Stardust posterThe school hol­i­days get under way on Mon­day and the major movie dis­trib­u­tors are mak­ing sure you have plen­ty of choice about where to drop the sprogs while you head off to play the pok­ies. First up British fan­ta­sy film Star­dust, based on a Neil Gaiman nov­el and fea­tur­ing a cat­a­logue of famous names, from Robert De Niro and Ricky Ger­vais to Sien­na Miller and Michelle Pfeif­fer. In the tra­di­tion of The Princess Bride (as the say­ing goes), Star­dust is direct­ed by Matthew Vaugh­an who pro­duced Lock, Stock and Two Smok­ing Bar­rels and Snatch and direct­ed Lay­er Cake so expect plen­ty of swear­ing and gun­fights (per­haps not). Read­ings, Empire, Regent-on-Man­ners, Queens­gate.

[The rest of this week’s new films after the jump.]

There’s anoth­er raft of ani­mat­ed pen­guins on offer in Surf’s Up, from Sony. The twist this time around is that the film is an ani­mat­ed mock­u­men­tary and the focus is the World Pen­guin Surf­ing Cham­pi­onship and major con­tender Cody Mav­er­ick (voiced by Trans­form­ers’ Shia LaBoeuf). Read­ings, Empire, Regent-on-Man­ners, Queens­gate.

Toy fran­chise the Bratz get the live-action treat­ment in Bratz: The Movie. Accord­ing to the Read­ings web site the film stars Paula Abdul but this sto­ry in the New York Post says she was fired for being “a night mare to deal with”. I’ll be there the first screen­ing this morn­ing to con­firm or deny her pres­ence. Don’t you wish you were me? Bratz is also play­ing at Sky City Queens­gate.

Final­ly (for the kids at any rate) is Under­dog, a Dis­ney adven­ture about a dog who gets super pow­ers in a lab­o­ra­to­ry acci­dent and becomes a super­hero. Jim Belushi returns from obscu­ri­ty to star as the lead grown-up. You’ll find Under­dog at Read­ings, Regent-on-Man­ners and Queens­gate.

Inde­pen­dent­ly-pro­duced New Zealand fea­ture film When Night Falls had a Gala World Pre­miere at the Para­mount last night and gets a short sea­son there from today. The 1930s hor­ror-thriller was shot dig­i­tal­ly around Welling­ton and stars Tania Nolan, Rosel­la Hart and Sylvia Rands.

Final­ly the Pent­house asks us to “Think The Full Mon­ty in Japan­ese with Hula dancing!” pre­sent­ing us with the Japan­ese sleep­er hit Hula Girls. Vari­ety says ”a gallery of well-drawn char­ac­ters and keen obser­va­tions of small-town life make the time pass pleasantly.”

All these films will be reviewed at Funer­als & Snakes next Wednes­day (and in print via the Cap­i­tal Times on the same day).