Of all the blockbusters arriving this summer, it does increasingly seem that Captain America is one that's really attracting a lot of attention. On paper, it's an easier sell than Marvel's other major blockbuster, Thor, but even so, it seems that every piece of Captain America news is met by a little bit of Internet meltdown.

We wonder if only Pirates Of The Caribbean 4 might eclipse it at the box office this summer.

Anyway, the reason we're here: a brand new picture from the movie. This time, it allows us to get a good first glimpse at ‘Bucky' Barnes, who's being played in the film by Sebastian Stan. We've not seen Bucky properly as of yet, so, with thanks to the Los Angeles Times, feast your eyes on him right here...

Los Angeles Times

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Here's what we already know about Paramount's rebooting of the Jack Ryan franchise. Firstly, Chris Pine will be following in the shoes of Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford and Ben Affleck by playing the Tom Clancy-created character. And secondly, the film is going under the working title of Moscow, having been based on an original idea, rather than following a Clancy book. (To be fair, they pretty much ignored the Clancy books anyway.)

Moscow isn't likely to be the final name of the film, and the screenplay, that's been worked on by Hossein Amini, Adam Cozad and Anthony Peckham at various points, isn't going to be the final draft, either. Deadline is reporting that Jack Ryan series veteran, Steven Zaillian, has been brought in to rewrite the screenplay, which should hopefully leave the project in a state to go ahead.

Deadline also seems to confirm that Jack Bender is down to direct the movie. Bender is best known for helming many of the biggest episodes of Lost.

Paramount plans to have the film in production this year, which may yet see it added to the packed blockbuster roster of 2012 that we discussed yesterday.

Deadline

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Heading into production later this year, The Wolverine might just be the movie that Hugh Jackman's character has been waiting for. Jackman has played Wolverine in four films, spanning over a decade, yet only now is he saying, "I feel like all the planets are finally aligned to make a great movie."

In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Jackman says, "We finally have the character," and recalls when he was reading as many X-Men comics as possible during the production of Bryan Singer's original film. Specifically, he cites the moment where he chatted to producer Lauren Shuler Donner, where he said, "Lauren, I don't know about you, but I've seen this Japanese story, and I think it's so good. It's just genius, it's brilliant."

And it's the Japanese arc that's forming the basis for the upcoming movie, The Wolverine.

As part of the movie, Jackman is also bulking up a lot more than we're used to seeing. He revealed that he's on a 6,000 calorie a day diet right now, in preparation for the role. "I don't know how much I want to give away about it, but Darren said with the last one, ‘Hey, you looked great, but you're so tall that in those long shots you looked kind of like Clint Eastwood, and that's not Wolverine.' He said that Wolverine, in the comics, is powerful, stocky, you know. He's short and thick. So, he said, ‘I want you to go there, get bigger.'"

Once Aronofsky is through with the awards circuit for his latest movie, Black Swan, it sounds like it's full steam ahead on The Wolverine. Once we have a firm release date for the movie, we'll pass it your way.

Los Angeles Times

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Disingenuously, some had suggested that Gone, Baby, Gone, for Ben Affleck, was something of a fluke. I never bought that, finding his directorial debut really quite mature and strong, save for an ending that, even now, I'm not sure I buy. Affleck's steady hand behind the camera was a significant factor in the quality of the film, and I found it surprising that a select few were arguing a little quickly that it was all a one-off.

It wasn't.

Because what Affleck has shown with his second stint behind the camera, The Town, is not only that he's one of America's most promising directors right now, but also that he has an ability to cross genres. If Gone, Baby, Gone was a grown-up drama, The Town is a slightly simpler beast, but still with dramatic beats. It's also a surprisingly strong action-heist movie, with some genuinely terrific sequences.

Affleck gives himself the lead role this time, and he builds on his performance in the little-seen Hollywoodland, creating a character who's not entirely comfortable with his circumstances, but suitably efficient when the moment comes.

However, it's not Affleck's performance that stays in the mind once the credits have rolled. Firstly, there's Rebecca Hall, who puts in a fine shift here. Jeremy Renner does his stock no harm, either, with a strong supporting turn. But the performance that's etched in my mind is that of Pete Postlethwaite. I have a bias here, because I've been a massive Postlethwaite fan for some time. His loss, earlier this year, was a massive one for acting. The amount he does with little screen time here is testament to that.

The film around him, though, deserves a lot of credit, and surely Ben Affleck has dealt the naysayers of his directorial work a sizeable blow. I, for one, can't wait to see what he's up to next, because The Town is just the kind of movie that many of Hollywood's regular hack directors simply couldn't hold a torch to. If you missed it at the cinema, do catch up with it on disc.

The Disc

The picture presentation on the Blu-ray is really quite strong, eating up Affleck's establishing shots with absolute clarity, and reflecting the look that the director wanted well. The audio, too, matches it well.

You get two cuts of the film on the disc, with an extended version available. And there's also a commentary track (a very strong one, at that), and a mix of featurettes of varying interest. For the commentary alone, though, the extras package delivers.

The Film:
The Disc:

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

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"What happened to my sweet girl?" Well, Barbara Hershey, I'll tell you. They battered her. They beat her down. They put her through the wringer, wrangled her, ravaged her and drove her to ruin. They swept in on vicious dark wings and brutally hurt your sweet little girl for their own sadistic ends.

Oh, no more! Will someone please step in and save Natalie Portman from further suffering? Hasn't she been through enough in her career? It's high time that caring arms embraced the actress, wrapped her in a cosy cotton blanket and protected her from all the cruelty.

I like the Black Swan star and I don't mean 'like her' in a schoolboy crush or dirty-old-man-ogling-on-the-subway sort of way. She's an attractive and sophisticated person who, alongside a varied and interesting stage and film career, speaks multiple languages and holds a degree in psychology.

All things considered, she's a positive role model who stands out in the shallow world of showbiz, and if I ever ended up at an A-list party, she's the sort of person I'd rather end up in conversation with. It's sad, then, that seemingly every film I see her in Portman is tearing up, being tortured or enduring horrendous ordeals.

Perhaps through quirks of pop culture consumption I've managed to only watch her 'works of woe' and have missed the 'happy Natalie' flicks where harm is far away. Regardless, when you break down her back catalogue and recall what's been required in some of the roles Portman has taken, it looks brutal and bruising.

I guess starting her career as Mathilda in Léon (a.k.a. The Professional) set a bad precedent. The unloved twelve-year-old is left orphaned after Gary Oldman unleashes carnage and has no one to turn to except the hitman of the title. Consequently, a future of violence as a 'cleaner' is sealed. "What happened to my sweet girl?" All hope of an innocent adolescence ebbed away and she became a cold-blooded contract killer.

To note another example of Portman abuse, see V For Vendetta. Evey Hammond gets tricked and imprisoned by a freedom fighter with a Guy Fawkes fixation, who locks her up in his lair and shaves her head so she can become a more effective anarchist revolutionary. It might be for the greater good and for the overthrow of the totalitarian regime, but it's still inhumane and sadistic manipulation. "What happened to my sweet girl?" She was held hostage by a theatrical terrorist who tortured her and coercively radicalised her as a political pawn.

Portman also gets wrongly tortured 18th century style in Goya's Ghosts and ends up a withered, impoverished hag who can't speak. ("What happened to my sweet girl?" The Spanish Inquisition screwed her over, put her in the asylum and reduced her to raggedy utter wretchedness.)

Her role in the Star Wars saga as Anakin Skywalker's lover is also significant as a final case in point. The prequels are just non-stop sorrow, peril, warring and clumsy dialogue for Padmé Amidala. Then Anakin turns to the Dark Side, becomes Darth Vader and she dies in childbirth. I thought that dealing with Hayden Christensen's sulky tantrums was as bad as it could get for the actress. Not so. Enter Black Swan.

Darren Aronofsky's latest work is horrifying on many levels and it's the anguish of Portman's character, Nina, that ties it together and makes the movie one of the most distressing I've ever sat through. (And when I say sat through, what I really mean is squirmed and writhed through in absolute agony.)

In my humble opinion, Black Swan provides one of the most intense portrayals of total meltdown in cinema history. Films like Repulsion, Jacob's Ladder and Oldboy, that left me significantly shaken and stirred, look like easy viewing in the shadow of Black Swan.

That's partly due to Aronofsky's aesthetic stylings, the sound editing and the bonus body horror that accompanies the breakdown. Plus, I have a bizarre and irrational phobia of ballet.  It strikes me as sinister and painful art form and the thought of unnaturally contorted bodies dancing to extra creepy classical music gives me the fear.

Beneath the grace and sweet fairytale fantasy, back in the mirrored studio where little girls are breaking their bones in pursuit of perfection, ballet is bloody grim. In total, Black Swan is pretty much my own personal package of pure horror.

You need a focal protagonist, though, to project all this darkness onto and standing en pointe is Mademoiselle Natalie, taking all the misery, despair and devastation in mesmerising style. She more than deserves all the praise for her performance and the immense physical and emotional effort it entailed.

In the beginning, Nina Sayers appears to be just a brittle, bland ballerina prodigy. Her world revolves around obsessively stretching, perfecting postures and ritually scouring her ballet shoes under the overbearing gaze of her syrupy mother. Soon, though, the macabre and menacing darkness is swallowing the drippy pink prettiness, because ballet is subversively sinister and Natalie Portman is an actor doomed to torment.

The neurotic, frigid dancer ends up unhinged by paranoia, jealousy and overzealous desire. From a seemingly happy place of being a "sweet girl", she descends into a hellish maelstrom of dark passions and self-destruction, falling to physical injury, mental illness and distortions in reality so epic she thinks she's turning into a murderous bird.

