Five London restaurants have newly received fabled Michelin stars in the latest edition of Michelin’s guide to good eating. No restaurants were awarded two or three stars, the marks of truly exceptional restaurants. So where should you take your date for a dinner that really captures the zeitgeist of London fine dining? The new star-boasters are Hibiscus, La Trompette, Quilon, Rhodes W1 and Wild Honey. We’re sure these restaurant are immensely chuffed but, at......

This week - A CCTV-tinged thriller set in Glasgow, (Red Road) and a rom-com with Crowe, (A Good Year). First up, Red Road. Bradshaw likes this one! (4/5) It is a film that is part of a three-way project called Advance Party devised jointly between Glasgow's Sigma Films and Denmark's Zentropa Studios. Andrea Arnold, Morag McKinnon, and Denmark's Mikkel Norgaard were reportedly each given the same set of characters and are to create a......

This week - Scorsese remakes Hong Kong thriller Infernal Affairs (The Departed) and conjoined twins become a punk band, (Brothers of the Head) First up, The Departed by director Martin Scorsese. If you're the kind of person who believes the proclaimations of a certain man salaried by the Guardian, Mr. Peter Bradshaw (and we are), it looks as if this might be the film to see this week. He has not a bad word......

Last week an unfortunate combination of holidays and illness thwarted our well-laid plans to bring you the Friday Film News come rain or shine. Sorry about that. But fear not, the FFN is back to something approaching normality this week as we check out Owen Wilson’s latest lightweight comedy (You Me and Dupree), an Australian drama (Look Both Ways) and a hard-to-categorise-but-ultimately-heart-warming ghost-story (Volver). First up, You Me and Dupree – a trademark Owen......

This week - CGI cars populate the earth (Cars), stylist sci-fi thriller set in Paris 2054 (Renaissance) and a computer game becomes deadly (Stay Alive) First up, Cars from Pixar, makers of Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Toy Story etc. etc. However, where Pixar's previous efforts have been recieved well by the critics, Cars dissapoints. Bradshaw in the Guardian awards it three stars writing that Cars "just doesn't have much in the tank." As expected,......

This week - A swashbuckling adventure sequel (Pirates of the Caribbean 2 : Dead Man's Chest), a futuristic crime movie featuring 'le parkour' (District 13) and a Beastie Boys concert film with a hilarious title (Awesome; I Fuckin' Shot That!) First up, Pirates of the Caribbean 2 : Dead Man's Chest. The Guardian, Times and Independent all award it three stars. It is individual performances that lift this film. Of course, the wonderful Johnny......

This week's films share the common theme of having pissed off the leaders of the countries in which they were made. Offside has been banned in Iran (well, what hasn't been?) and Secuestro Express has but a bee in the bonnet of everyone's favourite smiling authoritarian leader, Hugo Chavez. We can't confirm whether RV has annoyed GW but judging by the reviews, it's not very good. Mind you, we don't suppose GW's favourite films......

Have you worked out Peter Bradshaw's hidden code yet? In his review of The Da Vinci Code in today's Guardian, Bradders wraps up his rather disturbing critique of the Ron Howard conspiracy flick with this even more disturbing revelation: Well, every decoding is another encoding, as the structuralists used to say, and here is a paragraph by Leonardo about cryptography I have discovered in the British Library... We then get a lengthy passage about......

Dum dum dum, dum dum dum. Dum dum dum, dum dum dum... ...Doodle-oo, doodle-oo, doodle-oo. DADUM! Lalo Schifrin has nothing on us! What do you mean you didn't recognise that as the Mission:Impossible theme? It's not our fault that the internet is unable to translate our unique phonetic musical notation. Just deal with it ok! Let's try some algebra instead: TC + PSH + JJ = M:I III. And if you're Rob Hanks writing......

This week: 16 Blocks, Metal: a Headbanger's Journey and Slither. Plus all the usual gossip and Trailer of the Week. In the last FFN we complained a lot about the fact that that there were no decent films on release. So what do we go and do today? We take one look at the best-reviewed film of the week and decide we're going to ignore it. Enron: The Smartest Guy in the Room is......

This week: Good Night and Good luck, Casanova, Aeon Flux and all the film news and rumours (plus, Trailer of the Week). You've already heard what we at Londonist have to say about Good Night and Good Luck (which we're going to call GNaGL from here on in) so what do the broadsheet hacks make of Clooney's big Oscar hopeful? To start us off it's three stars from Pete Bradshaw in the Guardian, who......

This week: Walk the Line, Grizzly Man and Derailed plus the week's film news and gossip. The first two month's of 2006 have seen almost an embarrassment of riches as far as cinematic offerings are concerned... and it's pissing us off. When are we supposed to find the time to go and see all these supposedly 'unmissable' films exactly? We have a website to update you know! Anyway, ther'es another two outstanding releases this......

This week: Munich, Hidden, and The New World plus film news and gossip. It seems that this week is a good week to go to the pictures, but we're going to start off with one of the least raved about films of the week, Munich, just because it's Speilberg and even though people don't seem to like it a lot they still have much to say about it. Munich gets its best review from......

This week: A Cock and Bull Story, Shopgirl, and Get Rich or Die Tryin' plus film news and gossip. Our very own reviewer has already tangled with A Cock and Bull Story but will the broadsheet reviewers agree with our positively glowing review of Michael Winterbottom's post-postmodern literary adaptation? Well, on the whole, yes they do. James Christopher in The Times is the most generous critic with a four star review, calling the film......

