Over the weekend, it was revealed that Chris Evans had been offered the part of Captain America in Marvel's 2011 blockbuster The First Avenger: Captain America. Under the stewardship of director Joe Johnston, the film is set to go before the cameras in the next couple of months, and assuming Evans says yes, he'll be contracted to appear as the Captain in up to nine movies. You can read our story here.

Meanwhile, news has also been forthcoming regarding three other forthcoming Marvel movie productions, so it made sense to bring them altogether right here. So, er, we have.

X-MEN

Bryan Singer was thought to be the locked-in director for X-Men: First Class, but rumours are now suggesting that may not be the case. Hitfix, however, is reporting that Fox is looking for alternative directors, seemingly because of Singer's already-crowded schedule. He's already committed to direct Jack The Giant Killer for Warner Bros, and that's going before the cameras this year.

That may not, however, fit in with Fox's schedule, but suspicions being that it'll want First Class in cinemas for 2012, assuming Wolverine 2 arrives in 2011. That would mean that while Singer is still a shoo-in to return to the X-Men franchise, it's looking like X-Men 4 may be his return. None of this has been confirmed, but it does all sound quite likely.

HitFix

THE AVENGERS

With Captain America cast, Marvel's group of Avengers - brought together by Samuel L Jackson as Nick Fury - is coming together nicely. The idea, of course, is that they all unite in one film, The Avengers, which is down for a summer 2012 release date. But who's going to be directing the film?

Over at AintItCoolNews, Louis Letterier has revealed that he's one of the names on the shortlist. Letterier, who previously directed The Incredible Hulk for Marvel and is about to unleash Clash Of The Titans into the world, said, "I am on the shortlist, but I'm at the bottom of the shortlist, I'm sure. I don't know who the other guys are, but I have a great relationship with [Marvel], and I've been very vocal to them and everyone else that I am the one to direct it."

AICN

THOR

One Marvel project already before the cameras is Kenneth Branagh's take on Thor, set for release in summer 2011. The folks at Before The Trailer have been visiting the area where the film is being shot, and have posted some pictures from outside the set. They're distance shots, but just in case you're interested (appreciating they don't tell you a great deal) here's the link.

We'll keep you posted on all of those, and also when we get formal confirmation of Chris Evan's Captain America casting.

Heading before the cameras this summer is the fourth Pirates Of The Caribbean movie, one that's being regarded as a bit of a reboot for the series. As such, while Johnny Depp is returning as Captain Jack Sparrow, most of the original cast have had to jump ship, and a new director is on board, with Rob Marshall at the helm instead of Gore Verbinski.

We also know that Ian McShane has been cast as Blackbeard the pirate, and that Penelope Cruz had been added to the line-up too. And now producer Jerry Bruckheimer has offered some more information on what they're up to.

Bruckheimer told MTV that Cruz will be playing Blackbeard's daughter in the new film, and that she's also going to offer a bit of romantic interest for Captain Jack. Bruckheimer also describes McShane's Blackbeard as "the nastiest pirate ever". Blimey.

Bruckheimer has also confirmed the good news that Geoffrey Rush is returned as Barbossa, and the rest of the casting process is ongoing.

The producer signs off the MTV piece by declaring that he's aiming to take the franchise in "a whole new direction".

We hope so, Jerry.

Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides is out on 20th May 2011.

MTV

Remember how I mentioned in my review of The Crazies that, in the right hands, a movie composed of the greatest hits of other movies can be an entertaining, if forgettable, experience? Well, in the wrong hands, you can end up with something like Repo Men.

Remy (Jude Law) and Jake (Forest Whitaker) are repo men for The Union, the near-future's biggest supplier of artificial organs. Literally, there's a fake remake of any joint, limb, or tissue you could possibly want. Of course, with those products comes a severe premium. When you can't pay up, The Union forecloses on you, sending repo men like the two mentioned to zap you with a stun gun and spoon out your expensive, flashy rental. If you die, then you die. It's your own fault for not paying your bills.

When an accident on the job costs Remy his heart, well... you can guess where this is going. He falls behind on payments and it's a race for survival as Remy and beautiful artificial organ addict Beth (Alice Braga) try to beat the system before the system beats them.

The problem with Repo Men isn't that it's not entertaining. It's actually amusing, but not in the way in which it wants to be. It's dumb. Heroically dumb.

The script by Eric Garcia (who wrote the book the movie is based off of) and Garrett Learner is full of goofy lines delivered as well as possible by two talented men who shouldn't be taking a paycheck role like this. There are some laughs to be found in the dialog, be they intentional or unintentional, but the movie is never really exciting enough to be the action movie they want it to be, not gritty enough to be a gory shocker in spite of a few stomach-churning amateur surgeries, and it sure as hell isn't smart enough to be the sci-fi movie they're trying to make it.

When I instantly figure out a movie's twist ending, then it's not very twisty. That's more like stupid. Every plot element reminds me of a different (better) movie, which also doesn't help much. During the film I counted gimmicks or elements stolen from: Vanilla Sky, The Matrix, Pulp Fiction, Oldboy, Blade Runner, Minority Report, Training Day, and probably a lot more than that.

An even graver sin is that Repo Men is at least a half-hour too long, checking in at a bloated 111 minutes. There are vast sequences of the movie which are just begging to be chopped away, yet they stay in, presumably because a movie needs to be at least 90 minutes long due to some unwritten rule of Hollywood.

The movie lurches from set piece to set piece like a drunkard on two broken legs, thanks to inexperienced director Miguel Sapochnik. The fact that the movie completely telegraphs how it's going to move from point A to point B didn't help matters. At least try to surprise me with your stupidity, don't whack me over the head with it like a clown hammer.

When handled well, this kind of homage-filled flick can be really entertaining, like a greatest-hits album (or that meatloaf I mentioned earlier). When it's bad, it's more like a reheated haggis. While the stand-alone parts might be delicious enough (if you like organ meat and oatmeal), the sum total is not terribly appetizing (not that I've ever eaten haggis. I don't have to eat something to know I probably won't like it).

While Repo Men will make a great subject of mockery some day, it's not a great movie. The chemistry between the two male leads is pretty much the only redeeming factor. In some aspects, it tries too hard; in others, it doesn't try hard enough.

Mediocre direction and a bad script can't be covered up by a rare splatter of gore or a few decent fight sequences.

US correspondent Ron Hogan abhors the predatory lending practices of the international haggis manufacturing cartel. Find more by Ron at his blog, Subtle Bluntness, and daily at PopFi and Shaktronics.

When pretty much every critic in the civilised world hates your movie, finding a decent quote to stick on the press advertisements can prove to be quite a challenge. For Sony, it had a tougher assignment than most with its UK release of Jackie Chan vehicle The Spy Next Door, a film that it's fair to say is not in the Oscar running for next year.

Following its US release earlier this year, it's sat with a Rotten Tomatoes rating of, er, 11%. The general consensus of critical opinion can be summed up with the following quotes:

* When even the out-take bloopers over the final credits are weak, you know you've got a pretty under-par Jackie Chan movie on your hands. (The Guardian)

* A mirthless, unimaginative piece of entertainment.  (Screen International)

* Yet another lazily kid-pleasing comedy about a man unprepared for fatherhood who's suddenly saddled with children who hate his guts and whom he must win over in order to make time with their hot single mom. (Washington Post)

* The Spy Next Door is precisely what you would expect from a PG-rated Jackie Chan comedy with that plot. If that's what you're looking for, you won't be disappointed. It's not what I was looking for. (Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times)

There's the odd positive comment, but nothing that would warrant excising key passages to stick on an advert. Sony, therefore, needed to hatch a plan ahead of the UK release, which finally took place last Friday.

But what do you put on the poster? You can hardly add the words "From The Director Of Beethoven, The Flintstones and Jingle All The Way", such is the pedigree of its director Brian Levant. And even appreciating that The Spy Next Door is supposedly a film for the younger audience, it's hard to find a collection of five words or more that have been written with any kind of affection towards the film.

But then Sony had a masterstroke. And as such, as you can see in the picture below, The Spy Next Door all of a sudden had its champions. It had the people willing to put their neck on their line, to say that the film is "Awesome", and worth "A million out of 5".

Just take a look at this advert that appeared in a Sunday newspaper. From a distance, The Spy Next Door looks suitably acclaimed, and a critical darling. Maybe we Brits just warmed to Jackie Chan movies more than our America cousins, and as such, we couldn't wait to shower his latest film with joys. Either way, the critics appeared to be rapturous...

Blimey, that's some acclaim the film is notching up there. But hang on: what's this? Let's just zoom in a little bit there, and see if you can spot what Sony's done here...

You spotted it yet? Or do we need to zoom in just a little bit closer?

Yep. Not one of those 'critics' is over six years old.

This is, clearly, a great future strategy for any film. After all, who cares if the stuffy old critics don't like the film you've got to sell? There's always someone who likes just about any film on the planet, and the job is simply to find them. It's a genius idea that we're surprised nobody has thought of before.

Just think how much easier marketing the last Police Academy film would have been had its PR team simply scoured the local pubs and found someone troll-eyed enough to declare, "It's a bloody masterpiece." Then, with the use of a suitably small font in the right place, the world barely needs to know that only an inebriated man at the end of a heavy night who couldn't enough pronounce his own name and wanted to simply be called ‘Brenda' was the source of the opinion.

And heck, the people with the job of marketing the next Uwe Boll opus must already be waiting outside the school gates with a bag of sweeties, hoping to get someone to say something half-decent that can be cobbled together on the DVD sleeve.

Yet back to Sony. On the plus side, its collection of quotes and comments did refute the review written by Ty Burr of the Boston Globe, who noted that, "The film's so formulaic your 6-year-old will be ticking off the plot points as they lope by." Turns out, Sony found a bunch of six-year-olds who liked it just fine.

But it still comes to something when the only people you can find to say anything nice about a title are under the age of seven. It's not even that that age group appears to be the primary target audience for the film, given that it carries a PG rating with a warning of "moderate comic action violence". Surely that makes it a more appropriate film for a child of perhaps seven, eight or nine years old?

That said, maybe everyone in that age group simply thought The Spy Next Door was shit...

The Spy Next Door is now playing in UK cinemas.

"Really? Worst film you ever saw? Well, my next one will be better."
- Ed Wood (Tim Burton, 1994)

They say necessity is the mother of invention. So in a capitalist economy when times are hard you have to do whatever you can for your bottom line. You must keep bums on seats. Well, as the Great Depression swept across America in the 1930's movie theatres were feeling the pinch and trying desperately to save money and stay afloat.

The Golden Age of Hollywood had kicked off well in the 20s with films like The Jazz Singer (1927). But even then there had been a two-tiered system of film budgeting. Movies made on a cheaper budget allowed the studios more efficiency in terms of resources, sets and staff. So they could put more money into, and yield maximum returns from, their bigger budget main productions.

By the 30s in the USA, live music in movie theatres and vaudeville-esque variety shows were diminishing. This was largely due to the hugely popular arrival of film with sound. Most of the big studios owned their own theatres and implemented a new format. A typical movie bill in a theatre by the mid-30s might be comprised of a short film, a cartoon, a news reel, film previews and then a double feature.

