The first ever Den Of Geek reader preview screening we did was for The Muppets. As those who were there can testify, there's nothing quite seeing a Muppets film sat alongside a couple of hundred Muppets geeks, who pick up pretty much every joke and every reference.

Ladies and gentlemen, we're going to do it all again.

Muppets Most Wanted arrives in UK cinemas on Friday March 28th. However, on the morning of Saturday March 22nd, we're doing a special preview screening in London, just for Den Of Geek readers. It's the kind of screening where you can don your special Muppets T-shirt/socks/hat/underwear (undergarments will not be checked). Who knows, we might even have a sing-song before the film starts. It's going to be a Muppets party, and so let's talk about how you can get a seat.

As always though: please do not treat this as a competition. We want to give seats to people who genuinely want to see the film. Therefore, if you've requested seats to one of our previous screenings and not turned up, without letting us know, please don't request seats for this one.

If you want a seat, what we're going to ask in return is that you shout about the film afterwards, assuming that you like it. We'll give you full details before the screening starts.

Our screening will take place at 10.30 for 11am on Saturday 22nd March, not too far from Leicester Square tube station. To get a seat, we need you to:

Tweet @denofgeek with these hashtags #BadFrog #MuppetsMostWanted #MGeek, requesting a ticket. Please make sure you're following us so we can DM you if you're successful!

If you are after more than one seat, let us know in the Tweet. Priority will be given to individual Tweeters, so let us know the Twitter handles of who you want to come with. If your intended guest isn't on Twitter, you can still request them a seat, though.

We will start allocating seats this coming Friday. And we hope to see you at the screening....

Plotting continues at Marvel Studios Towers on its collection of phase three movies, of which Doctor Strange is all but certain to be a part. Rumours over the past few weeks have suggested that the studio is currently juggling a director shortlist, and the latest reports on that suggest that there are three names currently in contention for the Doctor Strange job.

Those names? Well, Mark Andrews (Brave) and Jonathan Levine (Warm Bodies) remain in contention. The new name seemingly added to the list is that of Scott Derrickson (Sinister), whose new film, Deliver Us From Evil, arrives over the summer.

This shortlist remains unconfirmed, but we can't help but suspect that a Doctor Strange announcement can't be too far away now. When we hear more, we'll let you know...

Twitter.

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The early buzz on Captain America: The Winter Soldier is impressive, and whilst there's a tight review embargo in place as to when everyone is allowed to put their thoughts live, the reaction that has seeped through so far has been strong.

It's already known that Marvel has another Captain America film planned once this one is finally released. And a week or two back, the story broke that Joe and Anthony Russo, the pair who have directed Captain America: The Winter Soldier, would also be helming Captain America 3.

As it turns out, that story is correct. At a press junket for the film that's taken place in the US, Joe Russo confirmed that "we're just in the formative stages of it right now. We just started breaking story with [writers Christopher] Markus and [Stephen] McFeely, and we're just getting an idea of what we want to do with it".

He admitted that "it's crazy working on it before the movie even comes out because you want to see what people respond to in the film ... so we're just in that phase of breaking story but waiting to see how people respond to the movie".

Captain America 3 has no fixed date, but we'd imagine that Marvel would target a release in 2016 or 2017. Glad we could help.

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Whilst the debate continues to rage over the casting of the members of the Fantastic Four in the upcoming movie reboot from director Josh Trank, attention has also turning to finding an antagonist. Specifically, filling the role of Dr Doom.

Played by Julian McMahon in Tim Story's pair of earlier Fantastic Four movies, The Wrap is reporting that the shortlist for the character is now down to four names.

The quartet in consideration for the role? Sam Riley (Control), Domnhall Gleeson (About Time), Eddie Redmayne (Les Miserables) and Toby Kebbell (Wrath Of The Titans). And here's what they look like.

Sam Riley and Toby Kebbell first...

And here's Eddie Redmayne and Domnhall Gleeson.

See a Victor von Doom in that lot?

Production starts on the new Fantastic Four at the end of this month, ahead of its release on June 19th 2015.

The Wrap.

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This review contains spoilers.

2.8 The Messenger

I was a little cool on The Following in its first season. Sure, it was violent, but for whatever reason, I never really liked it all that well. It definitely had a strong performance from Kevin Bacon, but there seemed to be some issues with the show that kept me from embracing it completely. All that has changed in the second season. The Following has dropped any pretence at seriousness and has decided to go completely off the rails. The twists are twistier, the kills are more disturbing, the black comedy is as black as Ryan Hardy's morning coffee, and the show is worlds better for embracing craziness dropping most of its pretence at seriousness.

I mean, we have Joe Carroll slowly taking over a cult from the inside. He's not being put up as a dynamic leader this time, though he does have his appeal. He's working the angles as a master manipulator, which he's proven himself to be in the show's universe. In a few short days, he's able to get the approval of Micah the cult leader and completely bend him to his will via masterful manipulation and Micah's own coked-up delusions of becoming the next big thing, eating sins, saving souls, and getting his followers to their new home on Pluto.

Clearly, Micah is crazy and charismatic, but he's definitely not as smart as Joe Carroll. After all, Micah wants Joe to write his story, and Joe, wisely, tells him he's not that good a writer, but the next step for Micah's cult is to become book-worthy, get famous, and really expand the reach of the red-robed loons of Korben, and Micah even has a cellar full of maniacs just waiting to be let loose on the world to kill at his—and Joe's—command.

I think that one of the things the show has done to really increase its cachet is to increase the quality of character actors it brings on board. For example, after Mike's father's funeral, Ryan talks to the director of the FBI, Tom Franklin, as played by the brilliant Charles S. Dutton. He confirms all of Ryan's suspicions about Joe, the FBI having a mole in its midst, and so on, but he also gives Ryan Hardy the power to go full Jack Bauer. He reports directly to the director's office, he has resources, and he gets to do things his own way, which is exactly what Hardy's been doing anyway, except now he can't go to jail for it.

One of the things Ryan wants to do is visit Joe's old college mentor and perform illegal surveillance on him, because he and Mike have connected him to Joe's escape from Havenport. That man, Dr. Strauss, is played by none other than Gregg Henry. The snoopy reporter Carrie that's following Ryan around, and who got him drunk to get book quotes, is Sprauge Grayden from Paranormal Activity 2 and the spiritual forefather to this particular programme, 24. Of course, since this is The Following, that means that everyone ends up strapped to chairs and put into killing range by Strauss and his newest protege, because that's what happens whenever you go in to talk to anyone in the Carrollverse; you get knocked out and possibly killed by maniacs.

All of that is part and parcel for The Following, and Alexi Hawley's script doesn't offer a lot of surprises. However, it does allow James Purefoy to do some meaningful smirks and it does allow Jake Weber to do a whole lot of crazy talking. I liked the idea that it didn't take a lot for Joe to talk Micah into poisoning his followers, even if I don't care that much that folks were transferred from Earth to Pluto or wherever folks go when they get poisoned by communion wafers. The Mike stuff, particularly the cold opening of the funeral, seems a little exploitative even by The Following standards, as it's pretty much grief porn, but it's forgivable because it gives Mike extra motivation and it allows Shawn Ashmore to show off his acting prowess (and it gives Ryan and Max a chance to soften towards one another, setting up some fun Ryan grumpiness).

The show is planting the seeds for the inevitable Max/Mike romance, and even Ryan gets to have another semi-romantic entanglement with Carrie (to go along with Lily earlier in the season). It's pretty telegraphed by Marcos Siega, but I do like the interconnecting at the end during the montage. Joe and Emma are making eyes at one another again, Max and Mike are making sad eyes at one another, and Ryan putters in his office, obsessing over Joe Carroll. Joe might be a sociopath, but at least he can land a girlfriend, unlike the thoroughly broken Ryan Hardy.

There were fewer twists and turns this week, but it still turned out to be a strangely satisfying episode. There hasn't been an episode where I haven't made some sort of audible yawp at someone's barbarism, and that streak continues. It looks like the ship has been completely righted, and the Carrollers are lining up to sing off their dead with songs of praise.

Read Ron's review of the previous episode, Sacrifice, here.

US Correspondent Ron Hogan is glad to see that there's plenty of room for folks to out-crazy Joe Carroll. Here's hoping the show keeps that up. Maybe Joe can become the sane serial killer? Find more by Ron daily at Shaktronics and PopFi.

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There’s not a lot of love for Angel’s first season around the internet. As happens so often, its second and third seasons are most often praised, and there’s some love for its resurgence before cancellation in the fifth season. Season one, however, is generally considered to be a weak beginning, during which the show struggled to find its feet.

