While examining the world's biggest catalogue of the ring galaxies ever compiled, she noticed one that was heart shaped.

It was originally observed by users of the online survey tool called Galaxy Zoo who classed it as a ring galaxy.

When Georgia saw it she realised that it wasn't just a normal galaxy and was actually something very unusual indeed.

It's the first time a heart shaped galaxy like this has been seen, and there is currently no explanation for how it formed.

It is thought that it could possibly be the result of a collision of two ring galaxies. Galaxy Zoo users have been asked to offer their own explanations.

To understand what you are looking at when you see the picture of the heart shaped galaxy it is helpful to know that here on the Earth we are in a spiral galaxy called the Milky Way and there are millions and millions of galaxies in the Universe.

Georgia has calculated that this galaxy is about 600 million light years from Earth.

Ring galaxies like the heart shaped one normally consist of millions of stars grouped together in a big circle usually with a group of stars forming a cluster in the centre.

But working out exactly how they are created is very complicated as Georgia explains: "It's very difficult indeed but we get a lot of information from the telescope in terms of exactly how far away it is, exactly how big it is, exactly how bright it is so from that you can try and work out exactly how it might have been formed."

You can help take part in this work by joining the Galaxy Zoo website. It is the brain child of Georgia's supervisor; "The Sky at Night" presenter Dr Chris Lintott.

By helping to analyse data on the website from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, a robotic telescope in Mexico, you could perhaps find the next oddly shaped galaxy or work out how this one formed.

Original source

Leap Year may swing round every four years, but romcoms where a haughty control freakette gets a lesson in romantic humility from a scruffily handsome blue-collar boor seem to fire up around here as regularly as the one o'clock gun. Amy Adams plays a materialistic go-getter who decides to surprise her officious prig of a boyfriend by flying to Dublin and proposing to him on 29 February. Blown off-course, she ends up in an "oirish" backwater in need of a lift, and the only man in Eire with a car appears to be Matthew Goode.

From here on their itinerary will include bickering, a woman falling over a lot, a drunk scene and much, much less. Our stars take three days to make the four-hour journey from Dingle to Dublin, but time hangs so heavy it feels like four years.

By SIOBHAN SYNNOT

John Travolta lets entertainingly loose as a bald-headed, goateed, gonzo CIA agent with a short fuse in Pierre Morel's "From Paris With Love," an otherwise unsightly heap of nonsense that keeps tripping over its own swagger.

It certainly won't be taken for "Taken," the hit Morel guilty pleasure released a year ago in North America during Super Bowl weekend that effectively reset Liam Neeson in the image of a take-no-prisoners action movie hero.

Although Neeson and Travolta share the same fundamental likability and decency that allows them to take audiences along on uncharacteristic journeys, the former's film had a sturdy emotional underpinning provided by his daughter's kidnapping.

In the absence of a similar involving element here, it's unlikely viewers will show the love this time around, especially with an oddball title that does doesn't exactly sell the hard-hitting goods.

Penned by Adi Hasak from a story by Luc Besson, the film takes a long time to click into gear, with an initial focus on Jonathan Rhys Meyers' character, an upright, uptight personal aide to France's U.S. ambassador (Richard Durden).

Although his James Reese would seem to have it all -- a cool job in Paris with a beautiful French girlfriend (Kasia Smutniak) -- he really aspires to being a bona fide CIA agent.

He's taught a lesson in being careful what one wishes for when he's paired with Travolta's loose-cannon Charlie Wax on an explosive tour of duty through the city's meaner streets.

That, at least, is the film's intention, but the decent distractions prove few and far between that slow setup and a weak payoff.

A lack of give-and-take chemistry between Travolta, in by far the showier role, and Meyers creates a further strain on the stop/start proceedings.

While sporting a swell American accent, Meyers' uneasy character all but retreats into the background alongside Travolta's bad-boy strut.

Combining postcard gloss with backstreet grit, the anticipated action sequences -- if short of pulse-pounding -- efficiently get the job done with reliable asist from DP Michel Abramowicz and editor Frederic Thoraval, who both worked on "Taken."

By Michael Rechtshaffen

Since "Extraordinary Measures," a tremulous medical drama about a father trying to save the lives of his children, is the first feature released by the newly constituted CBS Films, it's all too tempting to describe the piece as a TV movie, reminiscent of those disease-of-the-week affairs that used to clog the tube.

That might be a cheap shot, but unfortunately, it's pretty close to the mark. The movie works on an unsubtle level; you'd have to be stonehearted not to respond to this tale of adorable tots in jeopardy. But it never rises above formula fare. The film has modest boxoffice appeal but will have to overcome mixed reviews.

An opening title informs the audience that the picture is "inspired by a true story," and indeed, John Crowley (Brendan Fraser) was a real person fighting to find a treatment for Pompe disease, a rare genetic disorder related to muscular dystrophy. But the doctor played by Harrison Ford is a composite character, the time frame is drastically compressed and the pharmaceutical company that develops the life-saving enzyme is a fictional conglomeration. Although the reasons for these elisions are understandable, they rob the film of the bite that a more honest record might have had. Producers Michael Shamberg, Stacey Sher and Carla Santos Shamberg have had success with other true-life stories, including "World Trade Center" and "Freedom Writers," though the best of their productions, "Erin Brockovich," was the one that hewed closest to the truth.

When John's daughter Megan (effectively played by Meredith Droeger) almost dies of a respiratory infection, John seeks out reclusive research scientist Robert Stonehill (Ford), and the doctor agrees to join him in the search for a cure. The best thing about the movie is Ford's effortless star performance as the curmudgeonly Stonehill. Although the conception of the eccentric genius doesn't break any new ground, Ford underplays masterfully. Fraser is less successful. Although Stonehill describes Crowley as "ruthless," Fraser refuses to allow us to see that side of the character; instead, he turns twinkly and noble. Keri Russell is likable as Fraser's wife, but her role is stock.

British director Tom Vaughan made a promising feature debut a few years ago with the college drama "Starter for Ten," and he keeps the family scenes from turning unbearably treacly, but he doesn't bring a lot of edge to the film. The script by Robert Nelson Jacobs ("Chocolat") doesn't completely ignore the bottom-line orientation of Big Pharma, but it seems too bland and watered-down.

