Two pieces of news have popped up with regards the next Batman adventure, The Dark Knight Rises. One is confirmed, the other you can class very firmly as a rumour.

The obvious one, first. It'd widely been expected that The Dark Knight Rises would be Christopher Nolan's last directorial trip to Gotham City, and he's confirmed this in an interview with Entertainment Weekly.

The director reveals that The Dark Knight Rises is "the last chapter of our Batman saga". He went on to add, "I feel very glad that I'm doing another Batman film. I think it would have been daunting to sit down and write an original script after Inception. I love working within the realm and rules of our Batman world. It's kind of nice to have someplace to go that I'm super-excited about."

And here's the story that you can firmly file under ‘unconfirmed rumour'. (we'd not had many of those where The Dark Knight Rises is concerned!) For Stuff.co.nz is reported that Nolan may use unused footage of Heath Ledger in the third Batman film, The Dark Knight Rises.

Ever since Ledger's death, there have been rumours that there may have been unused footage that was left on the cutting room floor. Of course, it is not enough to have The Joker as the main villain in the new film, but there might be the footage there to provide a nice bridge between The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises.

According to Stuff.co.nz, "The idea is to use these fragments of cut scenes and use CGI to have The Joker appear one last time. Chris wants some continuity between movies and for the franchise to pay tribute to Heath and his portrayal of the Joker."

While some may argue it is in bad taste, it makes sense to some degree. Heath Ledger's portrayal of The Joker was widely praised, with the late actor even winning a posthumous Oscar for the role. The inclusion of lost footage would be a sure-fire way to recapture the box office magic of The Dark Knight, as well as draw in the morbidly curious.

"It would only be a fleeting moment in the movie and would only be included with the full consent of Heath's family," the unnamed source said.

Treat all of this with the requisite level of salt until you hear it from Mr Nolan, though...

EW
Stuff

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You needn't class this as much of a surprise, but it turns out that Warner Bros and its co-producers on the already controversial Buffy The Vampire Slayer reboot did approach Joss Whedon about being involved with the film.

Whedon reacted with humour, grace and frustration to the news that Buffy was getting a big screen reboot, arguing, "This is a sad, sad reflection on our times, when people must feed off the carcasses of beloved stories from their youths - just because they can't think of an original idea of their own."

If you want to catch-up on the Buffy story, and Whedon's full response, then take a look here.

The Hollywood Reporter has now revealed that Joss Whedon was approached last year about the reboot, and asked if he wanted to help develop the new take on Buffy. He, unsurprisingly, passed, choosing to make The Avengers for Marvel instead. Given that he'd basically rebooted Buffy once already, it's understandable that the offer didn't hold much appeal to him.

The Hollywood Reporter also notes that 20th Century Fox, which made the original 1992 movie, had first dibs on the Buffy reboot, but passed on it. Hence, Warner Bros became involved.

There's more on the story at The Hollywood Reporter right here.

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Over at the Los Angeles Times, screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman have been chatting about penning the upcoming, and eagerly awaited, Star Trek sequel. And it turns out that they may have turned a corner on the project.

Shrouded in secrecy to this point (and it still is, really, to be fair), the writing team of the new film had been keeping mum on their plans, arguing that they had to find the story that they wanted to tell. That didn't stop the Internet filling in some of the gaps (Khan, anyone?), but official word has rarely been forthcoming on the project.

However, Orci has now revealed that, contrary to some speculation, the new Star Trek film isn't being treated as the middle part of a trilogy of stories. "I don't know that we've ever thought of it in terms of a trilogy," he confirmed. "We thought of the first one as, ‘How do we tell how this happened the first time and how do we free it so that it can go on forever without stepping on what came before.'  So, if you were thinking of this movie as a second act, yeah, you would think of it as a The Empire Strikes Back sort of story, but I'm not sure we're thinking of it as a second act."

He went on to say that "One of the big challenges is all of the characters are together now." He continued with, "We don't [have] that luxury of not having the entire family there together at the start of the story. So now you want the character stories to be good for everybody but also not just be there to be stories, but also fit into the plot and be organic. We're looking at a lot of the old episodes for inspiration, still. Whereas the last movie was all about breaking free from Star Trek and its canon, now that we can do whatever we want, we still want it to feel like good ol' Star Trek, even though it's a new story."

Writing partner Alex Kurtzman then confirmed that they've worked out what they wanted to do with the next film. "We have broken the story," he confirmed, "which is very exciting."

Meanwhile, contrary to some reports, TrekMovie has confirmed that JJ Abrams still hasn't signed on to direct the new film. He's widely expected to make it his next project, once his next movie, Super 8, is locked. But as of yet, he's the expected director of Star Trek 2, not the confirmed one.

Los Angeles Times
TrekMovie

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After seemingly hammering the franchise into the ground with four (to date) pretty terrible straight-to-DVD sequels, you'd figure that all and sundry would be standing over the corpse of the American Pie franchise and opting to leave it be. That, however, isn't the case, and as was revealed earlier in the year, a full-on American Pie 4 is planned for cinema release.

The film, which is being written and directed by Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg (who made the first two Harold & Kumar movies), is aiming to reunite the original cast of the first three films. And producer Craig Perry has been chatting to ComingSoon about the progress of the project.

"I'm hoping to have something to look at it in the New Year," he said. "We'll see when that fits in. As you can imagine, a lot of it has to do with scheduling of the actors because they're all busy. Alyson (Hannigan's) got the show and the baby, so she's got plenty on her plate, so there's a lot of people who have a lot of things to do, and I think if we get a script - which I think we will - that everybody is excited about it, and then it's going to be about the schedule, because it's going to be really hard to get that gang back together."

Perry confirmed that the plan is to bring as many of the cast back for the new film as possible, even those who were dropped by the time American Pie 3 rolled around. "For me, it makes sense to bring everybody back,",he argued, "because at a certain point, if you start winding it down, it isn't what it's meant to be, and I feel like those characters have become part of the cultural lexicon, you kind of know who they are, and I think there's an interest in seeing where they are, because they haven't been on screen for seven years."