You can't help but empathise with poor Nina. It's not just a simple case of getting a few bad rashes and freaking out because her nails seem to bleeding all the time. Her identity is splitting and she's bombarded by hallucinations and horrifying visions and occurrences wherever she turns.

The disturbing transitions and traumas of the psychosis are all the more affecting because it's Natalie Portman who's going through it. It takes an outstanding acting performance to portray the white swan/black swan dichotomy and run the exhaustive range required of a repressed ballerina totally losing grip. Additionally, I'd say that Portman's off-screen persona helps propel Black Swan into the higher echelons of abject horror, beyond the limits of bearable cinematic despair.

As the most extreme case of cruelty, Black Swan should mark the end point of the trend and moviemaking tendency to put Natalie Portman through turmoil.

She's been punished enough so, please, have some compassion and let her be. No more torture, abuse, swan nightmares and definitely no more ballet.

Support the Happy Natalie Campaign. (Cue closing freeze frame of a sweet girl smiling.)

James' previous column can be found here.

You can reach James on his Twitter feed here, see his film cartoons here and more sketches here.

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So, Red Dwarf is coming back in 2012.

Well, kind of. There's been no official announcement yet. But overeager cast members have already inadvertently spilled far more beans than they were supposed to, with Craig Charles blabbing on a small radio station (presumably thinking nobody would be listening. Unfortunately, the Daily Mail were) before Robert Llewellyn, assuming the felis sapiens was well and truly out of the bag, posted a lengthy and excited blog post about it. A lengthy and excited blog post that he deleted a matter of hours later, presumably after a Doug Naylor-administered slap on the wrist.

Of course, even though the post was removed, its content had already filtered out onto the wider Internet, including the most crucial statements: "We are making a new series, commissioned by Dave, not a special or a movie or a one off dooberry. A full 6 half hour episodes of a brand new series...  We start shooting this in November this year."

Hopefully, Robert's announcement won't affect any ongoing negotiations with Dave. We imagine it should all just be a formality by now, and once the details are ironed out, we should see an official announcement from Dave and/or GNP.

The big question now, of course, is whether or not anyone thinks this is a good idea. Certainly, while there was much excitement and anticipation over the Back To Earth specials in 2009, the resulting episodes themselves aired to a mixed reaction at best. And that's carried over to the Internet's thoughts on a potential new series, with many casual fans, in particular, convinced that the show has now reached the end of its useful life.

Among the more hardcore elements of fandom, however, there's a touch more optimism. Readers of fansite Ganymede & Titan seemed of a mind that the news was, variously, "great", "awesome", "cool", "fantastic" and other similarly positive adjectives. Although, of course, we doubt they'd be hanging around Red Dwarf fansites if they weren't hungry for more of the show.

But it's clear that, although fan opinions on Back To Earth differed wildly, as have opinions on just about every series of Dwarf since around 1993, there was at least a vague consensus that it did some things well and some things badly.

It was rewarding for those long-term fans invested in the character development of Lister, in particular, and considering the miniscule budget it was visually exceptional, with some especially stunning sets and CGI shots.

But at the same time, it was overly bogged down in Blade Runner references, suffered from a lack of atmosphere, and rarely drew on established character dynamics for its comedy, instead resorting to more obvious gags (although anyone who says it wasn't funny at all is an outright liar).

The feeling, though, is that many of the problems could be solved with one significant change on the production side of things with a return to shooting in front of a studio audience.

A majority of fans, among both the casual and the hardcore, feel that the way to get the show's mojo back is to return to a more traditional sitcom style, and Llewellyn has even admitted that this is being kept in mind:

"The plan at the moment, and this could change, the plan is that we record the new series in front of an audience...  [But] the fear among the producers now is that it's impossible to imagine an audience of around 400 people at the recording of a TV show like Red Dwarf, where nobody does a bit of a hint on Twitter, or sneaks a picture on Facebook or posts a bit of badly shot video on YouTube."

Despite the worries about potential spoiler problems, this is an encouraging indication of the makers' current attitude. Of course, shooting in an audience-sitcom style hasn't always worked for Dwarf. Series VIII was an attempt to return to those glory days after the single-camera setup of series VII, and is pretty universally acknowledged to be a disaster. (Indeed, one of the good things about Back To Earth was finally removing series VIII's awful closing cliffhanger from its position as the ‘last ever scene'.)

So, it's true that allowing a cast whose origins all lie in live performance to thrive on the energy of an audience once more would undoubtedly reap positive results. But the scripts need to be there as well.

In his time as solo lead writer, Doug Naylor has done an admirable job of maintaining the show's reputation for inventive and original sci-fi concepts, but it's also clear that the immense comedic genius of his partnership with the departed Rob Grant was far greater than either can manage alone.

Perhaps the greatest hope is that Doug turns to another writer, or writers, to assist him in sharpening up the show's flagging comedy credentials. Maybe then, just maybe, we might end up with new Red Dwarf that's fit to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the glory years of its first six seasons.

Oh, and setting more of it in space this time would be nice, too.

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A Dark Matter is the recent novel from American horror writer, Peter Straub. Praise from Stephen King is proudly blazoned on the front cover of the paperback: "Terrifying...impossible to put down." This alone is incentive enough for any horror fan to pick up the book and inspect its content, but there is not just the promise of horror in this book. It is also a story wrapped in intrigue and mystery that makes it a contender for a good thriller. But does it live up to the high praise that King awards it?

The story centres on Lee Harwell, a writer struggling to start another fictional project after the success of his last novel. A series of small incidents lead him to investigate a terrible event that happened to people closest to him when he was a teenager in the sixties.

In his final year of high school, Lee's friends met a charismatic campus guru, Spencer Mallon, who turned their worlds around. Lee stubbornly was not drawn to his tales and life theories and kept well away, but his closest friends (which include his now wife) were enthralled and doted on Spencer's every word.

The consequences of their adoration lie in mystery. All that was known was, one evening in 1966, Spencer Mallon lead his followers into a meadow to perform a ritual. Afterwards, all that was left was a gruesome dismembered body and the broken souls of those that survived. Their lives would never be the same.

For Lee Harwell the secret had stayed hidden long enough and it was now the material for his next non-fiction book.

The subject matter of the story is instantly intriguing: what on earth could have happened in that field? We must read on and find out! But there are many layers to this book that go deeper than the basic storyline.

The characters of the story are all fascinating, each one described by the protagonist with ease and a genuine admiration that gives the reader a good idea of their personal relationships, how they regarded each other and why they followed Spencer Mallon to the meadow.

We begin to get a picture of all the events leading up to that fateful night through each person like a jigsaw puzzle and it is unclear for a while as to where it is going, and what the final outcome will be.

There are some fabulous characters to get involved with, mainly their cherub-like friend, Hootie Bly, who has since been locked in a childlike innocence. Or Meredith Bright, who, in a complete bipolar reaction to events, became a cold hearted woman set on success. Each one is talked about leading up to their inevitable reunion, generating excitement in the reader as to whom you're going to meet and how they have been affected since the evening in the meadow. 

Details of the actual event are held back. When you feel you are getting closer to the mystery you are pulled back by Straub, as if to say, ‘That's enough for now.' But there are also revelations about the survivors' later lives that are given to you halfway through the book, making you wonder how you got this far without knowing that information, which is astounding. It is quite the tease for the reader, but an effective tool that renders the book 'unputdownable'.

Straub also uses various voices for the narrative, although all told through Lee, it is his friends who are retelling their version of that night. The constant jump in time and perspective make the book continually refreshing and suspenseful.

While the book is incredibly enjoyable, towards the end it does seem to lose track of where it's going and what it is ultimately going to reveal.

A Dark Matter also can not be simply labelled as a ‘horror novel'. Anyone expecting a simple scary, gore-fest will be disappointed, as there are far too many themes running through it. The mystery gives it a thriller edge and the relationships between the friends (and enemies) make it a fantastic psychological novel.

But, collectively, it does keep you guessing, and when it all ties in, the end result will have the desired effect. You will consider it for a long time after.

A Dark Matter is out now and available from the Den Of Geek Store.

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Role-playing games were once considered the preserve of the nerd, closeted away pretending to be an Elven Mage, rolling lumps of plastic and wielding a deadly pencil.

Now though, RPGs are digital, and therefore much much cooler. I think that's how it works anyway. Here's a list of ten of the best - feel free to have a good old argue in the comments.

Final Fantasy VII

Maybe it's not the best JRPG out there, but no one can deny the effect that FF7 had on its release over 14 years ago. The game showed the world how videogames had grown up, how they could tell epic stories and how they could make bucket loads of money. A worldwide release notched up more than seven million sales, and some might say that the Final Fantasy series stills dines out on the success of VII. Still, it's a wonderful game, massive, occasionally poignant and fondly remembered by any who invested some time in it.

Mass Effect 2

Some people might have journeyed through Mass Effect 2, BioWare's space faring epic, and not realised they were playing an RPG. They were, though. Mass Effect 2 doesn't hide its RPG-ness as such, but if you know where to look, you'll find it.

Mixing breathtaking action with a race against time narrative and a disparate cast of characters, all with their own motivations and secrets, Mass Effect 2 learns from the mistakes of its predecessor, and in doing so creates one of the best action RPG experiences out there.

Neverwinter Nights

It's Dungeons & Dragons, the ultimate pen and paper RPG, except translated digitally. If you hear a rattle while you're playing Neverwinter Nights, that's because your processor is rolling a D20. At least, I expect that's what it is - it might be your fan mangling your graphics card. Maybe you should check.

