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).