The Dark Knight
	10:04am Thu 24 Jul 08
	Christopher Nolan's dark, brooding Batman sequel swoops in amid a storm of hype and feverish anticipation. No film could live up to such expectations but The Dark Knight soars tantalisingly close, probing the inner demons of Gotham's favourite crime-fighter as he duels with his most famous adversary.

	Paris, Quiet City, Crazy Love and Out of Shame
	10:01am Thu 24 Jul 08
	When not teaching cinema, Cédric Klapisch makes engaging ensemble dramas that bear the seemingly incompatible influence of his favourite directors, Woody Allen, Ingmar Bergman, John Cassavetes, Martin Scorsese and Maurice Pialat. Since first making an impact in this country with When the Cats Away (1995), Klapisch has demonstrated a facility for the well-drawn characters, smart dialogue and credible situations that made Un Air de Famille (1996), Pot Luck (2002) and its sequel Russian Dolls (2005) so moreish.

	WALL-E and Meet Dave
	9:54am Thu 17 Jul 08
	The technical wizards at Pixar (Toy Story, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles) dispel the myth that size matters in their latest computer-animated fable. As long as you've got a big heart, anything is possible, and in WALL-E, that just happens to be the most magical, out-of-this-world love story, distinguished by amazingly detailed visuals.

Summer Hours, Puffball and Mad Detective

9:50am Thursday 17th July 2008

Olivier Assayas is a difficult director to pin down. The son of a screenwriter and a former critic on Cahiers du Cinéma, he combines a respect for film art with a passion for mainstream genres. Consequently, his output has alternated between intense, intelligent dramas and quirky curios that have occasionally veered off into erotic eccentricity. But he's on restrained and perceptive form with Summer Hours, a paean to the Musée d'Orsay on its 20th anniversary that typifies Assayas's habit of littering his pictures with homages to favourite film-makers.

Savage Grace, Memories of Underdevelopment and Ikiru

5:09pm Wednesday 9th July 2008

Tom Kalin was part of the 1990s generation of independent American film-makers who promised to bring a touch of intellectual chic to their acerbic studies of bourgeois foible. However, like contemporaries Jon Jost, Hal Hartley and Whit Stillman, Kalin has failed to build on his early promise and it's hard to believe that Savage Grace was made by the same director as Swoon (1992), a stylish biopic of the infamous 1920s Chicago killers, Nathan Leopold, Jr. and Richard Loeb.

	Mamma Mia! and The Forbidden Kingdom
	5:06pm Wed 9 Jul 08
	If last year's film version of Hairspray put a spring in your step, then dust off your dancing shoes - Mamma Mia! is a delight. Director Phyllida Lloyd and writer Catherine Johnson, who masterminded the smash-hit stage version of the all-singing all-dancing musical, work their magic here too with an all-star cast including Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan and Colin Firth.

	Kung Fu Panda and Hancock
	8:18am Thu 3 Jul 08
	Mark Osborne and John Stevenson's computer animated comedy Kung Fu Panda does exactly what it says on the tin, spinning a familiar story of triumph against the odds around a rotund bear with a passion for martial arts. Jack Black is perfectly cast as the voice of the eponymous guzzler, who sees himself as "a legendary warrior whose fighting skills were the stuff of legend".

The Visitor, Death Note: The Last Name, My Winnipeg and Chop Suey

8:16am Thursday 3rd July 2008

Sixty-one year-old Richard Jenkins has made more than 50 movies since debuting in Lawrence Kasdan's Silverado (1985). You probably wouldn't know him by name, but he's become a familiar face in films by the Coen and Farrelly brothets and such TV outings as Six Feet Under. Finally, however, he has found a leading role to prove he's more than just another dependable character actor and he seizes his opportunity with unassuming assurance in Thomas McCarthy's engaging mid-life drama The Visitor.

	The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian and Wanted
	8:43am Thu 26 Jun 08
	The second book of C.S.Lewis's epic fantasy series reunites the creative talents of The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe for a titanic battle between the gentle Narnians and race of human usurpers called the Telmarines. In every respect, Prince Caspian is a bigger and more ambitious adventure, introducing colourful new characters from the enchanted realm amid breathtaking battle sequences laden with special effects. The similarities to The Lord of the Rings trilogy are even more pronounced here - both series are filmed on the North and South Islands of New Zealand - including a tour-de-force denouement that strongly resembles J.R.R.Tolkein's siege at Helm's Deep.

Numb

8:41am Thursday 26th June 2008

There isn't much time for television when you spend up to eight hours a day watching films. Consequently, this critic has missed out on many of the programmes that have provided the great watercooler moments of the last decade. But, of late, I have been catching up on the likes of The Simpsons, Curb Your Enthusiasm and Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps, and have rather enjoyed watching them without the tabloid hype that surrounded their original transmission. Maybe one of these days, I'll get round to The Sopranos, The West Wing and Frasier, too.

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