There's little we can say in these words that you'll want to read. We figure you're here for the singing dog. So here he is. Win.

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As a games lecturer I have a sure-fire way to gauge the popularity of a new release: the attendance register. Interesting correlations occur when you cross-reference student absence with game release dates. Out of a class of 20 - five away on November 21st, the release of Black Ops. Just two absent on November 24th for Gran Turisimo 5 - not bad for a PS3 exclusive. APB's launch day – oh dear, full class.

These flurries of excitement tend to be short lived. A couple of days after release even the biggest games are largely forgotten and students creep back in with shamefaced stories of impromptu weddings and fast healing appendectomies. This year there’s been one exception - Minecraft. No game has caused more late nights, asleep-on-keyboard embarrassments, and impassioned off-topic debates - and that’s just the teachers.

If you haven’t played Minecraft yet, you’re missing out. The game comes in two flavours. The free classic version is essentially a giant world (eight times the surface area of the Earth) made of metre-square blocks players can create or destroy to create fantastic environments. The commercial alpha version uses a similar building mechanic, but blocks are limited. Building new objects involves mining for raw materials which can be combined – called ‘crafting’ – to create new blocks, weapons, tools, even vehicles and mechanisms.

Like the free sandbox mode, there are no clear goals, so your gameplay possibilities remain very broad. The one nod towards traditional game narrative is the day-night cycle. When the sun goes down, zombies, and ‘creepers’ appear and do their best to take you down. To guard against them, your days are spent building fortifications in order to survive the nights. This game mode is called quite appropriately, ‘survival’.

Until recently, Minecraft had been developed by a single man. Known as Notch online, Markus Persson started work on the game in May 2009 and began accepting pre-orders for the commercial release in June 2010.

A week away from the much-anticipated beta release, he took some time out to talk to Den of Geek about the game’s success.

“I had no idea it would get this popular,” Persson admits. “While some of the online press seemed to keep an eye on the stuff I made before Minecraft, this level of publicity is very flattering.”

Popular is an understatement. Minecraft recently won three Inside Gaming Awards, is almost universally loved by critics, praised by games developers, and currently has over 2.3 million registered players. All achieved with no marketing budget while still in alpha release. We asked Persson what it is about the game that’s capturing players’ imaginations.

“I think it's both the freedom the player gets, making it fun to both build and to watch what other people have built, and the random level generator that generates somewhat interesting levels to explore. I frequently get surprised and see something I'd never imagined. Recently, there was a video of a Minecart-based pig killing machine that automatically fetches a new pig when you kill the previous one. Very clever, and extremely funny.”

Whether it’s trying to outdo each another to build a better pig killer or offering tutorials on how to play the game, the community is an essential part of the Minecraft experience. With no gentle tutorial level to ease you in, the game itself offers little help to newcomers. I sat for many hours with Minepedia and YouTube on one monitor with Minecraft on another getting inspiration, learning crafting, and cursing as my work was destroyed by detonating creepers.

The community plays another important role. Persson follows an agile development methodology, favouring collaboration with gamers through all stages of creation with a looser and more adaptable planning process than usual. He explains how this works:

“Feedback is extremely important to learn what parts of the game people enjoy and in what general direction the player want the game to go. I try not to read individual suggestions too closely, and much prefer just really short 'clues' as to what could be added, as that keeps me feeling creative. It's gotten much more difficult to keep personal contact with the players on a one-by-one basis these days. Twitter helps.

“I kind of ‘code-sketch’, where I get started with a project by actually writing the code for it and getting something up on the screen. Then I play around with it and see if it's any fun, and change the parts that aren't. For Minecraft, it actually started with an isometric strategy game.”

Just as the appeal of Minecraft’s gameplay is watching your worlds develop, so too is watching the game itself evolve as new updates are released. Persson has developed a cult following as players follow his Twitter feed and blog for new tweaks and additions to the game. As this is such a large part of the appeal, we wondered if it would be sensible for there to be a final, definitive version.

“There will be some version we'll call the ‘full version’, yes,” Persson explains. “Mostly because it's silly to keep calling a game beta forever, and we need some kind of closure as a studio. But I suspect we'll keep adding content to the game for a long time. I've never had more things I want to add to the game than I do now, and the list just keeps growing.”

If following @notch on Twitter doesn’t generate enough excitement at what’s to come, you can whet your appetite with Minecraft’s public ‘to do list’ to see what’s in store for future updates. At present, the highest priority is to counter hacking. Some large game developers claim to be contemplating leaving the PC market in favour of consoles, because rampant piracy makes it difficult to turn a profit. We asked Persson what problems he faces, and where he sees the PC heading as a platform.

“By ‘thwart hacking’, I meant in-game hacking that ruins the game for other players, not stopping piracy. While there is quite a lot of piracy going on and I obviously don't condone it, I don't believe it's as big of a problem as some of the large studios claim it is. PC gaming has always been strong, and I see it surviving for quite a few more years. It will be around for at least as long as people use PCs. Considering you can't get any work done on a game console or a mobile phone, I suspect we've got quite a few years ahead of us.”

With so much praise lavished on the game, we were interested in what the creator is most pleased with, and what mainstream games developers might learn from Minecraft’s success.

“The lighting engine is probably the part I'm most satisfied with on a technical level. There are some issues with it at the moment, but it adds so much atmosphere to the game. I'm not at all satisfied with the half-sized blocks. They were an experimental hack from the get-go, and they've never worked quite right.”

“I think mainstream developers are doing a great job with their games already. There's a certain lesson to be learned about user generated content and being able to share it. There's a quarter of a million videos on YouTube about Minecraft, but only 150 thousand about LittleBigPlanet. Having built-in video recording capabilities for a game that focuses on user generated content might be a very good thing.”

With the exception of a few lucky beta testers, a game is usually only available to the public once finished, but Minecraft has been publicly available since the start. The commercial alpha release went on sale earlier in the year, with the promise of free updates for life. Next week, the game upgrades to beta status at a slightly higher price, but new customers will have to pay for expansion packs and extra content. As development progresses, what can we expect from the beta period?

“Before Christmas, it will just be about multiplayer updates. Next year, we'll be adding proper modding support, more content (crafting, blocks, monsters, level content, tree types, sounds, music and so on), and a bigger focus on stability, performance and testing. Once the game is complete enough to feel like a proper game, it'll reach release status.”

“After that, we'll focus more on releasing content surrounding the game, and expansions with cool new features we’ll think about after release.”

Good news for fans of the game. With no sign of its popularity abating and new features being added all the time, rest assured that in 2011 you’ll be hearing a lot more about Minecraft.

Minecraft is available from www.minecraft.net. The Beta version will go live on Monday 20th December.

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Blake Edwards, the veteran writer and director behind the Pink Panther movies, has sadly died at the age of 88.

In a career that stretched back to the mid-50s, Edwards was oversaw the creation of more than 30 films, including the seafaring comedy Operation Petticoat, starring Cary Grant and Tony Curtis, and the classic Breakfast At Tiffany’s, which starred Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard.

He then went on to write and direct the enormously successful The Pink Panther in 1963, the comedy starring David Niven as the suave thief attempting to steal the gigantic diamond of the title, and Peter Sellers as the bumbling French inspector Jacques Clouseau.

The success of The Pink Panther saw Edwards return to direct seven sequels, including A Shot In The Dark (1964), The Return Of The Pink Panther (1975) and Son Of The Pink Panther (1993).

Outside the Pink Panther films, Edwards found success with the 1979 comedy, 10, starring Dudley Moore and Bo Derek, and Blind Date, a pre-Die Hard hit for Bruce Willis.

Both versatile and prolific, Blake Edwards will be remembered as one of Hollywood’s great comedy directors, and will be greatly missed.

Few living actors are accorded the epithet "legend". Even fewer deserve it. Richard E. Grant does both.

Spike Milligan joked that his tombstone epitaph would read, "Wrote Goon Show. Died". Grant might once have feared the same, "Played Withnail. Died".

But Grant didn't let Withnail bury him. He rolled away the stone. With cut-glass accent and razor-sharp timing he's carved a granite CV with the names of Coppola, Altman, Campion, Bracewell...

Hang on! Bracewell?

My second feature film, Cuckoo. I was directing Richard E. Grant from my own script. The weight of the granite CV suddenly felt very heavy around my neck. Whatever else happens - I reminded myself as he arrived for his first day on set - don't ask for an autograph.

Bruce Robinson prepared Grant for the role of Withnail by getting him blind drunk on vodka. (Grant is a teetotaler.) Robinson believed the experience of actually being drunk would give his actor the sense memory to play at being drunk.

In Cuckoo, Richard's character is Julius Greengrass, a cardiology professor who knows everything there is to know about the human heart, except how to form normal relationships. His character was cold, dark, and lonely.

Taking Bruce Robinson's lead, I took Richard to somewhere cold, dark, and lonely. Local people know it as Great Yarmouth.

We built a laboratory where Richard's character worked. The set was cold, dark, and lonely. I think Richard probably hated it, but he was kind enough not to tell me to my face; instead choosing local TV evening news as the best place to express his discomfort. Had he gone filming in Great Yarmouth by mistake?

Any lingering insecurity was dispelled the moment Richard walked on set to start work. It was electrifying. It was like Great Yarmouth illuminations coming on. He galvanised the other actors, he galvanised the crew. It wasn't like having Richard E. Grant on set - it was having a great actor to work with. And, since I knew how to work with an actor, then on we got.

Withnail & I is endlessly quoted - it's the language that pins you. No one else can quite reproduce the lazy-desperate cadances of "Finest wines available to humanity" or "Are you the farmer?". Grant told me he took the role of Julius in Cuckoo because he wanted to speak the character's florid dialogue. And the moment he started speaking, the character came to life.

It wasn't Withnail on set, and only once in the film is there a flash of him, one fleeting look to conjour up all the accusation and despair Grant poured into the sozzled, eponymous anti-hero. For the rest of Cuckoo, he was Julius - a living, breathing, anti-Withnail, and about as dark as Grant has ever played.

I worked with a legend and didn't want my money back. I'll keep quoting Withnail, still rating it as the funniest and saddest film ever made. And meanwhile I'll be trying to write more words for Richard E. Grant to speak.

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An unexpected companion piece to The Social Network, and quite unpredictable in lots of other ways, Catfish has snuck in just at the end of the year as one of the most compelling and surprising cinematically released documentaries in some time.

It's a film that, in the screening I caught the film at, seemed to divide the audience into those who could laugh broadly at what was happening on screen, and those who got a growing sense of unease. Whichever camp you start in at the beginning of the film, and there's no right or wrong here, it's likely that your viewpoint will have shifted several times by the time the credits roll.

That's the skill of Catfish, although to tell too much would be spoil a film that deserves to be unravelled cold. At its most basic, it's about a man, Nev Schulman, who receives a painting of a photograph he's taken. It turns out that the painting, and the ones that follow, have come from a young girl, whom he befriends and swaps messages with on Facebook.

But things evolve from that point on, and the film ultimately explores the mixture of emotions and facets that come with a relationship that begins to develop online, and the impact it has both in real and virtual life. As I said, I've held back much of the detail here, as even though it's not a film that relies on one or two spoilers, it's the way it evolves that makes it work so well.

It's also, it should be noted, very cleverly made. I'm not just talking about the presentation, which is a mix of handheld camera and web-savvy effects (including a take on the Universal logo that rivals the opening to Scott Pilgrim Vs The World). Rather, that the range of the film's subject is explored through Nev and the two directors, Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman, all of whom appear in the film. They nudge the story, even when Nev himself is far from keen.

Yet, what makes Catfish so strong is the manner in which it lingers in your head long after the credits have rolled. I found it an oddly uncomfortable film to watch, and really struggled with parts of it. Granted, its often quite raw style won't win everyone over, but it's hard to see how the subject could have been dealt with much better. It's a skilful documentary, by skilful filmmakers.

