I’ll give you a clue – it has nothing to do with ‘My Bloody Valentine’ – although we’re sure there are many horror fans who will be interested to see a virtual remake of the 1981 flick Quentin Tarantino dubbed “the greatest slasher movie of all time”.

And, no, it isn’t Betsy Rue’s lengthy full frontal scene – although it is probably worth the price of admission alone.

It’s the 3D effects. Of course, making horror movies 3D is nothing new. But judging by the two notable examples which spring to mind – Jaws 3D and Freddie’s Dead: The Final Nightmare – it’s fair to say it’s a largely been an unsuccessful marriage – so far.

My Bloody Valentine at least delivers the 3D goods. Throughout the course of the movie you will spend your time dodging pickaxes, tree branches and various body parts – all good fun.

But take away the effects and you really are not left with much.

In fact, watching My Bloody Valentine 3D is like peering into Kirsten Dunst’s mouth – a big gummy mess.

Sure, the 3D effects are a nice distraction, but not enough to brush aside the film’s eminent shortcomings.

First, we have the rather ludicrous plot, which admittedly sticks quite closely to the much-feted original. Now, this could take a while.

It basically revolves around Tom Hanniger – played by Wentworth Miller lookalike Jensen Ackles (Smallville and Supernatural) – who, as an inexperienced coal miner in his father’s mine, causes an accident which traps and kills five men and sends the only survivor, Harry Warden, into a coma.

A year later, Warden wakes up in hospital on Valentine’s Day and proceeds to hack 22 people up with his pickaxe – as you do.

He is finally tracked down and killed, but the guilt sends Hanniger over the edge, who leaves the sleepy town of Harmony and girlfriend Sarah (Jaime King – Slackers, Sin City) and best mate Axel (Kerr Smith – Final Destination) to pick up the pieces.

A decade later, he returns to find his ex-girlfriend and best mate, now the sheriff, are hitched.

But, even worse, within minutes of his return, a killer dressed in Harry Warden’s coal mining gear and gas mask (think Darth Vader’s inbred, redneck cousin) is once again wreaking havoc, killing dwarves and hacking pieces off the good townspeople of Harmony. Bugger!

Then there is the acting and the script. Now, we realise that director Patrick Lussier has tongue firmly pressed against cheek throughout most of the movie, but by the end of it we were not even sure which bits were supposed to be funny.

It didn’t help that a lot of the actors spent most of their time spitting out their lines while wearing the expression of someone who had been forced to smell their mate’s fart.

Old pros Kevin (Lost) Tighe and the great Tom (Creepshow) Atkins do their best, but the only thing that really adds any depth is the effects. Even the rats cannot act.

But where My Bloody Valentine 3D really falls down is as a horror movie. Strip away the gimmicks, it’s a very sub-standard slasher movie.

The death scenes are unoriginal and fail to exploit the effects in great, er, depth. Plus, there is very little suspense. A crime for someone like Lussier, who has served as horror auteur Wes Craven’s editor for many years.

In fact, the scariest thing about the film is the randy dwarf who owns the local motel.

My Bloody Valentine? More like My Bloody Waste of Time.

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The all new anniversary edition was preceded by Shooting Stars: The Inside Story, a mockumentary of sorts which mixed backstage characters portrayed by Vic & Bob and previous guests.

Alongside them was pop singer Dan Gillespie Sells, an addition to the former participants whose presence can only be explained as a way to bring forward the date of the viewer’s suicide. Also present was Martine McCutcheon (once a guest), who only succeeded in confirming her inability to align herself with – or comprehend – the humour and spirit of the programme.

A notable absence was that of original team captain Mark Lamarr. The truth behind the relationship between Mark and the presenters remains an elusive one. Oh, and a note for contributor Noel Fielding – Mark has two award-winning shows on Radio 2; he isn’t missing.

The problem with what was essentially a showcase of the best moments in Shooting Stars history meant that the all-new edition had a lot to live up to. And, perhaps unsurprisingly, it didn’t. Or couldn’t.

Vic and Bob’s aged figures danced as vigorously as they did in the past during the opening  number, and perhaps if you were to squint you could almost pretend it was still the glory days. However, there was no pretending that this anniversary show didn’t come with a generous dose of nostalgia.

That said, the nostalgia was both the saving grace and the Achilles heel. While attempting to remain faithful to the original format, the structure came across as Shooting Stars-by-numbers. Pulling out the handbag gag in the first two minutes felt like a tired rehash of what once was, and a cash-in on the now bankrupt novelty factor.

The choice of contestants wasn’t especially inspired, though Dizzee Rascal proved to be an exception to that – he was impressively game and added a great deal to the proceedings.

