One of the most endearing and intelligent romantic comedies of the 1990s, the Oscar-winning Shakespeare in Love is filled with such good will, sunny romance, snappy one-liners and devilish cleverness that it's absolutely irresistible. With tongue placed firmly in cheek, at its outset the film tracks young Will Shakespeare's overwrought battle with writer's block and the efforts of theatre owner Philip Henslowe (Geoffrey Rush, in rare form) to stage Will's latest comedy, Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate's Daughter. Jokey comedy, though, soon takes a backseat to ravishing romance when the beautiful Viola De Lesseps (Gwyneth Paltrow) disguises herself as a young man to wangle herself an audition in the all-male cast and wins both the part of Romeo and, after much misunderstanding, the playwright's heart. Soon enough, Will's pirate comedy becomes the beautiful, tragic Romeo and Juliet, reflecting the agony and ecstasy of Will and Viola's romance-he's married and she's set to marry the slimy Lord Wessex (Colin Firth). The way that Oscar-winning screenwriters Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard enfold their story within the parameters of Romeo and Juliet (and even Twelfth Night) is nothing short of brilliant-it would take a Shakespearean scholar to dissect the innumerable parallels, oft-quoted lines, plot developments, and thematic borrowings. And most amazingly, Norman and Stoppard haven't forgotten to entertain their audience in addition to riding a Shakespearean roller coaster, with director John Madden (Mrs. Brown) reigning in his huge ensemble with rollicking energy. Along the way there are small gems to be found, including Judi Dench's eight-minute, Oscar-winning turn as a truly regal Queen Elizabeth, but the key element of Shakespeare in Love's success rests on the milky-white shoulders of its two stars. Fiennes, inexplicably overlooked at Oscar time, is a dashing, heartfelt Will and as for Best Actress winner Paltrow, well, nothing she'd done before could have prepared viewers for how amazing she is here. Breathtakingly beautiful, fiercely intelligent, strong-willed and lovestruck-it's a performance worthy of Shakespeare in more ways than one. [+]

An unpretentious Brit-flick distinguished by a great cast, This Year's Love is writer-director David Kane's wry, funny study of six singletons in search of something-possibly love, possibly just sex-that will help them make sense of an untidy world. Aside from the acting, the film's strongest feature is its unflinching realism. The setting is North London's Camden Lock, an area that is in equal parts ultra-trendy and horrendously squalid. The characters reflect the locale: a circle of youthful drop-outs, wannabes and never-have-beens united in their common desire to surmount loneliness and find that elusive "perfect match". The central figures are newlyweds Danny and Hannah (the wonderful Douglas Henshall and Catherine McCormack) and the film in essence concerns itself with the fallout from the spectacular and rapid disintegration of their marriage. Danny first hooks up with cleaner-cum-nightclub singer Mary (a marvellously self-deprecating Kathy Burke), while Hannah finds lecherous womaniser Cameron (an unwashed Dougray Scott). Cameron's flatmate Liam (Ian Hart) fails to impress posh single mum Sophie (Jennifer Ehle in dreadlocks), who goes on to reject Danny and Cameron in turn, while Liam becomes dangerously obsessed by Hannah then Mary. So the merry-go-round of relationship swapping, unlikely coincidences and bittersweet life-lessons turns full circle. David Kane's comic dialogue is witheringly sharp, the situations (aside from all the coincidental meetings) are well-observed and the characters sympathetically three-dimensional (helped in no small part by the quality of the ensemble cast). The frequently hilarious comedy is tempered by an underlying despair: if it's not exactly Brassed Off or The Full Monty for neurotic, self-obsessed metropolitans, it's a film that's at least happy to exist in the same genre and achieves the same poignant empathy with its characters. [+]

Just what the world needs: an all-musical roach revue. What worked as an MTV short film does not work as a feature-length movie. Intelligent cockroaches with lives of their own may seem outré and amusing on the small screen, but are disgusting and eventually boring when we have to spend 80 long minutes with them. Scruffy Jerry O'Connell is the Iowa farm boy who moves to the Big Apple and rents a filthy, bug-infested flat. Turns out those bugs are his only friends. Also turns out that the animated vermin are a whole lot more interesting than the human cast. This is just silly and gross enough for adolescent boys, or those with adolescent tastes. -Rochelle O'Gorman.

The Making of Bridget Jones's diary features exclusive interviews with the author Helen Fielding, Renee Zellweger, Hugh Grant and Colin Firth among others, talking about the origins of the story. This programme offers a unique and funny insight into the making of one of the most successful romantic comedies.

alec baldwin,kim basinger,elisabeth shue. sexy romantic comedy.

COMEDY CAPERS.

Vickie Adderly (Linda Blair) is an enterprising young newspaper reporter looking for that big story to boost her career. A chance encounter with an adventurous drifter (Murray Langston) leads her into a world she never imagined. on the streets of L. A. Suddenly, her days are filled with a cast of colorful characters, including Marilyn (Ruth Buzzi), an eccentric femme fatale, and a bewildered Russian (Yakov Smirnoff). Add the attentions of a handsome admirer and it's easy to see how Vickie gets her story and a whole lot more in this charming romantic fable.

An excellent version of Shaw's famous play with a top rate cast, screenplay and camera work. "My Fair Lady" without the singing.