Alongside a fantastic story mode, Neverwinter Nights also gives you all the tools you'll need to create your own adventures to share with your friends. Few games so accurately capture the essence of the table top games that videogame RPGs owe their existence to. Add to that a swathe of expansion packs, and you've got yourself a top-notch experience.

Pokémon

Pokémon shouldn't be a good game. It should be a childish mess that you eventually grow out of, graduating instead to writing sniping comments about idiots who still like it, but it's not. It's the videogame equivalent of a brightly coloured crack addiction, forever dragging you back into its cycle of hunting, capturing and training.

A wonderful mix of the casual and the brain sappingly hardcore, Pokémon is a simple premise, simply presented, that is impossibly difficult to stop playing. I still remember the day all of my Pokémon in Pokémon Blue were accidentally deleted. It was not my best day ever.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

Oblivion is a master class in how to create an immersive, traditional fantasy RPG. A huge cast of characters played by respected actors, a world so utterly enormous that it's difficult not to get lost at least eight times while you're wandering around its vast expanse, and an epic story that can be utterly ignored in favour of any number of diverting side quests, Oblivion has everything that an RPG needs to make it a classic.

The winner of about a billion game of the year awards, it's entirely possible to start a play through of Oblivion and never stop. That's some hardcore role playing right there.

Fallout

First-person perspective be damned, isometric viewpoints are where it's at and anyone with an ounce of nous knows that. Fallout sets its scene spectacularly well, and from there sets about as taut an RPG experience as you're likely to experience. Sure, the world may not be as vast as it is in the recent first-person reboot, but Fallout has a distinct charm about it that's hard to place and difficult to dislike.

The whole package is wrapped in a sumptuously detailed world, full of references and in-jokes. Fallout 3 may be the big hitter, but Fallout set the scene with such aplomb that it earned its place on this list.

Xenogears

Xenogears never saw the light of day in Europe, and that's a crying shame. Released a year after Square's all conquering Final Fantasy VII in Japan, the game is an epic tale of love, loss, war and, perhaps most importantly, utterly massive robots. The story is gibberish, with a strong emphasis on Nietzchean philosophy. but the characters are all interesting and it's got big robots in it. Considered by many to be at least the equal of FF7, Xenogears is all but forgotten in the west now, one of many unheralded RPGs that fell by the wayside.

Zork

Nine words is all it took for Zork to become a classic, destined to be remembered long after its contemporaries were consigned to dustbins and quoted by people who wouldn't know the game if you hit them with it. Those nine words? “You are likely to be eaten by a grue.” Zork is a text based adventure from back in the day when the word “graphics” meant “what you do if you can't do woodwork”, but it weaved a rich story, ripe with humour, and for its time, showed some pretty impressive tech. It even understood some prepositions, which is more than can be said for a lot of people nowadays.

Chrono Trigger

If you only play one JRPG, then it has to be Chrono Trigger. A masterpiece of multi strand story telling, with multiple endings, a gloriously simple battle system and a cast of characters that almost set the template for the swathes of JRPGs that followed in its wake, Chrono Trigger single handedly defined its genre.

There are twists, turns and tragedies along the way, but Chrono Trigger deals with everything with such a deftness of touch that it's almost impossible not to love it. Plus, you can get it on the DS now, so there's no need to dig the SNES out of the attic and there's no excuse not to play it.

Dragon Age: Origins

Murder, intrigue, ravenous hell beasts raping and pillaging and generally being the sort of visitor you wouldn't invite back, Dragon Age: Origins has it all. A mature RPG from the masters of the genre, BioWare, Dragon Age mixes the guts and gusto of Mass Effect with a more traditional fantasy setting and adds a nuanced, multi-layered combat system to boot.

Full of humour, warmth and an expertly crafted and diverting narrative, Dragon Age is every bit a next generation game, but one that celebrates the past, always with a knowing wink to the classics that came before it.

Dragon Age 2 is released on 11th Match 2011, on PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3

See Also:

• A history of RPGs
• How RPGs provide a world of choice

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As this article goes live, Tangled is top of the UK box office, it's closing in on $200m worth of takings in the US, and it's proven to be something of a critical and commercial success. Back when we sat down with Roy Conli, the film's producer, times were a little less certain.

Here, then, is our chat with the man, where we also get a chance to look back at one of his earlier films, Treasure Planet...

You mentored under Don Hahn at Disney, and you faced some interesting parallels on this project. Don Hahn, on Beauty And The Beast, faced a change of director once production had started. And on The Lion King, he's fairly open to the fact that, even by animation standards, they found the film extraordinarily late.

As a producer, you get to do the nasty bit. You're surrounded by very creative people and your job is to give them the platform to create. What did you pick up from Don, and how do you weather the storm when, in the case of Tangled, your original director has a heart attack once production has started?

First of all, going back to Don, who better to walk into this organisation with? I had a theatrical, literary background. Script development and whatnot. Also production, though. Fortunately, what I had to do was transfer a certain amount of knowledge from theatrical production into animation production. The literary aspect took care of itself.

Working with Don, under Don I was able to get in there and go to meetings with him, just to see him work. It gave me a concept of how to finish a film. He was literary in the last throes, the last year of The Lion King when I got there.

Which was the really tricky year?

Yeah. That's the tricky production part. On the Pocahontas end, I was able to sit with Jim, who was a first time producer at that time, and kind of watch what his mistakes were. There was a balance there.

Don, I think, amazingly gracious man, was an influence in the sense that I got to see a master at work. How much of my style emulates Don, I'm not quite sure. I do think in terms of crisis management, you look at the cards that are dealt and you basically deal with the cards that are dealt.

Glen Keane was saying you had forty percent of the film animated when you were just six months away from release?

Oh, yeah. This is the thing that we decided to do. We had two years to put this together. Nathan [Greno] and Byron [Howard] came in, and they were amazing together. Those two guys think alike. They feed off one another.

They seem close, too.

Amazingly close.

That's not always the way when directors are paired on animated projects?

Yeah. The interesting thing is that oftentimes, when you work with a pair, you want to split them up. So, one will do layout, and one something else.

What I found with that pair was that they think so much alike, and they feed off one another, that it was better to keep them together. So, if I needed to, and things from a scheduling standpoint were such that I needed to have one in editorial and one in animation, I would do that. But I did it as little as I could. Because both of them are great actors. Byron is a superb animator.

What we did, how I scheduled this, was basically allowing the creative to really come to fruition before I pulled the trigger on the next step. We were really careful not to jump ahead. Often we would say, "Alright, I know the schedule says we need to start today, but I want to hold this for another few weeks until I know it's baked." Knowing that, in the rhythm of production, you can always make up at the back end those two weeks.

Because there's an ongoing assumption with animated films that it's a three year cycle.

Yeah, three to four.

And the assumption is, sometimes, that one-hundred percent of that is animation. Yet, if my maths serves me well here, forty percent of your two years on Tangled you've spent actively animating the film. Sixty percent was finding the story?

Easily, yeah. I would say that between June and now we did the most animation. Literally, we lit the film in 16 weeks.

Obviously, there were tests going on before. We made sure that we knew what the palette was that we wanted to work with. There was a tremendous visual development team.

My art director is brilliant. When you have that power, and you have a guy like Steve Goldberg, who was my visual effects supervisor, who knows how to put sequences together, I had complete faith.

In many ways, my job is about hiring people who are better than me to do the work. And as long as I have trust in them, and they are able to communicate their needs, and be able to communicate with the rest of the team, the schedule is tough, but do-able.

What I found interesting with Tangled is where it brings Disney to. I don't want to get bogged down too much with Pixar, because what I think is often forgotten is that Pixar stood on the shoulders of someone itself.

This is the return of Mr Lasseter.

In France, in the 60s, there was a blight on the vineyards in the south. Now originally, the vineyards in California had taken vines from France and brought them to California, and that's where our wine industry started.

So, in the 1960s, when the vines were dying off, they cleared the fields, went to California, took the vines that were related to France originally, and brought them back.

That's how I liken Lasseter. Lasseter was a Disney guy. Lasseter learned his tools at Disney. Lasseter went away, perfected his approach utilising those tools, and what he's done is bring those tools back to us, making it a filmmaker-driven studio. It's strengthened what we're doing.

A lot of animated studios have, if we're being blunt, tried to copy a model that they've seen as successful. What I think is interesting about Disney is something I saw in Princess And The Frog, and in Meet The Robinsons, and in a little bit of Bolt. It's not just re-engaging with its roots, although I'd argue it does villains and music better than anyone. There's also a real underlying intention to rediscover an identity as to what a Disney film is, as opposed to what a Pixar one is?

It's interesting, because what I think the great thing about Lasseter has been is that he's allowed the Disney culture to continue to evolve.

He strikes me as a guardian angel now more than anything else?

Yeah. What's great is that he's not trying to impose a culture. He's allowing it to evolve as cultures should.

The culture of Pixar is Brad Bird, Pete Docter, Andrew Stanton, Lee Unkrich. Those great directors that have evolved from that place. What he's allowing is the culture to be Byron, and Nathan, and Chris Williams.

There's a certain amount of trust that he has to place as a creative artist, and wisely so. You cannot force art. You have to let art evolve, and he's wise enough to do that.

I think, though, in terms of searching for the identity, I think we, in my opinion, hit it out of the park with this one. The brilliance of Nathan and Byron is that they're great filmmakers. Our favourite thing to do, on Mondays, is talk about the films we saw that week. We talk about the specific structure, chase scenes, what is about that film that we love?

Secondly, they are huge fans of the classic Disney. So, they bring that new and that old, in such a charming way.

We started off wanting to make this film a 20th century film, touching the legacy.

