G-Force posterFreakin’ school hol­i­days. 9 – count ’em – new films are open­ing this week and most of them are designed to keep rest­less young people out of the hair of their eld­ers and bet­ters. Time is short so I’m just going to list them here:

  • G‑Force. Talk­ing cute rodents audi­tion to be spe­cial agents by tak­ing down super-vil­lain Bill Nighy. Read­ings (3D), Empire (2D), Sky City Queens­gate (3D).
  • Fame. The re-hash­ing of beloved 80s pop­u­lar trash con­tin­ues (Footloose is next). Read­ings, Empire, Embassy, Sky City Queens­gate
  • Shorts. Robert Rodrig­uez puts togeth­er anoth­er vir­tu­ally homemade digit­al fantasy for kids – in the spir­it of Shark Boy and Lava Girl and we all know how much we loved them. Read­ings, Sky City Queens­gate
  • The Secret of Moon­acre. Former anim­at­or Gabor Csupo made the smart Bridge to Ter­abith­ia the year before last and this is aimed at a sim­il­ar age group. Read­ings, Para­mount.

  • Ponyo. If the kids have already seen Up, or their par­ents are par­tic­u­larly pre­ten­tious, this looks like the one. Acclaimed dir­ect­or Hayao Miyaza­ki (Spir­ited Away, Howl’s Mov­ing Castle) tells a story inspired by The Little Mer­maid fable. Para­mount exclus­ive.
  • Year One. Ghost­busters’ Har­old Ramis dir­ects a broad com­edy about pre­his­tor­ic hijinks that stars Michael Cera and Jack Black, both like­able in their own way. Read­ings, Empire, Sky City Queens­gate
  • North Face. This week’s grown-up films are all Fest­iv­al returns. North Face is a grip­ping Ger­man film about two sets of climbers in the 1930s attempt­ing to be the first to climb the Eiger by the treach­er­ous North Face. Read­ings (stak­ing their claim to the art­house with this exclus­ive).
  • Dis­grace. JM Coet­zee’s Book­er Prize win­ning nov­el is brought to the screen with John Malkovich in the lead. Pent­house, Light­house.
  • Every Little Step. Anoth­er doco about a quint­es­sen­tially New York sub­ject (after The Septem­ber Issue last week), this is about the cast­ing of a reviv­al of the Broad­way music­al A Chor­us Line, which is in turn about the cast­ing of a Broad­way show. Pent­house exclus­ive.

All of the above will be reviewed in next week’s Cap­it­al Times. Get your opin­ions, and your cor­rec­tions, in early in the com­ments.