Please note: one or two mild spoilers are in this review, in case you've not heard them already. If you haven't, you might want to steer clear until you've seen the film

Paul Giamatti, actor par excellence, isn't really one to shy away from difficult to play characters, or roles that embody the less pleasant side of human nature, and so it is with Barney Panofsky, Jewish Canadian TV producer and seeming all-round asshole.

Essentially a re-evaluation of a life lived to the full after a tell-all memoir accuses him of murder, Barney's Version unravels the confusion of a lifetime of memories to reveal the truth about the death of his best friend, along with the well buried innate goodness of its central character.

Told through a series of flashbacks, the story encompasses some 40 years of Barney's life, beginning in the present, with him as a middle-aged divorcee, and taking in Rome in the 60s, hippies and crazy first wife included, the biggest Jewish wedding you've ever seen, crazy second wife included, and the possibility that he is responsible for the death of his best friend, and everything in between.

Based on the award-winning book of the same name by the late Mordecai Richler, it's clear that the source material was incredibly rich. Drawing from four decades' worth of material allows scriptwriter Michael Konyves to show a depth of character that is likely, in large part, thanks to its original incarnation. Whatever the reason, the script is pitch perfect.

Barney and all of the main characters are realistic, follow a believable progression, and rarely, if ever, depart from the authenticity of the universe they inhabit. Miriam, the love of Barney's life, beautifully played by Rosamund Pike (Die Another Day, The Libertine), whom Barney meets at his own wedding reception, is, without doubt, the best example of that. Her initial reluctance, their subsequent marriage, and inevitable separation span the majority of the story. Beautifully handled, believable and often saddening, Pike's portrayal is an outstanding piece of work.

This, however, is a movie full of fantastic performances. Barney's graceless, ex-cop father, Izzy, played with relish by Dustin Hoffman, is one of the richest veins of comedy in the movie. Removing the stick from his ass was the best move Hoffman ever made, and he's the perfect example of how a dedicated method actor can become a comic genius. Robert De Niro, take note. Hoffman's death scene, while having very little to do with him, is one of the funniest, most moving scenes in the story, and the loss of his character's presence echoes through the rest of the movie, so good is he.

The fantastic relationship between him and Barney is at the heart of the film, and the pair exhibits real warmth when sharing the screen. It's an unusual take on a father/son relationship, at least in Hollywood, and all the more interesting for it. Izzy's ‘I am what I am' attitude is in complete contrast to his son's constant need to be something more, and yet they complement each other perfectly.

‘The second Mrs P', Minnie Driver (Grosse Point Blank, An Ideal Husband) appears to have taken a lesson or two from Hoffman on stick removal, and turns in one of the most interesting and funny performances of her career. As the spoiled Jewish princess that Barney essentially marries for money, this could well be Driver's Tom Cruise/Jerry Maguire moment, and it's a pleasure to watch her finally give the kind of performance you always wish she had.

Her appearance in the story heralds the start of the darkest chapter in Barney's life, and the reason for all the reflection. Soon after the wedding, she sleeps with his best friend,Boogie (Scott Speedman), a betrayal he not only witnesses, but is somewhat complicit in.

That same day, the friend disappears after a heated discussion about why it's just not acceptable to sleep with your best friend's wife. Barney ends up unconscious and Boogie is never heard from again. Subsequently, under suspicion of murder, the case is never proven, but when a tell-all memoir, written by the lead detective, is published, Barney is finally able to confront the truth about that horrific day, and the guilt he carries because of it.

Sadly, not long after discovering the truth, he is diagnosed with Alzheimer's. The vital, gruff Barney slowly disappears, and all the people that love him are finally able to get close to a man who was never able to really accept that anyone would want to.

The Alzheimer's is sensitively handled, with a touch of humour, and provides some of the most moving scenes of the film. Having praised the supporting cast for their amazing performance, you shouldn't be in any doubt that this is Giamatti's movie. From the young, energetic Barney through to the debilitated older man, this is a role tailor-made for the man, and showcases his not inconsiderable talents perfectly.

An absorbing, beautifully crafted movie, funny and moving, often at the same time, Barney's version quietly manages to achieve what so many other movies can't. It does justice to a great story, and does it effortlessly.

As with everyone, Barney's life is a chaotic, fantastic and occasionally dramatic mess. Like Paul Giamatti, the movie doesn't shy away from that. It revels in it. And so will you.

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Returning to my semi-regular feature, we arrive in Central Asia. We're also approaching the halfway point of the journey, and I feel I have barely begun to scratch the surface on any of these countries.

It has been an eye-opening experience for me, as when I first conceived the idea it sounded quite simple and straightforward, with the name obviously suggesting itself. But it has become one of the more consistently challenging things to write about!

There are just too many damn films. Which is definitely a good problem. It would be terrible if there was a dearth of quality cinema out there.

Anyway, without further ado, here are ten more to hopefully whet your appetite for exploring the fringes of cinema....

Georgia

Admired by legendary director Federico Fellini among others, Georgian cinema has long established itself as an artistic haven concerned with the imagery and technique of the moving picture.

Several noted Georgian film directors have mixed several careers, including former ambassador to France, Lana Gogoberidze, whose film, Dges Game Utenebia (Day Is Longer Than Night) was entered into the 1984 Cannes Film Festival (albeit under the banner of the Soviet Union).

A family drama, it tells the tale of Eve, whose intended husband is killed, plunging her into despair. While the truth of his death is shockingly revealed, a political backdrop of revolution and its consequences unfolds, contextualising the drama with a deeper meaning.

Armenia

Cinema has played an important part in Armenian culture since close to the invention of the technology. In fact, Armenia established a state committee on cinema way back in 1924. The UK still does not have one in 2011.

Early Armenian cinema was considered some of the finest examples of Soviet cinema to be found, and it is the earliest silent film, Pepo, from 1935, which is often lauded as a particular masterpiece.

Befitting the political ideology of the time, it is the story of a poor fisherman standing up to a dishonest trader, and choosing his morals over corruption. However, it is notable for concluding with Pepo falling in love, rather than a bombastic triumph of the common man, proving that the Armenians were pretty romantic, even back in their Communist days.

Azerbaijan

Even older than the Armenian cinema is Azerbaijan's. Cinema here dates back to 1898, which are only a few short years after its 'official' launch. Spread here by the French, it immediately took off in much the same way it had lit up Europe and America.

It too has had its productive Soviet period, but has come through strongly after independence, so much so that there is now an official holiday for filmmakers of Azerbaijan. (August 2nd, in case you were wondering.)

The Engagement Ring is an effective comedy from the early nineties, which acts as a damning indictment of Soviet rule, charting the social collapse which was its legacy.

Russia

Russian cinema rightly has a long and celebrated history of innovation, quality and lasting legacy. Beginning in Tsarist times, Russian cinema was yet another country which benefitted artistically from Soviet Cinema, with many classics being made which are still studied and widely admired today.

Sergei Eisenstein was a particular titan of the age, with his Battleship Potemkin surely known by any cinema aficionado. He also published academically, and his Film Form is required reading on many film theory courses.

However, Russian cinema has made the transition into the post-Soviet 21st Century with ease, and is now incredibly successful overseas, with films such as Night Watch and Brother making waves. The latter is particularly compelling, tracing the story of an ex-soldier making his living as a hit man in a newly democratic Russia.

Afghanistan

Filmmaking in Afghanistan has had a chequered and difficult history, which, given the country's political difficulties over the last 100-plus years (cinema's timeframe), isn't that surprising.

There has never really been a structured film academy to train promising filmmakers, and so many had to learn on the job, which proved difficult while cinema was effectively banned under the Taliban.

However, the human desire to express themselves artistically and through stories once again overcame all obstacles, and since 2000 there has been a resurgence in Afghanistan film, both in Pashto and Persian spheres.

Of particular note is 2003's Osama, the first film to be shot entirely in Afghanistan since the aforementioned banning of film in 1996. Naturally, it deals with life under the repressive Taliban government, and how a girl is forced to disguise herself as the titular male Osama in order to support her family.

Osama was a great critical success, winning awards at several film festivals and award ceremonies, including Cannes, the London Film Festival and the Golden Globes.

Kazakhstan

No, I'm not going to recommend Borat! Although an insightful and truthful depiction of life in Kazakhstan, Sacha Baron-Cohen's seminal work fails to take into account that the country has been one of the most successful world cinemas of recent years, at least in the context of Academy Award critical praise.

They have submitted a film for Best Foreign Language film award for the last four years running, and, in fact, produced the (to-date) only Central Asian nominee in Mongol. This, of course, will be my choice here!

Mongol is the first entry in a trilogy and begins the epic tale of Genghis Khan. It tells the early life of the then Temüjin, and how he gains the mantle of the legendary warlord. It is truly epic on every scale, and, in fact, is one of the finest historical epics of recent years and definitely teaches Hollywood a few things.

There are few things finer in life than putting Mongol on a massive flat screen TV with surround sound and being literally shaken by the massive battle scenes.

Turkmenistan

Ok, so information about the cinema of Turkmenistan is pretty scarce to come by. However, like many ex-Soviet countries, film here was established relatively early, with the first studio opening its doors back in 1922. This consistent pushing of the technological frontier was in keeping with Soviet ideals, and they viewed cinema as the best way to spread their political ideology to the masses. But you cannot fault the film infrastructure and legacy they gave to these countries.

