riveting film (based on the book by Molly's daughter, Doris Pilkington Garimara) follows their escape and tenacious journey homeward, while a stubborn policy enforcer (Kenneth Branagh) demands their recapture. Director Phillip Noyce chronicles their ordeal with gentle compassion, guiding his untrained, aboriginal child actors with a keen eye for meaningful expressions. Their performances evoke powerful emotions (subtly enhanced by Peter Gabriel's excellent score), illuminating a shameful chapter of Australian history while conveying our universal need for a true and proper home. -Jeff Shannon.

With the original conspiracy plot arc fallen into a muddle of loose ends no-one could possibly fathom, once-hungry lead actors on the verge of big screen careers and making demands for more time off or shots at writing and directing, and the initial wish list of monsters-of-the-week long exhausted, it's a miracle The X Files is still making its airdates, let alone managing something pretty good every other show and something outstanding at least once every four episodes. Season seven opens with a dreary two-parter ("Sixth Extinction" and "Amor Fati") and winds up with the traditional incomprehensible cliffhanger ("Requiem"), but along the way includes a clutch of shows that may not match the originality of earlier seasons but still effortlessly equal any other fantasy-horror-sf on American television. Highlights in this clutch: "Hungry", a brain-eating mutant story told from the point of view of a monster who tries to control his appetite by going to eating disorder self-help groups; "The Goldberg Variation", a crime comedy about a weaselly little man who has the gift of incredible good luck, which means Wile E Coyote-style doom for anyone who crosses him; "The Amazing Maleeni", guest-starring Ricky Jay in a rare non-fantastic crime story about a feud between stage magicians that turns out to be a cover for a heist; "X-Cops", a brilliant skit on the US TV docusoap Cops with Mulder and Scully caught on camera as they track an apparent werewolf in Los Angeles (season-best acting from David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson); "Theef", a complex revenge drama with gaunt Billy Drago as a hillbilly medicine man stalking a slick doctor; "Brand X", a horror comic tale of corruption in the tobacco industry; "Hollywood AD" (written and directed by Duchovny), in which Tea Leoni and Garry Shandling are cast as Scully and Mulder in a crass movie version of a real-life X file; and "Je Souhaite", a deadpan comedy about a wry, cynical genie at the mercy of trailer trash masters who haven't an idea what to wish for. Among the disasters are: "Fight Club", a grossly laboured comedy; "All Things", Gillian Anderson's riotously pretentious religious-themed writing-directing debut; "En Ami", written and understood by William B Davis, the cigarette-smoking villain; and the very silly "First Person Shooter", the lamest killer video-game plot imaginable courtesy of distinguished guest writer William Gibson. Still essential, despite the occasional pits, but yet again you go away thinking that the next season had better come up with some answers. -Kim Newman.

Swing is the good-natured tale of a Liverpudlian ex-con who decides to make a new life for himself as the leader of a swing band. When we are first introduced to Martin (The Full Monty's Hugo Speer), he is being released from prison, where he did time out of loyalty to his wayward brother, Liam. His cellmate, Jack, a shell suit-wearing, dreadlocked sax player who looks suspiciously like Clarence Clemons (because he is), inspired Martin to make swing his vocation and serves as his conscience throughout the film. This is a good thing, because nobody else seems to think he can pull it off, including his ex-girlfriend, Joan (Lisa Stansfield), now married to the cop that put him away and his own parents (nicely played by veteran British actors Rita Tushingham and Tom Bell). Joan has missed singing, however and eventually decides to join Martin's band, along with a soccer-loving bass player, skinhead drummer, and horn section of Orange Brigades led by The Young Ones' Alexei Sayle. Speer isn't the most dynamic actor but generates the appropriate degree of sympathy and works well with pop vocalist Stansfield, who acquits herself nicely in her feature film debut. She also sings several numbers, including "Mack the Knife" and "Baby, I Need Your Loving" both of which can be found on the motion picture soundtrack. If Swing doesn't ever hit the heights of The Blues Brothers or The Commitments, it keeps the beat more often than not. -Kathleen C Fennessy, Amazon. com.