Sharon's cancer treatment underlies these episodes, producing scenes of poignancy and humour as the family come to terms with her illness. Obviously darker than its predecessor, this also sees a certain loss of naivety, with the Osbournes increasingly aware of good camera moments. The success of the first series has led the teenagers into extreme territory, with Jack, the "man-whore", heading off the rails while Kelly struggles with celebrity.
Dai Sijie's beguiling, semi-autobiographical movie is set during China's Cultural Revolution, when two reactionary city students are sent to the mountains to be re-educated in the ways of Chairman Mao. But their forbidden love for Western art, music and literature is soon infecting the locals, including the tailor's beautiful daughter. Lightweight, but gorgeous to look at.
Irrespective of the now infamous intra-generational doggie-doggie, this steely little tale concerning a granny (Anne Reid) and a horny builder (Daniel Craig) is a visceral attack from writer Hanif Kureishi on the hateful London middle classes. The merciless depiction of harsh money-grabbing sons and neurotic, self-obsessed daughters gives the flick its genuinely dark heart.
From Buffy and Angel creator Joss Whedon, a four-disc set of the only series (unscreened in the UK) of his "sci-fi western". Fans will relish the smart-ass jokes as a motley crew of screwed-up mercenaries do all the flawed, human things Star Trek didn't. There's more action and pyrotechnics than ideal, but it's a slow burner.
Recorded for MTV's acoustic strand in 1994, this catches the Mighty Zimm midway between the raw-boned graverobbing of World Gone Wrong and Time Out Of Mind's resurrection shuffle. A respectable, if slightly sterile flick through his back pages—"The Times They Are A-Changin'", "Knockin' On Heaven's Door" and "Like A Rolling Stone"—though he seems most fired up by newer material like "Shooting Star" and "Dignity". Not the stuff of legend, but not to be sniffed at.
Jean-Jacques Beineix's 1981 debut is a romantic thriller about a young opera fan who records a bootleg tape of his favourite opera singer. Since she's always refused to be recorded, the tape becomes almost priceless on the black market, with opera fans and gangsters chasing after it. Very French, very stylish, very '80s.
Arguably the Farrellys' best film, though already ageing badly. A bunch of set-pieces (Ben Stiller's zipper problems Cameron Diaz's innovative hair gel) linked by a ridiculous, overlong plot, it gets its big belly-laugh moments right and you tolerate the padding. Stiller's lack of vanity allows him to carry off sketches others would muff.
Fantastic DVD package compiling the ultimate '70s cop show's first and best season—seasons two onwards added Tom Scott's catchy sax theme but were considerably toned down and increasingly played for laughs. Five discs of '70s cornball TV at its absolute best. Watch out for banned-by-the-BBC episode "The Fix", in which Hutch gets hooked on heroin by a dastardly mob boss.
And the "friends" include Ringo Starr, George Harrison and Eric Clapton. Recorded in front of a studio audience in London in 1985, Perkins never needed six guitarists back at Sun Studios in the '50s, and producer Dave Edmunds should have booted out half of them. But Perkins is in vigorous voice, a quiffed-up George turns out to be a total rockabilly king, and when the Teds start jiving in the aisles, it's irresistible.