It was undeniably a very self-indulgent show, and it was possible (if difficult) to switch off and enjoy the old jokes and repartee. New team captain Jack Dee returned to form under his miserable, deadpan persona and it was especially pleasing to see him try to maintain his stony exterior while an opera singer used the full force of his voice in Jack’s face.

Importantly, Shooting Stars ended on a high after a six year absence and, despite not quite living up to past peaks, it has scratched an itch and shown that Reeves & Mortimer have a whole load of talent left to share.

[story by Keith Emmerson]

You’re In the Movies isn’t going to appeal to you.

Right: now they’ve gone we can get down to business. We assume if you’re still reading this it means you know absolutely nothing about games, nor do you really care to know.

What you do want to know, however, is how to get something in for Christmas day that the whole family can enjoy, that won’t take over lives and is just shallow enough to last a day or two before you get utterly bored of it.

You’re In the Movies ticks all those boxes. With gusto.

Hooking up a little camera to the Xbox 360, you take part in a few mini games – very much akin to those in the Eyetoy games or the myriad bollocks on the Wii – where you are the character on the tellycube itself.

After a few rounds of games, involving up to four players, a trailer is shown for a movie in which your composite image is inserted into the trailer, making you a superhero, fight a giant lizard or be electrocuted by a mad scientist – amongst other things. Once created you can upload these trailers and email them to friends, family, enemies and people you don’t know (we would have demonstrated this had the game not failed so spectacularly to make a trailer anything worth showing – but we assume a less cluttered background would produce better results…)

From a purely critical standpoint and in hecklerspray’s dominant ‘we know all about games’ view, this is not what one would traditionally call a good game. It’s shallow, mindless, offers very little, gets boring quickly and half the time doesn’t even work how it’s supposed to.

But it’s Christmas, so we’re supposed to be nicer about things – plus when you look at it from the right angle it really does have something going for it.

So the composite imagery can be an arse, meaning bodies and faces disappear when they’re not supposed to. So the image itself is grainy at best, especially in high definition on a big TV. So the games are boring, pointless and unfunny. So it won’t keep you playing for more than a few days, and only if you have a go sparingly.

We can take all that on board and simply ignore it, for the fact that the movie trailers which you produce will make you laugh like a complete and total berk. They will amuse anyone who sees them and knows the people in them, in the same way those godforsaken elf videos have been doing the rounds recently.

It’s a simple fact that people like to see themselves or people they know well on the gogglebox, and You’re In the Movies makes that a reality.

Even if it is a bit of a dodgy reality, from a technological standpoint. But hey – you probably won’t have to buy it yourself, and if it makes granny laugh then all is well in the world.

Thing is, most of the people this is aimed at will already own a Wii, in which case they can’t play You’re In the Movies in the first place and they already have a dozen or so far better things to keep the family entertained over Christmas/Kwanzaa/Hanukkah/The Holiday Season/Coca Cola Time.

If you’ve got a Xbox 360 and a family though, knock yourself out. Just don’t expect it to keep you going past a couple of drunken family gatherings.

Making Keanu play a cold, emotionless, stagnant alien iin The Day The Earth Stood Still is almost typecasting but the role perfectly suits eanu’s unique brand of timbre.

However, unfortunately, the film around him is a mess.

Reeves plays Klaatu – an alien who has a zero tolerance attitude to global warming, so he comes to our planet to give us all a good ol’ slap on the wrists. What he didn’t count on, however (as the advertising tells us) is that this time we’re going to fight back.

It’s only human nature, of course. The first sign of life from another planet comes to visit us and reaches his hands out in a welcoming gesture, what else can we do?

We stomp that fool out and pop a cap in his ass. The reaction to the alien and the whole opening 20 minutes is alarmingly underwritten, with the army first picking up scientist/alien humanitarian Helen (Jennifer Connelly) who, for around five of the opening 10 minutes, doesn’t looked particularly shocked that the whole US Army have come to pick her up at her front door without an explanation.

Helen is immediately drawn to the ET and establishes an understanding that nobody else shares. The whole film then mixes between Helen driving Klaatu around on his guided tour of Earth, making various stops to help usher in the global apocalypse, while the government is all like “let’s blow this fucker up”, and when that doesn’t work they literally turn around confused and ask anybody else if they have any better ideas.

In the form of drama we have Helen dealing with the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air Jnr, the step-son she’s left with after her husband passes away. Little Smith wisetalks and generally whines his way through the movie, showing that he has zero tolerance for anything remotely approaching decent characterisation and instead just copies his dad Will in Independence Day by just punching aliens in between smart-arse responses.

