Newswipe with Charlie Brooker (2009)

Death, crime, war, puppies, the weather. It could only be the news.

I actually began university with the intention of having a career in journalism. However, after sitting through class after class trumpeting fair, balanced and objective reporting as essential, it became clear that real-world journalism was something else entirely.

I remain a news junkie, but my inner cynic always approaches the news with nothing short of an overflowing salt shaker. Quite simply, the news is a manipulative affair, whether it's tugging blindly at its audience's heartstrings, begging for viewers to send in feedback in a bizarre effort to make the news interactive or just plain old scaremongering. As a viewer, it's impossible to feel like anything other than a puppet, the recipient of constant instructions telling us how to think and act. Rarely does the news allow the viewer to come to his or her own conclusions.

What's troubling is the ease with which people do seem to accept whatever the news tells us. Which is what's makes Charlie Brooker's Newswipe must-see television. Brooker writes...

TV news now comes packaged as a dazzling CGI cartoon, with the names of star anchors included in the programme title, and an absurdly theatrical air of bombast underpinning every second of every broadcast. Traditional newspapers, beaten to the punch by the immediacy of the internet and 24-hour news networks, are becoming less and less bothered with breaking actual news than celebrity gossip, or provocative comment, or shouty campaigning. The internet, meanwhile, can be a great source of rapidly updated information, but is also home to an endless range of partisan news sources, paranoid imaginings, and outright hoaxes. Is it possible for anyone to truly know what the hell's going on?

A spin-off of the superb Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe, Newswipe takes an acerbic, hilarious, eye-opening look at the news. Like his terrific Guardian columns, Brooker hits the bull's-eye on pretty much every issue – adding a healthy shot of humour to the proceedings.

Because I'm a kind soul, here is the entire fourth episode of Newswipe (in three bite-sized chunks) dedicated to the recent G20 summit in London. If you're a news junkie like me, this is fascinating viewing. If you're not, watch it anyway. If anyone should tell you how to think and act, it's Charlie Brooker.

Da Vinci Code sequel announced

It's hard to believe that it's been nearly six years since The Da Vinci Code first hit bestseller lists worldwide. Probably because during those six years, every living soul on the face of this planet seems to have read the real-time thriller, keeping it at the top of said lists for most of that time. At the height of the book's popularity, airlines may as well have substituted their in-flight magazines with copies of the controversial thriller. A money-raking film adaptation boosted sales even further.

With next month's film adaptation of Angels & Demons set to bring Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon back into the limelight, Brown has today cannily announced the long-awaited follow-up to The Da Vinci Code.

The Lost Symbol will be released this September with US publishers Doubleday giving it a massive five million copy print run. According to the press release, the third Langdon thriller will take place over a 12 hour period, rather than Brown's four previous books, which were all set over 24 hours.

Until today, the novel possessed the working title of "The Solomon Key", which, though evocative of The Da Vinci Code, is a bit less generic than The Lost Symbol. Though the press release announcing the novel's publication doesn't give any clues as to its plot, previous reports suggest the book would see Langdon on US soil for the first time, entangled in a mystery involving the Freemasons.

Variety reports, rather unsurprisingly, that Columbia Pictures is moving forward with a film adaptation of The Lost Symbol set to follow the release of Angels & Demons.

Speaking of which, Columbia have released a sneak peek of Angels & Demons highlighting Hans Zimmer's soundtrack. For me, one of the highlights of the underrated Da Vinci Code adaptation was Zimmer's score, which culminated in the breathtaking "Chevaliers de Sangreal". The Angels & Demons score will take this track and expand upon it as a theme for Langdon. Sounds like it could be one of the soundtracks of the year for this film geek.

The Living Daylights (1987)

Despite being a bit of a James Bond geek, I have to confess to having not seen most of the films in several years. To be fair, I've been living overseas for a few years, far away from the massive 20-film DVD box set that weighs down the fourth shelf of my new bookcase. But perhaps most crucially, since the arrival of Daniel Craig's superb 007, it's tough to settle for anything less.

That said, if there's one era of films it's worth revisiting in light of Craig's brooding, bloody and brilliant Bond, it's Timothy Dalton's. While Dalton has a sizeable following among hardcore fans, his two 007 outings are largely overlooked by the general public. Now that audiences have accepted a Bond who doesn't raise an eyebrow or offer up a groan-inducing quip at every opportunity, it's as good a time as any to return to revisit Dalton's debut Bond film, 1987's The Living Daylights.

The fifteenth 007 film was initially conceived as a Casino Royale-esque origin story exploring James Bond's roots. Despite this idea being shelved, The Living Daylights is a clear return to the character's edgier roots. Shying away from the excesses of the Roger Moore era, The Living Daylights is a great send-off as the series' last Cold War thriller.

Ian Fleming's "The Living Daylights", one of several short stories posthumously collected in Octopussy and The Living Daylights, is niftily used by screenwriters Michael G. Wilson and Richard Maibaum as a launching pad for the movie's fairly down-to-earth plot, which sees 007 assisting with the defection of a KGB agent. When the defector is subsequently abducted from British hands, Bond discovers a plot by a war-obsessed arms dealer to frame a Soviet general for the murder of a number of British spies.

