Dog days

It's not unusual for directors to turn an acclaimed short into a first feature. But to leave a gap of nearly 30 years between films - and switch from live action to animation?  That has to be quirky native Californian Tim Burton.

Long before Edward Scissorshands, Beetlejuice and Batman there was from 26-year-old Burton, the glorious 29-minute 1984 horror comedy Frankenweenie in which young Victor (Barret Oliver), a science nut, managed to re-animate his beloved dead pooch, Sparky.

Now Burton, at 54 an honorary Brit these days following his marriage to local heroine Helena Bonham Carter, has been beavering away at 3 Mill Studios in Bow, East London to produce a full-length Disney cartoon version of the same tale.

No stranger to animation with credits as director and/or producer on The Corpse Bride, The Nightmare Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach, Burton has brought Frankenweenie back to life with a voice cast including Winona Ryder, Catherine O'Hara, Martin Landau, Martin Short, Christopher Lee and Charlie Tahan (as Victor).

Sounds like a sort of ruff justice.

Emily's a dude

Although she's appeared in the odd comedy, you don't tend to think of Emily Blunt as exactly a laugh riot.

But that's not the impression you get from Hollywood yock-meister Judd Apatow, who has been attempting to snare the 29-year-old British star of Young Victoria and Salmon Fishing in the Yemen for ages.

Now he's finally reeled her in for his latest, The Five-Year Engagement, in which she co-stars with Jason Segel.

And apparently Apatow was so impressed with Blunt's comic chops that she was actually included in the writing process.

Blunt told The Observer: "I went in with a list of notes but I don't think I'd quite been heard in that way before. It was a room full of guys and they were like: 'Tell me what you want! Tell me what you need!'"

"And I was like: 'Just please don't write us from a perceived feminine point of view. Write us like a dude. We think and talk like you'."

Yeh, right.

Arise, Sir Branagh

At 51, Ken Branagh has just joined a select group of current British actors who can boast a 'Sir' before their name - Hopkins, Jacobi, McKellen, Courtenay, Caine, Kingsley, Lee and Gambon, to be more specific.

But the Belfast-born thesp's recent elevation in the latest Queen's Birthday Honours also keeps him on a direct parallel path with the man to whom most people think Branagh, as adept behind the camera as in front of it, is the direct artistic heir.

Mind you, Laurence Olivier were a mere 40 in 1947 when he got his knighthood.  It took Sir Larry another 23 years before he moved up further in the ranks, becoming ennobled in 1970.

So Branagh, lagging behind a bit in the 'K' stakes, still has a dozen years left to get that peerage under his belt in order to match the old master.

Meanwhile, Sir Ken, who, like Olivier, directed a film version of Henry V as well as appearing in many of the same Shakespearean stage roles, will always remain indelibly linked with the late great after playing him to wondrous effect in My Week with Marilyn (as pictured below).

Countdown for Jeremy

There was a time when using the C-word in films was beyond the pale. Now there seems to be an official formula whereby the British Board of Film Classification will grant, for example, a 15 when c-words are required.

This has been revealed by actor-writer Simon Pegg who told the Guardian about a correspondence he and co-writer/director Edgar Wright have had with the BBFC about their new project, The World's End, their follow-up to Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz.

Pegg, currently in the new British horror-comedy, A Fantastic Fear of Everything (pictured below), said that the Board had, in response to their letter about how many times they could use the c-word without forfeiting a 15, explained "we could say it once, aggressively, towards a woman, but five times in casual conversation."

You wouldn't Jeremy Hunt it!

Fassbender's heavy metal dream

Michael Fassbender has admitted that he wanted to be a rock star … but his musical ambitions ended after a disastrous first gig.

The star of Prometheus, Shame and X-Men: First Class tried to form a heavy metal band while he was a teenager in a small town in Ireland, but it ended up with only two members who both played lead guitar. Their first – and only – gig was a disaster and Fassbender was forced to give up his musical dream and become an actor instead.

He told US TV host Jimmy Fallon: "I wanted to be a musician, I was into heavy metal, I wanted to be a lead guitarist in a heavy metal band. I loved Iron Maiden, Metallica, Slayer... There was just one other guy in my band and he played guitar also. It's always hard to find a drummer and a bass player in a small town, we couldn't find the back-up so we just went out as we were.

"We only played one gig. It was in a little pub, it was lunchtime trade and there were middle-aged people and we were trying to play Metallica and they kept telling us to turn it down."

Holy Moses! Scott reveals his new flick

Fresh from the launch of his sci-fi epic Prometheus, director Ridley Scott has revealed that he is making a movie about Moses.

In an interview with Esquire magazine he let it slip that the film was already in development when he said: "I've got something else in the works. I'm already doing it. It's called Moses."

When the interviewer thinks that Scott is joking, the director responds: "Seriously, seriously. It's going to happen. I probably shouldn't have let that slip out. I'm not supposed to say anything."

The film will focus on the prophet Moses' relationship with Egyptian Pharoah Ramesses II.

"It's definitely in the cards, though. What's interesting to me about Moses isn't the big stuff that everybody knows. It's things like his relationship with Ramesses. I honestly wasn't paying attention in school when I was told the story of Moses. Some of the details of his life are extraordinary."

Scott is also working on the drama The Counselor starring Michael Fassbender and the biopic Gertrude Bell, with Angelina Jolie. Other post-Prometheus projects include the untitled Blade Runner project, which will reunite him with screenwriter Hampton Fancher.