There's no timeframe on American Pie 4 right now, but we'd be surprised if it didn't go into production next year.

For more on what Mr Perry had to say, check out the full interview at ComingSoon, right here.

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You'd hardly call the ensemble cast of X-Men: First Class a small one, and it's just a month or two since the casting announcements appeared to be coming through on a daily basis.

However, now that the film is firmly before the cameras, ahead of its release next summer, we figured that casting announcements were done and dusted. We figured wrong.

For there's been time to add one more face to the cast, and that face belongs to Mr Ray Wise. Wise, best known for his role in Twin Peaks (where he played Leland Palmer), revealed to IGN that "I'm playing the Secretary of State of the United States."

He joins a cast that includes James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Nicholas Hoult, Kevin Bacon, Jennifer Lawrence and January Jones. Matthew Vaughn is, of course, directing. And the film itself is scheduled for release on June 3rd 2011.

IGN

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As we head into December, that means we're just 24 days away from a new episode of Doctor Who. And, as usual, (isn't it great, after all the years in the wilderness, to finally be able to say that?), the BBC is making the Christmas special of the show a centrepiece of its 25th December schedule.

The corporation has now confirmed that it'll be screening Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol at 6pm on Christmas Day. It'll follow The One Ronnie, starring Ronnie Corbett, and precede the Strictly Come Dancing Christmas special.

BBC America, meanwhile, will be showing the episode on Christmas Day, too, with a 9pm ET transmission time.

That is all. For now.

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Last week, we spoke to Philip Murphy, the man heading up the BBC's events, such as Doctor Who Live and the Doctor Who Experience. And he revealed that, already, plans are afoot to put something together for the show's 50th anniversary in 2013. You can read that interview here.

On the screen, meanwhile, there have inevitably been suggestions that something would be put together to mark the occasion, and in time-honoured fashion, that might include bringing back old Doctors in a big adventure. Certainly David Tennant hasn't ruled something of that ilk out, and now, seventh Doctor Sylvester McCoy has confirmed he'd be happy to sign up too.

Talking to BBC News, McCoy also mooted the idea that earlier Doctors - William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee - could be brought back using computer technology. "They've got such imaginations, they could do anything," he argued. "It would be fascinating with all the technology if they could bring back Jon Pertwee and William Hartnell. That would be amazing - and I bet they could do it if they wanted to."

McCoy is heading off to Middle Earth for a good chunk of 2011, of course, having been cast in Peter Jackson's two films of The Hobbit. But can we just say: it'd be great to have him back in Doctor Who, even if it is just for one adventure.

Here's the piece at BBC News.

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This review may contain spoilers.

4.10 Chuck Versus The Leftovers

There's a joy to this show when it's in full flood that's hard to resist. And, Chuck Versus the Leftovers is a perfect example of the finer Chuck episode, where the creative team unleashes all manner of craziness like a paintball Gatling gun.

Chuck is at its very best when it heavily indulges itself in referencing movies and other shows, and this week they returned to one of this production's favourites, Die Hard.The construction of a plot and scenario that has Morgan crawling through air-conditioning ducts in bare feet is both hilarious and clever. But it wouldn't work without the quite brilliant Timothy Dalton, playing the Gruber-esque Alexei Volkoff.

How, after he tries to kill almost everyone, he then invites himself to a Thanksgiving leftovers dinner was masterful, as was the wonderfully convoluted dynamic which had Morgan attempting to save Casey, Lester and Jeff from certain death using a trick that would only ever work in a movie.

Linda Hamilton wasn't wonderful, but with Dalton ranting in most of her scenes, it didn't really seem to matter. The inclusion of the Awesomes in this story was also a positive aspect, with Devon providing a marvellous foil when he discovers who Volkoff really is.

Given how weak some of the earlier episodes in season 4 were, this was a dramatic shot in the arm that Chuck badly needed.
But they also chose this as the point where they'd complete the loss of the Intersect arc. For good or bad Chuck now knows Kung Fu, again.

The Intersect 2.0 hasn't always been a power for good in the development of Chuck, so it will be interesting to see if they find more imaginative ways for it not to be the answer to any problem he might have.

This is the second story this season by Henry Alonso Myers, who also penned the excellent Chuck Versus The Couch Lock. These are his only contributions to Chuck so far, although he has an impressive track record on shows like Ugly Betty, CSI and Charmed. Given that he's created to the two stand-out Chucks of this year, I do hope they give him some more to do in the extended season (24 shows) to come.

If I have a frustration here it's that this is the last new episode of 2010, with the show returning on the 17th of January. I'll miss Chuck, but there's a loss for the show too, because, while it's off-air Tron: Legacy will be released.

Given the prominence of Tron in the world of Chuck, this is bitterly disappointing, because I was so looking forward to a Tron-themed episode, which presumably we'll now not get! The 'Dude' needs to guest star, if the budget would handle that.

Oh, well. I'll miss Chuck over Christmas, but I'll be very keen to see it return the other side of 2011.

Read our review of episode 9, Chuck Versus Phase Three, here.

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Cinema is filled with mad professors and hubristic doctors meddling with nature's natural course, and while James Whale's classic adaptation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is anything but a B-movie, it undoubtedly set the template for the decades of rampaging monsters of science that followed.

From the oddly beautiful cyborg created by the crazed scientist/master of the occult Rotwang in Fritz Lang's Metropolis, to the beast men of 1996's The Island Of Doctor Moreau and beyond, generations of mad doctors have been playing God for our viewing pleasure.

David Cronenberg was undoubtedly one of the finest directors of 'science out of control' movies, and his early work was filled with unnerving creatures and experiments gone terribly wrong. See the disease-spreading parasites of Shivers (1975), the blood-sucking, disease-spreading armpit monster in Rabid (1979), the mind-blowing psychics of Scanners (1981) and the tragic results of matter transportation in The Fly (1986).

After the surreal exploration of videogames and simulated reality in eXistenZ, however, Cronenberg has steadily moved into more grounded (but no less gory) territory, and his interest in mad scientists appears to have waned.

