If you are looking for a movie with a friendship theme, DVD ideas has come to your aid. In no particular order...

1 Saving Grace (2000) Drama/Comedy

2 25th Hour (2002) Drama/Suspense

3 The Station Agent (2003) Drama

4 The Barbarian Invasions (2003) Drama

5 Late August, Early September (1998) Drama

6 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) Animated

7 The Cuckoo (2003) Drama/Comedy

8 Muriel's Wedding (1995) Drama/Comedy

9 Rory O'Shea Was Here (2005) Drama

10 The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (2005) Drama/Comedy

11 Grand Canyon (1991) Drama

12 Toy Story 2 (1999) Animated

13 Man on the Train (2003) Drama

14 Henry Fool (1998) Drama/Comedy

15 I Vitelloni (1953) Drama

16 The Shape of Things (2003) Drama

17 Me Without You (2002) Drama

18 Apres Vous (2005) Drama/Comedy

19 Shaun of the Dead (2004) Drama/Suspense

20 Return of the Secaucus Seven (1981) Drama

21 Walking and Talking (1996) Drama/Comedy

22 Italian for Beginners (2002) Drama

23 A Home at the End of the World (2004) Drama

24 Two Friends (1986) Drama

25 Rounders (1998) Drama/Comedy

26 Grateful Dawg (2001) Documentary

27 What To Do In Case of Fire? (2002) Drama

28 My Dinner With Andre (1981) Drama

29 The Iron Giant (1999) Animated

30 Ride the High Country (1962) Drama/Western

31 Sunset Story () Documentary

32 Bottle Rocket (1996) Drama/Comedy

33 Box of Moonlight (1996) Drama/Comedy

34 Gallipoli (1981) Drama/Military

35 Electric Shadows (2004) Drama

36 Last Orders (2002) Drama

37 Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill (2005) Documentary

38 Assisted Living (2005) Drama/Comedy

39 Sequins (2005) Drama

40 Bagdad Cafe (1988) Drama/Comedy

41 15 (2005) Drama

42 Kitchen Stories (2004) Drama/Comedy

43 The Matador (2005) Drama/Action

44 Boyz N the Hood (1991) Drama

45 Trainspotting (1995) Drama/Action

46 Project X (1987) Drama/Comedy

Some while back I remember a comment made by Damian Hirst - the richest artist in history - on friendship. In it, he lamented the fact that he couldn't give friends gifts of his work anymore because if he did he was, in effect, handing them a fortune. The price the gift could fetch on the open market had eclipsed, and so ruined, the value of the personal exchange.

However, in an interview today, he suggests that his older, pre-celebrity friends offer him something that is a valuable counterpoint to being rich and famous. The interviewer writes:

'I venture to ask whether Hirst has considered therapy. "It's American, isn't it? I'm all Yorkshire. If you need something like that, you're not working your friends properly." He says that he values friendships, he has friends from way back. "It's quite good if you introduce your old friends to your famous friends and see if they get on." He does a dinner-party voice. "'And this is David Bowie, and this is Terry from Leeds who I went to school with.' Pervertedly, I quite like that idea."'

I am not entirely sure that friends are a good substitute for therapy, especially if they start to feel that they are being 'worked'. But it would be fascinating to see if David Bowie was made to feel uncomfortable by Terry, if Terry exposed the vacuity of celebrity friendship.

'Easy camaraderie.'

'Laid-back vibe.'

Two features of friendship that come across in 'Sketches of Frank Gehry', a documentary about the architect made by Sydney Pollack, according to reviews.

The two men are longtime friends and chat together on camera.

Not entirely sure why, but the friendship of George Clooney and Brad Pitt has been all over the friendship google alerts in the last few days. Philosophical value? Just a little: a new definition of close friendship - 'backpacking friends'.

Here's one report:

Actor George Clooney has downplayed his friendship with Brad Pitt saying, "He is one of my showbiz friends".

According to contactmusic.com, Clooney admits they have a great working relationship and enjoy spending time together but they are not as close as the media suggests.

He says: "It is not like we call each other every day. We are 'showbiz friends,' we are not like, 'friends, friends'. It is not like we go backpacking together."

Clooney recently denied rumours that Pitt would marry Angelina Jolie at his home on Lake Como, Italy. He says while they are not that close, the couple is welcome to visit him any time they please.

The 90's pop phenomenon, Take That, the original British boy band, are promoting a hits album for Christmas. The images of the five gathered together in friendship are again all over the place. But, according to a documentary I watched over the weekend, when the band split not only did Gary and Robbie scrap in the papers but Jay, Mark and Howard simply went their separate ways too - almost overnight, not seeing each other for 10 years.