There is some truth to this criticism. Like many spin-off shows, Angel struggled in its early episodes to find its own voice separate from the parent show; second episode Lonely Hearts tries a little too hard to be adult, as distinct from Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s teen setting (with a story remarkably similar to Torchwood’s second episode years later) while I Will Remember You feels a lot like an episode of Buffy, partly due to so much of it revolving around Sarah Michelle Gellar and Buffy and Angel’s romance. At only episode ten, the series had to re-pilot itself (thank you for that word, Dan Harmon) following Glenn Quinn’s departure – whether this was Whedon’s plan all along or not, it meant shifting all of the small cast around, adding a new character who had only been fairly lightly sketched in Buffy and re-organising everyone’s roles within the show. There were also a few episodes that were just plain bad – this happens in every season of television, but it’s particularly problematic when several of them are in the first season.

However, for all its problems, we’d advise against dismissing season one too easily. Season one is tonally and structurally very different to the rest of Angel, using a monster-of-the-week format and, despite its much advertised ‘darkness’, being rather lighter in tone than much of the rest of the series. It is closest to season five, at the beginning of which the show ‘re-piloted’ itself again, but season five combines more of the later series’ tendency towards story arcs with its stand-alone episodes as well as featuring the on-going internal conflict surrounding our heroes’ joining with evil law firm Wolfram and Hart.

For better or for worse season one, with its tiny regular cast, frequent references to financial problems, basement-and-sewers setting and assortment of bizarre monsters, presents itself as a different show from the rest of the series. Most feel the changes were an improvement and in many cases that’s true – and we’re certainly not knocking the cast members who were added in later seasons – but when you change something so completely, something is lost, and we were sad to see some aspects of season one go. And so, here’s our list of some of the things we thought season one did right.

It’s a procedural

Monster-of-the-week based procedurals are a divisive topic, one that we’ve talked about a couple of times this year (in this piece defending monsters of the week and this on supernatural procedurals). Whether you like weekly procedural shows or not is entirely a matter of taste, and if you can’t stand procedurals, you will much prefer the later seasons of Angel (especially two-four) to the first. However, there are fans out there who enjoy procedurals, and even the monster-of-the-week format. If you are a fan of procedurals, then the first season of Angel is definitely the season for you.

While season five returned broadly to the format, our heroes’ attempts to solve the mystery of the week in that season were complicated by the fact they had literally made a deal with the devil and were frequently trying to walk the line between pleasing their evil clients and actually doing some good. Many will find that much more interesting and that’s fine; but there’s a certain simplicity to season one’s set-up that others may enjoy. In season one, Angel is a private detective ‘helping the helpless’; he is either hired by someone who needs him or a vision indicates that someone is in trouble. For fans who enjoy crime procedurals in general, the simplicity of this set-up, allowing for a fair amount of flexibility within the show’s main parameters, is a positive trait, one largely lost after the end of season one.

It emphasises the ‘urban’ part of urban fantasy

Season one of Angel takes place in a recognisable version of reality. Angel’s apartment is a basement with weapons on the wall because he’s a vampire, but otherwise it’s a relatively normal apartment, and both Cordelia and Doyle live in recognisably messy, small apartments as well (until Cordelia moves). Cordelia and Wesley both struggle with money and there are frequent references to the gang’s need for paying clients.

The Hyperion hotel set that formed our heroes’ base of operations in seasons two-four was a beautiful set and their reasons for moving in fairly logical, but living in an abandoned hotel remains a rather less common set-up for those of us in the real world than living in a small, messy apartment. Later seasons also featured more stories about vampire cults, god-like demons, people who grew up in other dimensions and, of course, an whole arc set in Pylea, the Land of the Green Klingons. Season one had its fair share of out-there fantasy (She, The Ring) but generally speaking it was much more inclined to deal with real issues, or metaphors for real issues, including abusive boyfriends, stalkers, ex-spouses and, since it’s a vampire procedural, vampire serial killers.

This is another aspect of the show that season five re-visited, but in season five, thanks to Wolfram and Hart, our heroes have a lot more money. They similarly work and live in something more closely resembling reality, but have moved up in the world, living in rather nicer apartments (Angel’s appears to be in the office building for some reason) and dealing with the problems of the wealthy and successful. Again, it depends what interests you the most; but when season one ended and the frequent references to the problems of trying to make ends meet and survive in the underbelly of a big city – the show’s original defining metaphor – were set aside, something was lost.

Our heroes helped the helpless

That original concept for the show was that Angel would help those who couldn’t be helped by more earthly authorities. Frequently working with police officer Kate Lockley, his stated aim was to help those who would otherwise fall through the cracks. Indeed, in episode three he goes so far as to smash a ring that would allow him to walk in daylight because it’s so important to him to help those lost in the dark (we think this was a bit melodramatic and it wouldn’t have hurt him to be able to go out in the daytime occasionally, but that’s beside the point).

The idea that yet another apocalypse was coming was threaded through the show from the start, so it was inevitable that the helpless would eventually be left behind as our heroes were forced to focus on saving the world several times. The show never completely forgot its original mission statement, coming back to it occasionally over the years. The writers also made a point of including Anne in the series finale; Anne was the original person who’d fallen through the cracks in Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Anne, the episode that served as a back-door pilot of sorts for Angel, and she embodied that aim of helping those no one else will help as her character in Angel dedicated her life to helping others like her. Overall, though, the focus on helping those no one else can or will help slowly faded over the years as other story arcs took over, leaving season one the only season to really focus on it.

The guest stars

Angel was more than happy to bring Buffy characters and actors into the fold throughout its run, with five out of the ten characters credited as regulars over the course of the show coming from Buffy. However, for various reasons, it was only in season one that the show was able to include Buffy herself, played by Sarah Michelle Gellar.

In some ways, not including her was a blessing for later seasons; as I Will Remember You demonstrates, throwing Buffy into the mix carries with it the danger of eclipsing the regular cast of Angel and turning the series into The Buffy and Angel Show. Angel, as a series, is about growing up; on the assumption that growing up involves moving on from extinguished romantic relationships, less Buffy is generally more. However, the character is so important to the character of Angel’s history and development that leaving her out all together also seems like a glaring omission, something particularly awkward in season five, as Spike and Angel inevitably send a lot of time talking about Buffy without ever actually talking to her.

It’s in season one that we see Buffy used most effectively within Angel’s world, along with another welcome guest character from the Buffy universe, Faith. As a character, Faith fits into Angel’s dark, urban world much better than Buffy and Eliza Dushku and David Boreanaz have an effective platonic chemistry that creates what is in some ways a more interesting relationship (Faith was certainly the highlight of the not-entirely-successful season four). The plot of Five by Five and Sanctuary allows Angel to truly start to move past Buffy by getting angry with her for the first time, and sees the show start to find its own tone, independent of the parent show, while acknowledging the debt it owes to Buffy and to Gellar.

Season one also featured recurring character Kate Lockley, representing the procedural aspects of the show, Jeremy Renner as a vampire before he was famous, Spike’s very last properly villainous appearance (he returns to Sunnydale and is neutered immediately afterwards, remaining evil for a long time but largely impotent) and the introduction of Gunn, who could be said to represent the people Angel is trying to help except that Gunn is largely capable of taking care of himself. If only Lorne had been introduced in season one, the guest cast roster might have been perfect.

Doyle

Exactly why Doyle, initially one third of the entire regular cast and the character who persuades Angel to get off his bottom and do something with his un-life, appears in only nine episodes of the series is a murky question which we don’t intend to go into here. The fact is, that’s what happened, so all there is to do is enjoy his presence while it lasts. In his short time on the show, Glenn Quinn’s Doyle establishes himself as a snarky, relatively upbeat in the circumstances, reluctantly heroic counterpart to Angel’s eternal brooding. Physically and temperamentally opposite to Angel, the two balance each other out perfectly (and this, people, is what an Irish accent sounds like). His pining after Cordelia also remains just the right side of creepy, and considering her attraction to Xander, he was almost certainly in with a shot.

All of which makes his final episode a painful but thankfully well put together experience. The video advert Cordelia has Doyle star in explaining what a true hero is may be slightly cheesy but it’s effective – though for us, the truly heart-breaking line is his final, ‘Is that it? Am I done?’ It was always an effective exit, made all the more poignant by Quinn’s early death while the show was still running, and when Cordelia and Angel re-watch the video (after Quinn had died) in the show’s 100th episode, it’s a tribute to the importance of Quinn and his character to the show in the short time he appeared on it.

Phantom Dennis!