And it's also, sneaking in just weeks from the end of the year, one of 2010's finest, a film that ultimately has as much input into the debate over the social networking phenomenon as Aaron Sorkin's outstanding The Social Network script.

There's some debate generating online as to just how true the events depicted in the film are, although the filmmakers strenuously stress that it's the whole truth. That's the debate for after you've seen the film, though. For now, this is exactly the kind of challenging documentary that rarely makes the impact it should on the big screen. Do try and give it your support.

Catfish is on limited release in the UK now.

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Human beings can't alter the past unless they're screenwriters or film directors. If you're not one of them or an incarnation of Doctor Who, then you're going to struggle to change history without an expansive Stalinesque Cult of Personality and propaganda setup in place and some high-calibre airbrushing tools.

Otherwise, you're going to have to make it into the moviemaking business so you can get all Mel Gibson on history and, with blue-faced cheek, abusively reinterpret it in your own interest.

Thus empowered, time no longer holds you prisoner and you can flash your backside in its face, defiantly cry "freedom!" and play with it as you will. Hollywood especially loves doing this and has done repeatedly until the remaining impression is that America broke the enigma code and that Tom Hanks saved Private Ryan, was the true hero of World War II and went on to be a bystander at a great many of the major events of the 20th century. (This DVD textbook might be a muddled pirate copy merging multiple films into one.)

If you're bold and imaginative enough you can even go gung-ho and Inglourious Basterd-ise what has been and gone until Hitler is blown to pieces in a Paris cinema before he has chance to pull the trigger on himself in his Berlin bunker. (Though we all know that that was just a decoy and that the real Führer is currently in cryofreeze, orbiting the moons of Saturn and waiting for an opportune moment to launch the Fourth Reich afresh from distant outer space.)

Though we'd all like to go back and prevent the Holocaust, the truth is that we're selfish, and when it comes to changing the past, more concerned with pretty mundane and personal stuff. I wish I'd never gone out with them! Why did I get that terrible haircut?! Those are the kind of things that really upset us and leave a lingering bad taste.

These traumas and regrets can make us bitter, ashamed and do terrible things to us psychologically, and the fact we can't change them, even if we suddenly transformed into Quentin Tarantino and summoned up a scalp-happy Basterd squad, confounds us. If we can't edit or alter the past, then let's erase it.

This is where Lacuna, Inc. of Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind enters the frame, ready to offer its neuroscientific expertise and memory removal services.

The film (written by Charlie Kaufman, directed by Michel Gondry) sprang to mind as I was watching the ninja-western-circus flick The Warrior's Way recently. It promised much and disappointed (where was the "Ninjas! Damn!" line from the trailer? I waited the whole film for that gem of a quote and it never came!), but I don't regret seeing it.

There is, however, one unfortunate moment that I wish I hadn't witnessed and that I'd like wiped from my mind, and that's where the targeted memory erasure technicians are needed.

It probably goes to show how distorted my priorities and personality are, but the little list of things I'd like Lacuna, Inc. to pick and free me from come from films. I have no hope that they can help me with the haunting ghosts of 'real life', but I have faith that they can exorcise the visual stains that have filtered into my mind when I've watched the movies mentioned below.

It shouldn't take too long, and when these bad visions have been erased, my cinematic memory will be spotless and I'll have eternal sunshine, liberated from the lingering flashes of the following awful scenes...

The Warrior's Way: Geoffrey Rush's arse

Rush, a.k.a. Captain Barbossa and award-winning, highly renowned Australian actor of stage and screen, plays the town drunk in this freakshow noodle Western. It's all good fun and he does a fine job, until we have to see his wasted form wandering around in nothing but undergarments that leave his pallid backside exposed, hanging out forlornly. Having now seen Cap'n Barbossa's asscrack, I can honestly say I'd rather face down the Kraken than contemplate Rush's bare buttocks again. A pitiful, painful and distressing state of affairs.

Tropic Thunder: Les Grossman

Tom Cruise put on prosthetic hands and played a 'player' movie mogul and everyone seemed to find it hilarious. For me, though, the whole thing was deeply sinister. All I felt was revulsion and shuddering dread as I suffered through the sight of this grotesque man busting moves to Flo Rida.

The Forbidden Kingdom: Jet Li pees on Jackie Chan

Why is martial arts legend Jet Li urinating on my beloved Hong Kong action idol? Imagine a devout Roman Catholic being forced to sit through the scene in The Exorcist where the cathedral is blasphemously defiled and then imagine that it's revealed to be the Pope who did it (with vicious relish). That's a near equivalent of what happened with Li, Chan and me in this Americanised kung fu caper. A golden shower of gross chopsocky sacrilege.

There's Something About Mary: the zipper incident

Ben Stiller's prom night testicle tragedy traumatised me as a little boy and the thought of it still brings tears to my eyes.

Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace: bye bye Jar Jar Binks

I hereby declare the irritating Gungan banished. The problem with erasing bits out of the Star Wars prequels, though, is that, once you begin, it's hard to stop. If you start blasting any trace of midi-chlorians talk and removing the awful young Anakin, the whole saga starts to fall apart.

A more effective alternative might be to just wait for George Lucas to clean up the offending articles in an inevitable future special edition remaster. All we need to do is implant the right ideas and edits in his mind and, bingo, we have unstained, perfect Star Wars prequels.

I guess that means that Lacuna, Inc. and the Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind method aren't what we're looking for. Inception offers more effective solutions and shows that, to overcome the past, perhaps you need to change the present and the future.

Perhaps by placing those creative thoughts inside the mind of George Lucas we can set in motion the course of events that culminates in the multiverse's history being one in which Jar Jar is wiped from existence. Then we'll finally be able to make peace with the regrettable past, at least until Hitler thaws out and launches the fresh Fourth Reich offensive from the rings of Saturn.

James' previous column can be found here.

James sketched a series of movie spoof comics and they can be found here.

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While we patiently await the western release of Studio Ghibli's most recent feature, The Borrower Arrietty, the Japanese animation house has announced its next project.

Called Kokuriko-Zaka Kara, the movie will be overseen by Goro Miyazaki, the son of Hayao. Perhaps the most reality-based Ghibli movie since 1988's astounding Grave Of The Fireflies, the film is set in 1963, and relates the story of a schoolgirl living in Yokohama.

Goro Miyazaki's last film was Tales From Earthsea, a movie that was greeted with a mixed critical reception when it appeared in 2006, but nevertheless did plenty of business in its native Japan, even knocking Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest off its number one spot on its week of release.

Given that Ponyo On The Cliff took two years to make it to UK shores, it's fairly safe to say that we won't be seeing a subtitled incarnation of Kokuriko-Zaka Kara till approximately 2013.

Looking even further into the future, we've also got Hayao Miyazaki's Porco Rosso sequel, The Last Sortie to look forward to. Now, that's one film we'd love to see.

First Showing

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I took a fair amount of criticism around this time last year for my originally review of Robert Zemeckis' A Christmas Carol, which I liked very much on its cinematic release. I found it was as far removed from a Disney take on the tale (as it had been billed) as it was had been sold, save for the occasional sojourn into a mini-theme park ride.

Instead, Zemeckis tapped into Dickens' novel and went dark, bleak and often really quite scary. It's certainly a film that didn't suit a very young family audience, I thought back then, and there's little to change my mind on rewatching the Blu-ray.

And I also stand by much of what I thought then. I'm not a massive fan of the performance capture approach that Zemeckis has taken here, mainly because there are moments here that simply don't seem to need it. I still have a bit of an old-fashioned liking of proper actors, without them hiding behind a computer-generated veneer.

But what I do like is the traditional horror movie approach that's taken with the film, not least the terrific use of sound, and the selective implementation of silence. It adds a tension to the film that really helps when Zemeckis takes things to darker places, and the film as a whole is strongly directed.

The missteps, for me, come with the identity crisis of doing such a crossover between Dickens and Disney. The two, simply, don't fit together very well, and as such, you get Jim Carrey playing multiple characters (very well, to be fair), quite brilliant, but oddly out of place soaring through the sky sequences, and moments of jolliness that don't sit quite so easily with the journey that Scrooge has to go on.

For it's when focusing firmly on Scrooge, as most of the film rightly does, that A Christmas Carol hits top gear, being about as faithful to the source novel as any adaptation before it. It remains, for me, a compelling film. It's just not one, as Disney may like, to crack out and watch with the kids every year.

The Disc

One reason you will be reaching for the disc regularly, though, is to salivate over the presentation of the film. This is, for me, as stunning a Blu-ray for picture quality and sound as any other that I have. Granted, animated movies in any digital form have an inherent advantage here, but that doesn't take away from the fact that A Christmas Carol looks and sounds glorious.

The extras package isn't bad, either. The highlight of the extras, many of which are fairly routine, is the documentary that digs into the performance capture techniques of the movie. It's really interesting, and I'd have liked a lot more along these lines.

Nonetheless, even with what you get, this is a strong release of a film that's yet to be fully appreciated. It might not swing you over to the virtues of performance capture, but it is a strong, well executed piece of storytelling nonetheless.

The Film:
The Disc:

A Christmas Carol is out now on Blu-ray and available from the Den Of Geek Store.

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Before anything else, if you've not seen this movie, then don't read this review. Because I talk about some key plot points which might spoil it for you, and I'd prefer not to do that.

Having seen so many movies come to high definition with little or no effort on the part of the film company who made them, Salt is actually a breath of fresh air.

While I'm happy to accept that the entire style and presentation of this spy narrative owes much to the work of Paul Greengrass and his excellent Bourne movies, Angelina makes a believable super-agent, and the entire movie moves at an exceptionally brisk pace. It's a quart of Bourne, mixed with a dash of Mission Impossible and a slice of Nikita.

I'd guessed most of the plot twists well in advance, but it was still fun to see how things played out, and it probably made most viewers think they were smarter for beating the narrative to the punch.

There are at least two really good reasons for getting the Blu-ray, not least an excellent selection of extras, many of which aren't in the DVD release. There are two commentaries, one for the extended version of the movie, and three DVD-featured featurettes, The Ultimate Female Action Hero (8.05 HD), Spy Disguise: The Looks of Evelyn Salt (5.27 HD), "The Treatment" a Radio Interview with director Phillip Noyce (27.21 Audio).

The exclusive BD extras are another four featurettes, The Real Agents (12.33 HD), The Modern Master of the Political Thriller: Phillip Noyce (9.16 HD), False Identity: Creating A New Reality (7.15 HD) and Salt: Declassified (29.47 HD).

They've also added a 'Spy Cam' option, which has a picture-in-picture presentation through the theatrical release version, if you like being distracted.

There was much more here than I was genuinely expecting, but I'd suggest these additions are not the real nugget here. What's much more interesting is the two completely alternative versions of the movie, one of which is the Directors Cut and the other an Extended Version. In the UK this movie was released as a 12A with cuts.

These omissions are addressed in the other cuts and, actually, so are the changes made in the USA to get a 13-PG rating. But more fascinatingly, they also fix a number of plot holes that the theatrical release suffers.

One question everyone I asked about this movie had originally is why Salt runs at the end. Well, if you watch the director's cut you find out why, and also possibly why Orlov's plan actually works, although it's not the plan as presented in the theatrical version.

What appears to have happened is that the studio liked the movie, but the director's cut doesn't really allow for a sequel, so it got altered to make that possible. I won't spoil what ultimately happens, but the director's cut, in particular, has significantly more balls in delivering a less than perfect ending. The extended cut is also interesting, because in it the death of one character happens at an entirely different point, which alters things quite dramatically, and results in a totally different ending.

If you liked this movie then you'll want to see both of those cuts, because even if the running time differences are in the region of four minutes, those are minutes that put some much needed edge on what is essentially a by-the-numbers spy thriller.

In terms of quality, both the video and audio transfer is of the highest quality, with sound in DTS-HD Master Audio on the English, German and Japanese audio, and 5.1 Dolby on the Hindi and Turkish soundtracks. There is also an English descriptive audio in Dolby Surround.

