Dec 31st
Nowhere Boy** (15)
Cineworld Haymarket

GB 2009. Film Four/UK Film Council/North West Vision/Ecosse/Lipsync. 109m. Panavision

In 1950's Liverpool the teenage John Lennon discovers that his real mother lives a few streets away from his adoptive one.
Nostalgic Beatles prequel melodrama with a busy soundtrack (and a sparsity of actual Beatles songs) and tricksy direction which sometimes gets in the way of the plot, but captures well the young Lennon's sensitivity and also his often volatile personality.

Written by: Matt Greenhalgh.
Producers: Robert Bernstein, Kevin Loader, Douglas Rae.
Director: Sam Taylor-Wood.
Starring: Aaron Johnson, Anne-Marie Duff, Kristin Scott-Thomas, David Morrissey, David Threlfall, Thomas Sangster (as young Paul McCartney).
Photography: Seamus McGarvey.
Music: Alison Goldfrapp, Will Gregory.
Editing: Lisa Gunning.

Dec 30th
A Star is Born**
US 1954. Warner Bros/Transcona. 168m(partly restored). Cinemascope

An alcoholic fading film star discovers and falls in love with a rising musical star who quickly outshines him.
Lavish, laborious remake of the quintessential showbiz story, also a semi-commentary on Garland's own rise to fame (in the bravura "Born in a Trunk" sequence). More superficial and less cutting that Sunset Boulevard and also less humorous than Singin' in the Rain, but pulls out all the stops for the powerful finale.

Written by: Moss Hart.
Producer: Sidney Luft.
Director: George Cukor.
Starring: Judy Garland, James Mason, Charles Bickford, Jack Carson, Tom Noonan, Amanda Blake.
Photography: Sam Leavitt.
Music: Harold Arlen.
Lyrics: Ira Gershwin.
Musical Direction: Ray Heindorf.

Preceded by:
Tom & Jerry in
Sleepy-Time Tom*
(US 1951. 7m.; d: William Hanna, Joseph Barbera; p: Fred Quimby.)

Dec 28th
The Angel Who Pawned Her Harp**
GB 1953. British Lion/Group 3. 76m. bw

A beautiful angel descends onto the Angel in Islington to help people solve their domestic troubles.
Simply enjoyable low-key British angelic fantasy, of gentle wit and imagination.

Written by: Sidney Cole, Charles Terrot, from his novel.
Producer: Sidney Cole.
Director: Alan Bromly.
Starring: Diane Cilento, Felix Aylmer, Joe Linnane, Jerry Desmonde, Sheila Sweet, Alfie Bass, Philip Guard, David Kossoff.
Photography: Arthur Grant.
Music: Antony Hopkins.

Dec 19th
Glorious 39* (12A)
Electric Palace, Harwich

The adopted daughter of an influential diplomat is in danger from a secret conspiracy by pro-Appeasement forces at the outbreak of World War II.
Improbable but atmospheric 1930s paranoia thriller, with an impressive cast, some of whom are deliberately underused.

d: Steven Poliakoff
s: Romola Garai, Bill Nighy, Julie Christie, David Tennant, Jeremy Northam, Jenny Agutter, Juno Temple, Eddie Redmayne, Christopher Lee, Corin Redgrave, Charlie Cox, Hugh Bonneville, Muriel Pavlow

Dec 17th
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country**
US 1991. Paramount. 110m. Panavision

Captain Kirk is framed for disrupting peace negotiations with the Klingons, but the Enterprise rallies to his aid.
Once more wearily boldly going, in quite a nifty post-Cold War thriller set in outer space, which begins and ends satisfactorily, and despite its longueurs and the series' continuing self-importance, still has some touching and suspenseful moments, and gives the crew of the USS Enterprise a dignified send-off.

Written by: Nicholas Meyer, Denny Martin Flinn, from a story by Leonard Nimoy, Lawrence Konner, Mark Rosenthal.
Producers: Steven-Charles Jaffe, Ralph Winter.
Director: Nicholas Meyer.
Starring: William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, Christopher Plummer, Kim Cattrall, David Warner, James Doohan, Walter Koenig, Nichelle Nichols, George Takei, Iman, Brock Peters, Kurtwood Smith, Michael Dorn.
Photography: Hiro Narita.
Music: Cliff Edelman.

+ Christian Slater cameos as a Starfleet junior officer

Dec 10th
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street**
US 2007. Warner Bros/Dreamworks/Zanuck Company. 116m.

Exiled barber Benjamin Barker returns to London to wreak bloody vengeance on the judge and constable who banished him.
The Sondheim musical-cum-opera goes through the Tim Burton Gothic treatment and comes out remarkably intact, in a world very similar in style to Sleepy Hollow (1999) with a similar thirst for blood and gore. The stars look too young for their roles, but rise to the musical challenge, and the songs retain their resonance.

Written by: John Logan, from the stage musical by Stephen Sondheim, Hugh Wheeler.
Producers: Richard D. Zanuck, Walter Parkes, Laurie MacDonald, John Logan.
Director: Tim Burton.
Starring: Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman, Timothy Spall, Sacha Baron Cohen, Jamie Campbell Bower, Jayne Wisener, Edward Sanders, Laura Michelle Kelly.
Photography: Dariusz Wolski.
Music/Lyrics: Stephen Sondheim.
Production Design: Dante Ferretti.

Dec 9th
A Night at the Opera*** (U)
Headgate Theatre, Colchester

US 1935. MGM. 96m. bw

A grandiose opera company sails for New York, and an eccentric millionaire and his two sidekicks proceed to ruin it so that their friend can play the lead.
The Marx Brothers switch to the premier Hollywood studio MGM with their style only partly modified, in a lavish production with added fragments of characterisation (although the romance barely has a chance), but still plenty of typically brilliant Marx flourishes such as the Party of the First Part and the overcrowded cabin.

Written by: George S. Kaufman, Morrie Ryskind.
Producer: Irving Thalberg.
Director: Sam Wood.
Starring: Groucho Marx, Chico Marx, Harpo Marx, Allan Jones, Kitty Carlisle, Margaret Dumont, Sig Rumann, Walter Woolf King, Robert Emmett O'Connor, Billy Gilbert.
Photography: Merritt Gerstad.
Musical Direction: Herbert Stothard.

A NIGHT AT THE OPERA. Legendary producer Irving Thalberg tried to handle the Marx Brothers, and almost managed it.

Dec 1st
Speed**
US 1994. Twentieth Century Fox. 116m. Panavision

A Los Angeles cop rescues stricken passengers from a moving bus that a mad bomber has rigged up to explode once it slows down.
Unashamedly entertaining kinetic blockbuster with an ingenious premise, minimal character development but maximum excitement value, and for good measure finishes with a bonus death-defying train ride just when it seems the bomb-on-a-bus routine has run its course.

Written by: Graham Yost.
Producer: Mark Gordon.
Director: Jan De Bont.
Starring: Keanu Reeves, Dennis Hopper, Sandra Bullock, Jeff Daniels, Joe Morton, Alan Ruck, Glenn Plummer.
Photography: Andrzej Bartkowiak.
Music: Mark Mancina.
Editing: John Wright.