The Iron Giant posterSchool hol­i­days start on Mon­day and Hol­ly­wood is doing its bit to turn your kids’ brains to mush with Trans­form­ers, an enor­mo-bud­get extrav­a­gan­za about cars that turn in to robots (or the oth­er way around). Pro­duced by Jer­ry Bruck­heimer and direct­ed by Michael Bay, Trans­form­ers should give the boys plen­ty of bang for your buck (while the girls get to swoon over cur­rent heart-throb Shia LaBeouf). Play­ing all over town includ­ing Read­ings Courte­nay Cen­tral; Sky City Queens­gate; Embassy; Regent-on-Man­ners.

Sen­si­ble-shoe wear­ing girls may well get more out of the lat­est incar­na­tion of teen detec­tive Nan­cy Drew, this time star­ring Julia Roberts’ niece Emma. A slight­ly small­er release this one, at Read­ings Courte­nay Cen­tral and Sky City Queens­gate only.

After the jump: Heart­break Hotel, Starter for Ten, Francesca and Nun­zi­a­ta and The Iron Giant.

If you liked The Queen of She­ba’s Pearls last year you might find your­self warm­ing to Heart­break Hotel from Col­in Nut­ley, the same direc­tor (and fea­tur­ing Hele­na Bergstrom, the same star). This one is about “two women who strike an unlike­ly friend­ship and dis­cov­er there is life after forty” it says here. Pent­house only.

James McAvoy (from The Last King of Scot­land and Becom­ing Jane) tries on anoth­er accent with the com­ing-of-age-in-the-eight­ies tale, Starter for Ten. McAvoy plays a work­ing class lad at Uni­ver­si­ty, learn­ing about girls and try­ing out for the Uni­ver­si­ty Chal­lenge tv quiz team. Rial­to only.

From the Ital­ian Film Fes­ti­val last year comes Sophia Loren in Francesca and Nun­zi­a­ta at the Empire in Island Bay. In fact, this may have already played a sea­son at the Para­mount in town but mem­o­ry fails to con­firm or deny that.

Also at the Empire is a spe­cial one-off screen­ing on Sun­day morn­ing of The Iron Giant, the acclaimed ani­mat­ed ver­sion of Ted Hugh­es’ chil­dren’s mas­ter­piece. Made by Brad (The Incred­i­bles and Rata­touille) Bird in 1999, this is a rare oppor­tu­ni­ty to see a won­der­ful film. 11.00am Sun­day.

Final­ly, talk­ing of won­der­ful films, Break­fast at Tiffany’s plays one more week at the Light­house in Petone before mov­ing to their coun­try cousins at Pau­ata­hanui.