A New Year brings with it sev­er­al res­ol­u­tions and one of those is that I will return to reg­u­lar con­tri­bu­tions here at The Wel­ling­tonista. So, until I col­lapse under the strain, every Thursday I’ll present a quick run­down of what’s open­ing at loc­al cinemas.

Tangled posterThis week Dis­ney offers us an anim­ated 3D “adven­ture”, Tangled (pre­vi­ously known as Rapun­zel). Tangled for­swears the usu­al big star voices in favour of sol­id char­ac­ter act­ors like Jef­frey Tam­bor and (Jaws from James Bond) Richard Kiel. Rapun­zel is voiced by former teen pop star Mandy Moore. The 3D ver­sion is at the Empire, Light­house Petone, Read­ings, Event Cinemas Queens­gate and a few ses­sions at the Embassy. There’s a 2D ver­sion at some cinemas for those whose kids are too rest­less under the glasses or if the new tech­no­logy gives you a head­ache: Empire, Read­ings, Pent­house and Event Cinemas Queens­gate.

The new Cap­tain Kirk (Chris Pine) gets anoth­er star­ring role, this time along­side Den­zel Wash­ing­ton in the run­away train thrill­er Unstop­pable. An enorm­ous freight train full of tox­ic waste is bar­rel­ling across Pennsylvania with no one at the con­trols. Pine and Wash­ing­ton are in pur­suit in anoth­er loco­mot­ive. It’s one of those race-against-time things and a reunit­ing (reunite-ment? re-uni­tion?) of Den­zel, dir­ect­or Tony Scott and trans­port­a­tion after The Tak­ing of Pel­ham 1 2 3 in 2009. Inceident­ally, IMDb has a list of 22 dif­fer­ent pro­jects that Tony Scott has in devel­op­ment at the moment. Mad­ness. Unstop­pable is a Read­ings and Event Cinemas Queens­gate only affair.

The only con­ces­sion to the art­house crowd this week (although for some reas­on not show­ing up in the list­ings at Flicks) is French romance Mademois­elle Cham­bon. The title char­ac­ter is a shy primary school teach­er (played by Sandrine Kim­ber­laine) who falls for tacit­urn build­er (and par­ent of one of her stu­dents) Vin­cent Lindon. Lindon is well-known to loc­al audi­ences for his work in thrill­er Any­thing for Her and refugee drama Wel­come, both of which got a loc­al release last year. More class-con­scious fare from the French, it’s a Pent­house exclus­ive.

Lastly, Har­ris­on Ford was once the biggest movie star in the world but his last two films went straight to video here. He is still mak­ing movies (and Indi­ana Jones 5 has been announced) and in Morn­ing Glory he plays a gruff pro­fes­sion­al journ­al­ist coaxed out of retire­ment to co-host a break­fast tv show – sort of Paul Henry to Diane Keaton’s Pippa I’m guess­ing. The film is really about pro­du­cer Rachel McAdams and her attemt­ps to restore both rat­ings and san­ity, Morn­ing Glory is dir­ec­ted by Eng­lish­man Roger Michell who has form in this sort of romantic com­edy – he made Not­ting Hill. It’s play­ing all over the show (spe­cific­ally the Empire, Light­house Petone, Read­ings, Pent­house, Event Cinemas Queens­gate and the Embassy) and it’s the film I’m off to see tonight.

All these films (and the rest of the Sum­mer Hol­i­day pro­gramme) will be reviewed at Funer­als & Snakes on Tues­day 18 Janu­ary and in print in the Cap­it­al Times the fol­low­ing day. While you are wait­ing you can read my sum­mary of the cine­mat­ic 2010, pos­ted just the oth­er day. Or you can post your Sum­mer cinema exper­i­ences in the com­ments below.