The film rolls around on clichés with as much dignity as it treats the original film. We are treated to broken families and gun-toting Americans led by Kathy Bates – looking like a cross between Amy Winehouse after a night out and Kermit the Frog – whose destructive attitude does the world no favours. The only real shining star, though, is John Cleese in an all-too-brief role as an intellectual type (because he listens to classical music and has a chalk board) who has a terrific scene with Klaatu.

Of course, though, this is the time of year when the supposedly more thought-provoking blockbusters are released and, like last year’s I Am Legend, the script finds it hard to balance action with drama.

But with ropey CG effects, like the well-designed new style GORT, the film feels sloppy and unfinished in places. Of course, as humans, the climatic scene of destruction was pleasing to our eyes as much as it would be to the drooling Neanderthals lurking within the average cinema audience.

Overall, a disappointed remake that alienates the viewer by a) not being faithful to the original and defying logic and originality for some people and b) not being action-orientated enough for everyone else.

The moral message in the end works well enough but underwhelms and gets oddly confused with a pro-war subtext.

Nevertheless, a good acting choice for Keanu – any film that makes him stand out as an actor can really only be a good thing for him.

[story by David Scarborough]

Meanwhile the greedy studio only cares about money and not the artistic integrity of a film. So what’s new?

What Just Happened tramples on this familiar territory. Robert De Niro plays hotshot movie producer Ben, who juggles his time between forcing a director to change the bleak ending of his latest film and getting Bruce Willis to shave his Grizzly Adams beard before he steps on the set of his next feature. As far as plot goes that’s about as good as it gets, and in the middle of that Ben is getting divorced and suspects his soon to be ex-wife may be sleeping with a friend of his.

The seedy underbelly of Hollywood has been overturned on many occasions so What Just Happened’s director Barry Levinson, who is no stranger to edgy subject material, has his work cut out to tell a tale worth telling. Unfortunately there’s more edge in an episode of the Antiques Roadshow as the film growls like Rockville but bites like a poodle.

Robert De Niro tries to prove that he’s still worth watching after he and Al Pacino disastrously tried to pull off the gruff cop role one last time in Righteous Kill where they looked like they were filled with incontinence rather than any menace or power. Here, though, De Niro manages to come away with his dignity intact as he does an admirable job of bringing life to a self-centered, arrogant, greed-filled producer with a side of sympathy and likeability, which is no easy task. Unfortunately the performance is wasted on a story that meanders along to an unfulfilling conclusion.

The story fails to inspire because nothing particularly exciting takes place; instead what we are given is a series of events that seem pretty trivial to the audience (which may well be the point!) but we never really get deep enough into the supporting characters to care one way or another. Even a self-deprecating Bruce Willis can’t help matters, supplying very little in the way of story or laughs.

The biggest problem with the film is that it has all been done better before, and is even being done better on a weekly basis on television in the thoroughly entertaining show Entourage. Entourage manages to show the dark side of Hollywood through the fun-loving, thick-eyebrowed view of a major Hollywood A-lister and manages to do everything that What Just Happened attempts with more laughs, drama and self-parodying celebrities in the space of half an hour.

What Just Happened is one of those strange films that sits on the fence and never really falls either side, which makes for an anticlimactic movie experience. What you get is the cinematic equivalent of the type of person who makes snarky comments behind everyone’s backs but when confronted mutters to themselves and runs off. A bit of a pussy really.

[story by David Scarborough]

Returning this week in How to Lose Friends And Alienate People, Pegg, riding high on his popularity, plays the pretentious tit Sidney Young who manages to get a job at a prestigious New York magazine. It’s like The Devil Wears Prada but with transvestites!

With a recent surge of great comedies, this effort is disappointingly neither consistently hilarious or has anything new to say. Pegg is a likeable lead but presents the character as a more of a loveable idiot who never really irritates, even those within the film. His characters charm instantly sets you into a light hearted predictable romp while although entertaining in its own way, is also somewhat a letdown.

Underneath it all is a standard romantic comedy with delusions of grandeur, which is fitting given the story. Sidney enters his new job making mistake after mistake as he tries to go against the grain and attract the attention of his new boss Clayton Harding (Jeff Bridges) and also the new Hollywood starlet Sophie Maes (Megan Fox). Meanwhile he manages to befriend his co-worker Alison (Kirsten Dunst) and get on the wrong side of one of his superior Maddox (Danny Huston).

The film works well when it looks down at the media world, who buzz around showbiz and suck up to new ‘talent’ but fails to stay focused on it long enough to gain any momentum and big laughs. As usual, models are represented as airheads and young directors are pretentious recluse types – this doesn’t stop the film milking some laughs from the old cow, though.

