James Absolon explains how this Pope-themed film, despite its risky premise, works
Alex Pollard reviews Hollywood's biopic of the controversial Margaret Thatcher
News: Leonardo DiCaprio’s quest for an Academy Award may soon be over with him reportedly signing onto Clint Eastwood’s latest project: a cinematic biopic about FBI founder J. Edgar Hoover. With both DiCaprio and Eastwood being favoured with many nominations between them, this should be one to watch next year. Other reported signings include Don Cheadle and Freida ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ Pinto for roles for the up-and-coming prequel to the Planet of the Apes franchise.
Releases: It figures that America gets to lavish in the glory that is Toy Story 3 while the cinema release drought continues in Britain. The highlight of this week’s paltry line-up is Get Him To The Greek, a spin-off of the 2008 comedy Forgetting Sarah Marshall. With Russell Brand playing a fictionalised version of himself (in the guise of a British rock star) this is by far the best comedy out this week.
Other releases have already seen a full cinematic and DVD run in America with both of them being critically panned. The first of these is Woody Allen’s latest Whatever Works starring Larry David as a misanthropic (seriously, he needs a new character type) physics teacher. Alongside this is When In Rome which is the latest in a long string of poorly received romantic comedies set in Europe and starring an actress, in this case Kristen Bell, whose talents are well and truly wasted.
News: With the shooting of the third series of Being Human now well underway, interesting snippets of information are starting to come out, including the casting of Lacey Turner (Eastenders’ Stacey) in a guest role.
Listings highlights: Following the success on BBC4 of biographical dramas about famous figures such as Enid Blyton and Gracie Fields, this week it’s the turn of John Lennon. Lennon Naked airs on Wednesday at 9pm, and stars Christopher Eccleston as the Beatle. Considering the quality produced by BBC4 with these dramas in the past, it’s definitely worth a look.
A new series debuting this week is American cop drama K-Ville set in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, although perhaps ‘new’ may be stretching it a bit as it was broadcast in 2007 in the US and cancelled in 2008.
Returning to our screens this week is The IT Crowd. The fourth series of the likeably daft sitcom begins on Friday at 10pm on Channel 4, and sees Roy dealing with a break-up, Jen applying for a new job and Moss creating a role-playing game that involves a 20-sided dice. Business as usual in the basement of Reynholm Industries then.
Finales: The final episode of the outstanding legal drama The Good Wife airs this week on More4 (Thursday 9pm), though for anyone watching on Channel 4 you’ll have to wait another week. And following an absolutely brilliant penultimate episode with one of the best cliff-hangers the revived programme has ever produced, the current series of Doctor Who concludes this Saturday at 6:05pm. With an awful lot for the Doctor to do, and terrible losses predicted, it’s definitely not one to be missed.
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