Which brings me onto Vincenzo Natali's Splice, a film that takes up the mantle of early Cronenberg with icky relish. The director of such low-budget gems as Cube and Cypher, aka Brainstorm, (the latter, in particular, is criminally underrated), Natali got a much deserved boost when Guillermo del Toro signed on as Splice's producer. Natali's script, which had apparently been sitting in a drawer since the late-90s, finally made it to the screen.

Unusually, Splice gives us not one mad scientist, but two, genetic engineers Clive (Adrien Brody) and Elsa (Sarah Polley), whose relationship provides the film with much of its tension and black comedy, as well as some quite interesting comments about childbirth and parenthood.

Like most mad scientists, their intentions are pure, at least initially. Working for a pharmaceutical company called NERD (Nucleic Exchange Research and Development) they devise a way of crossing human and animal DNA to create a hybrid with properties with potentially huge benefits for medical science. Understandably, NERD refuses to allow the experiment to go ahead on ethical grounds but, needless to say, Clive and Elsa get on with the splicing regardless.

The result is, unsurprisingly, an abomination. Hatching from a gooey surrogate womb, the creature, christened Dren, is a loathsome, aggressive little beast, with a cloven head and pallid, waxen skin.

Gradually, however, Dren mutates, like the ugly duckling, into an altogether different creature that is at once alluring and grotesque, with ethereal wings and a deadly, stinging tail.

It's at this stage that things become rather more complicated. Once her doting parents, Clive and Elsa's relationship becomes increasingly fractious, and they both, in their individual ways, subject Dren to terrible physical and psychological cruelty.

Brody and Polley are great as the scientist/parents whose dynamic with their creation constantly changes, and their acting certainly carries Splice through its more hackneyed moments. But the film really belongs to French actress Delphine Chanéac. Her performance as the fully grown Dren is excellent, lending the creature a touching, vulnerable quality that acts as a counterpoint to her deadly hidden strength.

For all her weird appendages and oddly shaped legs, Dren is still a typical youth trapped in a monster's body, with all the frustrations and wilful behaviour that comes with it. Her battle of wits with Elsa, which soon spirals out of control in bloody fashion, is often difficult to watch.

A B-movie to the core, Splice is filled with all the genre trappings you'd expect, from its unpleasant experiments gone wrong, to its grizzly, slightly ridiculous climax, whose events are vaguely reminiscent of Roger Corman's loopy exploitation flick Humanoids From The Deep.

For some, Splice's conclusion will seem like a step too far into the murky waters of schlock, with its abrupt change of pace and weird sex, and it's a pity that Natali chose such a path, having masterfully built up a sense of quiet tension elsewhere.

Despite its rather botched last act, Splice is nevertheless one of the most watchable films of its type in a long time, and there hasn't been a creature quite as sympathetic or tragic as Dren since Boris Karloff's turn as Frankenstein's monster almost 80 years ago. By turns beautiful and savage, her suffering at the hands of her cruel parents is, in the film's better moments, heart-wrenching to watch.

As is so often the case in sci-fi, the humans are Splice's cruellest monsters.

Splice is out now on DVD and Blu-ray available from the Den Of Geek Store.

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Simon couldn't cover The Apprentice this week - something about some cup derby football match taking place in Birmingham - so I've stepped in to cover the series we know so many of you, er, love.

In honour of Simon's footy match exploits, here is a blow-by-blow account of the episode's highlights, of which there were many.

21:00 - Bum, Bah, Bum, Bah, Bum, Bah, Bum, Bah, Bum, Bah, Bum, Bah, Bum - Bum. Oh how I love The Apprentice's opening credits. That wonderfully overblown and overstated choice of music, the quick cuts of the candidates making their way through Londonium, the particularly stony-faced looks at camera. This, my friends, is television heaven.

21:01 - No "I don't like bullshitters" this year, which is a shame as Lord Alan of Sugar's grand entrance has been watered down somewhat.

Still a deeply scary chap, however. I often wonder why anyone would want to work for 'Britain's most belligerent boss', but there you go. "I'm looking for someone who's exceptional," he spouts. Good luck with that, Baron von Sugar, although in fairness, this year's crop are a darn sight better than last year's. Among those left, I can see a genuine competition hotting up among three or four of them who appear, from careful editing no doubt, to be quite intelligent. And then there's Stuart Baggs.

21:02 - Recap time covering last week's episode. Stella's po-face, and under the radar Christopher's downfall made all too clear once again. Salt sufficiently rubbed in wounds, time for the wakey-wakey scene.

21:03 - 5.30am! "For God's Ssake," cries a moody Stella. The city is declared as the venue and grumpy, and shouty Stella continues the venting. Is this a sign of editing to bring Stella down this week? Jamie declares that he still needs to "show his spark". Indeed, Jamie, as thus far you've showed precious little. Nice enough chap, though.

21:05 - Crazy choral music followed by drums. Very Lord Of The Rings.

21:06 - The great man himself arrives. It's Gandalf. No, just the Baron to explain the week's tasks. It's all about buying and negotiating to buy ten items on a list in ten hours. Yes, this has all been done before and yes, it's not especially inventive. It's still a cracking task, though, and note Sugar's words about getting back on time. Always trips someone up, that.

21:07 - Jamie speaks the blithering obvious: "Don't accept the first price." Give that man a medal.

21:08 - Liz is revealed as project manager of the women. She's been solid thus far, so big things expected. Jamie is leading the boys. Eek. I know which team I'd rather be on. Jamie talks about busting balls and that Sugar has his eye on him. Nice.

21:09 - Jamie: "Live by the sword, and hopefully don't die by the sword." Famous last words?

21:10 - The girls ring round businesses beforehand to find out what they're after. Jamie's team takes no such approach, instead just heading out on the streets and hunting as they go along. First impression? The boys ‘hit and hope' technique is incredibly risky.

21:12 - There's a Bluebook on the list and Joanna finds out, after two hours of calling around, that it's the knowledge guide that taxi drivers use. Joanna's excellent negotiating skills nabs it for a nifty £50.

21:13 - The boys are going down a blind alley, looking for a Bluebook that's an old US publication. The tuba of shame plays in the background, suggesting that they aren't having much luck.