Cinematography is perfunctory, and the sappy score by Andrea Guerra underscores the formulaic nature of the script. The first half of "Measures" has considerable energy thanks to the editing skills of veteran Anne V. Coates, but then the picture is dragged down by too many turgid confrontations and predictable epiphanies.

By Stephen Farber

Twenty years after "Roger & Me" introduced Michael Moore to the world as a politically engaged documaker with a strong knack for showmanship, "Capitalism: A Love Story" sums up his disgust with corporate America and its devastating effect on the lives of ordinary people.

Ending on the notes of the "Internationale" as Moore theatrically encircles New York banks with crime scene tape, the film launches a call for socialism via a popular uprising against the evils of capitalism and free enterprise. Although it's less focused than "Sicko" or "Fahrenheit 9/11" -- whose boxoffice it should resemble -- because its subject is more abstract, this is a typical Moore oeuvre: funny, often over the top and of dubious documentation, but with strongly made points that leave viewers much to ponder and debate after they walk out of the theater.

Simplifications are Moore's stock-in-trade, and his documentaries are not known for their impeccable research and objectivity. But here his talent is evident in creating two hours of engrossing cinema by contrasting a fast-moving montage of '50s archive images extolling free enterprise with the economic disaster of the present. Given the desperate state of the world economy, this provocative film should find attentive audiences along with many angry detractors who will give it free publicity.

As in his previous films, Moore is himself the chief character, offscreen narrator and investigator. Wearing his inseparable baseball cap and T-shirt, he pretends wide-eyed surprise as his interview subjects recount personal dramas related to America's economic meltdown. These are genuinely moving stories: a couple whose farm is in foreclosure, a family that discovers the father's company has taken out a lucrative insurance policy and earned $5 million on his premature death, tearful workers whose factory is suddenly shut down, commercial airline pilots so underpaid they live on food stamps.

Moore has assembled a collection of nearly unbelievable horror stories to illustrate why capitalism and democracy do not go hand in hand, like a privately owned juvenile correctional facility, which paid the local judge to jail teens for misdemeanors. Even the Catholic Church is marshaled in support of his argument, and Moore finds several priests and a bishop who condemn capitalism as an immoral and incompatible with Jesus and the Bible.

The second half of the film is even more chilling in suggesting, through interviews with a number of worried members of Congress, that the country's $700 billion bailout was legalized bank robbery, a "financial coup d'etat" run through Congress just before elections and engineered principally by Goldman Sachs and Henry Paulson.

Though it blames all political parties, including the Democrats, for caving in with the bailout, the film is careful to spare President Barack Obama, who remains a symbol of hope for justice. His support for the workers who stage a sit-in at their factory is paralleled to Franklin D. Roosevelt's call for a new bill of rights -- never implemented -- guaranteeing universal health care.

By Deborah Young

Jean-Pierre Jeunet is the last silent movie director. Of course, there is sound galore in such films as "Delicatessen," the huge international hit "Amelie," "A Very Long Engagement" and his latest film, "Micmacs." But his comic instincts really do relate to the visual storytelling of Buster Keaton: Wry slapstick gags and chains of fateful events lead a feckless protagonist through the bewildering mysteries of life.

Never more so than in "Micmacs," a comic fable about a gang of misfits that takes on the weapons industry and blows their death machines sky high. With ingenious French comedian Dany Boon ("Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis") as his star, Jeunet should enjoy another worldwide success while Sony Pictures Classics settles for a domestic art house hit.

As Jeunet explains it, "Micmacs" owes much to the Disney cartoon "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." A homeless street performer in Paris named Bazil (Boon) is brought by a scrappy ex-con to a den of salvage artists. In a huge cave in a trash dump, they repair and recycle junk into everything from wind-up toys to objets d'art.

These "dwarfs" with descriptive names are Mama Chow (the cook), Slammer (just out of jail), Elastic Girl (an extraordinary contortionist), Remington (a typist), Buster (broken down), Calculator (a human measuring machine) and, finally, Tiny Pete (a creator of automated sculptures).

Their manufacturing cave already is humming when Bazil arrives, but he brings purpose to their lives. Bazil has been twice victimized by weaponry. He lost his dad as a child to a landmine in Morocco. An accident during a drive-by shooting -- another classic chain of freakish events by Jeunet -- has left Bazil with a bullet lodged in his head that might kill him at any moment.

When he identifies the manufacturers of the landmine and bullet -- in buildings that glare at each other across a narrow street -- he means to exact revenge. The gang joins him.

Every moment in the campaign to set the two death-factory tycoons against each other presents another opportunity for Jeunet mischief.

To break and enter each plant involves ingenious uses for secondhand objects and, often, Elastic Girl (the incredible, rubbery Julie Ferrier). To sabotage the attempts to arm an African terrorist bent on a coup d'etat requires intricate misdirection and uncanny impersonations. To obtain taped "confessions" from the arms industrialists necessitates kidnapping and an elaborate ruse.

The script, written by Jeunet with Guillaume Laurant, is a blueprint for complex cause-and-effect gags of increasing fantasy. In truth, the film is a tad exhausting. Sometimes there can be too much of a good thing.

But Boon holds it all together with gentle clumsiness and improvisational clowning. Dominique Pinon proves a winning facial contortionist as Buster, who means to establish himself in the Guinness Book of World Records in any number of ways.

Omar Sy speaks in only well-worn phrases as Remington. Marie-Julie Baup displays impish charm as the human Calculator, and veteran Jean-Pierre Marielle brings great timing and presence to Slammer. Meanwhile, Andre Dussollier and Nicolas Marie make splendid cartoon villains.

Jeunet relies heavily on contributions from his regular crew (other than cinematographer Tetsuo Nagata). Herve Schneid's lickity-split editing pulls all the Rube Goldberg mechanics together, and Aline Bonetto's design and Alain Carsoux's visual effects imagines a surreal sort of Paris where fantasy can reign supreme.

Along with music by a young composer, Raphael Beau, Jeunet employs scores by the great Max Steiner from old Warner Bros. movies to add romantic swells to the slapstick action.

Then there is Nagata's camera, which seems to do pirouettes in midair and gently glide through a maze of actors and props, buildings and bridges. "Micmacs" re-creates the world as a fantasyland where people behave as animated figures and the landscape is strewn with amazing toys.