Now, of course, the band's friendship was amplified to play on the fantasies of fans. But you'd have thought that after all the weeks in hotels, gig highs, and shared epxerience that some bonds of friendship would have formed. Apparently not. The band is, therefore, a good example of the truth Aristotle saw and called utility friendship: the friendship that forms when something is being done together, but that fizzes out fast when the thing shared dies.

Interesting piece in the paper today about buddy movies.

In short: We're talking Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Men In Black, Midnight Cowboy, Wedding Crashers, Lethal Weapon, 2 Fast 2 Furious, and now Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Studios love buddy movies - the formula is two bankable stars with chemistry. The fact that it's all downhill after the first 20 minutes, in terms of plot or character, matters not - mainstream cinema loves cliche and cliche is, for the most part, what you get (for buddy movies the central cliche is the buddies denying that they are partners or friends and then carrying on as partner and friend). The subtext of buddy movies is the gayness of the relationship - in most it's kept deeply ambiguous (in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang it is out in the open). And if you're thinking that this has all been very male, and where is Thelma and Louise etc, Jonathan Berstein, the writer of the piece, says the problem there is that big female stars will rarely play parts that glorify reprehensible human behaviour - the other main feature of buddy movies. Oh, and his best buddy movie? Midnight Run.

The great test of the closest friendships is the ability to exchange uncomfortable truths. There can be no more touchy example of such truth-telling than between two literary friends commenting on each other's work; it is tantamount to critiquing your best friend's child. So it was good to read yesterday that the friendship between Saul Bellow and Philip Roth included such brutal honesty.

"After letting Roth know - in detail - all of his problems with the central characters, Bellow closes by offering something of a disclaimer: "There aren't many people to whom I can be so open. We've always been candid with each other and I hope we will continue, both of us, to say what we think. You'll be sore at me, but I believe that you won't cast me off forever.""

Ant and Dec are TV stars who have turned friendship into a fortune. As a profile of them in the weekend paper shows, 'They do friendship. They have professionalised their friendship, turned it into a double act. In essence they are selling their relationship. They invite us into their club - a club founded on love and loyalty and fun and giddy immaturity. Ant and Dec have a knack of making us feel good about the world, befriended.'

It is a very modern friendship. For one thing, it is male (if you wrote it into a book, two girlfriends forming a career based upon their civiviality would be more believable).

Second, it is modern because the friendship is the only constant in an otherwise inconstant world. Ant and Dec are just 29 and yet they have already had several major career changes. 'First, they were child actors in Byker Grove. Next, they were pop stars in boy band PJ and Duncan. Then they returned as TV presenters - on the BBC's Ant And Dec Show (including a quiz game called Beat The Barber in which children either won a PlayStation or lost their hair), on Channel 4's Ant And Dec Unzipped and on ITV's Saturday morning music show SM:tv Live, with Cat Deeley.'

Then there is the quality of the friendship that they offer to us: it is not the friendship of luvvies, it is not contrived; it is natural, immediate and utterly convincing. 'In so many ways, they are interchangeable. They don't compete with each other, they instinctively know when to stop talking to allow the other in, they finish each other's sentences, they enjoy each other's jokes, they make for a tender pair of twins.'

However, there is a dark cloud on the horizon. Ant is engaged. And although Ant says, 'What's nice is that Lisa understands our working relationship and our friendship. I think a lot of girls could get sick of it.' - they also cannot conceal the fact that the friendship feels threatened by this relationship.

This is the gooseberry phenomenon that many single people will relate to: 'Dec says he's looking for a girlfriend, and laughs it off, but he sounds lonely. He's constantly reminded that Ant is settling down, and gossip columns frequently joke about him being squeezed out of the relationship when Ant gets married. How do they feel about approaching 30?'

"I hate it," Dec says with surprising vehemence. "Really hate it. Now it's getting closer, the more I hate it. Everybody's going, 'Don't worry, it's not like you haven't achieved anything' - it makes me think of everything, personal stuff, yourself, your relationships, and your work."

Now, one can only wish Ant every happiness. But should the friendship fall apart on our screens with Ant's marriage somehow the catalyst if not the cause, then their friendship would, I think, be modern in another way too. It is not just that modern marriage takes two - too often it can countenance nothing else.

It being the Booker time of year: two of those shortlisted had a famous fracas - Martin Amis and Julian Barnes. Jules' wife, Pat Kavanagh was Amis' agent for many years. When he sacked her, in favour of million dollar advances elsewhere, the friendship fractured. Years of silence, punctured by occasional crossfire in the press, ensued. Then, in his memoire, Amis makes a rather moving comment: 'Jules, tell me to fuck off and everything if you want - but try and stay my friend and try and help me be a friend to Pat ... I will call you in a while - quite a long while. I'll miss you.' It's the comment that healing friendship requires effort and time - the effort of clinging to the threads of friendship that remain, for quite some time - that draws my eye. It recognises the depth of the rift whilst saying it need not be forever for all that it feels like forever now. Watch the body language at the Booker!