Space is a cruel mistress. And also frigid, which doesn’t exactly make it ideal mistress material in the first place. But as a canvas for cinematic exploits, there is none so grand or mysterious.

The 2012 summer release schedule is surprisingly well stocked with films involving intergalactic elements, but operating in this genre is no guarantee of success. It is a double edged sword. Or a twin beamed light sabre.

There are two main types of movies that concern the great unknown. The first involves humans in a passive role, sitting on our gaily spinning verdant rock as we allow an alien influence to visit us. The second sees our species actively setting out into space, seeking adventure from aboard craft which are invariably speckled with arbitrarily designed carbuncles and laced with wheezing, neon-lit corridors. I find this latter category far more compelling, for obvious reasons.

Last month saw the release of a little French-funded space film called Lockout. It features Guy Pearce hilariously miscast in the role of Agent Snow, a kind of 1980s action hard-ass caught in a near-future dystopia. The convenient thing about setting something on a space prison, as is the case in this derivative but not un-fun movie, is that you can create a believable sense of place without a particularly massive budget.

Movies like Sunshine and, to a less affordable extent, Event Horizon have followed this model effectively. The horror of being stuck in a sealed tin can where aliens are as much a threat as other human beings makes these movies popular and is something that Prometheus is expected to replicated on a somewhat larger scale next month. I’m assuming it’s going to be pretty similar to Jason X.

On the other hand Men in Black III, which is out this week, will follow in the footsteps of its predecessors and sit stubbornly in the passive fraternity of extra terrestrial flicks. It’s plot will focus on Will Smith going back in time to the 1960s and involving himself in a romp with some aliens that won’t scare the kids. While the original was inventively dark, the lame dud of a 2002 sequel does not bode well for the third outing.

The producers of Men in Black III are probably concerned that aliens were the subject of the biggest flop of 2012. The dismal performance of Disney’s John Carter, which barely scraped past its $250 million production budget at the global box office, was seen as an indication by many that at least some areas of the galaxy contain financial kryptonite.

The problem may be that space is most effective when employed to evoke fear in the audience, either through the threat of alien invasion or via the cabin fever generated in the claustrophobic confines of a hulking space craft. As soon as you give an alien a wacky Brooklyn accent, or try to make exploration a noble and knowable cause, the magic dissipates. Essentially I want extra terror with my extra terrestrials.

The Made in Britain series will include screenings of films such as The Plague Of The Zombies, Hobson’s Choice, The Man Who Fell To Earth and Passport To Pimlico which will all be screened at a number of London cinemas.

Among those taking part in the season, which runs between 5th June – 3rd July, are the Ritzy cinema, Stratford Picturehouse, Clapham Picturehouse, the Cineworld Haymarket and the Hackney Picturehouse.

Wondering what film to see? We’ve stuck a couple of the trailers for you below to check out so that you can make your decision.

Book your tickets here.

The Romeo and Juliet/Moulin Rouge director has taken on the mammouth task of reinventing the classic novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald and if this trailer is anything to go by he’s done a great job.

Luhrmann is the king of the film adaption with both Romeo and Juliet and Moulin Rouge blowing audiences and film critics away and it looks like he’s set to follow suit with his take on The Great Gatsby.

Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Carey Mulligan, Tobey Maguire, Isla Fisher and Joel Edgerton the film isn’t due to be released until December but no doubt this first trailer will be the start of a barrage of clips, images and extended previews.

With just a week to go until we get to see Kristen Stewart as Snow White, Chris Hemsworth as the Huntsman and Charlize Theron as the evil Queen this new trailer has been released and it’s pretty clever.

All you have to do is click play and hover your mouse over the screen. Things will pop up and if you’re interested in them just click and the video will change paths to reflect your options.

Snow White and the Huntsman is released on 30th May and will be well worth seeing if you want to see an original, high action take on the standard Disney fairytale.

Doherty is about to star in Confession of a Child of the Century, a film that also stars Lily Cole and Charlotte Gainsbourg, as a romantic young man who becomes depressed when he finds out that his mistress is cheating on him.

While Doherty has become best known for his partying, feuds and drug taking here in the UK over in France, where the film is set and filmed, he’s become the object of affection for many fans who see him as a bit of a Byron-esq lost soul. However it seems that he’s not been such a hit with review critics.

Doherty’s performance in Confession of a Child of the Century has been slammed as ‘shambling amateurisim’ by The Guardian while Hollywood Reporter said that they can’t remember a time when an actor looked more ‘uncomfortable on screen’.

We’ve watched the trailer and it looks like the critics are right. In the trailer (which you can watch here) Doherty comes across as wooden, rushing through his lines and keeping one look cemented on his face the whole time. There isn’t much emotion and it’s very obvious that this is his first acting attempt.

You can pass judgement for yourself when the film is released in June.

It can be tough to find decent female role models in mainstream action movies. Women are often sidelined by male-oriented narratives in which they are there to be lusted after and rescued, or else stifle masculinity. But with Snow White and the Huntsman releasing in a couple of weeks and Kristen Stewart about to earn her first real action badge in the title role, it’s worth looking back at some other female characters that can pummel posterior without being patronised.

10) Mallory Knox – Natural Born Killers
Unhinged and into doing a few murders, Juliette Lewis’ southern slur and warped view of the world helps Mallory Knox to throw off the shy and wholesome traits that usually shackle female characters to the same post in most movies.

9) Mathilda Lando – Léon
The first of two fairly bad-ass prepubescent girls in this list, Natalie Portman’s vengeful tyke gets an education in calculated violence via Jean Reno’s eponymous ‘cleaner’.

