BARBRA STREISAND *does dance*

Chastain. Strong. Bigelow. Protesting Hindu Radicals. What more do you want?

“Terminate with extreme prejudice”

Thank God – we can never understand what’s going on in the Middle East until she explains it.

God bless nail-biting competition. This year Oscar viewing figures have been the best in 5 years, with almost 41 million people in the US tuning in. This, of course, was mainly down to the battle of the titans that was Avatar vs The Hurt Locker, and the story was made all the juicer by the fact that the two directors used to be married. Of course, in the end Avatar walked away with just 3 awards, and The Hurt Locker stole the evening by winning Best Picture and Best Director

Things are just getting worse and worse for the team behind The Hurt Locker. The Oscar front-runner is being bashed from all sides, with a war veteran today announcing that he plans to sue the team for using his life-story in their film. This comes just one day after one of their producers was banned from the Oscar ceremony for trying to sway Academy votes. Oh dear oh dear.

Well well well, who’ve thought it? This year’s Baftas was an interesting mix – full of both predictable winners (Colin and Carey, anyone?) as well as a couple of surprises. I think we all would have predicted that Avatar would have walked away with at least three Baftas this year, but in the end of the night, Cameron’s 4D fists were clutching but two

The Hurt Locker, Kathryn Bigelow’s thrilling and hard-hitting war drama, is a master class in sustained tension as a three-strong bomb disposal squad attached to the US Army risks life and severed limb to defuse roadside IEDs. Starring Ralph Fiennes and Anthony Mackie, it’s one of the sharpest and most intelligent films concerning the War in Iraq, but it’s in no way easy viewing.