Overall, this is a better movie than I was expecting, even if it does have a few scenes where reality is asked to be exceptionally elastic, and as a Blu-ray disc, it's an ideal present for anyone who is a big spy movie fan, or who just can't get enough of Angelina Jolie.

Movie:
Disc:

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

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This episode's guest star was one of the biggest models of the 60s and 70s whose iconic image has, no doubt, adorned many a wall over the years. After retiring from modelling in 1970, Twiggy embarked in a career on stage and screen, and at the time of her Muppet Show appearance had a few credits to her name including The Boyfriend, which saw her win two Golden Globes, a brief appearance in Ken Russell's The Devils and made her West End debut in a performance of Cinderella.  

The opening sketch and musical number is the headache-inducing Dance performed by an assortment of Day-Glo feather dusters. The contrast between the brightly coloured dusters and the black background is pretty poor, with levels of blur around each and every movement that's made, which is constant, and as such, I found this segment more irritating than entertaining.

Another sketch that failed to do it for me was Twiggy's performance of A.A. Milne's The King's Breakfast, which saw the guest star play the role of the milkmaid as she recited the poem. The material is strong, but the delivery came off a little too much like Playschool for me, so I found it to be a little tedious and below the level of wit shown by much of the material seen so far this series.

Other than that, though, Twiggy was an engaging guest star who showed some great comedic timing and a rather good singing voice. The Muppets News Flash segment, where she plays a woman who has consumed a tractor due to her iron deficiency, is one of the better offerings off this segment seen so far, even if it does fall some way behind the sketch in the Vincent Price episode.

Twiggy's two musical numbers were a heartfelt rendition of The Beatles' In My Life, as she performs facing a slideshow of pictures from her modelling days, with a sense of loss to her voice. Perhaps a bit more emotive than much of the material seen in the series so far, this still remains a musical highlight for me.

The other musical number is a rendition of Irving Taylor's Ain't Nobody's Business But My Own, where she plays one half of a bickering couple at the centre of the song's narrative, with the Gogolala Jubilee Jugband. Very different to her earlier performance, this is still a very strong song and another that could be a contender for one of the best of the series so far.

The phantom of the Muppet Show theme seems quite out of place here, and would really have benefited from being used in the Vincent Price episode. As such, it makes much of the backstage interactions seem at odds with the rest of the material contained in the show, of which the Twiggy material is very much the best the show has to offer.

I have to admit that, going into this episode, my expectations were quite low. I really was expecting this to be the one that broke the run of good episodes, but I was pleasantly surprised. Twiggy may not have been the most accomplished of guest stars this series, but she took to the material with a high level of enthusiasm and was really quite good. Sure, The King's Breakfast Sketch was a little poor, but apart from that, she showed off her rather impressive singing voice and solid stage presence that could handle comedy as well as more emotional content.

So, ultimately, this one's a bit of a mixed bag, but by no means a disappointment, and there's enough quality here to count this another good episode in the longest run of hits experienced so far this series.

You can read our remembrance of episode 20 here.

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Walking across London to talk to Kevin Bridges about his brand new stand-up DVD, The Story So Far - Live In Glasgow, I nearly bumped into someone coming out the door I needed to go through. Turns out, it was Bridges himself, who'd arrived early for the interview, and was popping out for a quick coffee. But from the off he was friendly, open and interesting.

A jumpy interview recording, sadly, has made a full transcription impossible. But we still managed to find out this little lot...

1. He's not an overnight success story.

"I'm the only one who's been to all of my gigs," he says, when we chat about the perception that he seems to have suddenly appeared out of nowhere. "I've been working hard at this for many years," he continues, pointing out that, while many around him spent their late teens out on the town, he was relentlessly working, night after night, to hone his act.

2. He remembers who got him there.

His gratitude to The Stand comedy club, for instance, is cemented in his maiden DVD, as he thanks them in the credits for the gig. He also thanks the people who inspired him: Frank Skinner, Noel Gallagher, Irvine Welsh and Billy Connolly.

3. He's a HBO fan.

The intro to the DVD is an homage to The Sopranos, and a fun one at that. So, what did he make of the divisive final season of The Sopranos? "I've not watched them all yet!" he confesses.

4. He enjoyed the DVD recording.

"The SECC is a massive room," he says, contrasting it with the smaller venues that he's built up his career by playing. He was clearly thrilled to do the gig in his home town, too. "It was really special," he confessed, although it did make audience interaction more difficult.

5. Michael McIntrye's Comedy Roadshow sells tickets.

"The day after the episode I was in went out, ticket sales went through the roof," he recalls. He still prefers stand-up comedy to the likes of panel shows, mind.

6. His dad is a welcome source of comedy material.

Just check out the segment on his DVD about communal pornography watching for further evidence of that...

7. Finally, he's not resting on his laurels.

He's already planning his next tour, and he's got a new Channel 4 show coming up, where he's giving up and coming acts a showcase on the telly. Expect to see a lot more of him in the years ahead...

Kevin Bridges - The Story So Far... Live In Glasgow is available on DVD now

Follow Den Of Geek on Twitter right here.

This review contains spoilers.

2.4 The Return Of Baptiste

We catch up with last week's episode with Ilsa bartering for the release of one of her friends, Susan Connors (Wendy Glenn), in South America, kidnapped by a warlord named Miguel Cervantes (Jorge Montesi). Upon returning home, it seems that Chance already has a plan to help, which involves visiting a familiar face in a secure Russian jail.

Turns out Baptiste (Lennie James) is the only person who knows where Cervantes is, so under the ruse of being FSB, Chance gets him released. Baptiste agrees to help so he can get back a vintage watch that he had taken from a former target.

When Chance and Baptiste arrive in South America, Ilsa gets a visit from a Captain Harmen (Cameron Daddo), saying her plane in South America (which was to be used by the team for the rescue escape) is grounded and under heavy armed guard.

Chance and Baptiste make their way to a bar, where Baptiste used to meet his contact, Esteban. This quickly turns into a bar brawl, culminating into a pretty entertaining fight between Chance and Baptiste. Eventually, Esteban shows up, interrupting the fight and throwing our heroes into the trunk of a car.

To get the plane released, the team back in the US come up with a plan which involves Ilsa flirting with Capt. Harmen while Winston hacks his computer.

After being stabbed in the back by Baptiste while they were digging their own graves, Chance wakes up in a room with Susan Connors. Their plan to escape goes awry, but they still manage to get out, just in time to see Baptiste making a deal with Cervantes.

The confrontation goes Chance's way after he reminds Baptiste that he had given him his word and the three of them make their escape. While Chance's bullet-filled escape was happening, Winston's plan has been successful and a quick phone call later and the plane is released, letting the three of them escape.

After a visit from Capt. Harmen confirming that he knows Ilsa had something to do with the plane being released and Susan Connors being freed, we see Chance and Baptiste on the plane back to Russia. After a little chat with a gun in his face, Chance offers Baptiste a place on his team. Knowing full well that Baptiste would try and escape, Chance has already drugged his favourite brandy.

The show ends with Chance flashing the watch Baptiste wanted, while Ilsa leaves for her date with Capt. Harmen.

To be honest, I'm not sure what to make of this episode. On one hand, we had the return of Baptiste and an introduction into a South American warlord's territory, which should be awesome, but I just felt like the episode was missing something.

There wasn't much chance for Guerrero or Winston to do much in this episode, and there was a lot of Ilsa, who proved that even in the Human Target universe most men will do anything when a pretty girl flashes her eyelids. The fight between Chance and Baptiste was, as always, very well done. The escape from Cervantes was pretty good too.

We got to see a bit more of Chance's history in this episode as well, this time from a third party. It looks like Baptiste was hurt from the way Chance had left his former employer. It also turns out that, since he was caught, Baptiste hasn't heard from the old man, which he resents, and seems to lay some of that resentment upon Chance, leaving a potentially interesting story thread to explore.

One thing that niggled at me, and maybe it's a little pedantic, but seeing Guerrero plug a SATA cable into several SATA ports as a hacking device was a little cringe worthy. Also, the lack of Ames in this episode is probably a good thing for some people, but not me. I feel that she's really starting to add to the team.

It was odd seeing Wendy Glenn in this episode. I remember her distinctly from Hollyoaks (I know, I know).

Overall, I thought this was an average episode that should have been great. The one massively redeeming feature is that it has set up an unlikely future partnership between Baptiste and Chance (to go against the old man?) and at very least we know we'll see Baptiste again when he comes looking for his watch!

Read our review of episode 3, Taking Ames, here.

Follow Den Of Geek on Twitter right here.

This review contains spoilers.

11. All The Way

This week's Nikita is the last we will see until January as the show enjoys a mid-season hiatus, and my, my, what a busy episode is was. So much plot was packed into this one single episode that it seemed like a season finale proper, instead of a merely a whetter of appetites for the second set of eleven episodes.

The story began with a fairly standard setup, with Alex getting ready for her first real assignment. The powers that be have decreed her ready to become a full field agent, and all that stands between her and escape from the claustrophobic confines of Division's training facility is the successful completion of an assignment.

This, in gansta speak, means 'icing some fool', as we have been told that recruits do not graduate until they take the life of a target, and said target, incidentally, is a rather shady chap with ties to the mafia, who is in no way heading for posthumous sainthood anyway.

Alex feels she is ready to take the assignment, and in a nice touch, the flashbacks take us back to just before the supposedly botched bunny masks heist that got Alex into Division in the first place. It is testament to the writing of this show that the flashbacks have yet to feel dull or unnecessary. Each one still brings something valuable to the narrative and these gave a nice impression of events from the first episode coming full circle to those in this episode.

We see Alex claiming she is ready to kill, yet she is still unable to go through with it, which leaves the poor sap Thom to clear up her unfinished business. In any other episode, this would be the whole plot, but in All The Way the setup and eventual execution of the target was merely a preamble to having Nikita finally come face to face with Percy, as, through a desire to save Alex, she allows herself to be captured and taken back to Division.

Nikita's return to Division could have been delayed until much later in the series, but it is another welcome surprise that the show is so eager to move the plot forward and has to get these massive events out of the way midway through the first series.

Nikita's face to face with Percy was great, but was soundly beaten by the tension of her meeting with Amanda. Amanda has been a sleeping giant so far, a simmering cauldron of evil that we were still yet to see boil over, and although we didn't witness her unbridled wrath here, the look of terror in Nikita's eyes as Amanda entered her interrogation cell spoke volumes. This was much more effective than mention of her penchant for needles, electric shocks and stabby knives in establishing her Ice Bitch credentials.

Undoubtedly, the highlight of the episode eventually came with Nikita's escape. The scene where Nikita pwns an entire brigade of recruits was possibly the standout action scene of the series thus far, and this is not said at all lightly. Nikita taught the group of wet-behind-the-ears some manners and respect, whilst using the gym weights strewn about as projectile weapons. This made me happy in ways I didn't imagine possible.

This fight was quick and extremely well choreographed (I personally like the fact that, unlike some fight scenes, the recruits didn't just attack Nikita one by one), and ended in a way that has elevated Percy's coolness rating by untold ranks. Nikita fires the gun at the glass and everyone dives out of the way, apart from Percy, who doesn't even flinch. Kudos to him, as in ‘coolness' stakes this did narrowly beat Nikita storming towards the camera swinging two very large chains. (How did Amanda escape, anyway?)

This isn't to say that this was the only good action scene, either. There was a shootout outside the mansion, and also a brilliant and unexpected scrap between Alex and Thom. I, for one, was expecting a climactic showdown between Alex and Jaden, and it was suggested by a red herring that this would be the case.

Instead we got a cramped battle in a corridor, ending in the demise and eventual framing of Thom for Alex's double dealings. This was an interesting way to remove Alex from suspicion, and is also something of a shame that Thom had to pay the ultimate price, as he wasn't half as annoying once he graduated to full field agent.