There's been a lot of talk in relation to this one to Princess And The Frog. Princess And The Frog seems to be deemed, in some quarters, as a failure in some ways. It's talked about as some kind of commercial disappointment. But that's casting a shadow, that we have a film that can take $280m at the box office, an animated film, and it's regarded as a failure. You saw this yourself with The Hunchback Of Notre Dame a little?

Oh, absolutely. Fortunately, Hunchback was actually a financial success. I saw all this a little more with Treasure Planet.

But when all's said and done, I don't look at Princess And The Frog as a failure at all. Knowing where that film came from, and who the directors were, and what it was, I think from a worldwide standpoint, it stood on its own.

The difficulty with these films is that there's an enormous amount of labour that goes into them, and that labour is relatively expensive. So, commercial success, look, being the producer of Treasure Planet, I don't judge films on commercial success. I look at films like Scott Pilgrim Vs The World, a brilliant, brilliant, amazing movie. Amazing direction, amazing design.

Edgar Wright should try directing animation.

Absolutely.

That's not how I judge. Look, do I want commercial success? Absolutely. But do I judge the quality of my films on commercial success? No. I came from the theatre, and there's no such thing as commercial success there!

The only people I hear talking about commercial success or failure that way are people who work for Disney. Most of us from the outside thought Princess And The Frog is was a lovely film. But it's the rumours from Disney that suggest it underperformed.

That's interesting.

There's something else I found interesting about Tangled. For here, you have the two young, seemingly fearless directors. And then you've got a crossover with the old guard, which is you track back to the late 80s, early 90s, when Disney arguably peaked. It was at the point where a new generation and old generation came together. The Little Mermaid and Beauty And The Beast are pretty much seen as the perfect storm, the perfect spot where the generations crossed over. Do you think we might be hitting that spot again now?

Yeah. I feel that. I feel that. To a large degree, it has to do with Lasseter's return, but also I look at these two guys as filmmakers for the future.

Every generation has a different ways of telling a story. We had a great run in the early 90s, into the mid 90s and we became a little more executive-driven as we got into the 2000s. And fortunately, the mid-2000s, we found John again. And we're back to being an artist-driven studio, and that's what it has to be.

I love where I am right now in my career. I've always been fortunate. I think the three movies I've produced are incredibly beautiful, have wonderful storylines. This one, though, there is not a moment in this film that I sit and cringed at.

There are moments in other films where I sit and go, "Why did we do that?" This one, I sit and there is not a moment where I have any question that we're telling a story economically, animating it economically, and it is absolutely touching those hearts.

Finally, I'm a big fan of Treasure Planet, which you produced. Presumably, that was the right film at the wrong time in your eyes? That if it was released now, it'd be very differently received?

Yeah. I think, had that been done in 3D, completely, it would have been a different experience. As it is, I'm amazingly proud of that film. I think it's a great film. Unfortunately, it got caught in some weird marketing issues.

From what I could see, it couldn't have hit at a worst time.

I know what you mean. It ran up against one of the first Lord Of The Rings, and the first Harry Potter.

Easy!

Yeah!

Roy Conli, thank you very much.

See Also:

• Byron Howard & Nathan Greno interview
• Glen Keane interview

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It's a familiar horror scenario: you're hitching a lift, and against your better judgement, you get in a car with someone you gradually realise isn't entirely stable. Too late, you notice the huge black bin bags on the back seat, and as the driver skitters off down the road as though the forces of hell are at his tyres, you quietly pray that those bin bags aren't full of dismembered body parts.

This actually happened to me about a dozen years ago (I was the hitcher, not the drive), and while I never discovered the contents of those sinister bin bags, I was eventually deposited safely at my destination by the kind, yet terrifying driver.

Get in a car with these movie drivers, however, and you may not be so lucky...

See No Evil, Hear No Evil - Wally Karew and Dave Lyons

An odd couple, one blind, one deaf, find themselves on the wrong side of the law in Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder's uneven (and politically incorrect) 1989 comedy.

Our advice:

As the film's chase scene ably demonstrates, driving a car without the benefit of sight isn't advisable. Gene Wilder's character (the deaf one) could just as easily have taken the helm instead of Richard Pryor's (who's blind), though this would have made for fewer uneasy laughs, I suppose. In any case, you really wouldn't want to be a passenger in Wilder and Pryor's police car, here, especially once the shotgun blasts begin...

Falling Down - William Foster

One of Joel Schumacher's best films, Falling Down saw Michael Douglas in one of his finest performances as William Foster, an otherwise mild-mannered white collar worker who embarks on a murderous rampage.

Our advice:

If you're in Los Angeles and happen to spot a car with the number plate ‘D-Fens', start running in the opposite direction. There's a man inside with an entire bag full of automatic firearms, he's missed breakfast, and he's not in a good mood.

Police Academy - Hightower

Scattershot 1984 comedy Police Academy may not have endeared itself to critics (Roger Ebert once described it as "a movie that doesn't even bother to put the punch lines in"), but it was a hit with audiences, earning around $80 million from a $5 million budget, and spawning no fewer than six sequels and a weird animated TV series.

Our advice:

A scene where Mahoney (Steve Guttenberg) teaches gentle giant, Hightower (Bubba Smith), to drive is one of Police Academy's most funny sequences. At almost seven feet tall, Hightower can barely fit in the tiny Honda Civic he attempts to drive. Given that there's barely enough room in the car for another passenger, and that Hightower drives like he's rushing home to put out a fire, we'd advise you to take a bus. Or walk.

Christine - Arnie Cunningham

A 1958 Plymouth Fury comes to life in John Carpenter's 1983 adaptation of a Stephen King novel, crushing hands under bonnets, corrupting impressionable youth, Arnie Cunningham, and running over school bullies.

Our advice:

Quite aside from the hideous fuel consumption, we strongly advise against the purchase of a haunted American classic of any kind, particularly one called Christine. The vehicle may have the power to repair itself (which is extremely handy in the event of a crash), but she'll also have the unnerving habit of killing everyone you know, as her temporary owner, Arnie Cunningham, finds out in Carpenter's cracking film.

Whether you're sitting in the passenger seat or standing by the side of the road, Christine will probably try to kill you, even when she's on fire, as this atmospheric scene from the film reveals...

Die Hard With A Vengeance - John McCLane

The second sequel to the classic Die Hard, which sees Bruce Willis team up with Samuel L Jackson, and Jeremy Irons cast as the brother of Hans Gruber, for a film light on the disaster genre elements that distinguished the first two entries, but high on action and odd couple banter.

Our advice:

If you're in New York, don't let John McClane take you anywhere. If you've ever played the videogame Crazy Taxi, his driving technique will seem unnervingly familiar. Get in a cab with McClane and you're likely to end up speeding through a park, with terrified joggers scattering left and right, while Samuel L Jackson screams groundless threats and insults in the front passenger seat.

Crash - James Ballard

David Cronenberg's creepily erotic adaptation of JG Ballard's novel of the same name was released to an outpouring of histrionic outrage in 1996, as Crash's conflation of sex and car accidents caused media guardians everywhere to sputter out their tea in righteous indignation.

Our advice:

The secret's in the film's title. You definitely don't want to sit in a car with James Ballard at the helm. In fact, our advice is, if you're sitting in a vehicle and the driver looks even remotely like the actor James Spader, simply open the door and throw yourself onto the pavement,particularly if he asks you creepy questions such as, "Do you see Kennedy's assassination as a special kind of car crash?" Before you know it, you'll be lying in the twisted wreckage of a Nissan Sunny with a strange man licking your ear.

Duel - mysterious truck driver

An efficient, tense and near wordless thriller, 1971's Duel was the film that put a young Steven Spielberg firmly on the Hollywood map.

Our advice:

If you're stuck in the Californian desert and a rusty old truck pulls up, don't even think about getting in. Sooner or later, the driver will happen across Dennis Weaver in his Plymouth Valiant, and suddenly lose all sense of perspective. It's not clear whether the now crazed trucker hated Weaver's performance in Gentle Ben, or if he's simply envious of the actor's luxuriant moustache, but whatever his motives are, you'll be left clinging to the dashboard as he chases the unsuspecting actor across mile after mile of dusty highway.

The Fast & The Furious - Dominic Toretto

The cars were the stars of Rob Cohen's movie about illegal street racing, The Fast And The Furious, largely because the acting's so bad. A real guilty pleasure, there's a certain amount of fun to be had from both this film and its sequels, mostly thanks to their spectacularly ripe dialogue, most of it car related: "Why don't you girls just pack it up before I leave tread marks on your face?"

Our advice:

Quite apart from the fact that Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) drives like a maniac and eventually flips a classic car while playing chicken with a locomotive, there's another reason why you shouldn't hitch a lift with him: he only ever drives in straight lines at speeds of around 200mph. If your destination involves turns or roundabouts, forget it. Toretto's simply too tough for steering wheels.

Death Proof - Stuntman Mike

Quentin Tarantino's talky half of the Grindhouse double-bill is both a car-based slasher movie and a loving homage to the 1971 film, Vanishing Point. Tarantino's insistence on using practical stunts, rather than CGI, results in one of the most audacious extended chase sequences of recent years, not to mention a brave performance from stuntwoman, Zoe Bell.

Our advice:

Kurt Russell puts in a rare villainous performance as Stuntman Mike, a crazed serial killer who kills his victims with modified 70s cars, a bit like an insane Dominic Toretto, in fact. If you're hitchhiking, and you're offered a lift by a long haired man in an American muscle car, back away. You'll either end up with your head smashed against the dashboard, like poor Rose McGowan, or left clinging to the bonnet, screaming for your life. Don't say we didn't warn you.

Airplane! - Ted Striker

This spectacular 1980 spoof of disaster movies such as Airport has remained an enduring comedy classic, even as the films it parodied have faded from our consciousness.

