A couple of weeks back, it was announced that Ridley Scott had attached himself to The Counselor, an original script by the acclaimed author Cormac McCarthy with Michael Fassbender circling the lead role. Well Deadline now confirms for us that Fassbender has landed the lead role in the picture, which is set to go before cameras on May 1st.

Well cinemagoers, Star Wars fanatics and you the reading public, it’s the moment you’ve all been waiting and asking for: a brand spanking new re-release of the Star Wars Saga. This February, you’ll be able to relive all your favourite characters from Jar Jar Binks, Nute Gunray, Princess Amidala and Anakin Skywalker by revisiting The Phantom Menace, only this time in 3D. Are you excited? Are you sweating and shaking in nervous anticipation? If the answer is yes to both those questions, then what the hell is wrong with you?

Awards seasons and the Oscars in particular are always very divisive. People will argue for hours and hours on end about which film deserves to win, and which film didn’t deserve to be nominated. More often than not, the Academy completely misfire and award just the wrong movies the big prize when there are better movies battling against them.

The 23rd film in the James Bond franchise, Skyfall, is currently in production. As usual with films that are big events, details on the movie are being kept suitably under wraps. However, the website 007.com has released a new image from Skyfall which shows Daniel Craig as Bond looking appropriately moody and unshaven.

So they’re in. The nominations for the 84th Academy Awards. And in a very unusual move for the Academy they have offered some surprise. First of all, it’s flag waving time: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy has found significant nominations, including one for Gary Oldman which is just absolutely fantastic. There are also some surprising inclusions for The Tree of Life which has got nominations in the Best Picture and Best Director categories. Not so surprising though is The Artist with 10 nominations and the leader, Hugo, with 11 nominations.

In a parallel universe the adjectives: masterpiece, enchanting, beautiful and coherent would all be usable blandishments to describe pop singer sensation Madonna’s new film W.E. However, we do not live in a parallel universe, therefore the only logical words one could use to describe W.E., the new film by perhaps the worst filmmaker ever to walk this earth: Madonna, are: staggeringly misjudged, infuriatingly revisionist, blindingly stupid and stomach evacuatingly terrible.

The nominees for the British equivalent of the Oscars have been released. Last week a long list of nominees was produced and the collected 6,500 members of BAFTA (British Association of Film and Television Arts) have whittled it down to a short list who will be competing to pick up prizes on February 12th. There are some surprises and on the whole the list is good, but there are reasons as to why you can raise an eyebrows at some of their decisions.

Last year, after The King’s Speech was crowned Oscar’s Best Picture many people looked forward and began discussing who would be the big contenders for this year’s Academy Awards. The film on everyone’s lips was War Horse, the film that would bring Steven Spielberg back into contact with the genre of war film, with highly acclaimed material which was transformed into an adored and critically lauded stage play. In other words: pure Oscar material.

We reach that all important time again: the compilation of the year’s best films. And in all honesty I think this has been a terrific year, which is surprising because in a year in which Hollywood has failed to supply the goods, 2011 has been the year of the independent film. There have only been a handful of great films this year that were big Hollywood productions.

I am a shameless Steven Spielberg fan. Which in and of itself is now looked down on in many critical circles. Spielberg is credited as being nothing but a money grubbing sell out, a sentimentalist who always goes too far and someone who is always playing to the mass audience with no defining voice. In basic terms, in the eyes of the high brow critics his movies are soulless, which is just a load of rubbish.