Jaden's comeuppance will have to wait, it seems, although judging by the pacing of what we've seen so far, we won't have to wait very long.

The episode was not without fault, though, and the fact that it still succeeds on almost every level, despite its faults, demonstrates what a cracking episode it was.

There were a couple of plot holes that were just plain shtoopid. At long last Birkhoff cottons on to the fact there is a leak in the system (which allows Nikita to contact Alex), and through Percy's not so subtle guesswork ascertains Nikita is on the other end. What could have been the intriguing situation of Percy playing the part of the mole and drawing Nikita out was utterly ruined within five minutes. Birkhoff knew Nikita was at the mansion. He also knew the prime candidates for the title of ‘mole' were there too, with no access to a computer. So texting "WHERE R U?" to Nikita was perhaps the stupidest thing of all time.

Another annoyance came, once again, at the lack of CCTV at Division. Or, should that be, the lack of CCTV in logical places. One shot showed CCTV feeds in the corridors of Division, so it does have a system in place, but not, for some unfathomable reason, in the armoury or outside Percy's office, to name but two places. This is obviously for plot reasons, but it's just daft, isn't it? By the end of this episode the show has patched over every other logic gap (the data breach, the unlocked vents leading to the outside world, etc), but this one seems to survive through convenience.

The episode was, on occasion, quite corny, too. The endless spiel about how killing someone 'takes away a part of you that you can never get back' seemed to have been lifted wholesale from a rather naff episode of Murder She Wrote, and the rather distracting and perpetual Mark Snow-eque incidental synths were at severe odds with the tasteful and atmospheric accompaniments of last week.

Still, as always with this show, these are but minor gripes, and are included merely so I can have a bit of a moan. In all other respects, this episode was a brilliant addition to a list still yet to have a duffer. If you have never seen this show (and if you haven't, this review would have been a very dull read, indeed) then there is now an opportunity to catch up on the previous episodes so you can rejoin it after its Christmas break.

It really has surprised me how good a show this has turned out to be, truth be told. I was expecting a sub-Alias, Dark Angel-aping mess with the same level of intelligence as the average punter of a Flares bar, but colour me converted.

Roll on episode 12!

Read our review of episode 10, Dark Matter, here.

Follow Den Of Geek on Twitter right here.

This review contains spoilers.

Milk. Beloved source of calcium and favoured additive to hot beverages. As we see in the short vignette that opens this week's instalment, Brian's life revolves around milk, from his morning bowl of cornflakes to his lowly job in a cafe. When he gets struck by the storm, he's a bit short changed when it grants him power over any dairy products. Rather than cause a great deal of mischief in a maternity ward, he becomes a local celebrity and attracts high powered publicity agent Laura, who promises him the world.

But back at the community centre, Nathan is looking forward to his community service finally being over. As he dreams about all the possibilities being immortal could grant him, he's unaware that apathetic social worker Shaun is listening. And soon Laura is offering her services.

Suddenly superpowered folk are all the rage! Movie stars are so yesterday, darling. So you can cry on cue. Yeah, whatever. There's a guy who can go back in time, yeah? Come back when you're able to breathe fire or something!

The ASBO five, as they're officially dubbed, get to meet Daisy the healer and  Lé Grand Fromagé himself, Brian. Daisy shows off to the assembled press her gift of being able to heal the disabled and sick just by laying her hands on the affected area (which gets Nathan excited when he catches a dose of the clap from a groupie). And Nathan plans his TV debut by shooting himself on the head live on TV, which Channel 4 are only a few years away from doing themselves, if BBC Three doesn't get there first, though.

Up against everyone else, Brian's power looks a bit, well, shit, really. As the attention starts to dry up, Brian decides there's one failsafe way to bring back the public gaze. And then his dairy-based powers aren't so laughable.

Like a milky Magneto, Brian manipulates dairy products to induce a grisly death on his victims, which isn't good news for our crew as they tuck into pizza. Well, all of them except lactose intolerant Curtis, the one who can travel back in time. Yeah, you can see where this is going.

From a rather quaint and charming opening, the tone gradually shifts to become perhaps the darkest episode of Misfits yet. But seeing as having four-fifths of the main cast wiped out is a bit of a cul-de-sac, there really was only one way it could be resolved. If only it didn't feel so horribly cheap and quick, though.

Coming as it did after some great moments of character and plot development, such as Simon finding out about his future self and becoming the mean and moody vigilante he's only read comics about, which itself was rendered pointless when he's stabbed moments later.

But reset button ending aside, there's so much that was typically great about this episode. Jordan Metcalfe as Brian is astounding as we see the darkness gradually take hold of this once shy and retiring young man. Props also go to Rob Sheehan. It's impossible not to feel sorry for the cocky Nathan as he falls to the ground a helpless invalid after having his mind molested by mozzarella.

With its usual combination of great dialogue, comedy and suspense, this should have been fantastic. If only it wasn't for such a cop out ending...

Misfits returns for a Christmas Special on Sunday, December 19th at 10:00pm which is rebroadcast on Christmas Eve, Friday, December 24th on E4. You'll find more details here.

You can read our review of episode 5 here.

All the series 2 reviews are here.

Follow Den Of Geek on Twitter right here.

The year’s nearly over and the season of turkey beckons. As 2010 draws to a close, what better time to pick over the films of the last 12 months? Here, then, are the writers of Den Of Geek’s five favourite films of the year, along with their most despised misfire of 2010.

And at the bottom, we’ve got the round-up of the overall top ten (it'll take a bit of scrolling if you want to go directly there!). So, what’s our absolute favourite movie of the year? Read on to find out…

TI SINGH

Top 5
1. Agora
2. Inception
3. Toy Story 3
4. Robin Hood
5. The Social Network

Stinker of the year: The Other Guys

I love a good historical epic, and in a summer dominated by sequels, remakes and reboots, it was a breath of fresh air to not only see something different, but that didn't speak down to the viewer. Despite being the most expensive Spanish film ever made, Agora was barely seen on any UK cinemas and I only got to see via LoveFilm, but I am glad I did.

This film is astounding. Not only does it breathtakingly show ancient Alexandria, its legendary lighthouse and its library in flawless CGI, but also the religious intolerance and Christian fundamentalism that was just taking hold.

As the Roman Empire is fading into history, the garrison has hardly any control, and as such, it is the religious fundamentalists that have the real power. As blood begets blood and intolerance breeds hatred, trapped in the middle is the rational philosopher and astronomer Hypatia (Rachel Weisz), who, as arguably the most reasonable person in the city, can only watch in disbelief at what is going on around her, in a performance that’s amazing to watch.

It is a damning portrayal of fundamentalism, intolerance and taking things on blind faith. As Hypatia tells one of her former pupils, "Synesius, you don't question what you believe. You cannot. I must."

It's a fantastic film that not only shows how ancient minds questioned their role in the universe, but how religious intolerance has barely moved on at all. I was also impressed by Oscar Issac, who displayed far less ham than he did in Robin Hood as King John, and who gave a genuinely moving performance.

I can only nominate what I saw, and I never saw the likes of Jonah Hex, The Spy Next Door or The Switch, so I am going to have to nominate The Other Guys for stinker of the year. It wasn't the worst film ever made, but when you have a film from the people behind Anchorman and you only laugh twice, things are wrong.

DANIEL MONTESINOS-DONAGHY

Top 5
1. Exit Through The Gift Shop
2. Scott Pilgrim Vs The World
3. Inception
4. Dogtooth
5. A Prophet

Stinker of the year: A Boy Called Dad

There’s too much good-to-great stuff this year to put into a top five: The Social Network, Four Lions, White Material, Enter The Void and Black Dynamite were hovering about, but these five stuck with me the most. Deserving nods go to A Prophet, for Audiard's tight storytelling, Dogtooth, for its dryly observed nasty surprises, Inception, which made me cry three times (old Mal/Dom, the totem cliffhanger, embarrassingly the zero-gravity fight), Scott Pilgrim Vs The World, for the most breathless fun spent in a cinema since Kung Fu Hustle, and Exit, for somehow saying everything about everything and for living on as a red herring nine months after its release.

I missed covering the Edinburgh Film Festival this year for DoG, and although it wasn't a vintage year, I found two great flicks, Col Spector's hilarious Honeymooner and Alberto Calvacanti's They Made Me A Fugitive, a deeply underrated British noir from 1947.

Also big for me in 2010: Esther Rots' feverish Can Go Through Skin, an Encounters discovery, the films of Jafar Panahi, Turner Classic Movies on Sky, and my best friend (and DoG writer!) Carl England's engagement.

On a sombre note, my Stirling University film tutor Mark Brownrigg passed away suddenly this month. Without his classes and his infectious love of film, I doubt I'd feel the same way about the world right now. He will be greatly missed.

MARK PICKAVANCE

Top 5
1. Toy Story 3
2. How To Train Your Dragon
3. Despicable Me
4. Kick-Ass
5. Inception

Stinker of the year: Clash Of The Titans

I really hope people grasp that we're living through a new golden age of animation, which is why all my top three films are of that kind. Toy Story 3 was a technical perfect storm, where great storytelling, visual gags, characters came together. Pixar also put in place a strong emotional foundation, underpinning the whole movie in a way that highlighted for me how many productions these days entirely fail to connect with their audience.

How to Train Your Dragon was the dark horse here, as DreamWorks has a very inconsistent track record in the family entertainment stakes. I was genuinely shocked how good this film was, and if you've not seen it, I'd certainly recommend you make the time to watch it.
Finally, Kick-Ass takes the whole superhero genre and kicks it smartly in the crotch, and about time too.

MARK HARRISON

Top 5
1. Toy Story 3
2. Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World
3. Inception
4. The Social Network
5. The Secret In Their Eyes

Stinker of the year: Vampires Suck

Is there another trilogy as note-for-note perfect as the Toy Story series? It finished off in spectacular style in 2010, and it's now hotly tipped as the first animated film to win the Oscar for Best Picture.

In an underpowered summer, it was nice to see that my three favourite films of the year were all playing in cinemas at the same time. Then again, I'm a big fan of Christopher Nolan, Edgar Wright and Pixar, so perhaps the top three was inevitable. For instance, although I think The Social Network is probably the best film of the year, it's not my favourite.

Rounding out my top five was the deserving winner of last year's Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, The Secret In Their Eyes, of which much less has been said, compared to my other four choices. It's a romance and a murder mystery in equal measure, properly balancing those transgeneric elements through to a really great climax.

MATTHEW SHEPPARD

Top 5
1. Scott Pilgrim Vs The World
2. Exit Through The Gift Shop
3. Toy Story 3
4. Resident Evil: Afterlife
5. Kick-Ass/The Losers

Stinker of the year: Clash Of The Titans

Scott Pilgrim Vs The World was a great film with a spot on cast, but what made it my top film was that it really managed to capture the charming spirit of the comic so well.

Exit Through The Gift Shop was a fascinating documentary for two reasons, exposing the unseen side of graffiti and street art and the sheer madness of Thierry Guetta and his becoming an ‘artist’. If you have any interest in art, this is a must-watch.

A great film with characters that you feel you’ve grown with, Toy Story 3 saw Pixar at its creative best. And the ending? Not a dry eye in the house.

I was expecting to be very disappointed by Resident Evil: Afterlife, but found it great fun. Yes, it’s a bad film, but it knows it’s a bad film and doesn’t really care.

As for my number five choice, I can’t decide. Kick-Ass is a better film than the comic and The Losers is a better comic than the film, but I enjoyed them both hugely.

PETE DILLON-TRENCHARD

Top 5
1. Toy Story 3
2. Four Lions
3. Daybreakers
4. Kick-Ass
5. Iron Man 2

Stinker of the year: Scott Pilgrim Vs The World

Toy Story 3 (Tagline: "You'll believe a man can cry.") was easily the best film of 2010, bucking the trend of diminishing returns and providing a touching, funny and clever send-off for some much-loved characters and Jessie the cowgirl.