Our advice:

A departure from the other drivers on this list, Ted Striker in Airplane! is probably quite competent behind the wheel. The danger he poses isn't to life and limb, but to your bank account.

Traumatised by his war experiences, ex-pilot Striker is, at the beginning of the film, a taxi driver. In a blink-and-you'll-miss-it scene, Striker assures his elderly passenger, "I'll be back in a minute," before becoming embroiled in the film's mid-air events. An apparently disposable incident that could easily be forgotten, it's later returned to in a brilliant post-credits sequence, which reveals that the passenger's still sitting patiently in the taxi. "I'll give him another twenty minutes, but that's it," the old man says, as the taxi's meter, still running, notches up an astronomical fare of $113.

Drive Angry 3D arrives in UK cinemas on 25th February.

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Unfortunately, Rabbit Hole is the kind of film that seems to get overlooked in the awards race. It is in the line of sharp, intelligent, and sincere character dramas that, in recent times, has been pigeon-holed, or simply ignored.

Think of Rachel Getting Married, or this year's Blue Valentine, both of which are films that, when it came to the Academy Awards, were defined by a single performance (Anne Hathaway for the former, Michelle Williams for the latter), while the rest of the production, cast and crew were snubbed.

Rabbit Hole has been granted a similar fate, with Nicole Kidman receiving the brunt of the awards attention. It is highly unlikely that she'll win, due in part to the quality of the competition, but also due to the lack of the awards-bait triumvirate of prosthetics, reality and tragedy that helped her to walk away with an Oscar for The Hours.

However, that this is the only recognition granted to Rabbit Hole is puzzling, as it is a superbly nuanced, finely crafted drama.

Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by David Lindsay-Abaire, Rabbit Hole centres on a couple, Becca and Howie (Kidman, alongside Aaron Eckhart), who are haunted by the loss of their young son. Taking place months after the fact, it looks at the permanence of trauma, the ghosts that colour seemingly everyday life, and how the two adopt very different approaches to dealing with their grief. Becca shuts herself away from her social circle, making up alibis to avoid the neighbours, while Howie spends his days working, and his spare time playing squash with colleagues. They share an existence that, on the surface, may seem dull, but is fundamentally broken.

Director, John Cameron Mitchell, after the camp rock opera Hedwig And The Angry Inch and the quirky sex comedy, Shortbus, reins himself in, perfecting a simple point-and-shoot style that recalls Woody Allen at his most humanistic, with Frank DeMarco's intimate cinematography creating an organic platform for the drama to unfold slowly.

It is also not, despite a twinkly score and gentle pacing, without its sharp, darkly humorous edges, best seen in Becca and Howie's regular visits to a local support group for bereaved parents. When forced to listen to the tragic stories of ‘professional wallowers', Becca is irritable, interrupting discussion in favour of her own, insensitive putdowns.

Kidman revels in this complex role, recalling her performance in Noah Baumbach's Margot At The Wedding in how she makes Becca remarkably detestable, yet never grotesque. In comparison, Howie is less antagonistic, but Eckhart remains one of the unsung stars of modern Hollywood, imbuing the character with a deep sadness behind his enforced positivity.

Rabbit Hole could craft a perfectly functional melodrama out of this conflict, but Lindsay-Abaire's script avoids direct confrontation, at least in the conventional sense, and instead focuses on the unexpected, erratic movements of emotion. Such scenes, where previously serene characters erupt with aggression, are deeply moving, reminding the audience that such wounds rarely heal fully.

Indeed, the ways the two deal with their grief are directly opposed, yet are nevertheless similarly pragmatic. Becca emotionally shuts down, almost to the point of denial, while clearing out belongings and suggesting they move house. Howie, on the other hand, cherishes home videos of their son, while attending the support group and going on as normal. They rarely meet in the middle, yet they must, in order to move on together.

However, that isn't to say that Rabbit Hole offers a cure for grief, and the supporting cast, featuring a fellow parent (Sandra Oh), a young boy who was involved in their son's death (Miles Teller) and Becca's mother (the always brilliant Dianne Wiest), are only bystanders, offering moments of comfort or relief in the couple's ongoing negotiation with memory.

Perhaps it is this ambiguity, its resistance to commit to either uplifting or tragic conclusions, that prevents Rabbit Hole from being heralded by awards committees. Maybe America is afraid of its own complexity, and is more interested in seeing narratives of triumph and fantasy, or drama on a more twisted, horrific scale.

It is fitting that Rabbit Hole and Blue Valentine have been boiled down to a single Best Actress nominee each, for they are both similarly compelling, honest and beautiful, and what one does for love, the other does for loss.

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4.5 Fireworks

For the penultimate episode of the current series of Not Going Out, the show transported us to fireworks night. As usual, that's just the basis for something a little more complex, as thrown into the mix is an old lady who walks into Lucy and Lee's flat, hunting for her son. And, after initially chucking her out, Lucy soon sets Lee the task of retrieving her, and making sure she gets home safely. Easier said than done.

Further ingredients? Well, her babblings include thinking that she's had sex with Lee, that her son is very rich, and that she's happy to tell stories of both. That, then, is combined with Lee's cunning plan, to put on a fireworks display and thus impress Lucy. What could possibly go wrong there?

What this foundation allowed was for the four main cast members to share the screen time. This was something that really picked up last week and continued this time around. It's a smashing ensemble, and I really enjoy it when the show focuses down to the four of them. The lines sizzle between them, and even though there weren't quite so many outright verbal guffaws this week (although the repetition of certain lines worked a treat), it was still good fun, and the episode, as usual, was not bereft of chuckles.

There was room for some physical gags, too, primarily in the montage where Lee and Tim traipse the streets looking for anyone who knows who the old woman happens to be. The photocopied wanted posters were genius, too.

And the episode built up to a climax and a half, as Lee finally got his kiss off Lucy, and a mightily impressive fireworks display kicked off in the background. Not Lee's fireworks, of course, which barely spluttered. I love, too, how the show builds up to its big dramatic finale, only to suddenly switch emphasis to an old woman smacking Lee around the head with a stick.

It's a cracking little show, this. I know I keep coming back to this point, but for anyone who believes there's no room on television for a tight sitcom that eschews gimmicks in favour of good writing and regular laughs, then Not Going Out should be top of their to-watch list.

Fireworks wasn't the best episode of this run (I still prefer the opening two), but it was a very good half hour of entertainment.

Read our review of episode 4, Dancing, here.

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We've all been there, haven't we? Stood at a party, filled with people we don't know nor will ever see again, feeling out of place as we sip from a warm can of beer on our own, wishing we could either get lucky, or at the very least, change the awful music. Metalhead Rich has the right idea. Plug in the iPod and unleash some Slayer!

Our long haired hero has only one direction in life, the path of true metal! Although no self-respecting metalhead should ever wear a Trivium t-shirt like he did in the first episode. If it ain't loud and angry, then Richard doesn't want to know. He's so hardcore, he wakes up to Bodies by Drowning Pool every morning before he goes through his brutal routine of moisturising. It's not easy being such a rebel in the suburbs y'know.

His long suffering companion, Alo, is fed up of Rich's 'no compromises' attitude getting in the way of him popping his cherry. So, he issues a challenge to Rich to walk up to the beautiful 'Angel of Death' who stalks the library and ask her out to the Napalm Death gig he's got tickets for. Richard naturally fluffs it. Epic fail.

Help, however, comes from the unlikely source of Mini's BFF, Grace, who offers to tutor Rich in talking to girls in whole sentences. But is there something more between them?

If there's one thing that Skins never managed to get right before, it was the comedic tone. Previously, broad moments of comedy would stick out amongst the angst and make you wonder if you were even watching the same episode, never mind series. This episode, though, pitches the tone as a slightly whimsical The Inbetweeners and is laugh out loud funny.

Alexander Arnold, the easiest initials ever to enter on a high score table, portrays Rich's facade of detached aloofness well. The rest of the episode is crammed with great little details, such as his middleclass lifestyle and music snobbery.

This episode also has the honour of having the one, and only ever, mention of Godflesh in a teen drama series. It's ok. You can go off and google them now. Come back when you're done!

If last week's opener was Mean Girls starring La Roux, then this week is Pretty In Pink with Ozzy Osbourne. When Rich is rejected by his 'Angel of Death', only then does he start to realise what he has in Grace. As she says, "Opposites attract." "That's magnets. We're people," Rich responds.

If you're well versed in teen movies, then this is all pretty predictable stuff, really. But when it's this enjoyable, it doesn't matter. It's also not every day you hear lines like, "Like Cilla Black, but with a dick" either. This is undemanding stuff, but it's fun, it's believable and it's actually sweet. Something I thought I'd never say about Skins.

Read our review of the series opener here.

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Okay, some context might help. A week or two back, director Simon West suggested that he'd like to put together a sequel to his first film, Con Air. This made us happy. And it also kick-started a conversation on Twitter as to what the sequel could be called, which then led to this list of suggestions here.

At the bottom of that post, we invited people to make posters for a potential Con Air 2, based on some of the title suggestions that you came up with. And you did. Which has led us to here.

Here, then, in a Friday special, is our selection of possible posters for Con Air 2. Enjoy, friends...

(Garth Garland)

(Andrew Jones)

(Simon)

(Lacey)

(Ryan Lambie)

(Gaye Birch)

(Simon)

(Anthony Enticknap)

(Laura Passmore)

(Duncan Bowles)

(Anthony Enticknap)

(Natalie Florey)

Many thanks to everyone who sent posters in. Now, it's over to the filmmakers to make this one happen...