To finish on a rather less tragic note, season one is also the only one to feature regular non-appearances from our favourite ghost, Phantom Dennis. Dennis wasn’t written out until the gang clean out Cordelia’s apartment at the beginning of season four and his last hours of life, weeping as his mother walls him up in their apartment, remained a strong visual in the opening credit sequence for the show’s entire run. But it was in season one that Phantom Dennis made most of his regular invisible appearances, slamming doors in the faces of demon-worshippers, offering Cordelia tissues and tucking her in to comfort her, offering Angel a beer. His unseen presence was much missed in later years.

Angel season one will never be to everyone’s taste and for many fans, the later seasons were a more complex, satisfying experience. But let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water and dismiss season one completely – there was some good stuff there, which may be worth re-visiting.

Read more of our Angel look-backs, here.

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This review contains spoilers.

1.4 And Left No Friendly Drop

On paper, this episode of Star-Crossed, the most high school of them all, should have been the nail in the coffin for a show that has so far done almost nothing to capitalise on the promise of its initial ideas. In actuality however, with far less Emery and a more focused idea of what works and what doesn’t (Emery included), the fourth episode of Star-Crossed was a little step in the right direction. The love triangle’s still weighing it down and the themes are as heavy-handed as they come, but at least there were a few twists thrown in this week to keep things interesting.

There have been two warring sides of the show up until now, with the high school drama and terrorism plots never really meshing. For the latter to work, I suspect the first has to be tweaked until it provides a solid base for the more important action, and this week’s focus on Sophia and her athletic aspirations did that quite nicely. Wanting to join the swim team with her fellow students, this was where the racial tensions came even more to the fore with discussions about Jackie Robinson and even a conversation in which Sophia, Julia and Lukas talked about being minorities.

Despite being painfully obvious, these things are expected, and not entirely unwelcome, as the overriding theme of intolerance in high school has always been a universal one. But these guys aren’t geeks or misfits, however, they’re automatically pushed out because of who they are and rarely has something like that been tackled on such a bubble-gum flavoured teen drama. Of course this will never be The Wire, but sometimes dumb shows can deal with important things without anyone really realising.

The swimming was a device to pave the way for future friendships and the ability of students to pull together despite the invisible barrier, and Sophia may well be the catalyst for even bigger changes as the season progresses. She might be shy and annoyingly passive right now but, as her defiance of rules this week demonstrated, she can be as resistant to injustice as her brother. They’re their father’s children, after all, and when news gets out about their illegitimate third sibling (revealed in the surprising final scene) Atrians will be looking to their family for answers.

With Roman still freezing Emery out and going instead to Julia and Lukas for help hacking into his dad’s (illegal) phone, our heroine was more adrift this week that ever. What is her function other than the love interest for Roman, who has so far proven to be a much more interesting and important character? Julia, meanwhile, has all but taken the place as the show’s female lead, and it’s worrying that one of the main characters seems so irrelevant just four episodes in. She may have had plenty of screen time with Grayson dotted across the hour, but these moments were so bland and inconsequential that I have to admit I forget about them.

There are lots of things that still need to be fixed before Star-Crossed even becomes half-way decent, but this episode at least gave me hope that the writers know what they’re doing. Mending whatever’s wrong with Emery would be a fantastic start, and I won’t rest until that love triangle has died a death but, surprisingly, it might actually be the high school drama the show needs to focus on if it is to evolve. 

Read Caroline's review of the previous episode, Our Toll Shall Mend To Strive, here.

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The casting announcements for Fox's forthcoming Commissioner Gordon prequel series Gotham, have been trickling in at a steady rate for weeks now, the highlight of which has to be Sean Pertwee landing the part of ex-Marine Wayne family butler, Alfred. That's a mighty choice, we think you'll agree.

Gotham, which tells the story of Detective Jim Gordon's ascent through the police ranks as he battles villains old and new in the Batman universe, is expected to start on Fox in the US this autumn.

Below you'll find a wee banner logo and a very lengthy synopsis for the series:

"Everyone knows the name Commissioner Gordon. He is one of the crime world’s greatest foes, a man whose reputation is synonymous with law and order. But what is known of Gordon’s story and his rise from rookie detective to Police Commissioner? What did it take to navigate the multiple layers of corruption that secretly ruled Gotham City, the spawning ground of the world’s most iconic villains? And what circumstances created them – the larger-than-life personas who would become Catwoman, The Penguin, The Riddler, Two-Face and The Joker?

Gotham is an origin story of the great DC Comics super villains and vigilantes, revealing an entirely new chapter that has never been told. From executive producer/writer Bruno Heller (The Mentalist, Rome), Gotham follows one cop’s rise through a dangerously corrupt city teetering on the edge of evil and chronicles the birth of one of the most popular super heroes of our time.

Growing up in Gotham City’s surrounding suburbs, James Gordon (Ben McKenzie, Southland, The O.C.) romanticized the city as a glamorous and exciting metropolis where his late father once served as a successful district attorney. Now, two weeks into his new job as a Gotham City detective and engaged to his beloved fiancée, Barbara Kean (Erin Richards, Open Grave, Breaking In), Gordon is living his dream – even as he hopes to restore the city back to the pure version he remembers it was as a kid.

Brave, honest and ready to prove himself, the newly-minted detective is partnered with the brash, but shrewd police legend Harvey Bullock (Donal Logue, Sons of Anarchy, Terriers, Vikings, Copper), as the two stumble upon the city’s highest-profile case ever: the murder of local billionaires Thomas and Martha Wayne. At the scene of the crime, Gordon meets the sole survivor: the Waynes’ hauntingly intense 12-year-old son, Bruce (David Mazouz, Touch), toward whom the young detective feels an inexplicable kinship. Moved by the boy’s profound loss, Gordon vows to catch the killer.

As he navigates the often-underhanded politics of Gotham’s criminal justice system, Gordon will confront imposing gang boss Fish Mooney (Jada Pinkett Smith, The Matrix films, HawthoRNe, Collateral), and many of the characters who will become some of fiction’s most renowned, enduring villains, including a teenaged Selina Kyle/the future Catwoman (acting newcomer Camren Bicondova) and Oswald Cobblepot/The Penguin (Robin Lord Taylor, The Walking Dead, Another Earth).

Although the crime drama will follow Gordon’s turbulent and singular rise through the Gotham City police department, led by Police Captain Sarah Essen (Zabryna Guevara, Burn Notice), it also will focus on the unlikely friendship Gordon forms with the young heir to the Wayne fortune, who is being raised by his unflappable butler, Alfred (Sean Pertwee, Camelot, Elementary). It is a friendship that will last them all of their lives, playing a crucial role in helping the young boy eventually become the crusader he’s destined to be."

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The definitive end of Game Of Thrones isn't a concept many of us want to contemplate now, after waiting almost a year for its season four return. That ending though, is coming, and according to a recent interview with the show's cast and creators, we can expect it in either 2017 or 2018 after Game Of Thrones season seven or eight. That puts us currently very close to the series' overall halfway point.

"It doesn’t just keep on going because it can", DB Weiss told Vanity Fair, "I think the desire to milk more out of it is what would eventually kill it, if we gave in to that."

How are showrunners Benioff and Weiss preparing for the eventual finale? How much do they know of George R.R. Martin's plans for the saga?

“Last year we went out to Santa Fe for a week to sit down with [Martin]" Benioff told Vanity Fair, "and just talk through where things are going, because we don’t know if we are going to catch up and where exactly that would be. If you know the ending, then you can lay the groundwork for it. And so we want to know how everything ends. We want to be able to set things up. So we just sat down with him and literally went through every character.”

At present, Martin has two further books planned in the series, The Winds Of Winter and A Dream Of Spring.

Game Of Thrones season 4 begins on HBO on Sunday the 6th and on Sky Atlantic on Monday the 7th of April.

Vanity Fair

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These Fargo teasers are building up a captivating picture of the crime series coming to FX and Channel 4 this spring. We've seen a host of murderous and macabre activity carried out against a twee small town US backdrop, all rendered with a wry sense of humour.

This new clutch of promos is no different. See Martin Freeman sat atop a washer dryer, Billy Bob Thornton explain his character's philosophy, then set about dissecting an enormous hunk of red meat to the dulcet sounds of an easy listening cover of Daniel Powter's er, modern classic, Bad Day.

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Fargo starts on FX on the 15th of April in the US and on Channel 4 at an unconfirmed later date.

Cultbox

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"Is Homeland on Netflix?" is currently the third most popular query on the list of Google auto suggestions when you enter "Is Homeland...". Why yes is now the answer, seasons one and two at least, in the UK and Ireland, as of tomorrow.

