A Hitch in time

In the red corner, 45-year-old English actor Toby Jones, who has recreated real-life characters like Truman Capote and superagent Irving "Swifty" Lazar".

In the blue corner, 75-year-old Welsh actor Sir Anthony Hopkins, whose even more extensive impersonation credits include President Nixon, Adolf Hitler, CS Lewis and Pablo Picasso.

Their challenge? To take on and "lick" cinema history's most recognisable filmmaker, the late, great Alfred Hitchcock

Jones's bout was in The Girl, in which Hitch hired and then terrorised novice actress Tippi Hedren (Sienna Miller) who was making her movie debut with The Birds.

Hopkins' tussle is captured on the big screen in Hitchcock, which deals with the way the Master of Suspense revived his flagging career with a personally-financed, black-and-white horror movie called Psycho, especially famous for "killing off" its leading lady Janet Leigh (Scarlet Johansson) less than half an hour into the film.

Intriguingly, the bald, rotund director was 60 at the time of shooting his classic shocker - exactly halfway between the respective ages of his two brave interpreters.

The verdict so far is that Jones is the winner by a hair (less) breath.

Bacon eggs us on

If you could choose any Hollywood star to head an expensively revamped cinemagoing campaign, which instantly recognisable actor would you pick to bring in the audiences? Tom Cruise? Will Smith? Leonardo DiCaprio? Anne Hathaway?

None of the above. Instead, those nice people at EE - Everything, Everywhere - the new brand name for the 4G network comprising Orange and T-Mobile, have gone for good old Kevin Bacon to ignite EE Film Club, formerly Orange Wednesdays.

Great character actor that he now is at 54 after his brief leading man status way back when, Bacon might not seem now the most obvious "face" to try and launch a million new admissions.

But wait: isn't this the same chap who is the "star" of that popular parlour game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon whereby people have to link any given actor to him by no more than six steps? If he's good enough to spawn a game then surely he's just the right fellow for EE.

If you've seen the ad then you'll realise just how droll it and he is. The idea is that various characters he's played in films like Apollo 13, Hollow Man, Footloose, A Few Good Men and Friday the 13th, debate which film they want to go and see.

Go Kevin!

Age to age

There's much excitement in the battle for Leading Actress at the Oscars this year as the list includes the Oldest and Youngest nominees ever in 85 years of the Academy Awards among the five candidates for a certain kind of screen immortality.

At 85 - could this be an omen? -  Emmanuelle Riva (Amour) pips previous oldie Jessica Tandy (Driving Miss Daisy) who weighed in at a mere 80, while Quvenzhané Wallis (Beasts of the Southern Wild), just 9, puts Whale Rider's 13-year-old Keisha Castle-Hughes firmly in the shade.

But how did it actually work out for Old and Young when it came to the final countdown on Oscar night?

History records that Miss Tandy went on to scoop the big one, while Oscar has, to date, ignored all 20-and-under aspirants for the title which currently remains with 21-year-old Marlee Matlin for her top role in Children of a Lesser God.

Just for the record, current holder of Youngest winner for Actress in a Supporting Role is 10-year-old Tatum O'Neal for Paper Moon.

No kidding! It's Emma

 

Strange people, those immigration guys from US Homeland Security. 

Harry Potter actress Emma Watson -- one of the most famous stars in the world and currently the face of Lancome's perfume In Love (see above) -- was questioned by passport control officials at New York's JFK  airport as to the whereabouts of her guardian and why the "unaccompanied minor" was travelling alone.

Most airports consider minors to be children under the age of 12. But Emma, who is 22 and who was indeed travelling alone, Tweeted: "Passport control:'unaccompanied minor?' Me:'sorry?' Passport control:'where is ur guardian?' Me:'I'm 22!!!!!!!"



You couldn't make it up!

What makes Megan run

For many, the smart money in this year's awards stakes is on Kathryn Bigelow's ambitious real-life thriller Zero Dark Thirty which details the decade long hunt for Osama Bin-Laden following the 9/11 attacks in the US.

At the centre of Bigelow's tale is an obsessed CIA operative played by Jessica Chastain. And to complete the key female trio in this project is its 26-year-old producer Megan Ellison (below), who fully financed the $45m production.

Megan isn't just any Hollywood producer. From the third of, to date, four wives to American software billionaire Larry Ellison, Megan has become one of the most important independent players in an industry which, at major studio level, has become increasingly terrified of risk-taking.

Long before she inherited $2 billion on her 25th birthday, Megan had already dived into filmmaking making her first significant mark with the remake of True Grit. Since then she has been behind other movies like The Master and Lawless as well as Zero Dark Thirty.

In her pipeline are new films by Wong kar-wai, Spike Jonze, David O Russell and Bennett Miller not to mention a return to the popular sci-franchise The Terminator.

Mads man

Welcome to the fourth incarnation of the screen's favourite "thinking" cannibal - Dr Hannibal Lecter.

Following in the footsteps of Brian Cox (Manhunter), Anthony Hopkins (Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal, Red Dragon) and Gaspar Ulliel (Young Hannibal) comes 47-year-old Danish actor, Mads Mikkelsen.

Best known, to date, for his roles in Casino Royale (as Bond villain Le Chiffre) and, most recently, a persecuted schoolteacher in The Hunt, Mikkelsen is now centre stage in NBC's 13-part American TV series, Hannibal.

Using the Manhunter/Red Dragon template, this small screen contribution to the tasty franchise also re-introduces FBI criminal profiler Will Graham (Hugh Dancy, inheriting the role played previously by William Petersen and Edward Norton), with an expertise in serial killers.

His relationship with budding mass murderer who has a penchant for cooking up his victims with a nice fava bean and chianti sauce could run and run.