The year was 1959, and in an often overlooked corner of Hackney, one of the world's most recognisable Hollywood beauties was bringing just a touch of Californian colour to a peculiarly English affair: a budgie show. Jayne Mansfield, living in London while making the film Too Hot To Handle, was invited to the All Saints church in Haggerston in September 1959 to help judge the East London Budgerigar and Foreign Birds Society show. Michael......

After an extended holiday, Saturday Cinema Summary is back, courtesy of James Bryan... This week Ridley Scott makes a bid to join the hallowed greats of gangster films with American Gangster, the naked pixelated form of Angelina Jolie drips in gold in Beowulf and Brick Lane gets the film treatment. American Gangster seems to have all the ingredients of an instant classic, even the title smacks of definitive greatness. Throw in the setting of......

As befits a truly global capital, London has established itself as a hub in the important international trade of tourist-attracting human reproductions, importing Chinese warriors and exporting waxwork celebrities. While the first crowds were taking a gander at 20 members of the Emperor Ying’s terracotta court at the British Museum, 51 waxworks produced by Madame Tussauds arrived in Washington DC, naked and apparently ready to party. The likes of Beyonce, George Clooney, Tom Cruise......

Hollywood hunk Vince Vaughn will grace the stage at The Old Vic this Sunday, 8th October, as part of The 24 Hour Plays Benefit. "In collaboration with six writers and six directors, the actors will create and stage new works in just one day". Starting out in 1995 as "an opportunity to bring together a community of creative people in a time-limited experiment", The 24 Hour Plays "recently teamed with Planet Impact, a philanthropic......

Whether you like it or not, the film release everyone's talking about this week is Mr & Mrs Smith. We don't really need to explain why do we? Unless you've been on Mars for the past month you can't have missed the Brad/Angelina gossip that's been doing the rounds, but full marks to Pete Bradshaw (again) who sums up the whole debacle rather nicely in the opening paragraph of his two star review: They......

Despite them not having a relationship of any kind, it seems Brad Pitt is looking to move to London to be nearer weirdo goth home wrecker, Angelina Jolie. According to rumours Pitt has "instructed estate agents to start searching posh parts of west London" which gives him "a convenient half-hour drive from Angelina's Buckinghamshire mansion" (let's hope Brad doens't receive a 'booty call' during rush hour otherwise it's going to take him a hell......