Method acting is a technique used by many leading Hollywood actors. Everybody from De Niro to Hoffman uses it. One of the leading teachers of method acting working today is Arnold Bloomberg of the Bloomberg Academy of Drama in New York. Dr Andrew Cousins, went to learn more.

AC: What is your fundamental approach to acting?

AB: For me acting isn't just about pretending to be somebody else. It's about becoming a physical and mental actualisation of a character. Acting is in many ways like a triangle with no corners.

AC: Does method acting make for better acting?

AB: Let me put it like this. My job is to take an actor on a journey. That journey is from the place known as ‘bad acting' to the place known as ‘good acting'. The place known as ‘bad acting' is where people like Lou Diamond Phillips hang out and it's a very scary place.

"You see he didn't start out as a robot. He was a policeman who was gunned down so naturally they transplant his head onto a robot body to keep him alive and turn him into Cybocop. But the thing they forgot was his balls, isn't it? He thought with his balls. They controlled his instincts. "Do I shoot the criminals? What are my balls telling me?" That was how he operated. Without them he's just a big toaster with a gun, isn't he?"

Paul Verhervervint is Holland's biggest export since the tulip. His brash and trashy style of filmmaking, not to mention the often violent or otherwise controversial subject matter has made his films incredibly popular with moviegoers worldwide. Films such as ‘Crude Instinct', ‘Lapdancers', ‘Cybocop' and others have all been extremely successful at the box office - if not always with the critics.

"Is a very powerful love story. There is man. There is woman. Man falls over. Woman falls in love. Man wears funny hat. Oh no! Is woman dying of disease? Yes. Then man fall over some more. She get better. They get married. The end."

Roberto Benitio is best know as the Italian comedian and film maker who directed ‘Wasn’t World War Two Fun?’ which swept the board at the Oscars two years ago. He charmed the American public with his exhuberance during numerous television interviews and with his hilarious antics during the ceremony itself. Who can forget the sight of him mooning Jack Nicholson? Or pushing a custard pie into Steven Spielberg’s face? In another instalment from the vault, and newly illustrated by Eric Dubois, Dr Andrew went to talk to him.

"The Love Bug features a car that comes to life. Is it powered by the love of Jesus Christ? We aren't offered any evidence that this is the case so we must, unfortunately, assume that it is in fact animated purely by the power of the Lord of Darkness. I still feel an urge to pray whenever I see a Volkswagen Beetle."

Watching4Jesus.com is a website run by the Divine Church of Holy Intervention in Alabama, Texas. It aims to provide a method whereby films are rated and classified from a Fundamentalist Christian perspective.

As Netribution begins to republish treats from the Carnal Cinema archive, newly accompanied with cartoons from Eric Dubois, we're proud to reprint Dr Andrew's 2002 'interview' with the outfit's spokesman, the Reverend Aloysius Tork.

This week Michael Whiner pays a visit to The Mucky Duck, the multi-award winning restaurant owned and run by Heston Charltonthal. The menu leans towards the exotic, with snail soup, frog's legs in eggs and deep-fried swan among the house specialities. Heston's unusual approach to cuisine has lead to him being the first chef in history to win 200 Michelin stars and acres of positive restaurant column inches.

However, much of that will be lost on Michael, who has film piracy and the death of the British film industry on his mind. As usual, he is already in full flow...

It has often been said that men age and women mature. However women, like wine, tend to mature in one of two ways. They either ripen into something full-flavoured, with lots of body and a myriad of intriguing flavours or they turn onto an unpleasant, acidic vinegar.

It's further said that there are no good parts in Hollywood for the older woman. Well, one person would take issue with that. She's about to enter her seventy-fourth year and shows no sign of slowing down. In her time she's worked with James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart and Kirk Douglas. She once called Cary Grant, "a worse kisser then my dog". I went to Beverly Hills to meet the one and only Ms. Margaux Shapiro.

Michael Whiner, semi-retired film maker, part-time restaurant critic, full time loud-mouth and the enfant-terrible of the British film industry; chews over the week's events.

This week Michael pays a visit to Ah Bistro, the small eatery owned by award-winning chef Marian Farian. The food is a fusion of classic and modern haute cuisine. The ambiance at Ah Bistro is always intimate and relaxed.

However, much of that will be lost on Michael, who as usual, is already in full flow…

The low budget digital film making revolution is sweeping the industry like a big brush. But in this case the brush is made of pixels, ones and zeros as opposed to the usual brush construction of celluloid, photosensitive dyes and developing chemicals.

One of the leading exponents of this 'Cinema Electronique' is Dutch auteur Hans Von Looz. His films such as, 'Breaking My Patience', 'The Nutters' and 'Oddville' are all made according to a strict set of rules laid down by Von Looz. Dogma 3000, as these rules are known, is intended to be the blueprint by which the next generation of low budget cinema is made. I met with Hans to ask him about film making in the 21st Century and beyond.

This year has seen something of a resurgence of interest in the political movie with 'Good Night. And Good Luck' and 'Syriana' both doing well both critically and financially. In contrast, the British Film Industry hasn't produced a political film since the late eighties. One man aims to change all that. Tobias Blennerhassett has produced some of the most successful films ever produced in this country including, 'Strippers on the Dole' and 'The Short, Fat Thursday'.

I went to speak to him find out more about his plans for what he hopes will be the greatest British political film ever made - Lib Dems: The Movie.

Caine, Hopkins, Connery, Finney, Attenborough, Guinness, Mills, Gielguid, Olivier. Names that epitomise the very best in British acting talent. But one name towers above them all; Sir Wilberforce Reddington.

He made his first screen appearance as Willy Reddington playing Third Cockney Urchin in 'It's a Right Bloomin' Caper Alright' in1937. From then on his face became a familiar fixture on British cinema screens. The list of his screen roles runs to several pages and reads like a roll call of classic film greats.

Now celebrating his 95^th birthday, I went to talk to him and look back over a lifetime in cinema.