UK Netflix has acquired the first two seasons of Homeland as well as American Horror Story: Murder House and Asylum, the first two in Brad Falchuk's chilling horror anthology series. All four seasons will be available to UK and Ireland Netflix subscribers from Thursday the 13th of March, 2014.

If that's too long to wait, then Robert Rodriguez's new take on From Dusk Till Dawn is available to subscribers in the UK and Ireland from today, the 12th of March, within hours of its US premiere.

PR Newswire

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This review contains spoilers.

2.2 Shadow Of A Doubt

The 1943 Alfred Hitchcock film from which this episode takes its title is, naturally given the director, a suspenseful thriller that inserts feelings of terror and uncertainty to a small American town. The film tells the story of Charlie Newton, a teenage girl who idolises her uncle, also called Charlie, but begins to suspect that he is actually the ‘Merry Widow Murderer’ and starts to follow up her suspicions. Psycho, the obvious source of inspiration for Bates Motel, may be Hitchcock’s most well-known film but Shadow of a Doubt was his favourite. Its neat story of developing a burgeoning fear of a loved one is a psychologically powerful one and forms an obvious parallel with Bates Motel’s ongoing story arc that explores Norma’s terrified suspicions of her son and her attempts to control him.

Still, community theatre? I’ll say this for the latest maternal plan to keep Norman on the straight and narrow: it was very Norma.  Plucking an idea out of thin air and insisting through sheer force of personality that Norman takes part is entirely consistent with her personality and their joint singing session with her at the piano was one of the more benign examples of their strange relationship. It’s to Norman’s credit that he was able to call her out on the somewhat unexpected nature of their new shared hobby but even so, there was no escaping it, even when he had a more pressing engagement with Bradley. The growing desperation in his voice and actions, well handled by Freddie Highmore, as he complains that the pair of them are so close they even sleep ‘just six inches away from one another, with nothing but a ‘thin wall’ between them. The deepening of Norma’s suspicions, exemplified by her awkward smear test conversation, the discovery of Miss Watson’s pearls and by Norma’s sheer blessed relief to hear that someone else has been charged with the teacher’s murder, is already adding pace and emotional depth to this season. For some time it had seemed that the developing relationship, one of the defining features of the original characters, would emerge as a response to Norma’s personality and her oppression of her son. The events of the end of the first season, continuing now, reveal that it’s more of a symbiotic relationship; that Norma’s suffocating protection of Norman is both the response to and cause of much of his behaviour. Put another way, she’s just as much trapped in the motel with him as he is with her. Very smartly done. 

Equally smart is the linking of the show’s murders with the drug industry storyline. As Zane points out ‘You don’t get yourself killed in this business without some culpability’, and Gil’s murder can’t go unanswered, even if by pointing the finger at ‘the other side’, Gil’s confederates are asking the wrong question. 

Or are they? This is a small town in which everybody is involved in one another’s business. Nick, the man from the graveside who appears to be Blair Watson’s father, is the also the man from ‘the other side’. His return, made for genuine reasons (it preceded Gil’s death for one thing) cannot go unremarked. As unofficial referee Sheriff Romero points out ‘this wasn’t some pissant trimmer, this was Gil Turner.’ His death was a declaration of war. If that declaration was phoney then the overenthusiastic revenge killing by his brother, a man who even Remo admits is a liability, makes it very real. 

The balance between the perception of the drug gangs and the reality of death by grieving daughter hits a dramatic sweet spot. Wars, real no-foolin’ inter-state wars have been started on such spurious pretexts, things could really kick off in White Pine Bay,  supercharging the season and threading the very delicate balance that currently obtains. That spot is even sweeter when you consider the position in which Dylan has been placed. His urgent phone call from Norman giving him the truth of what happened that night at Gil’s place. It makes him almost a ‘reverse Norma’; like her he is aware of something badly wrong and is powerless to do anything about it in the open and must instead manipulate things behind the scenes to ease everyone’s passage. Unlike her, he knows who is responsible for the killing. Hers is a trap of uncertainty, his of deadly confirmation, both remained pinioned by that awful shadow of a doubt. 

Dylan’s attempt to stage manage the aftermath is fraught with danger. The fake suicide note, written in an unusual departure from the thriller convention, actually by the subject, is unlikely to be taken as sufficient closure, even with Bradley’s physical departure. The sense of closing that her bus trip provided was accompanied by the opening up of another thread, the arrival in White Pine Bay of Norma’s brother, leaving Norman, like Charlie Newton, in the presence of an uncle whose intentions remain unknown. For now.

Read Michael's review of the previous episode, Gone But Not Forgotten here.

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This review contains spoilers.

Line Of Duty’s second run has been a series of optical illusions. You know the ones: duck is rabbit, Marilyn Monroe is Albert Einstein, young woman looking away is old lady in headscarf, innocent victim is scheming villain… This week’s final shot of Denton sipping Chablis and watching the news of Dryden’s arrest was a page from a Magic Eye book. Let your eyes defocus and out of ‘innocent woman with wine’ looms a cackling she-devil with horns, tail, and glossy fringe. We’ve all been taken in. It was her! Wasn’t it?

That rather depends on the nature of the ‘it’. Was Denton’s expression the look of someone in their rightful place watching justice carried out, or someone gloating over a plan coming together? Did she take revenge on her arrogant, grimy sod of a lover, the man responsible for her getting rid of a cat and a foetus, by framing him for Carly Kirk’s murder or the ambush or both? Was it Denton who killed and mutilated Kirk, and have we, like Arnott and Fleming, been taken in by her performance?

Pinning down the possibilities after episode five is our hardest task yet. A murmuration of ‘whys’, ‘buts’ and question marks swoop around confusing any attempt to straighten the facts. The least headache-inducing option is to pull over to the slow lane, and wait patiently for the finale to find out who did what and why.

There’s plenty more to talk about besides, not least Adrian Dunbar’s affecting performance as Ted Hastings, the one honest copper in the force. Hastings’ heavy-hearted approval of Dryden’s arrest was a moment of real pathos. By giving the nod, Ted realised he was dissolving his chance of reconciliation with his wife, but, in his words, he “had to do the right thing”. Willing Hastings to do just that this week was proof of something else Jed Mercurio and his cast have got right this series; I don’t just want to know what happens in Line Of Duty, I care about it.

The reappearance of Neil Morrissey as Nige Morton this week was a treat thrown out to series one viewers. By leaking Dryden’s speeding offence to the press in the first place, Morton has unwittingly played a substantial role in this series. His having agreed to paint the now-dead Cole (Georgia’s killer would have been one thread too many to be tied up by next week’s finale) as “The Caddy” is also more significant than Dot would have him believe. Morton’s lie enables Cottan to continue along his crooked path. How crooked he really is this series, we’re yet to discover.

Dot's not alone. With just an hour of storytelling to go, there are question marks hovering over a number of heads, Cottan’s, Dryden’s, Denton’s… any more takers?

Whatever unfurls next week, we can all agree now that innocent isn’t quite the word to describe attempted-murderer DI Denton. Lindsay’s gruesome, methodical torture of Prasad may have been tit for tat but it showed her once again to be capable of extreme pragmatic violence and manipulation. Hawes was as good as ever in her broken, defeated state at Denton’s mother’s now-empty deathbed, but at this stage in the ‘is she a psychopath’ debate, we’re left asking whether that too was a performance.

Props also to Mark Bonnar for his transformation from belligerence to breakdown in Dryden’s closing police interview. The line of the episode though, goes to Vicky McClure for the same scene’s drily delivered, “Well I’m not an old perv so you’ll have to tell me”.

Thematically, Dryden’s insistence on being “an honest man” is Line Of Duty’s crux. We heard the same from Tony Gates in series one, and “I’m telling the truth” has been Denton’s refrain since episode one. In its winding journey to the truth, Line Of Duty has explored gradations of deception, the no-man’s land between honesty and deceit. Everybody lies to some extent, it tells us, even moral stalwarts like Ted Hastings. Crucially, villains don’t lie only to their accusers, but also to themselves. They dissemble, justify and mitigate because nobody, not even the worst of us, really wants to believe that we’re bad.

Increasingly, Arnott’s speech to Fleming a fortnight ago that “maybe there are people who always tell the truth and people who always lie, but the rest of us choose our moments” has emerged as the key to this series. Denton and Dryden can’t both be telling the truth, and next week, with any luck, we’ll find out precisely which moments they chose for honesty and deception.

Read Louisa’s review of the previous episode, here.