By Kirk Honeycutt

Some of you may have noticed some pretty big changes in our restaurant guide. The main restaurant page will have a rotation of articles with foodie themes. Every restaurant in the city now has its own dedicated page containing restaurant-specific things like location maps, address and phone numbers, type of cuisine, and where available, photos, websites, descriptions and reviews. It's easier than ever to leave reviews for restaurants. We hope you like the changes. If you have any suggestions for improvements, feel free to (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). We love feedback.

With awards season looking a little thin this year, a savvy distributor should snap up Michael Hoffman's "The Last Station," which had its world premiere screenings during the weekend at Telluride. Three superb performances by Helen Mirren, Christopher Plummer and James McAvoy should have Oscar handicappers drooling. Although this story of the last days of Leo Tolstoy is specialized material, it packs an emotional wallop that costume pictures often lack. "Station" has the potential to be a substantial art house hit. It also is the high-water mark in Hoffman's 20-year career.

Adapted from Jay Parini's novel, Hoffman's screenplay begins in 1910, when Valentin Bulgakov (McAvoy), an earnest intellectual, is hired as Tolstoy's secretary. When he arrives at the estate of the revered author (Plummer), Valentin finds himself caught in the middle of a power struggle between Tolstoy's wife, Countess Sofya (Mirren), and Vladimir Chertkov (Paul Giamatti), the weaselly leader of the utopian movement that Tolstoy founded. The innocent Valentin is startled by the tempestuous nature of the Tolstoys' 48-year marriage, and he finds his loyalties tested more than once as he tries to navigate the passions -- financial as well as emotional -- that swirl around an author as celebrated as Tolstoy. (By this point, the film makes clear, the aging author of "War and Peace" and "Anna Karenina" was one of the first literary celebrities, with journalists and photographers camping out on his doorstep.)

The picture is far livelier than the standard literary biopic. Welcome bursts of rowdy humor and sensuality punctuate the intrigue. As Valentin begins a romance with a young woman living on Tolstoy's farm, the flush of first love is played as counterpoint to the harder realities of a long-term relationship. "Station" will be remembered as one of the most riveting cinematic portraits of what George Eliot called the "murder" of marriage. The actors bring all the pain and longing to the surface. Mirren can explode with anger at one moment and fall into desperate neediness the next. Because of her eloquent performance, even during Sofya's most operatic tirades, we always feel her abiding love for her husband.

Plummer has been shamefully overlooked by Oscar voters during his four-decade film career. This might finally be the time for the Academy to make amends. He looks remarkably like the familiar photographs of the aging author, and he has the stature to play genius convincingly. But Plummer also captures the great man's frailties with self-deprecating humor. There is one moment when Tolstoy kneels on the ground to bid farewell to his beloved home that is a brilliant example of how much a great actor can convey through sheer physicality.

Playing against these two giants, it's amazing that McAvoy holds his own. The opening scenes showing Valentin awestruck in the presence of his idol represent the height of high comedy. As he comes to recognize his hero's feet of clay, McAvoy's reactions deepen poignantly. This is the actor's best performance to date.

Kerry Condon as his love interest has just the right skeptical, earthy spirit. Anne-Marie Duff as Tolstoy's conflicted daughter also hits emotional high notes. Only Giamatti as the pompous antagonist seems a bit uncomfortable, but maybe that's because his role is the least nuanced in the script.

Technical credits are splendid in this German-Russian co-production. Sebastian Edschmid's handsome cinematography and Patrizia von Brandenstein's impeccable production design add immeasurably to the movie's impact. But more important than the fine craftsmanship is the unabashed emotional power that the film summons in its final scenes. Thanks to the fire of the acting as well as the shrewdness of the writing and direction, there is unlikely to be a dry eye in the house.

By Stephen Farber

Alice Sebold’s acclaimed 2002 best-seller The Lovely Bones gets deluxe treatment in this film adaptation directed by Lord of the Rings maestro Peter Jackson. But an expensive production and dazzling visual effects aren’t the ideal fit for Sebold’s delicate, poignant tale of a murdered teenage girl who observes her family and community from an afterlife where the rules of physics no longer apply. Moviegoers unfamiliar with the book will be more satisfied with Jackson’s treatment of the material than those who know what’s missing.

The early, pre-murder scenes are the best part of the film, because they’re grounded in reality and show a deft touch in portraying the 1970s Pennsylvania home and school life of 14-year-old Susie Salmon (Saoirse Ronan, the Irish Oscar nominee from 2007’s Atonement). Mark Wahlberg and Rachel Weisz play her loving parents, Jack and Abigail; Susan Sarandon is her outrageous alcoholic grandmother; and Rose McIver and Christian Ashdale round out the household as feisty younger sister Lindsey and inquisitive little brother Buckley. At school, Susie has a major crush on Ray Singh (Reece Ritchie), a handsome Indian with whom she almost shares a first kiss.

Cutting through a nearby cornfield on the way home from school, Susie encounters reclusive neighbor George Harvey (Stanley Tucci), who convinces her to take a look at the underground “clubhouse” he’s constructed for the local kids. Jackson spares us the grisly details of what follows; the prelude is creepy and terrifying enough.

Once Susie finds herself in an elaborate, surreal and constantly changing CGI limbo, the script by Jackson and his longtime writing partners Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens loses its potency. The adapters jettison one of the most compelling plot elements in the novel: Jack’s immediate suspicion of eccentric neighbor Harvey, and how it overtakes his life and poisons his relationship with his increasingly fragile wife. Through no fault of Wahlberg or Weisz, their characters, so sympathetic in the book, seem like an afterthought in Jackson’s retelling.

Instead, Jackson seems more interested in the point-of-view of the killer and generating suspense from the possible discovery of his nefarious deeds. Tucci, so warm and delightful as Julia Child’s husband in this summer’s Julie & Julia, is chillingly effective (and nearly unrecognizable with his glasses, moustache and blondish hair) as the quietly calculating serial murderer. Jackson does bring Hitchcock-like tension to the scene, straight out of the book, in which Lindsey breaks into Harvey’s house in search of evidence against him.

But ultimately, Jackson has streamlined much of the heart and soul from Sebold’s vivid gallery of characters, instead opting for admittedly impressive but overdone fantasy panoramas, and broad vignettes like Grandma’s comic attempts to take over the household chores.