Elsewhere, Chris Morris walked skilfully along the fine line between comedy and tragedy with his compelling cinematic and controversial debut, Four Lions, earning second place.

Next up is Daybreakers, a sci-fi thriller which didn't do huge numbers at the box office, but which gave the vampire genre a much-needed kick up the backside. (Yes, Twilight, I'm looking at you.)

Rounding off the list are superheroes Kick-Ass and Iron Man, because, let's face it, who doesn't love a good superhero movie?

Finally, space prevents me going into detail regarding just what I didn't like with Scott Pilgrim Vs The World, but it was a film where I was willing the end credits to roll. A really lightweight film, for me.

CAMERON K MCEWAN

Top 5
1. Ponyo
2. Mysteries Of Lisbon
3. Inception
4. Toy Story 3
5. The Princess And The Frog

Stinker of the year: The A-Team

It’s been a bumper year for animated features, particularly those of quality. And despite the continuing barrage of CG cartoonery, good ole fashioned 2D animation showed its younger, flashier brothers and sisters that storytelling and beauty are more than a match for pixels and bang.

Having said that, Toy Story 3 did highlight the pluses of the genre, but it took the incomparable tale merchantry of genuine filmmaking genius Hayao Miyazaki to show the world of cinema that fantastical realism combined with a childlike simplicity ensures the kind of heart-warming experience that one wishes every studio, writer and director could emulate.

In the live-action department, fellow maverick storyteller Raúl Ruiz blazed across the big screen over almost five hours in Mysteries Of Lisbon. Adapted from his Portuguese television series of the same name, Ruiz displays, once again, that he is truly a master of the art of the moving image. Not bad for an exiled Chilean kicking on the door of seventy years old. One wonders how Inception’s director Christopher Nolan will be faring in thirty years or so. Let’s hope he’s still making his self-defined art house blockbuster.

But top plaudits for 2010 must go to Miyazaki. Ponyo may not be his best work, but the opening undersea wonderland scenes aptly demonstrate that Japan’s finest has much more to give to cinema.

CHARLOTTE STEAR

Top 5
1. Scott Pilgrim Vs The World
2. The Social Network
3. All About Evil
4. Micmacs
5. Kick-Ass

Stinker of the year: Sex And The City 2

By a mile, Scott Pilgrim has to be my standout film of 2010. After obsessing over the graphic novels, analysing each trailer to death, worrying about how a film could live up to the incredible high standards I had set it, my anxieties were finally laid to rest as I watched the greatest book adaptation ever made and a wonderful piece of cinematic perfection.

Next in line was the amazingly atmospheric Social Network. Brilliant performances (Justin Timberlake proving Alpha Dog wasn’t his only great performance. I’m totally serious!) and an amazing soundtrack by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross made this a standout film of the year.

A few months ago, I was introduced to the mastery of Peaches Christ with her film debut, All About Evil. Full of grotesque gore and camp horror, it’s a brilliant B-movie shocker.

Jean-Pierre Jeunet came back in style this year with Micmacs, a brilliant piece of oddity and strange living. The whole film seemed to have an air of the silent era to it, completely bizarre but beautiful.

Kick-Ass delivered all it promised: shocking violence, amazing visuals and the best use of swear words I’ve heard in a long time. It’s a shame (along with Scott Pilgrim) it didn’t perform as well at the box office, as these are truly some of the best films to hit our screens in a long time.

There isn’t enough room on the Internet to explain why Sex And The City 2 is the worst film of the year. The only thing it succeeded in doing was ruining five series of what I had regarded as a good TV show.

RON HOGAN

Top 5
1. The Social Network
2. The Expendables
3. Kick Ass
4. Machete
5. The American

Stinker of the year: The Twilight Saga: Eclipse

When considering the best movies of 2010, a great number of potential movies came to mind. I thought over my choices for a bit and then I realized that they're all less than mainstream movies. Even the most ‘normal’ movie on the list, The Social Network, is kind of a Super Friends for movie nerds, teaming cult favorites David Fincher, Aaron Sorkin, and Jesse Eisenberg.

Then there's a flashy 80s action flick where the bullets fly like one-liners, a south-of-the-border take on the blaxploitation classics of the 70s, a postmodern superhero film where the hero's only power is his ability to get beaten to a pulp, and an action-packed spy thriller with very little action and even less dialogue.

As for the worst movie of the year, I hate to beat a dead horse. Unfortunately for me, the sparkly teenage vampires of Twilight just refuse to die like the horse did. Just when I think the movies can't get any worse, the next Twilight film oozes down the silver screen like Axe body lard on a shirtless werewolf and limbos right under those already low standards.

JAMES CLAYTON

Top 5
1. The American
2. Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World
3. Whip It
4. Black Death
5. Inception

Stinker of the year: The Expendables

On reflection, this has been a great year for movies and any pessimist who says otherwise clearly hasn't been watching. There are fantastic films out there if you get beyond the scum on the surface and dive into the ocean of wonders that lies beneath. There are great depths to discover and looking over my own top five I see 'depth' as a key word.

They're all stylish, immersive, enjoyable stories that really resonate, for me personally at least, because they also engage with deep stuff, vast concepts and ideas and grapple with the human condition. They are all doing intelligent things and not insulting audiences.

Black Death is terrifyingly raw real-feeling history. Inception is an audaciously cerebral crime thriller unravelled through layers of lucid dream and Whip It is a feminist coming-of-age roller derby riot.

Scott Pilgrim is pure awesomeness incarnate and the sheer heart, personality and imaginative outlook of our confused, pop culture-affected generation realised on screen, but I'll give The American top spot. Anton Corbijn's meditative film about a lost and isolated man trying to find humanity is, in my view, a perfect motion picture, a timeless and moving masterpiece.

PAUL MARTINOVIC

Top 5
1. Four Lions
2. Toy Story 3
3. The Social Network
4. A Prophet
5. Winter’s Bone

Stinker of the year: The Tourist

For reasons I can’t quite articulate, it’s felt like a quietly underwhelming year for film, yet, in compiling a top five, it’s clear that the best movies of 2010 can go up against pretty much any year you care to name and come out swinging. There wasn’t even room for Inception and Scott Pilgrim Vs The World, two technical masterpieces with a fair share of heart to boot, both sure to go down in movie lore as all-time geek favourites.

Socio-realist drama Winter’s Bone was a quiet revelation, using the meth-addled backwoods of middle America as the setting for a riveting noir-esque thriller. Featuring in Ree Dolly the most dignified and sympathetic female lead since Marge Gunderson, its impossibly bleak and brilliant visuals were unforgettable.

A Prophet came out at the very beginning of 2010, but deserves to be remembered, as it manages to marry the hoary old staples of the prison film and the gangster film together to create something entirely original without a single clichéd or hackneyed moment, while still remaining as elementally thrilling as the best pulp.

The Social Network will deservedly be most people’s film of the year, bringing to life one of the 21st century’s most important stories with Jesse Eisenberg’s magnificent central performance, David Fincher’s typically stylish direction and, of course, the reams of achingly cool, rapid-fire repartee that have given Aaron Sorkin serious claim to be the greatest living screenwriter. Their immense combined talents produced a film that was met with almost universal derision when it was announced, into the one that nearly everybody can agree on.

With the exception of Toy Story 3, of course, where Pixar continued their, frankly, ridiculous winning streak. It’s starting to feel like a Pixar film will be a prerequisite in every end of year best list until the end of time. Funny, clever, moving, with the best cast of characters of any film this year, it could well be the best Toy Story, which automatically makes it one of the best films ever made.

Finally, Four Lions. A suicide bomber comedy from Chris Morris sounds likes a one-joke film, a deliberate provocation from the creator of the Brass Eye paedophilia special. That it isn’t is due to Morris’ surprisingly assured and understated direction, the wonderfully nuanced and witty script from Morris and Peep Show scribes Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain, and uniformly fantastic performances, but with the stunningly good MC Riz as a standout. When asked if he was happy with the resulting film, Morris, never one for false modesty, described it as “frame-perfect”. He’s right, you know.

RYAN LAMBIE

Top 5
1. Monsters
2. Buried
3. World’s Greatest Dad
4. The Social Network
5. Inception

Stinker of the year: Resident Evil: Afterlife

I’ve always loved science fiction, even if it is the most frustrating genre in cinema. For every classic film like Moon (my top film of last year), we get a dozen clunky, brainless disasters like Skyline. Thank God, then, for Inception, a film that wears its sci-fi cloak lightly but intelligently. Its third act was too long, and Nolan’s direction a little too cool to be emotionally engaging, but it was nevertheless full of great ideas and superb performances from Leonardo DiCaprio and Marion Cotillard.

The Social Network was another brilliantly constructed, excellently acted film. World’s Greatest Dad is, without doubt, one of the blackest of black comedies yet made, and Robin Williams was stunning in a role many actors wouldn’t even have touched. Buried was a Poe nightmare for the mobile phone age, and Ryan Reynolds performed the apparently impossible task of carrying an entire feature by himself,  proof that, with a good enough actor, you really can make a classic thriller with a pine box and a movie camera.

My film of the year, meanwhile, is definitely Monsters. Beautifully shot and acted, it’s a sci-fi movie with a heart and soul as well as great ideas, and like last year’s Moon, exemplifies everything that’s great about the genre.

JOSEPH EWENS

Top 5
1. A Single Man
2. Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World
3. Precious
4. Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call – New Orleans
5. I’m Still Here

Stinker of the year: The Blind Side

A Single Man is a beautiful greyscale portrait of a repressed and depressed homosexual in the early 60s, with a pitch perfect heart-squeezing performance from Colin Firth. It’s a film which is both dull and vivid, depressing and liberating. Julianne Moore and Nicholas Hoult are solid in support, but the film is all about Firth’s quivering college professor, whose resolve to end his own life is thrown into doubt by the innocent, but sexually charged intervention of a bright-eyed student. The film is a little light on narrative, but you feel acutely every turning cog in George’s mind as he moves tantalisingly further and further from misery.

The rest are a pick-and-mix bag of emotions. Scott Pilgrim is a popcorn lightning bolt of awesome funitude, while Precious is a testing vision of aching persecution with great acting and no small amount of spirit. A gloriously insane Nicholas Cage provided my most ebullient cinematic experience of the year in wierdo cop-thriller Bad Lieutenant and Joaquin Phoenix’s ‘is he/isn’t he’ conundrum in I’m Still Here was hideously watchable. Even after Casey Affleck casually gave the game away, it remains an intriguing window into the madness of celebrity.

MATT EDWARDS

Top 5
1. Scott Pilgrim
2. Inception
3. Toy Story 3
4. Shutter Island
5. Whip It

Stinker of the year: A Nightmare On Elm Street

I didn’t get to see everything I would have liked to this year, and that extends beyond cinema. I would love to have seen a grizzly bear have an altercation with Michael Bay, for example. However, sticking to the subject, these are my favourite five films of the year, in the order of how favourite they are.

Scott Pilgrim was my most favourite film of the year. It was as terrific an adaptation of the comic series as I could have hoped for. It was loud, colourful, pretty and sweet, with lots of fighting.

Second most favourite was Inception for several reasons, none more important than a zero gravity fight in a hotel corridor.

Toy Story 3 comes next, which Pixar used to showcase its super villain-like power of turning testosterone-heavy masculinity machines into weeping puddles of wreckage.

Shutter Island is a freaky horror film that Martin Scorsese made and so was guaranteed a spot on this list even before I knew that it was brilliant. The twist ending wasn’t ideal, but the emotional punch right afterwards made up for it. Last on my list of favourites is Whip It, which was loaded with passion, great performances and violent sports.