The generic title of Martha - Meet Frank, Daniel and Laurence suggests a bland, by-the-numbers romantic comedy. Its dialogue certainly doesn't help-there's a lot of piffle about destiny and "having only one chance", etc. -but there are some surprising differences. The plot centres around Martha (Monica Potter), an American trying to start a new life in London. She meets three men (Tom Hollander, Rufus Sewell and Joseph Fiennes, who played the title role in Shakespeare in Love). These three are best friends and all three fall in love with her but the one she falls in love with feels like he's betraying the others to be with her. Despite the resulting confusion, she pursues him to the end-which makes it unlike most current romantic comedies where the woman is a hapless love object to be captured by the right guy. But more entertainingly, Martha - Meet Frank, Daniel and Laurence pays particular attention to the ways men delude themselves because the two friends Martha doesn't care for are both convinced she's hankering for them, which allows for some fairly subtle skewering of the male ego. It's a flimsy movie but no more so than Notting Hill and Joseph Fiennes, in particular, has a relaxed, winning charm that marks him as a rising star. -Bret Fetzer.

Born Romantic is a second slice of what David (This Year's Love) Kane does best: a quirky picture of contemporary London with young and variously screwed-up protagonists getting a second chance at love. This time, the premise is that there is a salsa club somewhere in East London where three boys meet three girls and things go other than smoothly until they actually take the trouble to learn to dance-and in case we didn't guess the metaphoric point of this, Olivia Williams' cold control freak lays it out for Craig Ferguson's Dean Martin obsessed retro-lounge singer at an early stage. The other central characters are Jane Horrocks as a party girl who is not exactly keen to pick up again with David Morissey, the man who jilted her years earlier and who has now come to London to make amends; and Jimi Mistry as an incompetent thief who falls for a neurotic grave-tender. Adrian Lester is the widower mini-cab driver who listens to all six moan about each other and dispenses wisdom on a regular basis; back at the cab office, Ian Hart rants misogynistically until Kenneth Cranham tells him he is wrong. The stylised and schematic script is redeemed by loud La tin music and an affection for these characters' quirks. On the DVD: The DVD is generously filled with deleted scenes, the trailer and extended interviews with Kane and most of the stars: Horrocks and Williams in particular talk intelligently about the challenges and advantages of working as part of an ensemble cast. The recorded sound is just good enough to give the dance-club scenes a real energy. -Roz Kaveney.

A married man, left alone during a hot summer, fantasises madly about the impossibly gorgeous woman living in the upstairs apartment. When the woman is Marilyn Monroe, such fantasies are the stuff of epics, and The Seven Year Itch is a memorable laugh machine. Tom Ewell, repeating his role from George Axelrod's Broadway hit, plays the itchy protagonist, whose vivid imagination gets the better of him. When Monroe finally comes downstairs and becomes friends (confiding, among other things, that she keeps her undies in the icebox in this hot weather), imagination meets reality in a merciless attack on the male libido. Ewell's crack timing is matched by Monroe's zesty comic flair, and the scene in which her white dress is blown skyward by a passing subway train has entered the encyclopaedia of great movie images. Director Billy Wilder adapted the play with Axelrod; if the film is not one of Wilder's signature works (Some Like It Hot and The Apartment would soon follow), it is nevertheless a smoothly crafted comedy. -Robert Horton, Amazon. com.

romantic remake of the 1950's classic. melanie griffith,don johnson.

Matt Salinger and model Joanna Pacula star in this wild comed-adventure about a very square Hollywood TV agent who blunders across the African plains in search of one of life's more interesting and beautiful OPTIONS. Donald Anderson negotiates first options on the life stories of the rich and famous. Princess Nicole of Belgium is studying gorillas in Africa. Now Donald faces the biggest challenge of his career. Charged to option the life story of the beautiful Princess Nicole, it's going to take all his natural instincts, animal magentism and raw physical courage to swing this deal.

Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin play wily business partners in this wild west lark of gambling and romance. At centre stage from opening stagecoach shootout to final riverboat meleem Sinatra and Martin have a blast. and so will you!.

For truly clever dialogue and a smartly structured plot, you can't go wrong with Oscar Wilde. Wilde's play An Ideal Husband is not his best known, but this film adaptation has all the wit you could ask for and a cast with the chops to deliver it: Cate Blanchett (Elizabeth, Oscar and Lucinda), Julianne Moore (Boogie Nights, Short Cuts), Minnie Driver (Grosse Pointe Blank, Big Night), Jeremy Northam (The Winslow Boy, Emma), and especially Rupert Everett (My Best Friend's Wedding, A Midsummer Night's Dream), who tosses off perfect epigrams with unflappable aplomb. The plot hinges on Northam, a member of Parliament (the British governing body, not the funk band) with a skeleton in his closet who is blackmailed into a shady business deal by a lady of mystery (Moore), who turns out to be a loathed school chum of the parliamentarian's wife (Blanchett). Everything is resolved happily, but not until after some devious twists of fate, several mistaken identities, lots of comic banter, and much social skewering. Wilde, whose troubled life and public exposure of his homosexuality is chronicled in the movie Wilde (1997), has a sharp eye for hypocrisy and the artificial poses demanded by society-but political commentary never gets in the way of a smart laugh. Visually sumptuous and briskly paced, An Ideal Husband will satisfy anyone looking for social satire or romantic comedy. -Bret Fetzer, Amazon. com.