The main event of the double feature became known as the A, and the second on the bill the B (usually under 80 minutes long). This also meant that studios could rent films together, or charge a flat fee for the Bs. Obviously, when the B feature was sufficiently low-budget, they made more profit. In Depression-era America audiences started to prefer cheaper 'two for one' value tickets, so eventually simple double bills began to prevail.

The B was usually made with existing sets, low paid actors and re-used stock footage. They were often formulaic and easily genre-identified (western, comedy, gangster etc). The A had the big names, talented writers, Technicolor and expensive production values. While the natural home of the B-movie was low end theatre houses with time-rich money-poor audiences. Sometimes these 'grind houses' of the 30s and 40s would even just offer a deal by showing a clutch of B-movies at a cut price.

At this stage, the major studios were churning out B-movies, which had become important to their survival. The 'Big Five' were Warner Bros, Paramount, 20th Century Fox, MGM and RKO. The 'Little Three' were Universal, Columbia and United Artists, so called as these three lacked the integrated strength of owning their own theatres.

For these studios, the B-movie was often a lifeline. They kept cash flow moving, distribution channels open, staff working, enabled the re-use of sets and props, and, basically, kept those bums on seats. There were also a range of studios specialising in low-budget movies only. These became known in Hollywood as Poverty Row, and included Republic, Monogram and Tiffany Pictures. The average price of an A film in the mid-40s was almost half a million dollars, whereas most RKO and Republic movies were made for under $200,000.

Yet, sometimes a B ended up more popular than the A. And every now and then Bs acted as launch pads for talent ascending the Hollywood career ladder. John Wayne appeared in many B-westerns before making it big, for example. And film noir was a style initially associated with B-movies, as directors were free of the commercial constraints often associated with big budgets and so could be more creative. This became a reputable genre in itself and filmmakers like Fritz Lang and Michael Curtiz emerged as luminaries.

Over the course of this week, we're thus going to be looking at the B movies through different eras. Join us tomorrow for part two, where we focus on the 40s and 50s.

• Top 11 classic so-bad-they're-good B-movies

The story this weekend isn't Alice In Wonderland. Once again, Tim Burton's biggest hit ever is atop the weekend box office. This weekend its grosses fell to only (ha) $34.5 million, pushing it over $565 million internationally, $265 million of it in the US.

No, this weekend's big story is the race for second. Diary Of A Wimpy Kid, despite having no real premise given about it and no serious marketing, has somehow managed to debut with a $21.8 million opening weekend while The Bounty Hunter opened to a weaker than expected $21 million. It also had no serious marketing, but it did have two gigantic stars in Gerard Butler and Jennifer Aniston. The two are in a dead heat, given that the numbers are still estimates at this point.

After that top three, it's a long way down to the fourth place film of the weekend. Repo Men (reviewed here) managed mediocre to bad reviews and that shows in mediocre to bad box office. Jude Law's starring tilt managed only $6.15 million this weekend, barely outpacing fifth-place She's Out Of My League's $6.015 million.

Dropping like a rock from last week's second place is Green Zone. It fell to sixth place on a box office of only $5.963 million. This is a $100-million movie, and in two weeks it's taken only $24 million in the States. Even once you take in the international gross, it's still shaping up to be the year's biggest money loser (thus far, we've got a lot of months left for movies to bomb in).

Shutter Island drops to seventh this weekend from fourth. The movie crossed $115 million thanks to this weekend's $4.755 million. It's been a quiet, surprising commercial success for all involved.

Dropping to eighth place this weekend from seventh last weekend is Avatar. It managed another $4 million this weekend. Imagine how good it'd continue to do if it hadn't lost all its 3D and IMAX screens to Alice In Wonderland!

Our Family Wedding sinks to ninth place from sixth last weekend, though most movies with specific audiences generally do shockingly good opening weekends, then drop precipitously. This weekend it managed only $3.8 million, good for about $13.6 for its run.

Dropping all the way to the last spot in the top ten was Remember Me. The movie picked up $3.3 million, and has grossed a grand total of $13.9 so far. It'll probably turn a little profit, or at least break even. Memo to Robert Pattinson: successful movie role = lots of body glitter. He'll be starring in a shirtless remake of Rhinestone Cowboy if he follows my advice!

Coming out next weekend is the latest film from DreamWorks, How To Train Your Dragon. While they're not about to dethrone Pixar for animation supremacy, they've been putting out some surprisingly good films as of late, and Dragon looks to have the appeal to gather in the nerd crowd and the Shrek crowd.

Also coming out is a movie which has grown on me in the weeks since I saw the first trailer, Hot Tub Time Machine. I like Craig Robinson to an unreasonable degree, so I'll definitely be checking this one out. While the premise is a bit stretched out, it's got some very funny people (and John Cusack) involved, so it might live up to my average-at-best expectations.

One of the announcements that slipped through at the end of last week that we're, er, just getting around to bringing you now is Warner Bros' decision to greenlight a fifth Final Destination movie.

This is in the light of the fact that the fourth film, The Final Destination, brought in a sizeable amount of box office, in spite of being really quite shit. And that's from someone who really liked the first two movies. Nonetheless, Warner Bros chief Alan Horn said that the studio is making a new film "because we can't resist".

Well you should resist, Alan. The first two films were an absolute hoot, and the third at least there's an argument for it being a decent midnight-with-a-beer movie. The fourth? It was gimmick-filled (most notably the 3D, but we've not forgotten the crappy X-rays), but most importantly, it seemed to lose the tongue in cheek sense of fun that got us this far. Considering it was directed by David R Ellis, who made the second and best film in the franchise, it was something of a disappointment.

ShockTillYouDrop has been speaking to franchise producer Craig Perry about Final Destination 5 anyway, and at least he hints that the last film was hardly any fun.

He said, "If we find the right storyline - and we're working on it - then we'll take the lessons we learned from The Final Destination and make the necessary improvements to deliver what audiences expect from this franchise, going back to the original. What I know for sure is that it will be in 3D and deliver inventive, suspenseful, fun kills. That I can promise!"

Hmmm. We'll wait and see. Expect the film in 2011 or 2012 is our guess.

ShockTillYouDrop

SlashFilm

Old Dogs has finally limped to UK screens after being delayed from June last year, with the central conceit that a gorilla will embrace Seth Green at some point, as shown in every trailer and on every poster.

Yeah, you've seen those posters on bus stops and at the cinema: John Travolta and Robin Williams standing side by side looking befuddled behind a terrified Seth Green, who's being embraced by said gorilla.

The film arrives here at the same time as the DVD and Blu-ray release over in America, where audiences didn't really take to the film despite having Seth Green being embraced by a gorilla. Apparently, the very sight of Seth Green being embraced by a gorilla wasn't quite enough to draw in the punters, and I very much doubt it will be over here.

What's this about, anyway? Well, I know that Seth Green is, at some point, embraced by a gorilla, or so I'm led to believe. Is it about that?

No, Old Dogs is about a pair of sports marketing entrepreneurs, Dan and Charlie, who are on the cusp of the biggest deal their company has ever had. However, a chance encounter with an old flame of Dan's reveals that he once fathered two twins, Zach and Emily.

The mildly paedophobic bachelors find the kids to be a handful, taking them through camping trips and teaching them how to ride bikes, learning along the way that family actually extends beyond the companionship of an incontinent old dog (geddit?) called Lucky.

And what of Seth Green, being embraced by a gorilla? Um... well, it's in there. I mean, it's apropos of nothing, but then a hell of a lot of the film's gags and plot developments are.

If Seth Green being embraced by a gorilla leaves you cold, there's always a hilarious pills mix-up that leaves John Travolta with the same expression as Jack Nicholson's Joker. No? How about Robin Williams being controlled like a human puppet? Seth Green being hit in the crotch with a golf ball, little realising that he will soon be embraced by a gorilla as well?

It's possible to over-egg that angle, but I'll be honest.  There should be something funny about a petrified Seth Green being embraced by a huge gorilla. And there was. I chuckled when I first saw the trailer. Green is a funny guy, but having seen the full film, I have no idea why he puts his name to garbage like Old Dogs.

I'd say the same of Robin Williams, John Travolta, Kelly Preston, Rita Wilson, Matt Dillon, Justin Long, Bernie Mac, Dax Shephard, Luis Guzman... hell, who else was in this film? Yeah, everyone in this film can do better.

Incidentally, the only other laugh in the film besides... you know what... comes from Justin Long, whose appearance is all too brief and actually quite funny. He's a creepy and utterly deadpan scoutmaster who appears for all of about five minutes, and acquits himself pretty well, given the material.

But you know what? I'm baffled that this was released under the Disney banner. Sure, director Walt Becker gave the studio a big hit of moderate quality in 2007's Wild Hogs, but is this what a namesake of his had in mind when he founded the studio way back when?

Did Walt Disney envision a film largely about corporate politics with some caricatured Japanese businessmen? A film in which a lead character gets an excessive spray tan and is mistaken for another ethnicity? A film with a gag about muddled prescription drugs? A film where Seth Green is embraced by a fucking gorilla?

Let me make it really simple. If you stepped in Old Dogs in the street, you would be very pissed off. You'd shout, swear and scream bloody murder. You'd stamp about and frantically scrape the sole of your shoe on the nearest kerb.

The worst film I've seen this year is still Valentine's Day, a film that's similarly afflicted with being awful shit, but Old Dogs comes damn close to the bottom of the pile. Damn close.

This is just a loathsome film, and it's a tragedy that this was the late Bernie Mac's final film, whatever my thoughts about his other works. No one should have Old Dogs as a footnote to their career, although few of its cast deserve any more work. Especially not John Travolta, whose sole passable work of the last decade is voicing the title character in Bolt.

It lurches from misfire to misfire without wit, charm or any recognisable entertainment value beyond an oversold gag that rhymes with Reth Reen reing rembraced ry a rorilla. You know, if you got a dog to tell you. As fun as rabies, though this may make you froth at the mouth more.

Over the past few weeks, we've been reporting on Marvel's casting search for the leading role in The First Avenger: Captain America. The search has take in a wealth of actors, of whom the best known was arguably John Krasinski. And after various names were linked and unlinked as the process went on, Marvel seemed to be homing in on its choice.

And now, it seems, that choice has been made.

It's been reported at The Hollywood Reporter that Chris Evans has been offered a nine-picture deal to play Captain America. The first of those films will be The First Avenger: Captain America which is out next year, and then there's the long-mooted Avengers movie due in 2012. Assorted sequels, and then small appearances in further Marvel projects, will make up the rest of the deal.

Evans, of course, has already been a part of the Marvel universe, having played The Human Torch in the Fantastic Four films. And while he's not yet accepted the role it seems (and has a commitment to another project to negotiate), we suspect it's a matter of time.

The First Avenger: Captain America begins shooting soon under the guidance of director Joe Johnston, ahead of its summer 2011 release.

The Hollywood Reporter

"This planet is a game reserve. And we're the game."

We suspect the publicity machine for Predators was whirring into life this week, given that a preview reel was released earlier this week, and we also had the first poster. But this is arguably what we wanted: the first proper trailer for the film.

Half of it is spent introducing and building up the ensemble cast/cannon fodder, before ramping things up towards the introduction of the Predators themselves. It's a solid trailer, too, and pretty much sets the film's stall out as a movie about a gang of people trying not to be killed.

The film arrives in the US on 7th July, with the UK release on 11th August. And here's that trailer...