Last summer’s blockbuster season was so poor that this year I decided to do away with my normal policy of ‘see everything’. Anything that looked awful, I ignored and for the most part, I’ve hardly seen any terrible films this year. Unfortunately, being a dedicated Fred-head meant that I was obliged to check in with the remake of A Nightmare On Elm Street, which is the worst film I’ve seen this year. There are so many faults with the film that rather than wasting all of our time listing them, I’m just going to boo loudly. Booooo!

STU ANDERSON

Top 5
1. Inception
2. Up In The Air
3. Scott Pilgrim Vs The World
4. Toy Story 3
5. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Stinker of the year: Predators

I’d be surprised if many of this year’s top film lists didn’t start with Inception. For the past ten years, Christopher Nolan has been cementing himself as one of the finest directors in the game with his own brand of thought provoking, classy cinema, and Inception is his best piece yet.

George Clooney and the entire cast of Up In The Air provoked head turning performances at the start of the year, as did Noomi Rapace in Män Som Hatar Kvinnor/The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (a film that I doubt any Fincher remake will best).

Scott Pilgrim Vs The World proved a hit for film/comic/videogame/indie music nerds everywhere with a hyperactive combo of comic visuals and witty humour.

The comeback kid award surely goes to Toy Story 3, which returned to our screens eleven years after the previous instalment, and succeeded in being just as good as its predecessors.

My worst film of the year was Predators, not only for such terrible use of the franchise, but also for such terrible use the actor, Danny Trejo. A painfully forgettable film, whose premise showed such potential.

NICK HORTON

Top 5
1. A Prophet
2. Winter’s Bone
3. Monsters
4. Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World
5. Inception

Stinker of the year: Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time

Compared to last year, 2010 has been a very good year for film overall. Having said that, however, there was only ever going to be one winner of my films of the year.

A Prophet is quite simply a masterpiece. The first thing I said after watching it was that I had seen something important. And the great thing is I still don’t know quite what. It is an ephemeral creation which floats just at the edge of my consciousness. I feel that I can almost grasp all the meanings and subtext before it floats away again. And that’s not counting the incredible crime story it tells when not dealing in unquantifiable metaphors. It’s not just the finest film of this year. It’s one of the finest films of recent years.

One other mention I must make of my list is the recent Monsters. It’s a British film, people! And it was made for the price of a weekly shop, but looks better than many blockbusters, while having a story and characters you genuinely care about. Which, when you think about it, is nothing short of a miracle.

DUNCAN BOWLES

Top 5
1. The Expendables
2. Solomon Kane
3. How To Train Your Dragon
4. The Losers
5. Predators

Stinker of the year: A Nightmare On Elm Street (2010)

Now, before anyone gets carried away, I’ll disclose that, in conventional terms of cinematic greatness, my list would contain The Social Network and Toy Story 3 (at the time of writing I’ve still yet to see Inception), but I decided to pick films that are special to me in their own way.

The Expendables, regardless of content, was a film that fulfilled a childhood dream by putting so many of my heroes in one film. In essence, just the short scene with Stallone, Schwarzenegger and Willis would have made the top of the list, even if they were just talking about the weather, objectivity be damned.

I’ve been championing Solomon Kane since the start of the year, having reviewed it twice on this very website. It hasn’t been given the recognition it deserves and has proved utterly rewatchable, as has The Losers, which appealed to the 80s action movie throwback that I am and has been a regular addition to movie nights.

How To Train Your Dragon absolutely blew me away, as I had no real expectations. It’s funny, touching and rousing (thanks, in part, to the score by the ever excellent John Powell) and I’d recommend it to everyone, especially on Christmas Day.

Predators, on the other hand, I missed at the cinema as it vanished so quickly, while friends seemed let down by its mediocrity as an homage to Arnie’s original. With my enthusiasm slightly tempered, I finally watched it on Blu-ray and loved it (constant line referencing apart). I thought it was raised by its cast (especially Walton Goggins), explosive violence and the Berserker Predator. Just a good, solid action film.

JULIAN WHITLEY

Top 5
1. A Town Called Panic
2. Toy Story 3
3. Kick-Ass
4. Four Lions
5. The Social Network

Stinker of the year: Burke and Hare

Essentially a big screen adaptation of the Cravendale milk adverts, A Town Called Panic was, without doubt, the most imaginative, completely bonkers cinematic experience of the year.

The film follows the increasingly surreal exploits of Cowboy, Indian and Horse, a trio of self-explanatory toys in a Magic Roundabout-esque world of madness. Deciding to build a barbecue as a gift for Horse’s birthday, Cowboy and Indian accidentally order 50 million bricks off the Internet, the weight of which destroys their home, which keeps getting stolen wall by wall, following every attempt to rebuild it, which forces them to journey to the centre of the Earth, literally , to retrieve it, which leads to the group finding themselves kidnapped inside a giant, mechanical, snowball-throwing snowman. The plot really is as incomprehensible as it seems, and delightfully so. Created using weirdly off-kilter stop motion animation, and delivered at breakneck pace, A Town Called Panic has to be seen to be believed.

As for disappointments, Burke And Hare was a huge letdown. What should have been a macabre cult classic somehow resulted in a depressingly predictable, middle-of-the-road humour vacuum. Everything was misjudged, from Isla Fisher’s accent to Michael Winner’s out of place cameo. A frustrating failure, indeed.

LUKE SAVAGE

Top 5
1. Kick-Ass
2. Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call – New Orleans
3. Up in the Air
4. The Town
5. Monsters

Stinker of the year: Tron: Legacy

I should start with an admission: the two biggies this year, The Social Network and Toy Story 3, have passed me by. Terrible, I know. I did buy a ticket for the former, only to have Vue Fulham Broadway mess up the screening. I ended up walking home and buying a dust pan and brush instead. Not a great afternoon. On the other, I’ve never been a big fan of Toy Story. Give me The Incredibles any day.

So, my top five is headed by two Cage epics. Kick-Ass wins it by a country mile (add your own Hit Girl inflection there). It was just so much fun it was hard not to be swept away by it. And although it's been a year and a bit since I saw Bad Lieutenant at London Film Festival 2009, no other film since has had me laughing so much, or had so inspired a final ten minutes.

Up In The Air was really good (that's all I've got time for), The Town equally so (when Affleck isn't doing ensemble guff like He's Just Not That Into You or Smokin' Aces, he can direct a film as well as anyone), and Monsters was not at all what I was expecting, but still very exciting in its own way.

There's no Inception here. But I have my reasons. It was the first Nolan film that left me cold. Big and beautiful, yes, but also so caught up in its own tricksy narrative that it didn't really engage me enough. And Michael Marshall Smith must be wondering where his 'story by' credit is.

At the other end, Tron: Legacy kinda blew. Sorry to dash any expectations. I fell asleep a bit.

RORY COOPER

Top 5
1. Scott Pilgrim Vs The World
2. Four Lions
3. Kick-Ass
4. Toy Story 3
5. Inception

Stinker of the year: The Last Airbender

2010 spoiled us a great deal. Christopher Nolan confused us with the rather brilliant Inception, Scott Pilgrim and Kick-Ass gave us a new way to look at comic book movies, Chris Morris gave us a view of suicide bombers we didn’t expect and Toy Story 3 wowed us with it’s ability to make thirty-odd-year-old men cry like rejected X Factor contestants.

Stinker of the year was a difficult one to call. I’d got it down to Twilight: Eclipse, the latest film in the disco vampire franchise featuring sullen, emo Jesus, Vampire heart-throb Edward Cullen and the highly emotive chin with a face that is Bella Swan. Thankfully for all the women who think stalking is a romantic thing for vampires to do, along came The Last Airbender, a film so bad it temporarily gave me tourettes’ syndrome.

It could be the school play level acting, the wildly variable quality of the special effects, the schizophrenic casting , haphazard editing or just the general all round dullness of the script and direction. Whatever it was, The Last Airbender was a failure of epic proportions, and testament to M. Night Shyamalan’s ability to turn a moving, funny, warm, epic and exciting animated series into the cinematic equivalent of something you would carefully step over in the street.

KARL HODGE

Top 5
1. Fish Story
2. Youth In Revolt
3. Four Lions
4. Scott Pilgrim Vs The World
5. Shutter Island

Stinker of the year: Twilight: Eclipse

It's been a funny year for geek movies. Kick-Ass was the really big deal this year, wasn't it? Except, in retrospect, it kinda wasn't. And Iron Man 2 was fun, but not much more.

So, because I've yet to see Inception or The Social Network (movies I suspect might usurp the lower choices on my list) I'll explain my top two picks. I'm sure you've seen the others.

Endearing Japanese flick, Fish Story, is one I had to dig deep for. I found it reading foreign language movie reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. As you do. It's about a punk rock song, fate and the end of the world. Sci-fi fans will love it. Fans of slow burn indie comedy will love it. People who watch foreign movies so they can pretend to be clever will love it.

Youth In Revolt is the cusp-of-last-year comedy everyone seems to have missed. My admiration for it puts me in the embarrassing position of having to include two Michael Cera films in my top five. It's not like I want to have his babies or anything, but both Scott Pilgrim and Youth in Revolt did that rare thing. They surprised me. It's like JD Salinger rewritten by Jerry Lewis. You should seek it out.

CARLEY TAUCHERT

Top 5
1. Toy Story 3
2. The Social Network
3. Scott Pilgrim Vs The World
4. Kick-Ass
5. The Expendables

Stinker of the year: A Nightmare On Elm Street

What can I say about Toy Story 3 that hasn’t already been said? Yes, it is brilliant and funny and ultimately very touching, but what really made it my film of the year was the very last scene where a now grown up Andy plays with the toys one final time. The honesty and emotion of it was so well thought out that it brought more than just a tear to the eye and reminds me just how amazing Pixar are at what they do and why they really are the masters of the animated field.

Stinker of the year, if not the decade, has to go to A Nightmare On Elm Street. I’m pretty sure the only reason it was made was to line Michael Bay’s pockets with a bit more cash, because it seems as if no real thought went into it whatsoever. The story was an insult to the original, as were the special effects. The only saving grace? It was only 95 minutes long.

HELEN COX

Top 5
1. Hot Tub Time Machine
2. The Kids Are All Right
3. Piranha 3D
4. Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale
5. Nowhere Boy

Stinker of the year: Edge Of Darkness

Laugh out loud comedy is a tough thing to deliver to cinema audiences in 2010. Too jaded are we by the rebuffs of Kutcher-fuelled rom-coms and lame romps starring Russell Brand. Hot Tub Time Machine was the first film, for me, in a long time to break this never-ending cycle of uninspired capers and to restore my faith in the possibilities of farce. I feel a bit bad admitting it, but Piranha 3D also made me laugh out loud this year, albeit for very different reasons. It’s probably the most exploitative piece of cinema I’ve ever sat through and I enjoyed every second of it!

It was difficult to choose between A Single Man and The Kids Are All Right, both of which star the impeccable Julianne Moore, but I figured A Single Man won a BAFTA, so it didn’t really need my approval. Moore was captivating as the confused lesbian mother, Jules, and Annette Bening put in a pitch-perfect performance as her over-protective partner, Nic.

I was utterly charmed by Nowhere Boy. Watching Aaron Johnson, Kristin Scott Thomas and Anne-Marie Duff meandering their way through emotional wrangles in vintage Liverpool had me smiling wryly, laughing and, at times, weeping.

Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale is a sure sign, as if we needed one, that 80s kids have come of age and they’re ready to direct all-new 80s inspired masterpieces. That has to be good news.

GLEN CHAPMAN

Top 5
1. Inception
2. Monsters
3. The Social Network
4. Mother
5. Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call - New Orleans

Stinker of the year: The Last Airbender

Inevitably, when it comes time to compile such lists there will be talk about what a bad year it has been for films. But how many good films does there need to be for a year to be classed as a good year? It’s a tricky thing to quantify.

Personally, my shortlist contained over twenty titles and involved a lot of shuffling round until I was satisfied that my top five represented the films that had the biggest impact on me over the course of the year, and many films that I considered to be great had to be left off.
Numbers 5 and  4 may have been available elsewhere prior to 2010, but as they received official UK releases in 2010, I had to include them. I regard the films on my list as brilliant pieces of work in very different ways, but all took fairly standard plot devices and produced something remarkable.

