joss Whedon’s perky series about wisecracking, renegade space cowboys, operating 500 years in the future, might have infamously been axed in 2002, but since then Firefly (above) has become the definitive cult success, spawning a terrific film, Serenity, and topping numerous lists for best sci-fi series.
Parks and Recreation’s Chris Pratt almost single-handedly redeems this predictable high-school-reunion drama, his boorish family man bagging the best lines and a wince-inducing karaoke routine. Â Â Â Â
Best not to eat anything during David Cronenberg’s queasy, exploding-heads horror from 1981. Hammy, often unsettling, performances abound (Patrick McGoohan in particular) in this wild tale of scanners, a group of psychics who can lock into a person’s nervous system and make their head pop.
Barnaby Southcombe’s funereally paced but inventively lit oddity stars Charlotte Rampling (the director’s mother) as a lonely divorcée who after hooking up with a rotter at a speed-dating event, goes back to his Barbican flat and smashes his head in.
When it came out at the cinema, Martin McDonagh’s postmodern crime comedy alienated those In Bruges fans who were hoping for a straightforward retread of his beloved debut film. Â Â Â Â
Midsomer Murders meets David Lynch in the BBC’s ripe, horribly compelling five-part thriller. A 15-year-old May Queen goes missing in a provincial town and three disagreeable middle-aged men – Peter Firth’s grubby property developer, Aiden Gillen’s sneering layabout and Peter McDonald’s creepy cop – are the main suspects.    Â
If the Lord of the Rings trilogy didn’t exist, then Peter Jackson’s bloated fantasy blockbuster would seem impressive indeed. Â Â Â Â
Harold Pinter’s vicious dissection of class, sex and power still unnerves 50 years on. James Fox is exquisitely louche as the aristocratic Tony who requires a manservant to tend to his needs and Chelsea home
(Universal | Getty Images | DreamWorks) In his long career as one of the most popular and well-versed film critics in the United States, Roger Ebert always stuck to his sense of what he thought was right.
A muscular, tattooed Santa (Alec Baldwin) and his fellow guardians require the services of maverick Jack Frost (Chris Pine) to defeat misery guts Pitch Black (Jude Law), a bogeyman who wants to engulf the world in darkness. My children (ages three and five) were transfixed, but this weak DreamWorks animation lacks humour and wonder.