MY MOVIE WEEKwith Mike Shaw

»He might be a lefty irritant, but Sean Penn is a pretty good filmmaker and his next project sounds like it could challenge Into The Wild as his best film.

The Comedian will see Penn directing Robert De Niro as a comic who used to be a popular TV star before a high-profile meltdown. A hot-tempered outburst where he smashes an audience member in the head with a microphone sees him sentenced to community service. While serving his sentence he finds redemption and romance with another character (Bridesmaids star Kristen Wiig).

De Niro might not be the most obvious choice to play a comedian, but he has played a similar role before, in The King of Comedy (1983). The Martin Scorsese film is a bitter, dark comedy and is often overlooked by De Niro fans, but it's home to one of the actor's greatest performances. Don't let the title fool you, this is a comedy in as much as One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest is about Bill Oddie. The Comedian will start shooting in spring next year.

»Jeez, you get your client one gig saluting a brutal dictator and this is the thanks you get?

Hilary Swank has fired her manager and agents after she was paid a six-figure sum to attend the birthday party of tyrannical Chechen president Ramzan Kadyrov who is widely accused of torturing dissidents, killing political opponents and encouraging citizens to abuse women who dress immodestly.

YouTube footage of the celebration shows Swank at a microphone announcing how much she had enjoyed visiting the totalitarian state and saying: "I could feel the spirit of the people, and I could see that everyone was so happy. Happy birthday, Mr President."

Many feel that the blame should fall on Swank herself, who claims she had no knowledge of the leader's human rights record. However, the Human Rights Foundation disputes this, stating that they had sent her a notice pleading with her not to attend, to which Swank's manager replied that she had no plans to attend the event. However, although it sounds like Swank only has herself to blame, perhaps these firings were long overdue. Ask yourself which is worse: arranging for your client to play nice with a repugnant despot, or arranging for your client to star in P.S. I Love You alongside Gerard Butler, a man comprised solely of galvanised reclaimed meat.

»Even though the reviews have been mixed - The Financial Times called it 'the ugliest film ever made' - work on Tintin 2 has already started.

Alex Rider author Anthony Horowitz has said that he is already slogging away on the script for Tintin 2 (Prisoners of the Sun) and is confident that there will be a few more instalments beyond that.

"I may not be a critic, but I loved the film," said Horowitz. "It captures the spirit of the books I loved so much when I was a youngster with its old-fashioned hero who doesn't drink, doesn't smoke and doesn't chase women. Here's books were a huge inspiration to me when I first read them as a child - they gave me the travel bug and made me want to write and report, so they changed my life."

You know who else doesn't drink, smoke or chase women? Iggle Piggle. So where's the multi-million dollar In The Night Garden film?

Someone has taken all the stones from the garden and Makka Pakka is inconsolable.

Only one person can help. Iggle Piggle must avoid all the dangers lurking in Night Garden, including honeypot Upsy Daisy and experimental nanobots The Pontipines, and track down the missing stones before Pipling spies Yojojo and De-Li hijack the Pinky Ponk and the priceless artefacts are lost for ever. Rated 12A.