We love it when you can you see the dazzling Hollywood glamour of old films in nice locations. With the NFT it's one of the things London is so good at giving us, and there's more and more random film events popping up including this summer's Smirnoff Black Screenings. Running until 27 August, Smirnoff are hosting a Wednesday night film club at Bluebird on Kings Road, Chelsea. It's £5 per person for a film......

Wall-E has arrived, and the genius of Pixar is declared once again. A simple yet multi-layered tale of a U certificate robot love on post-apocalyptic earth, it’s the silent first half hour that really has the critics rhapsodising. The Times (4-stars) calls the film a “magical animation” while the Guardian (4-stars) says it’s “an exquisitely rendered piece of work.” Over at Empire it’s 5-stars, describing the film as the “most ambitious undertaking since Toy......

Difficult to avoid the Bat-hype machine this week, as the release of The Dark Knight has prompted calls for a posthumous Oscar for Heath Ledger. Luckily, as always, London provides for those who don't necessarily want the latest marketing churn poured down their throat. For your consideration this week: Thursday: Wong Kar Wai's In The Mood For Love is the next film at Rivington Place, in conjunction with their Oscar Munoz retrospective. After his......

They gave us a chance to win a home cinema system, and now they're showing films for us. You've got to love Film4 and Somerset House. The Film4 Summer Screen starts up on 31st July, and runs until 9th August. As in previous years, it's the perfect opportunity to curl up on a nice blanket, a bottle of wine and watch a film outdoors on a (hopefully) lovely summer evening. You'll want to arrive......

There are sometimes always so many lovely events going on in this city that keeping tabs on all we want to do and promote can often seem a Herculean task. Case in point: we’ve just now spotted the excellent-looking 3:AM in Conversation with Chris Petit. Sponsored by 3:AM magazine and London Lit Plus, it features former Time Out film editor and director of the 1979 cult classic and anti-road movie Radio On, Chris Petit. We......

Our weekly roundup of film reviews returns, courtesy of James Bryan... So along comes Mamma Mia, the ghastly looking film version of the apparently much loved West End Musical. If you didn’t run screaming when you saw the trailer featuring Meryl Streep and her ridiculous dungarees prancing around some Greek island then maybe, just maybe, you can handle this. For the rest of us, please listen to Peter Bradshaw in the Guardian who gives......

Can't decide on whether to take an umbrella or a sombrero out in this ever-changeable climate? The answer's both, unfortunately, so we recommend that instead of facing the elements you bed down in a hushed auditorium, where this week's selection includes a season of films from an island where the sunshine is just that little bit more reliable. Thursday As part of their retrospective of Oscar Munoz, which we reviewed last month, Rivington Place......

Why not check out weekly film club 'Short and Sweet'? Held at AKA in Holborn from 6.45pm you can expect a mixture of short films and music videos put together by film loving Julia who hosts this weekly event. Recent work has been from a mixture of established directors such as Michel Gondry & Jonathan Glazer as well as hot new undiscovered talent. And as an added bonus, you can order from a selection......

Akram Khan & Juliette Binoche by roll the dice We were fortunate to be in the company of the beautiful people on Friday when actress Juliette Binoche and dance star Akram Khan revealed their upcoming Franco-British collaboration for the National Theatre. The project - In-I - is under wraps in the sense that it's still being made but will see a dance theatre performance of some kind, vaguely based on personal experiences of love hit......

Our weekly roundup of film reviews returns, courtesy of James Bryan... No prize for guessing what Kung Fu Panda is about. DreamWorks’ latest animation has Jack Black as lazy fat panda, Po, embarking on a quest to be kung fu champ and escape his humdrum life of noodle-making. It’s making the critics smile. The Times (4-stars) calls it “a slight story, but it’s charmingly executed. This is the most handsome animation that DreamWorks has......

While our Saturday Cinema Summary does an admirable job of rounding up the week's new releases, London's celluloid attractions run deeper than the local multiplex's offerings. From retrospectives of filmmaking greats, to cult classics introduced by obsessive cinephiles, each week we'll offer a preview of the forgotten films and rare screenings worthy of your attention. Wednesday: 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days, the stark Romanian film that snatched the Palme d'Or at Cannes last......

Another week and another set of under-whelming blockbusters. First up is James McAvoy going A-List in Wanted, as Angelina Jolie plucks him from a life of mediocrity to run around as a super-assassin firing bullets around corners and doing cool only-in-movies stuff . Overall the reviews have been OK but the UK broadsheets are having none of it. Peter Bradshaw in the Guardian loathes it with his customary eloquence (1-star), ‘you could gargle bitumen......

Getting the most press this week is The Edge of Love, an account of the women who surrounded legendary boozer (and occasional poet) Dylan Thomas during the Second World War. London lovers will cherish it for the “wonderful rendering of Blitz London” (Independent, 3-stars) but overall it’s got very average reviews. The Guardian (2-stars) calls it an “exasperatingly unfocused and underpowered movie.” The performances of Keira Knightly, Sienna Miller and particularly Mathew Rhys (as......

Yes, you read that right. Film4 are offering you the chance to win a Phillips Home Cinema. This is quite simply AWESOME. You must read on... Film4 Summer Screen at Somerset House returns for ten nights from 31st July to August 9th 2008. The magnificent Edmond J. Safra Fountain Court at Somerset House will once again be transformed into a full-scale open-air cinema with state of the art giant screen, 35mm projection and surround-sound. The......

There’s loads of London-y programmes on the telly this week, so you’re a bit spoiled for choice. Luckily, we’re here to help you out. On TV, Londonist likes: Monday, 16 June Dickens’ Secret Lover (Channel 4, 21:00-22:00) Dickens’ London is pretty firmly entrenched in the minds of anyone who’s read one of his books, and this is a look at the man behind the stories. Well, the man and his secret lover. This programme......