This has continued up until today, past the Soviet collapse. One of the first films to be released after this was 1994's Ochlamon, another tragicomedy with political overtones, this time dealing with the war in Afghanistan, and following the titular hero, whose only true friend is a dog.

Uzbekistan

The Uzbek film industry faced a total collapse after the end of the Soviet empire, as lavish subsidies disappeared and film production ground to a halt. Between 1991 and 2000, only 12 films were produced. But in recent years the film industry has once again begun to flourish, with 2008 seeing 48 films made alone.

However, quantity does not always mean quality, and the standard is generally poor with soap opera-style melodrama being the preferred genre in which filmmakers express themselves.

Ultra-low budgets are also a fact of life there, but this has not stopped the increasing popularity of films, with the recent inauguration of an awards ceremony testament to this.

An example of a recent Uzbek film is Super Kelinchak (Super Daughter-In-Law), which is the progressive and heart-warming tale of a successful city girl who marries into a conservative rural family, and despite initial clashes with the mother-in-law, finds fulfilment and happiness by learning how to milk a cow and respect traditional family values. Hmm...

Tajikistan

Tajik cinema is respected in neighbouring countries for its vitality and artistic merit, with Tajik-specific film festivals often being shown. It has also been represented several times at international Western film festivals, with Bihisht Faqat Baroi Murdagon (To Get To Heaven, First You Have To Die) being selected for Cannes in 2006.

Directed by Tajik breakout star, Jamshed Usmonov, it is almost the total opposite of the terrible film above, as its protagonist, Kamal, is trapped in a loveless marriage out in the sticks, but breaks free by moving to the city and falling in love with a married woman. Oh, and getting himself involved in crime, of course.

Mongolia

A lot of Mongol cinema has dealt with Genghis Khan, which makes it sad that the most celebrated effort came from Kazakhstan.

Mongolia is also noted cinematically for its wealth of Soviet propaganda films, and fixation on various heroic characters who lead and inspire the nation. Deep-rooted though this idea of a saviour-hero may be in Mongolian culture, recent efforts have given hope that a new golden age is about to emerge from this country, with The Cave Of The Yellow Dog being one such example.

A genuinely life-affirming fable about nomads, it follows little Nansal as she finds and befriends a stray dog, Zocher, against her family's wishes. An exploration of the challenges facing the modern nomadic lifestyle versus the growing urbanisation of the Mongolian people, its use of non-professional actors only reinforces the sense of verisimilitude inherent in the piece, and makes you believe you are genuinely witnessing the truth of a people.

• See the growing World Cinema series

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4.4 Dancing

Well, I got my wish. The past week or two, I've been looking for a bit more screen time for Sally Bretton and Katy Wix in Not Going Out. Much as I enjoy the double act of Lee Mack and Tim Vine, it's when the four are working together as an ensemble that the show really gels the most for me. And here, as Lucy's parents hit marital problems, there was a slightly more grounded setting, and more room for more characters.

We had two guest stars this week, but they won't both be familiar to those who have followed the show before. For when we met Lucy and Tim's parents before, in the Christmas special after series two, they were played by Timothy West and Deborah Grant. It was a terrific episode, based around playing a murder mystery board game, and I particularly loved West's performance in it.

But Timothy West, for unknown reasons, hasn't returned for series four (in spite of reprising the role of Lucy and Tim's dad since), and his place is taken by Geoffrey Whitehead. And, to be fair, Whitehead does a fine job here. In an ideal world, the casting wouldn't have changed, but he fills the role as well as can be hoped.

The core of the episode, then, saw Lee trying to resolve the relationship problems, in an attempt to impress Lucy. It played nicely on the stuck-in-his-ways nature of the character of Geoffrey, while giving Deborah Grant as Wendy space to have a bit of fun, too.

After last week's episode, where the emphasis moved slightly away from one-liners, it was very much business as usual this week. The show, for me, works well because of its smattering of regular, hearty laughs. Dancing got the laugh quotient back up to Not Going Out's standards, with Lee's attempts at playing a marriage counsellor among the highlights of the episode. This inevitably led to misunderstandings, with the mildly sinister scenario where Lee and Wendy were being brought closer together.

It gelled together well, and I enjoyed the episode a lot. I'd like to see the characters of Geoffrey and Wendy back again soon, too, although I suspect we might just be getting a reappearance of Lee's dad before that happens.

For now, it's good to have this fine show continuing its rich vein of form.

Read our review of episode 3, Movie, here.

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Once upon a time, as you probably know, the project that has now become Prometheus was mooted to be the long-in-gestation prequel to Alien. However, earlier this month, the project migrated into a standalone science fiction film, still to be directed by Ridley Scott.

It was scheduled, at that point, for a release in March 2012, but 20th Century Fox has now confirmed that the movie has been put back to the summer.

That, you have to say, is a bold move. Prometheus has a new release date of June 8th 2012, and that puts in slap bang in the middle of one of the most competitive summer movie seasons on record.

While there's no other movie thus far that is coming out on the same day, Prometheus will be arriving in the same month as the sequel to the Star Trek reboot, horror-thriller Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and Pixar's Brave. At the end of May, meanwhile, is Battleship and Men In Black 3, with the Spider-Man reboot likely to still be doing business, too.

Meanwhile, on the casting side, the latest addition to the line-up is the excellent Michael Fassbender. According to Heat Vision, he's down to play an android. He'll be starring in the film alongside the already cast Noomi Rapace.

More at Heat Vision, here.

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With no sign of a continuation to Terminator: Salvation, and with The Dark Knight Rises likely to be his last Batman movie, Christian Bale might just be on the lookout for a new franchise to keep him busy. And furthermore, he might just have got one.

Strong rumours this morning link Bale to the lead role in the adaptation of Stephen King's The Dark Tower, which is planned as a series of films, which branch into a TV show.

Bale is the running favourite, according to the New York Post, to play the role of Roland Deschain in The Dark Tower, with competition including Javier Bardem and Viggo Mortensen.

The project is set to be helmed by Ron Howard, although he was still being a bit vague about his commitment to it when we interviewed him last week. But it's likely that he'll be signing up shortly.

Furthermore, casting speculation links Dexter's Jennifer Carpenter with The Dark Tower, with Naomie Harris and Ghita Tazi also linked with the role of Susannah Dean.

The Dark Tower is planned for cinema release on May 17th 2013. So, there's a while yet for the various pieces to fall into place.

New York Post

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Off the back of his remake of Let The Right One In, Let Me In, it was suspected that director Matt Reeves might make his next project the mooted sequel to monster mash, Cloverfield. But, according to a new interview with Reeves, that might not actually be the case.

Talking to Movieweb, Reeves revealed that, while Cloverfield 2 is very much still planned, it's not happening for a little while yet. "Cloverfield 2 will most likely not be the next movie because that's still in the really nascent stages.",he told the site. "We haven't really had time to get together and talk about what that would be. That journey will probably be a bit longer, when we find that idea that we really get excited about. We're still hatching the story. It has yet to be hatched."

He went on to add that "It was funny. Someone said to me the other day, 'Yeah, we hear you're going to get the band back together.' I said, 'Yeah, but at this stage, we're just talking about getting the band back together. We actually haven't gotten the band back together.'"

Instead of Cloverfield 2, Reeves' next film is likely to be low-budget character thriller, The Invisible Woman. We'll keep you posted on that as we hear more about it.

Movieweb

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I rewatched one of my favourite films of the 90s last week, Robert Redford's Quiz Show. It was hardly an underrated movie, having won a Best Picture Oscar nomination. But given that it was up against the likes of Pulp Fiction and The Shawshank Redemption, it was always going to be a struggle for it to take home a gong.

A bit of me still thinks it should have been, though, as director Robert Redford took a true story from the past and used it to shine a light on the influence of television, and the politics of family.

Since Quiz Show, Redford's directorial record has been a little patchy. The Horse Whisperer and The Legend Of Bagger Vance both have their fans, although neither did anything for me, whilst Lions For Lambs just never really sparked into life.

I'm intrigued by his latest, though, The Conspirator. This is based on the true story of the one woman charged as co-conspirator in the trial of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, and it's the kind of film that could go either way, really.

This trailer doesn't give too many clues, although it looks like it's been cut together by those launching Oscar campaigns. ("Have you ever cared for something greater than yourself?" Surely that's the snippet for the Oscar nomination clip?)

The film arrives in the US in April, with no UK date marked down as of yet.

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At heart, there's a mildy interesting idea at the core of Devil, and in a year when one-location films have sustained 90 minutes quite well, the opening few minutes offer real hope that it might just deliver on its premise.

That premise, as you may know, came from the increasingly-maligned M Night Shyamalan. But, for my money, his idea here is a sound one: there are five people in a lift, and one of them, er, isn't quite who they seem.

Keeping the running time lean to 80 minutes, director John Erick Dowdle sets to work turning the idea into a solid film. And he gets off to a terrific start, with his opening sequence proving disorientating and effective. Once he gets everyone into the lift, though, the film stutters, primarily down to the indecisive screenplay.

Brian Nelson glued together the words from Shyamalan's story, and he's unsure how to balance the movie. How much time do you give to the people in the lift? How much to the cop-with-a-background on the outside? And what about the security folk looking at a bank of monitors and occasionally trying to say something sensible? It's not too much to juggle, but Nelson's script doesn't feel like it gets the mix right.