Heading this side is Bridges’ Clayton who runs away with some of the films best lines. He represents Sidney’s possible future and when Bridges is sharing the screen with Pegg it makes for some standout scenes and it is a shame there isn’t more of him.

Credit to the film though, the actors all give good performances and surprisingly Kirsten Dunst, who was one villainous kidnap on the wrong side of annoying, manages to come across sweet and charming as Sidney’s love interest. Some of the characters verge on the wrong side of cliché (Dunst is the only one who can see Sidney for who he really is. Asshole boyfriend alert!), but these are little niggles.

The laughs are varied from your usual physical pratfalls to fish out of water scenarios and also some more raunchy scenes. When the film turns to witty banter, though, is where the film stands out – if it wasn’t aiming for such a broad audience, the film would have the potential to become a great comedy. The latter half of the film becomes more serious with its attention firmly on Sidney reluctantly conforming and compromising his values, in turn making a deal with the devil in the form of Gillian Anderson’s conceited pile of breasts so he can get a chance with the sexual weapon Megan Fox.

Things all end for the better as you can imagine but without the true bite of any message against the industry, certain characters’ motivations for their actions remain vague. The film aims to provide something for everyone and although it certainly isn’t the funniest film this year, it manages to be a sweet story that again puts Pegg out there as one of the funniest actors around today. A sharper, edgier story may be buried underneath but it remains a fluffy enjoyable evening at the multiplex.

[Story by David Scarborough]

The most frequent and purposefully headline grabbing of these has to be their ‘new Oasis’ tag, a label that seems fairly at odds with a band initially known for the strength of their Scottish accents, but one that does at least have a little weight.

Discovered by Alan McGee? Check. While playing third on the bill at King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut in Glasgow? Check. Fronted by brothers? Check. Purveyors of moody, shouty anthems? Check, check and check again.

Of course, those kind of easy links are a record label’s dream, and the clamour won by Columbia for the signatures of the band has drummed up a fire and safety-busting capacity (and then some) crowd at the comparably small Scala in King’s Cross.

There is genuine excitement in the air tonight, and although it’s competing with some industrial strength sweat and stale beer, the emotion is palpable and appealing.

There’s even a smoke machine to the left of the stage, pumping out the first tendrils of Glasvegas’ dark image, and as they stride out to their trademark Phil Spector wall of sound, everyone is ready for an ‘event’.

Bassist Paul Donoghue and Rab Allen are first out, followed by Rab’s brother and lead singer James – all black jeans, tee shirts and sunglasses a la The Jesus And Mary Chain, an obvious influence in both style and sound.

Caroline McKay takes up her standing stance at the drums, echoing The Velvet Underground’s Moe Tucker (another big influence) as the sparse, driving beats kick into Flowers And Football Tops.

The effect is immediate, and as James Allen’s powerful voice punches into the crowd against a backdrop of huge lights and album artwork, the stadium-sized songs expand The Scala’s walls into a festival headlining slot.

Sounding as if Dion and The Belmonts have taken to the terraces, the band rattle through their mini rock n roll epics at pace, including It’s My Own Cheating Heart That Makes Me Cry and single Geraldine before everyone joins in with the anthemic ‘here we fucking go’ of Go Square Go.

Album track Ice Cream Van is stretched out in My Bloody Valentine tribute fashion, proving Glasvegas are certainly more than rockabilly revivalists, and by the time they close the set with their biggest number, Daddy’s Gone, the audience are at such fever pitch that Allen stops playing to give them their own chorus.

After just 40 minutes, Glasvegas have gone, leaving the front row to fight over set lists. There’s little doubt that the desired ‘event’ was well and truly delivered by a band that not only looked but sounded the part too, and with a string of bigger dates in the UK and US, it seems the only question now is ‘who the fuck are Oasis?’

No, when they say ‘smart’, the makers of this film mean the American version of smart, better known to us Euros as intelligent, clever or big bloody brainboxes.

Here, the smart person in question is Dennis Quaid, and for us, his brainy bragging rights are already well secured- after all, he did pilot his way out of Martin Short in Inner Space, which is no mean feat.

Here, he’s more conventionally clever as widowed literature professor Lawrence living with precocious daughter Vanessa (Ellen Page). The prof is arrogant and hates his students, but worse still, he’s as socially inept as Barry George.

His brother, played by Sideways’ Thomas Haden Church, soon shows up and turns out to be the polar opposite of his stuffy sibling, sparking up a joint with Vanessa and taking her out for some good old underage drinking.

Meanwhile, Lawrence has managed to fumble his way into a relationship with doctor Sarah Jessica Parker, and for the rest of the movie we watch as he tries to mess things up, she frowns and ultimately everything kind of gets a bit better.

