Tis the season to protest for fair pay. First tube cleaners, then council staff. Last night, waiting staff at Italian chain Carluccios, supported by community group London Citizens joined the call for a living wage. Diners at the Canary Wharf branch were interrupted at their pasta as protestors hoiked up a banner outside the E14 restaurant about their dubious wage terms. As the Independent reports: The company claims that, as a result, waiters are......

Our weekly roundup of film reviews returns, courtesy of James Bryan… This week, Stallone takes us back to a simpler age in Rambo, Jack Black goes pretend low budget in Be Kind Rewind, Bono gets his ego blasted out in 3D in U2-3D and Norah Jones stops singing to make her acting debut in My Blueberry Nights. What option does a faded Eighties action hero really have other than one last trip to his......

Our weekly roundup of film reviews returns, courtesy of James Bryan… Ladies and Gentleman, this is a once in a lifetime event, a week of movies the like of which we may never see again with hardened critics graciously bestowing stars upon worthy films. Let’s not even introduce them; let’s go straight to the reviews. Feel the critical love wash over you. We have to start with There Will Be Blood, a new film......

Our weekly roundup of film reviews returns, courtesy of James Bryan… No box-office devouring monsters this week but some quality produce that’s worth seeking out – mainly Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead and the Romanian film, 4 months, 3 weeks & 2 days. We’ve also got Hanks and Roberts in Charlie Wilson’s War and Steve Carell in Dan in Real Life. Let’s start with Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, a small-scale movie......

Tell us something we don't know! At last, here's the third-party (well, ish) endorsement for us as the best city on the planet. Deep down we all knew this anyway, but it's nice to be told it. The Independent carried out a huge survey over months that looked at everything from culture and finance through to population, tourism and transport. They published the results (and a heap of commentary) on their front page, just......

31. Phantom Assailants: Part Three The last two episodes of the Strangeness have concentrated on bizarre and elusive individuals who have slashed their way into folklore. This third instalment in the mini-series continues the thread except that the victims have been domestic cats! 1998 was a very grisly year throughout the city with regards to frequent mysterious moggie murders, by way of decapitation and tail removal. Forty cats had turned up in eight months......

Our weekly roundup of film reviews continues, courtesy of James Bryan… This week, Bee Movie, Enchanted, We Own The Night, Youth Without Youth, Mr Magorium’s Wonder Emporium and It’s A Wonderful Life. And if you’re too busy to even read a review of reviews then just go and see the masterpiece that is It’s A Wonderful Life. Simple as that. Since the last episode of the Greatest Sitcom Ever™ nine years ago, Jerry Seinfeld......

Our weekly roundup of film reviews continues, courtesy of James Bryan… This week Brad Pitt’s latest (with a title so long it shouldn’t be allowed) The Assassination of Jesse James etc, the alternate realities of The Nines, Vince Vaughn slumming it in Fred Claus, the video game adaptation Hitman, Kenneth Branagh directs The Magic Flute and a re-release for the classic All About Eve. If you get annoyed with trailers that give the plot......

Our weekly roundup of film reviews continues, courtesy of James Bryan… This week Michael Caine and Jude Law give it some Pinter in Sleuth, Wes Anderson delivers his latest quirky offering in The Darjeeling Limited, Christian Bale eats maggots in Rescue Dawn and Blade Runner gets polished up in a new release. Sleuth should be a masterpiece, a quartet of talent coming together to intimidate us all into how it’s done. We’ve got national......

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......

Fresh Next Week John Lanchester's third novel Family Romance is the story of an extraordinary family - from his grandparents’ beginnings in rural Ireland and colonial Rhodesia, through his father’s wartime separation from his parents and his mother’s tragic first love, her decision to become a nun and her adoption of a new identity. Next Wednesday, 7pm, £6, The London Review Bookshop, 14 Bury Place, WC1A 2JL, 020 7269 9030. Givin’ ‘em away: Tomorrow......

This week - The East German Stasi listen in on a writer's life (The Lives Of Others) and Disney rape our minds (Wild Hogs). First up, The Lives Of Others, a film written and directed by a man called Florian Maria Georg Christian Graf Henckel von Donnersmarck. It won the Oscar for best foreign language film this year for that name alone. It beat Pan's Labyrinth to the prize, a film that we thought......

The Independent is excited about one of our icons getting an upgrade: the new black cab is green. The TX4 matches the new Euro IV emissions standards for the European Union that do not come into force until 2007. It is also ahead of the game in terms of emissions standards set by Ken Livingstone and Transport for London. It can also take 5 per cent of its fuel in the form of biodiesel......

Crazy story in The Independent today: A former British National Party election candidate who stockpiled explosive chemicals for use in an anticipated civil war in Britain boasted that he would shoot Tony Blair... Police raided the home of Robert Cottage, who held "strong views on immigration", and found 21 types of chemicals which could create explosives when mixed together, along with a 300-page computer document called the "Anarchy Cookbook", which detailed how to make......

And we live by the river. Latest climate change news: We're fucked: Scientists have issued dire warnings about the threat from climate change, predicting average world temperatures will rise by around three degrees by the end of the century, with devastating consequences. In the UK, rising sea levels could potentially cause huge damage to low-lying areas, including London and coastal and river areas. It's not all doom and gloom though. The Independent this morning......

The Independent reports that the fashion sense of six men now on trial for conspiracy to commit murder on London transport in July 2005 had been frequently observed by police on several occasions. This week's court proceedings show that the apparel of the men was carefully analyzed by Scotland Yard. Scotland Yard began their "fashion study" by secretly photographing a camping trip taken by the men to the Lake District in May 2004. The......

