As nutritious as a newly felled apple (can apples get felled?) and twice as shiny, we present this week’s Cheat Sheet: all you need to know about indie-turned-Hollywood director Darren Aronofsky. Creator of Black Swan, The Wrestler, Requiem For A Dream and more; prepare to know a whole lot about the king of existentialism.

‘Nevermore’, cried Poe’s raven. Something of a film critic, he was talking of the glut of vampire films in 2010. Will our grumpy naysayer feel the same way the same of upcoming superhero films this year? You decide. We cherry-pick 10 superhero films to see in 2011…

We spoil you, really we do. First you have a lovely weekend filled with scrumping and lashings of ginger beer (this continues to assume that our core readership is the Famous Five) and then you get a lovely Monday Mash-Up to help get you through that first grinding day of another miserable week, which is in itself nothing but one more plodding step towards the silently waiting grave. Enjoy!

The Terrible Thing of Alpha 9, directed by Jake Armstrong, is a madly cool animated short film that will make you gulp back your man tears in a testosteroneous way. Are you ready for our monstrously cute short film of the week?

What do you mean, you’d never heard of the Black Movie Festival? Alright, neither had we. But our intrepid field reporter Hannah has, and she’s got the low-down on possibly the best place in Switzerland to get your daily dose of Yakuza action.

Contents of a classic Glaswegian Film Festival: Contains Music, a smattering of Youth Films, several heaped tablespoons of Short Films, a dash of Frightfest, and an independent magazine. Serves two annual awards. Now that’s a huge great big belly-full of Film delights.

Thank God you didn’t take the plunge and try to make a second friend this week, eh? Imagine – if you had, you’d have to draw straws or something to work out who to take with you for some Wednesday-based Orange goodness. And to be honest, there’s quite enough going on without getting straws involved.

Some films go out of their way to be a bit odd. To test the waters and see what they can get away with, you know? Sometimes it’s nonsense, sometimes it’s art. One thing that can be said is that the more bizarre a film is, the more interesting it can be. Some studios spend millions of dollars adjusting their films if an audience says they don’t understand something. This list is for the films that decided, ‘hey, screw sense’!

Of the 598 French directors listed on Wikipedia, Jean-Pierre Jeunet is one of the few you’re more or less guaranteed to have heard of – you might not have bothered with Delicatessen, but everyone remembers that nice film with the orgasm sequence and the girl from The Da Vinci Code, don’t they? If that’s as much as you know then it’s time to fill in the gaps, and if you’re thinking “what orgasm sequence?” then there’s no time to lose – get Cheat Sheeting.

Though they may be loathed by sixth formers attempting their always-boring ‘minimalist’ plays, props are undoubtedly the bread and butter of popular film. A chance for character development, plot development, or simple comedic value, props can provide allegory and nuance in a way that Hayden Christensen, say, cannot. Here we give a rundown on film’s most memorable props, from the Star Wars light sabre to Herbie the VW Beetle.