Few shows bottle pure delight like <em>Glee</em>, a TV series about the ups and downs of a high school glee club, or show choir. The show lures you in with its musical numbers, a mix of classic rock and Broadway show tunes performed by a cast of marvelous singers and dancers--but what keeps you watching are the wonderful characters, ranging from Rachel (Lea Michele), whose self-obsession is as uninhibited as it is annoying; to Emma (Jayma Mays), a germ-phobic guidance counsellor; to Kurt (Chris Colfer), a cherubic young gay man who discovers he's got a fantastic football kick. The centre of the show is Will Schuester (Matthew Morrison), the earnest Spanish teacher of McKinley High School, who's determined to guide the glee club to victory at a national competition. He sees this collection of overemotional misfits as heroic, but they're looked down on as losers by the rest of the school--especially Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch, <em>The 40 Year Old Virgin</em>, <em>Best In Show</em>), the ruthless cheerleading coach who will stop at nothing to destroy the glee club before they can take even a fraction of her extravagant budget. <em>Glee</em> fuses adolescent soap opera, the comic pettiness of academic politics, and exuberant song and dance. (While it would be better if the songs weren't so glossily produced, it's impossible to deny the pep and talent of these young performers.) Somehow, the characters manage to be cartoonish yet multi-dimensional; even the nicest characters are capable of being jerks and the most manipulative have moments of sympathy or grace. Throw in vividly coloured costume designs and blisteringly funny rants from Sue, and it's easy to see why <em>Glee</em> became an unexpected hit. <em>--Bret Fetzer</em>

The dazzling Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, brought to lush life by the director of the original stage version, Joshua Logan. Set on a remote island during the Second World War, South Pacific tracks two parallel romances: one between a Navy nurse (Mitzi Gaynor)"as corny as Kansas in August" and a wealthy French plantation owner (Rossano Brazzi), the other between a young American officer (John Kerr) and a native girl (France Nuyen). The theme of interracial love was still daring in 1958, and so was director Logan's decision to overlay emotional moments with tinted filters--a technique that misfires as often as it hits. The comic relief tends to fall flat and an overly spunky Mitzi Gaynor is a poor substitute for the stage original's Mary Martin. But the location scenery on the Hawaiian island of Kauai is gorgeous and the songs are among the finest in the American musical catalogue:"Some Enchanted Evening","Younger than Springtime","I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair","This Nearly Was Mine". That's Juanita Hall as the sly native trader Bloody Mary, singing the haunting tune that launched a thousand tiki bars,"Bali H'ai". The movie is based on stories from James Michener's book Tales from the South Pacific . -- Robert Horton, Amazon.com

If a musical sci-fi satire about an alien transvestite named Frank-n-Furter, who is building the perfect man while playing sexual games with his virginal visitors, sounds like an intriguing premise for a movie, then you're in for a treat. Not only is The Rocky Horror Picture Show all this and more, but it stars the surprising cast of Susan Sarandon and Barry Bostwick (as the demure Janet and uptight Brad, who get lost in a storm and find themselves stranded at Frank-n-Furter's mansion), Meat Loaf (as the rebel Eddie), Charles Gray (as our criminologist and narrator) and, of course, the inimitable Tim Curry as our"sweet transvestite from Transsexual, Transylvania".

Upon its release in 1975, the film was an astounding flop. But a few devotees persuaded a New York cinema to show it at midnight, and thus was born one of the ultimate cult films of all time. The songs are addictive (just try getting"The Time Warp" or"Toucha Toucha Touch Me" out of your head), the raunchiness amusing and the plot line utterly ridiculous--in other words, this film is simply tremendous good fun. The downfall, however, is that much of the amusement is found in the audience participation that is obviously missing from a video version (viewers in cinemas shout lines at the screen and use props--such as holding up newspapers and shooting water guns during the storm and throwing rice during a wedding scene). Watched alone as a straight movie, Rocky Horror loses a tremendous amount of its charm. Yet, for those who wish to perfect their lip-synching techniques for movie cinema performances or for those who want to gather a crowd around the TV at home for some good, old-fashioned, rowdy fun, this film can't be beat. --Jenny Brown