Good old DVD - it rose from nowhere a decade ago and offered us unrivalled picture quality, amazing special features, supersharp sound, and films the way they were meant to be seen. (Sound familiar?)

Soon, the VHS tape, bulky, prone to rewinding, fast forwarding, tape lag, and degradation with repeated use, was obsolete. Who can forget the original VHS tapes of Ghostbusters, watched so many times it started to look like a Swedish TV broadcast recorded from a ship in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean? And then there was the upgrading, rebuying your library over the course of a few years, with each double-dip special edition. Evil Dead 2 has been released in seven different versions in the UK alone.

But not everything made it to DVD, and plenty of it never will. Aside from what are now classified as niche small-run old rock concerts, obscure TV series, and an Oscar Winner for Best Picture (The African Queen), here's a few of the gems that have been undeservedly overlooked from a DVD release, often for no reason apart from apathy and general inertia, and probably now never will see the light of day again.

Hark at 15 random, forgotten films of note that are not on your shelves, and rejoice at yet another copy of Evil Dead 2D at your local megamart.

Films are ranked alphabetically, not in order of preference.

Blind Fury (deleted, region 1 only DVD)

Aside from very occasional TV showings, this brilliant, and utterly bonkers Rutger Hauer vehicle is still absent from your DVD shelves - unless you bought a US copy last millennium.

This is a confused film in every possible way. Hauer was probably drawn to the complex interplay of portraying a blind ninja operating by sound alone - a human Kung Fu Bat - and the producers by getting Rutger Hauer to do Kung Fu.

Whilst the plot is thinner than Wilford Brimley's hair, and the film little more than a fairly average revenge thriller with a gimmicky twist, it stands head and shoulders above the majority of similar dross from the mid 80s for the amazing and improbable action sequences, topped most of all by a supposed moment of high suspense, that is, frankly, some of the finest comedy ever filmed, where a blind Hauer, on the run from his pursuers, hides inside a drumkit, and the ensuring cacophony of cymbal crashes brings about a showdown of gargantuan proportions - intentionally and not so - that has to be seen and heard to be believed.

Later, this may have been remade as Daredevil with Bennifer.

The Decline Of Western Civilisation Part II: The Metal Years

Lost in a nightmare of contractual disputes, this is Penelope Spheeris' masterpiece (and single-handedly responsible for Wayne's World).

No film has ever captured the decadence of Western civilisation quite so accurately. The cast is nothing more than interviews with rock stars and never-weres, and there's rip-roaring live footage from the Hollywood strip Glam Metal scene of 1987-89. There's a remarkably sober Lemmy, a po-faced, and utterly pompous Gene Simmons pontificating as if he himself were a modern day rock Jesus, and a cast of thousands of clueless morons trying, failing, and occasionally succeeding at being famous.

Three unforgettable highlights of this stunning time capsule make all the difference:

A wrecked Ozzy Osbourne making breakfast in a bathrobe whilst suffering visible shakes from the ravages of alcoholism looking like a man with barely weeks left to live

Chris Holmes of W.A.S.P.  in an inflatable dinghy in a swimming pool, pouring whiskey down his throat, slurring and falling asleep mid-camera as his despondent mother silently looks on. Livin' the dream.

And Odin. Their interview consists almost entirely of one question, and the same answer, repeated what seems like hundreds of times.

"But what if you don't become famous?"

"But we will."

"But what if you don't become famous?"

"You don't get it. We will be famous."

So in a way, Odin did become famous, albeit for all the wrong reasons.

Topped off by sizzling concert footage and a general air of absolute, unrestrained hedonism and idealism that hints on the Last Days Of Rome, this is an unacknowledged, unforgettable classic that once seen, sears itself onto your brain like a scar. It's the best single music documentary ever. The music itself, mind you, is irrelevant. All anyone remembers is the excess.

Pollox Et Le Chat Bleu  (1972) aka Dougal And The Blue Cat

Some films struggle to fill their running time, others race by at such a pace they could be twice as long and you wouldn't notice the passing of time.

At a scant 88 minutes, this 1972 stoner classic (voiced by Emma Thompson's dad, trivia fans) is barely half the length it should be, and still about a thousand times less irritating than any other 'children's' film made.

Wonderfully innocent, this musical tale of life in the garden is an endlessly quotable work of genius that makes words such as ‘factory' more threatening than ‘murder'.

The plot, as such, revolves around the theft of Zebeedee's magic moustache, a mysterious new arrival called Buxton, an obsession with the colour blue, and a dog known as Blue Peter who goes to the moon and has sugar lumps as his Kryptonite.

Mysteriously, this film, easily the equal of anything Pixar have produced in charm and its ability to work well for adults and children, is never shown on television, and was last seen on video in a scratchy transfer on the long lost Channel Five label in 1993.

Aside from the old-fashioned songs as durable as any stage musical, the new characters to the fold are brilliant, including a wonderfully cheerless train, and a brilliantly realised army of useless blue Plasticine goons that only obey instructions when singing them off-key.

At heart, Dougal And The Blue Cat is a brilliant, happy romp that is, according to some a fierce satire of the nature of political belief, the corrupt nature of power, and the virtues of idealism. It is the way the Magic Roundabout should always be portrayed on screen. If you watch this, you can almost forget the worthless recent Robbie Williams voiced film never existed. Almost.

Of the 7,000 or so films I've seen this in my lifetime this classic has been consistently in the top three. And if you could ever see it, you might very well agree.

Elvis!

With Kurt Russell as Elvis and John Carpenter at the helm, this rarely seen 1979 TV movie surely jumps out to me as one of the most obvious and deserving candidates for a DVD release. Whilst Carpenter's skill has often been overlooked by an aversion by some to his specialist genre, this is his most naturalistic film, that operates far beyond the usual palette, with nary a ghost, slasher, alien, or monster in sight, aside from the chesseburger chompin' deceased egomaniac that was Elvis himself.

Unlike the rest of the Elvis biopics, being made a year after The King checked out on the greasy yellow banana in his blue suede shoes, the Mise en scène is 100% accurate, the music awesome, and Carpenter exposes his not oft recognised talent for characterisation.

This is also the first time Carpenter and his hetero life buddy Kurt Russell worked together, so the powerful combination of the two, that later brought us Escape From New York, The Thing and Big Trouble In Little China, is worthy of reappraisal.

Fantastic Four (1993)

Made as a Ashcan Title, and never intended to be released, this odd experiment is a cheap as chips curio that combines sincere ambition on behalf of the cast, who thought they were making a genuine movie, and the slapdash necessity of underfunded contractual obligation from Roger Corman.

By no means anything more than an expensive Power Rangers-style pilot, it's a gonzo-powered overblown TV episode that was never intended to be widely seen, and sneaked out on VHS in Italy alone.

The best way to think of it is as a literal interpretation of a comic book: speedy, bright, gaudy, excessive, blunt, and moves so fast that it hopes you don't see where it doesn't quite make sense.

I wouldn't exactly say it's good, but it's nowhere near as bad as you've heard, and it's better than Superman IV. And Superman III, come to think of it. Then again, Battlefield Earth is better than Superman IV. Just.

Worth seeing once, if only for an example of what could have been.

The Godfather 1901-1980

Recently touched upon, and rightfully praised, The Godfather Trilogy is a stunning, 10-hour epic. Coppola's huge vision, recut and expanded for television in the early 90s, was a complete and utter reimagining of two of the finest films ever made, plus there was a bolted on third part.

The biggest and most notable change is that the trilogy portrays a century of the Corlene family rise, fall, and rise, from the 1900 side streets of a tiny Italian village to the end of the line outside a New York opera house.

To an extent, the thematic similarities between the rise of Robert De Niro and Al Pacino, that echo each other across the whole of the fabulous Godfather II, are shattered in favour of a broader, wider vision. Instead, it's told chronologically, opening with a countryside funeral massacre, and seeing Don Corleone rise from child to his death.

This version has been carefully excised out of existence without any apparent reason. At least as good as the loved and remembered theatrical versions, the trilogy is a vast, brilliant epic of a vision even larger than Coppola's original movies. With the benefit of hindsight, and around an hour or so of deleted scenes effortlessly and unnoticeably slotted back in, the films become part of a larger, more fertile whole.

The deleted scenes are gems, and it is wonderful to see them returned to their original homes, adding an expanded understanding to the saga. Sadly, the 1977 Saga television broadcast featured different deleted scenes to the 1992 VHS release. To date, no version exists that contains all the broadcast footage from these three classic films.

Aside from the compelling tale of betrayal, loyalty, idealism and reality that can be seen to echo our own lives, The Godfather Trilogy simply works better as a chronological epic. And when viewed as a whole, with the rose tinted spectacles of nostalgia removed, Godfather III is a slightly lesser, but still valid and effective finale that closes the tale of Pacino's Corleone with a karmic conclusion that shows, even to the last frame, the high human price of the lives we live, the decisions we make, and the often small steps we take decades previously that turn out to be our ultimate undoing.

Whilst Coppola would prefer you to think this version is probably a mark against his masterwork, The Godfather Trilogy is, by any standards, at the very worst, a fascinating and equally effective alternate framing of the same epic tale that deserves to be seen in the modern age.

Inchon

Aside from rare showings on obscure cable channels, this overfunded, underthought, and cheesy war soap opera has languished, deservedly, in a place that cinema forgot.

Subject to a whopping budget, great talent (Sir Larry Oliver, chasing a cheque with deaden, wooden enthusiasm), and absolutely no other virtues, Inchon is proof that you can't make a film tolerable by throwing money at it.

Resembling a bad Madame Tussauds mummy reanimated by an infestation of maggots, Oliver's McArthur is to be treasured, if only for showing with its incredulous crapness just how much further even the mediocre talent of C Thomas Howell or Michael Dudikoff could sink if they tried. Perhaps this performance is proof of a theory that, like musicians, it is only the truly talented who can be irredeemably awful and get away with it.

Bankrolled by religious cult, the Moonies, this was for many, merely a job for hire. Bond director Terence Young keeps an eye on lunchtime in every shot, the script is as blunt and crass as a teenage seduction, and the continuity is, to put it charitably, absent.

If you thought some films were bad, then you haven't seen Inchon, which, whilst not actually in the worst 50 films ever made, certainly will never win an award for anything.

About the only redeeming feature is a classic era score from Jerry Goldsmith, but even that is insufficient to raise this unforgettable experience from the artistic seafloor it has quietly sunk into.

Therefore, perhaps this should be widely available on DVD, to show that even the worst of films are often made with some vague, misplaced ambition and hope, spoilt through the limits of budget and incompetence. That's opposed to Inchon's weakness, which is straightforward cheque-cashing cinematic jobsworthyness.

But what a fascinating Making Of this film would make. A world where The Man Who Killed Don Quixote cannot seemingly be made, yet this can, is a world without reason, and run by mad men.

Let It Be

Aside from tiny excerpts being seen in the Anthology megadocumentary, this compelling, embarrassing document of The Beatles falling apart in a sea of bickering and creative earthquakes has been absent from the public eye since the VHS tape was quietly deleted in 1984.

McCartney expressed surprise it wasn't on DVD a few years ago, and after a full remastering project last year, both Ringo and thumbs aloft Macca sunk a proposed DVD release, if for no other reason than the existing Beatles story overlooks the often bitter acrimony of their final years, and this document makes clear that things were bitterly ugly.

