Cuts are in the air as kids go back to school this September. But with education funding reduced and renovation plans scrapped, who do you turn to when your local primary or secondary has collapsed into a pile of rubble?

With its varied back-catalogue and comfortable seating arrangements, the cinema could well be your best bet to educate your offspring.

Nick Clegg can’t stop you seeing a film based on your postcode, and Michael Gove is all for people starting up their own state schools. Even Odeon’s website agrees: "the cinema can provide a useful and relevant study aid," it readily enthuses. Starting up your own school? Don’t use the chip shop – use your own home cinema.

When it comes to the national curriculum on a budget, you can forget the Three Rs. The letters you want are these: DVD.

Here’s a rundown of your basic introductory syllabus:

Scott Pilgrim melts the eyeballs of any geek who dares look at it, but Edgar Wright's digital freak-out also aims its pixels somewhere else: directly at your ears.

You may not register it at first, all those noises from games past and present, but Nigel Godrich and Wright have fused together those retro chiptunes with a modern take on Nintendo's gaming world. Who knew Street Fighter and Zelda could influence cinema so much?

The first sign comes from the opening credits: a gloriously naff rendition of an iconic studio's fanfare. After that fix, you'll be chomping at the 8-bit for weeks to come. But before you burn your speakers out with all the MIDI-fied goodness, save yourself some effort (and street-cred) because we've gone and rounded up the internet's best offerings for you. Because we're nice like that. And incredibly, incredibly sad.

So put your Gameboys on charge and turn your speakers to 11. Here are cinema's greatest themes. All in glorious 8-bit mono sound. Bring the noise.

It's the 80th birthday of Sir Sean Connery - the coolest man alive.

To celebrate, print off our birthday card and share it with your friends. 

What with the horrifying Human Centipede hitting the cinemas and the recent release of Splice, I (as a research scientist) am starting to feel a bit persecuted. You may think I’m paranoid but more often than not, scientists end up as the bad guys in movies.

Whether we're villains with God complexes or clueless, well-intentioned beings who mess with things way beyond them, us test tube folk always get left carrying the buck. Especially when Bad Things Happen.

Researchers in medical sciences, and particularly genetics, seem to be the most likely to be given the Frankenstein (or "Harold Shipman") treatment. But is Hollywood right? Are we all horrible, heartless or just plain ignorant? If The Human Centipede is "100% medically accurate", let's open the Pandora’s Box of Hollywood’s past scientific failures and see just how accurate their "evil" scientists are.