21:15 - The girls track down a tikka, a piece of Indian jewellery. The boys have no idea what it is. This time, it's Stella's top negotiating skills that seal it. The women are on fire. Jamie finally finds out what the tikka is, and his hardball negotiating elicits genuine fear from the woman of the shop. Jamie is desperate, clearly. But, hey, it paid off. Karen Brady seems impressed, but am I the only one who thought it was a bit rude?

21:17 - Stuart Baggs's words of clarity: "We don't really know what we're looking for."

21:18 - Jamie tracks down an old Singer sewing machine at Cyril's shop. Cyril, bless his cottons, thinks he is actually called Jamie. Fair play to Jamie, though. His approach may be all over the place, but credit where credit's due, he's nabbed that for nearly half the price Liz stumped up.

21:20 - Chris comes up with a genius ruse to get the Bluebooks for cheap. A blatant lie and sob story about his brother taking the taxi test. Works, though, and the boys get it for £61, more than the women payed, but not bad all the same.

21:21 - Stella hits the nail on the head. "It's a fine line between being rude and negotiating hard." I imagine Lord Sugar's approach is to favour rudeness, but then he is the most belligerent boss in Britain, remember.

21:22 - Tea break, supplied by the lovely Mrs Oakley. Comes with a digestive too. Cracking.

21:23 - Kitchen worktops. Helps if you order one in the morning to pick up in the afternoon, as Jamie is now discovering. The fool. Fool!

21:24 - Truffle hunting now. That's the beauty of this task. It runs at such a pace that there's barely time to get bored. Stella makes a bit of a fool of herself, calling Gordon Ramsay's reservations phone line. The frequently annoying Laura pipes up that they're wasting time. For once, Laura is talking sense.

21:25 - Tempers are fraying between Baggs and Chris. The boys' complete lack of planning and organisation is now coming home to roost, as, of course, it was always going to. The three seem to be working independently of each other. It's great TV, though.

21:27 - Liz asks the girls to give them a call once they get a truffle price. It's edited to suggest that this will be a major talking point in the boardroom. Laura attempts to negotiate the truffle from £270 down to £200. The chef accepts the price and the girls make no attempt to call Liz at all, and then lie about not being able to get through to her phone. Brilliant. It's this Machiavellian scheming that makes The Apprentice a joy, year-in, year-out. And was that really a big enough cut off the price?

21:30 - Chris' negotiating skills appear to be based around making up another life for himself. This time, his grandmother wants him to get some tartan for a wedding.  Thing is, though, doesn't the camera crew and Karren Brady's watchful eye give him away? Surely, he'd be better off just admitting, "I need to get ten things on a list for a TV show I'm taking part in. You might have seen it. The Apprentice? You know, that thing with a bunch of people in suits arguing with each other every week?"

21:34 - Absolutely no decorum from Baggs the brand as they turn up to Sugar's offices. "Yes!" he screams. Liz turns up late, losing money from the off. That said, the girls have all ten items, the boys just seven. Tense? You betya.

21:36 - Boardroom time. Liz explains the girls' structured strategy and Stella trips up right away. Sugar gets rude. "You normally need a pig to search them out." Cheeky. He's also not happy that they were late. In all honesty, he looks so fed up with everyone in the room, it only furthers my opinion that I can't imagine why anyone would want to work for him. Imagine how life in the office would be, were Sugar to have had a bad night out?

21:38 - The phrase "headless chicken" is used. Baggs then cracks a funny and Sugar shoots him down in flames. Great TV.

21:39 - The figures are in. Unbelievable! Despite only having nabbed seven of the items, and racked up far more fines than the girls, the boys have won the task. It was all in the editing, of course. The girls thought they'd won it, easily. But no, and it's poor negotiation that lost them the task, according to The Baron.

21:41 - Café scene. "Devasting," says Liz. "We didn't negotiate hard enough," Stella rounds on her PM. "I'm not here to make friends." No-one ever is.

21:42 - Reward time! It's the Eurostar, some ridiculous Morecambe and Wise walking and that's it. A quickie this week, and further proof that Baggs the brand cannot be stopped. He's a machine, the Terminator of the series.

21:45 - Back in the boardroom and Stella and Laura give Liz a couple of looks that could kill. Cold, cold air on that room. Sugar uses the phrase, "treasure hunt", that they were just heading to gain all the items.  I'm sure I've heard that before, probably in the last series, truth be told.

21:46 - Stella's Knightsbridge location choice for the truffle comes under fire. Fair play to her, though. She fights back and argues that Laura's price was too high.

21:47 - Oh brilliant. The phone call to Liz, or lack of it, comes to light. Lies, damn lies. Liz decides to bring back Laura and Stella, of course. Joanna was very good, once again.

21:49 - The Baron brilliantly comes to the decision that the reason Stella is a bit staid is because she works for a Japanese bank and "They're a bit like that, aren't they?" Erm, can you really say that? Could it not just be how she is? He doesn't like those corporate types, though, does he?

21:51 - Stella goes on the defensive. "I will never give up." Laura goes for her. Bitchy. Liz now states that Stella can be cold. What is this, the Stella-bashing session? Isn't it Sugar's job to do that? He doesn't interrupt, though.

21:53 - Liz and Laura are gunning for Stella, Laura in quite an aggressive manner, to be frank. Young, for sure, but she's a bit of a cow at times.

21:54 - Sugar's synopsis. Liz's failure to keep track of prices is mentioned, as is Laura's age, and Stella's corporate nature is raised again. Oh, but it's Laura who gets fired. On balance, that's about right. For once, Sugar takes into account past as well as present performance and that's what saves Liz and Stella. Laura has, to be frank, done next to nothing for weeks.

21:57 - Back in the house and Liz appears rather upset by Stella's comments and the ugly face of bullying reappears. This has been a problem in past series and it's unpleasant to see it here. Stella clearly isn't well liked in the house, perhaps her 'corporate' nature's misconstrued as arrogance. Either way, there is no need at all for Liz's bitchy comments at the episode's end. Looking directly at Stella, "It's a shame Laura's gone. She'll be missed." Ouch.

