London Film Festival News

Over the last few days, we've been lost in a BFI London Film Festival frenzy " which is great 'cause watching films all day is normally just a big chill

When we left you last we were heading off to see why that coward Robert Ford felt the need to shoot poor Jesse James.

The project has long been a dream of Brad Pitt's " who stars as Jesse " and the finished product looks like there's a lot of work gone into it, rumour has it there's a cut in existence that's over four hours long!

It's a visually stunning Western " but don't make the mistake of thinking this yarn comes from the Wild West as we know it, because there's hardly an action setup in the whole thing.

The performances are all fantastic, so it's not a bad watch, but where's the drama?

Lions for Lambs premiered on Monday, with Tom Cruising the Red Carpet for more than two hours before joining Robert Redford on stage to introduce another movie that lacked real drama, despite a grand backdrop.

The film is focussed around three intertwining stories. Senator Tom Cruise and journalist Meryl Streep debate the future of the war on terror, while well meaning Robert Redford tries to convince a talented student to give a damn, and, in the background, two of Redford's former students are fighting in Afghanistan.

You have to believe the film has a good heart, but it's also a little like attending class, which isn't really the idea of a Friday night at the flicks. Watch it on DVD if you like " but you've not missed much if you don't.

It was looking to be a bad week were it not for the saving face of Halle Berry and one of our favourite ever actors, Benecio Del Toro, who set Leicester Square alight yesterday with Things We Lost in the Fire.

Fire seems to be engulfing the movie at the moment, with Halle Berry's house under threat from the fires in LA and a restaurant in Leicester Sq catching alight just before the premiere.

The film itself has Oscar stamped all over it. Stunning performances from the two leads, work alongside some slick direction to create a film that's both sad and uplifting, warm and very realistic. If this film doesn't inspire you, it's probably worth checking for a pulse. It really gets right inside your head, and stays there for hours after it's finished " not a dry eye in the house as the credits roll Classic!

Over the next few days we've got Sean Penn's tribute to rugged America Into the Wild, an honest and hilarious look at teenage pregnancy in the hotly anticipated Juno and, best of all, just about everyone who's anyone playing the mighty Bob Dylan in mad biopic I'm Not There

WRITTEN BY STEVE LAYCOCK