News: Matt Damon

Damon’s been doing stupidly well of late, with only the disappointing The Brothers Grim and Ocean’s Twelve acting as blips on his career during his last few outings. Though this week’s The Good Shepherd may not be as great as could have been hoped, he nonetheless puts in a tip-top performance which suggests that it’s only a matter of time before he lands an acting Oscar to go with the one he got for writing Good Will Hunting with best buddy Ben Affleck back in 1998.

He’s already finished filming Margaret, revolving around Anna Paquin’s young girl who witnesses a bus crash, though it is not yet set for release, and has also wrapped Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean’s Thirteen – promising that it’ll be much better than the last sequel to the fun Ocean’s Eleven when it’s released in June. Then, in August, we can expect to see him in another sequel, this time in his really rather superb Jason Bourne franchise, with The Bourne Ultimatum promising to answer all sorts of questions about his amnesiac assassin.

He’s also lined up to star aongside Tim Roth in Francis Ford Coppola’s inter-war period piece Youth Without Youth, and alongside his The Departed co-star Mark Wahlberg in 1980s-set boxing drama The Fighter, as well as providing the voiceover for the documentary Running the Sahara, following three men who want to be the first to run coast to coast across the Sahara desert.

News: Joel Schumacher

Director Schumacher, still best known for his disasterous Batman and Robin, has tried his hand at deep and meaningful with this week’s Jim Carrey-starring psychological thriller The Number 23. He’s got another thriller up next, the occult Nazi mystery revenge piece Town Creek, set in small town America, and starring Prison Break‘s Dominic Purcell and Desperate Housewives‘ Jesse Metcalfe. Then it’s Centricity, starring The Matrix trilogy’s Monica Bellucci, the plot of which remains somewhat mysterious at the moment, before he takes on another psychological piece with The Crowded Room, based on the true story of a psychophrenic robber and rapist with no fewer than twenty-four different personalities. Twenty-three might be more appropriate, given his current movie, but you can’t have everything…

News: Clint Eastwood

Nominated for Oscars for Best Director and Best Picture for this week’s Letters From Iwo Jima (it’s also up for best screenplay and best sound editing, with the American half of Eastwood’s Iwo Jima double bill, Flags of Our Fathers, up for sound editing and sound mixing), it’s Eastwood’s fourth time being nominated for Best Director – all of them coming after he hit the age of 60. Not bad going for an old timer.

Next up for 76-year-old Eastwood is, erm… a well-deserved rest, by the look of things. Having just done two highly-praised films back-to-back, he’ll be taking a bit of time off to work on his golf. He has, however, lent his distinctive voice to the computer game version of his cult 1971 film Dirty Harry, set to be released for the Xbox360 and PS3 sometime later this year, and he has supposedly bought the film rights to the authorised biography of Man on the Moon Neil Armstrong, which could be a nice follow-up to 200’s Space Cowboys.

News: Ken Watanabe

Having been a big name star in his native Japan for years, only recently has Ken Watanabe started making a name for himself in Hollywood – first came The Last Samurai, then Batman Begins, Memoirs of a Geisha, and now this week’s Letters From Iwo Jima. He’s now going from strength to strength.

Next up, and shown at Cannes last month, is A Dream of Red Mansions, a love story set during China’s vicious Cultural Revolution and co-starring Kate Hudson, which could prove intriguing (despite this ongoing obsession of America-backed films of casting Japanese actors as Chinese and vice versa). Then there’s (possibly) another Chinese epic, this time for Hong Kong master John Woo’s much-anticipated ancient Chinese epic The Battle of Red Cliff. Watanabe’s casting has yet to be 100% confirmed, but if he does join the cast it’ll be pretty impressive, including as it does Hong Kong megastars Tony Leung and Chow-Yun Fat, in their first joint venture since Woo’s 1992 classic Hard Boiled. Finally, Watanabe is rumoured to be cropping up as the Silver Samurai in the X-Men spin-off Wolverine, due out next year.

Review: Hot Fuzz

UK release date: 14th February

Simon Pegg and director Edgar Wright — the team behind zombie comedy Shaun of the Dead — return for this gleeful pastiche of American action movies. Pegg stars as a top London policeman transferred to a crime-free village where all is not as it seems.