Professor Fernandez-Armesto, professor of global environmental history at Queen Mary, University of London, and a member of Oxford University's modern history faculty explains how he ended up in the back of a "paddy wagon" after having his legs kicked out from under him by a police officer in Atlanta for jaywalking: Further coverage with arrest scene photo and more video: History News Network. Arrested, cuffed and jailed, the don caught jaywalking: The Independent.......

The radioactive saga continues with news bouncing all over the Internet this evening, but none of it seeming to get us any closer to who done it. One person not spilling his guts (this side of Christmas at least) is Litvinenko himself according to the Russian News & Information Agency: The autopsy results of Russian security service defector Alexander Litvinenko cannot be expected before Christmas Will an autopsy help to explain how the radioactive......

The Independent Online has a loved-up profile of Pete Doherty. His PR people must be on red alert, as yesterday the Daily Mail’s A.N. Wilson was blaming him and Kate Moss for the murders of the five women in Suffolk. It was an unusually reasonable piece to begin with, asking why the media don’t discuss the womens’ drug use, and then Wilson loses it by going into frothy-mouth mode. Nick Hasted's profile chronicles Doherty’s......

One of Londonist's reads of the year, The Meaning of Night (partly set in Victorian London), is up for the prestigious Costa Award (formerly the Whitbread Award, and nothing to do with TMON being hot, satisfying, available on every high street but spectacularly over-priced). Author Michael Cox, who we interviewed earlier this year, has pulled through all manner of medical calamities to reach this point, as he describes in The Independent. I'm 58, a......

This week: a treat for Christmas as Tim Burton's animated masterpiece goes 3D (Nightmare Before Christmas 3D), a Soviet agent starts questioning his life in London's Swinging Sixties (Joy Division) and a philosophising serial killer paints canvases with his victims' blood (Antibodies). As that big tinselly jelly-bellied day creeps slyly upon us a special treat is in store for fans of 1993's excellent Nightmare Before Christmas. Wendy Ide hails it as "a terrific Christmas movie......

New to our screens this week: Gilliam goes gothic (Tideland), Jack Black is back yet again (Nacho Libre) and Halloween animation for the whole family (Monster House). Starring Jodelle Ferland, Jeff Bridges and Jennifer Tilly, new Terry Gilliam film, Tideland, has the critics in disagreement. "A shapeless, overbearing muddle of Gothic stylings and wigged-out performances" proclaims Anthony Quinn in The Independent. The film follows a small child as she is orphaned by the death of......

This week – fantasy pinup finds happiness in soft porn (The Notorious Bettie Page), a small screen classic gets a Hollywood makeover (Miami Vice) and the American oil industry crushes its rivals (Who Killed The Electric Car? ). Brought to us by Mary Harron (I Shot Andy Warhol, American Psycho), first up is The Notorious Bettie Page. As Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian sets out, “50s nude pin-up queen Bettie Page is the subject of......

One of our species is missing. The humble house sparrow has been practically absent from the streets of central London for some years now. And nobody really knows why. The Independent wants an answer. Badly. Five years ago they offered a £5000 reward for a scientific explanation of the disappearance. It has, so far, gone unclaimed. We’ve been trying to put together a case against the Estate of Cock Robin, on suspicion of mass......

This week, we have a film about Irish Republicanism (The Wind That Shakes The Barley), a nonsensical thriller with Demi Moore (Half Light) and a movie about true-life legend of patriot fighter-hero, Huo Yuanjia (Fearless). First up, The Wind That Shakes The Barley, a film that won director Ken Loach the Palme d'Or at this year's Cannes film festival. As discussed at the end of last week's Friday Film News, there has been a......

It may seem like a distant memory for many Londoners but for those directly affected, the events of the 7 July bombings are still as fresh as ever. For this reason, the publication of two major official inquiries into the bombings could prove just a little disappointing as reports have suggested they will be incomplete, due to sensitivity and legal constrains. A report by the Commons Intelligence and Security Committee will investigate whether there was......

The Independent has a small preview of the East End Film Festival which starts tomorrow: The festival opens with Richard E Grant, director-in-residence, introducing his own directorial debut Wah-Wah - a family drama inspired by his experiences of growing up in the Sixties, starring Gabriel Byrne, Emily Watson and Julie Walters. Other highlights include the Palme d'Or-nominated Election, a Hong Kong Triad thriller starring Tony Leung; It's Nice up North, in which the comedian......

This week: Syriana, Kidulthood, and The Matador. Plus a scoop of film news and two Trailers of the Week. We'd have figured after the advance attack of Good Night and Good Luck that George Clooney's other political stab, Syriana, would have been a shoo in for film of the week, but alas no. For Peter Bradshaw the film can't be taken seriously because of the bad guy Arab torturing the good guy American scene:......

When Oyster cards were first introduced there was an initial, not unsurprising, concern over privacy issues. Some people just didn't want their every movement logged by London Transport, even if it meant slightly cheaper journeys. In recent days however those fears have taken on a slightly different twist, with private detectives and lawyers beginning to report that suspicious husbands and wives are accessing the information to track their partner's whereabouts. The Independent recently called......

With all the depressing Wembely news going round at the moment, maybe it's time to concentrate on a more uplifting development story. The Independent reports today that, after a year of delays, the BFI is to resume work on turning the redundant Museum of the Moving Image into a revamped home for the National Film Theatre which will include "a 'mediatheque' where visitors can view archive material, a digital cinema for up to 36......