It’s all quite familiar dysfunctional American family territory, and fans of The Squid And The Whale or The Savages will recognise the middle-aged angst, acoustic guitar soundtrack and cord jackets present in all of these films.

Smart People also makes great use of facial hair as a signifier of intelligence, and there are more beards here than in 300. In fact, the only intelligent person on our screens for any length of time without a beard is Ellen Page, and she just wouldn’t look right with a goatee.

In all honesty, not an awful lot really happens here, but there are some nice moments and polished acting, particularly when the family are all together. Christmas dinner is a memorably awkward scene with Haden Church on fine form as the loser brother, and another highlight has to be Quaid’s pillow talk (“I thought it went OK? I just don’t want to blow it with you. Do you have any plans for Christmas?”).

So although you may sit wondering what you’ve just been doing as the final credits roll, it’s an enjoyable enough way to spend an hour and a half, during which time you could even put a bit of effort into growing a beard of your own and becoming a very smart person indeed.

In new US import Samantha Who, however, the list of things to forget is as long and distinguished as Slider’s Johnson, featuring a lead character who just can’t remember a damned thing.

As it turns out, that’s a definite plus for Samantha Newly (Christina Applegate), the victim of a hit and run who awakes from an eight-day coma only to discover she has retrograde amnesia.

Family and friends are strangers, but the one thing that our Sam can discern is that until right now, she has spent her life as a full time megabitch who could give lessons in how to lose friends and alienate people.

The premise of the show is that Sam now has to go about discovering the extent of her old ‘Bad Sam’ persona, torn between Andrea – her old partner in putdowns – and Dena, a rejected high school friend who has taken advantage of Sam’s amnesia to announce herself new BFF number one.

If that all sounds slightly familiar, that’s because, er, it is. My Name Is Earl has already trod similar ground, albeit with more invention and humour, and as Sandra Bullock’s remaining fans will remember, While You Were Sleeping also rings a few bells here.

Lack of originality may not be a surprise from co-creator and producer Cecilia Ahern though; the daughter of former Irish Taoiseach Bertie Ahern was responsible for the novel of Hilary Swank vehicle PS I Love You, a rom-com so sickly sweet it could remove your stomach lining.

Not that that has held Samantha Who back, and after a successful first run in the states with Emmy nominations for both Applegate and Jean Smart as her fame-hungry mother Regina, the second season is starting soon on ABC.

How they’re going to keep the plot going will be interesting to see, but this pilot episode does have plenty to enjoy. Applegate does her ‘yes I’m really pretty, but ooh, I’m so sarcastic’ brand of humour that worked so well in Anchorman, and when she reverts to ‘Bad Sam’ she’s a lot of fun to watch.

Jean Smart is also sharp as her laughably bad mother, throwing some great barbs at Jennifer Esposito’s Andrea and stealing most of the scenes she’s in.

So it’s passable, if very girly, fun – but then what is Sunday night E4 for? It could definitely be a grower, but it seems that Samantha Who, like her own past, may be all too easily forgotten.

So it’s a feeling of impending cinematic doom when this new prequel/middle/sequel gets this simplest of iconic moments wrong!

Straight away you feel that your heading downhill with The Clone Wars as it replaces the text crawl with a voiceover narration that feels as jarring as it does patronising. As we get plumped straight into the action we have to get used to the new aesthetic style that matches a wooden finish with that of the prequel trilogy acting. It also dumps the classic musical themes of the saga, instead opting for, among other things, rock-style electric guitar. It’s as bad as it sounds, literally!

The plot concerns Jabba the Hutt’s son being kidnapped, with the Jedis being sent on a rescue mission led by Anakin Skywalker and his new Padawan Ahsoka Tano. Ahsoka is destined to be the next saga character to get speared by the hardcore fanbase. Her entrance in which she nicknames Skywalker ‘Skyguy’ is as cheesy as it is annoying and she continues using this nickname along with other inventive quips throughout the film. Jar Jar, we miss you!

The director has decided to keep talking to a minimal luckily, as the film zooms by from action scene to action scene. Unfortunately none of them are as spectacular as they aspire to be, comparing poorly to that of the prequel trilogy, of which was hardly the pinnacle of excellence with their overreliance on CGI. In fact the film relies too much on action to keep the audience entertained, avoiding focus on its paper-thin plot and ends up making the space battles and lightsabre fights tiresome.

All of the prequel characters are chucked into the mix even if not needed, such as a strange diversion involving Padme and Jabba’s gay uncle from Kentucky, Ziro. Ziro is surprisingly enjoyable, only in a ’so bad its funny’ kind of way, as he lords it up in his fluorescent gay bar. The characters remain faithful to their origins apart from Anakin whose dark edge is all but missing (because the film’s for kids don’t ya know), and it’s strange that he is given a Padawan not just because he was made a Jedi Knight reluctantly but also because Yoda contradicts himself somewhat.