What begins as a very funny, very British murder mystery eventually mutates into an ironic action spectacular that blows up half of Somerset. Armed with a Who’s Who of home-grown acting talent and a surfeit of gags, Hot Fuzz also showcases the continuing comic partnership of Pegg and co-star Nick Frost. Their mismatched cops play out every buddy movie convention imaginable while discussing subjects as diverse as ice-cream “brain freeze” and the homoeroticism of action thriller Point Break. More smart than silly, this is self-confident comedy that’s proud to be British.

Radio Times rating:

****

UK cinema certificate 15

Review by Jamie Russell

News: Simon Pegg

Former Shaun of the Dead and Spaced star Pegg is, with this week’s Hot Fuzz, making yet another strong case that he’s the first British comic with a real chance to make it big in America since Peter Sellers – but will he be able to maintain the momentum?

He’s certainly got a fair few more in the works – from a planned new sitcom about a pub quiz team (with his Spaced, Shaun and Hot Fuzz co-star and real-world best buddy Nick Frost), La Triviata, due some time this year through to the animated stoner comedy Free Jimmy, for which Pegg wrote the English screenplay (it was originally Norwegian) about a junkie elephant on the run and provides voice duties alongside the likes of Woody Harrelson, Kyle MacLachlan, Samantha Morton, David Tennant, Emilia Fox and Phil Daniels.

But there are also some bigger projects on the way, like the romantic comedy The Good Night, with Martin Freeman, Penelope Cruz, Danny DeVito, Gwyneth Paltrow and Michael Gambon, or former Friends star David Schwimmer’s directorial debut Run, Frat Boy, Run, with Pegg starring alongside Thandie Newton and The Simpsons‘ Hank Azaria.

By far the most promising, however, is Pegg’s starring role in a big screen adaptation of Toby Young’s bestselling memoir of life at a high-end New York magazine, How to Lose Freinds and Alienate People – to be directed by Robert B Weide, best known for his work on the cult comedy Curb Your Enthusiasm. That could well be enough to get Pegg into the Hollywood comedy A-list…

News: Edgar Wright

The Hot Fuzz director, much like his co-writer/star Simon Pegg, seems on the verge of great things. He’s already completed his next project, the Jack Black-starring conspiracy theory comedy Them, based on the book by Jon Ronson, which (once it gets a release date set) could prove promising. Then – surely one of the highest accolades for a cult director – he’s contributed a fake trailer to the much-anticipated Quentin Tarantino/Robert Rodriquez B-movie double bill that is Grindhouse.

Then come two comic book adaptations – though not quite the standard superhero fare that has so inundated our cinemas in recent years. First comes Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life, from the cult 2004 comic about a slacker twentysomething who ends up in supernatural kung-fu battles with the ex-boyfriends of the girl he has a crush on. Could be intriguing… And after that will come an adaptation of Marvel’s Ant-Man – sort of like Spider-Man, only not as well-known. Or good. But considering Wright is also penning the screenplay – with The Adam and Joe Show‘s Joe Cornish – it’s a fairly safe bet that this isn’t going to be a straight-faced take on the character. With the little information currently available, this could show promise as well…

Review: The Science of Sleep

UK release date: 16th February

Less accessible than his Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, director/screenwriter Michel Gondry’s pretentious sci-fi vanity production is an overly whimsical, infantile affair.

Gael García Bernal plays a graphic artist who returns to Paris after his father’s death. Will he ever realise his neighbour Charlotte Gainsbourg is the soul mate he’s been searching for? Or will he continually dream he’s the host of a one-man TV chat show starring a swirling melting-pot of his desires?

With its makeshift “Blue Peter”-style special effects (constructed from egg boxes, clay and cellophane), the consistently juvenile approach soon becomes wearing and the whole self-indulgent mess is a complete waste of Bernal and Gainsbourg’s charms. Resembling Gondry’s Bjork rock videos strung between surreally presented concepts of romantic angst, this fey fantasy is frustratingly hollow. The “one second time machine” is the single clever laugh.