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In a busier seven days than we've seen in the last couple of weeks, the schedules wave both hello and goodbye to a number of shows. Some return to proven praise. Others have the hard task of earning it over the next six or so weeks.

Saturday, February 5th brings the end of the fourth series of Primeval at 7:30pm on ITV1. The series has seen the return of a familiar face just recently. Is there room for one more? If you're a fan of the show, tune in and have a squawk about it when the finale review goes live early Monday morning.

New sci-fi show, Outcasts, breaks onto screens in two consecutive episodes over two nights, starting Monday, February 7th at 9:00pm on BBC1. We had a sneak peek followed by a spoiler-free review of the show about settlers on a home-away-from-home Earth-like sandy domain. We'd love to hear your verdicts, and hopes for future episodes, in the comments section.

You'd think it was October with the ghostly goings on in the telly schedules. ITV's Marchlands started last night and we have a review of that first episode here. But if you prefer your haunted houses (or block of flats converted from an insane asylum) with a talent search show pop star tenant, and (we'd guess) up-to-the-second fashions and hair styles, Bedlam may be for you. Its first of six episodes airs on Sky Living at 10:00pm on Monday, February 7th. If it's short on shivers, it may provide a giggle or two.

If you need a refresher course in chicken impressions, want to watch a real failed magician instead of the current influx of egotistical overdressed exhibitionists, or feel the need to see a true blue never-nude man, then it's been too long since you've watched Arrested Development and FX is coming to your aid. The show is being broadcast from the very start, with the pilot episode airing on FX Tuesday, February 8th at 9:00pm, followed by Top Banana at 9:30. All we can say is hooray! Now our family will seem almost normal.

Also on Tuesday, February 8th is the premiere here of the new animated show, Bob's Burgers. This US import about a burger flipping family business ain't The Simpsons, as evidenced by its 11:35pm slot on E4 and its first episode title, Human Flesh. We'll happily fork out a half an hour for a taster.

I Was There... When The Beatles Played The Cavern airs on Wednesday, February 9th, fifty years, to the day, from that first performance at that now famous location. This documentary tells the story of that night in 1961, and the history of The Cavern since, with interviews, including a chat with drummer, Pete Best, who was replaced by Ringo Starr in 1962. A must-watch for Beatles fans, it's showing on ITV1 at 10:35pm.

You may not recognise the name of the new 4-part series, Mad Dogs, airing on Sky 1 at 9:00pm on Thursday, but you'll surely remember the faces adorning it. Life On Mars and Ashes To Ashes compadres, Philip Glenister and John Simm join Max Beesley and Hustle's Marc Warren in a psychological thriller centred around a holiday in Majorca, where, we think it's safe to say, things aren't all sun, sand and sipping mojitos. We'll tune in solely on the strength of the casting and the mysterious, and (admittedly) alluring ads for the show.

A well worn, yet still fresh comedy is also on the tables this week, with the start of the fifth series of 30 Rock on Comedy Central. We'll make room for Tina Fey's Liz Lemon any day, and if she brings boyfriend, Matt Damon, along with her, as in the season opener, The Fabian Strategy, well, the door is that bit wider on Thursday, February 10th at 10:30pm.

Now, on to the films showing through the weekend and a bit beyond. We've thrown a few classics into the mix, along with a couple kids flicks, and some tasty cheesy action and OTT acting, among the other fine fare on offer. 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 '5th' in your browser's Find box or window to highlight and/or tab through all movies shown on Saturday. Enjoy!

Apollo 13
On: ITV2
Date: Saturday 5th February
Time: 12:50pm (and 1:50pm ITV2+1)

Batman
On: ITV2
Date: Saturday 5th February
Time: 9:00pm (and 10:00pm ITV2+1, 9:00pm 7th Feb & 1:40am 8th Feb TCM)

Batman Begins
On: TCM
Date: Thursday 10th February
Time: 9:00pm

Broken Arrow
On: Channel 4
Date: Thursday 10th February
Time: 12:20pm (and 1:20pm 4+1)

Chain Reaction
On: Film4
Date: Sunday 6th February
Time: 11:15pm (and 00:15am 7th Feb)

Corpse Bride
On: ITV1
Date: Saturday 5th February
Time: 2:20pm

Daybreakers
On: Sky Movies Premiere
Date: Friday 4th February
Time: 10:00pm (and 11:00pm Premiere+1, then daily through 10th Feb)

Diabolique
On: BBC 1
Date: Wednesday 9th February
Time: 11:25pm

Die Hard 4.0
On: Film4
Date: Tuesday 8th February
Time: 9:00pm (and 10:00pm Film4+1)

Equilibrium
On: Film4
Date: Saturday 5th February
Time: 9:00pm (and 10:00pm Film4+1)

Eraser
On: TCM
Date: Friday 4th February
Time: 11:10pm

Falling Down
On: TCM
Date: Saturday 5th February
Time: 9:00pm (and 1:40am 6th Feb)

Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer
On: Channel 4
Date: Saturday 5th February
Time: 7:00pm (and 8:00pm 4+1)

Fargo
On: TCM
Date: Thursday 10th February
Time: 11:45pm

Frailty
On: Channel 4
Date: Monday 7th February
Time: 01:55am (and 2:55am 4+1)

Get Shorty
On: ITV4
Date: Saturday 5th February
Time: 11:05pm (and 00:05am 6th Feb ITV4+1)

Hot Fuzz
On: ITV1
Date: Saturday 5th February
Time: 10:55pm

Infernal Affairs
On: Channel 4
Date: Sunday 6th February
Time: 00:20am (and 1:20am 4+1)

Innerspace
On: TCM
Date: Thursday 10th February
Time: 3:00pm

Juno
On: Film4
Date: Friday 4th February
Time: 9:00pm (and 10:00pm Film4+1)

Kelly's Heroes
On: Five USA
Date: Saturday 5th February
Time: 2:45pm (and 3:45pm Five USA+1)

Kill Bill: Vol. 1
On: BBC 2
Date: Sunday 6th February
Time: 11:00pm

Kind Hearts And Coronets
On: GOLD
Date: Saturday 5th February
Time: 2:15pm (nd 3:15pm Gold+1, 1/2:00pm 6th Feb)

Kiss Of The Dragon
On: Five USA
Date: Friday 4th February
Time: 9:00pm (and 10:00pm Five USA+1)

Lake Tahoe
On: Film4
Date: Saturday 5th February
Time: 02:25am (and 3:25am Film4+1)

Lemony Snicket's A Series Of Unfortunate Events
On: BBC 3
Date: Sunday 6th February
Time: 7:25pm (and 7:25pm 9th Feb)

Let Him Have It
On: True Movies
Date: Saturday 5th February
Time: 9:00pm

Licence To Kill
On: ITV4
Date: Friday 4th February
Time: 10:00pm (and 11:00pm ITV4+1, 3:20/4:20pm 5th Feb)

Mulan
On: Five
Date: Sunday 6th February
Time: 3:50pm

North By Northwest
On: TCM
Date: Saturday 5th February
Time: 3:00pm (and 6:30am 6th Feb)

Percy Jackson And The Olympians: The Lightning Thief
On: Sky Movies Premiere
Date: Friday 4th February
Time: 10:00am (and 11:00am Premiere+1 & 8/:00pm, then daily at similar times through 10th Feb)

Perfect Creature
On: BBC 1
Date: Friday 4th February
Time: 11:30pm

Rollerball (1975)
On: TCM
Date: Thursday 10th February
Time: 01:05am

Se7en
On: TCM
Date: Saturday 5th February
Time: 11:10pm

Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow
On: Film4
Date: Monday 7th February
Time: 6:55pm (and 7:55pm Film4+1)

Spaceballs
On: SyFy
Date: Sunday 6th February
Time: 02:00am (and 3:00am Syfy+1)

Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope
On: ITV1
Date: Saturday 5th February
Time: 3:50pm

The Abyss
On: Film4
Date: Monday 7th February
Time: 10:50pm (and 11:50pm Film4+1)

The Client
On: Channel 4
Date: Sunday 6th February
Time: 11:50pm (and 00:50am 7th Feb 4+1)

The Emerald Forest
On: BBC 2
Date: Saturday 5th February
Time: 11:50pm

The Exorcist
On: TCM
Date: Sunday 6th February
Time: 9:00pm (and 1:40am 7th Feb)

The Goonies
On: TCM
Date: Friday 4th February
Time: 6:50pm (and 11:10am 5th Feb)

The Limey
On: Film4
Date: Wednesday 9th February
Time: 01:40am (and 2:40am Film4+1)

The Machinist
On: Film4
Date: Saturday 5th February
Time: 11:05pm (and 00:05am 6th Feb Film4+1)

The Matrix Revolutions
On: ITV2
Date: Saturday 5th February
Time: 11:35pm (and 00:35am 6th Feb ITV2+1)

The Scarlet Claw
On: TCM
Date: Saturday 5th February
Time: 7:35pm (and 11:45am 6th Feb)

The Stepford Wives (1975)
On: TCM
Date: Sunday 6th February
Time: 11:20pm

The Sting
On: ITV4
Date: Saturday 5th February
Time: 5:25pm (and 6:25pm ITV4+1)

The Thing
On: ITV1
Date: Thursday 10th February
Time: 02:35am

They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
On: BBC 2
Date: Friday 4th February
Time: 11:50pm

Wall Street
On: Sky1
Date: Saturday 5th February
Time: 10:00pm

Youth In Revolt
On: Sky Movies Premiere
Date: Friday 4th February
Time: 11:55pm (and 00:55am 5th Feb, then daily through 11th Feb)

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Kicking off the blockbuster season in April is the fifth film in The Fast And The Furious franchise, this time called Fast Five. It adds Dwayne Johnson to the latest reunion of Paul Walker and Vin Diesel, and we're going to go out on a limb and suggest that some very fast cars may be involved.

