There are moments aplenty when Stardust looks to be losing its way: every time a celebrity pops up for a needless cameo, every time dodgy CGI rears its ugly head, every time director Vaughan sends his camera sweeping off up a mountain or into space for no obviously good reason … yet, for every moment that’s crass or out of place, there are three that are charmingly, perfectly in keeping with the source material and the milieu that Gaiman draws from.

Following in the wake of Syriana, Babel, and A Might Heart comes yet another dissection of US foreign policy and the ‘War on Terror’. In an unnamed South African country, a suicide bombing targeting the local interrogator sparks off unexpected attention from the CIA when one of their agents is caught in the blast. In the rush to find a suspect, Egyptian-born US resident Anwar El-Ibrahimi is arrested when his plane lands in Washington DC, and immediately shipped to overseas detention under the controversial ‘extraordinary rendition’ law that gives the film its title.

We’ve had talking fish, bugs, ants, mammoths, hedgehogs, lions, sharks, cats, bears, pigeons, and more bloody penguins than you could shake a stick at, so we do we really need culinary rodents? Well, as it turns out, yeah, we do.

It’s easy to see the British Fantasy Society as some kind of equivalent to the SFWA, but though they do share certain qualities, the differences outweigh any similarities. The BFS is an inevitably smaller operation, without the clout or the restrictive membership, yet it also has a wider mandate – no less than “…the promotion of all that is best in the Fantasy and Horror genres.”

It’s only seeing a film aimed squarely at adults that makes you realise the degree to which most really aren’t. Michael Clayton, whatever it’s faults or merits, is definitely such a one – it’s solid and intelligent, telling a provocative story with little in the way of thrills or fireworks.

That Snakes on a Plane proceeded to flop as badly as it did might be seen as a cautionary tale – perhaps against putting your faith in internet fanboys – but it’s hard to imagine it coming as much of a surprise to anybody but the producers. Still, you’d be justified in expecting a certain amount of dumb B-movie fun from renting the DVD, right? That title might not guarantee a good movie, but surely it should ensure a certain amount of cheap enjoyment.

Burning Chrome, a collection bringing together short works originally published between 1977 and 1986, has aged badly in places – because it relies heavily on technology and in many ways technology has already outstripped Gibson’s vision – but even with that caveat, it’s still amazingly fresh and vibrant stuff.

When was the last time you saw a proper, old school western in the cinema? One that wasn’t revisionist or post-modern, told from the perspective of the Native Americans or Jesse James’s hat? Ever since Dances with Wolves it seems that to just make a film set in the old west with bad guys against good guys and plenty of shooting, fighting and cussing is a faux pas on a level with turning up at a dinner party in your dressing gown.

Atonement is magnificent filmmaking, a work that doesn’t once hesitate or compromise in telling a story that’s both haunting and vital.

The original novella followed Father Ramon Ruiz-Sanchez, a Jesuit biologist assigned as one of a party of four earthmen to the planet of Lithia, with the mission of deciding whether it can be usefully exploited by Earth. At the start of the story, Ruiz-Sanchez is thrown into turmoil by the realisation that Lithia is uncannily like the biblical Eden, with its dominant species living free of crime, violence or even any notion of sin.