Ever since Londonist heard that the Young Vic was planning to stage the famous boy reporter's quest to save his friend Chang from the perilous slopes of the Himalayas we've been willing them to get it right. It was a huge task even for a director with the pedigree of Rufus Norris, so it was with some trepidation that we scanned the broadsheets for the first reviews over the weekend. As far as Kate......

All we wanted from the broadsheet reviews this week was to be told that Flightplan is a great film. To be honest, we're going to see it over the weekend whatever the critics say, because even though we know the plot will be ludicrous and it will boil down to Panic Roon on a Plane, we just fancy a bit of high-concept nonsense. But question is: will it be good high-concept nonsense? Well you'd......

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is quite obviously the big release of the week, only this time round it's all dark and scary stuff as our hero makes the journey into adolescence and... God help us, haven't we had all this stuff already with Spiderman and Star Wars? Oh well, let's see what the broadsheets make of it. In fact the broadsheet reviews are just as predictable and middle-of-the-road as the Potter......

If you picked up a copy of Time Out this week you may have seen that Londonist was featured as their 'London Website of the Week' (there's a slightly wobbly scan of the page here). Overall the write up was very flattering ("excellent...well-written...really rather funny") but the magazine did mention that they were "rather miffed" because we didn't feature their film reviews in the Friday Film News, and we set "far too much weight" on......

This week: Tim Burton's Corpse Bride, Broken Flowers and Into The Blue. Kicking off this week then with more half-term, stop-animation goodness in the form of Tim Burton's Corpse Bride The film gets three stars from Pete Bradhsaw who thinks it will be "best be enjoyed by tweenie goths, who will want to turn out for it out in full costume on Halloween night before getting into the real business of annoying the neighbours......

This week: Wallace & Gromit, Lord of War, Domino. Well, there's not much doubt what this week's most interesting release is: Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. And despite having the best tagline of any film so far this year (Something wicked this way hops) WAGTCOTWR (as we're going to stubbornly refer to it from here on in) also get an incredibly rare five stars from the Grim Reviewer himself: Pete Bradshaw.......

First up in the film reviews this week is The Aristocrats, which starts off reasonably well by picking up three stars in the Times. At just two paragraphs Wendy Ide's review of this documentary about a legendary in-joke amongst comedians is probably shorter than the joke itelf, but she seems to like it, calling the film "a fascinating insight into a close circle". By the time we get to Anthony Quinn in the Independent......

The Wedding Crashers is the latest from the new 'brat pack' of Hollywood (consisting of "Vince Vaughn, Jon Favreau, the Wilson brothers, Ben Stiller and Will Ferrel" if you believe Peter Bradshaw in the Guardian). Bradshaw himself gives the film just two stars, calling it a "very incorrect but patchy and cynical high-concept item". Bradshaw also thinks the introductory montage scene is waaaaay too long: "I don't think I have ever seen a picture in......

Another week, another blockbuster. This time it's Cruise, Spielberg and the aliens in War of the Worlds and the critics just can't seem to agree on whether it's any good or not. At the top end of the scale, you've got Jim Christopher in The Times and his four star review. How refreshing to see Spielberg rock the boat with nothing more shocking than pure old-fashioned fear. He prises the story away from kick-ass......

A few weeks ago we encouraged you to book tickets to see Frida Kahlo’s exhibition at the Tate Modern . Londonist hasn’t had an opportunity to wander down the South Bank yet, which this weekend we blame solely on the horrendously hot and suffocating weather, but being the good Samaritans we are at Londonist, we are compiling the thoughts of art critics from around the UK. Rachel Campbell-Johnston at The Times remarked that there......

Well we've already seen what Londonist thinks about Batman Begins, so now it's time to see what the broadsheets think. "The ultimate hoodie is back," says Pete Bradshaw in the Guardian. Weirdly though, Bradders doesn’t seem to know how to review a Batman film - there are seven (yes, seven) paragraphs of plot description in his review, and that's seven more than we'd like and isn't what we've come to expect from good old......

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......

The first film up for review this week is Danny Boyle's Millions, which we've already covered in our own review back when the Raindance Festival was on. Back then, our reviewer called it "the perfect antidote to vapid British-set movies", so do the broadsheets agree? Well, it looks like Peter Bradshaw does, as he gives Boyle's 'family movie' three stars. "If the Children's Film Foundation put together a version of Shallow Grave it might......

We covered the Hitchhikers Guide To the Galaxy a bit in last week's Friday Film news, but it's worth revisiting briefly this week if only because it seems to be dividng the critics a little. Over in the Independent the adaptation receives just the one star from Anthony Quinn, who complains, "Seldom have I sat through a high-profile comedy that has generated so little laughter - even nervous laughter." Oh dear - so what......

The big movie release this week is the much-anticipated Hitchhiker's Guide To the Galaxy, but it seems that only the Guardian have got round to reviewing it. We're assuming this is because the film's got a London-only release for now and goes nationwide next week. To be honest, we're going to see it no matter what the critics say...but for the sake of consistency: Peter Bradshaw give the sci-fi adaptation three stars, calling it......

This week, if you're thinking of going to the pictures you've got a choice between a crazed asssassin in Washington, gun crime in Hackney...and Matthew McConaughey taking his shirt off in the desert. At least you can't complain that the choice isn't 'varied'. So first up: The Assassination of Richard Nixon. In the Guardian, Peter Bradshaw likes this one but not enough to give it more than the 'industry standard' three stars. "Sean Penn......