21:58 - Preview of next week's episode suggests a genuine face-off , all pushing and everything, between Stuart and Chris, but I'm sure it will be little of the sort, really.

Phew, well that was a pretty good episode. There have been some fairly standard episodes in the series so far, and while it certainly covered familiar ground, the fast-paced nature of things helped elevate it above the norm.

Simon's footy team won too, so he'll be pleased. Anyway, normal reviewing service will be resumed next week.

Read our review of the eigth episode, here.

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4.13 Tomorrowland

So, that’s it. After 13 weeks of insobriety, arguments, advertising and insolvency, the fourth season of Mad Men is over.

It’s been a strange rollercoaster of a year for Don Draper and his Madison Avenue agency SCDP, and just as Mad Men’s central figure has managed to pull himself out of his booze-addled mire, his company has suddenly found itself, like the silhouette in the opening credits, in financial freefall.

And yet, after weeks of drama and flaring tempers, this episode was unexpectedly cheerful. Remember the closing reel of Wayne’s World, which provided us with three endings - a happy one, a sad one and a Scooby Doo one? Somewhere in another dimension, there’s a 13th episode of Mad Men with a sad ending (where SCDP gets hit by a meteorite, perhaps), or a denouement where Roger Sterling is revealed to be the Devil himself (which wouldn’t be too far fetched, now I think about it).

The ending we get in this reality, meanwhile, is so absurdly cheerful that it almost feels like a particularly well-made parody. This isn’t to say it’s bad, by any means - it’s merely that its shift in tone and mood seemed rather jarring, at least to me.

Tomorrowland’s cheer began with a small yet promising glimmer of hope, as Don’s pitch to the Anti-Smoking Lobby is warmly received ("If it helps, I can guarantee you that Lucky Strike will hate this," is Don’s winning line), while, later on in the episode, Peggy manages to secure a new client with a sterling pitch of her own.

Meanwhile, Betty’s rather irrational hatred of her daughter’s friendship with Glen (that creepy kid from season two, remember?) leads to her sacking kindly, long-serving nanny, Carla.

This leaves Don in a bind: hoping to mix personal matters, business and pleasure in a single trip, he intended to use a break in California as an opportunity to take his kids to Disneyland, sort out his affairs with the late Anne Draper’s daughter, and attend a few meetings in between. Unable to contemplate the horror of going on a vacation without a nanny to take care of the screaming kids, Don has the last-minute brainwave of inviting his smouldering femme-bot secretary, Megan, instead.

In an incongrously Mills And Boon few minutes, the trip to California mutates into a whirlwind romance. "I've been thinking about you so much,” Don tells Megan on a hotel balcony. A few minutes later, and Madison Avenue’s shrewdest operator has proposed.

From a dramatic standpoint, this eleventh-hour development is among the most perplexing in Mad Men’s four years. Don and Megan’s blossoming love is well played from an acting standpoint, but why has it been introduced so late, and so suddenly? What was the point of detailing, over several episodes, Faye and Don’s evolving relationship, which went from mutual distrust, to grudging respect, and finally, to genuine intimacy?

What’s most strange is how under-developed Megan’s character is when compared to Faye’s - while we’ve had weeks to get to know Faye, Megan’s a relative unknown. All we do know is that she’s disturbingly, impossibly perfect - bilingual, intelligent, good-looking, great with kids and apparently impossible to rile.

In fairness, the reaction of Don’s colleagues is one of equal incredulity. After much congratulation and back-slapping, Peggy and Joan retreat to a quiet office and, in what is by far the best scene of the episode, express their contempt for Megan in the most catty terms possible.

"I hope you're happy and I hope she knows you only like the beginning of things,” says an understandably distraught Faye, when Don calls to tell her that their relationship is finished. Betty, meanwhile, offers a typically cold, "I'm happy for you."

After the close of season three, which ended with divorce, the inception of a fledgling SCDP and much uncertainty, Tomorrowland ends season four on a rather less dramatic scene: Don and Megan asleep in bed together, as I Got You Babe by Sonny and Cher plays in the background.

It’s a closing episode that hints at a peaceful, happy new chapter in Don’s life, but makes for a rather unsatisfying conclusion to an otherwise  turbulent series - it’s certainly not of the calibre of the season’s pinacle, Hands And Knees.

Then again, maybe it’s all a ploy to lull us into a false sense of security. Maybe Megan really is too good to be true, and that it’ll be revealed in season five that she’s actually a scalp-collecting, Satan-worshipping serial killer. An uncharacteristic shift in tone for Mad Men, perhaps, but no worse than the Barbara Cartland romance seen in Tomorrowland...

Read our review of episode 12, Blowing Smoke, here.

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If you’ve ever been in a car accident, you’ll know just how horrifying they can be. I - clumsy clod that I am – have been in several. In one, I lost the back end of a moderately powerful Japanese coupe in pouring rain, sending the vehicle spinning a sickening dervish into a waiting lamppost. The force of the impact twisted the car almost in two, rotating the lamppost through 180 degrees and extinguishing the light at the top.

I was showered with glass, and the passenger seat struck me on the side of the head. Incredibly, I walked away with a few minor cuts and bruises.

A year or so later, a friend and I cobbled together a few hundred quid, bought an ancient, crumbling BMW E30 (complete with a leaking roof and mushrooms in the boot), and took it to Silverstone for a track day. (The looks from all the rich petrol heads in their brand new Porsches was priceless.)

After a few skittish laps (again, in pouring rain) where we pushed our rusting car to the inch of its mechanical abilities, my co-driver completely lost control of the vehicle on a sweeping bend, and we ended up hurtling backwards at 85mph into a sign on the edge of the track.

Fortunately for us, the sign was made of polystyrene, so it was only our egos that were seriously injured, though it’s surprising just how damaging polystyrene can be if you reverse into it fast enough – plus we spent the next six months picking out tiny pieces of expanded foam from the car’s air vents.

The point of all this rambling? Driving’s just as much about crashing – or at least, the ceaseless fear of crashing – as it is about racing lines and mechanics. Once you’ve been in a crash – even a minor one – and felt that horrible metallic tang in your mouth, you’ll never forget it. The unmistakeable feeling as you enter a corner too fast and know, in your sinking heart and churning stomach, that you’ve made a mistake, and that it’s too late to go back and correct it.