The film isn’t worth these quibbles, as it will be lost in the deep dark Lucasfilm vault under ‘mistakes’ along with the Star Wars Holiday Special and aliens in Indy 4. If you’re a Star Wars fan that doesn’t want to see their precious saga tainted (can’t be many of you left) – then do not go within a 100 yard radius of this film. For everyone else – avoid like you would a Wookie who has just lost a game of chess!

[story by David Scarborough]

Somers Town does not have the far reaching social analysis of This is England or the balletic masculinity of Dead Man’s Shoes. It has some of these qualities as you would expect being a Shane Meadows film, but more than anything Somers Town has heart, a big beating, bleeding, young and in love, scrapping and getting pissed heart.

The story details the lives of two lads Tomo (Thomas Turgoose) – a Nottingham lad fled to The Big Smoke homeless and penniless, and Marek (Piotr Jagiello), a Polish immigrant living with his hard drinking but loving father, who befriends Tomo.

Shot in monochrome, the north London of Somers Town looks as foreign to the audience as it is supposed to be to our two protagonists. Familiar landmarks loom like slate grey ghosts of the city’s past, ill at ease with the its uncertain future.

Turgoose picks up where he left off in This is England with another sterling performance displaying both the humanity and naivety required to sell a character who steals a lady’s clothes from a launderette and ends up looking like a “female golfer” when he’s forced to wear them. If there’s a funnier, more relaxed young actor in Britain today I’ve yet to see them.

Providing our two young stars with their voice, Paul Fraser’s dialogue rings true of everything in modern life – every idiom and reference is carefully thought out and honest. The scenes with Turgoose and Jagiello sparkle with all the enjoyment that comes at the start of new relationships, where everything is in the future; intriguing and undiscovered.

In scenes like Marek catching Tomo in a bout of self-abuse, the honesty and humour conveyed by both young men is as touching as anything between two lovers.

The ideals of friendship and joie de vivre in the most unlikely of circumstances are perhaps what give this great little film such an appealing air. Just like it’s hapless heroes, you want the film to do well from the moment the opening credits roll – it just feels right, and you want to go on feeling right along with it.

Review By Tom Henry

For once we decided not to leave ourselves open for getting something wrong and remembered that you can’t physically get hold of this new tune from the UK’s worst drug-taking band, Keane.

Unless you’re one of those posh industry types, this song is unavailable to buy on CD, vinyl or even from one of those fancy digital downloading services. Though we assume it’s on file sharing sites alongside the mis-titled new Elvis and Frank Sinatra album.

Usually we don’t bother telling you how awesome or shoddy a single is, but seeing as it’s free release that didn’t get that much publicity compared to other free downloads, offered by the likes of Radiohead and Sigur Ros, we thought we’d make you aware. Spiralling is taken from Keane’s yet to be released (but probably available illegally on the internet) third album Perfect Symmetry.

Gone are the earlier vocals of fatter-looking lead man Tom Chaplin, who previously sounded like a choir boy whose angelic vocals had crashed head on with him breaking into puberty. 2008 sees a different and experimental sounding vocal style – maybe it was the cocaine, we don’t know, but he seems to be taking on a bit more of an aggressive edge to his singing style. Gone is the quite timid whimper that was sometimes a bit awkward to listen to, but still delighted thousands of Radio 2 listeners.

When trying to work out the reason for this change, it may not be down to him snorting cocaine off the arsecrack of a model. Tom may have been given peppermint tea before the vocal take instead of mint tea. It would piss us off, that’s for sure.

Following strange lyrics from Feeder and their single We Are The People, Keane have managed to arrange the lyrics into questions for fans to answer. Hooray for interactive fun! Instead of the song breaking down and building back up again as per usual we are instead hit with a barrage of questions. Don’t worry, they won’t fry your brain – Chaplin asks if we want to:

“Be a winner, Be an icon, Be Famous, Be the President, Start a war, Have a family, Be in love.”

Because we’re nice, we’ll give you the answers:

“We already are – ask Alan Mcgee, only if it involves free things off PR people, only if we didn’t have to campaign for a year, no – because we struggle to even start a computer up sometimes, we are one happy family and yes – but not with the people from Keane.”

The lyrics are a bit too kooky for a band as commercial as Keane, and they would work better coming from some pissed off communist rapper who is integrating you through his lyrics and why you are a sucker to globalisation.

Not from a posh podgy boy and his mates whose idea of fun on a Friday night is ringing doorbells and running away whilst laughing like people who’ve just seen a pair of tits for the first time.