Luckily, the film has the gifted Ronan at its center to offer compensation. With her red hair, piercing blue eyes and lilting voice, this young actress makes a highly appealing guide to the strange, mournful yet life-affirming celestial journey of Susie Salmon. If only the rest of Susie’s family had been as indelibly portrayed, The Lovely Bones might have been a movie classic.

By Kevin Lally

Blenheim Palace is the proud winner of the 25th Anniversary Historic Houses Association/Christie‟s Garden of the Year Award in 2008. The exquisite Formal Gardens at Blenheim Palace include the majestic Water Terraces, the ornate Italian Garden, the secluded Secret Garden with winding streams and water features, the fragrant Rose Garden, Arboretum and the Pleasure Gardens which includes Europe‟s largest symbolic hedge maze.

The gardens at Blenheim Palace are all-encompassing, and there is beauty to be found in all seasons. Beautifully restored, renovated and maintained by twelve permanent garden staff, led by Head Gardeners Trevor Wood and his wife Hilary who have worked at Blenheim Palace for over 25 years, it is a great credit to the Gardens Team to have received this prestigious award. A plaque, unveiled by His Grace the 11th Duke of Marlborough to mark the occasion, is on display for visitors to view near the Water Terraces at Blenheim Palace.

Celebrating the 25th anniversary of the award, HHA and Christie‟s of London commissioned a professional photography competition and exhibition to feature the winning gardens of the last 25 years, first displayed at Christie‟s in November. Blenheim Palace is delighted to host this fabulous photographic exhibition for six weeks from the opening of the new season in 2010.

In early summer 2009, a select group of professional photographers of the highest calibre were invited to take part in the competition, taking photographs of the past winners of the Garden of the Year Award, sponsored by Christie’s and the Historic Houses Association. The photographs were judged by a panel of experts for their originality and beauty, and measured by their success at capturing the essence of each garden in its historic setting.

Ricky Roundell, Vice Chairman, Christie’s said, “There is an exceptional degree of innovation and an extraordinary variety of approach illustrated in the photographs submitted for the 25th Anniversary Garden of the Year Award photographic competition and exhibition. The photographers have produced a wonderful array of concepts from wide views to close-ups, beautifully capturing the diversity displayed in these famous English gardens. The exhibition is a great testament to the dedication and enthusiasm of the gardeners and owners of each Garden of the Year Award winner from the last twenty-five years.”

The exhibition will be displayed in the Palace's magnificent Long Library - a grand setting for the impressive, large-scale photographs. Originally planned by Sir John Vanbrugh as a „noble room of parade‟ the Long Library measures 56 metres long and 10 metres high and is considered to be Nicholas Hawkesmoor‟s finest room at Blenheim Palace.

The exhibition will feature images of each of the 26 winning gardens of the past 25 years (there were two winners in 1998) including those by Chrystel Lebas, Winner of the Best Photographic Group featuring Cottesbrooke Hall, Northamptonshire, and Mike Perry for the Best Individual Photograph, featuring Parham Park in West Sussex. The incredible images created by landscape photographer Simon Norfolk will be of particular interest to visitors to Blenheim Palace. Norfolk captured Blenheim Palace's ancient trees back-lit at night to represent soldiers on the battlefield at the Battle of Blenheim 1704.

Simon Norfolk on his images: The Blenheim Oaks

“Blenheim Palace was a gift from a grateful nation to a General for his victories in battle. In a contemporary guidebook to the palace and its gardens - William Fordice Mavor's 'New Description of Blenheim' published in 1789 - the extraordinary suggestion is made that the original design for the planting of the oaks imitated the disposition of the troops at the beginning of the Battle of Blenheim on August 13th 1704. Just think - a battlefield laid out in the Home Counties in a massive, living, leafy reminder of a faraway military conquest!”

His Grace, The Duke of Marlborough said of the Garden of the Year Award: “We are extremely honoured to receive this prestigious award in recognition of the Formal Gardens here at Blenheim Palace. This award recognises the vision and enthusiasm of my illustrious ancestors as well as celebrating the excellent work undertaken here today by the gardens team. We look forward to welcoming visitors to see the gardens this year and we hope that everyone enjoys their visit to this important World Heritage site”

13th Feb – 28th March 2010

For further information about the HHA please contact: Peter Sinclair - Tel: 020 7259 5688 or India Melhuish - Tel: 020 7491 9991 Visit the HHA‟s website at http://www.hha.org.uk

For further information about Christie‟s contact Katy Richards 020 7389 2398 krichards@christies.com or visit http://www.christies.com

For more information about Simon Norfolk photography visit http://www.simonnorfolk.com or contact Neil Burgess, NB Pictures 0208 985 8765, neil@nbpictures.com

The Garden of the Year photography exhibition at Blenheim Palace is included within a Palace, Park and Gardens ticket

Press release:
Creepy Critters’ new show sees Tom Howard makes his directing debut and introduces Gemma Steel and Josh Chaplin as James. Starring Josh Mullett-Sadones (Mr Beaver in the recent OFS production of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe) as The Old Green Grasshopper, this production of James and the Giant Peach promises to delight and entertain all ages and is the perfect half-term treat for the whole family!

Tickets are priced at just £8, or £6 for concessions. They can be purchased from both the New Theatre and OFS Studio box offices on George Street, by ringing 0844 844 0662 or by visiting our website at http://www.OFSstudio.org.uk (internet bookings subject to transaction fee). For school bookings and bookings for groups of 10+ or more, please ring our dedicated team on 0844 372 7272.

Tuesday 16th February – Saturday 20th February
OFS Studio, Oxford

For fans of bonbons and Hallmark sentiment who wish Valentine's Day lasted forever, Garry Marshall's movie arrives like the answer to a prayer.

Taking its name from cupid's holiday with all the inspired creativity of a filing label, the film crisscrosses endlessly -- endlessly -- among a Whitman's sampler of cutouts passing as characters. Drawn by the starry cast and the film's built-in date-movie cachet, weekend moviegoers will send boxoffice love notes to the New Line release. But the affair is likely to be short-lived as the reality sets in that "Valentine's Day" is yet another Hollywood romantic comedy that's all but devoid of romance and laughs.