All of the films on the list are very much the product of their incredibly talented directors and the stinker of the year sees the efforts of a once promising director sink further into the pits of creative despair as he takes an exciting source and produces a dull and ridiculous adaptation.

JAMES PEATY

Top 5
1. Inception
2. Toy Story 3
3. Scott Pilgrim Vs The World
4. The Social Network
5. Tamara Drewe

Stinker of the year: Iron Man 2

Inception is an obvious choice, but with his seventh film, Christopher Nolan (and his first self-penned effort since 2001's Memento) firmly established himself as the undisputed king of modern popular cinema with a story of identity, memory and the power of storytelling. Featuring Leonardo DiCaprio at his absolute best and excellent supporting turns from the ever excellent Tom Hardy and Ellen Page, Inception should get us all excited for what Nolan has planned for his upcoming farewell trip to Gotham City and anticipating what movies await us post-Batman.

As Mary Poppins would say, “Practically perfect in every way”, Toy Story 3 is the best three-quel Hollywood has ever produced and the first truly satisfying conclusion to a movie trilogy ever. Woody, Buzz and the gang are faced with the ultimate threat, old age, in a story that manages to be fun, dark, heartbreaking and hilarious in equal measure. Expertly handled by director Lee Unkrich and deftly scripted by Little Miss Sunshine's Michael Arndt, Toy Story 3 is, like Inception, Hollywood at its best.

Criminally overlooked by audiences on release, Scott Pilgrim is a tour de force from Edgar Wright. An 8-bit version of Kill Bill crossed with Walter Hill's The Warriors and musicals like Grease. Working outside of a British millieu for the first time, Wright takes Bryan Lee O Malley's black and white comic book series and brings it to vivid (though slightly surreal) life in a movie full of great performances, pithy one-liners and terrific action sequences.

David Fincher's best film since Fight Club, The Social Network is a perfect capper to the noughties in much the same way as his previous masterpiece summed up the empty nihilism of the 90s. With a world class script by Aaron Sorkin, an amazing soundtrack by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross and star making turns from Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield and Armie Hammer, The Social Network is more than the sum of its parts and, unlike the toothless Wall Street sequel, says something very pertinent about American capitalism, culture and society at the turn of the millennium. And it's funny, too, which always helps!

This fifth choice was the hardest. It could have been The Kids Are All Right for its performances, Cyrus for its oh-so-bleak, but brilliant take on dysfunctional families or even Greenberg for Noah Baumbach's visually gorgeous and wonderfully underplayed story of midlife disappointment. Instead, I'm going to go for Stephen Frears' Tamara Drewe. A subtle, very funny and very black comedy of manners based on Posy Simmonds graphic novel, Tamara Drewe finds Frears on top form and features a top notch British cast (including Roger Allam, Gemma Arteton, Tamsin Greig and Dominic Cooper) all bringing their a-game to the table. An overlooked gem of the year.

Stinker of the year? Iron Man 2 was the laziest, smuggest and most shapeless film of this past summer. Never has such a good cast been so poorly served by the material on offer.

ROBERT MCLAUGHLIN

Top 5
1. Despicable Me
2. Inception
3. Iron Man 2
4. Scott Pilgrim Vs The World
5. Toy Story 3

Stinker of the year: Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time

While Inception, Iron Man 2 and Scott Pilgrim made my top five this year, my personal favourite (so far, I’ve yet to see Tron: Legacy) was Despicable Me. While not Oscar worthy, this was, in my opinion, the sleeper hit of this year.

Pixar had Toy Story 3, DreamWorks had Shrek 4, but for me, these pale in comparison (especially the abysmal Shrek) to the comedy and light-hearted fun bought to the screen by Gru and his army of minions. Whether it was the sheer genius of the evil contractions or the fixation with unicorns, the film just felt fun, neither weighed down by expectation or a history of prior movies to live up to and, in the same way Monsters Vs Aliens did, was happy to produce a unique story aimed at both adults with a wicked sense of humour, and children alike.

Vector’s thinly veiled attempts to disguise and hide the pyramid he stole and Gru’s kitten-based children’s book adventure, the artistic and vocal talents, not to mention a new set of ‘heroes’ created in the Tic Tac-inspired minions, outshone a lot of the bigger animated guns this year. And while Toy Story 3 was beautiful, moving and loving, Despicable Me was all those things,with an added layer of freshness, a sort of animated cherry on top, as it were, that just gave this movie the edge over Woody, Buzz and Co’s third outing.

MICHAEL LEADER

Top 5
1. The Social Network
2. Micmacs
3. The Kids Are All Right
4. World’s Greatest Dad
5. I Am Love

Stinker of the year: The Last Airbender

Now, this is a tough one. Even excluding the ace films I saw at the London Film Festival that won’t see general release until 2011 (Black Swan, Blue Valentine, Never Let Me Go), I still have over 15 end of year list-worthy films, which just goes to show that, if you thought 2010 was an underwhelming year for cinema, you simply weren’t trying hard enough.

Therefore, I’ve had to demote the likes of Scott Pilgrim, Down Terrace, Bad Lieutenant, Dogtooth, Shutter Island, Up In The Air, Kick-Ass, Rare Exports, Still Walking and A Prophet, and it was such a closely-run race, that I can’t pinpoint any flaws that differentiate those from the five I’ve chosen.

That said, The Social Network is the obvious one for me. It moulded genre to its whim, effectively playing out as a character drama, a procedural, an origin story and a dissection of our relationship with the Internet. And it was packed with delightful production polish: Fincher’s direction, Sorkin’s nimble script, nuanced performances across the board, and a score from Reznor and Ross that’s as unconventional as it is perfect.

From there, four uniquely surprising films: Micmacs showed Jeunet reconnecting with his love of oddball design ideas in the context of a charmingly comic caper, The Kids Are All Right avoided all LGBT Hollywood cliché, and offered a deeply involving family drama, World’s Greatest Dad gave Robin Williams his best role in years and revolved around the darkest, most unexpected of comic twists, yet still delivered more than just surprise, and I Am Love tantalised with visual poetry, a feast of cinematography that gelled with the hyper-kinetic passion of its John Adams score, as Tilda Swinton’s upper-class Italian housewife blossomed into radiant sexuality.

For the duffer, I would love to have the gall to say Inception, but even that messy, unimaginative misfire of a film is sublime when laid alongside The Last Airbender.

SIMON BREW

Top 5
1. The Social Network
2. Four Lions
3. Toy Story 3
4. Catfish
5. Cemetery Junction

Stinker of the year: I’m Still Here (although it wouldn’t be, had the ‘big secret’ not been revealed the day before I saw it)

My favourite film of the year, truthfully, isn’t on this list, but then it didn’t get a UK cinema release, so it doesn’t count. Waking Sleeping Beauty, the astounding documentary about the fall, rise and sort-of fall of Disney animation, would have had my top spot, but instead, I’m going for the terrific The Social Network, and it’s disturbing and natural companion piece, Catfish.

But do seek out, if you haven’t already, a pair of terrific British films. Four Lions and Cemetery Junction I liked an awful lot, warts and all, and both deserved more than they got. The same goes for Down Terrace, which couldn’t squeeze onto my list, but got damn close. World’s Greatest Dad just missed the list for me, too, but really, really deserves to be seen.

AND FINALLY: OUR OVERALL TOP 10

Here’s our accumulated list of our favourite films of the year…

10. A Prophet
9. Exit Through The Gift Shop
8. The Expendables
7. Monsters
6. Four Lions
5. Kick-Ass
4. Inception
3. The Social Network
2. Scott Pilgrim Vs The World
1. Toy Story 3

Leave your own views down in the comments…!

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This week, our TV highlights and recommendations take you only through the middle of the week and no further. But, please don't feel shortchanged, as we'll have a special Christmas holiday edition of Geek UK TV on Wednesday, to bring you through the holiday in telly style.

So, don't fret at the brevity of shows and films that follow, because a lorryload of great programming is winging it's way to us as we write this, and it's a heavy, heavy consignment, indeed, with more treats than coal, we hope, in store for us to enjoy.

So, here's the abbreviated version of new shows and specials arriving before the holiday dash...

Finding shared interests with children gets harder as we, and they, get older. So, now's the time for any Who devotees to instil the passion in the little ones' hearts early on, with the Channel 5 series premiere of K-9. The first of twenty-six episodes airs Saturday, December 18th at 10:00am and is entitled Regeneration, in which children discover the Time Lord's trusty-never-rusty companion and start on adventures just right for the newest Who inductees. If you hope to watch old or new Who with the tiny ones when they're teens, this may be the way.

A Christmas series starts on Sunday, December 19th on Sky1. These brief 15 minute vignettes are written, directed and star some of the best UK comedic talent, portraying Christmases past from their own unique and comical perspectives. The first two short Little Crackers films start at 9:00pm Sunday, and your enjoyment is likely to vary depending on your particular fondness for each comedian and artist in front of and behind the cameras. Participants include Julia Davis, Chris Dowd, Catherine Tate, Julian Barratt, Stephen Fry, and Dawn French, so the odds are in your favour across the twelve yuletide treats.

This may be the most unlikely show to have a Christmas special, especially following the series finale by just one week, but any excuse to extend Misfits' too short six-episode run is okay in our book. The Misfits Christmas Special airs on Sunday, December 19th at 10:00pm (and repeats on Christmas Eve, Friday, December 24th) on E4. The ASBO Five follow signs of offers of money for powers, leading them to what may be one of the most interesting powers yet. But safety's never guaranteed, and with that lot, you just know, if anyone can find the most f-ed up activity for the festive season, it's the Five. Befitting the season, it's sure to be a cracker.

Check back on Wednesday, December 22nd, for an updated TV week, with all the specials and films you can cram into a Christmas telly marathon, and then some!

Now, on to the films showing through the weekend and a bit beyond. As always, if we missed anything interesting, have a shout in the comments, with our thanks.

Please also note: the ordinal numbers for dates will help you scan through this simple list with your browser's search function. Enter '18th' in your browser's Find box or window to highlight and/or tab through all movies shown on Saturday. Enjoy!