The director often left the cameras running and placed in discreet places to capture the true personalities in the band. McCartney regales Lennon with his ideas about The Beatles' non-existent future, whilst Lennon is bored beyond words. It speaks volumes of the gulf between the two.

Harrison argues with perfectionist Lennon, and the band crumbles in a midst of ego, and being so incredibly rich they need never meet again.

Last seen on Ebay fetching £100 for a VHS tape and £300 for a laserdisc, the fact that this has been airbrushed out of existence whilst the risible nonsense of Help! is treated to a super special edition is both incomprehensible and utterly bonkers.

Max Headroom

A seminal piece of 80s sci-fi headed up by sci-fi semi-deity Matt Frewer, this short, and striking, cheap and imaginative satire of mainstream television gave the world the rarely used phrase ‘blipvert'. It also had massive influence on U2's weird 90s, launched a million t-shirts and a short-lived TV show, and was a mostly successful attempt to pre-empt the world of CGI-created cybersteam-whatever punk trends that were always humiliating.

If you remember the wave of mid-90s 'The Internet Is Evil' thrillers such as The Net and Virtuousity, then you will be stunned that occasionally, cinema gets it right, particularly with this witty, wise, and likeable escapade.

Managing to hark romantically back to the age of pirate radio, predict the proliferation of a million, rubbish budget TV channels, and take the unexpected step of killing the title character in the first couple of minutes, Matt Frewer spins a quick web of genius that he was, sadly, barely able to fulfil in the following two decades, being typecast as a wacky freak of zany sci-fi instead of the affable, dark visionary he was.

Why this is not on DVD is without reason, as this is worth approximately 10,000 copies of Young Sherlock Holmes.

Metropolis (1984)

I'm not saying this is good. It isn't. However, for historical reasons at least, this bastardised, colourised, castrated, and Giorgio Morodorised 90 minute version of one of the greatest films of all time deserves, at least, to be included as an 'alternate cut' on a Special Edition.

If nothing else, this film is an important document of cinema, albeit an artistically bankrupt one, that shows, in much the same way as the Studio Cut of Brazil on the Criterion DVD set, just how useless, and point-missing studio-sanctioned recuts are. Plus, how studios cannibalise great work with the aim of selling tickets and making money.

Watch out for the largely useless and dated soundtrack, the fact that about 40 minutes has been sliced out of it with a baseball bat, and the wonderful colourisation that makes the pale oranges of the colourised Night Of The Living Dead look...  almost realistic. I cannot recommend this as any good, but if you love cinema, well, you should probably watch it at least once.

On Deadly Ground

Take Steven Seagal's half-assed compromise of a vanity project, and what you have is a 90 minute piece of rubbish. In it, Seagal tries valiantly to defend the honour of Mother Earth with punches, paunch, and a ponytail, whilst Michael Caine's dye-job oilman appears to consist solely of outtakes from Larry Hagman in Dallas, with Caine's face CGIed over the top like a bad stuntman.

To call this film good is a crushing overstatement. The plot is thin and obvious (basically Avatar with Injuns in the 90s), the action mediocre, and it boasts the worst matte painting in the history of cinema, namely an oil rig painted over the top of stock footage.

That said, it has two redeeming features - the cringeworthy author's message of the last reel from Seagal, where he pontificates and puts the world to rights, should rank alongside The Man With Two Brains for guffawness and rivals Oliver Stone for blunt naivety. Plus, there's Billy Bob Thornton in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo as a fat, useless bad guy who gets taken down in 17 seconds and has two lines.

Song Of The South

Zippity-doo-dah! Zippity-ay! Best seen through the lens of its racist times, this quaintly ignorant movie could be seen as portraying the slaves of the south cheerfully toiling away and singing songs of freedom for your Disneyfied entertainment. It's been quietly deleted for many years and the soundtrack has been carefully removed from the Disney canon. TV showings are extinct, and the only place it is ever seen these days in brief extracts on increasingly rare Disney anthology movies.  

In 2007, Disney's top brass reviewed the movie and, after initial statements that it would be restored to DVD, this decision quietly sank without trace. Admittedly, its not quite up there with Mickey Mouse Vs The Nazis, but as a historical document, made in the days of segregation and only a couple of decades removed from lynchings, is it any wonder that perhaps Disney would think it better left forgotten?

Static

Mark Romanek would love to airbrush this naive black and white palimpsest of a film from his body of work. So much so that, aside from a low-key VHS release in 1987 and a couple of TV broadcasts, this quirky, odd retelling of teenage awkwardness, suburban dystopia, and crazy self-belief has been forgotten. Even One Hour Photo was portrayed as Romanek's debut, which is historically inaccurate, to say the least.

In short, Keith Gordon is a stunted and awkward teenager (playing to type, then), working in a television factory who finds he can tune into Heaven using a specially adapted receiver. But no one else can see it.

Chock full of semi-Lynchian imagery, weird, offbeat, and so self-aware it hurts, Static is a film you probably want to see so that, if you ever saw it, you'd wish you hadn't.

It's quirky, funny, strange, and naive, and perhaps seen with hindsight as a little embarrassing, but it is nonetheless, much more than the baby photographs Romanek makes it out to be.

Beware: there is an unofficial, VHS-sourced transfer on an illicit DVD, which is practically unwatchable, and not worth the silver it is pressed on.

The Stuff (deleted, available now in Region 1 only)

One of the scariest, funniest films ever made, The Stuff is a deliberate attempt to create the kind of cheap, rubbishy crap that proliferated in the 50s, updated to 80s America, and then infused with a dark, sadistic glee.

From the Larry Corman stable, and barely seen since the 80s, this was part of the now mostly rehabilitated canon of 'video nasties' that stands far and above most of the rest of the genre. A savage and schlocky attack on capitalism, The Stuff itself is a beautiful addictive ice-cream style substance found only in one place in the world that has been turned into a Stuff factory.

Unsurprisingly, all is not what it seems, and the Stuff soon shows its true colours and threatens all mankind.

Part the paranoid ramblings of a madman, part eerie foretelling of the junk food epidemic, The Stuff is enjoyable, silly, guff with Death By White Goo. It's is a bona fide, must see classic that takes a brilliant, and hilarious left-field turn when a scenery chewing American general mobilises his army against the Stuff, and all because he's been informed it's a Commie plot.

Inventive, brilliant, and beautifully tacky, it's a crime against art this B-grade classic isn't on DVD.

U23D

Opinion is sharply divided on whether Bono and his band of gazillionaires are any good, or offer patronising codswallop bleating about potatoes and human rights. Whatever your opinion, U23D is a document of no small cinematic importance for the revolutionary effect it held on 3D technology.

Instead of documenting the tour, as such, U23D is 82 minutes of live footage (mostly from Buenos Aries) which completely revolutionised the concert movie. It's the first 3D film to feature unscripted action, moving cameras, all live human elements, and real-time capture of an event instead of staged performance.

Instead of being a visual record of the tour, it existed more as an experience to be watched than listened to, in the old fashioned tradition of concert movies in the cinema that died out with the birth of VHS in the late 70s.

If nothing else, it is a rare experience to soak up shots that last on average 15 seconds each and eat up the visuals instead of the haemorrhaging jumpcuts of modern day concert movies that focus on style over substance. You can watch the event with the same lingering thought, and the same unhurried gaze as you would in a football stadium in London, where the eye can absorb a tiny detail or a grand vista.

You could, for example, lose yourself in the spectacle of the staging, or the music itself. Or, you could marvel at the high heels Bono is in that you almost but never quite see. Or meditate on the sheer visual richness of the show.

Given the limited palette of the staging - four men playing instruments in a confined space - U23D exists on one level as an essay on cinematography and technology, in visual richness, and on another as a vanity project experiment that saw Bono sink $15,000,000 into some fancy cameras that are now the curse of almost every film ever made.   

No concert film I have seen has ever come close to capturing the exact experience so accurately - sans the plastic cup of warm lager landing on your hair - and even without the 3D gimmick, U23D is certainly a superior music movie. Well, aside from the music itself, which is a matter of taste...

Editor's note: can I add in Kenneth Branagh's In The Bleak Midwinter please (aka A Midwinter's Tale)? Thanks!

What else is missing from DVD? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!

Over at the Los Angeles Times, director Bryan Singer and producer Laura Shuler Donner have both been interviewed about the X-Men franchise. Singer, of course, directed the first two films in the series, before leaving X-Men: The Last Stand in the hands of Brett Ratner so he could go to make Superman Returns instead. Cheers for that, Bryan.

However, it'd already been announced that Singer was returning to the X-Men saga, and he's set to direct X-Men: First Class, the story of the first year of Professor X's school. He's been spilling a few details on how he plans to attack the story, too.

He said, "Just doing younger mutants is not enough. The story needs to be more than that. I love the relationship between Magneto and Xavier, these two men who have diametrically opposite points of view but still manage to be friends -- to a point. They are the ultimate frenemies."

But it seems that Singer may have a second X-Men movie on his to-do list as well (which also reportedly still includes a Battlestar Galactica feature, and Jack The Giant Killer for Warner Bros, too). Shuler Donner revealed that she'd been trying to interest Singer in helming the eventual X-Men 4 once he's done with First Class.

Furthermore, Hugh Jackman's had a lunch with the director to persuade him to helm Wolverine 2. It's probably fair to assume from that director Gavin Hood's days on the Wolverine franchise are very much numbered.

The full interview, which traces the making of the X-Men franchise to date, can be found here. And we suspect that X-Men: First Class will be targeting a release in the summer of 2012. Don't hold us to it, though...

Now in cinemas, Gerard Butler (King Leonidas from 300) and Jennifer Aniston (Rachel from Friends) are paired up and fronting a flick called The Bounty Hunter. If this was pitched as a gung-ho guns-for-hire action movie with King Leonidas and Rachel from Friends, it'd be an appealing prospect. Sadly, I don't think it's going to turn out that way.

It hurts seeing how Butler has been reconfigured as a hunk of romcom eye-candy. Some women swooned when they saw his toned abs in 300 and the higher powers consequently decided that he should be cast in mediocre material as a piece of meat. P.S. I Love You? This is madness! I want to see Gerry screaming, sticking a spear in things and going berserk against the amassed nasties of the Persian Empire. Who is that slushy smoothie on the poster for The Ugly Truth? Madness!

Ah well, I guess I'm not the target audience for The Bounty Hunter and similar chick flicks. The marketing people know that graphic novel-based films about half-naked ancient warrior men stabbing at ugly monsters are more my thing. They don't care if I shrug off a trailer for Sex And The City 2. They just want me to scream "oorah!" and have a nerdgasm when they flash a clip from Clash Of The Titans.

Back to The Bounty Hunter (never turn your back on a bounty hunter), this sort of stuff normally flies right below my radar. There may be a blip of "Ah, Gerard Butler: this is Sparta!", but otherwise it goes undetected or passes by without raising more than an iota of interest in my mind. However, the new movie that matches Aniston and Butler has caught my attention for another reason unrelated to the Leonidas Factor. Once again, it's because my entire existence is affected by a childhood obsession with Star Wars.