So what about the music? Well the two bods who no-one seem to know about are still performing. Richard Hughes still bangs the drums and Tim Rice-Oxley is still on the keyboard.

After two albums of just using the boring piano and not even altering the pitch Rice-Oxley has discovered the effects button and decided to jazz things up a bit. Sadly this new direction of incorporating diluted electronic sounds and vocal tweaks doesn’t work.

At best the song sounds like a shoddy remix using the successful song formula that Keane constantly used with songs such Somewhere Only We Know and Everybody’s Changing. With so much free music software for bedroom producers to use, it really just sounds like someone has attempted to remix the older tracks and failed badly.

Oh, and let’s not forget that the daring leap of going hip and copying the dying trend of indie bands with synthesizers simply falls flat on its arse. As this is a free release, we can only hope that the real version suddenly appears and those crazy Keane boys have pulled an early April fool on us, or it’s never going to be anything more that poor.

Still, it’s only a free download. If you don’t like it, e-mail the song around as one of those crap joke chain messages. Title it as “best thing you’ll ever hear” before deleting the song off of your computer and freeing up the space it took up for porn or a better sounding track.

There are a lot available. Trust us.

Of course the accolades have been shouted from the rooftops and it gives us great pleasure to step in line behind countless others and give praise to what is sure to become a classic film of our time.

The film, as you should be aware by now, is a sequel to Batman Begins which rebooted the Bat franchise in a world rooted in reality. The Dark Knight not only continues the theme but expands it into something completely fresh and riveting.

Without giving too much away, the story revolves around new district attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) and his campaign to rid Gotham’s streets of criminals, forming an alliance with Lieutenant Gordan (Gary Oldman) and Batman (Christian Bale), while also fitting in some Rachel Dawes loving (Maggie Gylenhaal replacing Katie Holmes). Simultaneously and unquestionably the most exciting prospect is the rise of The Joker (Heath Ledger), striking fear into the hearts of the citizens and proving to be more than a match for Batman.

Not once during The Dark Knight does it feel like a superhero movie. It takes itself perfectly seriously which, with characters dressed like bats and clowns, is no easy feat. Much praise should be placed on director and screenwriter Christopher Nolan’s shoulders for managing to craft together such an intense, intricate piece of cinema.

The Dark Knight plays out like a thriller, constantly shocking and twisting with a central villain killing without remorse, putting Batman to the test and questioning his morals. Anarchy is truly in the air in this film.

The heaps of praise that the late Heath Ledger received for the role were well-deserved -  it really is an entirely captivating performance that makes The Joker such a joy to watch. A character so deeply twisted that you feel almost guilty taking pleasure from sharing his skewed vision of the world. Ledger manages to turn everything the character does into an opening into his mind, whether it’s a lick of his scars, a skip in his step or a look in his eye.

Although you may forget, this is of course an ensemble drama and none of the rich cast of superb actors disappoints. Each performance, whether it be from Morgan Freeman or Gary Oldman, invests completely in the role. Batman and Bruce Wayne are not forgotten in the mix either, both being played brilliantly by Bale, who makes a truly conflicted hero of which you are never sure which side of the mask he is truly happy on.

Eckhart playing Dent also has to be praised, being the white knight in a dark city that can’t be reasoned with, he needs no mask to try and save the world. Eckhart’s noble and earnest take makes everything the character goes through believable and enriching.

This is an epic crime thriller, one that is unrelenting in its approach that it grabs the audience by the throat and refuses to play nicely. It constantly navigates through a maze of twists, turns and many characters, but manages to never feel forced or out of place. It is seamlessly crafted together and manages to not only have a depth and heart but be completely relevant for our time. It is so rich and complex that it overwhelms the viewer while never feeling overlong.

Obviously it isn’t devoid of criticism, Cillian Murphy feels like he forgot how the Scarecrow acted in the last film and therefore wastes what could have been a better cameo (Yes it’s a spoiler, but it’s hardly important to the story). Also towards the end a certain action only just manages to stay on the right side of cheesy but felt like it came from a Spider-Man film. These are little niggles, though, that do little to detract anything away from what the movie manages to accomplish.

Watching this on the Imax brings a scale and vertigo-inducing spectacle to some of the scenes that’s highly impressive, but you’ll be too invested in the story to notice. The highest praise we can give this film is that it lingers in the mind long after seeing it and screams for a second trip. It carves an impression of a film that has had more care an attention given to it than any summer movie deserves to have.

This is a year where the Hollywood blockbuster grew up and got a big red grin painted across its face. The Dark Knight not only stands out as the best comic book adaptation ever, but also as on of the best films of the year (if not the best). It will certainly put a smile on your face.

