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It was inevitable that a book of the magnitude of Catch 22 would pale into insignificance in movie adaptation. Tom Wolfe's magnum opus - Bonfire of the Vanities - suffered the same fate.

How could Yossarian's caustic scepticism of all around him be captured as well on celluloid? Or Cathcart and Korn's conniving? Or the well meaning chaplain's impotence when confronted with authority? And so many other things. The answer is of course: it couldn't.

Instead I tried to view this film as though I'd never read the book. After one viewing I found myself rather warming to it. It isn't as grand in scale, how could it be. But instead of slating it for being nothing like the original work, I just settled down to enjoy it as a film in its own right.

On subsequent re-readings of Heller I found myself picturing Alan Arkin as Yossarian. And I believed it too. And Art Garfunkel captured the innocent patriotism of Nately. I like this film because it didn't try too hard to be like the novel, and as opposed to Bonfire, it doesn't fail as entertaining cinema.

Joel and Ethan Coen have never sold us a dud. Quite the contrary in this beautifully dark comic fairytale. Stealing babies is a very delicate subject, but never once do the Coens tread carefully. And why should they with such a funny script and great comedy cast.

The robbery and chase scene is marvellous slapstick, the likes of which we are never treated to any more. And the one liners are gems: "Are these balloons funny shapes?" "Not unless round's funny."

The Coens have shown us that they are adept at different genres, but I always look forward to their next comedy.

This film charts the life of one of America's most colourful politicians in an unbiased and very entertaining manner. Long's speeches were awesome. Absolutely tailor made for the audience before him, and guaranteed to win them over. It wasn't just his Louisiana electorate he won over though. At the time of his assassination in 1935 he controlled the board of education, the state militia several local police forces, as well as most of the state legislature, and most importantly, as senator, he also controlled state governor, O.K. Allen. Huey's brother Earl once said of O.K.: "A leaf once blew in the window of OK's office and landed on his desk and he signed it."

Ken Burn's is even handed in his criticism of Long, and justly so. Long did take Louisiana out of the mud by building over 2000 miles of road and several bridges over the Mississippi. Burn's manages to commit to posterity what would otherwise have been written off as a dark period in US political history. Again, I'm all in favour of stories that should be told.