For the latter, audiences will have to wait for the obligatory end-credit outtakes. Until then, they've got the antics of a bunch of witless, good-looking Angelenos variously chasing or avoiding l'amour. At the center of the multistrand story are Reed (Ashton Kutcher) and his best friend, Julia (Jennifer Garner). She's madly in love with a doctor (Patrick Dempsey) and more than a little surprised that florist Reed's career-gal girlfriend (Jessica Alba) has accepted his wedding proposal.

Popping the question on Valentine's Day, he believes, has given him license to be a "sappy cheeseball" for the next 24 hours. That seems to be the guiding principle of Katherine Fugate's script as well, which subs clunking punchlines for froth and snap and which spares almost no one in the ensemble from mouthing banalities about the ways of the heart. "It's Valentine's Day," Reed enthuses to Julia at one point. "You don't think; you just do."

Reed's flower shop serves as the hub for much of the action. Among those stopping in to order bouquets are a precocious fifth-grader (Bryce Robinson) and Julia's two-timing boyfriend. The latter event poses a quandary for Reed, which he hashes out with his right-hand man (George Lopez): Should he tell his best friend the truth about the good doctor? That's the closest the film gets to dramatic tension. Marshall's direction lends the material little in the way of momentum, and John Debney's score grows increasingly thick with schmaltz.

A couple of first kisses and a reunion that cap the film are sweet but hardly worth the long road through scuffles, realignments and rapprochements that precedes them. A local sportscaster (Jamie Foxx) bristles at the Valentine's Day fluff piece assigned to him by his producer (Kathy Bates, barely there); he'd rather be chasing down a story about a football star (Eric Dane) whose career is in question. The athlete's publicist (Jessica Biel) prepares for her annual I Hate Valentine's Day party, and his high-powered agent (Queen Latifah) puts up with a new receptionist (Anne Hathaway) who's off to a good romantic start with a fellow employee (Topher Grace) -- except for the secret she's keeping about her moonlighting as a phone-sex operator.

From Julia Roberts' Army captain finding a simpatico seatmate (Bradley Cooper) on her flight home, to the high school girl (Emma Roberts) who's openly scheduling a virginity-ending session with her boyfriend (Carter Jenkins), nobody rings true except as a movie contrivance. Music-biz It girl Taylor Swift makes her big-screen debut hamming it up as a ditz who's gushing with adoration for her jock boyfriend (Taylor Lautner), and a subplot involving Shirley MacLaine and Hector Elizondo offers a bit of movie love, if little else, with fevered close-ups from MacLaine's 1958 "Hot Spell."

Foxx and Grace survive with their comic timing intact, and Garner's inherent geniality lends her role some charm. But this travelogue of Los Angeles landmarks, in which low-riders and Indian restaurants serve as "colorful" symbols of multiculturalism, is more valentine to the flower industry than a true love connection.

By Sheri Linden

For fans of bonbons and Hallmark sentiment who wish Valentine's Day lasted forever, Garry Marshall's movie arrives like the answer to a prayer.

Taking its name from cupid's holiday with all the inspired creativity of a filing label, the film crisscrosses endlessly -- endlessly -- among a Whitman's sampler of cutouts passing as characters. Drawn by the starry cast and the film's built-in date-movie cachet, weekend moviegoers will send boxoffice love notes to the New Line release. But the affair is likely to be short-lived as the reality sets in that "Valentine's Day" is yet another Hollywood romantic comedy that's all but devoid of romance and laughs.

For the latter, audiences will have to wait for the obligatory end-credit outtakes. Until then, they've got the antics of a bunch of witless, good-looking Angelenos variously chasing or avoiding l'amour. At the center of the multistrand story are Reed (Ashton Kutcher) and his best friend, Julia (Jennifer Garner). She's madly in love with a doctor (Patrick Dempsey) and more than a little surprised that florist Reed's career-gal girlfriend (Jessica Alba) has accepted his wedding proposal.

Popping the question on Valentine's Day, he believes, has given him license to be a "sappy cheeseball" for the next 24 hours. That seems to be the guiding principle of Katherine Fugate's script as well, which subs clunking punchlines for froth and snap and which spares almost no one in the ensemble from mouthing banalities about the ways of the heart. "It's Valentine's Day," Reed enthuses to Julia at one point. "You don't think; you just do."

Reed's flower shop serves as the hub for much of the action. Among those stopping in to order bouquets are a precocious fifth-grader (Bryce Robinson) and Julia's two-timing boyfriend. The latter event poses a quandary for Reed, which he hashes out with his right-hand man (George Lopez): Should he tell his best friend the truth about the good doctor? That's the closest the film gets to dramatic tension. Marshall's direction lends the material little in the way of momentum, and John Debney's score grows increasingly thick with schmaltz.

A couple of first kisses and a reunion that cap the film are sweet but hardly worth the long road through scuffles, realignments and rapprochements that precedes them. A local sportscaster (Jamie Foxx) bristles at the Valentine's Day fluff piece assigned to him by his producer (Kathy Bates, barely there); he'd rather be chasing down a story about a football star (Eric Dane) whose career is in question. The athlete's publicist (Jessica Biel) prepares for her annual I Hate Valentine's Day party, and his high-powered agent (Queen Latifah) puts up with a new receptionist (Anne Hathaway) who's off to a good romantic start with a fellow employee (Topher Grace) -- except for the secret she's keeping about her moonlighting as a phone-sex operator.

From Julia Roberts' Army captain finding a simpatico seatmate (Bradley Cooper) on her flight home, to the high school girl (Emma Roberts) who's openly scheduling a virginity-ending session with her boyfriend (Carter Jenkins), nobody rings true except as a movie contrivance. Music-biz It girl Taylor Swift makes her big-screen debut hamming it up as a ditz who's gushing with adoration for her jock boyfriend (Taylor Lautner), and a subplot involving Shirley MacLaine and Hector Elizondo offers a bit of movie love, if little else, with fevered close-ups from MacLaine's 1958 "Hot Spell."

Foxx and Grace survive with their comic timing intact, and Garner's inherent geniality lends her role some charm. But this travelogue of Los Angeles landmarks, in which low-riders and Indian restaurants serve as "colorful" symbols of multiculturalism, is more valentine to the flower industry than a true love connection.

By Sheri Linden

A teenage hero blessed with incredible abilities goes on a cross-country quest that involves a trip to the Underworld. What, is it Deathly Hallows time already? No, this is Percy Jackson, a Harry Potter-esque fantasy that pits the offspring of Greek god Poseidon against a rogues’ gallery of mythological creatures as he tries to avert Armageddon on Mount Olympus.

