The colourful and fantastical story of Ian Dury, one of Englands most original and influential singer-songwriters of the last thirty years. Crippled by polio as a ten year-old boy and told he would amount to nothing Durys dogged determination, perseverance and wit led to him becoming one of the founders of the punk movement in the 1970s. Out in April 2010.





And how it compares to the original:

A chilling horror from the writer of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and inspired by the 1970s George Romero classic horror of the same name.

David Dutton (Timothy Olyphant) is sheriff in a picture-perfect American town with happy, law-abiding citizens. But one night, one of them comes to a school baseball game with a loaded shotgun, ready to kill. Another man burns down his house after locking his wife and young son in a closet inside. Something is infecting the citizens of Ogden Marsh...with insanity.

Forced to band together, an ordinary night becomes a struggle for survival as they try to get out of town alive.

You get the idea. Out on February 26th.

Those used to the soothing Scouse-lite tones of Ringo Starr or Michael de Angelis may be slightly rocked by this... but Thomas the Tank Engine can speak. Important news if you have a 4 year old in the house.

In earlier versions, Thomas has always been narrated, but the new film version will have Thomas actually having a voice of his own - provided by Ben Small. Thomas also gets a bit international, with new Japanese and Hsipanic mates, as well as the more prosaic Kevin the crane.

And for those interested, there's a celebrity premiere tomorrow of the new film - win tickets for it here.

Denzel Washington, Gary Oldham and Mila Kunis star in this post-apocalpytic thriller in which America is a vast, desolate wasteland where, armed with only a shotgun, a samurai sword and his wits, Eli has been defending himself from the violent gangs competing for limited resources before realising his destiny: to deliver the knowledge that can offer mankind hope, bring civilization back from the brink of destruction and save the future of humanity. Out January 2010.

Milla Jovovich and Hakeem Kae-Kazim star in this thriller on an has seen an extraordinary number of unexplained disappearances during the past 40 years and there are accusations of a federal cover-up. Out November 6th 2009.

Set to a score by the Cinematic Orchestra, The Crimson Wing tells the story of a remote and forgotten wilderness, where one of natures last great mysteries unfolds: the birth, life and survival of a million crimson-winged flamingos. Against the dramatic backdrop of unforgiving, never-before-filmed landscapes, the film follows the birth of a tiny flamingo hatchling and the perils and fortunes of her life in the extraordinary other world of Lake Natron in northern Tanzania.

I'm not an expert on Richard and Judy's book club. Not (really) snobbery, I just work in the day.

Howver, they picked up the book, The Time Traveller's Wife, which is now a film... An unlikely one from the sound of it, with shades of Benjamin Button, but I quote and then the trailer is yours.

Gamer looks to be somewhat geek-tastic: A high-concept action thriller set in a near future when gaming and entertainment have evolved into a terrifying new hybrid. Humans control other humans in mass-scale, multi-player online games: people play people...for keeps.

See what you think. Out September 4th.

Rob Marshall directs Nicole Kidman and Daniel Day-Lewis in this tale of a director and his wife, his mistress, his muse, his mother and his agent. A tale that will resonate with us all.

Still, looks nice. Out in November.

Written by Brett Easton Ellis? Check. Mickey Rourke? Check. Kim Basinger? Check. Is this the ultimate Eighties movie?

Once you've watched this, you'll know as much about this film as I do.

Out next month, it's the new Harrison Ford film - he's a sympathetic Immigration Officer with an Iranian-American buddy, Cliff Curtis, alongside him tracking down illegal immigrants, but in a nice way, while Ray Liotta gives out green cards to those who perform sexual services on him. See what you think.

The next film up for discussion in The Independent Film Forum will be Drag Me to Hell. Has Sam Raimi, creator of the Evil Dead franchise, made a triumphant return to horror after 15 years or have his interim years directing the Spider-Man movies softened him up? What did you think of Alison Lohman (above)? Add your comments below and we’ll print the best next week.