Polyphony Digital’s continued reluctance to introduce proper damage modelling and proper crashes to Gran Turismo 5 is, therefore, more than a little disappointing. While I accept the oft-repeated argument that the GT series is a “driving simulator, not a crashing simulator”, when you remove the negative effects of making a mistake from the racing equation, you’re losing a vital element of what makes driving like a lunatic so thrilling in the first place.

Sure, there’s a half-hearted attempt at damage modelling in GT5, but it’s so minimal as to be non-existent. You can hurtle down a straight at 120mph and broadside an AI vehicle travelling 30mph into a hairpin, and neither car will trundle away from the incident with more than a scuff and a mild dent, or perhaps a bumper dangling from its mountings a little bit.

Careening into an opponent at the wildest speeds triggers almost the same sound as hitting them at a fraction of the velocity – and it’s the feeble sound of a child kicking a recycling bin.

By contrast, the sound of a crash from inside a stricken vehicle is the loudest thing in the world - a thunderclap in a confined space, like a hand grenade the size of God going off.

As you’ll already know if you’ve read our review, GT5 is, in almost every area, a fantastic game (its online mode is currently a bit of a let-down, but Polyphony has every opportunity to fix this in future updates). Few other racing sims can match the high-speed thrills it delivers, and its knack of making you feel as though you really are fighting against a wave of torque in a high-powered super car is almost peerless.

It’s a shame, then, that Polyphony has once again seen fit to have its cars so impervious to damage. The crash damage you do see is a minor progression from earlier GT games, but it is, for the most part, so cosmetic as to be non-existent. And while there are videos on YouTube that show vehicles rolling over onto their roof (most often in off-road races) such dramatic incidents are comparatively rare.

From this perspective, rival racing sims, such as Forza III, the DiRT series, Race Driver: Grid, and even relative sim newcomer Need For Speed: Shift, all replicate this aspect of aggressive driving more successfully.

For while driving is indeed about the thrill of travelling fast, the visceral thrill of beating opponents, and the deafening backwash of engines and tyres screeching at their limit, it’s also about dicing with the looming spectre of death, or its impish side-kick, serious injury.

And although videogames are unlikely to replicate the dreadful sensation of crashing a car any time soon – the terrible jarring sensation in the spine,  the grim feeling of being showered with tiny cubes of glass – it’s nevertheless the terrible destruction that occurs when mistakes are made that forms a smaller, yet vital part of racing.

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A few weeks ago, I was lucky enough to attend a screening of the recently restored ‘complete' version of Metropolis, with a live score provided by a full orchestra. As the opening music swelled in perfect time with the film's opening, and the hairs on the back of my neck tingled, I thought to myself that film doesn't need clever dialogue and intricate sound effects to thrill. It just needs incredible visuals and in this case, an evocative score.

It was a thought which I returned to throughout much of that evening, especially during the powerful destruction of the machine sequence. Film just needs visuals to convey its sense of power. That is what brings us back time and time again, and is why film succeeds on its basic level.

We take as standard that it will now contain characters interacting with each other verbally, but for many, cinema is at its most purest and perfect when it is silent.

Indeed, if you compare the late silent films to the early talkies, there is no comparison. One is the apex of an art form, with camera technology matched by expressiveness of performance, while the other is static, often boring and frequently over reliant on its novelty value. I'll leave you to guess which one I mean.

The era of silent cinema was also a more democratic time, at least in the distribution of geographical film power. My example of Metropolis above is proof of this, one of the masterpieces of cinema, and it was a German production. Sure, Hollywood produced more than its fair share of classics too, but it wasn't the be all and end all.

The reason for Hollywood's ascent and everywhere else's decline is quite simple. With silent cinema there is no language barrier. The few intertitles can easily be written in the native language of wherever the movie is being exhibited. Physical action has no need for translation. What you see is literally what you get.

This encouraged films to be made and shown between many countries, a true transnational cinema of the world, which only the Internet has made possible again.

Look at the history of the invention of cinema and you'll see it was both a competitive and collaborative effort from inventors of many countries. As soon as spoken dialogue came in, first introduced in 1927, non-English films were doomed in the biggest market for film, America. But, before that, co-development was rife, as with the example of the 1925 film Madame Sans-Gêne. Starring Gloria Swanson and produced by Hollywood's Famous Players-Lasky Corporation, it was directed by Frenchman Leonce Perret, featured a mixture of French and American actors, and was based on Napoleon and the French Revolution.

As noted above, this wasn't the first time that France had made an impact on cinema. The most celebrated early pioneers of cinema are French, with the Lumiere brothers actualities of the 1890s considered the first examples of film, and direct descendants of documentary (see such work as Repas De Bebe and L'Arrive D'un Train En Gare De La Ciotat) in their depictions of real life and events from the current world.

Also active in this early period was George Melies, perhaps most well known for An Impossible Voyage/Le Voyage À Travers L'impossible (1904). His was a cinema of attractions, special effects and wonder. People would come and view his work, not for the thrill of a new technological wonder, which like most new things had quickly worn off, but to be transported by this newfangled cinema to places they had only dreamed of, to the far reaches of space and to the inhospitable landscape of the moon. We can clearly see Melies' antecedents in the modern day blockbuster.

The early, silent days of cinema were a time when film form as we know it was developed. The earliest films seem alien to us because we view them through the lens of how we expect cinema to look and behave to our modern sensibilities. Instead, they should be looked at in their own context. Each separate innovation can be seen to point the way to where we have ultimately ended up, the above two example included.

We can take from a film like Rescued By Rover (1905), which depicts a dog showing his master where a kidnapped child is, the basics of linear editing and storytelling. The dog follows the baby from A to B to C. He then retraces his steps, and allows the audience to do so, before taking his master back again. The audience will have figured out which location is coming next from the film's previous logic. It sounds simple, but at the time was a revelation. Films had previously featured unconnected, constantly changing locations in their action.