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Leonard, Sheldon and pals are going nowhere for the foreseeable, as CBS has granted The Big Bang Theory renewal for a further three seasons. The Chuck Lorre sitcom continues to pull in the big numbers for CBS, hence the multiple recommission.

The news will take The Big Bang Theory up to match Friends' ten season duration, a longevity of which most TV sitcoms can only dream.

The introduction of characters Amy and Bernadette as regulars a few seasons back went some way to redressing the show's initial Smurfette dynamic, giving the premise much-needed legs.

We believe this is the traditional point at which one says er, 'bazinga'.

Read our spoiler-y reviews of season seven, here.

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Even a cursory glance at the top 10 grossing films of 2011 reveals something strange: nine of the entries are sequels. Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: Part 2 brought the fantasy franchise to a close with a staggering $1.3bn haul. Transformers: Dark Of The Moon wasn't too far behind with just over $1.1bn. On Stranger Tides continued the Pirates Of The Caribbean series' wave of success, despite mixed reviews.

Elsewhere in the top 10, you'll find another Twilight, a fourth Mission: Impossible, a second Kung Fu Panda, a fifth Fast, another Hangover, and further Cars. Standing alone on the list is The Smurfs, the adaptation of Peyo's Belgian comic strip. In fact, 2011 saw the release of no fewer than 28 sequels - the most we've yet seen in any given year.

There are no sequels to be found in the list below, though. As ever, we've searched through the archives - and our own faulty memories - to dust off the true one-offs, the creatively brilliant or downright fun films that snuck by without much attention back in 2011. With our usual apologies for the movies that didn't make the final 25, here's our selection of underappreciated gems.

25. A Lonely Place To Die

It's not every day you get to see Angel out of Home & Away climbing a Scottish mountain, but that's exactly what we get in Julian Gilbey's thriller, A Lonely Place To Die. Co-starring Sean Harris and Ed Speleers (Eragon, Downton Abbey), it's fraught with suspense, as a group of mountaineers find a lost Eastern European girl in the mountains and end up on the wrong side of a group of kidnappers in the process.

It's a relatively low budget movie by Hollywood standards (it cost just $4m), but British director, co-writer and editor Julian Gilbey brings considerable energy and creativity to A Lonely Place To Die, and its thrills rival movies with far, far greater resources. We're looking forward to seeing Gilbey's next film, the action comedy Plastic, due out this year.

24. Winnie The Pooh

It seems a little strange to put a Disney animated feature on a list like this, yet the utterly charming Winnie The Pooh fell at the box office. Taking in just over $30m worldwide (not helped by opening opposite the last Harry Potter movie in the US), it's a film targeted at the very young, but with some lovely animation, some terrific ideas (the integration of the letters of the story for a start), and a nice little twist to it too. Plus, the Backson song is a treat too (make sure you sit through the end credits as well). It's not vintage Disney perhaps, but Winnie The Pooh is carefully crafted, and really quite charming.

23. Blitz

Featuring quite possibly the strangest screen pairing in buddy-cop thriller history - that's Paddy Considine and Jason Statham - Blitz is a rare, British take on a quintessentially American genre. The Blitz of the title is a cop-murdering sociopath played by Aidan Gillen, who wears little plastic green shades, rides around topless on a BMX and terrorises the population of central London with his violent, gun-waving antics.

Statham plays unreconstructed lawman DS Brant, who teams up with Considine's urbane, by-the-book Sgt Nash to catch the killer. The plot's full of faintly quaint genre cliches, but the pacing's taut and the acting's top notch - there's a weird, compelling chemistry between Statham and Considine that's endlessly watchable.

Really, though, the film belongs to Aidan Gillen as the unhinged villain, and he turns in one of the most eccentric and downright unforgettable antagonist performances of 2011. (On a side note, our interview with Gillen from the time of Blitz's release is a corker - especially his anecdote about trying to buy a hammer from a hardware store while dressed as a serial killer.)

22. The Beaver

Mental illness isn't a subject often tackled head-on in Hollywood movies, and if it is, it's seldom approached honestly or without a feel-good sheen. Jodie Foster's The Beaver, written by Kyle Killen, has the premise of a mainstream comedy, but it's really a compelling and poignant story about depression.

Mel Gibson stars as Walter Black, the chairman of a toy company on the decline. Depressed and unable to communicate, Black begins to address his family and friends through a glove puppet - the beaver of the title. Through this new, more outgoing alter-ego, Black begins to turn both his business and life around, yet finds the beaver's strong personality is beginning to overwhelm his own.

Killen's script cleverly subverts the standard trajectory of typical American comedies, and uses The Beaver's talking puppet premise as a means of exploring an oft-neglected, even taboo premise. It's a superb film, with an honest, powerful performance from Gibson (perhaps his career best) and strong supporting work from Jennifer Lawrence, Anton Yelchin and Foster, who appears in front of the camera as Black's wife.

21. Wild Bill

Actor Dexter Fletcher turned director and co-writer for this well-made yet little -seen drama. A mix of western and British kitchen sink drama, Wild Bill's about an ex-convict (played by Charlie Creed-Miles) who's determined to reacquaint himself with his two sons (one of them played by Will Poulter) while resisting the temptation to return to a life of crime.

The acting's first rate, with the cast (which includes Andy Serkis and Sean Pertwee) all adding weight to Fletcher's bleak account of life in London's least affluent areas. Despite great reviews, Wild Bill didn't get the attention it deserved in 2011. Three years on, it's still as lovingly crafted and engrossing as it ever was.

20. God Bless America

Actor, writer and director Bobcat Goldthwait continued his uncompromising brand of filmmaking with God Bless America, a coal-black comedy that plays out like Bonnie & Clyde for the reality TV era. Joel Murray plays Frank, a middle-aged man who's grown weary with his life and the state of American culture. He forges an unexpected alliance with a similarly disillusioned teenager, Roxy (Tara Lynne Barr), and together, they go on a murderous rampage across America, where victims include a political TV host and people who use mobile phones in cinemas.

God Bless America rails angrily against a modern cultural landscape, and while not everything in the film works - it's a less even, accomplished film than Goldthwait's Sleeping Dogs Lie or World's Greatest Dad - it's extremely effective (and funny) when it does hit the mark.

19. Goon

This bone-crunching ice hockey drama's high on violent impact, but equally brimming with warmth. That's thanks in large part to Seann William Scott as Doug, the oafish hockey player whose lack of skill is offset by his ability to take a severe beating on the ice. Despite his middle-class parents' disapproval, Doug heads to Canada and joins the Halifax Highlanders, where his unique playing strategy - basically, getting into fights on the ice - quickly makes him a local sporting hero.

Bolstered by some strong work from writers Jay Baruchel (who also appears in the film as Doug's friend Pat) and Evan Goldberg, Scott manages to make his central character entirely likeable, despite his capacity for violence; we quickly realise he's a gentle soul beneath it all, and his awkward romance with Eva (Alison Pill) is every bit as beguiling as the hockey games are blood-curdling.

Goon made an unremarkable $6.9m at the box office on release in 2011, yet the rumours of a sequel suggest that it's deservedly found an audience since. If you haven't seen it yet, Goon's well worth digging out - props, too, to Liev Schreiber and Eugene Levy for their supporting work.

18. Red State

Kevin Smith really went out on a limb with Red State, a risky film about a heavily-armed religious movement and the disproportionate reaction of government agents. Shifting with surprising ease between quasi horror (the entry point into the story sees a group of randy male teens ensnared by the cult), religious drama and tense siege movie, Smith introduces a group of characters that are absorbing to watch if not always necessarily likeable.

There’s Michael Parks, who's stunning as the fire-and-brimstone teacher at the heart of the group, Kyle Gallner as one of the teenagers who’s captured with the assistance of Melissa Leo’s Sarah Cooper, and John Goodman as an ATF agent drawn into a violent stand-off. Not everyone will be sold on the wryly off-beat ending, but as a distinctive, brave movie that deals with a difficult subject with an even hand, it’s well worth seeing.

17. Bernie

A Richard Linklater movie that was released in 2011 for the first time, but only made it to the UK in 2013, Bernie is notable for one or two reasons. Firstly, it reunites Linklater with Jack Black (after School Of Rock), and as a result of that, Black gives his best screen performance in eons.

Secondly, it's one of Linklater's better films too (and we say that as huge fans of the man). It tells the story of a mortician who becomes friends with a widow. Yet, with no spoilers here, the friendship that people see on the outside isn't quite all it appears.

Delicately handled, and with a deft comic edge to it as well, Bernie gives Black just the kind of role that proves he's a lot more than some of the parts he's wasted his talents on. It's a low key, underrated drama, and well worth seeking out.