Dowdle, though, really does give it his all. Particularly towards the end of the film, he manages to wring some surprising and welcome creepy moments, and there's a feeling here that, given stronger and more rounded material, he may just have a terrific film in him. Because, try as he might with Devil, it's far from a terrific film.

In fact, as it meanders on, it's hard to sustain too much interest in it. It's frustrating, too, as the ingredients are clearly here, and the benefit of the cheap-but-effective cast is that it lacks the obvious star name, meaning there's genuine unpredictability.

But it feels like a project hampered from the start, and if Shyamalan is looking to genuinely make this the first of a series of films under his Night Chronicles banner, then another few weeks in the writing room would serve him and the end production well.

As it stands, Devil sparks into life just occasionally, but feels like it's wasting its ideas for most of its running time.

The Disc

The presentation of the film, it has to be said, is terrific, not least the establishing shots, which come across a treat.

There's not much to feast on in the extras section, though, with some pitifully brief featurettes and deleted scenes that won't keep you occupied for much more than ten minutes.

Basically, there's nothing in the supplemental material to give the disc any kind of extra value.

The Film:
The Disc:

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

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Ladies, gentleman and persons of no specifically defined gender, I have seen the future and would like to reveal all. (Because I'm sure you're desperate to know and because you're going to love violently rubbing it in my face when all my predictions fail to come through.)

I speak with confidence and assured certainty, even though I haven't consulted the bathing pre-cogs of Minority Report (you have to make an appointment), the scrolls of the sibyl (I can't read ancient Greek) or the soothsayer who lives in the swamp (he's away in Okinawa taking part in a karate tournament and avenging his master's dead wife or something).

My knowledge of the near future comes on the basis of a theory and, in the post-enlightenment world, theories based on scientific rationale, empirical testing and reasoned analysis are where the truth is found, not in the bottom of the soothsayer's teacup or scrying crystal.

Thus, I sat down with historical statistics for the Academy Awards, studied them and noted patterns. Having done so, I put forward this conclusion and make this predictive claim: The King's Speech will sweep the board at the Oscars and Colin Firth will get the Best Actor gong. I'd put my house on it, except I don't gamble and I don't have a house. I might build a little one out of Lego so you can kick it in when James Franco steals it single-handedly (literally) for his performance in 127 Hours.

Taking a quick glance across Oscar ceremonies of times past, I discern a definite trend that can be loosely formulated as ‘British royal family equals big win'. It's said that portraying disability is the instant ticket to trophy success. I'd also say that playing a British monarch offers the same guarantee and that's a less controversial topic to discuss.

I wouldn't feel comfortable pulling the red carpet out from beneath people suffering serious health conditions. Tripping up idiot aristocrats, however, is my idea of fun.

Admittedly, the regal character's stammer is the focus of the film (the clue's in the title), so Firth meets both criteria. It's also true that the actor's performance as George VI (alias Bertie, a.k.a. Albert Frederick Arthur George Windsor) deserves acclaim and award season glory.

It's a sensitive and believable portrait of a pressured human being that's, in turn, humorous and heartfelt. His chemistry with Geoffrey Rush and Helena Bonham Carter (both also excellent) is astounding, and together they ensure that a film about a speech impediment is way more absorbing and immersive than some of the most set piece-heavy action blockbusters on offer at the multiplex today.

These truths don't undermine the theory, though. The Oscar buzz precedent for cinematic portrayals of British royal persons is plain to see.

Dame Helen Mirren played incumbent monarch Elizabeth II in The Queen, got the Best Actress award and conquered Hollywood in 2006. Similarly, having got a nomination for that same award in 1997 for portraying Queen Victoria in Mrs. Brown, Judi Dench grabbed the Best Supporting Actress prize in 1998, when she became Elizabeth I for Shakespeare In Love.

As Good Queen Bess, Dench is on screen for about six minutes in a movie that lasts two hours. For less than 500 seconds of pomp in a period frock, she gets the prestige of an Oscar attached to her name forever.

Playing Elizabeth I also got Cate Blanchett two Best Actress nominations and acting as English kings ensured that such men as Peter O'Toole, Richard Burton, Kenneth Branagh and Nigel Hawthorne found themselves on the exclusive Best Actor shortlist.

In light of the historical evidence, I'd say there's a high chance that, on February 27th, Colin Firth will be crowned king and deliver a speech at the Kodak Theatre for his role in The King's Speech. It will be a testament to his acting abilities and Hollywood's infatuation with the British aristocracy. Even if he'd only made a two second cameo as a George VI hallucination in Black Swan, he would've still probably claimed Best Supporting Actor.

I put the peculiar affection for the UK's royals down to the movie world's subconscious regret that America ever declared itself independent from the sovereign colonial master. Hollywood is now a bit like a fairytale kingdom without a princess or a prince charming. Concepts of blue blood and royalty are stitched into the silver screen dream, but the USA doesn't have that tradition.

The closest America has ever had to a regal brood is the Kennedys, which possibly explains the death cult around Marilyn Monroe. Without a queen to kneel before, the best you can do is go dizzy over an untouchable blonde glamour girl who possibly slept with the president.

Observe the iconic image of Audrey Hepburn in her Breakfast At Tiffany's tiara and you get a further sense of Hollywood's fetishisation of royalty. It's like the land of the free is at a loss and wishes for a regal patriarch or matriarch to come and fill the psychic hole in the cinematic fantasy.

Casting envious glances at the Windsors and at the personality cults of their Cold War rivals - Chairman Mao, Fidel Castro, etc. - it's no wonder America called Elvis "The King" in order to reassure itself that everything was just rock ‘n' roll and that a real royal family wasn't necessary.

Fixed ideals about going jolly jaunting in London for afternoon tea with the Queen still prevail and captivate the popular conscious. Consequently, these weird notions and Hollywood's obsession with English aristocracy guarantee that Colin Firth will be hailed as Best Actor for his turn as B-B-B-Bertie.

While I'm discussing the Windsor family and speculating on future Academy Award ceremonies, I might as well give you insights into the way 2012 is going to turn out, if the right people take appropriate action. If Prince William's wedding is packaged and released as a big screen cinema event, it'll easily yield awards and huge box office figures.

In fact, why don't they just hand the whole thing over to Hollywood so they can fulfil their royalist fantasies and spare British taxpayers the expense?

Los Angeles gets to script its own fairytale happy ending, James Cameron gets to make the most cinematic wedding video ever and Tim Curry gets the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for his sublime, surprising turn as Prince Charles.

Blue blood and red carpet are the perfect Hollywood marriage. I don't see the order being overthrown and neither does the Karate Soothsayer (he told me in a hallucination). Congratulations, Colin Firth.

James' previous column can be found here.

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On the face of it, Hereafter might seem an odd fit for Clint Eastwood. A supernatural drama directed by the man who made his name through gritted teeth and a really big gun? 

Eastwood, however, has always been keen to confound expectations, alternating between films engineered to play to his strengths and those that might stretch them.

As early as 1971's The Beguiled, he was turning his image on its head, then went back to the day job with Joe Kidd in 1972, before 1973's Breezy showed his more sensitive side. A kind of 'one for me, one for them' arrangement way before Steven Soderbergh got in on the act.

But Hereafter isn't the big stretch it would appear to be. There's a big question hinted at within Peter Morgan's screenplay: what happens when we die? But Eastwood isn't interested in that here. He's tackled his own mortality as long ago as 1995's Unforgiven, then again in Gran Torino (and even explored reincarnation in 1973's High Plains Drifter). Been there, done that, got the Oscar.

The real theme at the heart of Hereafter is one so Eastwoodian that it's a wonder Morgan didn't write it with Clint in mind. Maybe he did and just didn't realise it. Because Hereafter is really a film about loneliness and how far people will go to overcome it. 

Matt Damon's George Lonegan, a true psychic who can communicate with the dead, is the latest in a long line of Eastwood protagonists removed from society because of who they are and what they've done. Think Harry Callahan, Absolute Power's Luther Whitney, Million Dollar Baby's Frankie Dunn, men without a family, but yearning for one.

And so, what sounds far-fetched on pape - a Derek Acorah-type figure who can actually do what he says - becomes utterly believable on screen. Eastwood's way with underplaying makes Lonegan the film's most sympathetic character, and Damon does a nice line in drooped shoulders and quiet resignation (making his smile all the more winning when it shows up).

The film's other two strands take us further afield in young twins Jason and Marcus in London, Cécile de France's French journalist Marie in Paris, but keep with the theme of shock and loss. Indeed, Hereafter starts with a big shock, a special effects set piece from a director who doesn't really do special effects set pieces. 

From there, Eastwood does the Robert Altman thing, dividing his time between multiple story strands and gently bringing them towards each other. So, Hereafter finds its director stretching his wings a little bit, playing around with a few new toys before realising he likes his old ones just fine. For all the CGI flourishes and storytelling trickery, Hereafter feels like Eastwood sticking to what he knows. 

In a way, that's a good thing. Eastwood doesn't try to make it into something it isn't. Hereafter is a simple tale, or three, of people searching for one another. And Eastwood just lets it play out at its own, sedate pace

That's great when Damon and de France are on screen, not so much when the focus shifts to the twins. Eastwood can't quite rein in the histrionics, or turn the best intentions of young actors George and Frankie McLaren into convincing performances. Their scenes start well (pared down dialogue helps), but then lurch into clumsy melodrama.