In much the same way, the famed Soviet montage of Vertov and Eisenstein paved the way for passages of time and storytelling to be shown in a collection of related images. If a picture tells a thousand words, then a montage must tell millions!

It was D.W. Griffith who is credited with taking these disparate working practices and melding them together into what we today would recognise as a movie, earning himself the moniker ‘the father of film'. However, without the influence of World Cinema, he would have been lost, and cinema as we know it today could have been quite different.

This has only been the briefest of descriptions of silent cinema. It is an inexhaustible subject, and one I am immensely enamoured with. On a final note, for those living in London or who are also interested in silent film, The Barbican is beginning a season in January of silent film classics with a live score. If you have never had the pleasure, I thoroughly recommend you go.

• See the growing World Cinema series

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Don't believe everything you're told. That's the message of Monsters in more ways than one. A concerted marketing push would have us believe that Gareth Edwards' debut feature is this year's District 9 (which, in turn, was last year's Cloverfield), a big, bad alien invasion movie made on a shoestring.

And in some ways it is. Shot for a reported £100,000, Monsters is further proof that the most exciting sci-fi comes not from the big coffers of Hollywood, but from industrious and impoverished geeks.

It opens with a startling sequence too, a smash and grab action set piece that would have you believe you're getting exactly what was hinted at. Shot in near darkness through a green filtered shaky-cam, it's pure shock and awe, fleeting but perfect in execution and set up. There are aliens.  There are men with guns. And the two shall meet.

And from there, Edwards goes the other way. But let's rewind a little bit. Because Monsters is a film about big aliens. It just chooses to move things on a bit, planting us in a world where aliens invaded some seven years ago. So, where this year's Skyline went for the 'look out Donald Faison from Scrubs, it's aliens!' effect, Monsters has them as just another hazard to overcome.

Signs warning of their presence adorn the ravaged streets of South America, news reports monitor skirmishes with army troops, and, rather amusingly, duck and cover-style infomercials warn children how to stay safe.

Through this climate Edwards plots a simple course. Scoot McNairy's news photographer is tasked with escorting the boss' daughter (Whitney Able) back home safely. All that stands in their way is what lies within the infected zone.

After a terrific opening salvo, Monsters stumbles a little bit in mapping out its trajectory along this journey. Edwards' ear for dialogue is a little too rooted in movie speak, and so his characters trade in clipped conversations ("This is the boss' daughter! I've been waiting three years for this!") that don't always ring true.

But that's all it is, a little stumble. Once it finds its feet, Monsters feels breathtakingly raw, free of all the sheen and polish that makes most big, bad alien movies beautiful to look at, but lacking any soul. Filmed on the hoof with just a four-man crew and locals filling the supporting player parts, it feels like the type of alien invasion movie Walter Salles would make. Monsters takes place in a world so vividly drawn that you can't help but feel the history behind it.

Edwards might reap plaudits for his technical prowess (and rightly so. Monsters' aliens look the work of a major effects house rather than one man in his bedroom), but it's his handling of story and atmosphere that's most impressive. He fills in the backstory, not with banal exposition, but with cutaways to the devastation visited upon villages and families. It's camera as - get this! - storytelling device, not just something to point at things that blow up. Michael Bay, take note. 

So, what of Monsters' selling point, the aliens themselves? For the most part, Edwards adopts the Cloverfield approach of little by little giving us brief glimpses of them in tightly choreographed action beats and via TV reports playing tantalisingly in the background. 

And here's the thing: Monsters isn't another District 9, even if it does relocate that film's theme to another continent. There's no crunching, bullet-laden set piece waiting around the corner, no Cloverfield-style destruction we're being led to. 

As much as the marketing might be pushing it as a close relative to those films, Monsters actually harks back to 1980s-era Steven Spielberg and James Cameron. Edwards wears his fanboy devotion for the former firmly on his sleeve. There's a Jurassic Park-like assault on jeeps, a father-son dynamic that's quietly touching without even showing us the son, and a nice nod in the film's final moments to a line from one of Spielberg's most iconic films. And for all its alien hullabaloo, Monsters is a Cameron-esque love story, again, in more ways than one. Hell, there's even subtext to nibble on if you get bored of that.

For a film made on the barest of bones, it's incredibly rich and layered. Perhaps not the slam-bang extravaganza you might be expecting, but a thrilling journey nonetheless, and told with a stunningly assured touch from a debut filmmaker. Monsters looks like it should have a budget with two more zeros on the end, yet it's what's behind the incredible effects that excites the most. 

Edwards' film has a scope and ambition that's exhilarating, an invention that would have even The Terminator-era Cameron taking notes. Where does he go from here? Who knows, except maybe Edwards, of course. But that next film can't come soon enough.

Read our first review of Monsters here.

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This review contains spoilers.

3.13 NS

I'm starting to think that one of the constants in this world is that Sons Of Anarchy will always deliver with its season finales. You might argue that last season's Prison Break-esque gargantuan cliffhanger was a bit cack-handed, but aside from that ending, it was a fantastic episode. As a rule of thumb, things get resolved, major characters get killed off, and we get a small taste of what might be to come next season.

This week's finale was no different. I haven't minced my words much about this season. There was a huge dip in form that infuriated me at times. Infuriated because I was not only frustrated at how badly some aspects of the plot were being handled, but also because I was deeply concerned that my favourite TV show had jumped the shark. Fortunately, it hadn't, and the last four or five episodes have spelled out a very enjoyable run. Really, the success of this entire season rested on the quality of the finale. And it delivered. By God, did it deliver.

This week ties up most of the loose ends, dealing mostly with Jimmy O and Jax's deal with Stahl. The Sons are able to set up a deal to buy Jimmy O from the Russians for $2 million. Most of the money is counterfeit, aside from the $250k borrowed from Stahl, the same money used for Tara's ransom. However, by the time the Russians realise this, the Sons are pretty far down the road with Jimmy, who has been transferred to Tara's car before the ATF could get their hands on him.