Dalton, a Shakespearean-trained actor, has a fine understanding of Fleming's character, imbuing him with a dark, often nasty streak (witness the violent way in which he uses General Pushkin's mistress as a distraction). The actor had previously turned down the part in 1968 before vying for the role in The Living Daylights alongside Sam Neill and Pierce Brosnan (who accepted the role before NBC renewed his Remington Steele contract); both of whom lack Dalton's steely seriousness.

The film isn't entirely devoid of humour, and, unlike Dalton's violent follow-up Licence to Kill, most of it is well-placed. Dalton's grim delivery of Bond's one-liners – sparingly used here – lends some black humour to the proceedings.

The supporting cast is led by Maryam d'Abo as Kara Milovy, a professional cellist with whom Bond shares a surprisingly deep relationship. D'Abo makes the most of a pretty beefy Bond girl role. John Rhys-Davies is enjoyable as the underused General Pushkin, a part originally written as General Gogol, Walter Gotell's recurring KGB boss (the role was re-scripted when Gotell fell ill, though he does cameo during the film's final scene). Robert Brown, Geoffrey Keen and Desmond Llewellyn all reprise their recurring roles, outshining an embarrassingly wooden Caroline Bliss in her first appearance as the new Miss Moneypenny.

Where The Living Daylights does flag is in its lack of a strong – or even lead – villain. While Jeroen Krabbé has lots of fun as the slimy Koskov, Andreas Wisniewski's Necros is little more than a diet Red Grant, and Joe Don Baker, who would later return to the series to play a CIA ally in two of Pierce Brosnan's films, fails to leave an impression as arms dealer Brad Whitaker.

Director John Glen, who previously helmed Roger Moore's last three Bond films, is reinvigorated by the series' more serious approach. Despite a character-intensive script, the film does deliver some knockout action sequences. A training exercise gone awry on Gibraltar's rocky landscape makes for a memorable pre-credits sequence, while a Tangier-set rooftop chase and a thrilling climax involving a drugs-laden cargo plane are also among the action highlights.

Veteran Bond composer John Barry returns to compose his final 007 score, an unusually electronics-heavy soundtrack that ranks among his best. The most successful Bond soundtracks always use a great song as a base, and The Living Daylights has not one, but three. In addition to a-ha's catchy title song, The Pretenders contribute two excellent tracks that also form the basis of Barry's score: the brash "Where Has Every Body Gone" and "If There Was a Man", a sweet romantic ballad that also closes the film.

For fans of Daniel Craig's Bond who may not be acquainted with some of the earlier films in the series, The Living Daylights is a great place to start.

Duplicity (2009)

A twist can make or break a film. The success of an entire movie can hang on the employment of this simple but overused plot device. It's incredibly difficult to pull off a twist that not only blindsides the audience, but also makes narrative sense. In short, a truly successful twist is a rare occurrence.

Writer-director Tony Gilroy makes it clear from Duplicity's first act that the film will offer audiences more twists than a Chubby Checker album before the closing credits roll. Gilroy, the screenwriter behind the Jason Bourne films, has created a slick, genre-defying romantic/comedy/thriller set in the cut-throat world of corporate espionage. It's relatively virgin territory and the film is richer for being set in it.

Clive Owen is Ray Koval, an MI6 agent who was once duped by Julia Roberts' Claire Stenwick, a CIA operative. Both leave their jobs for the private sector. When the pair cross paths again five years later, they concoct a scheme to pull a sting on their employers. Though all is not what it seems, and the duo's convoluted history is revealed throughout the film by a series of flashbacks.

Neither Owen nor Roberts are flexing their acting muscles here, though both well suit their respective roles. Paul Giamatti and Tom Wilkinson, meanwhile, are terrific in their supporting roles as the heads of the two corporations Ray and Claire are attempting to swindle.

Duplicity is refreshing as a talky low-key thriller, which could have been just as easily brimming with violence or explosions or explicit sex – and probably be more marketable as a result. Instead, Duplicity spins an engaging yarn reliant solely on the sparky dialogue between its two main players.

Oh, and its abundance of twists. Do they work? For the most part, yes. Once it becomes clear that the film's title refers not only to the relationship between Ray and Claire but also to that between Gilroy and the viewer, we are better positioned to follow Duplicity's convoluted story. With this knowledge, however, it's easier for the viewer to attempt to remain one step ahead of the story. Fortunately, the movie's final twist is left-field enough that only the most prescient of viewers will guess it.

As a brisk and enjoyable time-killer, Duplicity is great fun. It might be a bit too elaborate for its own good, but if, like me, you like to keep your brain switched on while in the cinema, Duplicity will be right up your alley.

To the Twitter end

I really hate April Fool's Day. Not because I'm one of the gullible saps who invariably falls for some far-fetched goof each year (because I'm not), but because suddenly, everyone considers themselves to be heeeelarious practical jokers who love to get their cretinous chuckles based purely on the concept of lying. How sarcasm became considered a form of wit lower than this is beyond me.