Hereafter is far from the masterpiece one or two critics may like to call it, but it's also far from the misfire others may judge it to be. It takes a little too long to get to where it's going, and by the time it gets there you might wonder if it was worth the effort.

Eastwood journeys always have something to recommend them, however, and it's the little things that make Hereafter in the familiar Eastwood piano track, sparse and beautiful, his economy with dialogue that lets some scenes play out like a silent movie, a lovingly captured flirtation between Damon and Bryce Dallas Howard, and two big oomph scenes that had me wincing out loud.

Not classic Clint, but it'll do until his next one comes along. Which shouldn't be too long at all.

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A bit of history, first. The story of Rapunzel is one that Disney first looked at for an animated feature back when Walt Disney was alive. Walt Disney couldn't crack it, and over the years, others came and had a go.

Eventually, it was decided to press ahead with the film as a CG movie to be directed by legendary Disney animator, Glen Keane. However, Keane suffered a heart attack early on in the production (returning to the film months later as Animation Director), giving new directors Byron Howard (Bolt) and Nathan Greno two years to bring the film in.

And that's roughly where we started our conversation...

You know how to set yourselves up on this one. You came to the film after production had started. John Lasseter was quoted as saying Disney would never release a film that wasn't good enough. Then you find out it's the 50th Disney animated movie.

Nathan Greno: I know, I know!

Throw in the fact that you only have two years to make the film. That strikes me as some convergence of pressure! Can you give us an idea of how you tackle that?

NG: I do wonder, if we knew all the obstacles and all the pressure, if we'd have taken the film on. It's just so crazy. I'm glad we made it, looking back. But it was hard. There were so many technical challenges, and it was an incredibly difficult film to make. It was a beautiful film.

Byron Howard: Yeah, it was really rewarding. And it was great, because when John first started talking about stuff, we love legacy Disney. We love that. Just to feel like a part of that.

Six months into the project, someone did the math and worked out that it was the 50th film, so that was extra pressure. But even more, that's great, because it's even more important that this is really, really good. And we're so proud of it.

One thing that struck me is the approach of Flynn in the film. I find that animated films really went full circle. At one point, we had really passive female characters and big strong butch guys. And then it swapped then, so for a while the guys were idiots.

I saw in the character Flynn signs of a third way, a logical approach, perhaps, but one that animated films have been reluctant to tackle. What was your thinking there?

BH: It's a good balance. It's hard. A lot of times, especially Disney male heroes, they'd go pretty soft.

NG: Safe.

BH: Safe. And we know we didn't want to do that. It's one of the reasons we didn't want him to be a prince and made him a thief instead. So, we said, "Can he have an edge to him? Can he be a bit cheeky and sarcastic and funny and charming, and have an appeal to him?" Because those characters can be unappealing if they're too snarky, and we didn't want to make a snarky film.

But landing Zachary Levi as the voice is a big part of that. He's so smart and clever, and his adlibs are so great, and you like him straight away. You can't help yourself. And he brings that to Flynn.

Flynn's not soft. He's got an edge to him, but he does have that appeal. We were pretty careful about that, crafting his character. And balancing that, crafting Rapunzel too.

Does the relaxation of the rating help? Because this isn't a U or G certificate film, and it's going out as a PG. That tonally lets you take things a little darker, such as the pub scene, but you've also got a really unconventional approach to the villain. Mother Gothel isn't obviously villainous from the start. There are almost traces of Gaston from Beauty And The Beast to her. She's complex. And villains in storybooks aren't.

So, is that where the PG rating helps?

NG: Honestly, it all comes back to story. And it all comes back to telling a good story, and telling a very compelling story, and what is that. We don't think about ratings in the beginning. We got the rating we got, and we got a PG.

Disney would have challenged that heavily, once upon a time.

NG: They would have, yeah. And we liked that these days, because of John Lasseter, it's 'tell a great story. That's your job. Make a great movie'.

BH: And then whatever it gets, it gets. It's funny, because we saw when the ratings board was going to review it. It was so late in the game and the film was done. They demanded the film be done by that point. And in animation, it's very hard to change anything once the film's done, because it's so expensive, and so labour-intensive.

So, we knew we had made the best decisions to tell the story the right way, and we were right. We'll see what happens. We didn't really know.

NG: And Gothel, I think one of the reasons she's so scary is that she's not a witch, and she doesn't have superpowers. What she has is her mind. She can manipulate. There's people like that in the world. She's a real-world-type villain.

It's a two way relationship, though, isn't it? If you go to the core of a couple of the early scenes between Mother Gothel and Rapunzel, it seems quite a pure mother-daughter relationship at the start.

BH: I think so. Whatever Gothel understands about motherhood doesn't seem to be very much! She's got a very unique mothering style! There's something there, though, even if it does have a twisted core, where she has to play mom to this kid to make the ruse complete. She has to convince this smart girl that she is her mother, and whatever her motivations are, she just intends to use this girl as long as she can to protect herself.

There's this complexity that exists. If she's too villainous, too obvious, she's going to get figured out.

Did you see Coraline?

[Both] Yeah!

At first, I'm thinking there's a parallel with the Other Mother, although the Other Mother in Coraline could afford herself far more visual cues, which you couldn't in the first instance?

NG: Yeah, that's right. Going back to story. If it's a story about a girl who's stuck in a tower, and we wanted Rapunzel to be a smart character, she's being manipulated. So, if Mother Gothel was a mean villainess, and looked like a villainess and acted scary, you'd be like, Why is Rapunzel staying in the tower?" You needed to buy that this girl would be there for 18 years.

Mother Gothel can't be mean. She has to be very passive-aggressive. She was one of the hardest characters to crack. When we were developing her, people were saying that she doesn't feel enough like a villain, and people would point to characters like Ursula. And then she was too dark for a while. She was the toughest one, right?

BH: Yeah, exactly. Because what you do with her directly affects how you play Rapunzel in the movie. Because, if you play an extremely dominant and cruel villain, that girl is going to become meek and downtrodden, with almost nothing of a person, with low self-esteem. And we knew we didn't want a character like that.

She has to have this drive in her, to propel the movie, and for you to like her. We had to balance it out, and figured that Gothel has to be more subtle than that, rather than a one-note, domineering mother.

You see it with the stepmother in Cinderella. She's a real-world character, but she has no mercy on Cinderella. But Cinderella herself isn't as dynamic as you'd expect from a heroine in a modern movie.

You've spoken about your reverence and respect for the Disney canon. One thing that struck me about Bolt and about Tangled is this.  I'm a massive fan of animation on a huge screen, and what I like animation to do is construct things you just can't do in live action.

So, you had the action sequence at the start of Bolt, which would bankrupt Bruckheimer, and you also moved your camera at real speed here, which I hadn't seen done quite at that pace in a Disney film since The Rescuers Down Under.

[Both] Yeah, yeah!

In Tangled, you then had the lanterns on the big screen, which follows The Princess And The Frog with its fireflies. But you didn't ground your camera. You were flowing through it. And there seemed a little tip of that of The Little Mermaid there.

NG: Again, going back to story, we looked at Rapunzel and we thought, "What does Rapunzel need?" If it's just to get out of the tower, the movie's over when she puts her foot on the ground.

We had to get her on a journey, something she needed to go and discover, and in the process she discovers she needs to get out of that tower. She needs to be free.

So, what could she see? Was there something she could see from the tower? But then the tower needs to be hidden in this valley. It was really complex. So, it had to be something that could go up high enough.

We thought fireworks, but they felt very contemporary. And eventually one of our story artists came up with the idea of these lanterns.

So, we did some research, and thought, "That's really beautiful, and there's a real scale and scope to it that would be unlike anything else." And so, we were kind of looking into that. When it came to that sequence, we did our own selves in, because we were trying to develop what is that sequence?

And there's the Kiss The Girl thing [from The Little Mermaid], and we're aware of that. But we wanted to do something bigger and different. So, we kept telling people as we were pitching the movie, when it was still written on a board.

BH: There wasn't a frame of the movie done. We had no idea how we were going to do it.

NG: So, we were pitching it to John Lasseter and the crew, and we were saying, ""This is going to be the most incredible..."

BH: "... mind-blowingly complex romantic movie moment ever filmed." With more emphasis than you could ever know!

Meanwhile, we hadn't done anything to accomplish a thing, and we knew that it was going to be big. And then we talked ourselves into more.

NG: And then we were, "How the hell are we going to make this? We keep telling everyone how big this is going to be! And we just kept pushing it and pushing it."

They'd show us the lanterns in the sequence as they were building it, and we were saying, "It's got to be more. It's got to be more."

And at the end of the day, it really is unlike anything that's been done before.

I think that many of Disney's best projects tend to come at a point where there's a generational shift. That it requires two young, almost fearless directors, and a lot of your job is basically having to say no to Disney royalty. Alan Menken, Glen Keane... there's an abundance of people with real heritage, and you have to go in and call bullshit on them all?

BH: Yeah! You have to stay true. Part of our job, when John Lasseter put us in place, is that you have to say no. To have the final word on the movie.

John has a great philosophy, which is there are no mandatory notes. The wisest thing is to listen to everyone's notes and work out what'll make the film better. We don't have to take the notes. We can make our own decisions. And guide the film the way we need to.

The best thing about Nathan and I, I think, is that we try and be as ego-free as we can be about all of this. It's not about where the great ideas come from. It doesn't have to be ours. We'll listen to any of the 500 people on the crew.

