The crux of their legal argument is that the constitution of New York specifically prevents governments from supporting private institutions with the use of public money, with desperate economic circumstances not mitigating this. If the appeal is successful, they are asking for all of the money paid out by the US Government to be returned by the companies who received it.

The hearing at the Court of Appeals is the last available option open to the 50-strong group, after the previous attempt to sue the state of New York and a number of private companies, including Global Foundries and IBM was rejected by the trial judge. The purpose of the hearing is to attempt to get the case reinstated for trial.

The constitutional provision that the group have based their case on states that:

“the money of the state shall not be given or loaned to or in aid of any private corporation or association, or private undertaking; nor shall the credit of the state be given or loaned to or in aid of any individual, or public or private corporation or association or private undertaking.”

“I still like the idea that I’m his girlfriend,“ said Hawn, before adding:

“And in a way, the kids like it. We asked the kids about marriage early on and we said, ‘Shall we get married?’…and they said, ‘No, no!’”

However, she added that she would not attempt to impose these views on her daughter, the actress Kate Hudson, who is set to marry fiancée Matt Bellamy of the rock band Muse, with whom she has a daughter.

Hawn, 65, who has been married twice – first to Gus Trikonis, then to Bill Hudson, with whom she had daughter Kate – prior to her relationship with 60-year old Russell, went on to attribute the success of their relationship to their enjoyment of each others’ company – despite disagreements:

“The trick to still being happy? Well, first of all you have to like being together, number one. You don’t always have to like each other, but you have to like being together.”

The role Russell is in talks over is that of Ace, described as a vicious, sadistic henchman. The film itself is set in the American South and centres on a newly freed slave attempting to save his wife from Leonardo Di Caprio’s villainous plantation owner. Kevin Costner had originally been set to portray the character of Ace, before the actor withdrew from the project in September due to scheduling conflicts; but securing Russell as a replacement would allow the film to go into production in November as planned.

The departure of Costner from the project was the second problem to hit Tarantino’s spaghetti western, following the injury sustained by another member of the cast, Christopher Waltz. Waltz dislocated a pelvic bone while learning to ride a horse in training for the film, which is also set to feature Oscar winner Jamie Foxx in the title role, along with Samuel L Jackson, and is due to open in American cinemas on Christmas Day 2012.

This is just the latest pre-release poster for the film, with the radically different American version having been issued to the press in July, and indicates the important role poster printing plays in the teaser promotions for major film releases. However, convincing audiences with an impressive teaser campaign is likely to be particularly important for this film, which not only has to win over fans of the Carpenter version, but also overcome negative perceptions created by the delay in release.

The new prequel had been due to be released in April, but was postponed at the last minute by Universal Pictures, leading to speculation about problems with the final cut, a claim denied by the film‘s producer Marc Abraham.

The American poster is considerably starker and foregrounds the film’s star – Mary Elisabeth Winstead – while the international poster features a full landscape photograph. This indicates the subtly different ways the film is being promoted domestically and internationally, with the domestic poster playing up one of the major areas of difference – the female lead – perhaps working on the assumption that the 1982 film is most fondly remembered at home.

One location I visited was from the film Ghostbusters, the fire station on the corner of corner of Varick and Moore in Tribeca. The fire station isn’t one of the usual sightseeing spots in NY, such as the Statue of Liberty or the Empire State Building, but it’s no less spectacular and meaningful. There’s even a sign from Ghostbusters 2 inside the building on the wall.

While I was there I also visited the scene of the World Trade Center, where Snake landed near the beginning of EFNY. That was pretty eerie.

One gripe I did have with New York however was the hotel we stayed at. Even though it was just off Park Lane (which admittedly could mean anywhere) the rooms were extremely small. The rooms were so small in fact that they didn’t even have their own bathrooms – these were shared by everyone on the floor.

That’s perhaps the main difference between the UK and New York; whereas in NY everyone is living on top of each other and space is at a premium, in many areas in the UK you can find hotels with rooms the size of banquet halls. Indeed, in some of the more traditional areas of the UK, such as in Oxfordshire and Cambridgeshire, you’ll find hotel rooms that are in keeping with the traditional ideas of Britain. Some Cambridge hotels that I’ve stayed in for example put our hotel in New York to shame.

Of course, Snake Plissken never visited Cambridge… he went to Cleveland.

New York, even before it became a prison in Escape from New York, was a dangerous place with a fairly high crime rate, and with so many security products being implemented by ADT New York must have been awash with alarms, sensors and CCTV cameras by the time Snake Plissken was dropped into the city to rescue the president from the Duke of New York.

It’s surprising actually that you never see security systems left on in any post-apocalyptic films, such as Mad Max or The Postman. Considering that the films themselves show the eventual degradation of society, where people become increasingly distrustful of others and hostile towards strangers, you’d think there’d be more in the way of alarm systems.

Of course, you’d probably get alarms going off all the time if that was the case, and nobody would take a blind bit of notice about them; just like they don’t now actually.

You can read it for yourself here at IMDB.

That film is dreadful. It’s 45 minutes of Hollyoaks standard acting and dialogue, followed by 4 brutal and sudden murders, another 30 minutes of awful chick flick dialogue, a car chase and a beating. Then it ends?

A seriously messed up film by a messed up guy.

We’ll have a lot more like this soon so keep posted!