Kevin's other film isn't so super, man

* Kevin Spacey's triumph in the new Superman flick may or may not be enough to reignite his film career.

It certainly won't silence critics of the Oscar-winning actor's troubled reign at the Old Vic, though.

They gleefully point out that Spacey's other new film, a £15m thriller called Edison, has quietly become one of the turkeys of the summer.

Despite co-starring Justin Timberlake and being touted around several film festivals, the movie failed to find a US distributor.

The Hollywood newspaper Variety now reports that it won't be shown in cinemas at all, and has gone straight to DVD.

"This Edison débâcle is costing someone a lot of money," I'm told. "It's not unlike Spacey's tenure as Artistic Director at the Old Vic."

That theatre is dark until September because Spacey was unable to find a decent enough play to fill it.

* Not for Bill Nighy the so-called "method" school of acting favoured by other Hollywood veterans.

"I gave up preparing for parts ages ago since I never saw the point," he informed me, at the premiere of his new film, Stormbreaker. "Besides, in this film I play a grey man in a grey suit with a grey moustache, who has no feelings and no emotions. So I certainly didn't need to do any research for that."

Nighy, a man of few words, does himself a very great injustice. His co-star Alicia Silverstone recently declared him to be quite the sex bomb.

"I developed a bit of a crush on Bill," she said, in a newspaper interview. "In fact, I really love him - I got a text from him this morning."

* George Bush may once more be tempted to point his itchy trigger finger at the good people of al-Jazeera.

The Arabic TV network this week promoted its Madrid correspondent, Tayseer Allouni, to a lofty new position: Madrid bureau chief.

There is but one problem. Allouni currently languishes in a Spanish jail, after being convicted of acting as a financial courier for al-Q'aida.

His seven-year sentence runs until 2012, although an appeal is currently wending its way through the local courts.

In the meantime, al-Jazeera intends to appoint an "acting" bureau chief. Says one of their hacks: "You couldn't make it up!"

* Another day, another (sort of) big name steps up to declare open season on Victoria Beckham. Anne Diamond has joined the chorus of headline-prone females - others have included Lily Allen and Sophie Anderton - publicly to declare Britain's original and best WAG "too skinny".

"No one should ever ask Victoria Beckham for dieting advice; not ever," writes Diamond. "The girl looks woefully stressed and is thin and gaunt.

"I think she's much maligned and misunderstood, but she seems to me to be a victim of the media's obsession with body image and denial that motherhood changes you."

Roly-poly Diamond's advice forms an article for the internet site www.closerdiets.com. They have yet to offer La Beckham right of reply.

pandora@independent.co.uk