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.