Donal MacIntyre

Oregonian film critic Shawn Levy is catching as many movies as he can at the Sundance Film Festival. This week, he’ll share his thoughts on what he sees.

I spent Sunday watching documentaries and came up with a great mix.

First up was “A Very British Gangster,” a portrait of the crime lord of Manchester, England, a sadistic, saucy, cruel, sentimental and gay fellow named Dominic Noonan. It was longish but beautifully made.

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What is it: MacIntyre delves into the world of British gangster Dominic Noonan. He blends interviews with Noonan and his minions, news reports, slick editing and a booming, energetic soundtrack full of hip-hop, rock and Brit-pop to create a portrait of a man both charismatic and scary.

Meeting Dominic: "He was quite hard with me at first. He said, ‘My brother was offered a contract to kill you. He hasn’t done the job.’ . . . He kind of respected me because I could look him in the eyes, and I’ve seen plenty of life, and he’s seen plenty of life, both from different sides. . . . In the end, we had a picture of his life and his personality and his world, rather than just a picture of his crimes."

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He’s rubbing shoulders with the stars at Sundance, but reporter Donal MacIntyre won’t be enjoying the glitzy parties – because his wife is expecting a baby.

The journalist is at the film festival because his documentary, A Very British Gangster, has been nominated in the Documentary World Cinema category.

But he confessed he won’t be spending his much-earned days off at many of the parties at Sundance.

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People in the North East are unaware of the poisonous chemicals found in cigarette smoke, according to a survey carried out by Cancer Research UK.

Smoke from cigarettes contains some 4,000 chemicals, 69 of which are known to cause cancer, but three quarters of people from the North East who took part in the survey were not able to name any, other than nicotine and tar.

The survey results come as the charity launches its Smoke Is Poison campaign, which aims to tell smokers of the dangers chemicals in cigarettes which include arsenic, benzene and formaldehyde.

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Our anti-smoking commercials for Cancer Research UK and the Dept of Health were innovative and challenging. We set out to interview ordinary people in their daily work places and to challenge them about the chemicals they work with and the protection they use. From an undertaker to a scientist from the Natural History museum we talked to them and then ambush them – we tell them that the chemical they are so careful about in work is out there in the pub and clubs of Britain – in the form of cigaretter smoke.

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After this summer smokers will no longer be able to light up in public places. Before the ban comes into force, drives to encourage people to give up the cancer sticks are hitting harder than ever. Katie Baldwin reports
MOST smokers would never admit they were drug addicts – but nicotine is as addictive as heroin or crack cocaine.

According to a striking new Government advertising campaign, smokers are hooked on an average of 5,000 cigarettes a year.

The unpleasant TV adverts show smokers being violently grabbed by a fish hook and dragged to the places where they normally enjoy a fag.

Billboards are just as graphic with an image of a woman with a hook driven through her mouth.

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Kat: Coming up later, we reveal the shocking news that you can find the cancer-causing chemicals arsenic, benzene and formaldehyde on the high street. And I’ll be discovering how the prospects may be changing for pancreatic cancer in the future. First, it’s time for a roundup of the latest news stories from Henry Scowcroft.

Henry: Hitting the headlines this month was a warning from Cancer Research UK that increasing rates of obesity could cause as many as 12,000 new cases of cancer per year by 2010. Excess weight can increase the risk of several cancers, including cancer of the bowel, the womb, the kidneys, and breast cancer in postmenopausal women. Being overweight or obese is thought to cause 4% of all cancers in the UK each year. After smoking, it’s thought to be the most important preventable cause of cancer.

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