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A decade ago, Todd Solondz divided filmgoers with the hugely controversial Happiness. Now he's hitting us with a sequel. Sort of. He talks to Xan Brooks A couple are seated at an aspirational new york restaurant where the food is as fussy as the decor. They exchange gifts and smile to reassure themselves that all is well. But they are miserable and their conversation keeps stalling amid the clink of glass and cutlery. 'Joy, what's wrong?' asks the man eventually. 'Oh nothing,' murmurs Joy. 'Just a little deja vu.'It's not just Joy who has been here before. If the opening scene from Life During Wartime, the new film from writer-director Todd Solondz, rings distant bells, that's because it is a carbon copy of the first scene from his 1998 masterpiece, Happiness. The film that follows is a quasi-sequel. Quasi because it recasts the old roles with fresh actors; quasi because its tone is rather different. Happiness was like a bomb going off. Life During Wartime is a clean-up operation, a ca

Oscar-winning director Danny Boyle is "edging" closer to making 'Porno', the sequel to his hit movie 'Trainspotting', the actor Robert Carlyle said today.

London Games could be part of experiment in new wave of television, senior executive saysThe BBC could screen some of the 2012 London Olympic games in 3D, a senior executive said today.Roger Mosey, the director of the BBC's 2012 Olympics operation, said the corporation was looking at a number of new technologies to improve the spectacle for viewers.'We could, and I believe should, capture some of the games in 3D,' Mosey said in a speech to the IBC technology conference in Amsterdam. 'Nobody would expect the games of 2012 to be comprehensively in 3D because the technology will be nothing like widespread enough; but it would be a shame not to have any images of London that were part of an experiment with what will be one of the next big waves of change.'The Olympic stadium may only exist in its full 80,000+ capacity for a relatively short period. Not to have that at all in 3D would be, at the very least, a major gap in the archive.'Mosey also said that 'super high definition' cameras cou

Director Peter Berg has revealed that the original cast will be intact.

Film Festivals: Director a rarity in Italian cinema scene --  First-time Italo helmer Giuseppe Capotondi, whose Venice competition entry 'The Double Hour' unspooled to warm reaction Thursday, reps a rarity in Italian cinema for a couple reasons.

Film News: Cast more than 1,000 TV shows and films -- Casting director Caro Jones, who cast more than 1,000 TV shows and films including 'Rocky,' died of multiple myloma on Sept. 3 in Los Angeles. She was 86.

Robert Carlyle has told the BBC that director Danny Boyle is 'edging closer' to making Porno, the follow-up to Trainspotting.

Film News: Death of close friend prompts comedy -- It took the death of a close friend to prompt German-born director Fatih Akin to make a comedy after establishing himself with deeper, bleaker films about the human condition.

Film Festivals: 'Toto' director looks to break out -- The moment Jaco Van Dormael started shooting his third feature 'Mr Nobody' in the summer of 2007, newspapers in his native Belgium began to predict glory at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival.

Survival of the Dead, the latest in the director's horror franchise, labelled 'woefully thin on ideas, originality and directorial flair' after Venice premiereCould it be that George A Romero's undying cycle of zombie movies is at last heading for the cemetery? Early reviews of the latest in the Dead series, which screened last night at the venice film festival, suggest that its vital signs may well be in doubt.Survival of the Dead is the fifth sequel to Romero's 1968 classic Night of the Living Dead, the feature that defined the landscape of the modern zombie movie. The latest instalment - a follow-up of sorts to 2007's Diary of the Dead and another self-financed production - is set on an island off America's east coast. The living dead are caught in the middle of a generations-old dispute between two families, who have opposing strategies for dealing with the zombie menace. One shoots to kill, the other opts for containment in the hope of finding a cure.Social satire has always been