16. Cedar Rapids

There's a bit in Cedar Rapids where Kurtwood Smith is stark bollock naked. It seems fair to warn you of that (we actually looked back at the finest films of the mighty Kurtwood Smith here).

The film's from director Miguel Arteta (who helmed the brilliant Chuck And Buck), with a screenplay from Wreck-It Ralph co-scribe Phil Johnston. And it centres on Ed Helms' character Tim Lippe, as he heads off to represent his company at an annual insurance convention.

Helms is perfectly solid here too, but it's the supporting cast, including the likes of Anne Heche, John C Reilly, Sigourney Weaver and the scene-dominating Smith that really enrich the film. Funny, and not hanging past its welcome, Cedar Rapids is a very likeable piece of cinema.

15. Panic Button

Stuart Hazeldine's impressive Exam had one spin on the idea of locking a bunch of characters in a room for the duration of a film. Panic Button, a very low budget British film that's a regular in Blu-ray special offer promotions (which is how we saw it) takes another.

In this case, a clutch of apparently disparate characters are on board a flight, all seemingly the recipients of a prize trip to New York. You can guess from the outset that things aren't quite as they appear, and the slow peeling back of what's actually going on makes for a tense, tidy thriller. Its ending may be its weakest part, but even then, it's a very effective movie you get for your limited pounds. At times, it's clear that the budget isn't a high one, but for the most part it's hard not to be immersed in what's going on.

14. Miss Bala

This suspense-filled thriller is a little like City Of God might have looked had it been shot by Alfonso Cuaron, in that it evokes the atmosphere of a violent Mexican city with an unblinking lens. Loosely based on real events, the film stars Stephanie Sigman as Laura, a young woman who dreams of winning a beauty pageant, but finds herself drawn into a bloody inter-gang war instead.

There’s little time for character subtlety as director Garardo Naranjo’s story lurches from one intense situation to another, but there’s no denying his strength as a creator of thrilling set-pieces - one fire fight, in which the leading lady is pinned down inside a truck, is jaw-dropping, and appears to have been shot in one unbroken take.

Having received a ripple of attention at one or two film festivals, Miss Bala undeservedly faded shortly after. Lean and involving, Miss Bala is well worth tracking down.

13. Meek's Cutoff

There was a brief resurgence in the number of westerns coming out of America around the late 2000s and 2010s, including 3:10 To Yuma, The Assassination Of Jesse James and True Grit. Meek's Cutoff is one of the most thoughtfully made and memorable, yet perhaps among the least well-known. Directed by Jelly Reichardt, it sees guide Stephen Meek (Bruce Greenwood) shepherd a group of settlers through the wilds of 19th century Oregon. But gradually, it becomes clear that Meek isn't quite the pathfinder he claimed, and as the group becomes lost and low on food and water, the tensions among them rise. Michelle Williams, Paul Dano and Will Patton all put in superb performances, and Reichardt gives the grim story (based on real events) a real sense of grimy authenticity.

12. Corman's World

Low-budget filmmaker Roger Corman will need little introduction for most movie geeks, but this feature-length documentary is a warm and entertaining account of the man and his movies. Everything from his Z-grade early efforts to his more recent Syfy Channel monster pictures is covered here, with greater emphasis placed on his 60s and 70s heyday, when he either directed or produced such films as The Little Shop Of Horrors, Masque Of The Red Death (one of the best of his Poe cycle), Death Race 3000 and Piranha.

What's most exciting about Corman's World is the breadth of its contributors, which ranges from stars like Jack Nicholson and Robert De Niro to directors like Ron Howard and Joe Dante. The documentary paints a portrait not only of a Hollywood outsider responsible for several decades' worth of films - some of them genuinely accomplished - but also a producer who launched the career of dozens of other directors, writers and actors. As filmmaking profiles go, Corman's World is one of the best.

11. From Up On Poppy Hill

We’re including Goro Miyazaki’s animated film on this list not because it was a failure either critically or financially - in truth, it was neither - but because, in Studio Ghibli terms, From Up On Poppy Hill could easily slip under most people’s radars. Less fantastical than much of the Japanese studio’s earlier output - Spirited Away is probably still Ghibli’s biggest international success - it is instead a low-key drama about a young girl growing up in post-war Yokohama and finding love with a fellow student.

Superbly designed (though not quite as fluidly animated as you’d expect from the maestro himself, Hayao Miyazaki), From Up On Poppy Hill skilfully and charmingly evokes the mood of a unique time and place in Japanese history. After World War II, Yokohama was still a sleepy fishing village and port, but would soon be transformed beyond recognition as Japan modernised itself in the preceding years. More than this, From Up On Poppy Hill is a delicate, sometimes disarmingly funny coming-of-age drama, with cleanly-delineated characters and a bewitching level of detail.

10. Take This Waltz

Seth Rogen doesn't always get the credit he deserves for seeking out more challenging, off-kilter roles and films. Observe And Report, for instance, wasn't much of a movie, but it was a brave one to take on, given that his character was thuddingly unlikeable throughout.

Take This Waltz is a quieter piece though, from director Sarah Polley (who made the excellent 2013 documentary Stories We Tell). Rogen stars alongside Michelle Williams in the story of a married woman who finds herself falling for an artist who lives nearby. It's a focused relationship drama you get here, interested more in nuances than bombastic moments. Polley does details very, very well too. Williams is the standout of the cast.

Sold with an element of it being a date night movie, Take This Waltz is a quieter and deeper than that, and not always comfortable viewing. It's also very good.

9. Snowtown

Justin Kurzel's film is based on the true story of the Snowtown murders, which took place in Australia back in the 1990s. He's unflinching in his approach too, often to the point of making the film near-impossible to watch (and Snowtown is a film that, for the most part, resists gory moments). But then this is a horrible story that the filmmakers make no attempt to glamourise. As such, it's got as many people who don't like as there are those willing to fight its corner.

If anything, the film feels more like a docudrama, and a chilling, distressing one, with a focus on a serial killer. Arguments continue to rage over whether the film should exist, but it's a powerful piece of cinema.

8. Take Shelter

Director Jeff Nichols earned the plaudits last year - rightly - for Mud, starring Matthew McConaughey. Take Shelter is an equally strong achievement, in this case casting Michael Shannon as a man dealing with the question as to whether to shield his family away from an oncoming storm. The energies he puts into his storm shelter take away from those he invests in his relationships with his family, and Shannon's portrayal on an obsessed man is one of two excellent performances on offer here.

The other comes from the brilliant Jessica Chastain (who also appeared in another underappreciated 2011 release, Texas Killing Fields). She's excellent here, a crucial component in a slow moving, deliberate movie, that delivers exceptionally well on its set up.

7. Tomboy

Flying under the radar of many is Tomboy, a film that's since had a Blu-ray release in the UK, but is still deserving of far more eyeballs on it. It's about a 10-year old girl, who when she movies into a new neighbourhood is mistaken for a boy. This mistake is not corrected in time, and so she must like with her assumed identity. And the film then touches on relationships formed, set against a childhood background.

There's an astonishing performance from Zoe Heran at the heart of the film, which comes from writer-director Celine Sciamma. And while on the surface Tomboy is a quiet film, it's an intelligent and affecting one. Do seek it out.

6. Martha Marcy May Marlene

Writer and director Sean Durkin brings an almost spectral quality to this drama about a young woman's experiences of a cult, its charismatic leader and her attempts to escape its clutches. Elizabeth Olsen is magnificent as Martha, the young woman enticed into the fold by John Hawkes' horrifyingly predatory Patrick.

The film's structure, which cuts between past and present, underlines the sense of fear, revulsion and paranoia, and much of Martha Marcy May Marlene unfolds like a thriller - just about every scene hums with palpable tension. Intense and troubling, Durkin's film is truly haunting, and an assured debut feature. Receiving only a limited release in 2011, Martha Marcy May Marlene nevertheless served as an effective calling card for the filmmaker's talents; last year, Durkin directed the four-part British drama Southcliffe, which employed a fractured narrative to similarly devastating effect. We're hoping to see more from Durkin very soon.

5. Tyrannosaur

This bleak drama isn’t for the faint of heart, but there’s no denying the raw power of Paddy Considine’s direction, nor the quality of acting from its leads. Olivia Colman plays Hannah, a woman scarred by the merciless abuse from her lowlife husband, James (a terrifying Eddie Marsan) and who ends up staying with the widowed, grizzled Joseph (Peter Mullan).