30 Days Of Night
On: Film4
Date: Tuesday 21st December
Time: 11:15pm (and 00:15am 22nd Dec Film4+1)

A Christmas Carol (1999)
On: Five
Date: Sunday 19th December
Time: 7:05pm

Armageddon
On: BBC 3
Date: Wednesday 22nd December
Time: 8:00pm

Batman Begins
On: ITV1
Date: Wednesday 22nd December
Time: 10:35pm

Big Fish
On: FIVER
Date: Saturday 18th December
Time: 4:20pm (and 5:20pm Fiver+1, 2/3:00pm 19th Dec)

Black Book
On: Film4
Date: Friday 17th December
Time: 11:10pm (and 00:10am 18th Dec Film4+1)

Blade: Trinity
On: Film4
Date: Friday 17th December
Time: 9:00pm (and 10:00pm Film4+1)

Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid
On: Film4
Date: Sunday 19th December
Time: 6:50pm (and 7:50pm Film4+1)

Canadian Bacon
On: TCM
Date: Saturday 18th December
Time: 1:05pm (and 5:00am 19th Dec)

Catch Me If You Can
On: BBC 3
Date: Saturday 18th December
Time: 7:50pm

Crank
On: ITV4
Date: Thursday 16th December
Time: 11:35pm (and 00:35am 17th Dec ITV4+1, 00:55/1:55am 19th Dec)

Die Hard
On: Film4
Date: Sunday 19th December
Time: 9:00pm (and 10:00pm Film4+1)

Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears A Who
On: Channel 4
Date: Saturday 18th December
Time: 4:30pm (and 5:30pm 4+1)

Fist Of Fury
On: SyFy
Date: Sunday 19th December
Time: 11:50pm (and 00:50am 20th Dec Syfy+1)

From Hell
On: Five USA
Date: Saturday 18th December
Time: 10:20pm (and 11:20pm Five USA+1)

George Of The Jungle
On: BBC 1
Date: Tuesday 21st December
Time: 3:45pm

Ghostbusters II
On: FIVER
Date: Friday 17th December
Time: 9:00pm (and 10:pm Fiver+1, 7:50/8:50pm 18th Dec)

Green Street
On: ITV4
Date: Tuesday 21st December
Time: 11:45pm (and 00:45am 22nd Dec ITV4+1)

Gremlins
On: ITV2
Date: Monday 20th December
Time: 8:30pm (and 9:30pm ITV2+1)

Hairspray (1988)
On: TCM
Date: Sunday 19th December
Time: 5:15pm

Harry And The Hendersons
On: Channel 4
Date: Monday 20th December
Time: 2:05pm (and 3:05pm 4+1)

Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix
On: ITV1
Date: Sunday 19th December
Time: 6:30pm

Honey, I Shrunk The Kids
On: Channel 4
Date: Wednesday 22nd December
Time: 2:25pm (and 3:25pm 4+1)

Jackie Chan's Police Story
On: SyFy
Date: Monday 20th December
Time: 11:00pm (and midnight Syfy+1)

Jackie Chan's Police Story 2
On: SyFy
Date: Tuesday 21st December
Time: 01:00am (and 2:00am Syfy+1, 9:50/10:50pm 22nd Dec)

Kindergarten Cop
On: ITV2
Date: Saturday 18th December
Time: 1:25pm (and 2:35pm ITV2+1, 9:25/10:25am 19th Dec)

Mad Max
On: ITV4
Date: Saturday 18th December
Time: 11:00pm (and midnight ITV4+1)

Mad Max 3: Beyond Thunderdome
On: ITV1
Date: Friday 17th December
Time: 11:05pm

Master And Commander: The Far Side Of The World
On: Film4
Date: Friday 17th December
Time: 6:25pm (and 7:25pm Film4+1)

Memoirs Of An Invisible Man
On: Film4
Date: Saturday 18th December
Time: 1:00pm (and 2:00pm Film4+1, 5:10/6:10pm 22nd Dec)

National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
On: ITV1
Date: Sunday 19th December
Time: 2:00pm

North By Northwest
On: TCM
Date: Sunday 19th December
Time: 9:00pm

Nosferatu The Vampyre (1979)
On: BBC 2
Date: Monday 20th December
Time: 01:50am

Project A
On: SyFy
Date: Friday 17th December
Time: 10:00pm (and 11:00pm Syfy+1, 1:50/2:50am 20th Dec)

Rambo III
On: ITV4
Date: Friday 17th December
Time: 11:00pm (and midnight ITV4+1, 11:00pm/midnight 20th Dec)

Spirited Away
On: BBC 2
Date: Tuesday 21st December
Time: 10:40am

The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen
On: FIVER
Date: Wednesday 22nd December
Time: 3:00pm (and 4:00pm Fiver+1)

The Descent: Part 2
On: Sky Movies Premiere
Date: Friday 17th December
Time: 10:00pm (and 11:00pm Premiere+1, then daily at similar times through 23rd Dec)

The Game
On: Universal Channel
Date: Sunday 19th December
Time: 10:00pm (and 11:00pm Univeral+1)

The Gigolos
On: BBC 2
Date: Saturday 18th December
Time: 00:05am

The Illusionist
On: ITV2
Date: Friday 17th December
Time: 10:05pm (and 11:05pm ITV2+1, 9/10:00pm 22nd Dec)

The Fugitive
On: ITV2
Date: Wednesday 22nd December
Time: 11:15pm (and 00:15am 23rd Dec ITV2+1)

The Little Girl Who Lives Down The Lane
On: TCM
Date: Sunday 19th December
Time: 01:00am

The Mummy
On: ITV1
Date: Sunday 19th December
Time: 3:50pm

The Nightmare Before Christmas
On: BBC 2
Date: Tuesday 21st December
Time: 12:40pm

The Others
On: Film4
Date: Wednesday 22nd December
Time: 9:00pm (and 10:00pm Film4+1)

The Truman Show
On: more4
Date: Monday 20th December
Time: 10:00pm (and 1:05am 21st Dec)

Trading Places
On: Sky Movies Christmas
Date: Saturday 18th December
Time: 11:45pm

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me
On: horror channel
Date: Saturday 18th December
Time: 00:50am

Way Of The Dragon
On: SyFy
Date: Sunday 19th December
Time: 01:40am (and 2:40am Syfy+1)

X-Men
On: E4
Date: Sunday 19th December
Time: 8:00pm (and 9:00pm E4+1, 9/10:00pm 21st Dec)

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Syfy has announced that the current series of Stargate Universe, which is on its mid-season hiatus, will be the last. Stargate Universe will not be renewed for season three.

This leaves the second half of season two still to be screened, and the remaining ten episodes will be shown, starting in the spring. Once they've been shown, that might just be it for the Stargate franchise, for the time being at least.

Syfy will be looking to the American remake of Being Human as the show's replacement in the schedules, but with no plans for a fourth Stargate television series, the demise of SGU will leave the schedules Stargate-less for the first time in well over a decade.

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Previously going under the title of The Dark Fields, and starring Bradley Cooper alongside Robert De Niro, Limitless is a thriller about a writer who takes a secret drug that allows him to fully utilise 100% of his brain. Think that crappy John Travolta movie, Phenomenon, just a lot more interesting. And with thriller elements.

Due out in the UK on 18th March, the first trailer for the film - which comes from director Neil Burger (The Illusionist) - should have magically appeared below these very words. Enjoy...

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We've probably gone on about this before, but there are a couple of reasons why we're really looking forward to Paul.

Firstly, it's the new film written by and starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. That, in itself, is mightily exciting. But then throw into the mix Greg Mottola behind the camera. Mottola's Adventureland, we maintain, was one of the most underappreciated movies of last year, and we've keen to see what he was up to next ever since. Paul, as it turns out, is it.

So here's the brand new trailer for it. We've had an early trailer for it already a month or two back, but this is the fuller version. It's shaping up to be an early 2011 treat, too.

For now, though, take a peak at the trailer, and the film itself will be with us on 18th February. We can't embed it here as yet for scientific reasons, but you can check it out on Yahoo here.

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It’s difficult to believe that, after 28 years, and then months of teasers, previews, banners, posters and hype, the finished Tron: Legacy has finally arrived, in a glowing head-rush of imagery, pounding music and strobing lights.

The backstory we’re already familiar with from the countless snippets of footage all over the Internet: Kevin Flynn, the superstar programmer responsible for designing the Grid, has become trapped within his own creation, leaving his son Sam to grow into an embittered, thrill-seeking 20-something who’s somehow adept at hacking, motorbike riding, base jumping and frisbee throwing to boot.

Having received a mysterious signal emanating from his father’s arcade, Sam sets off to investigate, and following a few brief key presses on an old computer terminal, he too finds himself locked inside the Grid.

Taking up the Wizard Of Oz references Steven Lisberger left behind in the original Tron, Legacy director Joseph Kosinski shoots the real world in flat 2D, making the leap into the Grid all the more startling with its sudden in-your-face extra dimensionality.

Almost like an atonement for the lengthy scene-setting that forms Legacy’s opening, Kosinski has Sam kinkily stripped out of his civilian wear, zipped into a skin-tight costume made of rubber and glowsticks, and throws him into a series of Tron-referencing gladiatorial games, beginning with a high-velocity tournament with deadly discs, and then a dizzying Light Cycle chicken run, before he’s whisked away by slinky heroine Quorra.

Quorra, played with feline innocence by Olivia Wilde, is a warrior program who, like Sam, is dangerously multi-talented, and as at home talking about 20th century literature as she is driving an off-road vehicle or smashing opponents into cubes with fists and feet. Whisking Sam off the Grid, Quorra ushers Sam to a refuge in the world’s digital wilderness, where his father Kevin sits in a zen-like trance.

It’s here we learn a little more of Kevin’s backstory - his most advanced program, Clu, has gone rogue, turning the Grid into a fascist state, subjugating its populace and trapping Kevin inside the world’s neon confines. There’s a little more to the story than this, which I won’t bother to spoil here, but it’s sufficient to say that Clu has some particularly nasty in mind and, naturally, it’s up to Sam to stop him.

What I liked about Legacy is just how much it references back to the original film. Far from hiding its retro roots, it positively revels in them - its frisbee-like discs are everywhere, and the Recognizers, Solar Sailers and Light Cycles are all present and correct.

It also feels, at the same time, that Kosinski is a little impatient with some of the trappings he’s inherited - the disc battles and Light Cycle duels are dispensed with early on and never revisited, which is a pity because, as muddled and synapse-frying as these sequences are, they’re never topped elsewhere.

There’s an aerial dogfight that attempts to dazzle with sheer light and noise, but is too obviously reminiscent of its analogues in the Star Wars movies to really satisfy, and gives way to a denouement that could be seen as muted, or downright confusing if you’re not entirely up on your Tron lore.

If Tron: Legacy teaches us anything, it’s that computer graphics really have evolved into something quite terrifyingly powerful. Compared to Kosinski’s film, the original Tron is like an old zoetrope or something by Georges Méliès, which, in terms of CG effects, it effectively was.

And yet, as remarkable and beautiful as Legacy’s glowing, semi-transparent redesigns of Syd Mead and Mobius’ ships and landscapes are, the appearance of Clu acts as a salutary warning for visual effects studios everywhere - we may have come a long, long way from the original Tron, but we haven’t yet reached the point where we can create an entirely convincing human head out of pixels.

The trick may have just about worked in Benjamin Button, the movie that pioneered the technique, but that was because we don’t yet know what an octogenarian Brad Pitt will look like. With Clu, designed to look like a 35-year-old Jeff Bridges, we’re so aware of how the actor has looked and behaved over his career that a digital version can only look like one thing - an imitation.

It’s this aspect, more than any other, that will be looked upon least fondly in another 28 years, I fear. But at the same time, there’s an awful lot in Kosinski’s take on Tron that is enormously enjoyable.

Clu may have all the presence of a Texas Instruments calculator, but the real Jeff Bridges is an absolute delight as Kevin Flynn. Playing up to his Baby Boomer equivalent of Obi Wan Kenobi, his every utterance of “far out” and “I’m gonna go and touch the sky” are perfectly delivered - they’re lines that could only work coming from his mouth, and had he wandered around the Grid with a carton of milk in his hand, this could just as easily have been Tron: Lebowski.

Garett Hedlund is merely okay in his everyman hero role, but Olivia Wilde is great as Quorra, and the film could have benefited from more of her.

As a big-screen experience, and as pure eye-candy, Tron: Legacy is a riot of colour and esoteric design, and visually, Legacy is a confident debut from Kosinski.

It’s in storytelling terms that Legacy seems unusually timid. The sprawling vistas fail to cover up the fact that the film’s action takes place in a mere handful of locations, and the inclusion of a big-name cameo early on hints at an interesting plot twist that never arrives. The plot is filled with holes and inconsistencies, and the less said about Michael Sheen’s singularly irritating performance, the better.

Nevertheless, I found myself liking Tron: Legacy in spite of its faults, which are manifold. What teenagers, or a wider audience who have no interest in the original Tron will make of Legacy I can’t possibly guess. But speaking as a fond devotee of the original film, Legacy is a worthy belated follow-up, filled with references that geeks like myself will love.

Ideally, Legacy would have featured a villain as lip-smackingly evil as the original Tron’s David Warner to make its truly zing, and with another actor as charismatic as Bridges to act as an evil counterpoint, the movie could have been genuinely fantastic.

Instead, its antagonist is a mere jumble of pixels, and Tron: Legacy, as a result, is merely a mesmerising diversion.