Roman Polanski's film of Robert Harris's bestselling novel, about a journalist invited to ghostwrite the memoirs of a former prime minister who makes a shocking discovery

A regular guy's world quickly unravels when he gets on the wrong side of a loan shark

Two friends team up with a pair of more experienced musicians to form a band

The proposed equality bill says any 'heartfelt' belief is a religion – yet Star War disciples are still being asked to dehood

Chris Jarvis, aged 31: the force may be with you. Jarvis is the Southend Jedi knight who refused to dehood in his jobcentre and has now received an apology from the manager for the lack of respect given to his "religion or beliefs". Being a Jedi knight, though, and committed to struggling unceasingly for justice and civilisation, Chris spurns such mouthings as empty, choosing rather to endure to the final triumph, and is planning to sue for discrimination.

You may argue that the history of the galaxies would look a great deal different if Darth Vader had taken a similar course, and would certainly have been far less exciting; I thank Jarvis for showing us what happens when The Earthly Powers That Be try to fight the forces of indiscriminate discrimination with the forces of indiscriminate nondiscrimination. It was ever a planetary folly to attempt to legislate on belief in beliefs; it leads inevitably to what some have termed The Barking Side, where lie the burka bar, the Sikh bind, the cross patch, and worse.

Jarvis says: "I am a Star Wars follower. It means following the Way of the Jedi ... The main reason is I want to wear my hood up and I have got a religion which allows me to do that." Hmmm. According to reported glosses from the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) to accompany Harriet Harman's proposed new equality bill, Jediism seems to have been excluded on the grounds that it is not "heartfelt"; other definitions include "worthy of respect" (which excludes, apparently, believers in human sacrifice). Tricky, isn't it? This, after all, by census measure, is supposedly our fourth most popular religion. I can see those who follow the way of the white wig and the black gown having no end of a tussle over that one, which would surely test even Alec Guinness, if not the entire Council of Twelve.

Thus, too, this from the EHRC: "A belief need not include faith or worship of a god or gods, but must affect how a person lives their life or perceives the world." Sports fans, Archers listeners, bankers, followers of Top Gear and Yorkshiremen: the way is clear for you, if I might mix my starships, to boldy go where no man has been before, not even Tim Nicholson, Bill Shankly or Charlie Whelan. And if I were Unite, I'd get in there first before Willie Walsh proclaims himself The Sky Pilot of the World's Favourite Faith System (Coming In on a Wing and a Prayer).

One slight hitch, though. I note the case of Daniel Jones, 23, Jedi knight of Bangor, also known as Morda Hehol, who was similarly asked to dehood by his local Tesco last September. Tesco, now the nation's leading arbiter of manners and dress code, said this: "We would ask Jedis to remove hoods. Obi-Wan Kenobi, Yoda and Luke Skywalker all went hoodless without going to the Dark Side." I would be grateful for some Jedi input on this important doctrinal point.

• Religion
• Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC)
• Equality
• Star Wars

A boy and a girl growing up on a caravan park come up with a plan to stay together when her mother loses custody of her

Ridley Scott's retelling of how an archer (Russell Crowe) in Richard I's army became the legendary outlaw

A young woman thrown in prison discovers that she is pregnant and faces becoming a mother behind bars

In a world where you can download films legally and rent DVDs by post, indie video shops may find opportunities in becoming more specialised or responding to the needs of a local area

Video killed the radio star, but what's killing the video store? My local, Prime Time Video in Blackheath, London, is the latest in a long line of video shops to close down. Round here, you could plausibly screen the Onion's mock historical tour of a Blockbuster store on the evening news. A search for "video and DVD rental" in my postcode area turns up van hire and dentists.

Philip French had it right when he said video stores have provided the movie slacker's occupation of choice for the past 20 years, from Randal Graves in Clerks, who spits water in customers' faces, to Wilson, the depressed screenwriter from In Search of a Midnight Kiss.

Without video shops, Mos Def and Jack Black wouldn't have remade a stack of films in Be Kind Rewind, Will Smith couldn't "hit on mannequins at the video store" in I Am Legend, and Jean-Pierre Jeunet's body-popping clerk would be working somewhere else in new film Micmacs. With more and more video shops closing, will there come a time when they only exist in movies (which you won't be able to rent from a shop)?

"There's an insane number of guns pointed at the few remaining indie video shops," says film-maker Jon Spira, who owned Oxford's Videosyncratic. "I think their fate's been sealed for a while. Rental copies are more expensive and only produced once, so you can't replace them. And supermarkets sell DVDs below wholesale price, so why go to a video shop? Hooray for the free market."

With Prime Time gone, I'll miss rummaging through actual shelves and renting films within minutes of deciding I want to see them. The postman doesn't have time to help me identify forgotten movies from lines of misquoted dialogue. Tony Gunnarsson, an analyst at Screen Digest tells me DVD rental peaked in 2005 and has been declining ever since. "You can buy a film for a few pounds more, so why rent it?" Depends how many shelves you've got, surely. Mine are already full.