8 ) Buffy Summers - Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Whatever you think about Joss Wheadon, you’ve got to respect him for his ability to create female characters that don’t just sit there looking pretty. While the original movie that preceded the TV show is incredibly lo-fi, its stake-wielding heroine still has much of her attitude.

7) Hanna – Hanna
Imagine if Bear Grylls was a little blond girl who murders people and you’ve pretty much pinned down Saroise Ronan’s likely lass Hana.

6) Princess Leia – Star Wars
Famous and unnecessary bikini shots aside, Carrie Fisher’s feisty space monarch isn’t afraid to get out her blaster and bulls-eye a few womp rats with Luke and the lads.

5) Hit Girl – Kick Ass
Chloe Mortez, who is younger than Justin Bieber and the internet, made a name for herself as this death dealing pre-tween assassin.

4) Alice – Resident Evil
This is part of one of those rare franchises that makes more money with each release. And it would be nothing without Milla Jovovich’s Alice. The first movie is still charmingly rubbish, but the more recent 3D adventure is definitely worth examining if you want violent zombie action with multiple female protagonists.

3) Mallory Kane – Haywire
Much more than Bourne with a Womb™, this secret agent role embodied by Gina Carano has guts and brains in equal measure. The fact that she actively engages with Channing Tatum’s character as if he is a ripe sex apple ready to be plucked from the consensual shag tree is a delightful reversal of the traditional gender roles in action films.

2) Katniss Everdeen – The Hunger Games
Katniss, played by Jennifer Lawrence, is handy with a bow and unwilling to involve herself in typical teenage love games (at least not as an object to be fought over by, oh I don’t know, some supernatural emobeasts). Although only one film into the franchise, she has already established herself as an action-oriented character with much more going on underneath the surface.

1) Holly Gennero/McClane – Die Hard
What’s that I hear you cry? Holly McClane, played by Bonnie Bedelia, isn’t really an action character as she just happens to be a wife in an action film? You are gloriously incorrect. Firstly, she’s a career woman who won’t bow down to the stubbornness of her husband. Secondly, she outwits terrorists without shedding a tear. Thirdly, she punches a reporter at the end of the first movie. Fourthly, she tases the same reporter while on a plane in the second. Fifthly, she persists in not taking shit from John McClane in subsequent films even when she’s not onscreen. Sixthly, she uses her maiden name. Holly is a bad ass.

That’s right, the Queen of Hoxton’s Rooftop Film Club has returned for another summer and tomorrow they’re screening the acclaimed 2012 film The Troll Hunter up on their roof.

The Troll Hunter tells the story of a group of students who along with a camera man decide to investigate what has happened to a bunch of bears that have been turning up dead in Norway. With the help of a secret troll hunter who is working for the government they soon discover that a group of rather scary looking trolls are on the loose.

Tickets for the screening cost £10 and if you’re still debating whether it’s worth going or not you can check out the trailer for the film above.

Literally everything we’ve seen from Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight rises has blown us a way and we really believe it’s going to be the coolest film of 2012, especially now we’ve seen this new poster for the film.

Batman is seen in the poster standing beneath a Bat signal shaped whole in the New York skyline which is filled with a raging fire. The poster also boasts the tag line ‘A Fire Will Rise’ adding to our ever growing excitement for the films release on 20th July.

As you may already know this time around Batman is going to be fighting against the evil Bane who along with his army are planning a series of terrorist attacks on the world. As you’ll have seen in the first trailer just one of his many attacks includes blowing up an American football stadium full of fans and players and it’s up to Batman to try and put an end to it.

As the poster correctly states ‘The Legend Ends’ with this film as it is the last in Nolan’s series of films inspired by the iconic comic book character so we suggest you get yourself to see it the minute it’s released. We doubt it’ll disappoint.

The film has been shrouded in a fair amount of negative press with not one but five of the original cast members – including Sacha Baron Cohen, Jonah Hill, Kevin Costner, Kurt Russell and Joseph Gordon-Levitt – leaving the film during filming. While many of the actors sited scheduling clashes for their reason for departure it is widely believed that the films controversial subject matter and violent content was what drove the actors away.

Just yesterday audiences at Cannes Film Festival were shown some footage from Django Unchained and the first batch of reaction views are already appearing online. So what did the critics think?

As you’d expect from any Tarantino film it’s hugely bloody and gore but by all accounts the footage that the reviewers saw was no more violent than any of the directors other films to date.

Despite the fact some big names have dropped out of the film, the remaining cast – particularly Jamie Foxx and Leonardo DiCaprio – shine in their roles. Foxx plays Django a slave who seeks revenge on his former owner while DiCaprio takes on the role of the evil owner who takes pleasure in making his slaves compete in gladiator style events.

The language in the film has been something that has raised eyebrows with the n-word cropping up regularly throughout the film however considering that it’s set in the deep south before the civil war that is hardly surprising.

So there you have it. It seems that Tarantino is delivering yet another gritty, bloody and controversial film but it doesn’t sound like it’s anything out of the ordinary for him. Perhaps all those actors really did have scheduling clashes after all…

Django Unchained is released on 18th January.

Image: Entertainment Weekly

Starring Tom Hardy, Shia LaBeouf and Guy Pearce Lawless tells the story of three brothers during the depression-era in America. Based on the real story of the Bondurant brothers the story centres around the lawless three who’s underhanded criminal activity is put under threat when a new cop comes to town.

We got the first trailer for Lawless a month ago and since then things have gone a bit quiet but now it’s had such a good reaction at Cannes the films makers are keen for the rest of us to see a bit more.

Check out the clips below and see the whole film in full when it’s released on 31st August.