You expect cheap gags from a Rob Schneider movie, and The Animal delivers in the best possible way. Schneider plays Marvin Mange, a police file clerk who drives off a cliff and is horribly mangled--only to wake up not only whole, but feeling better than he ever has in his life. He suddenly develops strange powers that lead to him being praised as a super cop. Unfortunately, his powers are the result of a scientist's bizarre experiment--and before long, some side effects start to take over his life. It's hard to put a finger on Schneider's appeal, but he's got something. He can get away with tasteless jokes about bestiality and bodily functions because... well... he's sort of helplessly sympathetic, and somehow this actually makes him funny. --Bret Fetzer, Amazon.com

Rob Schneider plays Marvin Mange, a schlub of a police clerk drives off a cliff and is horribly mangled--only to wake up not only whole, but feeling better than he ever has in his life.

The Animatrix is a series of nine stories by different directors set in the Matrix universe, all of them conceived and commissioned by the Wachowski brothers. They demonstrate an eclectic mix of anime animation styles, stories and characters, most of which intertwine with the narrative of the first sequel, The Matrix Reloaded.

The first and most impressive is the Final Flight of the Osiris (from the director of Final Fantasy). In a breathtaking computer-generated short that would have worked well as a pre-title sequence for the second film, the crew of the ill-fated Osiris discover the sentinel army and the machines drilling towards Zion. This most filmic of the offerings guides fans into the more individualistic animated styles of the subsequent features.

The second and third instalments, The Second Renaissance, Parts 1 & 2, turn the tables on the man vs. machines battle by telling the story of the emergence of artificial intelligence and the ensuing (mostly human instigated) carnage leading up to the subjugation of the human race. The remaining features are: Kid's Story (directed by anime supreme Shinichiro Watanabe), which introduces us to the Kid, who also features in Reloaded; Program and World Record, written by Yoshiaki Kawajiri, better known for schlock horror anime Vampire Hunter B; Beyond, which tells what happens when ordinary people discover bugs in the system; A Detective Story, a homage to film noir as PI Ash is hired to track Trinity; and the distinctly psychedelic Matriculated.

The standard of animation is high throughout, even where the storylines are confused (and in one or two cases little more than conceptual). This is a fascinating collection of shorts that will appeal to Matrix and anime fans alike, as well as shedding light on some of the more obtuse plot machinations of Reloaded.

On the DVD: The Animatrix is primarily a visual offering, so it's good to see that this anamorphically enhanced 2.35:1 video transfer is near-perfect, with CGI extravaganza signature short The Final Flight of the Osiris being about as stunning as is possible on a small screen. Extras are plentiful: the commentaries for The Second Renaissance Parts 1 & 2 are in Japanese with English subtitles; there are two more commentaries, for Program and World Record. There are also some features, including one on the history of anime and seven on the individual films in the series; the best of the latter is the featurette for Osiris, which goes into detail on the CGI and contains a "square celebrity death match" sequence of a modified Aki (from the Final Fantasy film) battling a sentinel. --Kristen Bowditch

Romance at its most anti-romantic--that is the Billy Wilder stamp of genius, and this Best Picture Academy Award winner from 1960 is no exception. Set in a decidedly unsavoury world of corporate climbing and philandering, the great filmmaker's trenchant, witty satire-melodrama takes the office politics of a corporation and plays them out in the apartment of lonely clerk CC Baxter (Jack Lemmon). By lending out his digs to the higher-ups for nightly extramarital flings with their secretaries, Baxter has managed to ascend the business ladder faster than even he imagined. The story turns even uglier, though, when Baxter's crush on the building's melancholy elevator operator (Shirley MacLaine) runs up against her long-standing affair with the big boss (a superbly smarmy Fred MacMurray). The situation comes to a head when she tries to commit suicide in Baxter's apartment. Not the happiest or cleanest of scenarios, and one that earned the famously caustic and cynically humoured Wilder his share of outraged responses, but looking at it now, it is a funny, startlingly clear-eyed vision of urban emptiness and is unfailingly understanding of the crazy decisions our hearts sometimes make. Lemmon and MacLaine are ideally matched and while everyone cites Wilder's Some Like It Hot closing line "Nobody's perfect" as his best, MacLaine's no-nonsense final words--"Shut up and deal"--are every bit as memorable. Wilder won three Oscars for The Apartment, for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay (cowritten with long-time collaborator I A L Diamond). --Robert Abele