Radio Times rating:

**

UK cinema certificate 15

Review by Alan Jones

News: Michel Gondry

The oddball French director behind the tip-top Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind and this week’s quirky The Science of Sleep has a fair few more, equally bizarre, projects in the pipeline.

Next up is the movie reference-laden Jack Black-starring comedy Be Kind Rewind, set in a video store run by one of Black’s friends where all the tapes get wiped by Black’s magnetised brain, forcing the pair to recreate such Hollywood classics as The Lion King, Robocop and Back to the Future for the shop’s clientelle. With co-stars including Mos Def, Danny Glover and Mia Farrow, it should prove at the very least interesting, much like Gondry’s other work, and with Black in the lead should prove another Eternal Sunshine-style hit.

After that it looks like a leap back into Gondry’s personal obsession of space, time and human perception for Master of Space and Time. Based on the novel of the same name by Rudy Rucker, it revolves around a couple of (as yet uncast) mad scientists who find a way to control – as if the title isn’t clue enough – space and time. rumours are circulating that Jack Black could again be set to star, but it’s still early days, and isn’t due until next year anyway. Could be fun, though…

News: Gael Garcia Bernal

Rising star Garcia Bernal is currently in two films on general release – the Oscar-tipped Babel being joined this week by The Science of Sleep. Having done a couple of English language flicks (he was trained in London, after all), it’s back to Spanish and boosting the Latin American film industry, with two Mexican flicks and one from Argentina for the star of the hit Mexican flick Y tu mamá también.

Argentinian flick El Pasado will see Bernal play a man who, on splitting from his wife and hooking up with another woman, can’t seem to shake off his ex, while Mexican movie Rudo y Cursi, his latest team up with the director of Y tu mamá también, Alfonso Cuarón, looks set to revolve around the world of football, giving Garcia Bernal a chance to go a bit more physical than his usually philosophical roles allow. After that, it’s time for the young actor to make his directorial debut, in which he will also star, with Déficit, revolving around a family reunion in Mexico in which the two family branches are of decidedly different social backgrounds. He’s certainly on the up, this chap.

News: Charlotte Gainsbourg

The actress probably still best known for her controversial duet with her father Serge Gainsbourg, “Lemon Incest”, recorded when she was just thirteen, is on good form in this week’s the Science of Sleep, and has a fair few more projects lined up that make the best of her multilingual talents.

First up is Nuovomondo (known as The Golden Door in English), which won a bunch of awards at last year’s prestigious Venice Film Festival. Gainsbourg takes the lead in this tale of Italian immigration to the United States at the turn of the 20th century, and has received much praise – but whether this will be enough for this little Franco-Italian-German production to get a proper release is anyone’s guess. After that there’s more foreign language frolics in the French farcical comedy Prête-moi ta main (or I Do: How to Get Married and Stay Single in English), where Gainsbourg plays a woman called in to pretend to be a friend’s girlfriend to stop his family from forcing him into marriage.

Then it’s back to English language roles in cult director Todd Haynes’ intriguing and much-anticipated experimental Bob Dylan biopic I’m Not There (alongside the likes of Cate Blanchett, Richard Gere, Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Julianne Moore and Adrien Brody), before cropping up in City of Your Final Destination for director James Ivory (of Merchant Ivory fame), alongside Anthony Hopkins and Laura Linney. She’s doing well.

News: Julia Roberts

We haven’t seen much of Julia Roberts since 2004’s disappointing Ocean’s Twelve, with this week’s Charlotte’s Web featuring merely her voice as the titular spider, following her earlier voice work on the animated The Ant Bully last year. If you’re a fan of the tabloids you’ll doubtless know why – she gave birth to twins in November 2004, and is currently expecting another child, due in the summer.

Nonetheless, she found time amidst all the pregnancies and childcare to star alongside Tom Hanks and Philip Seymour Hoffman in what looks set to be a pretty major movie (as if the three stars – with nine Oscar nominations between them – aren’t indication enough…). Charlie Wilson’s War is due out in December in the States, just in time to qualify for the 2008 Oscars, and it’s a pretty likely contender for a slew of big nominations. Directed by the rather good Mike Nichols (with five Oscar nominations under his belt), who directed Roberts in 2004’s Closer, it is based on the true story of Texas Congressman Charles Wilson (Hanks) who, soon after the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan, was the man who realised that the United States needed to get subtly involved in the conflict. The upshot? The funding of covert CIA operations and training of local tribesmen – including a number of Islamic fundamentalists who would go on to form a little group by the name of Al-Qaeda. Topical, political, and plenty of scope for epic storytelling. It has Oscar written all over it.

