The sharper end of the movie news funnel: looking at the credit crunching biting the movie-biz and other horrifying prospects...

After his success with Borat, Sacha Baron is digging back into the Ali G Show archives for another of his outrageous characters. This time it’s flamboyant fashion reporter, Austrian party animal and wannabe icon Bruno. So get ready for more ambush humour as the crazy, microphone-wielding one crashes designer shows, takes on middle America, outrages chat show audiences with his freshly-adopted black baby (“OJ”) and even signs up for military service. But can Cohen keep the comedy going? Or will audiences say “danke, but nein danke” to the camp journo?

John Connor’s war against the marauding mechanical monster known as Skynet marches on in this latest Terminator film, which promises to continue the story. But instead of revisiting Connor in the present day, with yet another killer ‘bot sent back in time to murder him, we’re thrown forward to 2018, and the time of the human resistance post-Judgement Day. It’s a tough time for us – the scattered survivors are doing their best to combat the onslaught of deadly devices, but things are not going well for humanity. Can the new pic revitalise the franchise, or will it be terminated at the box office?

Why we're losing interest in the annual industry Summer holiday...

The sharper end of the movie news funnel: looking at the next emergences of metal-men Wolverine and Iron Man.

The sharper end of the movie news funnel… 

Because a massively money-spinning franchise can never be allowed to simply fade away, Paramount is now attempting to resurrect its old workhorse Star Trek with a new team that includes director/producer JJ Abrams and some of his regular collaborators, including Transformers scribes Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman. Promising a fresh spin on the original series, and with plenty to draw in those who aren’t die-hard Trek fans, can Abrams launch the SF stalwart back into warp speed? Or will it be described as “dead, Jim” at the box office?

Jason Statham is back as Chev Chelios for another utterly insane chase film. And while he survived the first movie’s events, this time he’s got an even crazier situation to deal with – as Chinese gangsters have nicked his nearly indestructible heart and replaced it with a ticker that requires regular jolts of electrical power to keep working. So while he sets off on a mission to recover his heart, Chev must make regular pit stops to power up. Will moviegoers get energised by Statham’s return? Or will the box office get cranked down this time?

The sharper end of the movie news funnel… 

Hugely influential, notoriously difficult and occasionally unintelligible, Marlon Brando's status as the 20th century's finest film actor withstood numerous flops, a turbulent private life and a contempt for his own profession that saw him thumb his nose at the Hollywood establishment with barely repressed glee.

He may be older, heavier and mellower than he was in his '70s heyday, but Robert Mario De Niro Jr still deserves to be crowned America's greatest living actor. Okay, it's been a while since the two-time Oscar winner made anything as iconic as Taxi Driver or Raging Bull. Such is the reputation, though, than even a cameo in TV's Extras becomes an event – proof the 65-year-old once immortalised by Bananarama is still a force to be reckoned with. "You keep looking ahead and moving on to the next project," he says. "You'll have time to rest when you're dead…"

Boldly hitching their horse to the bandwagon that is 3D animated movies, DreamWorks has decided to lead the pack and make one that is 3D from the moment it was dreamt up by the directors. The pitch is a fun, intriguing one – the US government enlists captured monsters and mutants to fight off an alien invasion – and it’s chock full of celebrity voices. But can this latest ‘toon outing become a monster hit? Or will audiences just get alienated?

From Michael Corleone to Tony Montana, the actor born Alfredo James Pacino in 1940 has created some of the most memorable characters in film history. A diminutive power-house with a barking rasp, he shot to fame in the 1970s with a series of iconic roles that proved him to be one of his generation's most adventurous talents. Recently his playing has become more theatrical; the fact he's out there at all though is reason to celebrate. "I guess you find yourself repeating certain motifs," he concedes. "But at the heart of it I'm an actor, always looking for a role…"

A cinematic colossus whose standing is as great as his stature is small, Martin Scorsese is without doubt America’s greatest living director. A brilliant storyteller whose love of his craft, control of his medium and knowledge of cinema are legendary, this New York-born auteur built his reputation on such acknowledged landmarks as Mean Streets, Taxi Driver and Raging Bull that dissected the Italian-American experience and made Robert De Niro the leading screen actor of his generation. Yet there’s more to Marty than those formative successes, the belated Oscar-winner having proved himself as well to be an accomplished documentarian and dedicated preservationist.

Though her on-screen work has inevitably been overshadowed by what’s gone on off it, it is worth pointing out that Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor was once the most highly-paid star in Hollywood; not only that, but at the peak of her 1950s fame she was nominated for the best actress Oscar four years in a row. Initially a child star in family favourites like Lassie Come Home and National Velvet, her incredible beauty helped her move seamlessly into adult roles. After Cleopatra her career faltered, although her many marriages and constant health problems ensured she’s rarely been out of the news.

Directed by Lucky Number Slevin’s Paul McGuigan, Push is the tale of a group of people (including Dakota Fanning, Camilla Belle and Chris Evans), blessed/cursed with powers such as telekinesis and pre-cognition. They’re on the run from an unscrupulous government agency that wants to train them to become weapons, a process no one has yet survived. Can Push shove its way to the top of he box office? Or will it be powerless against heroic overkill?

"Miss Hepburn runs the gamut of emotions from A to B," sneered the columnist Dorothy Parker after seeing one of her early performances. Kate would have the last laugh though, breaking free of the studio shackles to become one of Hollywood’s finest leading ladies. Once labelled box-office poison, the woman born Katharine Houghton Hepburn in 1907 drew on her fierce independence and patrician background to forge some of the cinema’s most formidable characters. Along the way she formed an attachment with long-time co-star Spencer Tracy that lasted all the way to her death in 2003 at the age of 96.

The sharper end of the movie news funnel…