BURN AFTER READING (R16) 1H 37 USA BLACK COMEDY
Enraged ex-CIA analyst Osborne Cox embarks on his tell-all memoirs, only to have his notes accidentally fall into the enterprising hand of two 'simple' gym employees. Hatching a plan to extort a reward in order to pay for cosmetic surgery, the fitness duo soon find themselves knee-deep in infidelity, insecurity and insanity that can only end in tears...and perhaps death. The illustrious Coen brothers head back into the black comedy/caper territory, and once again deliver exactly what you don't expect. You'll laugh as you jump back in horror. Brad Pitt, Frances McDormand, George Clooney, John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton.
EAGLE EYE (M) 1H 57 USA/UK THRILLER
The latest Dreamworks is a gritty crime thriller that sees Disturbia's Shia Le Beouf and D.J. Caruso reform their actor/director partnership for another outing, this time with Billy Bob Thornton and Rosario Dawson along for back up. Gone Baby Gone's Michelle Monhagan plays Rachel, who discovers her child has gone missing while Le Bouf is a twin whose brother died in mysterious circumstances. The two meet as strangers and soon realize they have been framed as terrorists and are forced into assassinating the president of the United States. Only together can they both free themselves from the nefarious forces that have come to control them and foil their terrorist activities.
EARTH (G) 1H 39 UK/GERMANY DOCUMENTARY
Despite the threat from global warming, intensive farming and irrigation, profit-driven slaughter and urban sprawl, the Earth is still home to magnificent beasts fighting for survival and propagation. This documentary reminds us of the beauty and harmony we stand to lose if environmental action fails. A spectacular giant screen spin-off from the BBC's Planet Earth series, Earth doesn't stint on nature's sideshows (priceless footage of baboons or birds of paradise), but concentrates and expands on astoundingly close coverage of three creatures and their young offspring: polar bear, elephant and humpback whale. The hardships posed to their migratory existence by a changing planet are distressingly clear. Narrated by Patrick Stewart.
MAMMA MIA (PG) 1H 48 UK/USA MUSICAL COMEDY ROMANCE
The smash-hit Broadway show makes it to the screen in this musical which interweaves 22 ABBA songs into a tale of a mother and her soon-to-be-wed daughter. 20-year-old Sophie has a problem; it's almost her wedding day and she doesn't know who her father is! It could be any of three of her mother's past suitors. The only way to find out is to invite all three to her wedding and see what happens. Stars Meryl Streep, Amanda Seyfried, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, Julie Walters.
MISS PETTIGREW LIVES FOR A DAY (PG) 1H 32 UK COMEDY DRAMA
In 1939 London, Miss Guinevere Pettigrew (Frances McDormand) is a middle-aged governess who finds herself once again unfairly dismissed from her job. Without so much as a redundancy package, Miss Pettigrew realizes that this is a perfect opportunity for her to get out there and live her life ‘to the max'. She takes a job outside of her comfort level - as a ‘social secretary'. Arriving at a penthouse apartment for the interview, Miss Pettigrew is catapulted into the dizzyingly glamorous world of an American actress and singer, Delysia Lafosse (Enchanted's Amy Adams). Within minutes, Miss Pettigrew finds herself swept into a high-society lifestyle in which Delysia is seeing three men; devoted pianist Michael, intimidating nightclub owner Nick, and impressionable junior impresario Phil. Miss Pettigrew herself is drawn to the gallant Joe (There Will Be Blood's Ciarán Hinds), a successful designer who is tenuously engaged to haughty fashion meanie Edythe - the one person who senses that the new ‘social secretary' may be out of her element, and schemes to undermine her.
MONGOL (R16) 2H 4 MONGOLIA HISTORICAL EPIC
Talked of as the 1st part of a trilogy, this huge epic depicts the early life of the greatest barbarian ever, Genghis Kahn. Although born to lead, Temudgin, as he was then known, went on the run when his father was murdered and became a slave, before building alliances and conquering half the known world. (The conquering is not the subject of this movie.) Temudgin seems mostly inspired by his desire to be reunited with his betrothed, who is stolen from him soon after their marriage as teenagers. Temudgin rescues her with help from a friend, but these blood brothers are destined soon to become enemies. Also starring are the breathtaking Mongolian landscapes, captured in their majesty by outstanding cinematography. Subtitled.
RAIN OF THE CHILDREN (M) 1H 42 NZ DOCUDRAMA
Vincent Ward's deeply personal and incredibly moving film unravels and re-imagines the story of Puhi, the Tuhoe woman he documented in 1978 for his early film In Spring One Plants Alone. Then she was 80 and caring for her schizophrenic adult son, and Ward was 21, a young art student capturing her way of life. While not the subject of his earlier film, Puhi believed herself to be cursed, and this unknowable curse is what preoccupies Ward now.
Puhi, he discovers, was chosen by Tuhoe prophet Rua Kenana to marry his son, she survived the 1916 police raid on Rua's Maungapohatu community and went on to have 14 children. Cutting between early footage, his own to-camera narration, contemporary interviews with Tuhoe descendents, and magnificently recreated historical sequences; Ward reveals both the heartrending background of Puhi's belief in the curse, and her lasting power over him.