Happy Bloomsday, friends. If on this, the 104th anniversary of Leopold Bloom’s epic wanderings around Dublin, our column is even less coherent than usual, don’t blame us and our second-rate attempts to mimic the master. On the other hand, maybe you should. Do we contradict ourselves? Very well then, we contradict ourselves. Come, mess. Bloomsday: Alright, so perhaps you have no idea what we’re babbling on about because (GASP!) you’ve cracked the cover of......

This week needs to be officially declared ‘Useless Blockbuster Week’ as our critics clobber the two big releases, The Incredible Hulk and The Happening. First up we have the rebooted Hulk trying to succeed where Ang Lee’s 2003 effort failed for not making enough money. The new approach is to cut to the core of Hulk’s appeal by focusing purely on the angry green Hulk-smashing action and not much else. Edward Norton reluctantly stars......

If, like the rest of the film-going world, you were wowed by Ellen Page’s performance in Juno last year, and have been raving about her to everyone you meet, you’ll definitely want to get one up on your filmy friends by checking out Page’s 2005 performance in a screening of “Mouth to Mouth” at the Curzon Soho this Sunday 15 June. Filmed a full two years before Juno was the talk of the town,......

So, the smack-down that was Indy v SATC was officially won by Indy (presumably with one of his famed punches to the face). While those two films continue to soak up every last ton of box office cash we have a blockbuster free week of smaller scale films. The biggest release of the week is Gone, Baby Gone. It’s directed and co-written by Ben Affleck who’s looking for career salvation after being unforgivably rubbish......

Our weekly roundup of film reviews continues, courtesy of James Bryan... The tsunami of hype has crested and the reviews are in. As if you hadn’t heard, four years after they bowed out on the small screen, the fading stars of Sex and The City have returned for their close-up. Yes, we know it’s an orgy of shameless consumerism or, as one blogger describes it, “a Taliban Recruitment video”, but are they still worth......

The global siege that is Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is in full swing. Right now, millions of people are sitting in the cinema waiting for the iconic theme music to kick in so they can hopefully bask in the nostalgic glow of their youth. It’s been a tough ride getting here, from the highs of the trailer to the lows of the early reviews. So while it may hoover......

While we're waiting for details of the new Bond film to start leaking, The Barbican are celebrating what would be author Ian Fleming's 100th birthday with a weekend dedicated to the suave legend. The full list of Bond films was voted down to 4 by Barbican website users and they've just announced that the winning films are 'Goldfinger', 'From Russia With Love', 'Casino Royale' and 'Dr No'. Showing on the weekend of 7/8 June,......

Our weekly roundup of film reviews returns, courtesy of James Bryan... This week lead character Speed Racer stars in the film Speed Racer (see what they did there) and Morgan Spurlock bottles it like a shandy in Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden? It’s difficult to forgive the Wachowski brothers for the lameness of the Matrix sequels and their bid for redemption, Speed Racer, isn’t going to win them any new fans.......

Rejoice or recoil: It looks as though the long-rumoured film adaptation of Martin Amis’ London Fields is viable again. Originally announced in 2001 with David Cronenberg directing, the project had been shelved as of 2006. But now, with Hallam Foe’s David Mackenzie slated as the new director, the possibility of the film seeing the light of day is once again alive. The script for the film has long since been completed by Amis and......

Our weekly roundup of film reviews returns, courtesy of James Bryan... This week, Robert Downey Jr. gets suited and booted as Iron Man, more romantic comedy nonsense in Made Of Honour and Joy Division get the referential documentary treatment. Like the first lamb of spring, the first comic book film of the summer marks the changing of the seasons. With Hellboy, Batman and the Incredible Hulk all just around the corner Iron Man is,......

To many of us, physics is as impenetrable as a nun in Fort Knox. But if stranded in 1950's smalltown America with nothing but a modified De Lorean and an anachronistic body warmer, we'd know exactly how many gigawatts to feed into our flux capacitor. Such is the power of the movies. But, like Steven Hawking and the Predator, physics and film are not always comfortable bedfellows. In the interests of telling a good......

Our weekly roundup of film reviews returns, courtesy of James Bryan... This week, London tube comedy Three and Out, the erotic thriller that is a Deception and Russell Brand tries to take America in Forgetting Sarah Marshall. It’s baffling that as a nation we’re so consistently bad at comedy films. Despite having the home-grown talent, British comedy films, as a general rule, suck. So it is with Three and Out, the Tube suicide comedy......

Ether 2008 is well under way, and last night Radio Soulwax Presents… made sure to kick it up a notch. For the UK premiere of the tour film Part of the Weekend Never Dies, Belgian electro band Soulwax had taken over the Royal Festival Hall, and as well as showing the film in the auditorium (twice), guest DJs such as UK DJ Riton played sets throughout the night. The film paints a picture of......

The Long Good Friday. That's if you can judge these things on the index of Movie London by Tony Reeves. This updated tome from Titan Books lists the Hoskins flick 21 times, with John Wayne's Brannigan a close second on 20 entries. The locations of over 500 films are revealed in this smart volume of filmic London - from obscure Ealing comedies to the biggest blockbusters. Do you know which bit of Kensington featured......

Our weekly roundup of film reviews returns, courtesy of James Bryan... This week Irish hitmen are on the run In Bruges, Mike Leigh’s deliriously upbeat Happy-Go-Lucky and Daniel Craig remembers his hazy youth in Flashbacks of A Fool. Several years ago Hollywood fell hook, line and sinker for the plucky charm of Colin Farrell and he's been under-delivering in major films ever since. He turns the tables in his latest, In Bruges, by actually......