The Bounty Hunter. What beautiful words. There's so much promise in that title that it's a shame to waste it on a woeful romcom (it might not be woeful, but I'm willing to bet it's as ropey and insubstantial as King Xerxes' golden g-string). Say 'bounty hunter', though, and the first thought is one of the coolest and most compelling characters in movie history. My imagination is whirling towards The Empire Strikes Back, a deal with Darth Vader and Han Solo frozen in carbonite. Star Wars geekstreak never dying, upon seeing a poster for The Bounty Hunter, all I could think of was Boba Fett.

He's so cool. An enigma wrapped in a mystery acting as a mercenary wearing a helmet. Plus he's got a jetpack, which makes him all the more awesome. As far as things go, he's pretty much a humourless version of Han Solo, who hides his face and has lots of gadgets. Ice cold and unflinching, he cruises the crummiest dives and scummiest holes of the galaxy, capturing all kinds of low-life for instant cash. It takes a special sort of person to pursue that kind of a lifestyle, and so Boba has my admiration.

It's no surprise that a cult following came following his brief appearances in The Empire Strikes Back and Return Of The Jedi. Seeing 'Baby Boba' in Attack Of The Clones was one of the best things about the prequels and the sight of the child bounty hunter picking up his dad's helmet post-decapitation for the tragic 'pass-the-torch' moment deeply moved me.

It was nice to get some backstory for the shadowy predator and if I could choose which Star Wars multiverse character should get their own spin-off (any opportunity will do for George Lucas), it'd either be the bounty hunter or Admiral Ackbar.

Seeing as I'm seeking a romantic-comedy I'd want to actively watch and a fish-headed alien doesn't have much chance as a romantic lead, I think that the Boba Fett blockbuster love story is most likely.

If you're feeling imaginative you could even see Fett as a pretty attractive figure of mystique and sexual suspense. Holding that blaster firm, he's got the whole phallic archetypal macho-hero pose going on and you can picture him appearing on the covers on men's magazines with scantily-clad ladies hanging around his neck. Princess Leia is renowned as the Star Wars pin-up, but you can't deny that there's something sexy about Fett and his silent-but-deadly manner. It's hard to describe, but the bounty hunter has undeniable mojo.

We have no idea what's underneath the outfit. All we know is that in Attack Of The Clones he was a good looking young lad with curly locks that suggest he'd grow up to be a handsome guy. He could be a great taciturn knight in shining armour - literally - to lead a romantic movie, dropping in on a jetpack to yank some heartbroken young woman for an unforgettable fling on the fringes of the Outer Rim.

If he doesn't have the personality and chemistry with co-stars to do puppy love or fairytale fantasy, he could always be adapted for more erotic 'adult' material. With a spacecraft named 'Slave I' and a spacey gimp mask, a kinky S&M space opera spin-off would also be do-able.

The possibilities for Boba are endless, but I'd like to see him cast in his own romantic spin-off, mainly because he strikes me as a lonely fellow who could do with a loving, intimate relationship. The path of the bounty hunter is a lonely one and having spent years crawling through the seamiest corners of the galaxy, scarred by his father's death and compelled to do dirty work to make a living, it's nice to imagine that Fett will find a soul mate.

In the end, the closest poor Boba comes to a romantic resolution is being digested by the Sarlacc at the same time as one of Jabba's slave girls. He needs a classic weepy moment where he removes his helmet, reveals that he's actually Sean Bean and then sweeps the damsel-in-distress off her feet.

The taglines would scream "She was the bounty hunter's greatest catch!" and the aisles would run with tears of joy as the credits rolled and the newly-married Fetts flew off in a '50s car into the happily-ever-after sunset.

We need that more than another movie that emasculates Gerard Butler. Because George Lucas hasn't hooked the randy middle-aged woman market demographic (a.ka. the Mamma Mia! audience) into Star Wars yet, I'm optimistic that Beauty And The Bounty Hunter Boba Fett will be in pre-production soon.

James' previous column can be found here.

There are typically only two means through which ‘gay' movies make it into the American mainstream. The first is through prestige and ‘worthiness'. The excellent Brokeback Mountain resides here, but that it lost the Academy Award for Best Picture to racial-tension potboiler Crash was more a statement about America's guilty conscience on the subject than of which film deserved it more.

The second is to portray homosexuality as a joke. This has proven the more financially viable route Stateside, with the lamentable I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry taking a lot more at the box office than the award-winning ‘gay Western'. While we're hardly living in the dark ages, there's no denying that cinema-goers aren't entirely comfortable with this supposed taboo just yet.

Enter I Love You Phillip Morris, which crosses between both and has thus had a troubled path to cinemas. Indeed, at one stage it looked likely that the film would go straight to DVD. The subject of the studios' reticence is Steven Russell, played by Jim Carrey, a Texan cop who comes out of the closet in the wake of a near-fatal traffic accident.

Steven then ups and leaves his happy (and more challengingly, Christian) family to live in excess with his boyfriend Jimmy, becoming a conman to fund his expensive new lifestyle. When the law catches up with him, Steven is sent to prison, where he meets Phillip Morris, played by Ewan McGregor. The mild-mannered Phillip has his head turned by Steven, and the two spend the next few years flitting in and out of jail in their efforts to be together.

Jim Carrey has had hits and misses in both his comedic and dramatic roles, and I'm pleased to report that his work in I Love You Phillip Morris counts as a hit. He strikes just the right balance, in a marriage of his more over-the-top acting (Liar Liar), and his more restrained and dramatic performances (The Truman Show).

While Ewan McGregor amiably continues to get his career back on track now he's finished faffing about with George Lucas and Dan Brown, and Leslie Mann makes a brief but memorable impression as Steven's befuddled ex-wife, it's really Carrey's show. He's surprisingly intense in places, but he still has better comic timing than most actors working today, and he's never any less than compelling here.

The mix of comedy and drama in the script itself is often unsettling, but you can really expect nothing less from Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, the writers of Bad Santa.

At key points of the film, you'll have the rug pulled out from underneath you in much the same way as the victims of Steven's cons. It can lull you into a false sense of poignancy and then make you laugh out loud. It can have you chuckling away and then emotionally sucker-punch you. Whatever your thoughts on homosexuality, this isn't a film you can relax into.

The ‘gay thing', as I've heard it referred to by more uncomfortable viewers than I, is never really the punchline to any of the jokes, and the film is better for it. Only one scene stood out as a contrivance. An escape attempt by Steven leads him to procure some clothes from another inmate. Apparently, all he could get was a leopard-print mesh vest and some red hotpants. Either he's the least resourceful inmate ever, or the writers really wanted to put Carrey in that kind of sight gag.

Besides that, the only other off-putting aspect of the film was the appearance of Brennan Brown, better known to cinema fans as Mr. Dresden, the mind-addled film producer from those Orange ads before the film begins. Just as in last year's State Of Play, it's really jarring to see him doing anything serious when you saw him just a short while before, trying to get Danny Glover to promote ‘Dial Hard'.

On the whole, I Love You Phillip Morris is funny as hell, and in several instances, it's really profound. Ficarra and Requa never shoehorn homosexuality into any of the parodic tropes you've seen elsewhere, and it's just a very well-written and likable comedy.

I don't doubt that The Bounty Hunter is a more likely romcom prospect this weekend, but shame on the American distributors, anyway. In this case, audiences should choose Ewan McGregor as the lead love interest over Jennifer Aniston any day.

Keeping firmly in line with the policy from the 80s of only referring to action movie stars by their surnames, there's a brand new poster for The Expendables doing the rounds, and it's arisen at IGN in the US.

Complete with the ‘Choose Your Weapon' tagline, it's managing really quite well to convey the idea that this might be a violent film.

Furthermore, we understand that the first full, official trailer has been screened in the US, and we're just waiting for it to go online so we can bring it to you. That will happen as soon as we possibly can, let us assure you.

The Expendables lands in August.

Is there a more puzzling underground music scene than that of Iran? If you follow the western media's reporting of tough crackdowns on gigs and club nights, it seems stuck between heavy regulation, outright disdain, and tentative blossoming. Seeking to get beyond the headlines and potential ideological bias is Kurdish-Iranian filmmaker Bahman Ghobadi's No One Knows About Persian Cats.

One of the film's frustrating conflicts is presented immediately. Ghobadi's desire to present this youthful, radical slice of Iranian society in a documentary style, showing off the diversity of bands and the pressures on performers, jars with the decidedly fictional narrative style given to the film, which features real bands but a made-up story.

Two young Iranians, Negar and Ashkan, decide to form a band after a spell in prison. Fully aware of the restrictions placed on western music in their country, they dream of travelling to Europe - to London, Iceland, or France - and performing their songs publicly.

To this end, they look for foreign passports and dodgy visas, using the black market connections of bootleg-DVD-salesman-cum-manager Nader (Hamed Behdad). Meanwhile, they also need to recruit backing musicians for their band, in the hope of playing a secret gig before jetting off.

This search for drummers and bassists is Ghobadi's excuse to showcase Tehran's vibrant musical scene, starting off with a music studio specialising in female-sung blues ballads, and taking in groovy jazz fusion, pulsating techno, psychedelic jamming and tender acoustic folk.

These mostly young groups, marginalised by the moral powers that be, flourish on the extreme edges of society, practicing in basements, freestyling in the undeveloped frame of a multi-storey building, or, like a metalcore band made up of factory workers, grinding out pop-death riffs in a countryside cow shed.

Their consumption of western media is vital, with bedroom walls plastered with Joy Division posters, or one skinny-jeaned indie band (who rehearse on a makeshift shed atop an apartment block) getting their cultural fix from a ragged, well-thumbed copy of the NME.

No One Knows About Persian Cats works best in this light, when it touches on the extreme measures musicians (or youth culture in general) will go to in order to express themselves. Furthermore, it stresses their mostly harmless approach, with lyrics dealing with personal issues and a wish to build on Iranian culture, not rage against it. The protagonists' desire for escape is one of necessity, not choice.

The fictional storyline, anchored by Ashkan Koshanejad and Negar Shaghaghi, is supposed to hammer home this tragic predicament, but instead it complicates the project as a whole.

Ghobadi tries to satisfy both documentary and dramatic impulses, but it is a self-destructive ambition. The distinction between fact and fantasy is blurred, by association marring the film with a sense of polemical untrustworthiness. The fictional plot-line seems under-nourished, as it is dropped at every turn in favour of a stirring musical montage, but, likewise, the film loses its informative, objective stance once it gives in to the pressures of narrative, building towards a moving, emotional conclusion of foiled dreams.

Despite Ghobadi's best efforts, Iran's musical situation still remains a slippery subject, leaving the viewer, by the end, just as uncertain of the plight of these Persian cats.

Harry Hill's unique take on telly in his TV Burp comes to an end of the current series on Saturday March 20th at 7:00pm on ITV1. Between Harry's Burp and Charlie Brooker's Newswipe it's how we prefer to catch up with all things relevant in tellyland. We'll miss them both and hurry back, boys.

It's a hardy and dedicated bunch that is sticking with FlashForward. If you are, you're of sturdier and more patient stock than we're made of, so we'll remain in awe and help out with a reminder that the show picks up after its long, long, long break on Monday March 22nd at 9:00pm on Five with Revelation Zero Part 1. Part 2 airs immediately after at 10:00pm. Now, that's more like it!