Miriama Rangi, Rena Owen, Temuera Morrison
SPACE CHIMPS (G) 1H 21 USA ANIMATION
Animated intergalactic adventure is the order of the day as two NASA chimps are launched into the stratosphere. One is Ham III, whose grandfather happens to be the very first chimpanzee ever to travel into space. Unlike his illustrious forefather, Ham III is a goofball, albeit good-natured, and not well suited to the goal of the mission (namely, eliminate a tyrannical leader on a distant planet). Ham III will have to learn the true meaning of heroism if he is to be successful. Fortunately, the brave Lt. Luna and the officious commander Titan are along for the ride and have got his back.
Voices of Andy Samberg, Cheryl Hines, Jeff Daniels, Stanley Tucci, Patrick Warburton
THE COUNTERFEITERS (R13) 1H 38 GERMANY DRAMA
In 1936, "Sally" Sorowitsch is arrested for forgery and sent to Mauthausen concentration camp. Eight years later he is transferred to Sachsenhausen to head up history's biggest counterfeiting operation - part of a Nazi plan to destabilise the Allied economies. The penalty for failure hardly needs mentioning. Hard-ass, artist, con man and bon vivant, Sally's a pragmatist and a born survivor. He finds himself pitted against an idealist amongst the prisoners who is intent on undermining the Nazi operation, though doing so will seriously imperil the lives of his fellow forgers. There's a pragmatist on the Nazi side too - the commandant who despises fascist ideology and respects the survival instincts of his star prisoner, but is equally determined to stay on the winning side. The three-way clash of wills becomes a matter of life and death. This Oscar winner for Best Foreign Language Film is based on fact. Subtitled.
THEN SHE FOUND ME (M) 1H 41 USA COMEDY DRAMA
Hold on to your hats and brace yourselves for Helen Hunt's directing debut. The actress (Oscar and Emmy-winning for As Good As It Gets and Mad About You, respectively) calls the shots on a comedy-drama in which she plays a thirty-nine-year-old schoolteacher called April.
April's recent marriage to immature Ben (Matthew Broderick) falls apart at the same time that her adopted mother passes away. At this time of crisis, her brassy birth mother (Bette Midler) turns up, out of the blue, and starts dating the father of one of April's students.
As if this isn't enough, April starts a relationship with the charming Frank (Colin Firth), who has recently become a single father of two. (Well, you would, wouldn't you?)
UP THE YANGTZE (M) 1H 40 CANADA DOCUMENTARY
Chinese Canadian Yung Chang's documentary explores the incalculable human impact of the giant Three Gorges Dam project on the Yangtze, China's longest river. When completed, the 600-foot-high dam will be the largest hydroelectric project in the world. As we watch the steadily rising water swallow more and more of the landscape, the film conveys an ominous sense of a society changing too fast in its stampede into an unknown future. We observe life on the soon-to-be-flooded banks of the Yangtze from aboard a cruise ship taking English-speaking tourists up the river. We meet a representative handful of the people whose lives are being the most deeply effected, and we become especially well-acquainted with two of the ship's young restaurant workers: a woman from a dirt-poor family whose shack close to the river will very soon be drowned, and the brash son of a middle-class family. Both are provided with English names and taught how to please (and how not to annoy) the big-tipping Americans. "Cindy" struggles gamely while the handsome "Jerry" becomes so cocky that the American management feel obliged to remind him that in China conformity is considered a virtue. The images demonstrate the degree to which the old China has already disappeared. What emerges is a country in the throes of rampant economic development and the global homogenization it augurs.
Golden Gate Award, San Francisco Film Festival 2008, Best Canadian Documentary, Vancouver Film Festival 2007. Subtitled.
WALL-E (G) 1H 38 USA ANIMATION
The year is 2800. Humans abandoned Earth long ago, as it became too toxic to inhabit, and left a fleet of robots to clear up their mess. After hundreds of lonely years doing what he was built for, WALL-E (short for Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class) discovers a new purpose in life (besides collecting knick-knacks) when he meets a sleek search robot named EVE. EVE comes to realise that WALL-E has inadvertently stumbled upon the key to the planet's future, and races back to space to report her findings to the humans (who have been eagerly awaiting word that it is safe to return home). Meanwhile, WALL-E chases EVE across the galaxy. WALL-E is voiced by Ben Burtt, the man who gave R2D2 his distinctive sound. Directed by Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo, A Bug's Life).
YOUNG@HEART (PG) 1H 47 USA DOCUMENTARY
A group of elderly American choristers is coaxed and cajoled by their inspired conductor into gutsy performances from a repertoire of hipster favourites in this amazingly satisfying documentary. The singers' tenacious appetite for the life in these songs lingers long after the last note is sounded. They sing songs by such artists as Coldplay, The Clash, Talking Heads, Sonic Youth, Prince, and James Brown. The group show the power of determining to live until there's no breath left, although physical frailty, illness and death have not been magically banished from this group.
Winner of the Audience Award at the Sundance Festival.