News

BBC

EastEnders turns 30 years old this week and it’s the prerogative of a Doctor Who fan to somehow make it all about us.

It’s true that Doctor Who and EastEnders have quite a fair bit in common, though. They’re both long running dramas, for starters (although obviously one of them has been running longer than the other… *ahem*….), and as such they’ve become two of the BBC’s most formidable flagship franchises. What’s more, characters in EastEnders have even been known to regenerate, too. How many times has a character left and come back again with a new face? See, it’s not so different from Doctor Who after all…

After three decades on our screens, Albert Square has played host to a plethora of acting talent and many of its stars have popped up in Doctor Who over the years, too. As well as...

The problem with writing a review for Army Of Doomsday (as I call it) at the time of transmission is that it's not the finished article. Back in 2006, most commentators would have summed up the big season finale as follows: Doctor and Rose find that ghosts have taken over Earth; Ghosts turn out to be Cybermen; Cybermen then use Earth as a battleground for their war against the Daleks; Doctor stops the war but at a price because Rose gets trapped in a parallel universe forever; Too much weeping and wailing at the end.

Which is a fair summary. Now fast forward a couple of years, and you'll realise that the review's not quite complete. So how's about now, you can change the bit about Rose getting trapped forever to – well, actually, Rose gets temporarily trapped because she comes back a couple of seasons later, even though The Doctor said...

British genre specialists Black and Blue Films, partnering with Press On Features, Templeheart and Hawthorn Productions, look to the skies with the new horror-thriller Airborne. Directed by Dominic Burns from a script by Paul Chronnell, Airborne stars Craig Conway, Simon Phillips, Gemma Atkinson, Sebastian Street, Kimberly Jaraj, Fiona Ryan, Jazz Lintott with Raji James, Andrew Shim, Alan Ford, Julian Glover, Billy Murray and Mark Hamill. The film is set for release sometime in 2012.

-...

The new feature from Dominic Burns (Cut) is one part thriller and one part suicide cult, as the film's first poster beckons you to "come die with me." In the trailer for this feature, a plane at 20,000 is ever going down, down, down...And actors Mark Hamill, Craig Conway (Dog Soldiers), Simon Phillips (The Last Seven) and Julian Glover (Mirrors) welcome you aboard one terrifying flight. Have an early look at this United Kingdom shot film, which will have you asking the stewardess for more booze and valium, in just under two minutes (courtesy of Dread Central).

The synopsis for Airborne is here:

"As a snowstorm closes in, one final plane takes off. The plane reports to the ground that both pilots are dead, while the slowly dwindling number of passengers on the plane wish that they'd never left the ground" (Dread).

Release Date: 2012.

Director: Dominic Burns.

Writer: Paul Chronnell.

This week has been completely nuts and I still can’t believe I get to do these things! In the last few days, I got to the Baftas, meet Sir Paul McCartney, have dinner with multiple Hollywood legends and now this evening (or last night by the time you’re reading this), Colin and myself got to go to the set of a new movie which was shooting on the Jumbo Jet which you’ll probably have seen in the background of multiple shots if you’re a fan of the BBC TV show, Top Gear.

Wednesday is actually the day that Top Gear is filmed and as we arrived at the aerodrome in Surrey, there was amass of 200 odd cars leaving the airfield as the Top Gear show had just finished filming for the day. It was quite surreal being the only car going in while everyone else left!

Here’s a list of some of the new DVD and Blu-ray releases this week. Plus, some old favorites coming out this week on Blu-Ray.

New Movies:

• Knowing ~ Nicolas Cage, Rose Byrne (DVD and Blu-ray)

• Push ~ Chris Evans, Dakota Fanning (DVD and Blu-ray)

• The Unborn ~ Odette Yustman (DVD and Blu-Ray)

• Night Train ~ Danny Glover, Leelee Sobieski, Steve Zahn (DVD and Blu-ray)

• Five Fingers ~ Laurence Fishburne, Colm Meaney, Antonie Kamerling, Saïd Taghmaoui (DVD and Blu-ray)

• A Day in the Life ~ Omar Epps, Faizon Love, Michael Rapaport, Tyrin Turner (DVD)

• Flying By ~ Billy Ray Cyrus, Heather Locklear, Olesya Rulin, Patricia Neal (DVD)

• Applause for Miss E ~ Vanessa Bell Calloway, Roger Guenveur Smith, Gina Torres (DVD)

• Power Rangers Rpm, Vol. 1: Start Your Engines ~ Eka Darville, Ari Boyland, Rose McIver, Milo Cawthorne (DVD)

• Flight 666 ~ Iron Maiden (Blu-ray)

Previously Released and Classic Movies:

• Lonely are the Brave ~ Kirk Douglas, Gena Rowlands, Walter Matthau, George Kennedy...

Arsala Qureishi and Sabrina Louis are all set to make a statement as they get ready with the release of their film The Unforgettable. Defying rules and stereotypes, they have made their female protagonist as quite strong, someone who could go to the extent of being ruthless when it comes to meeting her own desires. Both being first time directors, the ladies insist that The Unforgettable (which stars Raji James and Sofia Hayat in lead roles) is an unusual love story....

Former EastEnders star Raji James has admitted that he "took pleasure" in Leslie Grantham's 2004 internet sex scandal.

Raji, who played Ash Ferreira on the BBC One soap, revealed how he mocked Grantham on set after the story hit the tabloids. Grantham, better known as Walford legend Dirty Den Watts, was so annoyed over his co-star's behaviour that he refused to speak to him for the rest of their time on the show.

Leslie became embroiled in controversy . . .

Regent Releasing/here!

You would think that food, sex, songs and cross-cultural comedy would make for a winning cinematic recipe, but in Nina's Heavenly Delights the tasty ingredients add up to an indigestible whole. This tale of an Indian woman's efforts to save her family's Glasgow restaurant is so overly cutesy and precious that it squanders audience goodwill long before its conclusion.

The title character (Shelley Conn) fled her native Glasgow, as well as the fiance (Raji James) she ditched right before her wedding three years earlier. She returns for her father's funeral, only to find the family's Indian restaurant, the New Taj, on the verge of being lost thanks to an ill-advised bet. Determined to save the day, she enters the restaurant in a televised curry cooking contest, with predictably madcap results.

Featuring Bollywood-style musical numbers courtesy of Nina's drag queen best friend Bobbi (Ronny Jhutti); a lesbian romance between Nina and another chef (Laura Fraser) that is depicted in a decorous, fade-to-black manner; recurring appearances by the ghost of Nina's father; family conflict courtesy of her sternly disapproving mother and other plot elements too numerous to mention, the film from writer Andrea Gibb and director Pratibha Parmar, displays undeniable heart but little finesse.

The female leads are gorgeous, and the sheer exoticism of the setting provides some interest. But this combination of melodrama, comedy, music and romance eventually falls under the weight of its endlessly stereotypical characters, dialogue and situations.