Whatever plans you have for the evening, cancel them: this film is compulsory viewing. It attempts to analyse issues behind violence of the kind seen in the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School, the Oklahoma bombing, and on September 11 in New York and Washington. If you are familiar with Michael Moore's work, you'll recognise why people seem to love him or hate him: he can be blatantly one-sided, confrontational with interviewees, overly simplistic, and openly melodramatic, and he's all of these things in this film. Yet he explores an important and provocative debate: which comes first, violence or fear? Chaos in American society or media hysteria? Is it exploitation with an agenda? Perhaps, but it's a debate rarely acknowledged publicly, especially in the superficial approach to social commentary taken by increasingly commercialised global media interests. This film has weak spots, certainly, but it's well worth watching and thinking about. Moore's attempt to comprehend America's ludicrous rate of gun deaths should be appreciated. The film's view of a society obsessed with fear, crippled by inequality and so heavily armed is confronting, alarming and undeniable in its reality.

An adaptation of a then-recent science fiction story (Harry Harrison's 'Make Room!'), when this film was made, 30 years ago, the problem of an overcrowded earth was very controversial.

The bad guys were still Russians and Chinese, so, when the vision of the earth in 50 years' time was created, Charlton Heston's Detective Thorn was not only investigating a murder, he was illustrating everything that was good about the American lifestyle too. It is interesting to contemplate what he could have done with the internet, mobile phones, and DNA analysis.

Generally panned by contemporary critics, mostly because Heston couldn't act, Soylent Green nonetheless acquired a cult following. Its appearance is very like the original Star Trek.

Anyway, the ANUFG doesn't often show Heston's movies. Many of you may think, "Thank goodness," but these elderly flicks were what today's directors learned from. Come and watch it