‘Home Entertainment’. You know, in your Grandad’s day, this probably meant whittling down some scrap iron while Vera Lynn shat her lungs out on the ‘wireless’.

My, how we’ve changed. How we’ve come on in leaps and bounds. How Grandpa would have wept with gratitude for this fine selection of brand new DVDs …

… or maybe not. Because first up on the hecklerspray agenda is Aliens Vs. Predator, a piece of cinematic drivel so unforgivingly bad it makes wallowing in a puke-filled tin bath look like sheer nirvana in comparison.

Yet here’s the thing. In a really really really peverse way, Aliens Vs. Predator is almost something of an achievement. To take two of the greatest monsters in movie history and produce a film as spectacularly bad as this takes a special level of incompetence.

Step forward, then, Paul WS. Anderson: a man whose sparkling CV includes such meisterworks as Event Horizon and Resident Evil. Just the man for the job. Just the non-talent we need.

Jabbering away like a Games Workshop fanboy about how happy he was to get his grubby mitts on the franchise, Anderson announced his motivation: ‘the best thing about Predator 2 was seeing the Alien Skull in the Predator Spaceship.’ No, Paul. The best thing about Predator 2 was when it finished.

Make no bones about it – Xenomorph ones or otherwise – Aliens Vs. Predator is rubbish. Plotless, idea-free, hopeless rubbish. It’s almost tempting to launch a petition to ensure that Anderson never produces another film, but then again that’d mean wasting even more time on him. And frankly, he owes us two hours.

Of course, there are other directors whose names can incite similar ‘what-am-I-letting-myself-in-for’ horror. Renny Harlin, for example. Nora ‘Sleepless In Seattle’ Ephron. And – dear lord, it’s so tiring – Guy Ritchie.

Which is why Layer Cake is such a pleasant surprise. Directed by long-standing Ritchie associate Matthew Vaughan (if Guy was Hitler he’d be Himmler), the film is actually a nicely-structured, well-paced and excellently-acted British crime thriller.

Don’t fret, however. Things always stabilise. The upcoming release of Ritchie’s latest drossfest Revolver will surely drag the UK Film Industry back into the cultural doldrums. Layer Cake is simply an anomaly. "A blip", as Sick Boy would say, "on an otherwise downward trajectory".

Speaking of downward trajectories, hasn’t the humble biopic been going through a bad spell of late?

First there was Kevin Spacey’s amazingly self-indulgent Beyond The Sea. And now – occupying our prized third review slot – comes Kevin Kline in Cole Porter lifestory De-Lovely.

Ok, ok. So hecklerspray isn’t the world’s biggest Cole Porter fan. But surely the poor dead fella deserved a better epitaph than this?

Exhibit A: Kline reliving Porter’s life through a cringeworthy sentimental frame (telling his story to an angel, for Christ’s sake).

Exhibit B: hauling in the likes of Robbie Williams and Sheryl Crow to tear his pleasant little songs apart limb-by-limb.

You can’t help but wonder – why didn’t director Irwin Winkler simply walk up to Porter’s grave and start pissing instead? At least that wouldn’t have taken two hours of everybody’s time.

Anyway, there you go. The jury has settled and the verdict is in. Buy or rent at will (or against it, if you’re that way inclined). Alternatively seek out your nearest charity shop for some old time Vera Lynn classics, and head over to Grandad’s. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.