Evidently, the telly scheduling torturers, I mean, deciders, acknowledge it's been a bit of a stretch between eps and that we mere mortals can only retain so much information for so long, and are showing special FlashForward: What Did You See? summaries of the first ten epiodes on Five and Fiver at various times before Monday, starting Saturday, March 20th at 12:30pm on Five.

And that's the miserly lot this week. But, no worries, as we always aim to help lessen resentment over your TV License and wring the most of your money's worth out of those subscription movie channels. And this week is no different in that respect.

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

Please also note: the ordinal numbers for dates will help you scan through this simple list with your browser's search function. Enter '20th' in your browser's Find box or window to highlight and/or tab through all movies shown on Saturday. Enjoy!

A History of Violence
On: Film4
Date: Saturday 20th March
Time: 11:05pm (and 00:05am 21st Mar Film4+1)

Along Came A Spider
On: Film4
Date: Saturday 20th March
Time: 9:00pm (and 10:00pm Film4+1)

An American Werewolf In London
On: SCI FI
Date: Monday 22nd March
Time: 00:30am

Armageddon
On: BBC 3
Date: Wednesday 24th March
Time: 9:00pm

Army Of Darkness
On: TCM
Date: Saturday 20th March
Time: 11:05pm

Audition
On: Zone Horror
Date: Monday 22nd March
Time: 00:30am

Casino Royale
On: ITV1
Date: Saturday 20th March
Time: 9:30pm

Cloverfield
On: Sky Movies Sci-Fi/Horror
Date: Friday 19th March
Time: 1:55pm (and 9:00pm)

Con Air
On: Sky Movies Action/Thriller
Date: Saturday 20th March
Time: 11:35pm

Das Boot: Director's Cut
On: Sky Movies Indie
Date: Saturday 20th March
Time: 2:45pm

Day Watch
On: Film4
Date: Friday 19th March
Time: 10:45pm (and 11:45pm Film4+1)

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
On: Virgin 1
Date: Saturday 20th March
Time: 9:00pm (and 10:00pm Virgin+1, 3/4:00pm 21st Mar Virgin/+1)

Don't Look Now
On: ITV1
Date: Monday 22nd March
Time: 00:55am

Goodfellas
On: ITV4
Date: Monday 22nd March
Time: 11:00pm (and 10:00pm 24th Mar)

Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone
On: ITV1
Date: Saturday 20th March
Time: 3:30pm

In The Name Of The Father
On: ITV1
Date: Sunday 21st March
Time: 00:30am

Kill Bill: Vol. 1
On: BBC 3
Date: Friday 19th March
Time: 10:00pm (ans 10:00pm 20th Mar)

Kindergarten Cop
On: Hallmark
Date: Saturday 20th March
Time: 8:00pm (and 9:00pm Hallmark+1, 1:40/2:40pm 21st Mar Hallmark/+1)

Nicholas Nickleby
On: BBC 2
Date: Saturday 20th March
Time: 5:25pm

On The Waterfront
On: Five USA
Date: Saturday 20th March
Time: 2:35pm (and noon 21st Mar)

Salem's Lot
On: Zone Horror
Date: Friday 198th March
Time: noon (Part 2 at 4:00pm)

Rear Window
On: Sky Screen 1
Date: Sunday 21st March
Time: 04:00am (and 10:30am 23rd Mar Sky Movie Classics)

Snatch
On: Five
Date: Sunday 21st March
Time: 10:00pm

Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines
On: Watch
Date: Saturday 20th March
Time: 10:00pm (and 11:00pm Watch+1, 9/10:00pm 21st Mar Watch/+1)

The Day After Tomorrow
On: E4
Date: Saturday 20th March
Time: 9:00pm (and 10:00pm E4+1, 9/10:00pm 24th Mar E4/+1)

The Deer Hunter
On: ITV4
Date: Sunday 21st March
Time: 10:00pm

The Departed
On: Channel 4
Date: Saturday 20th March
Time: 10:35pm (and 11:35pm 4+1)

The Iron Giant
On: Sky Movies Family
Date: Friday 19th March
Time: 07:45am (and 3:00pm, 1:30pm 24th Mar)

The Lost Boys
On: Sky Movies Sci-Fi/Horror
Date: Saturday 20th March
Time: 11:30am (and 7:20pm)

The Man Who Wasn't There
On: Film4
Date: Saturday 20th March
Time: 01:15am (and 2:15am Film4+1)

The Matrix Reloaded
On: ITV2
Date: Friday 19th March
Time: 9:00pm

The Matrix Revolutions
On: ITV2
Date: Saturday 20th March
Time: 9:00pm

The Mist
On: Sky Movies Sci-Fi/Horror
Date: Friday 19th March
Time: 10:00am (and 5:10pm, 10:55am 23rd Mar)

The Simpsons Movie
On: Film4
Date: Friday 19th March
Time: 9:00pm (and 10:00pm Film4+1)

Transporter 3
On: Sky Movies Action/Thriller
Date: Friday 19th March
Time: 11:40am (and 11:10pm)

What Lies Beneath
On: Sky1
Date: Saturday 20th March
Time: 9:00pm (and 10:00pm 21st Mar Sky2, 00:30am 22nd Mar Sky2)

Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
On: Sky Movies Family
Date: Sunday 21st March
Time: 09:20am (and 2:40pm)

Zathura: A Space Adventure
On: Five
Date: Sunday 21st March
Time: 5:55pm

If you're over 12 years of age and you're looking at this list in search of Angelina Jolie's Lara Croft:Tomb Raider, shame on you. This is about real sex appeal, not just tits 'n' ass. Of course, tits 'n' ass do count, but we mean the kind of character who only subsequent to arguing the differing interpretations of Nietzsche would provide you with the night of your life. The thinking man/woman's man/woman.

So let's get down to business...

Leeloo: The Fifth Element (played by Milla Jovovich)

My oh my. I'm a straight woman, and I would.

Leeloo is the ultimate dream because she really has it all. Especially for us geeks. Played by the beautiful Mila Jovovich, Leeloo happens to be 'the supreme being'. She's the catalyst which ultimately saves the world from the 'great evil' that appears every five thousand years. She is The Fifth Element.

Leeloo can fight better than a martial arts master and is one of the most intelligent beings alive. She's a sexy, smart, sweet, kick-ass, world-saving alien played by a super model. But, of course, underneath all this amazing hotness she needs love. Simple human love. Which Bruce Willis is only too happy to provide.

But this quality gives her a really feminine vulnerability, which only serves to make her even more attractive and appealing. As does her super-cute-I've-just-learnt-English alien voice. Leeloo says 'multipass' and an entire generation cream their pants. Good lord.

Han Solo: Star Wars (played by Harrison Ford)

Perhaps a bit cliché, but does it get sexier than Han Solo? Not really. Harrison Ford is a lovely looking chap. From sweaty Indiana Jones to buzz-cut Deckard in Blade Runner, Ford's pretty damn fine. But there is something about the arrogant, brave, rogue Solo that makes him as tantalising as a cupcake to a dieter.

Even his name conjures images of a rugged loner scoundrel who's alright with his overgrown humanoid pet, but really, deep down, craves the love of a good woman. A woman like me. Okay, sorry. Where were we? Ah yes, Han Solo.

It's also a consonant away from a euphemism for masturbation and I wonder if that was an accident? He is, after all, the male love interest of the series. And I challenge you to find a red blooded woman who wasn't screaming 'WHAT?' at the screen when, for a moment, it looked like his future wife, Princess Leia, might choose Luke instead.

Of course, Leia could also be on this list wearing the most famous bikini in sci-fi, but she was usurped by Solo, I'm afraid.

Alabama Whitman: True Romance (played by Patricia Arquette)

This entry is all about coolness. Her name is Alabama, her boyfriend is Christian Slater, her dress sense is uber-sexy-fun. The gal's got guts and sass. Oh, and the movie contains one of the best scenes of all time, between gods of cool Dennis Hopper and Christopher Walken.

At the end Arquette even hands Slater a note with "you're so cool" written on it.

The whole point of this film is that they're the gorgeous young couple you always wanted to be. Getting involved in dodgy dealings, driving their Chevrolet convertible across Americana, being the ultimate in True Romance by finally getting away with it and escaping off into the sunset together.

The Quentin Tarantino script is dripping with cool. And, of course, our protagonists are anti-heroes, Slater being an Elvis obsessed nerd and Arquette being a hooker.

Yet, love conquers all, and cool is cool. So, in the end Alabama is the woman every girl wants to be, and every guy wants to have on his arm.

Lee: Enter The Dragon (played by Bruce Lee)

So, this isn't necessarily one movie character, although Lee in Enter The Dragon is the quintessential 70s aphrodisiac. It's more the man himself and the essence he imbues all his characters with. Every single time it is beauty personified.

Obviously, Lee was fit in more ways than one, but it's his entire ethos which was so attractive. He has a luminous presence on screen, bolstered by the fact that he is drop-dead-gorgeous, but not created by it.

Not only was he a masterful kung fu (more specifically, wing chun) artist, he was incredibly well read and intelligent. He studied philosophy and became a true martial artist because the nature of the art is to study an all-encompassing approach combining aspects of physical, mental and philosophical strength.

He also wrote, directed and produced many of the films which helped establish martial arts' place in modern cinema.

In Chinese culture, Lee was born in the hour of the dragon in the year of the dragon. Symbolically, this is very auspicious and powerful. In everyone else's culture Lee was simply an amazing all 'round inspiration, who happened to also be astonishingly handsome.

Coffy: Coffy (played by Pam Grier)

Made by schlock movie director Jack Hill, Coffy is a classic 70s blaxploitation flick starring Pam Grier as the eponymous heroine. And god is she good. She exemplifies the wholly perfect woman: gorgeous, courageous, smart. But also caring and kind-hearted enough to seek bloody revenge for her little sis.

Coffy is a nurse by day and a kick-ass vigilante by night. She is particularly pissed at the drug overlords who hospitalised her sister by giving her bad dope.

Although there are undoubtedly some dubious stereotypes at work here, this was a pretty cool lead role for a woman in its day. Grier brings the character to life with heaps of grit and brawn, wrapped in a feminine cloak of cool. She balances major attractiveness with huge vengeful rocks of steel.

So remember, a woman scorned is sometimes a hot, ball-breaking tonne of ferocious sexiness.

Wolverine: X-Men (played by Hugh Jackman)

You'll probably say that this one is a bit obvious, and it is. But, come on. It's obvious because it's obvious.

I was a fan of the comics and the cartoon, so I have probably been in love with Wolverine for the best part of two decades. I feel I have some authority to say I think Hugh Jackman did a pretty sexy job in the films. He isn't perfect, but he's not bloody bad.

Wolverine/ Logan has always been the prototypical alpha-male with the heart of gold. Some of us girls just love a mutant, but especially when he's a non-conformist, non-ageing, super-powered, anti-hero, rebel with a cause mutant. Who, of course, can also be smart and tender when he needs to be.

So, whatever you think about the film adaptations of these classic Marvel tales, Wolverine's unmitigated sex appeal will rarely be surpassed or rivalled by any character ever, print or screen.

Pandy: Dead Leaves (voiced by Amanda Wynn Lee/ English & Takako Honda/Japanese)

There are plenty of sexy anime characters in film. But for this list, we're going for someone beyond Jessica Rabbit or the usual rudimentary Manga schoolgirl. And so, we have Pandy.