British cinema isn’t short on doses of social realism, but we’re not complaining when they’re served up as honestly as they are here. A brutal study of domestic violence and trauma, Tyrannosaur is all the more effective thanks to the restraint of its performances and direction; Mullan only has to sit in a chair and look ruefully into the middle distance to provoke a visceral response. The conclusion, by the same token, is quietly shocking. One of the best British dramas in recent years? Quite possibly.

4. Margaret

If all had gone to the original plan, then Margaret wouldn't be on a list of 2011 movies at all. Writer/director Kenneth Lonergan, who also made the excellent You Can Count On Me, originally shot Margaret in 2005, with the plan being for a release in 2007. Yet a prolonged battle for a suitable cut, combined with a budget shortage, meant that the film didn't seen the light of day until 2011.

It was, to be fair, worth the wait, even if it wasn't Lonergan's preferred cut that finally got released (the disc release provided the longer version). Margaret has an impressive ensemble cast, but it centres on Anna Paquin's character, a 17-year old who's sure she's played a part in a traffic accident. Lonergan though utilises many story threads to weave the film's tale, not always successfully. But when it works, as it often does, Margaret really does become a brilliant piece of work. It's best you don't know too much about it going in, just that it seem scandalous that something so strong took so long to make it to the screen.

3. Another Earth

Director Mike Cahill’s Another Earth is a subtle science fiction piece about regret and second chances. Britt Marling stars as Rhoda, an otherwise clever young woman whose moment of drunken foolishness ruins both her own life and that of musician John (William Mapother). Several years after their lives are changed forever, Rhoda emerges from prison a shadow of her former self - tentative, guilt-ridden, and with her career prospects long gone. By sheer coincidence, she crosses paths with John again, who’s still grieving over the loss of his wife and child. Then news breaks of the discovery of a distant planet, identical to our own. Determined to find out whether the version of herself on this other Earth avoided making the same mistakes she did, Rhoda enters a competition to visit the duplicate planet, while a cautious friendship grows between she and John.

On a low budget, Cahill directs with assurance, and he’s unafraid to simply observe his characters and let the story gently unfold. It helps that the two leads are magnificent; Marling acts with restraint and intelligence, while Mapother (Lost’s Ethan Rom) is magnificent - a coiled spring of sadness and repressed anger. Like Gareth Edwards’ Monsters, Another Earth wears its sci-fi cloak lightly, but gently explores the possibilities of its doppleganger premise with maturity and grace.

2. The Guard

A hit and a half in Ireland, The Guard enjoyed some modest success in the UK too, but nowhere - nowhere - near as much as it deserved. Written and directed by John Michael McDonagh (the brother of In Bruges' writer-director Martin McDonagh), it follows Brendon Gleeson's Irish law enforcement officer, who takes, it could be said, quite a laid back approach to his work.

That doesn't gel well with Don Cheadle's FBI officer, who needs help tracking down a smuggling ring that's landed on Gleeson's patch. Mind you, as good as Cheadle is here, you end up aching for the many moments that Gleeson gets to take centre stage. Often flat-out hilarious - his milkshake headache for a start - he delivers one of his very, very best performances here. The film itself leans more heavily towards comedy than anything else, but also firmly realises that character matters. As such, The Guard is brimming with it.

It's a flat-out treat this one, and a confident movie debut from McDonagh J. His next collaboration with Gleeson, Calvary, is also supposed to be very special indeed...

1. Headhunters

The influx of Scandavian thrillers getting exposure on UK TV and in cinemas has offered rich pickings for those willing to seek them out. Headhunters, based on the book by Jo Nesbo, is one of the best.

It's spearheaded by Aksel Hennie, playing the headhunter of the film's title, who is having relationship problems, and also elects to take on a job that might just be a little bit beyond him. It involves a painting, but crucially, a painting that's owned by someone who's really rather dangerous too.

What ensues is a taut thriller that stretches and pushes Hennie's character. It leaves thing open as to whether you're on his side or not too, but you can't help rooting for him just a little as he gets himself in ever more dangerous predicaments. Even though, at heart, he's really quite an unpleasant human being. But then the injection of dark comedy that runs through the film helps there, and director Morten Tydlum - who's currently putting together the long in gestation The Imitation Game - balances his key ingredients exquisitely.

There's inevitably a Hollywood remake to come, but it's going to have to go some to match the boldness, the nerve and the skill of this take on Headhunters. It's one of the best, and best acted, thrillers in years.

The top 25 underappreciated films of 2000

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Karen Gillan is one of the many fine actors that form the impressive ensemble cast for Marvel's upcoming Guardians Of The Galaxy movie. In the film she'll play one of the villains - Nebula - and whilst attending SXSW over the past few days, she has been chatting about the role.

Speaking to MTV, she said that "I always had total faith in the project, because the people who are making it are so brilliant, and have a long history of great films. So I knew it was in great hands. I just think it’s a new direction for Marvel, it’s really, really funny. It’s not taking itself seriously at all. It’s tongue in cheek. And just to see people be excited about that new tone is cool".

Gillan went on to address the humour of her character, saying that "okay, so Nebula does not find herself funny. I find her hilarious. But she can’t find herself hilarious, that’s not scary".

She concluded by discussing something that was only shown briefly in the trailer, her showdown with Zoe Saldana's Gamora.  "Yeah, there’s a big girlie fight sequence, but it’s not that girlie. They made sure there weren’t any nice pirouettes or anything like that. She’s really experienced in the physical stuff, she was a ballerina. She’s really amazing at all of that stuff. She barely required any rehearsal, she was like, ‘I can do this.’ I required two months of rehearsals every day that I wasn’t shooting, because I looked like spaghetti when I started. [The battle itself] is the integral one for my character, because it’s not just a physical battle. Their relationship goes very deep, and there’s a huge history between them. So there’s a lot more to it than just the physical".

Guardians Of The Galaxy arrives in cinemas on August 1st.

MTV

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This feature contains spoilers for True Detective season one.

HBO’s recently concluded True Detective inspired an almost unprecedented amount of fan speculation on the Internet. I may be in the minority, but I found reading theoretical interpretations of the show to be a far more rewarding experience then actually watching the drama. True Detective moved at such a slow pace, and, aside from the fact it was mostly told in flashback, its mystery unfolded rather routinely. Was there narrative justification for the many well thought-out fan theories about its true meaning? Were the Internet’s devoted writings about the show completely off-base? Were fans simply putting things together that were not there?

What’s fascinating is that not only was there an overwhelming amount of online fan response to True Detective, but many of the fan interpretations were thoughtful, exceptionally detailed and made for extremely compelling reading. This is saying a lot considering that online communities for television shows and movies are more often than not characterised by juvenile nonsense and fan in-fighting rather than viewers seeking to connect with each other. With True Detective, it seemed that the more work that went into the theory, the more that other theorists were inspired to dig deeper into the show’s mythology.

Why did True Detective become such a magnet for theoretical interpretation? Arguably, it’s down to its mythological themes. The subtext is what captured the imagination and a reason True Detective will be viewed repeatedly by devoted fans for years to come. The show wasn’t made to be watched once, but rather like many of the works of Alfred Hitchcock, to remain open to interpretation and be examined again and again.

Join us as we visit some of the most intriguing connections True Detective fans drew between it, philosophy, religion and literature.

The Call of the Cthulhu

Thanks in large part thanks to the fervent passion of the online fan-base, interest in the work of H. P. Lovecraft, and in particular the Cthulhu, has spiked since True Detective. For those unfamiliar, the Cthulhu is a fictional mythological being of Lovecraft’s invention, which is supposedly responsible for keeping man in a state of fear and anxiety. Essentially, this giant octopus-type creature is from the darkest and earliest parts of time, a time beyond human comprehension. This monstrous being has supposedly become trapped but cults have developed around the world to worship Cthulhu with the understanding that one day it will be free and chaos will be unleashed on the world once again. One of the places such cults have supposedly developed is none other than True Detective's Louisiana.

A theoretical interpretation of Cthulhu lies in the idea of humanity always hovering around insanity and madness. Cthulhu is seen to represent insanity because if humanity is confronted with this terrible creature they will be forced to face something they are incapable of understanding and as such, go insane. Lovecraft appears to believe that if humanity truly begins to unpack and understand the true meaning of existence and the universe, since we are ill-equipped to handle such things, we would most likely be driven insane by the darkness and chaos.

The connection many have made to True Detective lies in the idea of a dark, unexplainable malevolent force existing in the world that at times can and cannot be seen. Remember that Rust, upon entering Carcosa, has what seems to be a hallucination in which he sees the sky opening up as if there is a crack in the universe. The idea of reality existing on the brink of madness relates to the idea of the Cthulhu as does Rust's inability to fully grasp the concept that to truly know something leads to madness.