If the guy who makes coffee says, "What if Flynn did this in the middle of the sequence?", and he's right, then we'll put it in the movie. Because everyone's very passionate where we work. Everyone wants to make a great movie. We all have the same goal, and we have to keep the big picture in mind.

NG: And it is tough. There's this great story about Alan Menken. We were working with him for a while and we were actually recording music at this point. And they had to show us some artwork for another sequence, so we took a break with the orchestra and everybody and we went into another room, and Alan said, "Can I come?" So, we said, "Yeah."

So, he came in and we were talking and giving notes, and wrangling this artwork, and Alan was like, "Oh, you guys beat up everybody!" We were like, "Yeah, we're not out to get you, Alan! It might feel that way, because we are really tough on our crew, and it's really hard. But it's nothing personal. We just want the best.

And you know what? John Lasseter is like that with us. He just wants the best. I think that's how you make great movies. You just have to be fearless at times.

We totally respect Alan, but at the end of the day, we have a vision, and we have to get everybody on board.

BH: Yeah, and we expect people to push back on us, too. We expect people not to just cower and say what we expect them to say. We want them to understand where we're coming from and make our decisions based on that.

How close did it get to the old fashioned Disney sweatbox, where animators crowded into a room for some very heated debates?

BH: Oh, pretty close! The sweatbox is all about getting a bunch of people in a room to really hammer a scene.

Brutally?

BH: Yeah, brutally. And that's what dailies are for. Most of the departments have a stage like that, where we have a bunch of people we trust in the room, as well as the artists. And we really let all the arrows fly at scenes to make them better.

In animation, that means Nathan and myself, and other animators, getting out to the front of the room and acting out these scenes. And at the tablet, doing these amazing drawings to help the animations get to the next level. And in lighting, that means bringing in cinematography references, saying, "This Ridley Scott film has a great sense of atmosphere."

Every department has this crucible level, this boiling chamber where stuff falls away, and you're left with the shining diamond of a scene. I think everyone came to expect that on this film, and I think the next films after us will follow that.

NG: It's kind of funny, because everyone in animation gets to that one point where they say, "What do you do?" and you say, "I work for the Disney Animation Studios. I make animated movies." And they say, "Oh, that must be fun!" Well, yeah! At times it's fun.

But it's also really gruelling, and there's always people getting into these constant heated debates and arguments. And in the story room, it gets to the point, at times, that people are just pissed. And that's okay. There's nothing wrong with that. It's all coming from a place of real passion. It's nothing personal.

And we have these really crazy story sessions, then all of a sudden it's lunch, and we go to lunch and are all friends. And then we go back to the story room and get pissed off again.

If it wasn't that way, I think there'd be a problem. If it was easy, you'd think something's not right.

BH: Yeah, that's one of the things that Lasseter said when he first came into the studio. I think he looked at our story trust, our group of directors and heads of story, and he said, "You guys are being too nice to each other."

And that's really a problem in animation, probably in any film studio. If people are being too nice and not saying what they think, that's a huge issue.

It's also an issue if one person in the room is ruling the roost, and can't be challenged. That's where John's great. He listens to everybody, he's very open, and he fosters that same philosophy from the people who work around him all the way down. It's a great way to keep the place healthy.

It was said that Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise were given six months to turn Beauty And The Beast around when the director changed on that particular project, before Jeffrey Katzenberg would push ahead and tell them they've got the job.

Given that you had such a truncated schedule on this one, can you encapsulate what goes through your head when you come onto a project such as this after it's started, and you know there's no turning back?

BH: Well, at the same time John Lasseter made this very clear: he's never going to put out a movie that's not up to his standard, his level of quality.

That would strike me as the biggest challenge, here. Not that the film was late, but the fear of John Lasseter canning the film?

NG: If things were not working out, if we had done four versions of this movie and John saw that it just wasn't working, they would have taken us off. It's squarely on our shoulders.

If the film's successful, great. If it fails, it's on us, too, because ultimately, we're the ones responsible for whether this thing sinks or swim. We take that very seriously.

We have the livelihood of the entire studio on our backs, and we always want to make a good film for the audience, and for the people who are working on it. Our studio will kill itself over it. They'll give 150% no matter what kind of story you're trying to tell. They always care about the work so passionately, and will work themselves to death. Our job is to give them something worthy of their time, and something that they'll ultimately be proud of when they're done.

On the software side of the film, it strikes me as the development software for animated films hasn't fundamentally changed. Pixar will develop separate routines to do the wheels on Wall-E, for instance, but the core of it remains the same.

Is there any bottleneck left where software is concerned, particularly when you're moving the camera around so quickly, and also when you have so many objects on screen, such as the lantern scene? Are the days of software as a roadblock over?

BH: Oh, no, no. I think it's true of anything. You know when you have your home computer? You go, "Now I have the most updated home computer in the world. It's superfast. It's great."

But now they're coming out with more and more programs that use more and more memory, and it feels the same thing happens as we have technology that's able to create bigger films. So, we ask more of the systems as we go.

Now that Rapunzel's hair is conquerable, you'll see other films with characters who have long hair, or extraordinary fabric, or 23 million gallons of water like we had in the movie. 100,000 objects on the screen at the same time.

These crushing numbers become handle-able as the memory gets greater, but we keep expanding what we're going to do, and the movies get more and more complex. Which is great, but at any stage, it feels that we're working just behind what the software can handle.

I've spoken to a few directors of animated movies, and you two seem close. You must look at the Musker and Clements partnership, and Wise and Trousdale, and look at what their successes allowed them to do and build up. Is your future looking at more Disney fairytales, or are you interested in building the Disney canon in other ways? Or will you be doing Mission: Impossible 5?

[Laughs]

NG: We've already pitched more movies to Lasseter. A few months ago we pitched six ideas to John of films we'd like to make, and John picked one of them. It's very different than this movie in that it's a completely different world, and it's very, very different. But the types of movies that we'd like to make are hilarious movies, big action, a lot of drama and emotion, and a ton of heart.

So, that's something that we're interested in. It's not a fairytale, though. It's something different.

It's fun to mix it up. You look back at the Disney legacy and every film wasn't a fairytale. Every couple of years Disney made another one, but there's big gaps in between. And mixing up the types of film is kind of cool.

The films that are in development right now at Disney are really diverse and different. It's interesting.

BH: I loved working on Bolt, and I loved working on Tangled, but they're very different movies. One's a smaller story, one's got a more epic scale to it, one's got music, one doesn't. And it's great. It's nice to have that on your resume.

John will really support you on that, if you're passionate about something.

Byron and Nathan, thank you very much.

Tangled is released in the UK today.

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Let's not beat about the bush. Skins v.2 was shit. There would be moments which showed great promise. But then Kaya Frownface appeared and drained the screen of colour as Effy Stonem, the mono-expressive, mentally troubled waif sister of Tony, who found an equally dull partner in Freddy, a boy so dense, his very presence could affect time itself and turn seconds into long, slow, tedious hours.

Add to that a lesbian relationship that bordered on domestic abuse and sloppy, inconsistent writing and Skins v.2 failed to recapture the spirit of the original.

But with this new series comes a whole fresh cast of hip teens. Like Power Rangers but, sadly, lacking in giant robots and kung fu. Before we check out the opening episode, let's take a look at the new generation of Skins...

Franky - Looks like La Roux's Ellie Jackson at a Torchwood convention. Androgynous artistic type who's just moved to Bristol with her two dads. Keeps a wooden doll for company.

Mini - Queen Bee (for bitch) of Roundview College. Constantly seen with her two BFFs, Grace and Liv, or sucking the face of her meathead boyfriend, Nick.

Grace - A fitting name for a graceful young lady. Friends with Mini and Liv for years, despite being banned from council estates by her dad (probably).

Liv - Mini's other mate. Not much to say, really. Likes dancing. Yeah.

Nicky - Rugby playing boyfriend to Mini. Owner of the creepiest smile in Bristol. A man of few words, which suits Mini down to the ground, really.

Matty - Pretentious kid who self-consciously acts older. You just know he'll end up either dealing crack or running a commune in five years.

Alo - Is ginger, which probably counts as the token minority for this series. Lives in a van and is eternally horny. Is rarely ever seen without...

Richard - Metalhead. The Butthead to Alo's Beavis. Absolute bloody minded dedication to all things hardcore. Shy around girls.

In the opening five minutes, we see Franky escaping from a bunch of schoolboy thugs who take exception to her challenging the gender binary. Though she needn't be too scared, seeing as they can't outrun a mobility scooter.

Dakota Blue Richards, already a familiar screen presence in The Golden Compass, erases bad memories of Effy by having the right amount of vulnerability, instead of just scowling at everything.

As soon as we have our protagonist, we also have antagonist, Mini, and you can see the writing on the wall when she offers a hand of friendship, with the other holding a knife. Mini's betrayal comes as no surprise, but there are hints of something more under the surface than just being a cow for its own sake.

After already falling victim to bullying at her previous schools, Franky isn't about to take that lying down. Packing a gun for courage, she decides to stand up to Mini. She's going in for the kill. She's doing it for a thrill.

But rather than pop a cap in Mini's ass, Franky makes an impassioned plea to Grace and Liv to realise their self worth, one which doesn't fall on deaf ears. And its Grace who starts to make the first move away from Mini and welcome Franky to her new life in Bristol.