[story by David A. Scarborough]

Set 800 years in the future, WALL-E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class) is the last robot left on earth, doggedly cleaning up the waste the humans left behind when they fled to space.

Despite the obvious message, this film manages to stop short of beating audiences round the head with the ethical nunchucks.

The latest film from Academy Award-winning director/writer Andrew Stanton, Disney-Pixar’s WALL-E is actually a love story. Going about his work day after day, WALL-E is lonely. That is until EVE (Extra-Terrestrial Vegetation Evaluator) comes along, searching for signs of life on earth. After 800 years of communing with a cockroach called Hall, WALL-E falls in love with sleek and hi-tech EVE, beginning an adventure which makes him the inadvertent saviour of humanity.

From the team that gave us Toy Story, Finding Nemo and Ratatouille, expectations were always going to be high, but WALL-E goes beyond anything we have ever seen before. There is almost no dialogue as EVE and WALL-E cannot speak. However Stanton manages to side-step the ‘E.T phone home’ moments through the quality of the animation and the pervasiveness of the film’s musical score.

Sifting through tons of human junk, WALL-E has amassed an Aladdin’s cave of treasured items, one of which is an old video of Hello Dolly. Throughout the film, WALL-E aspires to one thing – to hold hands like the characters from the film he replays over and over. The song Put On Your Sunday Clothes therefore informs not only the musical, but the thematic elements of WALL-E, providing some of the most comic and heart-warming moments of the film.

As you may have already gathered, we loved this film. Stanton and his team have created a world in which the robots are human and the humans are robots. The crisis of categorisation evidenced in WALL-E by his finding a spork (is it a spoon or is it a fork? Spoon? Fork? It can’t be both!) is just one of many examples in which this film, despite its sci-fi theme, remains remarkably real throughout.

It is Robinson Crusoe meets Transformers, with a few obese humans thrown in for good measure. Oh, and Signourney Weaver is the sexy voice of the spaceship, proving that this film has something for all the family!

[story by Amy Grier]

Thus begins The Fox and the Child, Luc Jacquet’s follow up to his Oscar-winning documentary, The March of the Penguins.

A nameless ten-year-old girl (Bertille Noel-Bruneau) is cycling through dense forest near her home, when she discovers a fox foraging for food. Mesmerised by her first experience of a fox at close range, she quietly tries to approach her. But like all wild animals, the fox is sensitive to the child’s presence and flees, leaving the little girl determined to find her fox again. We follow the resourceful child as she turns all manner of tricks to track down her fox, then watch in awe as they tame each other.

Jacquet goes back to basics with this unusual fable, inspired by his own childhood experiences in the Retord Plateau near Ain, in south-east France.

Filmed both in the mountains of Jacquet’s childhood and Italy’s Abruzzes National Park, this enchanting film renders these astounding landscapes both exotic and familiar, and encourages us to look again at the natural beauty around us.

As the seasons pass, cinematographer Gerard Simon treats us to a feast of nature’s delights in the living landscape which is arguably the film’s chief protagonist.

Crisp autumn leaves are crushed underfoot, virgin winter snow blankets the forest and spring blooms bring vibrant renewal until finally we laze in hazy summer fields.

In this blissful setting, an array of animals interact with our fox and child, including bears, badgers, hedgehogs, wild boar, wolves and glow worms to name but a few.

Jacquet and his Wildlife Director, Pascal Treguy, seamlessly blend documentary footage of wild foxes and other animals shot over six months, with scripted scenes between Noel-Bruneau and the fox, actually played by five different foxes, whose varying temperaments matched the different behaviours featured in the screenplay.

Kate Winslet’s familiar narration of this universal story has a lightness of touch, not so much leading the film, as complementing it.

The English dubbing is hardly noticeable when combined with the magnificent score, which maintains the emotional thread and leaves even the youngest viewer captivated.

Playing the only human character in the film, Bertille Noel-Bruneau also inspires with her mostly silent portrayal of an intelligent, brave and independent little girl who serves as a fantastic role model for young female viewers.

The film’s rare focus on a child protagonist, and the complete absence of any adult characters, makes it accessible to both younger viewers, who easily identify with the child, and grown-ups, who yearn for a story free from the cynicism of adulthood.

A refreshing alternative to this summer’s animated or effects-filled blockbusters, this simple look at our relationship with the animal kingdom is by turns sad, funny, scary, joyful and occasionally, violent.

Forget any preconceptions about foreign films, silent screenplays or nature documentaries.

Young and old alike will be enthralled by The Fox and the Child, a gorgeous film as powerfully inspirational as nature itself.

[story by Jenni Sheppard]