Anyway, The Guardian's annual joke article this year claimed the paper would fold in its printed form and instead be published exclusively via Twitter, the micro-blogging, social networking website that's apparently becoming a rival to the likes of MySpace and Facebook.

I signed up a week or so ago in a fruitless attempt to secure myself a decent username, only to find myself genuinely angry at how many people share my name (and assorted variations based on my initials). Apparently, identity theft is more commonplace than I thought. Ultimately, I settled on a half-hearted attempt at a pun in order to prevent myself becoming known as mweston73416.

For the uninitiated, Twitter asks one simple question: "What are you doing?". Users respond in posts, known as "tweets", which are limited to 140 characters or less in length. It's a bit like Facebook's status feature; indeed, the latest version of Facebook (a step backwards in this humble blogger's opinion) basically rips off Twitter, asking users: "What's on your mind?". You can also subscribe to other Twitter users' updates – known as "following".

The Guardian's a bit obsessed with Twitter, frequently reporting on its rise within the social networking sphere and even covering major events though it. Celebrities and public figures have also taken to the site, offering a unique way to interact with fans that doesn't impede on their privacy in the way that a Facebook page might.

Even though Twitter is undeniably on the rise, I can't help but feel it's a bit of a gimmick that'll fade into obscurity more quickly than the likes of Facebook ever will. Sure, it's neat to read what public figures are up to – I follow John Cleese and Charlie Brooker, though I couldn't be any less interested in what Ashton Kutcher has to say – but Twitter doesn't do anything that Facebook, emails or RSS feeds don't already.

Perhaps my opinion will change, what with mobile internet becoming increasingly popular and Twitter offering the ideal format to share bite-sized pieces of information on the go. But it ultimately strikes me as fairly pointless. Then again, so does April Fool's Day.

Lost: Season 5 (2009)

Spoilers for Lost: Season 5 ("He's Our You")

In previous posts about Lost, I praised the show to the skies and encouraged newcomers to get onboard and see what all the fuss is about.

I take it all back. Why? Because despite the fact that Lost continues to surpass its own lofty standards, it's clearly a show for the hardcore fans. Instead, I urge you – more strongly than ever before – to start buying those DVD box sets and catch up. Lost is brilliant.

Once upon a time, casual viewers could easily tune in to Lost and still have a vague idea about what was going on. A self-contained flashback was more than enough to hold one's attention amid the polar bears and hatches and dead people walking around the island.

Those days are long gone. Unlike Alias (J.J. Abrams' pre-Lost series), which hit the reset button several times during its five-year run, Lost is now in the process of delicately assembling five seasons of stories into an impressively cohesive whole. The side effect of this is that it has separated the true fans from the casual viewers.

If you skipped out on Lost a season or two back and tuned back in now, you may be forgiven for thinking you're watching another show entirely, what with Jack, Kate, Hurley, Sawyer and co. currently ingratiating themselves with the DHARMA Initiative in a 1977-version of the island. The acceptance that time travel is possible in the Lost universe has proven itself not only a great way to finally reveal the island's twisted history, but also to allow our favourite castaways to become inextricably linked with it.

With just 24 episodes to go until Lost calls it a day, the resolutions to the show's main mysteries are slowly shifting into focus: the smoke monster, the four-toed statue, Richard Alpert's agelessness... but there are a few other questions I hope we'll get answered. I hereby present my top five lesser Lost mysteries I hope we see resolved before the island disappears for good...

1. Does Walt have special powers? One of Lost's few disappointments for me was the poor handling of Michael's storyline. Though he promisingly returned last year, the troubled dad was offed shortly after. While Walt, his son, had to be written out of the show (the actor was growing up too fast for the show's compressed timeframe), the death of his onscreen father seems to have sidelined any resolution to the notion that Walt is "special". A recent cameo by the character has given me renewed hope that this will be addressed in the future.

2. Who was Libby? The short-lived tail survivor who captured Hurley's heart before being gunned down by Michael was never treated to a flashback of her own. We've caught intriguing glimpses of her in other characters' flashbacks (why was she in the mental asylum with Hurley? was it just a coincidence that she gave Desmond the boat that took him to the island?), but she's got an almost clean slate for the producers to address her history however they like.

3. What happened when The Swan station blew up? Aside from the fact that Locke lost his voice and Desmond lost his clothes. With The Swan under construction in the show's current '70s setting, the answer to this may be closer than we think.

4. What happened between Benjamin Linus and the real Henry Gale? This was something the producers intended to address during the show's strike-shortened fourth season. It's not essential information, but there's a good story to be told about the hot-air balloonist Ben impersonated after being caught in Danielle Rousseau's trap. Heck, I just wanna see more of the creepy former leader of the Others.

5. What is "The Magic Box"? Remember Locke's father mysteriously appearing on the island back in season three? Ben claimed his sudden appearance owed to a "magic box" that would give you anything you desired. How about some answers to these questions?