The writing team must have been watching a lot of teen movies, as this opener comes across like Mean Girls transported to the west country. But then, if you're going to borrow, then borrow from the best. But this episode has enough of its own personality to separate it from Tina Fey's classic and previous series.

With a rebooted cast (and a rebuilt Roundview College, it seems), Skins series 5 has wiped the slate clean after its gigantic misstep. It's settled into a consistent tone, being more adept at balancing the light and shade.

Skins has often courted controversy for its depiction of teens as drug guzzling ne'er-do-wells, both here and in the USA after MTV's remake aired. But now, rather than shock us with their deviant behaviour, Skins shows teens as walking piles of insecurity trying to find their place in the world. A remarkably adult approach.

After all the juvenile wanking jokes and reckless partying, maybe now Skins has grown up.

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I'm no believer, as I've written on this site before, in guilty pleasures. I always figure, or at least I do now, that if you like something, then you like something. And I like Adam Sandler movies.

Not all of them, granted. You Don't Mess With The Zohan was pretty terrible. Little Nicky not much better. 50 First Dates was hard work, and The Waterboy did nothing at all for me. But there are films that I giggled sufficiently at, in spite of their flaws, that I'd happily sit through again. I'm thinking Big Daddy, I Now Pronounce You Chuck And Larry, and The Longest Yard. I really like his more serious films, too, and found myself warming a lot to Funny People and Spanglish, when many others didn't. Punch-Drunk Love is ace, too.

So, where does Grown Ups fit in? Well, it's arguably one of Sandler's laziest comedies to date. It's a mini-Expendables of a certain generation of comedy action, throwing together Sandler, Chris Rock, Rob Schneider, David Spade, Steve Buscemi and Kevin James in the one film. These are then dragged together by a script that desperately lacks killer lines, the ilk of which a cast of this calibre (Schneider aside, for my money) could have done something suitably impressive with.

Still, they make a good fist out of generating something from pretty much nothing, and inevitably, the highlights of Grown Ups is when they're all sharing the screen together, trading comedy blows.

There aren't belly laughs here in abundance, but I found the whole film quite amiable, quite enjoyable, and worthy of a few sniggers. It did leave me wishing that all concerned had pushed a bit harder, because it's not often that a comedy ensemble of this sort comes together. But Grown Ups, as it stands, will do. Nothing more than that.

The Disc

The package on offer here isn't bad, although not compelling enough to tip you over the edge if you're thinking of picking up the film. The presentation is good, with really quite fine picture and sound quality. But it's the bitty collection of extras that are of most interest.

For your money, you get a fun commentary track, along with the predictable collection of gag reel, outtakes, and ‘making' of material. It's all very promotion-centric, as you might expect, and you don't learn a great deal of interest. But it's harmless enough to watch.

The Film:
The Disc:

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

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In the preceding few weeks we've had the new series of shows start up with Being Human, Hustle, Not Going Out and Primeval returning to awaiting fans. And a few new shows have shoved their way onto the schedules with Episodes, 10 O'Clock Live and How TV Ruined Your Life settling snugly into their respective spots.

And after quite a feast of fresh programming, this week brings us leftovers (although they're imported leftovers of the highest quality), and a treat many of us won't be able to enjoy. I suppose we can't gorge every week, and they're both still well worth the couch commitment, provided you can tune in, of course...

Reheated and served up to everyone in equal portions comes the fourth season of the excellent, imported Mad Men. First shown on BBC4 last autumn and winter, the premiere episode is called Public Relations. We reviewed the series when it first aired, and you can follow along and add your thoughts to the comments here, starting Monday, January 31st at 11:20pm on BBC2. You'll find all the Mad Men reviews and mentions of the show here.

On Tuesday, February 1st, Sky satellite subscribers will be treated to a new channel called Sky Atlantic. It will feature HBO programming from the US, with a premiering show on our shores being Boardwalk Empire, the story of Atlantic City's early days, filled with crime, corruption and a lot of undressed actors and actresses. Starring Steve Buscemi alongside an excellent supporting cast, the pilot airs Tuesday at 9:00pm on Sky Atlantic. The channel is exclusive to Sky subscribers, but if it's being beamed into your home, you can follow along with reviews, starting here, and see all the Boardwalk Empire reviews and news here. Let us know what you think of the show and the new channel, or lack of it in your living rooms.

Now, on to the films showing through the weekend and a bit beyond. There's a battle of the bad comic hero to film adaptations with The Punisher versus Spawn. (It's a fight no one wants to win, so defend your favourite!) And you can also catch Liam Neeson in early ass-kicking mode in Krull, nestled among many other fine films. 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 '29th' in your browser's Find box or window to highlight and/or tab through all movies shown on Saturday. Enjoy!

Along Came A Spider
On: Channel 4   
Date: Saturday 29th January
Time: 10:20pm (and 11:20pm 4+1)

Austin Powers In Goldmember
On: Film4
Date: Friday 28th January
Time: 9:00pm (and 10:00pm Film4+1, 9/10:00pm 2nd Feb)

Becket
On: BBC 2  
Date: Sunday 30th January
Time: 1:20pm

Big
On: Film4
Date: Sunday 30th January
Time: 7:00pm (and 8:00pm Film4+1)

Cellular
On: Film4
Date: Tuesday 1st February
Time: 9:00pm (and 10:00pm Film4+1)

Die Hard 2
On: Film4
Date: Sunday 30th January
Time: 9:00pm (and 10:00pm Film4+1, 9/10:00pm 3rd Feb)

Dog Soldiers
On: Film4 
Date: Sunday 30th January
Time: 11:20pm (and 00:20am 31st Jan Film4+1)

Falling Down
On: ITV4 
Date: Thursday 27th January
Time: 9:00pm (and 10:00pm ITV4+1, 11:05pm/00:05am 28th/30th Jan)

Fantastic Four
On: Channel 4 
Date: Saturday 29th January
Time: 7:00pm (and 8:00pm 4+1)

From Dusk Till Dawn
On: Channel 4 
Date: Sunday 30th January
Time: 00:20am (and 1:20am 4+1)

Get Shorty
On: ITV4
Date: Monday 31st January
Time: 10:00pm (and 11:00pm ITV4+1)

Gremlins
On: TCM
Date: Wednesday 2nd February
Time: 10:55pm

Hard Target
On: ITV1   
Date: Monday 31st January
Time: 02:00am

Harold And Maude
On: TCM  
Date: Sunday 30th January
Time: 9:00pm

Harry Brown
On: Sky Movies Premiere
Date: Friday 28th January
Time: 10:15pm (and 11:15pm Premiere+1, the daily at similar times through 3rd Feb)

Hulk
On: ITV1 
Date: Saturday 29th January
Time: 1:50pm

Invictus
On: Sky Movies Premiere  
Date: Friday 28th January
Time: 10:00am (and 11:00am Premiere+1 & 8/9:00pm, then daily at similar times through 3rd Feb)

Juno
On: Film4
Date: Saturday 29th January
Time: 9:00pm (and 10:00pm Film4+1)

Kelly's Heroes
On: Five USA 
Date: Saturday 29th January
Time: 7:10pm (and 8:10pm Five USA+1)

Krull
On: SyFy 
Date: Saturday 29th January
Time: 4:20pm (and 5:20pm Syfy+1, 2/3:00pm 30th Jan)

Lethal Weapon 2
On: Sky1
Date: Saturday 29th January
Time: 9:00pm

Never Cry Wolf
On: BBC 2 
Date: Saturday 29th January
Time: noon

Ninja Assassin
On: Sky Movies Premiere
Date: Saturday 29th January
Time: 00:15am (and 1:15am Premiere+1, then daily at similar times through 4th Feb)

Pale Rider
On: TCM 
Date: Sunday 30th January
Time: 10:45pm

Pandorum
On: SyFy
Date: Sunday 30th January
Time: 02:20am (and 3:20am Syfy+1)

Phone Booth
On: Film4
Date: Wednesday 2nd February
Time: 00:30am (and 1:30am Film4+1)

Pom Poko
On: Channel 4 
Date: Thursday 3rd February
Time: 03:25am (nad 4:25am 4+1)

Spawn
On: TCM
Date: Wednesday 2nd February
Time: 9:00pm

Requiem For A Dream
On: BBC 2  
Date: Friday 28th January
Time: 11:50pm

RoboCop
On: SyFy
Date: Sunday 30th January
Time: 00:20am (and 1:20am Syfy+1, 9:50/10:50pm 2nd Feb)

Se7en
On: TCM 
Date: Friday 28th January
Time: 11:00pm

Shrek The Third
On: BBC 3  
Date: Sunday 30th January
Time: 7:35pm (and 8:00pm 2nd Feb)

Sleeper
On: TCM
Date: Saturday 29th January
Time: 1:20pm (and 5:00am 30th Jan)

Star Trek: Insurrection
On: Film4
Date: Sunday 30th January
Time: 1:00pm (and 2:00pm Film4+1)

Star Trek: Nemesis
On: Film4
Date: Monday 31st January
Time: 6:50pm (and 7:50pm Film4+1)

The Evil Dead
On: horror channel 
Date: Sunday 30th January
Time: 10:55pm

The Eye (Gin gwai)
On: Film4
Date: Sunday 30th January
Time: 02:05am (and 3:05am Film4+1)

