From David Bowie to Terry Wogan Kelly O’Brien looks back on a year in which we lost an unprecedented number of celebrities

Is 2016 over yet?

In a year that has taken David Bowie, Prince, Merle Haggard, Guy Clarke, Alan Rickman, Caroline Aherne, and Michael Herr, author of Dispatches, one of the great anti-war books, it might be a tad difficult to get the deserved recognition for film-maker Michael Cimino, who died in Los Angeles aged 77, on Saturday. 

The cast is back for Alice Through the Looking Glass, and it's looking even more mental this time around. George Clooney is up in a drama from director Jodie Foster and there's a comedy shot in Ireland called Love and Friendship.

For a spell, the gastronomic reputation of the lovely seaside town of Kinsale appeared to be succumbing to a certain flabbiness of practice but recent years has seen the arrival of some sharp new operators raising standards across the board. 

The summer movie season is almost upon us, with blockbusters galore, and some of them don't even have superheroes in them. Not many we'll admit... here's looking at you Independence Day!

NOT another one. If you’re still trying to comprehend the idea that David Bowie was not, in fact, a star man made of star dust, but encased in a biodegradable meat sack like the rest of us, then the news of Prince will have felt like a great big purple slap, writes Suzanne Harrington. 

The Jungle Book 4/5

A potential drone strike is weighed and measured – can the benefits outweigh the heavy cost?

Helen Mirren has always eased into typically male roles, and is still doing so at 70, she tells Helen Barlow

 

It is now 40 years since the Judgement of Paris when a blind tasting of Napa Valley cabernets and chardonnays scored higher than many famous names from Bordeaux and Burgundy.

The best part about this new teaser video for Alice Through the Looking Glass is hearing Alan Rickman's voice once more

WELL it’s certainly been a hat trick for cancer — stealing talented, creative men aged 69-70. Lemmy, David Bowie and now Alan Rickman. 

Did we mention it was random?

Always.

British actor Alan Rickman almost turned down the role in which he made his first major film appearance.

Die Hard gets the Honest Trailers treatment and it revealed to be the best Christmas movie ever made - which we already knew

Alan Rickman - he of the deep, brooding voice, and famous for playing Severus Snape, Hans Gruber, and even Eamon De Valera - brought helium to his interview on Jimmy Kimmel last night.

ED SHEERAN could be the latest star to join the terrifying world of Game Of Thrones.

The best of what’s hitting the cinema this week.

Alan Rickman’s latest role as King Louis is another example of his penchant for playing real people, writes Ed Power.

A female landscape gardener is hired for a major project at Versailles during the reign of Louis XIV.

Russell-mania descended on Dublin last night, as throngs of people gathered outside the Savoy cinema to catch a glimpse of Hollywood actor Russell Crowe.

The Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2015 runs from the 19th to the 29th of March 2015, and its time to get with the announcements.

Here's what's on today for you Saturday couch potatoes.

Check out our spoiler-free guide to tonight's TV

What's on the tellybox tonight? These gems, for starters.

Check out our spoiler-free guide to what to watch on TV tonight.

MUSIC NEWS: Hozier is in Mitchelstown this weekend, and has also released a video of a duet with Karen Cowley on his single ‘In A Week’ that was recorded at Kilkenny Castle.

If The Menu could ever rid himself of the microchip implanted in his neck by Mrs Menu, he’d while away many an afternoon in his beloved L’Atitude 51, (www.latitude51.ie).

Ireland is doubling its financial aid to the disaster-struck Philippines.

The Butler ***

POLITICS is rock ’n’ roll for the ugly, and the shucksters, bounders and bumpkins who hang about in Leinster House are a motley crew.

John C. Reilly has been offered a role in 'Guardians of the Galaxy'.

A Good Day To Die Hard (15A) arrives to mark the 25th anniversary of the original Die Hard (1988), and while Die Hard 4.0 nudged John McClane (Bruce Willis) into James Bond territory, it remained good, clean, trashy fun, not least when Willis launched a stolen cab at a helicopter.