Here's a clip from the film



The Independent's reviewer, Anthony Quinn, was impressed:
"Raimi, who crossed over to big-budget respectability with the Spider-Man franchise, crosses right back here to deliver something that's cheap, nasty and rather magnificent. The peals of horrified laughter that Drag Me to Hell provokes will be music to his ears. Even as the film gets seriously spooky, you can't help picking up a discordant note of farce."

Over to you. Time to have your say.

The next film up for discussion in the Independent Film Forum will be Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian. Does the sequel to the 2006 family hitmovie, starring Ben Stiller, really warrant another night at the movies? And does former indie queen Amy Adams (above) as his love interest create any sizzling chemistry? Add your comments below and we'll print the best in next week's paper.



The Independent's Anthony Quinn was far from impressed in his review:
"As a blockbuster that's intended to turn history into, like, fun for kids, this is not as irksome as Nicolas Cage's two National Treasure movies. But it's still strictly insufferable... It's an expensively silly farrago that includes Steve Coogan's Roman general riding a squirrel and Stiller having a slapping match with a pair of capuchin monkeys – not as much fun as it sounds... There are some fancy art references at work – paintings by Turner, Hopper and Grant Wood that come to life – but one fears they'll be wasted on a target audience that just wants to see Stiller being chased by monsters."


This is what Empire Magazine's reviewer thought:
"But as the film is racing by, much of the entertainment comes from cameo-spotting. Jonah Hill is easy, but Jay Baruchel, Eugene Levy, Christopher Guest and the Jonas boys all feature, and the wittiest cameo sees Clint Howard nod to his Apollo 13 role as a Mission Control specialist. Not all the gags hit, by any means, but they fly thick and fast.

It’s just a shame that a franchise rife with the potential for family-friendly historical humour — smart little nods to the Napoleon complex and Custer’s (Bill Hader) appalling war record notwithstanding — so frequently defaults to monkey-slapping and pop-culture gags. Still, this is a bigger and better night out than the first."

Over to you. Time to have your say.

The next film up for discussion in The Independent Film Forum will be the film adaptation of Dan Brown’s latest novel of the same name, ‘Angels & Demons’, starring Tom Hanks and Ewan McGregor. Is the follow-up to ‘The Da Vinci Code’ going to have similar blockbuster success? And is it going to cause controversy for its alleged anti-Catholicism? Add your comments below and we'll print the best in the paper next week.

Here's a trailer for the film:



This was Empire magazine's response to the film:
Given that it combines religious, scientific, political, art historical and academic lunacy in one package, Angels & Demons is at least more entertaining than the dreary, talky Da Vinci Code. This time out, heroic Harvard academic and devout agnostic Robert Langdon (a trim Hanks) has only an evening to solve a series of puzzles which have thwarted thinkers for centuries, as Se7en-style mangled corpses (cardinals killed by the four elements) are delivered on the hour before the possible destruction of the entire Vatican by anti-matter stolen from the CERN Large Hadron Collider. It’s still a runabout with footnotes about clues embedded in Bernini statues, as if Renaissance art were all on a level with Where’s Wally, but at least it’s more urgent than last time.

However, there are problems with the film – scripted by David Koepp, who has a track record with wrestling best-sellers into shape (Jurassic Park), and Akiva Goldsman, whose undeserved Beautiful Mind Oscar still doesn’t outweigh Schumacher Batfilm credits – that wouldn’t get past development if they weren’t ported over from a presold hit book (though they do drop the Pope’s clone son angle). Every supporting character acts like an unhelpful idiot to keep the plot stirring, especially the fighting Irish deputy Pope (Ewan McGregor) and the suspicious Swiss Guard (Stellan Skarsgaard). Yet again, a seemingly all-powerful conspiracy seems to consist of two whole evil guys, with one solitary unimpressive hitman (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) pulling off crimes SPECTRE wouldn’t have the manpower to commit.

None of this would matter if Howard didn’t direct at such an even, respectable plod -- with time-outs for lectures delivered in gorgeous sets and locations representing the depths of the Vatican and various Roman tourist attractions. It has okay escapes-from-dire-peril and a you-have-to-see-it-to-believe-it Ewan-in-a-chopper trick in the penultimate climax, but material as insane as this cries out for a crackpot visionary like Dario Argento or Richard Stanley. Verdict: More entertaining than The Da Vinci Code, but still tosh.

