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It’s time to catch up with some of the most interesting cinema-centric books of the last few months, and it’s a diverse list. There’s some Lego, some Nolan, some Star Wars (of course), and even some vintage Stan Brakhage. That’s range.

Off the Cliff: Making of Thelma & Louise by Becky Aikman (Penguin Press)

The career of Ridley Scott is full of peaks and valleys. One of the peaks was the release of Thelma & Louise in 1991. The cultural impact of this story of two female outlaws cannot be overstated, and Becky Aikman’s account of the making of the film helps explain why. Thelma & Louise involved a unique cast of characters, including stars Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis, as well as a young hunk named Brad Pitt. But the most memorable figures here are Scott, who knew his career needed a change but could not originally see...

The Book Lights, Camera, Game Over!: How Video Game Movies Get Made is currently available from Schiffer Publishing for $19.99. The book can be ordered Here

Since 1993, Hollywood has been rendering popular video games on the silver screen, mainly to critical derision and box office failure. While a few have succeeded, many have been hailed as the “worst movie ever” and left gamers asking: how did that get made? Super Mario fans expecting plumbers jumping on Goombas got an inter-dimensional battle between humans and evolved dinosaurs. Players expecting to see Ryu, Ken, and the rest of the World Warriors compete in the Street Fighter Tournament instead got a live-action GI Joe. This in-depth and entertaining work recounts the production histories of many of these movies, revealing the sometimes inspired and convoluted path Hollywood took to turn pixels into living flesh, with insights from more than 40 industry insiders, including film directors Paul W.

Ping Coombes has won the 2014 series of MasterChef.

The full-time mum cooked a three-course Malaysian-inspired meal to beat graduate Jack Lucas and robotics engineer Luke Owen in the final, after eight weeks of competition.

Ping said: "The last time I felt such emotion was when my daughter was born. Something that you don't get to experience a lot. Pure joy and pure bliss that feels incredible. Epic. My mother will be really proud I'm sure. I say this a lot but she still won't let me in her kitchen!"

John Torode said: "When I eat Ping's food, it makes me happy, it makes my heart thump. For me Ping is a cook's cook, she gets her head down and she works really, really hard to make sure she reaches her goal. She is pretty amazing."

Gregg Wallace added: "She inspires me, she excites me. And she cares so much. Rarely...

Stalled is a new zombie feature from production company Cubicle Hero. This comedic title had a United Kingdom premiere August 24th and the reviews have been positive, so far. This film has been compared to another zombie comedy, Shaun of the Dead. And, fans can preview the film's promotional materials, here. Stalled involves a maintenance man, who is trapped in a washroom during a zombie apocalypse. W. C. (Dan Palmer) needs to find a way to escape, but his one man stall provides few exits. Can he find a way out, before the undead find a way in? Critic Luke Owen from Flickering Myth enjoyed the film: "Palmer's performance and willingness will lead to some really big laughs." Also, the trailer for the film offers hilarity as W.C. overreacts to his desperate situation. Horror and zombie fans can preview the film's trailer and official movie poster here. Director: Christian James.

Why can’t people make decent monster movies? I’m a huge monster movie fan.From classics such as Godzilla (1954), Mothra (1962) and Gamera to more recent films such as Cloverfield (2008) and Host (2006), I love anything that has a giant monster destroying things.

They might not have the best effects, but they have a certain wonder and charm that entertains me no matter how bad they are (Terror of Mechagodzilla (1975) is a great example of this).

However, there has been a recent trend towards making really cheap monster movies with ridiculous titles that are high on digital effects and low on pretty much everything else.

I first encountered this phenomenon when viewing Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus (2009); I was expecting to get some tongue-in-cheek laughs from a silly film, but instead got a terrible film that actually appeared to be taking itself seriously.

The subsequent, emergent trend would lead me down a dark path of disappointment,...

Horror has always been a genre that has produced films into which no time or effort has been put. Cinema history is riddled with horror flicks that were turned out in a matter of months, for as little money as possible, hoping to make an even profit on the video and DVD releases. And Soon The Darkness (2011) appears to fall into this category.