Since these include Medusa the Gorgon (a vamping Uma Thurman), an angry Minotaur and a half-man, half-horse Pierce Brosnan, comparisons to a certain blockbuster remake heading our way (you know - “Titans! Will! Clash!”) are pretty much inevitable. Between JK Rowling and Ray Harryhausen, though, Chris Columbus’s movie manages to carve out its own identity as a light-hearted romp that has fun relocating classical legends to contemporary America.

Unaware he’s the issue of a clandestine liaison between mortal Catherine Keener and the divine Kevin McKidd, Percy/Perseus (Logan Lerman) thinks he is just a normal kid with an above-average lung capacity. Until, that is, he is accused of pinching Zeus’ lightning rod, prompting its owner (Sean Bean) to send a Fury after him and his rival Hades (Steve Coogan) to kidnap his mom.

Covers blown, Percy and his goat-legged friend Grover (Brandon T Jackson) take refuge at ‘Camp Half-Blood’ (steady, Jo!), a Hogwarts-style enclave for “really special people”. It’s not long, though, before they and feisty demigod Annabeth (Alexandra Daddario) are on the road, collecting the Horcruxes… sorry, magical pearls they need to rescue Keener, find the bolt and save the world.

Peaking around the midway point thanks to the aforementioned Thurman and an exciting face-off with a many-headed Hydra, /Percy/ flags during a dull descent into Coogan’s lair before a sub-Spider-Man finale above night-time New York. By then, however, this adap of the first tome in Rick Riordan’s five-book series has done its work, paving the way for an evolving franchise while cheekily spiking another studio’s guns.

BY: Neil Smith

I may not be a Classicist, but I am pretty sure Euripides’ Medea isn’t supposed to be funny. The story of the Barbarian High Priestess, Medea, who elopes with Jason (of Jason and the Argonauts), only to watch him tire of her and marry another when she has given up everything for him – including her own identity - is one of the greatest of the Greek tragedies.

Yet laugh I did. Plenty. In this new version by Tom Paulin and directed by Barrie Rutter for the Northern Broadsides Theatre company whose Oedipus garnered rich laurels of praise from the Guardian, this northern Medea is “reet bloody ticked off” with her ex, and out for the sort of revenge that would land her up in Holloway, or at the very least, on a Jeremy Kyle Special. Rendered into almost modern - but not quite – parlance, and set on a vertiginous rake covered in animal skins, the Chorus of three (Michelle Hardwick, Barbara Hockaday and Heather Phoenix) skilfully barber-shop harmonise the verse and play harmonicas, breaking quite hilariously into jazz and blues refrains using drums, piano and saxophone parked at the side of the stage, whilst Medea, all exotic green velvet and bright red lips, emphasising her “foreignness”, stalks the stage making her dreadful plans.

Nina Kristofferson turns in a powerful performance in the title role, appearing like a bewildered and betrayed bauble from the top of the Barbarian Christmas tree that has been tossed aside well before 12th Night and cast adrift in a foreign land. Her grief at the loss of her lover to another woman “hanging in the air” as the Chorus say, is at once passionate and heartbreaking. However, when she hits on the idea of poisoning Jason’s new wife and murdering their own children to destroy his happiness utterly before she leaves for exile, she turns chillingly into the High Priestess she must have been when she helped Jason to steal the Golden Fleece from her own people, and eloped with him on the Argo. As he weeps in agony, she sneers from her chariot: “Hate on, Jason; hate on... your pleading voice sickens me.”

As a “Greek drama primer”, this production works very well. The language is accessible if a little rough at times, and the story easy to follow. Several bus loads of shining eyed teenagers spilling out into the foyer following the performance, buzzing about the way Medea said this, or the Chorus played that, would seem to bear this out.

The production is accompanied by a magnificent exhibition of playbills, scripts, and Medea memorabilia (on loan from the Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama at Oxford University) in the top room – very well worth a look.

At the Oxford Playhouse until Saturday 6 February
7.30pm (Friday 5 Feb – 8pm)
Matinees – Thursday and Saturday – 2.30pm
Tickets: £11 - £24
Box Office: 01865 305305
http://www.oxfordplayhouse.com

Review by Emma Blake

Nothing speaks so dramatically about Clint Eastwood's recent and remarkable burst of creativity as a director of awards-worthy films than the appearance of "Invictus," a historical drama that few if any filmmakers could have launched within the studio system. Here is a movie about Nelson Mandela, South Africa after apartheid and, of all things, the sport of rugby. None is high on any list of topics that studio suits crave, which tend more toward vampires and superheroes. Even the title -- that of a Victoria-era poem -- is obscure.

When released during a December storm of Oscar contenders, "Invictus" will pull its audience from adventurous, older moviegoers. Even the presence of Matt Damon, along with Morgan Freeman, will bring in only a small number of younger people. But for those who do buy tickets, it will be a pleasure for them to encounter a movie that's actually about something.

The downside here is a certain trepidation on the filmmakers' part to dig very deeply into what is still a politically sensitive situation. Then too, the real-life protagonists are very much alive and one an iconic figure. That's always a problem for any film that wants to deal with such personalities as flesh-and-blood characters.

The opening scene brilliant sets the stage. Released from prison on February 11, 1990 after 27 years, Mandela (Freeman) travels in a motorcade that passes between two fenced sports fields. On one, white youths in spiffy uniforms play rugby. On the other pitch, black kids kick a soccer ball. The black kids rush to the fence while the white kids' coach tells his charges to mark the day when their country went to the dogs.

At once, Eastwood and South African writer Anthony Peckham deliver a metaphor for a nation divided along racial lines and a hint that sports will be one of Mandela's strategies for bringing South Africans together.

Four years later, Mandela is the country's first black president. Many white citizens fear black rule just as many black citizens look to Mandela for revenge. It's a prescription for social instability and political disaster.

Mandela hits upon an ambitious plan to use the national rugby team, the Springboks -- long an embodiment of white-supremacist rule -- to grip the new South Africa as the team prepares to host the 1995 World Cup. So he begins to woo its Afrikaner captain, Francois Pienaar (Damon), to his cause.

In the beginning, the Springboks are portrayed as the rugby equivalent of the Bad News Bears. But a string of improbable wins brings them to the finals against a New Zealand team that is an overwhelming favorite.