Dead Leaves is, indeed, a Manga production, but in a more recent illustrative style than our old favourites like Akira or Ghost In The Shell.

Our mutant protagonists are a couple, Pandy and Retro, who can't remember their past and are sent to a prison on the moon. Pandy gets pregnant by Retro and has a mutant baby who facilitates their escape, and then dies by consuming the aforementioned prison to save them both.

This is a crazy, over-stylized animation which roars across the screen. And in primary colours, with high-octane madness, Pandy is incandescently sensational.

Dan Dunne: Half Nelson (played by Ryan Gosling)

Hands up who finds drug-addict prostitute-users sexy?! No, seriously. Dan Dunne is for those of us who love the challenge of saving someone from the brink. Some poor screwed up soul who is actually all cuddly underneath that inner turmoil. Once we manage to dust off the baggage they will be the perfect partner and will worship us as their saviour. We've all had that kind of relationship, where we get to be mother and girlfriend/ father-figure and boyfriend. And don't we just love it?

Especially when the pitiful mess of a thing is wrapped up in Ryan Gosling. Heck, you can stay on crack and use all the hookers you like, Ryan. You are just so hot. And the fact that his character is such a great, passionate, caring teacher. And the film is so poetically shot. Swoon.

Even the drug-induced bags under his eyes, dishevelled beard and messy hair look super fine.

Amélie Poulain: Amélie/ Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain (played by Audrey Tautou)

Much like our friend Dan Dunne above, Amélie is a bit of a lost soul. With an over-active imagination and a huge heart, she is lonely and looking for meaning in her life. She also happens to be ridiculously beautiful.

This quirky and whimsical girl will turn every mundane thing in your life into the most wonderful and fantastical adventure. Together you will live in a world of bright colours, quaint landscapes and rapturous gorgeousness.

She is the ultimate caring figure who devotes herself to the happiness of others. So just imagine what she'd be like as your missus! She is so pretty, so kind, so cute, and so adorably Parisian.

You just can't help but fall for her a little and want to share in her Fabulous Destiny.

Lisa Fremont: Rear Window (played by Grace Kelly)

There's no doubt in anyone's mind about the iconic beauty of Grace Kelly. But there is something oh-so-special about her character Lisa Fremont in Rear Window, one of Hitchcock's best. It's the fact that she, in her pristine pretty 50s dress, and in a time when ladies were ladies, climbs up fire escapes and breaks and enters apartments for her incapacitated lover, Jeff Jefferies (James Stewart).

Perhaps it's the juxtaposition of the reserved, sophisticated Kelly against the curious, giddy, brave Fremont which is absolutely captivating. And that's not even mentioning the scene when she shows him her bag of lingerie and says 'preview of coming attractions'. Or the first time we see her and she's glowing like an angel. Or their kiss. Oh, their exquisite, perfect, soft-focus, 50s kiss!

Feel free to argue about these in the comments below - and please keep it clean!

An interesting story has arisen at tbe Vulture blog which suggests that things might not all be well on the good ship Ghostbusters 3.

The current status of the project is that a fresh draft of the screenplay is expected in the next couple of months, with the idea being to press ahead with production later this year, in time for a summer 2011 release we're guessing (although don't rule out winter). Some of the original cast are returning, but the plan is to bring in a new collection of Ghostbusters, who will be trained by the old crowd.

However, there's now some confusion over the choice of director for the project. It had been revealed that the director of the original, Ivan Reitman, was set to helm the film, but reports circulating today suggest that he's far from Columbia's ideal choice. In fact, it might be that Columbia has no choice but to hire Reitman, off the back of a deal he struck in the early 1980s with the studio.

Reitman's contract, according to Vulture, gives him "exceptional creative control over the series, including director approval". And given that this deal has been in stone for over two decades, that's not giving Columbia much room for leverage at all.

Vulture sums up Columbia's problem with the following quote from an unnamed insider: "while it's true that Reitman can't force Columbia to make Ghostbusters III with him, he can make it nearly impossible for the studio to make the film without him."

Reitman's apparently not the only one with a powerful deal, either. The site reports that Harold Ramis, Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd all potentially have the power to kill the project if they don't like the direction it's going.

It's believed that Columbia's preferred way forward is with a younger director, perhaps understandable given that Reitman's last film was, er, My Super Ex-Girlfriend. But it doesn't realistically seem to have the power to push Reitman off the film, and instead needs him to walk away. There's a slight chance of that, given that he's just got the go-ahead for a new comedy with Paramount called Friends With Benefits. Reitman, however, is apparently keen to direct both this and Ghostbusters III.

It sounds like a bit of a mess without an easy answer, and we'll keep you posted as to how it all pans out. In the meantime, the Vulture report goes into a lot more detail here.

The planet's finest current action movie star, Mr Jason Statham, has a new film coming out. In fact, he has quite a few, not least Sylvester Stallone's awesome-looking The Expendables later this year. However, also coming this year is the remake of an old Charles Bronson/Michael Winner flick, The Mechanic.

In it, the man they call The Statham plays a hitman who takes on an apprentice, played by Ben Foster. Statham is naturally looking to retire, and equally naturally, has no chance of doing so.

The film's been directed by Simon West, who, as we've mentioned before on this site, retains our eternally gratitude for giving the world Con Air. And the trailer for it is right here. Leave your thoughts on it, and the slightly less well-oiled Statham who's in it, down below...

The film is set for release in the US on 15th December, UK release is to be confirmed.

Those who follow our Twitter feed - it's www.twitter.com/denofgeek, appreciating that you didn't ask - might have spotted us yesterday discussing one of the finest movie taglines that we've seen in some time. We were referring to the line ‘An Epic Of Epic Epicness', which is appearing at the bottom of posters for Edgar Wright's upcoming Scott Pilgrim Vs The World movie. The only problem was that there wasn't an official version of the poster doing the rounds, so we couldn't pop it on the site for you.

But today? It's all change, ladies and gents. Because today we've got our paws on the official version of the poster. And today, we've posted it for you here. And today, we can all salivate before the aforementioned tagline. Unless you don't like it, in which case that'd be a bit daft.

We're looking forward to Scott Pilgrim a lot, to the point of stalking director Edgar Wright with offers of Haribo sweets. He's not bitten yet, but rest assured, we're willing to upgrade our efforts to include Fizzy Chewits in exchange for seeing the film as soon as possible. We don't fancy our chances, but we're nothing if not committed.

Here's the poster, anyway, and Scott Pilgrim Vs The World arrives in August. It is a film we will be annoying you a lot more about in the months ahead. Promise.

In the meantime, if you want the poster as a wallpaper image, then you need to pop over to the official website here.

Just a quick one. Sir Ian McKellen revealed yesterday that the shoot for the long-awaited movies of The Hobbit was set to start this coming June. Since then, he's updated things to confirm that it's going to be a July start date for the two films, which are being shot back to back.

Production on The Hobbit Part I and The Hobbit Part II is expected to last just over a year, and it's widely expected now that the release of the first of the films will be put back to 2012, from the original Christmas 2011 slot. Guillermo del Toro is directing, and the thought of him finishing filming next August and then putting together a finished cut of such a complex-looking film in a few months doesn't sound entirely realistic. But we await official confirmation on the news.

We're also eagerly awaiting the casting news as to who will be playing Bilbo Baggins. Lots of people have been linked to the part - David Tennant included - but we wait and see just who Messrs del Toro and Jackson have chosen in due course.

Now this is the news we want to hear.

A week or two back it was revealed that plans were afoot to reboot the Police Academy franchise, a series of films we have surprising affection for, given that 85.71% of them were shit. Yet, even in the midst of the worst photocopied script, what wasn't to like about Michael Winslow making funny voices? Or the late, great David Graf threatening accidental violence against passers-by? Or the bumbling George Gaynes? Ah, cinema magic, friends, and you damn well know it.

The reboot story that was doing the rounds earlier this month suggested that none of the original cast would be returning to the film, and that it would instead be flush with brand new recruits. MTV has, however, contacted producer Paul Maslansky for confirmation, and he's telling a slightly different story.

He confirmed that he wants to bring in a new collection of cadets, but that the classic Police Academy music would remain in place. And he also revealed that there are plans to bring back some old faces. Maslansky told MTV:

"I haven't decided which ones. And I don't want to mention names and others will be disappointed, at this point. All I know is that I want to bring back some of the older characters to it, and maybe they'll have principal roles, some of them, and some of them might be just you know [a cameo]."

It sounds like the Ghostbusters III approach, with the old crowd schooling the new bunch.

We'll certainly keep you posted, but in the meantime, here's the MTV piece with a few more details included.

"Today is a good day to die." - Nelson

The Recap

As the 80s drew to a close, Joel Schumacher could look back on the decade and declare it ultimately a success. With his last three movies of the decade being box office successes he was becoming known as somebody who could get bums on seats. His first film of the 90s would see him going back to a younger audience dynamic and, much like his work on St. Elmo's Fire, putting together a brat pack for the new generation.

Brilliant but cocky medical student Nelson Wight (Kiefer Sutherland) wants to discover if there really is life after death, or more accurately, what happens when your heart stops beating. Along with fellow students Rachel (Julia Roberts), Joe (William Baldwin), Randy (Oliver Platt) and David (Kevin Bacon), he intends to find out by clinically killing himself and having the others bring him back to life.

After initial reluctance from the rest of the group, they finally agree to go through with the experiment and they flatline Nelson. After bringing him back he confirms that there is something out there and the remaining members of the group fight over who is going next, with each of them raising the length of death to be next on the table.

Egotistical Joe is next in line and agrees with Nelson that there is something out there. He is followed by David, who, being an atheist, believes that he can prove both of them wrong. When he comes back he also agrees that there is some kind of life after death. The last in the group to go is Rachel, whose obsession with this quest is much more personal than anybody in the group knows, as she is trying to search for answers about her father's death.

Immediately after each experiment strange occurrences begin to happen. Nelson sees an injured dog, much like his childhood pet Champ, and is then assaulted by a small boy. Joe begins to see the secret videotapes of him and his various conquests being played everywhere, David is taunted by a young girl who shouts schoolyard insults at him and Rachel begins to see her father everywhere.

At first none of the group admits these things are happening, but they soon become out of control and they need to begin digging into their pasts to figure out what is going on.

David is the first to figure out that the young girl is, in fact, Winnie Hicks, whom he and his friends bullied in school. Still feeling guilty about the way he treated her, he tracks her down and finally gets to apologise for his past mistakes. Joe, who is engaged to be married, returns to his apartment to find his fiancée has found his stash of videotapes and breaks up with him, not for cheating on her, but for abusing the trust of the other women. Rachael also manages to find peace in herself by finding out her father's death was not her fault as she had thought growing up, but because he was a drug addict who could no longer live with his demons.

The only person not willing to make amends is Nelson, who refuses to face up to his past and pays for this by being physically attacked by the ghosts of his past. Finally, he breaks and shows Joe and Randy that his ghost, Billy, was a child he accidently killed when a bullying prank went too far. Believing he had already paid his dues by being taken away from his family, he still thinks he can make amends and runs off to perform the experiment alone, thus killing him in the process.

Trying to save his life, the others find him and begin the resuscitation process. In the afterlife, Nelson swaps places with Billy, finally making amends with him and allowing him to move on to heaven, just as the others bring him back to life.