The Yellow King

The fan community has also helped to generate fascination with the mythology of “The Yellow King” who appeared in a collection of short stories called The King in Yellow by Robert Chambers. One of the stories involves a play so depraved that anyone who watches it is driven insane, (check out an episode of Masters of Horror called Cigarette Burns if you enjoy this concept). Again, we see a clear connection to True Detective in regard to the idea of witnessing madness and in turn being driven insane by it. Sales of Chambers’ collection are anecdotally reported to have risen ten-fold since True Detective began airing. This underground cultural mythos has now been put out there to be disseminated by the masses.

What is True Detective if not a story within a story? The straightforward plot is augmented by the fact that madness seems to exist on some sort of metaphysical plane in this world and that insanity lurks around every corner. This theme in particular makes True Detective worthy of being examined by the most ardent fans of psychological horror.

Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now

As established, the idea of witnessing madness and it in turn driving someone mad is one of the major themes not only of True Detective, but also the film Apocalypse Now and its source novel, Heart of Darkness. Joseph Conrad's nineteenth-century tale centres around the character of Charles Marlow, an ivory dealer who travels into the heart of Africa, and searches for a trading post commander named Mr Kurtz. Kurtz has used his supposedly superior intellect to bend the African "savages" to his will, but lost his mind in the process.

On the one hand, Heart Of Darkness is a cautionary tale about the madness of colonialism, and yet it is also about the idea of nature bringing on its own sense of madness when people are cut off from civilization. This is almost the exact plot line of Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now in which Martin Sheen plays Benjamin L Willard, essentially the same character as Marlow. The film is set during the Vietnam War and Willard travels throw the Jungle into Cambodia where he is to find his own version of Mr Kurtz played by Marlon Brando, not so coincidentally named Walter E Kurtz. This Kurtz who has been driven mad by the horror of the Vietnam War also has a loyal army of "savage" native subjects serving him.

The connections between a descent into madness through a tropical landscape begin to connect pretty clearly to True Detective at this point, as the Louisiana swamps stand in for the Cambodian and African jungles. The novel and film show men being driven insane by their surroundings, another connection to True Detective, which examines how the landscape of the Louisiana Bayou is poisoned by insanity and madness. We also have main characters who begin to feel isolated and cut off from the world around them, relating directly to Rust Cohle and his own journey into madness.  

Mardi Gras/Bayou Culture

The Louisiana Mardi Gras and Bayou culture originated in a European cultural tradition that made its way to Louisiana when the French colonized the territory. Mardi Gras became a time for elaborate celebration in which people dressed up in elaborate costumes and marched in parades.

The idea of dressing up in masks and connections to secret masked societies once again connects to True Detective. The evil men who commit unspeakable acts of ritualized cruelty in True Detective appear to be part of a secret society, and some of the pictures glimpsed in the show appear to call attention to the very worst possible aspects of this culture. Essentially, many have theorised, certain members of True Detective’s society are barbaric monsters who may have incorporated the cultural traditions of the world around them into their own acts of depravity.

Nihilism

Some True Detective viewers have also examined the philosophical concept of Nihilism presented in the face of an unrelenting evil. Nihilism essentially means that all truth is meaningless because essentially - according to my understanding of the concept - life is just a chaotic series of random events. This bleak worldview is certain that not only is there no God but that there is absolutely nothing bigger connecting the world. It’s a pessimistic and extremely bleak view of the world, endorsed wholeheartedly by Rust Cohle.

Arguably, Rust began to adopt this philosophy after his daughter died because he could not make sense of such a tragic event. This nihilism serves him well as a detective at times but it also, as Marty points out time and time again, makes him extremely contemptuous and at times inhuman. Of course, a 180 is pulled on us in the last episode as Rust  - when confronted with entering the empty void he knows exists and fears above all else - is faced with an even more powerful feeling, that of connectedness.

One of the reasons True Detective’s last episode was so compelling was because the show really became about how Rust was able to face death and pure evil. In that moment he was able to throw off his nihilistic shackles and change his entire perspective on life. Essentially he was overwhelmed to learn that in the end, light is greater than darkness.

Paganism

Paganism - which could be summarised as the concept of man worshipping the cruellest version of nature as his God - was also a popular filter through which fans interpreted True Detective, specifically the notion of men behaving like primitive beasts who only care about their desires and who reject the notion that we can be compassionate creatures. It’s no accident then that the evil cult in True Detective wear animal masks when they commit their acts of barbarity and lash out against their inability to control nature by destroying the purest form of humanity. This is also echoed, as many other online writers have pointed out, in the Dora Lange murder in which she is positioned at the altar of a tree, wearing antlers. Paganism is seen to be connected to ritualistic practices and beliefs not necessarily found in the major religions of the world and as such it has a connection to primitive and darker times in humanity’s history.

In reference to True Detective the actions of the cult and their barbaric practices also harken back to a  more monstrous and primitive time in our society. Thankfully at the end of the show after Rust and Marty stop The Spaghetti Monster, they both realize that, as Rust so eloquently puts it, "If you ask me the light’s winning".

“The light’s winning”

It’s quite something for a TV series to send fans scurrying to the philosophy books to divine the mystery at its heart, and an impressive accomplishment for True Detective. Ultimately, the series did a smart job of taking us on a compelling narrative ride by circumventing traditional mystery and cop show clichés, even if it did resolve itself somewhat predictably. The conclusion was a captivating one that allowed for a variety of theoretical interpretations, as we’ve seen.

Despite True Detective’s deeply dark psychological and philosophical undertones, maybe the real shock from writer Nic Pizzolatto was that after all the chaos and acts of violence, we were left with a feeling of hope. Perhaps its message is that when people unite for the greater good, the seemingly uncontrollable forces in the world can in fact be kept in check. Clearly none of these interpretations would be possible without the genius behind the show. Nicely done Messrs Pizzolatto and Fukunaga, nicely done.

Read our spoiler-filled episode reviews of True Detective, here.

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It seems that progress is being made with the casting process for JJ Abrams' soon to go before the cameras Star Wars: Episode VII. Pre-production continues ahead of the film's Pinewood shoot, and last month, we learned that Adam Driver (of Girls fame) was signing up to play one of the key villains. Darth Adam, or something.

Variety has now named five actors it now believes are left in the running for one of the male lead roles in the new Star Wars film. One of them we already knew about, that being Breaking Bad's Jesse Plemons. He's still a strong possibility.

Now? You can add John Boyega (Attack The Block), Ed Speelers (Downton Abbey), Ray Fisher and Matthew James Thomas to the list of possibles. Abrams is still looking for candidates, but these are now the five actors that Variety reckons "have moved to the top of the list in recent weeks".

The role they're all battling for is expected to be one of a Jedi apprentice. More news on it as we hear it.

Star Wars: Episode VII is due in cinemas on December 18th 2015.

Variety.

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The remake bandwagon has now turned up at Joe Dante's door, with Paramount Pictures now apparently planning a new take on the director's 1985 sci-fi adventure, Explorers.

Dante's film followed the adventures of a trio of children who built their own spaceship, giving big screen debuts to Ethan Hawke and River Phoenix. The new version is set to be produced by Josh Applelbaum and Andre Nemec. They've written screenplays for Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but they're not penning the script for this one. That job is going to Geoff Moore and Dave Posamentier. The pair are the writers and directors of the incoming Better Living Through Chemistry, although they won't be directing Explorers.

When we get word of who will be directing, we'll let you know. For now, Explorers will sit in development for a bit while they try to get the script right.

The Hollywood Reporter.

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Ready for a game of who's going to blink first? Back when Warner Bros moved the release date of Zack Snyder's Batman Vs Superman back to 2016, it chose a new release date of May 6th of that year.

May 6th 2016 however was also a date that Marvel had earmarked beforehand for the release of one of its movies. It had announced the date, but not what the film was going to be.

The feeling was that Marvel would probably shift its film by a week or two either side to avoid a big clash. But Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige insists that isn't the case. Chatting to Slashfilm, he said that "we're certainly keeping the date there and we'll announce what the movie is, I assume, in the next few months".

You'd suspect that for Marvel to stick so firmly to that date it'd be one of the studios' bigger releases. Batman Vs Superman is a film that could certainly take a chunk out of Marvel's revenues otherwise.

The question remains then: will either Marvel Studios or Warner Bros move their movie, or are we set for arguably the biggest release date clash in recent memory? Place your bets...

Slashfilm.

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