BIG MOMMA'S HOUSE 2

In the second season of TV's Arrested Development, struggling wannabe actor Tobias, separated from his wife and daughter, devises a brilliant strategy for insinuating himself back into their lives: He dons a wig and a frumpy housedress, speaks in a high, quasi-British falsetto, and greets his family as Mrs. Featherbottom, hired by "the agency" to serve as housekeeper and nanny. (Tobias, as the narration points out, is giddily - and ridiculously - enacting the plot to Mrs. Doubtfire.) His family is, naturally, unconvinced by Tobias' disguise, but they're happy to let him continue the ruse anyway - the house never looked cleaner. This subplot was a typically, fiendishly clever one for the series; by finally addressing the "Are you kidding?" element of this comic staple - where seemingly smart characters are fooled by a touch of latex and rouge - it subverted expectation by making our "hero" the butt of his own joke. Tobias' drag act made it impossible to ever again watch Mrs. Doubtfire - or even Tootsie or Some Like It Hot or Shakespeare's Twelfth Night - in quite the same way.

VAN HELSING

Stephen Sommers' action thriller Van Helsing, the first of 2004's torrent of summer blockbusters, is big, loud, frenetic, and almost no fun at all. For those who've missed the omnipresent previews, the film is a special-effects bonanza featuring Hugh Jackman as the titular character, a taciturn growler who spends 130 minutes attempting to rid his corner of Europe from a series of CGI-created monsters, and it's all treated with such solemnity that I wouldn't have been surprised to see Henrik Ibsen listed as a screenwriter.