Thoughts & Reaction

Joining together a stellar cast of young actors, this horror/thriller is a stylish look at the afterlife and showing the good and the bad that lies there.

When I think back to Flatliners, the very first thing that really jumps out at me is the signature Schumacher style that runs through this movie as easily as the story itself. There are some great point of view shots throughout the movie that add to the suspense as well as some very beautiful still shots of the old gothic building the medical school is encased in. It is all very New England meets Paris with a twist of Prague. Much like his work on The Lost Boys, the cinematography really does need a credit of its own, as it really is truly stunning.

A good movie cannot, however, just be made up of stunning shots, though, and although not the best story ever put onto film, Flatliners is a decent enough thriller with a bit of horror thrown in for good measure.

Hollywood loves a good life after death film and although not as sweet as Ghost or as scary as Poltergeist, it does give the message that there is something out there and if you have made mistakes in your past there is the chance to make up for them.

The most interesting part of the premise of this film, however, is the fact that your past really can come back to haunt you and, if it does, what choices will you make to ensure all scores have been settled.

The casting of this movie could literally be renamed to a who's who of the early 90s, with Julia Roberts, Kevin Bacon and Kiefer Sutherland all getting to flex their more serious acting chops. Although the film can become a little bit too unbelievable at times, the entire cast manage to keep you believing this is what is happening to them and I can honestly say there isn't one bad performance (and that is a lot to say considering one of the lesser Baldwin brothers is in the line-up!).

When Flatliners was released it received a mixed bag of reviews from critics. Some hated it thinking there was far too much style over substance, while others found it to be the perfect film to sum up a decade where death, especially with the AIDS epidemic in full swing, was foremost in the public mind.

Grabbing audience's attention, Flatliners went on to be a financial success, adding another hit to Schumacher's growing list. His next movie would take one of the stars from this project, Julia Roberts, and again have her deal with the realities of love, life and death.

Grab your hankies because next time I will be looking at Dying Young.

Flatliners Key Info:

Released: 10th August 1990 (US) / 9th November 1990 (UK)
Distributed By: Columbia Pictures
Budget: $26,000,000
Box Office Gross: $61,500,000
Best DVD Edition: Flatliners DVD

• Revisiting Joel Schumacher’s The Incredible Shrinking Woman
• Looking back at Joel Schumacher's DC Cab
• Looking back at Joel Schumacher's St. Elmo's Fire
• Revisiting Joel Schumacher's The Lost Boys
• Revisiting Joel Schumacher's Cousins
  

We can't have been the only ones who had some initial reservations about the planned A-Team movie, that's finally heading to our screens this summer. The world is not awash with quality films of 80s TV shows, after all, and this project seemed easier than most to mess up.

However, how things change. The appointment of Joe Carnahan to direct was a real statement of intent, and based on the really good trailer that was released earlier this year, the film is richer for his involvement. Furthermore, the cast looks about 75% spot on from where we're sitting. We'll leave you to debate just who the 25% refers to.

While you're doing that, we've got the latest poster from the film here. And we'll bring you more news on it as and when we get it...

If you're one of the lucky attendees at ShoWest in the States at the moment, then you may be one of the few people on the planet to have seen Disney/Pixar's Toy Story 3, which is arriving this summer. It was an unfinished cut that was screened, but there was enough in it to earn the film a strong response.

Not long after the screenings finished, the first spoiler-free reviews started filtering through, and to call them suitably positive wouldn't be too far wide of the mark (although that's not a unanimous view).

Here's what people are saying about it...

Slashfilm:
"The story is a fun ride to places unknown, and takes some twists and turns you might not expect. The conclusion is a fitting end to the series, and will probably leave you in tears. The last 20-30 minutes are pure brilliance. I can't wait to see the film again when it's completed and in 3D."

Screencrave:
"This was a good film, a great animation, and I liked it quite a bit... but it did not quite have the "wow" quality that I have come to expect from Disney/Pixar"

FirstShowing:
"In brief, it's everything I was expecting, but not too much more beyond that."

LatinoReview
"I can't talk about the plot of the movie but it is just as funny, sweet, adventurous, sad and goofy as the previous Toy Story movies"

Cinema Blend
"As much as I loved seeing all the toys again, I'm not 100% sure that this adventure-- as entertaining and lovely as it was-- was the right one for Pixar at this moment. Toy Story 3 takes many big risks, and twists your heart around as much as Wall-E and Up, but at times it felt far safer than what we've come to expect from them."

ComingSoon
"I'll also freely admit to being close to tears a number of times while watching it, which is a true testament to what Unkrich and his team of talented creators have done in making these toys feel so human, yet making the human characters feel even more real than what we normally see in animated films"

Toy Story 3 arrives in the US on June 18th, and we get it in the US from July 23rd.

Slashfilm

ScreenCrave

FirstShowing

LatinoReview

Cinemablend

ComingSoon

Things have been a bit quiet on The Expendables front, ever since news of test screenings emerging earlier in the year. But with the film's release coming up in August - it's less than six months away - an official poster for the movie has surfaced.

What's more, you're left in doubt that this is a poster for a hard-ass 80s-esque action movie. Never mind the muscle on show there, this harks back to an era when you never put people's first names on the poster. It's seven words down at the bottom there that pretty much got us excited about the project in the first place: Stallone, Li, Statham, Rourke, Lundgren, Willis, Schwarzenegger. Marvellous.

The Expendables is set for release on 13th August.

Looking over the summer blockbuster movie schedule this year, which we've rounded up here, the usual themes started to come through. There are major franchises. There are big comic book movies. Heck, there are one or two quite daring films on the roster, too.

And yet, alarmingly, there's no less than three live action talking CG animal pictures.

Just to make our position clear here: talking animal movies - and we're not talking the Disney animated kind - aren't necessarily a bad thing. Yet, the problem is that for every Babe or something of that ilk, there are a dozen Scooby Doos, where a CGI creature is interspersed with human actors for ‘comic effect'. Thus, you get actors facing off against blue ping-pong balls on sticks, fresh in the knowledge that the mutant that's going to dominate the poster will be added in post-production.

Granted, when this works, it can be quite brilliant. Look at how exquisitely a skilled filmmaker such as Robert Zemeckis knitted everything together in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. That was clever, playing knowingly on the mix of live action and animation, and the end result is still talked about over 20 years later.

Do you think we'll still be saying the same of Alvin & The Chipmunks 2?

I'm guessing not, although that, in itself, isn't a problem. Films have to cater for a broad selection of audiences, and it's right that there's a solid mix out there. And we'll say it: we thought the first half of last year's G-Force, complete with lots of lines from 80s movies in its script, was good fun.

But our alarm bells started ringing once we looked back on that aforementioned blockbuster list. And three films set them off: Furry Vengeance, Cats & Dogs 2 and Marmaduke.

Regretfully, and we'd love to be proved wrong, we don't have high hopes for any of them. We're still haunted, for instance, by the first Cats & Dogs film that someone managed to piss away the idea of two species smacking seven shades out of each other by shoehorning in a terminally dull plot (which is, ultimately, where the aforementioned G-Force faltered). The fact that the sequel has them joining forces and, seemingly, not fighting each other, makes things even worse (have they been watching the original Tom & Jerry movie, that somehow made the same mistake?).

As for Furry Vengeance, it's got surely the scariest poster of any this year. Just look at the bloody thing.

The flurry of such films - and there are more on the way - is surely down to the ridiculous amount of money that the Alvin & The Chipmunks movies have made for Fox. The first pulled in $217m in the US alone, and the second noted up $218m. Not for nothing has Alvin & The Chipmunks 3D already got a release date (16th December 2011). And not for nothing is a take of $219m for that one out of the question.

So here's our request. Rather than Hollywood studios just leaping aboard the latest bandwagon blindly, if they are going to make more films of this ilk, can they please get their writers to go and watch Roger Rabbit again? Or, less charitably, for the first time? At the very  least read the first half of the G-Force script? Because there needs to be more than some knock-offs from Gollum technology here, and getting a Hollywood star to voice a dog in a knowing and wry way alone does not a good film make.

In principle, there's nothing wrong with mixing live action and CG animals. But there is something problematic when it becomes production line fodder, as we're seeing now.

Our simple wish is this: if you are going down this road, can you at least put a decent film at the heart of it, rather than just shovelling in cute-ish animals in the hope that it'll sell to a family audience? Can we have something more than humans are stupid, animals are clever? Where the animals don't help the humans on some path to dimness redemption?

Who knows. All three of this summer's talking computer animals flicks may well turn out to be masterpieces, leaving us to eat our CGI hat.

But right now, the choice between sitting through all three of them or watching the Sex And The City sequel once just isn't as easy as it should be...

Whether you're a fan of the Harry Potter franchise or not, you'd still have to concede that the films really improved once Warner Bros started taking a few gambles with its directors. After the first two workmanlike movies at the hands of Chris Columbus, the appointment of Alfonso Cuaron for Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban can surely be classed as something of a masterstroke.

Is Summit Entertainment now having similar thoughts with its Twilight franchise, though, we wonder? To be fair, the Twilight movies have attracted directors who, in some cases, you wouldn't necessarily have placed immediately with the material. Catherine Hardwicke, Chris Weitz and David Slade have been the names calling the shots on the films to date, but it looks as if Summit Entertainment may have its sights set - with no disrespect intended to those concerned (not least because we loved Hardwicke's Thirteen) -  a little higher in terms of the Hollywood grapevine.

According to Entertainment Weekly, Summit has been trying to attract three particular directors to helm the final two films that Twilight: Breaking Dawn is being broken down into. And those names? Gus Van Sant (Good Will Hunting, Milk, lots of other cool stuff), Bill Condon (Dreamgirls, and the wonderful Gods And Monsters) and Sofia Coppola (Lost In Translation).

It's early days, granted, and Entertainment Weekly notes that scriptwriter Melissa Rosenberg will be delivering an outline to potential directors in the next week or two. Our gut feeling, if they want to reach out to a new audience, is to let someone like Tarantino do it. But perhaps that's why we don't run Summit Entertainment.

We'll keep you posted, but in the meantime, here's the Entertainment Weekly piece.

With its October release date getting ever closer, and a need to get before the cameras in May at the latest, Paramount is shortly going to have to sort out its choice of director on its unpromising Paranormal Activity sequel. The film is being rushed into cinemas to go head to head with Saw 7/3D this Halloween, and after its original choice of director, Kevin Greutert, was yanked back to the Saw movie instead, there's been no formal sign of an appointment.

Perhaps most interestingly, Brian De Palma was linked with the director's chair a week or two ago, as was Akiva Goldsman, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of A Beautiful Mind (he's also got the script for Batman & Robin on his CV too. We're sure he likes to be reminded of that).

In fact, reports yesterday suggested that Goldsman had signed up to make his directorial debut on the film (and he couldn't have picked a more poisoned chalice, from where we're sitting). As it turns out, that's not the case, and Deadline Hollywood has now revealed that he's signed up to be its executive producer instead. Not that the project was short of those, we should point out. Given that Goldsman was emerging as some kind of front-runner, we're curious as to where Paramount will turn its attention next.

The search continues, and we'd remain genuinely shocked if De Palma signed on the dotted line. In the interim, here's the Deadline Hollywood piece.