The NBR Holiday Film Guide

The pre-Christmas cinema drought has broken with a rush of features for all tastes.

At the top end is The Iron Lady, which has already been well reviewed and still has plenty of relevance today. Read Judith Collins' review here and more views here. Melancholia, which has also been praised, is at the extreme end of artistic tastes and should be avoided by those who dislike cinematic pretension and posturing.

At the multiplexes, the top attractions will be the Peter Jackson’s co-production with Steven Spielberg, The Adventures of Tintin (not reviewed), with special effects by Weta, followed by The Muppets, which also has a New Zealand connection (music by Conchords co-member Bret McKenzie).

Also screening from Boxing Day but not yet viewed are Tower Heist, a caper adventure set in Manhattan's Trump Tower; The Salt of the Earth, a follow-up to the Italian Mid-August Lunch; and Happy Feet Two, also a sequel.

The NBR reviewing team has seen and can recommend the following:
ALBERT NOBBS (Dec 26) Prolific Irish writer George Moore first published his story of a cross-dressing butler in 1927. Some 20 years ago, it was turned into a stage play with Hollywood star Glenn Close as the focus of a story set a luxury Dublin hotel in the 19th century. Close is also a co-producer and co-writer of the film, which throws new light on life “downstairs” when many women adopted male roles to avoid poverty and loneliness. Nobbs’ identity remains well hidden until the arrival of the hotel’s new handyman (Aaron Johnson), who soon fancies a maid (Jane Eyre’s Mia Wasikowska). This sets up a tragic triangle as Nobbs pursues his belief that only he can give her a better life.

THE FIRST GRADER (in release) A feel-good drama that recreates the story of an octogenarian Mau Mau veteran who achieved brief world fame by praising the powers of education. Partly lame, and afflicted by many years of incarceration under British rule in Kenya, Maruge (Oliver Litondo) demands a primary school education so he can learn to read and write. His attendance is resisted by parents and others in his remote village. But the children love him for his Mandela-like qualities. Although the outcome is never in doubt, the film avoids the usual clichés with the naturalistic acting of the leads, notably British actress Naomie Harris as head teacher Jane Obinchu. The location filming in Kenya is stunning and the children, cast from the village where the film was made, are infectious in their enthusiasm for learning and their ability to cope with the adversity of their surroundings.

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: GHOST PROTOCOL (in release) The fourth high octane adventure featuring Tom Cruise as head of a squad that challenges James Bond in use of gadgetry, luxurious settings, superhuman baddies trying to blow up the world and narrow escapes. Cruise breaks out of a Serbian jail, hightails it out of Moscow after the Kremlin is blown up, then clings to Dubai’s Khalifa tower, moves on to Mumbai to foil a nuclear-armed rocket -- all before ending up mission accomplished in peaceful San Francisco. And those are just the bits that make sense and keep the action pounding. The sub-characters are a mix of the annoying and the admirable but never enough to cause worry in the fastest two and a half hours you can spend money on.

WE BOUGHT A ZOO (Dec 26) Another feel-good family film based on the experiences of British writer Benjamin Mee, who bought a private zoo in Dartmoor. Hollywood (director Cameron Crowe, of Jerry Maguire fame) has transferred the setting to southern California but plays down the business side as Mee (Matt Damon) pours his worldly wealth into a profitless looking venture. You know this is America when everything comes right but not before Mee comes to terms with being a single parent to a rebellious teenager and delightful younger daughter. Damon, who also faced single parentdom in Contagion, embraces domesticity with as much élan as his thriller roles and even manages to keep the audience guessing about his highly motivated chief zookeeper (Scarlet Johansson) right to the end.