The Tale of Desperaux posterFol­low­ing the flurry of Christ­mas and New Year releases (all of which are still play­ing), there are only two new titles to report this week. Firstly, The Tale of Des­per­aux an anim­ated adapt­a­tion of a sup­posedly beloved chil­dren’s book. Mat­thew Bro­d­er­ick plays a noble little mouse with enorm­ous ears who teams up with a kit­chen-lov­ing rat (Dustin Hoff­man) to res­cue a lonely Prin­cess (Emma Wat­son) – sounds a bit like Dumbo meets Rata­touille. The rest of the voice cast is sim­il­arly pres­ti­gi­ous includ­ing two gen­tle­men prob­ably on the the Academy long-list for Best Act­or this year: Frank Lan­gella (Frost/Nixon) and Richard Jen­kins (The Vis­it­or). Play­ing at the Empire, Regent-on-Man­ners, Read­ings Cour­tenay and Sky City Queens­gate (does any­one go there?).

Frank Miller is a hero to com­ic book afi­cion­ados every­where. He cre­ated The Dark Knight Returns, 300 and Sin City (and co-dir­ec­ted the Sin City movie along with Robert Rodrig­uez). Now he has both hands on the wheel of anoth­er com­ic book adapt­a­tion, Will Eis­ner­’s The Spir­it and the pro­mo­tion­al mater­i­al makes it look like a long-lost cous­in of Sin City. US reviews have not been kind but you can check it out at either Read­ings or Sky City.

The Para­mount’s Sum­mer “Best of” series con­tin­ues: Adam’s Apples, The Edge of Heav­en, I’m Not There. and Lars and the Real Girl get a second chance and they’re also raid­ing the vault with rare oppor­tun­it­ies to see West Side Story, The Con­ver­sa­tion, Elvis: That’s The Way It Is and North by North­w­est.

Along with a run­down of all the Christ­mas releases, Des­per­aux and The Spir­it will be reviewed next week at Funer­als & Snakes (and in the Cap­it­al Times on Wed­nes­day).