In search of a creation myth, Dreamworks has turned to Moses. Andrew Gumbel reports on high-stakes storytelling

Alistair Owen struggles titanically with guides and histories

The map Ever spent two hours in a video store trying to find just the right film to suit your mood? Dither no more. Rachael Adams presents a (Technicolor) movie guide

They don't just want your children. In Disney's rapid and spectacular progress to a world brand it has become to entertainment what McDonald's is to fast food - and infantilised adults across the globe

WHEN ALLEN Haberberg first wrote to a contact in the Polish town of Dabrowa Tarnowska to try to trace his family roots, he had no idea he was starting a journey that would end in Eden.

Spare a thought for Hollywood. Here is an industry with monopolistic designs on the popular imagination, and for once it is utterly upstaged by real life. The Bill and Monica show has stolen all the ratings, dominated the magazine covers and - in the tradition of the biggest box-office smashes - generated a whole sideline in spin-offs from videos to book tie-ins.

Charles Wheeler, who witnessed the D-Day landings, on where Spielberg went wrong

Saving Private Ryan 15

A useful antidote to the volumes about orgasms and g-spots would be `The Bad Sex Guide'

Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan (above) finds the director at the height of his film-making powers, and on course for Oscar glory.

A Week in Books: Boyd Tonkin

AMBER HAS been admired for its golden hues since time immemorial. It is only in recent years, however, that the wider public has become aware of its unique fossil-preserving features, thanks to Hollywood's Jurassic Park, which depicted the fictional extraction of dinosaur DNA from a mosquito trapped and preserved in amber for millions of years.

BABYMOTHER (15)

SAVING PRIVATE RYAN(15) DIRECTOR: STEVEN SPIELBERG 170 MINS STARRING TOM HANKS AND TOM SIZEMORE