The film, based upon the book "Playing the Enemy" by John Carlin, has an understandably narrow focus of 1995 South Africa. Mandela is seen only in the context of a sudden rugby convert. He signs papers and greets international delegations between matches. Francois is glimpsed with a family and wife --or girlfriend, even this is unclear -- but he exists solely to play his sport.

The film enters neither of their lives. It's a film about a nation's psyche, not its individuals. Where you would love a vigorous portrayal of two larger-than-life personalities, the film tiptoes through polite scenes where everyone speaks and acts with political correctness.

Likewise, the actors stick close to the surface. Freeman gives you a folksy yet sagacious leader. He ambles rather than walks and peers at people with sly wisdom gleaming in his eyes. He doesn't try to plumb the depths of a one-time rebel or a man struggling to keep both his nation and family together. Indeed the film writes his former wife, Winnie, out of the picture altogether and a daughter is seen glaring at him or the TV whenever rugby gets mentioned. Why is she so angry?

Damon has taken the flabby dough-boy body from "The Informant!" and chiseled it into pure muscle. He looks like a rugby player. What he thinks about apartheid or Mandela or anything else you never learn. He certainly respects the nation's president but their relationship is largely ceremonial.

The film's title stems from a short poem by the British poet William Ernest Henley, first published in 1875, that Mandela often recited to himself while imprisoned on Robben Island. The key final lines are: "I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul." Francois finds meaning here too as he seeks to lead his team to victory.

So this is a conventional film that takes the measure of a country's emotional temperature but not its individual citizens. The game scenes are skillfully done -- the sound of the body hits lets you know why rugby is an orthopedist's delight. CGI shots and other effects seamlessly fill the stands with thousands and convert contemporary South African locations back 14 years.

The film's money shots come at the end when blacks and whites cheer and embrace. For once a sports victory is something more than just another win. What's missing though is a human relationship to carry you through to this end. Mandela maintains convivial, even humorous relationships with all his staff and advisors and Francois seems to have a loving family -- and a black maid who shrewdly watches everything in the household.

Somewhere here, even among the president's bodyguards who are portrayed in surprising detail, there may have been a few people who could carry the emotional ball, so to speak. As it is, we applaud the final game but must leave the cheering to the on-screen fans.

By Kirk Honeycutt

The collision of adolescent hormones and parental folly, hardly new cinematic territory, gets a bracing absurdist slant in "Youth in Revolt."

C.D. Payne's relentlessly wiseass 1993 novel, subtitled "The Journals of Nick Twisp," transfers to the screen with its humor and high energy mostly intact and a thoroughly engaging lead performance by Michael Cera. Given the book's popularity and the movie's ace cast and comic punch, Dimension Films can expect word-of-mouth to drive strong business in the fall. After the pic's Toronto fest debut, this could be the hit that has eluded the Weinsteins.

No stranger to eccentric characters, director Miguel Arteta ("Chuck & Buck," "The Good Girl") has infused the picaresque tale with headlong drive and amused outrage. The script by Gustin Nash (whose "Charlie Bartlett" presented the worldview of another disaffected hyperintelligent teen) condenses 500 pages of incident-packed narrative, shucking characters and story lines and maintaining the whip-smart tone, if not entirely avoiding a surfeit of plot twists. The movie also, understandably, scales back the lead character's all-consuming horniness and makes him 16 rather than 14.

With stellar talent to play the idiotic adults who torment Cera's Nick, it's too bad they don't get more screen time. But around the edges of the star-crossed love story between Nick and Sheeni Saunders (Portia Doubleday, impressive in her first leading role), the seasoned vets limn vivid cartoon characters -- as self-involved as the kids but less self-aware.

As Nick's divorced and, to his unending distress, sexually active parents, Jean Smart and Steve Buscemi etch foolishness and hypocrisy in the extreme. Like all the film's performances, theirs are both broad and specific, the disappointment of middle age just beneath the screeching surface. Smart, in bleached blond tresses and halter tops, has more to do and does it well, particularly in Mom's canoodlings with ridiculous boyfriends (Zach Galifianakis and Ray Liotta).

Thanks to ridiculous boyfriend No. 1, Galifianakis' Jerry, a last-minute vacation takes Nick to Restless Axles, a Christian trailer park. It's there that he meets Sheeni, a well-read Lolita and the girl of his virginal dreams, and quickly assures her that belching Jerry is not his father but his mother's "consort." Nick and Sheeni both have massive vocabularies and contempt for mediocrity. He worships Sinatra, she adores Belmondo and all things French, and before long he has persuaded the wise-beyond-her-years beauty to end her relationship with the impossibly smug Trent (Jonathan Bradford Wright). But in order for them to be together, Nick must effect his father's relocation to Ukiah, where Sheeni lives, and his own banishment by Mom to Dad's new digs.

In single-minded pursuit, Nick blazes a trail of destruction, beginning with a conflagration in Berkeley, Calif. Considering that a Chevy Nova, complete with threatening spray-painted message, sits in his mother's living room, Nick's atrocities, both intentional and otherwise, feel almost reasonable. As the story progresses, plot contrivances are almost beside the point, though the film loses steam in its later sections involving Sheeni's spacey brother (Justin Long). As her parents, Mary Kay Place and M. Emmet Walsh are in mostly for their considerable face value, and the terrific Fred Willard plays the story's one generous, if often clueless, grown-up. In a role drastically reduced from the book, Erik Knudsen ("Jericho") portrays best friend Lefty with a comic brooding intensity.

But the film belongs to the always-compelling Cera, who provided the only real rooting interest in "Juno." Facile comparisons might indicate otherwise, but that film's arch combo of snark and schmaltz is not the turf of "Youth," which evinces convincing smarts and vulnerability. Playing wide-eyed Nick and mustachioed Francois Dillinger, the "supplementary persona" he conjures to help him wreak havoc, Cera is a delirious double dose of romance and cynicism. When he tells Sheeni, "I've been alone my whole life," the emotional impact is undeniable.

Without overdoing the voice-over, the film stays true to the novel's point of view and sharp timing. Arteta makes clever, judicious use of various sorts of animation by Peter Sluszka, particularly in a mushroom-tripping sequence involving sex-manual illustrations. Character-defining costumes and interiors are key contributions, well captured by DP Chuy Chavez. Rather than approximate the story's California setting, Michigan locations depict an appropriately nonspecific Americana. A postcard sky over a lake is a fitting canopy for this loopy waking dream of an escapade.

