Best of the Big and Small Screens in 2008

2008 is looking to be one of the most exciting years for entertainment in recent memory, with the big and small screen simply spoiling consumers for choice; providing everything from comedy, drama, lifestyle and game shows to satisfy any consumers' tastes. In addition, on demand TV, mobile TV and TV over the Internet give consumers even more choice for how and when to enjoy their entertainment. With the Oscars just around the corner, this year has seen both heavily-nominated ‘No Country For Old Men' and ‘There Will Be Blood' being released in the cinemas on this side of the pond, with ‘Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street' hot on their heels. This year's big summer blockbusters are likely to include ‘Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull', ‘The Dark Knight' and ‘Sex and the City: The Movie'. Fans of the fantasy genre can look forward to new ‘Chronicles of Narnia' and Harry Potter features and November sees the release of ‘Quantum of Solace', the latest James Bond instalment. The British film industry looks to offer a varied choice of films this year, with one of the most anticipated being a biopic of celebrated Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, ‘The Edge of Love', starring Cillian Murphy, Matthew Rhys and Keira Knightley, with a script written by Sharman Macdonald, Knightley's mother. The big-screen adaptation of Toby Young's novel ‘How to Lose Friends and Alienate People', about Young's life as a British journalist trying to make it as a contributing writer for Vanity Fair magazine in New York, is scheduled for an early October release. Simon Pegg has been cast as the lead with a support cast consisting of Megan Fox, Kirsten Dunst, Jeff Bridges and Gillian Anderson. On the small screen, time travel seems to be as popular a topic as ever, with ‘Life on Mars' spin-off ‘Ashes to Ashes' premiering in February, starring Philip Glenister, Keeley Dawes, Gene Hunt and Alex Drake. In keeping with the time-travel trend is ‘Lost in Austen', in which Amanda Price, a present-day Bridget Jones type living in London one day unexpectedly travels 200 years back in time and into the world of Jane Austen's classic Pride and Prejudice novel. Realising she's swapped places with Elizabeth Bennet she must use her vast knowledge of the novel to avoid changing literary history. The big documentaries this year seem intent on triggering viewers' shudder reflexes. David Attenborough is delivering his final chapter of ‘Life on Earth', this time focusing on reptiles. Celebrity chefs Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Jamie Oliver are looking to persuade consumers to switch to free-range poultry in response to the treatment of battery-cage chicken and our demand for cheap food with ‘Hugh's Chicken Run' and ‘Jamie's Fowl Dinners' respectively. Addressing more intellectual topics are Stephen Hawking's ‘Master of the Universe', a major series about physics and cosmology, and Nick Broomfield's ‘Battle of Haditha', concerning the encounter in which US Marines killed 24 Iraqi civilians. Lifestyle features are as popular as ever this year, with one of the most hotly anticipated shows being 'Coleen's Real Women'. Hosted by Wayne Rooney's fiancée Coleen McLoughlin, it sees her scouring the country for other girls next door in order to pitch them to high-powered advertising executives and big-brand marketing directors. All in all it makes for a very exciting 2008, meaning those looking for entertainment on tv or at the cinema will find any tastes catered for