Cry at weddings, laugh at funerals.

‘Uhhh, I might make it to the thing on Friday. Not sure yet, need to check the diary. Or something might come up. In fact, I can’t come. I’m sorry. I’m, uh, really busy.’

Sound familiar? Then you’ve probably just purchased a shiny new DVD boxset. Stroking the smooth cardboard, slipping the top on and off, carefully buffing the discs with your quickening breath - people will worry about you. Better make it a good one then...

Six Feet Under has taken over my life, helped largely by the fact that it’s brilliant and honest and real. My last HBO endeavour was Sex and the City, which I would only recommend to highly sedated people who have had no previous urges to kill the Carrie Bradshaws of our world. God, that woman will annoy you. Six Feet Under shares only the tense exposition of the HBO hum, and thankfully nothing else.

Each one of the Fisher family and their lovers/business partners/friends/massage clients will have you signing away your days to a life of simultaneous laughter and tears. Some people will think you’re crazy, because who wants to watch a drama in which no five minutes pass without a mention of the word ‘funeral’. As one of those crazies, I have to say, funerals turn out to be pretty funny.

I never know whether to laugh or cry, but I know it’s at least one of them. For a drama doused in death, it makes for a surprisingly lively viewer.

Cortés thinks inside the box

Anyone who has ever seen Phone Booth will understand that a film about a man in a box can only last so long. Director Rodrigo Cortés’ claustrophobic thriller, Buried, takes this idea and confines it further. The end result is fleeting moments of suspenseful brilliance, sadly lost in 90 minutes of slow action.

The cinema sits in darkness, hearing nothing but increasingly panicked breathing. Truck driver Paul Conroy, played by Ryan Reynolds, awakens to find himself buried in a coffin with only a mobile phone and a lighter. A race against both time and battery life ensues as he tries desperately to get rescued from a situation that will leave you with the curious urge to stretch your legs.

Reynolds’ performance is, at times, darkly comic. At one point we are treated to what must be the most frustrated portrayal of being put on hold, while more tender parts of the plot are handled convincingly with a gruff but emotional quality. Combine this with Buried’s shudder-at-the-thought concept, and the tension can really draw you in.

Nevertheless, the real tragedy of this film is that the tiny cast and crew really did have their work cut out for them. Just how do you hold an audience’s attention for so long with only one man? Often I found my mind wandering, waiting for the next bout of action and thinking, ‘does this guy ever need to go for a pee?’.

Buried is a valiant effort at breaking blockbuster convention, but sometimes you need to think outside the box.

Bradley Cooper high on life? Whitey...

So, some guy that you barely kind of know offers you a drug that lets you access the whole of your potential, you become extremely successful but not without a price - you become addicted, discover that it poses grave risks to your health, end up in a dangerous world of crime and the shifty guy your dealing to suddenly transforms himself into a sinister surgeon with nasty intentions.

Good plot, right? And now to wrap it up; 12 months later it all just works itself out.

Neil Burger’s Limitless has a very lazy ending which fails to answer the questions brought up by its fast-paced and inventive plot. Too many issues are thrown up in the air amid sweeping shots of a buzzing metropolis and a slew of suspicious looking minor characters. That satisfying feeling of it all clicking into place is an enlightenment that never comes.

A more forgiving viewer could see this as a representation of the quick pace of city life, but many will just see an incoherent story. There is something deeply unfair about putting the protagonist at the centre of a murder enquiry - another casually dropped bombshell in the plot - and then never resolving whether he did it or not.

The action scenes make it almost worth it, convincingly handled by Bradley Cooper as zero-to-hero Eddie Morra. The drug abuse theme is quite interesting as well, as his slick lifestyle takes all the twist of any other addict’s; picking up leggy women in a Maserati one minute, and looking rough as a badger’s arse the next, all accompanied with cheesy go-get-em rhetoric, dreamlike CGI and trippy camerawork.

Yet even the film’s flashy cast and unusual storyline can’t complete the tethered plot. If Limitless were to be any drug, it would be one with a hard comedown.

Why you should watch the X Factor

IT’s Sunday morning on the bus and you hear: ‘Aye maybe, but the lassie could dance.’ Now you’re queuing for a coffee and hear a squeal: ‘BAAAAH! OMG, I was like, nut, he is NOT for real!’ Then you overhear a heated conversation while on the subway: ‘No way, they were well better than that group you voted for last year.’

Eventually you meet your friend and he opens his mouth to greet you: ‘Did you watch the X Factor last night?’

Oh for god’s sake.

It’s that time of year again, when the few who haven’t yet seen the X Factor will be driven mental by its dominance in everyday chat. It’s time to face the music, a fan of the show might say. X Factor should be watched, if only so that you know what the O’Leary everyone is on about.

Of course, it’s not exactly of cult status, and it won’t gain you intellectual cred at a dinner party, but the X Factor is car-crash telly, and it’s painfully difficult not to enjoy. With a celebrity judging panel re-shuffle and a new American-style audition format, the show is slowly filling the boots that its adoring public has stretched out for it.

Occasionally, you might even be impressed. Gary Barlow produces regular nuggets of stellar pop advice. Dermot O’Leary is a genuinely funny man. Tulisa Contostavlos is a pretty inspiring woman, with an endearing sense of realness to her personality. Sure, the cynic inside you may think they’re all soulless sell-outs, but you’re in your jammies at eight o’clock on a Saturday night. Sell-outs are the least of your problems.

So sit back, place your tongue firmly in cheek and enjoy. I hate to say it, but you’ll probably thank me for it.