The only other film Roberts has in the works is The Friday Night Knitting Club, a rather more low-key affair, based on the novel by Katie Jacobs about a group of women who make friends in a knitting shop in New York. Roberts is the only name currently attached – though whether it will happen now she’s pregnant again is anyone’s guess.

New: Drew Barrymore

Former wildcat Barrymore seems only to crop up in romantic comedies these days, and this week’s Music and Lyrics is no exception. Her next two movies, however, are an overdue shift back to drama.

First up is the latest from L.A. Confidential director Curtis Hanson, with Barrymore the love interest to Eric Bana’s troubled professional poker player in Lucky You. It’s due out in the UK on 27th April – unusually for an American film a week before it hits cinemas in the States. It was originally meant to be out last year, so make of that what you will…

After that she’ll be staring alongside Jessica Lange in Grey Gardens, based on the lives of the dotty aunt and cousin of Jackie Kennedy, both named Edith Bouvier Beale and both one time society beaus, but who ended up living together as oddball recluses before a major tabloid scandal forced their First Lady relative to come to their aid. Could be good, but it’s from a first time writer/director whose only previous cinematic experience was as production assistant on the rather poor Deep Impact and The Seige, so don’t hold out too much hope.

Poor Drew. Where did it all go wrong? Oh yes… The drugs – that’d be it…

Review: Notes on a Scandal

UK release date: 2nd February

Judi Dench reunites with Iris director Richard Eyre to give one of the most intense performances of her career in this gritty, observational drama based on Zoë Heller’s bestselling novel.

The Oscar-nominated Dench injects malignant spite into the role of Barbara Covett, a lonely London teacher who develops a dark obsession with her spirited new colleague Sheba (fellow nominee Cate Blanchett). After catching Sheba in a compromising position with an underage student, Barbara’s fixation reaches skin-crawling levels.

Dench and Blanchett really sink their teeth into their meaty characters, clearly relishing Closer scribe Patrick Marber’s deliciously acerbic script. Yet what makes Dench’s performance the stronger of the pair is her skilful manipulation of the audience’s emotions — eliciting initial sympathy, despite Barbara’s sharp tongue, so that her subsequent behaviour hits even harder.

The film’s melodramatic climax packs less of a punch, but this is still deeply satisfying adult viewing, complemented by a mood-enhancing Philip Glass score.

Radio Times rating:

****

UK cinema certificate 15
Running time 91mins

Review by Sloan Freer

News: Cate Blanchett

Having picked up a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for this week’s Notes on a Scandal (alongside many other nominations for more minor awards shows), next up, in early March, will be the much-anticipated Steven Soderbergh look at the chaos and confusion of Berlin in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, The Good German, with George Clooney and Tobey Maguire filling out the leads.

Then Blanchett will go back further in time to take on the role of Queen Elizabeth I once again for The Golden Age – a sequel to 1997’s Elizabeth that reunites much of the same cast and crew to look at the queen’s reign a few years down the line, and her relationship with Clive Owen’s Sir Walter Raleigh. Another to look forward to is the experimental Todd Haynes look at the life and work of Bob Dylan, I’m Not There, where different actors – including Blanchett, Christian Bale, Richard Gere and Heath Ledger – will play different aspects of the musician. It’ll be decidedly odd, but could well prove odd in a good way, based on Haynes’ past outings.

Finally – and sadly potentially her last film for a while, as she has recently announced plans to go back to her native Australia to run a theatre – is The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, for director David Fincher. Based on an F Scott Fitzgerald story, it revolves around the relationship between a 30-year-old woman and a man (to be played by Brad Pitt) who, at the age of 50, begins to grow younger again. After what he managed to pull with Fight Club, it’s just possible Fincher could pull that off…