Woody Allen's 1982 homage to Bergman and Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy is a delight from start to finish and must rate as one of his most joyous films. The period setting--Edwardian up state New York--gives the whole thing a misty, elegiac quality.

Part Midsummer Night's Dream (the magic supplied by visions through a spirit glass) and part Smiles of a Summer Night (Bergman's source material provides the basic plot and ensuing couplings), it's a gentle satire on male sexuality and frustration. Allen handles the angst with the lightest of touches. He plays a Wall Street broker who spends his holidays inventing flying machines (they work, with telling consequences). He and his wife (Mary Steenburgen) are increasingly depressed by their ailing sex life. Cue the arrival of weekend guests: crusty academic (Jose Ferrer) and beautiful blue-stocking fiancée previously in love with Allen (Mia Farrow, of course); and insatiable doctor (Tony Roberts) with his latest squeeze, a nurse (the excellent Julie Hagerty). Eighty minutes of unravelling, discovery and renewal follow, accompanied by a Mendelssohn sound track. This is one of Allen's most treasurable pictures.

On the DVD: A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy is presented in widescreen that recaptures the pleasure which greeted the setting of this most pastoral of Allen's films on its first release; it really does glow with summery light. The standard stereo soundtrack is perfectly acceptable. Extras include the original theatrical trailer and multiple language soundtracks.--Piers Ford

Expanding their one-joke skit from US television's Saturday Night Live, Chris Kattan and Will Ferrell are Doug and Steve Butabi, the wearers of the rayon suits and Speedo trunks who bob their heads in unison to dance music while unsuccessfully preying on women in clubs. What's funny in a three-minute piece doesn't always get funnier by expansion, but Kattan and Ferrell give it a go with fellow SNL member Molly Shannon as their ambitious neighbour. By day they work in their father's fake-plant store. By night they prowl the club scene after spraying on the cologne in their gauchely decorated bedroom. A fender-bender with Richard Grieco (playing himself) gets them into the popular club the Roxbury, but it's not all good news, as the brothers soon find themselves torn apart. Doug and Steve are pathetic but lovable, mostly due to the actors' talents for self-deprecating humour. All gifted comedians, Kattan, Ferrell, and Shannon obviously feel comfortable around each other, and their love triangle (which prompts send-ups of Say Anything and Jerry Maguire) is the funniest joke in this mostly lame comedy. Too bad, because it clocks in at about 80 minutes and could have run on television as a pretty good episode of SNL, which has been known to get a bit lame itself. --Shannon Gee