So I phone Neil Snowdon of Exeter's Read and Return Bookshop, who ran video shop Brazil until May 2008. Why did it close? "We just didn't make enough money," he says. "I went a year without being paid. Location was a factor – we were at the wrong end of town. But there's a generation of people now for whom renting is not normal."

"Rental shops are an anachronism in a world where you can stream and download films legally, or order DVDs by post without having to physically return to the shop," says Branwell Johnson of Marketing Week, former editor of rental magazine View. "Where I see surviving stores, they're specialists – usually arthouse and foreign language." Neil Snowdon agrees: "Our regulars wanted something they wouldn't get anywhere else. But people weren't willing to walk the distance."

The last indie rental shops left standing deserve a medal, says Jody Raynsford, who edited Home Entertainment Week. "When was the last time you heard an advert that said 'Rent this on DVD from ... '?" But he reckons it's not all doom and gloom: "If stores can tailor their offerings to the needs of a local area with little competition, there's no reason why they can't survive."

So long as people use them, that is. "If you like something and want it to survive, you have to support it," says Jon Spira. "Use it or lose it. The temptation to spray-paint that across my shop's window is immense."

• Film industry
• Retail industry

At long last, some sign of life in Middle Earth! After wrangles over rights, film direction and the number of films for this prequel to the epic Lord Of The Rings trilogy, British national treasure Sir Ian McKellen has quietly announced on his website that back-to-back shooting for the two Hobbit films will start in July 2010.

Director Guillermo Del Toro is now settled in Wellington, New Zealand, close to Hobbit-executive producer and LOTR-helmer Peter Jackson and the studio in Miramar. Filming of the two parts is expected to take a year.

McKellen will return as a younger but nonetheless still wise Gandalf, Andy Serkis as the tortured Gollum and Hugo Weaving as Elrond, leader of the Elves. While there are rumours of a possible return for Cate Blanchett, most of the original LOTR cast are not being considered as the Hobbit team looks for fresh blood. However, the party can only truly begin once Bilbo Baggins arrives!

According to Del Toro, the first film will be a real adaptation of Tolkien's much-adored work and will "stand on its own", while the second will be an original story focusing on the sixty years between The Hobbit and LOTR and will be "a transition and fusion with Peter's world".

Jackson's adaptation of Tolkien's work is seen by many as a masterpiece, but Del Toro is himself no slouch when it comes to magisterial fantasy. Del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth was universally acclaimed for its imaginative storytelling, subtle political commentary, beautiful imagery and creation of suspense.

Can Del Toro do justice to this magical tale of the hairy hobbits of Middle Earth? Let us know what you think!

Zain Chaudhry

>> Real the whole article | on Screenrush - Thursday 18 March 2010

There is a brand new one-sheet online today for Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Showing our eponymous hero (Michael Cera) getting serious with an axe (that's a guitar, not a chopping implement), this is a totally 70s poster.

Edgar Wright's adaptation of the graphic novel about a geeky guy who fights a series of ex-boyfriends for the affections of hot girl Ramona V. Flowers, played by rent-a-honey Mary Elizabeth Winstead. Her prior conquests include Kieran Culkin, Chris Evans, Jason Schwartzman and even Superman himself, Brandon Routh.








































Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World is due on August 6.

Emily Phillips

>> Real the whole article | on Screenrush - Thursday 18 March 2010

The director says they'll be collaborating on a 40-minute, 3D musical

Björk and film director Michel Gondry have started collaborating on a film, Gondry has revealed. The pair are devising a "scientific musical", which they plan to screen in museums.

"We have a very ambitious project," Gondry said as part of a panel at SXSW. "A 40-minute IMAX project in 3D." While he offered no further details, at least he was more forthcoming than the first time the project came up. "It's very undefined," he told Entertainment Weekly last month. "It's hard to give more precision.

Gondry and Björk are certainly no strangers to one-another. Music videos for Army of Me and Joga were some of the main ways Gondry broke into filmmaking, and he has directed a total of seven clips for the Icelandic singer. The most recent was 2007's Declare Independence.

When Gondry was preparing to shoot his 2006 feature, The Science of Sleep, he offered Björk the role that was ultimately accepted by Charlotte Gainsbourg.

According to HitFix, Björk presently has "a few irons in the fire", including an orchestral work that may or may not be related to this film. Her last album, Volta, released in 2007.

Late in 2009, Björk announced that she and the poet Sjón, with whom she has frequently teamed, had written a song for an upcoming movie based on Tove Jansson's Moomin books. Comet Song will appear in the Finnish 3D film Moomins and the Comet Chase, due later this year.

• Bjork
• Pop and rock