A boy's passion gives way to grown-up German angst as his former lover's ugly past is revealed

Stephen Daldry might have spent much of the last year worn out by a punishing work schedule, but when we meet in downtown Manhattan shortly before Christmas he is relaxed and refreshed. The evening before our interview, for the first time in a long while, he slept for eight hours. The theatre and film director spent 2008 combining directing Billy Elliot on Broadway with making his third film, The Reader.

It's absurd that all the likely Oscar films are crammed into a few weeks

Loyally, perhaps too loyally, based on Billy Wilder's great movie, Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1993 Sunset Boulevard, with outstanding book and lyrics by Don Black and Christopher Hampton, was the last of the 20th-century musical blockbusters. Despite great performances by Patti LuPone, Glenn Close and Elaine Paige as Norma Desmond, and a lush, baroque design of a Hollywood palazzo by John Napier for Trevor Nunn's production, the bubble burst over the big global franchise phenomenon.

Two retail strategies are competing in the high street this Christmas. One is the Marks & Spencer belief that women want "investment" clothes, ie, safe and wearable rather than fashionable. The other is that women want something to lift their spirits beyond knee-length navy blue.

In sporting terms, it's the Hollywood equivalent of a bloodied prize-fighter suddenly deciding to chuck in the towel and flee the ring in the dying seconds of a long and gruelling heavyweight bout that was almost certainly headed for a draw.

Luc Jacquet, who scored a hit with March of the Penguins, now tries to melt our hearts with this paean to foxes.

Not all first-timers are buyers.

AS HE sped down the M4's bus lane last week past a tailback of frustrated motorists, many of them no doubt floating voters, Tony Blair had time to wonder whether the bus lane was such a fine idea after all. But it had seemed right at the time; "sensible" was the word he had used about it a fortnight earlier, a good steady word. One was reminded of the old electioneering slogan "You know it makes sense". We expect our politicians to be sensible, whatever else they are.

DIRECTOR DAVID FINCHER'S speciality is stylish thrillers with a distinctly nasty edge, such as Seven. In The Game (10pm Sky Premier), Michael Douglas (right) is well-cast as a smooth multi- millionaire whose well-ordered existence is threatened when his brother (Sean Penn) signs him up for a mysterious "game" for his birthday. The most intriguing aspect of this satellite premiere is trying to work out whether it is a game or not.

Bulworth (18)

Also showing: Hideous Kinky (15) Living Out Loud (15) How Stella Got Her Groove Back (15) Pecker (15) A Scene at the Sea (no cert) Appetite (15)

The Big Pictures: HIDEOUS KINKY (15) DIRECTOR: GILLIES MACKINNON STARRING: KATE WINSLET, SAiD TAGHMAOUI, BELLA RIZA 99 MINUTES HOW STELLA GOT HER GROOVE BACK (15) DIRECTOR:KEVIN RODNEY SULLIVAN STARRING: ANGELA BASSETT, WHOOPI GOLDBERG, REGINA KING 124 MINUTES

Neil LaBute's latest film is another portrait of bad behaviour with laughs. At whose expense?