What did you think? Time to have your say.

The next film up for discussion in The Independent Film Forum will be 'Chéri'. Does Michelle Pfeiffer suit the role of ageing courtesan opposite young rake Rupert Friend in Stephen Frears' new romantic drama? Add your comments below and we'll print the best in the paper next week.


Here's a trailer for the film:


This was TotalFilm.com's responce to the film:
The last time Stephen Frears directed Michelle Pfeiffer in a Christopher Hampton script, the outcome was Dangerous Liaisons: a film that thrust a hot poker up the literary costume drama and somehow made John Malkovich sexy.
Two decades on, the same talent serve up something far less heady. Compared to the quadruple-espresso injection provided by Liaisons’ conniving aristocrats, Chéri is like a mug of Horlicks – a bit of steam on top but nothing to trouble your heart rate.
Pfeiffer has magnetic moments as the older woman in lust with youth, but it’s impossible to give a fig for Friend’s bland, spoiled brat-boy.

What did you think? Time to have your say.

The next film up for discussion in The Independent Film Forum will be X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Does Gavin Hood's new superhero flick with Hugh Jackman as Wolverine do justice to the Marvel original? Or was this a film too far for the franchise? Add your comments below and we'll print the best in the paper next week.

Here's a trailer for the film:


This was Empire magazine's underwhelmed response to the film:
"Wolverine is not as hateful as X-Men: The Last Stand, but it’s still a big old mess. Even a brief prologue in 1840s Canada, showing Wolvie and his half-brother Victor Creed (aka Sabretooth) as kids, raises questions that are never answered. Like, why does he stop ageing when he becomes Hugh Jackman? Or, who the Weapon X is his father and why do we care?... Can everyone stop making moody origin stories now, please? While not a disaster, this isn’t the claws-out, rampaging adventure we hoped for. No-one cares where Wolverine found his jacket — a spin-off with him kicking ass in Japan would have been way more fun."

What did you think? Time to have your say.

The next film up for discussion in The Independent Film Forum will be State of Play. Is Kevin Macdonald’s new crime flick as gripping as The Last King of Scotland and Touching the Void? Are Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck, Helen Mirren and Rachel McAdams any good in their leading roles? Does the film translate well from its original BBC mini-series?

Add your comments below and we’ll print the best in the newspaper next week.

This is what Anthony Quinn had to say about the film in his review for The Independent:
"It's a prestige picture all the way, supercompetent, polished, watchable – but oddly unexciting. Only once does Macdonald stage a set piece worthy of the great political thrillers of the '70s (All the President's Men, The Parallax View) he plainly admires. Cal, following a lead from a Point Corp insider, visits a grim apartment block and realises, too late, that he's pitched up right at the door of the crack assassin haunting the edge of the picture. His retreat into a basement car park and the sound of Crowe's harassed breathing as the killer stalks him are compellingly done. I would have liked more of the same."

Here's a video review of the film by the Chicago Tribune's Michael Phillips



Here's what Slate Magazine had to say about the film:
"If only State of Play (Universal Pictures) had been the film it so obviously wanted to be: a throwback to the gritty conspiracy pictures of the mid-'70s (The Parallax View, The Conversation, All the President's Men) in which mature, sad, smart people trying to do the right thing are slowly ensnared in ever-expanding webs of political and criminal intrigue. That movie would have felt so timely right now. Our post-financial-crash malaise feels distinctly Watergate-ian (How long have they been screwing us over? Who knew what, when?), and the dire state of the newspaper industry lends State of Play's pavement-pounding journalist hero a retro glamour. Even an ersatz '70s gritfest would have really hit the spot. But after a bracing first hour, State of Play defaults on the most basic promise of the conspiracy thriller. Instead of luring us down an ever-darker and twistier path, it strands us in a tedious and ill-designed maze."

Over to you, time to have your say...