There's a large chunk of the episode where Jax and Stahl feel like two boxers in the first few rounds of a fight, where they are just feeling out each other. They are constantly asking each other "How do I know you're not lying?", but Jax signs the confession and leads the ATF to the SAMCRO clubhouse so they can collect Jimmy. The Sons reluctantly hand him over, and when Clay asks how Stahl knew that SAMCRO had him, she tells him that Jax has been informing her. A scuffle breaks out, and the Sons are all arrested for the gun charges, albeit reduced from 15 years to 14 months, due to Stahl and Jax's agreement.

What follows was incredibly well played. I was convinced that the Sons were all going to jail, and that Jax would be exiled from the club. I had no idea how the club, or the show would recover from such a blow. Just as well that the whole thing was a triple bluff.

Following the arrest, the Sons who were absent from the clubhouse, Opie, Piney, Chibbs, and Kozik, arrange for Unser to send some false intel to the ATF that there is a gang planning to ambush them. Stahl sends her lackeys off to check that the road is clear, leaving Stahl with Jimmy and Unser and also leaving the Sons clear to exact their revenge.

Chibbs has his way with Jimmy first. Their rivalry goes back a long way and it was a fitting end that Chibbs gave Jimmy a Glasgow Smile in the same way that he had been given one years before.

As it was Stahl's fault that Donna was killed, Opie makes Stahl sit in the front of the car before telling her, "This is how she felt", and shooting her in the back of the head.  It's not often that we get to see Opie get his hands dirty, but it was clear that he had wanted retribution against Stahl since season one, and with him announcing his engagement to Lyla, this was a fitting end to that chapter in his life.

It was a bit of a shame to kill off such a formidable villain as Stahl, but there wouldn't have been such a satisfying conclusion without it. Jimmy had to go. There was no way that Sutter could have dragged that character out for another season. 

It's not until the prospects start riding alongside the ATF prison vehicle holding some of the Sons and pressing the horns that we discover that the whole thing was a bluff. 

We are then shown Gemma reading a letter from Jax, apologising for dragging her into the bluff, and that the Sons will be doing short time due to Stahl arranging it. This is interspersed with footage of Tara reading letters that John Teller sent to Maureen, the letters again stressing that John did not want this life for Jax.

I'm not sure how Sutter is going to handle the next season, considering the Sons are going to do around 14 months in jail. He could either set the whole season in jail, or the aftermath when they are released.  I'd imagine that, upon Jax's return, he'll be shown the letters from his father and his estimation of him may go back from a cheating lowlife, back to the hero that he previously viewed him as.

The finale to the season was pretty much everything I could have hoped for. The cynic in me wanted to say that the triple bluff was a little cheap, and had an almost Dallas-esque ‘and it was all a dream' feel to it, but, to tell the truth, it was handled excellently. I felt my pulse racing for most of the episode and felt giddy after it finished. It could have been terrible in the wrong hands, but somehow had pure punch the air brilliance. 

The best kind of finale walks the fine line between offering resolution, but also leaving enough loose threads to build another season on, and this finale did that excellently.

And thus ends season three. It had some rocky moments, but turned out fine in the end. With this kind of momentum going, I can't imagine that season four will be anything but great.

Read our review of episode 12, June Wedding, here.

And you can find all of season 3 episodes here.

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As we noted yesterday, it was a shaky rumour to begin with, and one that needed to be taken with an appropriate level of salt. Yet, the web was alive with chatter that Heath Ledger's Joker would be digitally edited into the forthcoming The Dark Knight Rises.

Unsurprisingly, it's now been confirmed that won't be happening at all.

Christopher Nolan has moved quickly to nix the rumour, though, at the launch part for the DVD and Blu-ray of his massive summer hit, Inception. According to Thompson On Hollywood, the director simply said of the matter, "that's all wrong".

Nolan also confirmed Tom Hardy's involvement in The Dark Knight Rises, but wouldn't be drawn into details of the character. All he would offer was that he was playing "a key role, not saying good or bad".

Christopher Nolan is still finishing the script for The Dark Knight Rises, meanwhile, and it's due to be completed for January.

Thompson On Hollywood

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As the casting rumours continue for who will be playing The Man Of Steel in the upcoming reboot of the Superman franchise, the man who has done plenty to bring the character back to the big screen is now stepping away from the project.

Christopher Nolan has been the ‘godfather' of the new Superman film, having overseen the new story and script (penned by Jonathan Nolan and David S Goyer), and brought a director, Zack Snyder, onto the project. But now? Almost inevitably, as he ramps up to shoot The Dark Knight Rises next year, Nolan is taking a step away from the Superman project.

Emma Thomas, Nolan's producing partner, confirmed of the film that "we are handing it off to him", with the him being Snyder. From this point onwards, to be clear, Nolan and Thomas are away from the film, having got it to the screenplay stage.

Snyder is currently putting the finishing touches to Sucker Punch, meanwhile, and then will embark on the new Superman film, which is due to shoot next summer...

Hitfix

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The road to a new, cinematically-released Muppet movie has been a long time coming, and the new movie, written by Jason Segel and Nicholas Stoller, is firmly down as one of our must-see flicks of 2011. And what's more, it's attracting a list of cameos that makes the casting director of The Expendables jealous.

Up to this point, we already knew that Jean-Claude Van Damme, Chris Cooper, Amy Adams, Jack Black, Billy Crystal, Alan Arkin and Zack Galifianakis, were on board, with Segel starring alongside our favourite pieces of felt and cloth.

Now? More names have been added, as The Hollywood Reporter has revealed the addition of both Ricky Gervais and Emily Blunt to the cast. They will be taking up cameo roles, and don't be surprised if director James Bobin adds more faces before the shoot is done.

The film arrives in the US on December 25th 2011.

The Hollywood Reporter

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We're 23 days away now from the transmission of the next instalment of Doctor Who, namely the annual Christmas special. Entitled A Christmas Carol, and going out at 6pm on Christmas Day, the new adventure also co-stars Katherine Jenkins and Michael Gambon, who join Matt Smith and Karen Gillen for a very festive tale.

And the BBC has seen fit to whet our appetites by releasing a host of new images from the episode. Which, as you might have noticed, we've brought together for you here. Enjoy...!

There's nearly a TARDIS full of more Doctor Who news, reviews, interviews and articles right here.

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