From the A-Team to the Z-List

THE A-TEAM Fox gets a plan together for a classic remake Already a work of casting near-perfection – Oskar Schindler! Phil from The Hangover! That half-alien bloke from District 9! A man who legitimately calls himself Quinton "Rampage" Jackson ! – July's A-Team movie has the potential to be quite exciting indeed. Provided, of course, that it's got a good director, a trustworthy producer, a keen sense of humour and a female lead who's made more than one good film in her entire life. What? It's directed by Joe "Smokin' Aces" Carnahan, produced in part by Tony Scott, co-stars Jessica Biel and sees itself as a natural successor to the Bourne franchise? Eeek. Still, at least Quinton "Rampage" Jackson sounds promising. He'd better really hate going on those planes, though. BLOWING STUFF UP! Tony Robinson and Channel 4 go bang Looks like Channel 4 has come up with a whole new strand of scientific investigation this year. Why go digging for clues or hunting through libraries when you can just BLOW STUFF UP and then watch it again in slow-motion? It's genius. In Blitz Street (Feb, Channel 4), Tony Robinson is in charge as they recreate a whole terrace from 1940s Britain on a military base, and then use period-accurate munitions to BLOW IT UP! Just like the Blitz. Then, Plane Crash (Spring, Channel 4) will show us what happens when a 300-seat wide-bodied passenger jet CRASHES into the desert (don't worry, they've given the two pilots parachutes). COPS ON SCREEN! Next year's top TV and film crimefighters Cops. We never get bored of them, do we? Take the critically overlooked The Wire , no one's bored of us banging on about that. So, it's with glee that we look forward to a new BBC cop show, Luther , in which The Wire's Stringer Bell – Idris Elba – plays the title character. Luther apparently "turns the crime genre on its head" because we know the identity of the murderers from the beginning and have to watch Luther work it out. Which sounds a bit like Columbo, but never mind. Also whipping out the handcuffs for the Beeb is Howard Overman's Vexed , about a pair of cops juggling their personal and professional lives. And ready to baton-charge the small screen is More4's Southland , an LA cop show in the style of The Shield, only with Ryan from The OC playing a rookie law-enforcer. In the world of film, Kevin Smit h directs police buddy movie Cop Out with Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan; Nic Cage and Werner Herzog remake Bad Lieutenant ; and Training Day's Antoine Fuqua darkly surveys Brooklyn's Finest with Don Cheadle, Richard Gere, Wesley Snipes and Ethan Hawke. Arresting stuff.