Lars and the real girls: the auteur goes apocalyptic

The Danish director Lars Von Trier, whose films have seen characters mock the handicapped and mutilate each other, has surpassed his own strong record for controversy by jokingly claiming to be a Nazi and expressing his desire to direct hard-core pornography.

Lars von Trier, the controversial director of Antichrist, has made a film about the end of the world. Geoffrey Macnab takes a look at the arthouse approach to Armageddon

For years, velvet has been decidedly passé. Only 'Young Musician of the Year' finalists, Goths partial to a frock coat, astrologers and Sloanes of a certain age still cling to the regal fabric. The last time it was 'le dernier cri' in plush chic was the mid-Nineties, as anyone who attempted to follow fashion back then will recall. A crushed velvet bodycon dress with a sweetheart neckline and, a few years later, a pair of bootcut velvet trousers from Morgan which I believed were indistinguishable from Tom Ford's cult pair for Gucci in 1995, were key features of my teenage wardrobe.

'I'm trying to stop over-analysing and live more in the moment'

All the main players of cult 1990s sitcom 'Spaced' went on to Hollywood careers – except one. Jessica Hynes reveals how she's playing catch-up with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost

Be Kind Rewind is the latest offering from the French director Michel Gondry, best known for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and his innovative promos for bands such as the White Stripes, whom he animated with the clever use of Lego.

Herbs and holistic remedies could replace conventional therapies, the Prince of Wales will say next week

She's been in show business for 14 years, and she's just 17. But somehow, Kirsten Dunst has survived.

The Butcher Boy, on general release

Childhood ain't what it used to be, particularly with parents like Kit Culkin about. This monster forced film-makers to give his tiny daughter a role in son Macaulay's (as yet unreleased) movie The Good Son. The poor scrap of a thing had an assist ant onhand to cheer her up in the morning, which is something nobody should need until they hit their twenties.

This vampire never dies. He never makes us laugh either. Or feel afraid . Adam Mars-Jones on Neil Jordan's all too melancholy Interview with the Vampir e

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber is negotiating a multi-million-pound deal to open a film studio in Britain dedicated to producing musicals.

THE ironic tone of this lyrical but highly comic debut novel is established in its opening two sentences: 'On the morning the last Lisbon daughter took her turn at suicide - it was Mary this time, and sleeping pills, like Therese - the two paramedics arrived at the house knowing exactly where the knife drawer was, and the gas oven, and the beam in the basement from which it was possible to tie a rope. They got out of the EMS truck, as usual moving much too slowly in our opinion, and the fat one said under his breath, 'This ain't TV folks, this is how fast we go]' '