At 57, Cher is an abundance of energy, dividing her time between a farewell concert tour and promoting her latest movie, the Farrelly Brothers’ Stuck on You.

It’s simply hard to imagine what it must be like being Cher, and this legendary performer isn’t about to give too much away. As we sit in a New York hotel room, Cher laughs at the idea that in Stuck on You she gets to play an exaggerated version of herself, or rather of some kind of image, which she sends up to delightful comic effect.

If you want to put video on the web or send clips by email then you are going to have to compress it. Full screen, full-frame video files are simply too big for sharing over the web. To get the best results out of compression you want to start off with clean, clear and straightforward footage. Studio-shot talking-head shots may sound boring but these will work best. At the other end of the spectrum are roaming effects-laden footage epitomised by MTV. So with this in mind here are ten tips for enhancing video that you are distributing over the web.

LOS ANGELES. Mike Newell is a director whose diversity is apparent. Filmgoers may flock to see his predominantly female starrer Mona Lisa Smile, but many more will descend in droves to see his next film, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, due for release in November 2005. The director of such films as Four Weddings and a Funeral and Pushing Tin, has no doubts as to why he chose to go from one cinematic extreme to the other.

Eileen Walsh found playing a girl driven mad by the Catholic church in The Magdalene Sisters was one of the most emotionally draining roles of her life. 

Eileen Walsh first learned of The Magdalene Sisters while hanging out with Peter Mullan in the "smokers’ corner" during the filming of Miss Julie. Mullan did such a good job pitching his vision of the film that for months afterwards, whenever she went for an audition, Walsh would ask if anyone knew if it was casting yet. 

Scotty Crane was feeling emotional the day he and his wife Michelle flew from their home in Seattle to Los Angeles last summer. He was there to watch a feature film about his father, who was brutally battered to death 24 years earlier, when Scotty was just seven years old.

At 54 he's got a lot more movies in him, he claims, but as he's also got an eye on the political game

Political animal - rumour has it Arnie wants to be the Governor

Based on a story by Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett, a crew of seven astronauts, five men and two women on board the cargo ship Nostromo are awoken when their computer answers what they believe is a distress signal. Investigating, one of their crew is attacked by an organism. Origin unknown. They bring the injured party with organism attached back onto the ship to treat him. From there, the organism wreaks havoc.

The comedian turned thesp opines on nationalism, God, work, and his roles in big-budget historical adventure yarns Timeline, where he plays an archaeology professor who travels back to the Middle Ages, and The Last Samurai, where he is a Civil War soldier.

LOS ANGELES The secret to mockumentary master Christopher Guest's art is letting the actors do "their thing".

On screen Christopher Guest completely disappears into the world of a Sixties folk-singer making a comeback in his latest ensemble comedy, A Mighty Wind. As hilarious as these films are, Guest doesn't translate on-screen satire into his everyday world. You interview Mr. Guest and you’re meeting a serious artist who happens to poke fun at popular American culture. 

Catherine Zeta-Jones is no stranger to an avaricious media. Meeting the press in L.A. for the first time since her highly publicised wedding, the beautiful 31-year old Welsh lass recalls that before finding Hollywood stardom her experience as a television star in the UK "kind of prepared me, in a way, for what goes on: for this microscopic, insatiable appetite for any information - truth, lies, or any plain old gossip."