The first poster for the film has appeared, then, over at IGN, and it seems keen to focus more on the sky than the cars. We still smell a sizeable box office hit here, mind...

IGN

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Yesterday, we presented the 12 leading candidates to play Lois Lane in Zack Snyder's upcoming moving of Superman. The three who were your most popular from that list? It seemed to be Zooey Deschanel, Rachel McAdams, and Olivia Wilde.

However, while we were doing that, the shortlist for the female lead for the new Superman movie was being knocked into shape. However, Variety is reporting that this particular lead role isn't that of Lois Lane.

It's not exactly clear what the role is, but the three who are on the shortlist for it are Diane Kruger, Rosamund Pike and Alice Eve. Eve, you might remember, was strongly linked with Captain America, before that role went elsewhere.

The hunt is also on for the villain in the movie, too, but no names or details have been forthcoming on that yet.

You can find more at Variety, here.

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Sony Online Entertainment isn’t new to MMO games, having developed the massively-multiplayer behemoth EverQuest, and chipped in with licensed online titles like Star Wars Galaxies and The Matrix Online, but its new game, the recently released DC Universe Online, is a tantalizingly fresh prospect.

As well as bringing the incredibly rich, varied and voluminous DC canon to our computer screens, SOE has positioned DC Universe Online as its entry into the console arena, with the game also appearing on the PS3. Fittingly, it’s a more action-oriented affair, evoking the likes of Crackdown or Prototype in its fast-paced combat and huge open-world spaces - where wannabe superheroes are given the chance to scale the dizzy heights of Gotham or Metropolis skyscrapers.

We were recently given the chance to chat with SOE’s Ryan Peters (Public Relations Specialist) and Tony Jones (Community Relations Manager), while they were on a whistle-stop European press tour. In this suitably massive interview, we talked about the process of developing DC Universe Online, their approach to canon, and the input from comics industry veterans like Jim Lee, Marv Wolfman and Geoff Johns - as well as addressing two elephants in the room: Blizzard’s all-conquering World Of Warcraft, and the ongoing debates around whether MMOs, which require weeks of gameplay time to be truly experienced, can be fairly reviewed by video game critics.

So, to start with, can you give me a bit of a history lesson - how did the project come together? Was it on your side, or was it on DC’s side?

Ryan Peters: Well, you know, it was a meeting of the two. The developer, Sony Online Entertainment, have been in on the MMO game for over a decade. They did EverQuest about 12 years ago, and when that game was released, on Fridays they would post on the forums saying “we’re going out for beers, if you players want to come and meet the team.”

And so, this happened a couple of times, and finally one day they do it and Jim Lee shows up, and he’s a big fan of the game, and that was his first big MMO. And it turns out he was the first on his server to get this epic weapon gear, which, I got to be honest, I don’t know a whole lot about, but apparently only one person could get it...

Tony Jones: ...A very big deal!

RP: So he was an MMO fan, and our developers are really heavy DC Comics fans, and there’s definitely an overlap in the culture between a gamer and a comic book fan. They’re not mutually exclusive by any means.

So that started the conversation there, and some time went by, and DC was interested in doing an MMO, and Jim suggested to them to reach out to us, because he knew we had experience in the industry, and something that he was very fond of. So in 2004, that conversation started happening, and then 2005 we got to start working on this game.

That’s a long development cycle...

RP: So, five years and change later, we finally released it. The thing with an MMO is, it’s a living, breathing game, so instead of your typical console title, where you release it and that’s it, and it doesn’t really change - maybe there’s a short update - with an MMO there’s a world that’s just going to keep expanding. We’ve been doing EverQuest for 12 years now, and there’s still people who are, like, that’s they’re game. I don’t know why, but they want to stick with it.

How does that work in terms of team structure? With other companies, who will be working on a triple-A, boxed title, it would be a team, and they’ll release it - and some of the team could relax, take some time off, while a smaller group work on bug-fixes, patching and community support. Do you still have a full team dedicated to your MMOs forever?

RP: Well, I’d be hesitant to say forever, but we have a pretty aggressive plan internally for what the content releases are going to be for this game. Right now, with this game, it was a tremendous effort to get it out of the door. It came down to the wire, so I don’t think anyone’s taken a day off since maybe November, maybe it’s even longer for some of them. I would certainly say I don’t anticipate them shrinking the team any time soon.

TJ: When a game releases, there’s not much demand for art - but even those guys, we’re using them for playtesting, until we do need some art. So everyone on the team is still working very actively on DCU.

So is doing a European press tour a bit like a vacation for you, then?

TJ: Sort of, yeah.

RP: Doesn’t he look rested?

In that period from conception to release, the last five or six years, the MMO landscape has become filled with lots of licensed titles, such as Star Trek, Lord Of The Rings and Warhammer. Of course, the DC licence gives the game an edge, but did you talk early on in that conversation about how to make it stand out?

RP: Yeah, when the PlayStation 3 was being developed, they actually came to us for development of the backend of the net connectivity portion, and saying, “you guys are the experts of online gameplay, help us design that portion.” So, we knew that our next MMO was probably coming to the console, and this was going to be the first console that was really capable of handling that. So it was a blessing in two ways, that the console was coming to the market, and we had the opportunity to get the DC licence.

How did you approach that? It’s such a huge conceptual and creative undertaking - even when you just think about the comics, the DC Universe has undergone so many changes over time...

RP: 75 years of content, right? And to bring all of that into one story that makes sense for the player character, and to have thousands of other people running around at the same time. It’s a tremendous challenge. We’re really lucky that we’ve had the opportunity to have Geoff Johns come on and write the backstory for the game. And Marv Wolfman did a lot of the character mission stories. And Jim Lee’s been incredibly hands-on with this game, he’s so much more than just an artist. He’s a gamer at heart, and has been there to give us check and balance every step of the way.

Our team itself is made up of comic book fans - they wouldn’t be successful in making a game like this if they weren’t familiar with the comics. And I know that Tony would tell you that, when we bring people on in Austin to work on this game, there’s actually a required reading of comics. You get a stack delivered to your desk, and you have to familiarise yourself with the world of DC before you can even start working on the project. So, we’re fans ourselves, and if we weren’t it would show.

I suppose when you’re working with Geoff Johns and Marv Wolfman, they’re the right kind of writers to work on a big, universe-wide level. They’ve done the crossover narratives before.

RP: Totally, and ironically enough, Marv’s wife works for Blizzard. She’s their Video Director.

Blizzard’s very much an elephant in the room. Are you worried about WoW?

RP: Am I worried about WoW? [laughs] I’m not worried about WoW - I definitely know where WoW is and I know it’s an incredibly successful game, and I’ll give you the same answers as I give most people - as a game developer and especially as an MMO developer, we all stand on each others’ shoulders.

There are things that WoW pulled from EverQuest, because that was the original one. And there’s things from WoW that we’ve incorporated here. But the gameplay experience is something completely different, this plays much more like an action game. It’s not turn-based combat. It’s not a high fantasy setting. We’ve have a physics engine. It couldn’t be more opposite of an experience.

And I think the WoW player is a different customer. I think a lot of people play that for purely the social aspect, and there’s elements of the gameplay there that don’t really fit into an action game, things like tradeskilling or player housing. That doesn’t really fit into what we’re trying to do here.

We want to introduce the console gamer to what it’s like playing in an environment with thousands of other players, and what a massive PvP scenario feels like. So I wouldn’t say I’m worried about WoW. I would say there’s a lot of great things that we’ve learned from them, and hopefully we’ve taken the right things and incorporated them into something even better.

And the crossover with the console audience bolsters that.

RP: Yeah, the expression I use, is we’re taking nerds out of the basement, and putting them in the living room, right? [laughs] You have your best TV and sound system set up in your living room. If you’re a PC gamer, it’s nice to come and sit on the couch, and not be strapped to a desk chair to do your gaming.

This game was built with the idea that it was coming to the console, so we made the user interface as simple as possible, to take advantage of the PlayStation 3 controller. Chat is done through wireless voice chat, so there’s no need for a keyboard. That’s not to say that the experience on the PC is any lesser - certainly you can take advantage of text chat, and if you’re a traditional PC gamer, you’re going to find all the familiar controls that you would normally find. But the game is absolutely identical on both platforms. In fact, we’ve done events at E3 where the two play against each other.

Now, at launch, they are not compatible, we keep the servers separate - part of that had to do with a strictly commerce issue, that the PlayStation Network bank wallet is different to what we use on the PC.

And I guess as it’s a third-person action game, the playing field’s a little more level depending on your controller set-up, unlike with first-person shooters.

RP: I think you could totally have a competitive experience either way, but we want to make sure that the player is getting a fair shot on either platform.

TJ: And the UI was built from the ground-up with the PS3 in mind, so you’re not as dependent... in fact, you’re almost completely independent of the need for a mouse.

RP: But if you’re like me, and you play open world games like Grand Theft Auto, or Prototype, and you love that tactile feel that the console controller gives you, I think this game really captures that.

It reminds me a lot of Crackdown, actually.

RP: The open world is, for lack a better term, it’s massive. Gotham and Metropolis are each a thousand square blocks - that’s twice the size of Vice City. So you’re talking a tremendous open world - something no one’s seen on the PlayStation 3. Or any console, for that matter.

When you’re designing a huge game world like that, one problem is filling the space. How did you go about that?

RP: Totally. The good thing is, we have 75 years of content to pull from. And when you go through Metropolis, we actually have an in-game tour mechanic...