The Falcon And The Snowman
On: TCM 
Date: Sunday 30th January
Time: 01:40am

The Fifth Element
On: Five 
Date: Sunday 30th January
Time: 1:20pm

The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou
On: Comedy Central
Date: Saturday 29th January
Time: 01:40am (and 2:40am CC+1, 1:45/2:45am 30th Jan)

The Matrix
On: ITV2
Date: Saturday 29th January
Time: 11:10pm (and 00:10am 30th Jan ITV2+1, 11:30pm/00:30am 2nd/3rd Jan)

The Neverending Story
On: ITV2
Date: Saturday 29th January
Time: 10:05am (and 11:05am ITV2+1)

The Princess Bride
On: FIVER 
Date: Saturday 29th January
Time: 7:00pm (and 8:00pm Fiver+1)

The Punisher
On: Five
Date: Thursday 3rd February
Time: 10:00pm

The Sting
On: ITV4
Date: Sunday 30th January
Time: 4:25pm (and 5:25pm ITV4+1)

The Sum Of All Fears
On: Watch  
Date: Saturday 29th January
Time: 10:00pm (and 11:00pm Watch+1, 9/10:00pm 30th Jan)

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
On: horror channel   
Date: Saturday 29th January
Time: 10:55pm

Wall Street
On: Sky1 
Date: Sunday 30th January
Time: 9:00pm (and 10:00pm, 2nd Feb & 9:00pm 3rd Feb Sky2)

Where The Wild Things Are
On: Sky Movies Premiere
Date: Friday 28th January
Time: 6:00pm (and 7:00pm Premiere+1 and daily at similar times through 10th Feb)

Disney Animation has, these past few years, found itself in an odd place. In the shadow of Pixar, and with DreamWorks looking to seize the mainstream middle ground, it's found it hard to find an identity of its own. For where does it fit in?

Films such as Chicken Little and Bolt had tried, to differing levels of success, to find a role for the studio in the midst of one of the most golden of golden eras for animation, but Disney has nonetheless struggled to get a foothold.

But perhaps that's changing. Enchanted offered the first clues as to where Disney excelled, channelling the guts of a fairy story setup into something both timeless and modern, while The Princess And The Frog and, to an extent, Meet The Robinsons, built on that.

Yet, it's with Tangled where Disney might just have found its way forward. On the one hand, it takes the story of Rapunzel, one that even Walt Disney himself couldn't crack, and marries it up to some stunning computer animation. And on the other, it finds a way to tell a fairy story, but in a thoroughly modern way.

In the past, for instance, Disney had macho princes and passive princesses. Then, in the late 80s and 90s, the roles changed, with the male lead often portrayed as a weaker character. Here, in the central partnership of Rapunzel and leading man Flynn, Disney has found two strong characters, both keen to play with stereotypes and wisely sidestep others.

On top of that, Tangled brings in a collection of supporting characters that can't help but impress. On the comedy side, it's Maximus who's the scene-stealer, voicelessly generating sizeable laughs and guaranteeing himself a hefty shelf life at the Disney Store.

But credit, too, for the treatment of lead villain, Mother Gothel, one of the most under-the-skin animation movie antagonists in some time. She's utterly believable, and again, demonstrates that Disney is finding its place in the world once more. She's backed, too, by some genuinely sinister pub dwellers, who might just put the frights up the very youngest members of the audience.

Wisely, the voice talent is appropriate to the material, rather than a hunt for big names to put on the poster. Thus, you have Chuck's Zachary Levi and Mandy Moore as Flynn and Rapunzel, but they're backed with the best voice talent supporting cast this side of Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs. Whoever decided to call up Brad Garrett, Ron Perlman, Richard Kiel and the wonderful Donna Murphy to lend their vocal talents deserves a strong handshake and a nice drink.

But the lasting memory of Tangled will come from the striking visuals. Just as with The Princess And The Frog, there's an outstanding, film-stealing sequence near the end of the film that demands to be seen on the biggest screen that you can find.

What Tangled also has is a real action-movie pace to many of its scenes (something Disney perfected in Bolt), and it's genuinely an exciting film to watch. Plus, it looks absolutely glorious. The animation, the design, the colour. It's a stunning visual treat.

Inevitably, for a film that does an awful lot right, there are one or two very minor niggles. Alan Menken's music is strong, but the songs can't quite match his outstanding work on Enchanted, for instance. Plus, there's an element of halfway house about how much to commit to the full-on Disney musical extravaganzas of old. It's not often said of animated movies, but I could have happily enjoyed another song or two in the mix here.

But here's the thing: directors Nathan Greno and Byron Howard have delivered on what must have been a massive challenge. To take a project that Disney has failed to crack for decades before this, and to turn it into an exciting, funny, at times brilliant animated treat. One that crosses generations in its appeal, taking a loved fairy story and turning it into a modern animated treat.

Vintage Disney? Not quite. But this is the surest sign yet that the studio is very much on the right track, and very much on form, too.

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Heading into production later this year, under the watchful eye of director Sam Mendes, will be the delayed twenty-third James Bond movie. Daniel Craig is definitely returning in the lead role, and while we await formal casting confirmation for one or two other parts, it's been revealed that one series regular is definitely back.

Dame Judi Dench has been playing M since 1995's GoldenEye, and at the South Bank Sky Arts Awards earlier this week, she confirmed that she would be back again for the next film. She didn't reveal anything more than that, though, saying, "My lips are sealed. I can't tell you anything at all!"

The new James Bond movie is released on 9th November 2012.

BBC

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Yesterday, we brought you the news that Prometheus, the film that the planned prequel to Alien migrated into, has been put back until June of 2012, and that Michael Fassbender is the latest name linked with the film.

Sky has now revealed, however, that there may too be more familiar characters in the film: the aliens of the Alien saga itself.

It seems that, while the project is now going under a different name, there's a bit more than the "Alien DNA" to the movie that the official announcement of it had suggested.

Sky cites a source close to the production that says, "They've built the ‘space jockey' cockpit at Pinewood as seen in the original Alien film, so it definitely takes place in the same world as Alien". The source continues, saying that "Despite that press release that seemed to indicate there were no aliens in the movie, the familiar HR Giger-style aliens do appear. Big ones, apparently." 

The story goes on to reveal that a chunk of the movie is set to shoot in Morocco, with an archaeological dig involved, and that the "Alien DNA" that has been discussed when describing Prometheus might be a quite literal plot point.

Obviously, none of this has been confirmed, so it's the usual requirement of salt until it is. But you can find out more right here.

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One of the brains behind the TV classic Deadwood has been confirmed as the man with the job of adapting PlayStation 3 game, Heavy Rain, for the big screen.

Appreciating this has been said time and time again, there genuinely could be a movie of note in this one. Heavy Rain is about as cinematic as videogaming gets right now (some might argue it's more suited to film than game, in fact), after all, and thus it's little surprise that a movie version is on the way.

What's interesting, however, is who's been employed to write it. For Variety reports that Deadwood's David Milch has been signed up to write the film, and that he'll be moving onto the project once he's finished working on the first season of upcoming HBO horse racing drama, Luck.

We'll keep you posted as to the progress of the film, and pass on any more news that we hear...

Variety

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Warning: We've tried to keep this interview as spoiler-free as possible, but if you want to watch Saturday's episode absolutely cold, you may want to come back at 8:30 tomorrow before you read on!

After an uncertain future last year, the enormously popular Saturday sci-fi series Primeval has made a triumphant return with a fourth series. Actress Lucy Brown, who played the dual roles of Claudia Brown and the more bossy and efficient PR official Jenny Lewis, shuffled off the timeline in series three, having played a key part in the show since its very first episode.

With episode six of the current series, however, Lucy Brown returns as Jenny, with the character finding herself unexpectedly reunited with her old team mates.

With that episode due to air this Saturday, we caught up with Lucy to talk about her guest appearance, the chances of a Primeval movie, and the possibility of her returning to her role for good…

You’re reprising your role as Jenny Lewis this Saturday – what brought you back to Primeval?

When the character left in series three, it was discussed then, this particular storyline, so I knew there was something there. And then, of course, just afterwards, we had the awful news that the show was cancelled, and then it was picked up again, which was excellent.

So I knew that they were hoping I’d come back for this episode, and it was a case of making sure my schedule was clear so I could fit it in. And I got to do it, which was excellent.

Does your reappearance tie up some of the loose ends from series three, do you think?

I guess some people would say yes, and some people would say no – it depends on what people would like to see tied up. People have very strong feelings about various characters and what they want from them. So I hope people enjoy it, and it gives people an idea of why Jenny left, and what she’s doing now, and where she goes from here. I think it’ll tick the boxes for people.

Obviously, Primeval involves working with CG, and requires spending a lot of time in front of a green screen and pretending to be frightened of invisible monsters. Is that something easy to get used to?

You know what? I think after four series, we kind of have our heads around it now. But in the beginning, it was quite new to all of us, but now we’re quite relaxed about it, because you always have to be on your toes when you first do CG work, but we definitely have more familiarity with it now.

The two characters you’ve played in Primeval, Claudia and Jenny, are obviously quite different. Was it difficult to switch between them in the way you did?

Initially it was. Coming back as Jenny in series two was the hardest part, because, having worked for months and months with all these characters, it was really hard to come back in series two and pretend that I didn’t know any of them – especially Douglas.