By Sheri Linden

The Princess and the Frog evokes a golden era of Disney animation—no, not the age of Snow White, Bambi and Pinocchio, but the second golden era of ’90s Disney musical entertainments like Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King and Aladdin. It’s also the first truly ambitious hand-drawn Hollywood cartoon to emerge since Pixar, DreamWorks and Blue Sky’s computer-animated hits made 2D renderings look suddenly quaint and passé. Though it doesn’t quite rise to classic status, The Princess and the Frog does remind us that there was a lot of pleasure to be found in those pre-CGI musicals of not-so-ancient vintage.

In one regard, Disney’s new feature is a groundbreaker; as if timed with the Obama milestone, it’s the studio’s first movie centered on an African-American heroine, following similar firsts with Pocahontas and Mulan. Too bad that charming heroine spends so much of the running time in the guise of an amphibian.

Directed and co-written by the Little Mermaid and Aladdin team of John Musker and Ron Clements, the film begins with a brief prologue set in 1920 New Orleans depicting the happy if humble childhood of Tiana, the daughter of a seamstress mother and a father who longs to be a restaurateur. Years later, Tiana is a grown woman (voiced by Tony winner Anika Noni Rose) who works two waitressing jobs to finance the fulfillment of her now-dead father’s dream.

Tiana’s drive to succeed is contrasted with the arrival of Prince Naveen of Maldonia (Bruno Campos), a handsome playboy whose family has cut him off from his inheritance. The Prince has the misfortune to meet Dr. Facilier (Keith David), an evil voodoo master who transforms the royal visitor into a talking frog. Seeing Tiana in her Mardi Gras tiara, Naveen mistakes her for a princess and asks for the fabled kiss that will restore his humanity; instead, the smooch has the reverse effect on Tiana, leaving two desperate frogs to travel the bayou in search of a voodoo miracle.

That bayou adventure provides the opportunity to introduce a colorful group of supporting characters: Louis (Michael-Leon Wooley), a trumpet-playing alligator who would love to be in a jazz band; Ray (Jim Cummings), a wizened Cajun firefly obsessed with a distant star he calls Evangeline; and Mama Odie (Jenifer Lewis), a blind voodoo priestess. Will the combined efforts of Tiana, Naveen, Louis and Ray defeat the evil spirits unleashed by Dr. Facilier? Does Disney make G-rated movies?

The Princess and the Frog takes full advantage of its New Orleans setting, with loving attention to that great city’s architectural wonders, and full servings of gumbo, beignets, jazz and Mardi Gras color. Some of the characterizations trade on broad stereotypes, but all the good folk here are warm and immensely likeable. Rose, who co-starred in the movie Dreamgirls, generates lots of empathy as Tiana, and deep-voiced David, heard earlier this year as the cat in Coraline, is perfect voice casting as the devious Facilier. Jennifer Cody is fun as Tiana’s spoiled, dizzy white childhood friend Charlotte, and Lewis’ Mama Odie brings down the house with the catchiest of Randy Newman’s songs, “Dig a Little Deeper.”

The Disney brand may be justly dominated of late by the consistently brilliant CG output of Pixar, but The Princess and the Frog reminds audiences that there’s life in 2D yet, especially when it’s allied with good storytelling and disarming craft. Old School Disney should find a welcome reception in theatres throughout the holiday season.

-By Kevin Lally

Tim Burton is directing the Walt Disney movie, which will reach British cinemas on March 5.

The film boasts a strong cast, with Johnny Depp playing the Mad Hatter and Helena Bonham Carter the Red Queen.

And the city council is expecting a boost in numbers booking up for its Alice tourist trail, which follows different locations connected to the stories.

Colin Cook, executive member for the city centre, said: “Alice and Lewis Carroll are an absolute asset to Oxford and a key part of the Oxford brand.

“The Alice story is intimately associated with the city and many of the things that inspired him are still around.

“You can still see the treacle well in Binsey village and the fireguards in the hall at Christ Church.

“The Jabberwocky tree is also still in Christ Church and Alice and her sisters could see it from the Dean’s lodgings.

“Visiting these different locations on a themed tour are a very good way of getting closer to the story and understanding the context in which it was first told in a punt on the River Thames.

“Tourists will be getting off the coach and instead of asking for Harry Potter’s college they will be now be asking for Alice’s college.

“Scenes for one of the Harry Potter films were shot at Christ Church, so in fact they will be visiting the same college.”

Maureen Lee, assistant manager of Alice’s Shop in St Aldate’s, said: “There are still some people who do not realise that Alice comes from Oxford and I hope the film will address that.

“Customers are already very excited about the film because it has such a star-studded cast.”

Also appearing in the movie are Michael Sheen and comedian Matt Lucas.

Mr Burton and wife Helena Bonham Carter own a home in Sutton Courtenay, near Abingdon.

Lewis Carroll, in real life Christ Church maths don Charles Dodgson, based Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Alice through the Looking Glass (1871) on Alice Liddell — the daughter of the college dean.

In the new film, the original story has been given a “girl power” makeover by writer Linda Woolverton.

Alice, 17, goes to a party on a Victorian estate, and finds she is about to be proposed to in front of hundreds of people. She dashes off, following a white rabbit down a hole and ends up in Wonderland, a place she visited 10 years before, although she does not remember it.

The cast also includes Mia Wasikowska as Alice, Christopher Lee as The Jabberwock and Stephen Fry as The Cheshire Cat.

Disney made an animated version of the Alice stories in 1951 and other versions have been made since, including a two-parter for television in 1985.

Joanne Butler, tourism manager for the city council, said: “At the moment we run the Alice tour several times a month, but we will increase that frequency when demand picks up.

“The new film is bound to increase the number of people coming to Oxford to find out more about Alice and Lewis Carroll.

“Christ Church is one of the main locations on the two-hour tour and we also visit Christ Church Meadow, and the Museum of Natural History because of the Dodo connection.”

by Andrew Ffrench

For more information about Alice tours, call the Tourist Information Centre on 01865 252200, the tours line on 01865 252037 or go to visitoxford.org/tourtickets

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