Mar 24th
The Wrong Arm of the Law**
GB 1962. Romulus. 94m. bw

Scotland Yard and London's criminal network join forces to combat Aussie crooks pretending to be policemen.
Occasionally overplayed but engaging and fast-paced crime comedy with lots of reliable talents, although as a story it doesn't quite hang together.

Written by: Ray Galton, Alan Simpson, John Antrobus, John Warren, Len Heath.
Producers: Aubrey Baring, E.M. Smedley Aston.
Director: Cliff Owen.
Starring: Peter Sellers, Lionel Jeffries, Nanette Newman, Bernard Cribbins, Bill Kerr, Davy Kaye, John Le Mesurier, Graham Stark, John Junkin, Tutte Lemkow, Dennis Price, Dick Emery.
Photography: Ernest Steward.
Music: Richard Rodney Bennett.

Mar 21st
Alice in Wonderland** (PG)
Odeon Colchester

US 2010. Walt Disney/Team Todd/Roth Films/Zanuck Company. 108m. 3D

19-year old Alice defies a marriage proposal and overthrows the Queen of Hearts with the assistance of the Mad Hatter.
The imagination of Lewis Carroll meets the even more fertile imagination of Tim Burton (with a strong influence of The Lord of the Rings or Disney's own Chronicles of Narnia series about it), a would-be sequel to the original which actually just reimagines the story all over again, with a good deal of visual wit and charm in some of the characterisation whether human or animated, although the epilogue with the emancipated Alice is a misjudgement.

Written by: Linda Woolverton.
Producers: Tim Burton, Richard Zanuck, Joe Roth, Jennifer Todd, Suzanne Todd.
Director: Tim Burton.
Starring: Mia Wasikowska, Johnny Depp (Mad Hatter), Helen Bonham Carter (Red Queen of Hearts), Anne Hathaway (White Queen), Crispin Glover, Matt Lucas, Tim Pigott-Smith, Lindsay Duncan, Geraldine James, Leo Bill, Frances de la Tour; voices of Alan Rickman (Blue Caterpillar), Stephen Fry (Cheshire Cat), Michael Sheen (White Rabbit), Barbara Windsor (Dormouse), Timothy Spall, Michael Gough, Christopher Lee, Imelda Staunton.
Photography: Dariusz Wolski.
Music: Danny Elfman.
Production Design: Robert Stromberg.

Mar 20th
Invictus*** (12A)
Electric Palace, Harwich

US 2009. Warner Bros/Spyglass Entertainment/Revelations/Malpaso. 134m. Panavision

Nelson Mandela is released from prison and uses South Africa's participation in the 1995 Rugby World Cup to unite the country and reconcile old wounds.
Pleasingly liberal feelgood sports drama, which sometimes over-accentuates the interracial tensions and takes a while reaching its climax (as often with Eastwood), but has all the well-worn cliches of the sports movie for the final match, and at its heart has one of the best, most authentic portrayals of quite dignified authority since Ben Kingsley in 1982.

Written by: Anthony Peckham, based on the book "Playing the Enemy" by John Carlin.
Producers: Clint Eastwood, Lori McReary, Robert Lorenz, Mace Neufeld.
Director: Clint Eastwood.
Starring: Morgan Freeman, Matt Damon, Tony Kgoroge, Patrick Mofokeng, Matt Stern, Marguerite Wheatley, Zak Feaunati (as Jonah Lomu).
Photography: Tom Stern.
Music: Kyle Eastwood, Michael Stevens.
Production Design: James T. Murakami.

Mar 16th
I Don't Want to Be Born
aka: The Devil Within Her; The Monster; The Baby, and others
GB 1975. Rank/Unicapital. 95m.

A former stripper's baby son is possessed with the demonic spirit of an angry dwarf.
Shocking variation on Rosemary's Baby and The Omen (photographed in similar locations), a fair snapshot of 1970s London.

Written by: Stanley Price, from a story by Nato De Angeles.
Producer: Norma Corney.
Director: Peter Sasdy.
Starring: Joan Collins, Donald Pleasence. Ralph Bates, Eileen Atkins, Caroline Munro, Hilary Mason, John Steiner, George Claydon, Floella Benjamin.
Photography: Kenneth Talbot.
Music: Ron Grainer.

Mar 13th
The Crazies* (15)
Odeon Colchester

US 2010. Participant Media/Overture Films/Imagenation/Penn Station/Road Rebel. 101m. ws

An Iowa town is beset by a plague of insanity and an invasion by the suspicious military that caused it.
Smart variation on the Body Snatchers/Day of the Dead theme, another adequate horror remake of a film already made a generation earlier, which begins well but soon slips into horror cliches and sags towards the end, but still unsettles.

Written by: Scott Kosar, Ray Wright, from the 1973 film by George Romero.
Producers: Rob Cowan, Michael Aguilar, Dean Georgaris.
Director: Breck Eisner.
Starring: Timothy Olyphant, Radha Mitchell, Joe Anderson, Danielle Panabaker.
Photography: Maxime Alexandre.
Music: Mark Isham.

THE CRAZIES. Radha Mitchell faces up to the prospect of half her home town turned into murderous killers, and the greater horror of the military who think she is one too.

Mar 11th
Journey Into Fear**
US 1942. RKO. 71m. bw

An American armaments trader in Istanbul is hounded by sinister German agents, and given little help by the local authorities.
Tense and atmospheric but curiously artificial intrigue thriller, supposedly co-directed by Orson Welles but with only suggestions of his influence, and a typically challenging rain-swept finale.

Written by: Joseph Cotten, Orson Welles, from the novel by Eric Ambler.
Producer: Orson Welles.
Director: Norman Foster.
Starring: Joseph Cotten, Jack Moss, Orson Welles, Ruth Warrick, Dolores Del Rio, Everett Sloane, Agnes Moorehead, Eustace Wyatt.
Photography: Karl Struss.
Music: Roy Webb.

Preceded by:
Bugs Bunny in
Super-Rabbit*
(US 1943. Warner Bros. 8m.; d: Chuck Jones; voices: Mel Blanc.)

Mar 8th
A Private Function*
GB 1984. HandMade Films. 94m.

A aspiring chiropodist tries to climb the social ladder by stealing an off-the-ration pig from his betters.
Nostalgically observed 1940's Yorkshire comedy which rambles along and ultimately goes nowhere plotwise, with plenty of its author's quaint lavatorial humour. The pig steals the show.

Written by: Alan Bennett.
Producer: Mark Shivas.
Director: Malcolm Mowbray.
Starring: Michael Palin, Maggie Smith, Denholm Elliott, Richard Griffiths, Bill Paterson, Liz Smith, Alison Steadman, Tony Haygarth, Jim Carter, Pete Postlethwaite, Betty.
Photography: Tony Pierce-Roberts.
Music: John Du Prez.

Preceded by:
Fluttering Hearts**
(US 1927. 20m. bw. silent; A golf millionaire tries to please his prospective father-in-law by outwitting a blackmailer.; w: H.M. Walker; d: James Parrott; s: Charley Chase, Martha Sleeper, Oliver Hardy, Eugene Pallette, William Burress.)