The sequel to Robert Rodriguez's maniacally good Spy Kids, with budding-Bonds Alexa Vega and Daryl Sabara up against a rival team of adolescent agents and the monsters of mad scientist Steve Buscemi's fantasy island. Suggesting a Ray Harryhausen movie invaded by the screwball surrealism of a Looney Tunes cartoon, it ups the first film's formula of candy-coloured cool stuff for kids and in-jokes for grown-ups. Quite fantastic.

The clinically style-obsessed Tony Scott might not have been everybody's choice to helm a Tarantino script just as St Quentin was white-hot (seems a while ago now, huh?), but he made a splendid 1993 pulpy pot-boiler which, in sum, outshines its pithy but disjointed parts. Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette are the doomed Detroit lovers-on-the-run with a suitcase of coke, negotiating baroque badlands after Slater kills sleazoid pimp Gary Oldman and his comedy dreadlocks. Everyone who's anyone turns up to harass the couple and their sad dad Dennis Hopper.

An assured if unspectacular directorial debut from Bill Paxton, Frailty turns Se7en on its head, splices in The Sixth Sense and casts a crazy-eyed Matthew McConaughey as an enigmatic witness to the mysterious "Hand of God" serial killings. The look is Southern Gothic, the performances solid, and the final reel twist wildly courageous.

Fifteen years on, the only thing that's dated about John Cleese's romantic-comedy-cum-caper-movie is the fashions. Cleese honed the script for years, and it shows—plus the entire supporting cast are a treat, especially Michael Palin's stuttering animal rights assassin, Jamie Lee Curtis'sexy double-crosser and Kevin Kline's psychopathic fish-killer. Immensely likeable.

Producer Lawrence Bender wears his Tarantino badge with pride. Which is fine when producing QT movies but problematic in everything else (see Killing Zoe, From Dusk Till Dawn 3). Knockaround Guys, in classic Tarantino fashion, has edgy twenty somethings (Barry Pepper and Vin Diesel), a bag of loot, leather jackets, guns, the mob and, natch, a high-intensity Mexican stand-off finale. Derivative.

Made in 1990 but in a Serpico-style '70s tradition, Sidney Lumet's Q&A pits Nick Nolte's corrupt Irish-American cop against Timothy Hutton's idealistic assistant DA. Quality old-school fare, marred only by over-emphasis on a sub-plot involving Armand Assante's gang boss and Nolte's odd moustache and high-heeled shoes.

Danny Aiello dominates this ensemble drama as the weary owner of an Italian restaurant in New York's Tribeca, caught between mobsters and his son's desire to transform the place into a chiceatery. Director (and restaurateur) Bob Giraldi keeps things hustling between tables, but cranks up the pace in the kitchens. A grittier companion to Stanley Tucci's gastro-porn classic Big Night. Tasty.

You might think there's not enough surviving live footage of The Yardbirds to fill a full-length DVD. And you'd be right, of course. But clips from half-a-dozen black-and-white TV shows are interspersed with retrospective interviews to create a compelling band history in which the comments of Jeff Beck are particularly candid. But the revelation is singer/harmonica player Keith Relf, who exudes charisma despite being surrounded by such future stars as Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page.

The culmination of a sell-out 2002 tour sees a middle-aged Williams return to his maniacal roots, musing on Michael Jackson, the Puritans and Viagra, among other topics. However, his breakneck delivery, camp mannerisms and array of accents (including a dismal Winston Churchill) only emphasise, rather than conceal, the weakness of his material. And the "Joe I'm Pregnant" routine is shamelessly lifted from Sam Kinison.

A terrific primer on Scott-Heron's lyrical, funky jazz bluesology, Robert Mugge's semi-concert documentary was first broadcast on Channel Four in 1983. Two decades on, the charismatic proto-rapper still comes over as a warm and eloquent performer, wry social commentator and effortless stand-up comedian.