As series two went on to series three, I found the character more easy to get into. Although it still surprises me that people have such affection for Claudia. I still get asked about her all the time, and it’s funny, because if I get stopped in the street, for any reason, about Primeval, people always say, “You play Claudia Brown!” Actually, even my own father prefers Claudia, which is funny, because she was only in one series.

I’ve done three series now as Jenny. They’re different people. But one of the most surprising things I read on the web about what people think of me, is that they say, “Jenny looks a lot like Claudia now.” Well, I am the same actress! [Laughs] I’m always going to look a little bit like Claudia.

Which is more fun to play?

I loved playing Claudia because it was my first character in the show, and I loved her storyline. She was a lovely girl. Jenny was more dynamic, so that was really interesting to play. I couldn’t really choose between them – I think they both have redeeming qualities.

Your characters have all had an advisory, management kind of role in the show – do you think they got enough time out in the field, getting their hands dirty?

I loved doing all that. In series three, Jenny found herself in charge of the team, and very much out in the field. I absolutely loved that, and it was in the last episode of series three where I was fighting the fungus creatures with a fire extinguisher. I loved doing that, and it made me realise I was so much fun being out with the gang.

Do you have a favourite creature in the show?

I loved the T-Rex, just because it was so big and looked fabulous against the aircraft. I loved the dodos in series one. I remember in our first ever episode, I loved those creature in there. I remember seeing them for the first time, when we were halfway shooting, and we saw the creatures, we were gob smacked.

You’ve obviously worked in the UK and the US. You worked on a show called The Philanthropist for CBS?

I did, yes. I also just did the Frost Giant in the States as well, alongside Dean Cain, which was really interesting. Lots of CG monsters again!

So is there a big difference between the way UK and US shows are produced?

All the obvious kinds of things that come from having more money and people. That’s the biggest thing. You’re working to the same formula – just different accents! It’s not hugely different. It’s just the financial side.

Does the extra money necessarily make things easier, though?

I think when there’s more budget to play with, you can be more creative.

On the subject of money, how did you feel when ITV cancelled Primeval?

I was so sad, I really was. I felt like, although I understood the reasons behind it – it wasn’t for a lack of love, or anything like that – it still had such a lot to offer. I wasn’t surprised when various production companies came to its rescue, because we have such a global audience now – Primeval’s recognised all over the world. So when people started to rally round I wasn’t at all surprised. It’s really good to keep it going.

I understand your appearance in the next episode is a one off, but if the chance arose, would you be happy to become a full-time member of the team again?

I don’t know how to answer that. My heart would say, “Gosh, absolutely” – the show’s been such a huge part of my life, both professionally and socially. But now I’ve got a family, I love that we all get to see each other. But I always say that, I’ve had such a wonderful relationship with the writers, if they call me, I’ll always pick up the phone for Primeval. So, I guess, never say never.

What can we expect from episode six? Do you get involved with a lot of action scenes and monsters?

Yeah. I’m trying to get married in this episode, but naturally, that was never going to be easy, because I’m a Primeval character. So yes, the wedding is rudely interrupted, somewhat.  Much to my future husband’s despair and surprise, I’m quite good with the old fighting dinosaurs. He knows nothing about what I used to do in the past.

At the beginning, when I bump into Abby and Connor, I’m desperately trying to let them know in a short space and time, that I haven’t told him anything. So they’re terribly shady about my past. But gradually, my future husband comes to realise that there’s more than meets the eye.

With the popularity of Primeval – and it’s into its fourth series now, with no sign of slowing down – the natural progression, perhaps would be a Primeval film…

That’s been talked about – talked about a lot. I remember having a discussion with Adrian two years ago, about where a film might go. But the script has to be written and approved. But I think that would be fantastic, and they should definitely do it. All that stuff’s beyond my control. It’s up to the higher powers.

But you’ve not heard any rumours of a movie going ahead?

Not in the near future.

We can but hope! So what’s next for you, following your Primeval appearance?

I’m currently making a guest appearance in New Tricks for the BBC. But also I’ve co-written a comedy drama called The Hen Do with Olivia Poulet,  who was in The Thick Of It. We’re casting at the moment. We’ve just signed up Adam Garcia and also, a bit of a coup, we’ve attached Mischa Barton, which is very exciting to bring her to British television. It’s really exciting!

Lucy Brown, thank you very much!

Primeval series four, episode six airs this Saturday on ITV1 at 19:20. Many thanks to Rob Mclaughlin for his questions for Lucy.

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With Nintendo loudly trumpeting the arrival of their shiny new handheld, the 3DS, it’s unsurprising that Sony hasn’t wasted too much time announcing its own piece of portable gaming wizardry.

Where Nintendo has always stayed several steps behind technology’s cutting edge – giving much of its output a slightly quaint, built-by-Santa-in-his-workshop kind of feel as a result – Sony has long been keen to remain as close to the forefront as science and budget can allow.

True to form, the Sony PSP2 (currently codenamed NGP, or Next Generation Portable) wields technology like a bludgeon. Featuring a five-inch OLED screen with a resolution of 960x544, the device displays twice as many pixels as the outgoing PSP it replaces. The use of OLED, meanwhile, makes the handheld far more energy efficient than a standard LCD display, since it doesn’t require a backlight.

Beneath the PSP2’s shiny black shell lurks an ARM Cortex-A9 Core CPU which, I’m told, is full of science and extremely powerful for a device of this size.

The PSP2 will also be 3G, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth enabled, allowing for wireless multiplayer gaming and data transfer. Sony has said the PSP2 will “offer great compatibility features” with its bigger brother, the PS3, though the company’s currently remaining tight lipped as to what this compatibility will mean in practice – more details will apparently be revealed at this year’s E3.

While the PSP2 will feature the same basic button configuration as its predecessor, the new handheld will have two analogue sticks that are closer in design and feel to those on a standard PlayStation controller – the benefits for both developers and players of first-person shooters is obvious.

The device’s most interesting feature, at least from a gaming point of view, is its pair of touch-screen displays – unlike the Nintendo 3DS, which uses the same configuration as those classic Game & Watch handhelds from the early 80s, the screens on the PSP2 are arranged back-to-back.

The configuration, along with the PSP2’s front-and-back cameras, will give developers the scope for all kinds of weird creative ideas – in theory, it should be possible to create the illusion of an aquarium-like 3D world inside the console, with the player able to interact with objects inside it with a series of gestures that Sony refers to as Sony touch, grab, trace, push and pull.”

We can’t wait to see what LocoRoco and Patapon developer SCE Japan Studio do with the PSP2’s unique set-up – if anyone can think of a quirky and fun way of making the most of it, they can.

Games will come on a new type of proprietary cartridge based on flash memory cards, while a PlayStation store will again offer both full games and demos to download. After the poor sales of the PSP Go, where your only choice was to download games from the PlayStation store, the reintroduction of physical media to the PSP2 could be seen as a bit of a climb-down for Sony – and for our money, a welcome one.

Cartridges aside, what about the games themselves? The familiar Sony-only names are all in the offing: miniature versions of Killzone, WipeOut, Resistance, LittleBigPlanet and, most excitingly, Uncharted, are all on the way, and from the horrendously grainy footage we’ve seen from the presentation in Tokyo yesterday, the latter looks rather glorious.

As for third-party support, Activision has already thrown its hat into the PSP2 ring, with a Call Of Duty handheld title on the way, while Epic is creating a version of Unreal Engine 3 for the device, which we hope means we’ll be able to play a miniature Gears Of War battle on the train very soon. Ubisoft, Tecmo and Rockstar are just a few other big names that have thrown their weight behind the PSP2.

Given that the Nintendo 3DS will retail for around £229.99 (though many outlets are severely undercutting this figure already), the big question surrounding the PSP2 is, obviously, how much it’ll cost.

While many expected the PSP to outperform the DS when the consoles appeared a few years ago, the latter surprised many analysts by going on to become the biggest selling handheld device of all time – and the big N’s focus on cheaper technology, and thus a cheaper price point, was undoubtedly a contributing factor in its success.

With the 3D technology in Nintendo’s new console forcing its price far higher, one analyst, Mike Hickey, has predicted that the PSP2 will retail for around $250. “We think the NGP will retail for around +$250 due to its performance technology,” Hickey told Nowgamer. “We see the PS3's $300 base price as a reasonable price ceiling.”

If this is correct, the PSP2 will cost almost the same as the Nintendo 3DS, which will make the fight for consumer cash and attention more bitter than ever.

For both the PSP2 and the Nintendo 3DS, their biggest rival comes from devices such as the iPad and iPhone. Apple has already eaten into the casual market that Nintendo has courted for the past few years, while games such as Infinity Blade prove that such devices are capable of offering games with more depth (and better graphics) than Angry Birds.

The 3DS is due out in March, and the PSP2 is due out in “the holiday season”, so it’s fairly safe to say we’ll see them in the shops before Christmas. Both devices offer a unique set of possibilities for developers, and both devices have potentially exciting games on the horizon.

However, Sony and Nintendo are entering into a market that is now more competitive and shifting than ever before, and it’s difficult to predict how consumers will react to their new generation of handhelds.

Will they choose Nintendo’s flawed-yet-fascinating console, with its glasses-free 3D tech, or the more powerful PSP2, which is almost like a cut-down PS3 you can play in the loo? Alternatively, is it possible that neither will capture more than a niche, gadget-loving audience, while the broader market opts to play games on their pads, pods and mobile phones? As the cliché goes, only time will tell.

Nowgamer

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