The story surrounds two travelling friends, Stephanie and Ellie, who stop over in a remote part of Argentina while on a cycling trip. While there, they have a very by-the-numbers night out and end up missing the bus, which would have taken them on the next leg of their journey. So, they laze about by a river, have an argument, get split up and then Ellie is abducted by an unknown assailant. It’s now up to Stephanie and the mysterious Michael to try and save her.

The more astute of readers will probably have guessed that I am not a lesbian, so perhaps I am not the target audience for Nicole Conn's Elena Undone (2010). However, what you will have also guessed is that I am an avid film lover, so I'd like to think that I know what makes a good film and what makes a bad film...and Elena Undone is a bad film.

Conn's film tells the tale of Elena (Necar Zadegan), the wife of the local pastor and photographer who strikes up a friendship with local writer and lesbian Peyton (Traci Dinwiddie). Their friendship grows and grows until they both admit their feelings for each other and begin an affair.

So the plot, while cliched, is at least fairly decent. It ticks all of the right boxes and, aside from the final 10 minutes, follows a very linear path that is signposted along the way.

Picture the scene: you’re walking through your local HMV (other retailers are available) and you're looking to buy a movie because you’ve got the boys coming over for some gaming and beers. The perfect genre to pick for such an occasion is the “dumb but rather fun” action flick – a film that is for all intensive purposes awful, yet is entertaining to an extent. Enter Kill Speed (2010)...

Kill Speed is an apparently “high octane” action film starring former WCW and WWE wrestler Bill Goldberg, Terminator 2’s Robert Patrick, Heroes' mind reading cop Greg Grunberg and Backstreet Boy Nick Carter. The premise of the film revolves around a bunch of drug smugglers who get their wares over the border by using “supersonic” planes. But when a big deal worth $2.7 million rears its head, the FBI get involved and it soon becomes a game of cat and mouse for...

It’s amazing to think what a difference 5 years and an extra 76 minutes can make. Adam Salky's Dare (2009) originally began life as a 16 minute short before evolving into its final feature form. It tells the tale of awkward drama wannabe Alexa (Emmy Rossum), closet gay lighting technician Ben (Ashley Springer) and standard "hottie" (Zach Gilford) who, while working on a school production of A Street Car Named Desire, fall into a bizarre love triangle that tests the boundaries of friendship, lust and forbidden love.

Described as a “John Hughes-esque story”, Dare is unfortunately devoid of engaging characters, clever and believable dialogue and/or a narrative that draws an audience in on any sort of emotional level. The film we get instead is boring, badly written, and so self indulgent that it doesn’t seem to know where the line between social commentary and plain pomposity lies.

None of Dare's characters are engaging.

From the shores of France comes Richard Berry's 22 Bullets (2010), a surprisingly average gangster thriller starring everyone’s favourite French gunsmith Jean Reno. Reno plays Charley Mattei, a former gangster who has given up the thrill of life in the criminal underworld to spend time with his children. However, a hit is put out on him and he is gunned down in a parking lot by a rival mob. The attackers put a horrific 22 bullets into Charley’s body and leave him to die; yet he miraculously survives – which means that Jean Reno is officially tougher than 50 Cent.

What makes 22 Bullets slightly more interesting film is that it doesn’t follow the clichéd conventions. If you read the aforementioned plot and assumed that Reno goes gunning for revenge, you'd be wrong to think so. In fact, we see Charley slowly recover in hospital before vowing to return to his family life.

It amazes me that Soul Men (2008) didn't get much exposure when it was first released in November 2008, given the two star names attached to the feature, namely Samuel L. Jackson and the late Bernie Mac and Isaac Hayes. In fact, on release in the States it only managed to make back a measly $12 million (just 30% of its $40 million budget), which explains it hugely delayed, straight to DVD release here in the UK.

My feelings towards Soul Men before viewing were difficult to gauge. Although I’m a fan of both Jackson and Mac, I'm not adverse to a bit of soul and I’m a sucker for music-orientated road movies, there was something about the film didn’t sit right with me. Perhaps it was the lack of promotion, the average to poor reviews - or that sickly feeling that this was clearly being marketed as Mac’s last film.