Into The Wild posterFirst up, I think my nor­mally metic­u­lous research went astray last time and I missed that Shane Mead­ows’ new film This is Eng­land was open­ing at the Rialto. So, not only did I fail to men­tion it in this space last week but it did­n’t get a review at Funer­als & Snakes or the Cap­it­al Times and it was such a slow week too… This is Eng­land has instant appeal to me as it’s about my man­or and my gen­er­a­tion: Thatcher’s proto-fas­cist Eng­land and the dis­af­fected, aim­less youth run­ning wild on the ground. Mead­ows is one of the UK’s finest young film­mak­ing tal­ents (Twenty­Four­Sev­en and A Room for Romeo Brass are the best) but he lost his way for a while. Rialto exclus­ive.

Sky City Cinemas really don’t know how to pro­gramme the Embassy: block­buster then art-house then bol­ly­wood, etc. Now they’re try­ing a bit of both with ultra-viol­ent video-game adapt­a­tion Hit­man and nature doc­u­ment­ary The White Plan­et. What a double-fea­ture that will be. Hit­man is also play­ing at Read­ings and Regent-on-Man­ners. The White Plan­et is in the same mode as the huge hit March of the Pen­guins: this time the focus is on polar bears and the nar­rat­or is Queen Lati­fah (sorry, wrong Arc­tic movie). Also screen­ing at the Para­mount and the Pent­house.

UPDATE: Sky City don’t even know how to pro­mote their Embassy ses­sions either! Miss­ing from their cor­por­ate web site on Wed­nes­day was any men­tion of the daily screen­ings of This Is New Zea­l­and, the sen­sa­tion­al wide-screen epic that show­cased New Zea­l­and to the world at the Osaka Expo in Japan in 1970. Not to be missed. Ses­sion times can be found at the old Deluxe site which I thought had died.

The rest of this week’s new releases after the jump…

Jerry Sein­feld has spent the last five years of his life (and a great deal of his pro­fes­sion­al cap­it­al) pro­du­cing the anim­ated com­edy Bee Movie which is on at Read­ings, Regent-on-Man­ners, Sky City Queens­gate and Empire. Sein­feld wrote the story, about a young bee named Barry B. Ben­son who escapes the hive and dis­cov­ers that humans eat honey. Celebrity voices include Ray Liotta, Sting and Chris Rock.

Sean Penn’s new film as dir­ect­or is Into The Wild, based on the true story of a young man who, instead of going to col­lege, gives away his sav­ings and heads north in order to explore the Amer­ic­an wil­der­ness. Rel­at­ive new­comer Emile Hirsch plays the lead and heavy-hit­ters Wil­li­am Hurt, Mar­cia Gay Harden, Cath­er­ine Keen­er and the won­der­ful Hal Hol­brook are among the char­ac­ters he meets on his jour­ney.

Finally, Once was one of the most pop­u­lar films in this year’s Fest­iv­al: an Irish music­al romance that cap­tured hearts every­where it played. You can find it at the Para­mount and the Pent­house.

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