Films seen so far this year: 436
Films seen this fortnight: I Walked With A Zombie, Night of the Eagle (aka Burn, Witch! Burn!), The Believers, Scream, Blacula, Pride and Glory, Three Monkeys, Let's Talk About The Rain, OSS 177: Cairo, Nest of Spies (twice), The Midnight Meat Train, The Children

Random Film News: Casting, Spoofs and Pointless Remakes
Four pieces of film news have caught my eye this week and only one of them is good. First is the news that Jack Black is to star in a version of Gulliver's Travels. Swift's satirical masterpiece is a great story in its own right and I can't help feeling that turning into a Jack Black vehicle is a bad idea – I can already picture the scene where he's tied down by the Liliputians and the inevitable mugging and grimacing that Black will bring to it. Christian Bale, now there's a Gulliver. Meanwhile, it's also been announced that Chris Rock is planning to remake recent British comedy Death at a Funeral for American audiences. That's a terrible idea for all the reasons listed in the article, but primarily that Rock is an atrocious actor. (Don't get me wrong – I love his comedy and even his voiceover work is funny, but he can't act to save his life and his imdb entry is littered with disasters).

Still, if you think that's bad, how about the news that Chevy Chase, Michael Madsen and Vinnie Jones are planning to spoof the spoof movie genre with a film called Not Another Not Another Movie. (Reading that article reminded me of this cartoon, Theater Hopper being my latest Google Reader-related discovery. And finally, the good news, in the announcement that Joe Johnston has been hand-picked by Marvel to direct the Captain America movie. I've liked Johnston ever since Honey, I Shrunk The Kids and I think his CV proves that he can do both pulpy comic book stuff (The Rocketeer) and solid genre movies (Jurassic Park III, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids). So now all we need is an actor...

Films I'm Looking Forward To: Role Models
I'm a big fan of both Paul Rudd and Seann William Scott, so I've got high hopes for Role Models. They play energy drink salesmen who get sentenced to 150 hours of community service and wind up as mentors to two kids, one of whom is Superbad's McLovin (Christopher Mintz-Plasse). The supporting cast also includes the always-hilarious Jane Lynch (“I'm just here to service these boys”) and the lovely Elizabeth Banks, who seems to be in everything at the moment, from W. to Zack and Miri Make a Porno. What I particularly like about Rudd and Scott is that they both have the ability to make lines funny through their delivery alone (see Scott's “I don't know, man – that seems like an awful lot of WORK” in American Pie, and Rudd's work in just about anything) – watching the trailer, I'm even laughing at Rudd's pronunciation of “Minotaur”. The red band trailer should come with the usual Not Safe For Work warning (there's swearing in it), but it looks like both actors are on top comic form and they make an appealing double act. The theatrical trailer (see below) is pretty funny too and has a great Ben Affleck joke in it.

Top 10 Films On Release This Week (as recommended by me):
Three new entries again this week, with the hilarious OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies (sort of a French Get Smart) racing into the top spot and finally deposing The Dark Knight (which is technically still playing, but not for much longer). Also making their top ten debuts are Oliver Stone's W. (worth seeing for the superb performances, but don't expect too much Bush-bashing) and Stephan Elliott's period comedy Easy Virtue (featuring a career-best performance from Jessica Biel).

1. OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies
2. I've Loved You So Long
3. Hunger
4. Quantum of Solace
5. Of Time and the City
6. Pineapple Express
7. Mamma Mia
8. Gomorrah
9. W.
10. Easy Virtue

DVD of the Week: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (two-disc edition, out now, RRP £24.99)
This week's DVD of the Week is the two-disc edition of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. For me, the film was probably the biggest disappointment of the year and its small screen debut hasn't done anything to diminish its mediocrity. However, it's fair to say that if you really want to know about how the film was made, then the DVD won't disappoint, as the Making Of documentary alone is 80 minutes long. There are also trailers, extensive galleries and countless featurettes devoted to the special effects and so on. This includes one called The Return of a Legend, which includes clips from the previous three films that only serve to point out how much better they were by comparison. Most amusingly, there's a featurette about the Perspex skulls themselves, in which no-one points out to Spielberg that the skulls look a bit rubbish. Spielberg himself pops up all over the place, but Ford seems to have only given a single interview which has been drip-fed through all the featurettes accordingly. Also, there's no commentary, no blooper reel (Come on! Who doesn't want to see Indy swearing?) and no deleted scenes. Shame.