TJ: Every neighbourhood has a tour that takes you to points of interest that you’ll recognise from the DC Universe, and give you a little audio background from Booster Gold. He’ll walk you through the city, and tell you ‘ah, there’s a statue of Superman - which one day will be joined by a statue of Booster Gold!’

RP: We’ve left little Easter eggs in there, like you can see the Playbill and the rose that Bruce Wayne’s mother dropped in Crime Alley. Smallville’s an instance zone, and you can see the crater from when Superman came to Earth. And his parents’ house. Little things like that, that the hardcore DC fans will pick up on.

Maybe the casual player doesn’t notice, but at the same time we’ve made mechanics in the game that introduce the casual player. So, every time you have a boss fight, at the end of the fight, it goes to a cut-sequence, like a motion comic, with art by Jim Lee, and that tells you the back story of the character.

There’s so many iconic locations that have been shown in the comics, and it’s funny, because I was talking to Jim Lee about this, and said “you know, you could fly anywhere you want to go in Metropolis, but you can’t fly from Metropolis to Gotham”, and he’s like”‘well, in the comics, we’ve never really told you how far apart these two places are!”

The loading screen art seems to be Jim Lee, too. So was his involvement very deep?

RP: He blessed every single piece of art in this game. So, from the buildings to the characters, and we have over 85 iconics. And the feel of Gotham and Metropolis. Initially, our thought was to have weather in these cities - but when you were going through Gotham and it was sunny and bright outside, it just didn’t look right.

And if he was here, he’d tell you it was a significant challenge for him, because there’s such a dramatic difference in what you do when you’re drawing a comic and creating a character in a game.

When you’re drawing a comic, you’re doing the same character and it’s in a repeated fashion, so you keep them simplistic - you don’t want to go into incredible detail in every frame, because you’d never get a comic out the door.

I’m sure working on a game like this is similar - where you’re continually adding to it or polishing it. But you gave players the chance to try out the game as part of a beta programme. How did that go down? Did that bring about any last-minute changes to the game? Or inspire future development of the game?

RP: You know, when we released this game for beta, it was already in a pretty polished state, but the good thing is about releasing a game in a beta state to a massive group of players, is they find every little exploit, and things that the whole development team maybe didn’t think of, but when you have thousands of people in a game, they’re so incredibly creative at ways they come up with going around whatever system you’ve created.

We learn a ton from them, and we also see what type of content people are playing, and that helps shape what type of content we’re going to continue to deliver. If there are certain mechanics that we’ve built into the game, and we see players aren’t really taking advantage of them, or there’s not a lot of interest in them, then maybe when it comes to expansion time, we don’t really focus on that direction.

We’re not going to force-feed the player’s content, we want them to get whatever is the most fun.

So what are your plans for updating the game in the future? Have you announced much in the way of extra content?

RP: We haven’t announced anything. We’ve loosely touched on what our content releases are going to be. And, we’re looking to incorporate a new iconic into the game every month, with missions wrapped around it for both heroes and villains.

I think, ideally, we’d like to have larger content updates potentially every three months, and definitely we’re locked into an annual expansion. It’s not like the relationship with DC has come to an end, so we’re constantly thinking of new ways to add content.

There was a lot of talk, back when Mortal Kombat Vs DC came out, that the developers had to tone down their creative urges because of the licence - taking out fatalities and so on. Did that happen much with this game, were DC editorial scrutinising everything?

RP: Well, there’s no death in our game, either. We have knockouts. So there are certain rules that DC has, their parameters. I think in this scenario that we’ve created in the game, it works fine, it wasn’t a negative effect. But we’re using their IP, so we have to be respectful of what that is.

TJ: And it’s been very beneficial for us, because also, it allows people that aren’t necessarily gamers to give us an additional opinion. It actually allows us to improve the product.

RP: As a team, they have an incredible eye for detail. And there’s so much that they have to pay attention to when they’re evaluating a game like this. It’s amazing to me, the little intricacies that they’re able to find.

TJ: They’re experts. We’re all great comic fans, but they know exactly. The stuff we would have missed.

RP: At at the end of the day, the winner’s the fan. The comic book fan gets the truest representation that we’d be able to bring to you.

So the look of the game is very much influenced by Jim Lee, but what about the general tone? All these characters have appeared in so many different iterations. Is Mr Freeze tossing out puns like Arnold Schwarzenegger in Batman And Robin?

TJ: No! [laughs]

In the voice cast, you have Kevin Conroy as Batman, and Mark Hamill as the Joker, which suggests it’s a little more like Batman The Animated Series.

TJ: As a comics fan myself - these are very close. The team has been very respectful of the IP. And for Mr Freeze, it’s all about his wife, he wants to bring her back. It’s very serious. It’s not corny Schwarzenegger, throwing out one-liners. It’s not a Jack Nicholson Joker, it’s much closer to the Heath Ledger Joker.

So you’re not trying to evoke any specific version, or slot in with the current canon?

TJ: It’s a good blend. We aren’t pinning down an exact timeline for this. There are such different iterations. How many Supermen have there been? It’s current, but we’re not addressing 52 or Infinity Crisis. We think we’ve taken these characters and we’ve built them out in a great way that the fans will enjoy.

And there’s also a spin-off comic adaptation attached to this...

RP: Yeah, and if you purchase the collector’s edition, you actually get issue zero. It’s bi-weekly, and I think we’ve sorted out 16. It follows a similar backstory, the setting is the same, it’s the same premise - this massive battle and Brainiac is trying to take over.

It follows along that premise, but is it directly linked to the game? Not exactly, but it’s definitely in the same setting, and I think there are similarities in the storyline. We throw around the idea of incorporating a player character into the comic - if you became legendary enough. How cool would it be to see your character in a print medium? That’s something we left the door open for.

Now the game’s out there, it’s not only been handed over to the players, it’s also been thrown into the critical spotlight. There’s always a lot of discussion about how MMOs should be reviewed - considering how they’re not only huge games, but they’re not something you can experience in a couple of days of intensive play. Do you worry that people aren’t taking the time to play it before reviewing it?

RP: You know, when I read reviews, I always look at what their criticisms are, and what they point out. So I know there’s so much content beyond just the linear character progression in this game. There’s group content, there’s raids, there’s alerts. You can PvP in arenas. There’s all these different facets that we’ve created.

So I think, from our perspective, I just want to see that you’re taking advantage of all this, and not just - ‘I’ve played 10 hours, and now I’m going to write my review’. Because it’s so much different than a console game.

The fact that, if it’s an MMO, if you’re not engaging in that group-type content, then you’re totally missing the key components of the game. Otherwise, you could play Arkham Asylum - and that’s a fantastic game, I love Arkham Asylum. But, you know, that’s what makes us different, so I want to make sure that you’re incorporating that into your experience.

TJ: I’ve actually been on both sides. I started by writing a lot of MMO reviews, and it’s really hard to do. I personally hope that people, like you said, just take the time. You can’t just play to level 10, you’re missing out on a huge, huge portion of the game.

Even getting all the way to level 30, you’re probably in the ballpark of two-thirds of our content. Even if you played all the way through the endgame, there’s so much more to do.

RP: This game’s really not so much about the level in a numerical value, as it is your experience and your skill. In a player vs player environment, a player of a lesser level can defeat a player of a higher level, based on their skill level, with using combinations and identifying how to use their powers and abilities in the right scenario.

So many people think that, as soon as you reach a numerical level, ‘okay, I’m done, I’ve beat the game’. But that’s not really how it works, there’s no winning in this game, it’s continued progression, and skill development.

TJ: You’re just getting started at level 30. Level 30 is actually where a good chunk of our game begins.

It’s a shame, because of the pressure of deadlines, and aiming to publish the first review on the internet, people cut corners.

RP: People are in such a hurry to get the review out, and I just hope that they’re not doing it based off their beta experience. Because there were so many improvements that we made from the end of beta and just to the day one patch. I want them to review the final product.

I saw a couple came out in the States the first week, and I shook my head a little bit, and thought ‘I know you have not put in 40-50 hours of gameplay in the first week!’ But, at the same time, all journalists are not created equal, so what can I say?

Gentlemen, thank you for your time!

DC Universe Online is out now on PC and PS3.

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Lord Voldemort’s got no nose. How does he smell? Awful!

Sorry about that. For fans of Harry Potter, the summer probably can’t come soon enough – that’s the date when The Deathly Hallows: Part 2 appears in cinemas (probably in a cloud of magical smoke), concluding the wizard’s adventures for good.

And, just as we’ve learned that the Harry Potter series of movies have been honoured with a BAFTA for their outstanding contribution to British cinema (its first major film award in the films’ ten year history), this shiny new image from Hallows: Part 2 has materialised on the internet.

The shot provides a sneak peak of the film’s concluding battle between Potter and Voldemort, in which the young wizard appears to be trussed up with a length of silken dressing gown cord. Potter, the press release says, “may be called upon to make the ultimate sacrifice.”

Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: Part 2 arrives in cinemas on 15 July.

HeyUGuys

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Best known as Matt Lucas’ partner in comedy, Little Britain and Come Fly With Me actor David Walliams has revealed that he’s to make an appearance in the new series of Doctor Who.

Walliams broke the news in a Radio 2 interview earlier today, saying, “I've actually been offered a part in Doctor Who, which I'm very, very excited about. I've said yes.”

The actor refused to divulge any more information, but did reveal that the role would be a decidedly other worldly one. “I don't think I can say much,” he said, “but I'll say I'm an alien.”

So what race of Doctor Who alien do you think Walliams would suit? Olympian? Caxtarid? Foamasi?

Doctor Who series six is set to arrive in the spring.

Chortle

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