Yogi bear posterThis week­end, film fans, you can watch the new anim­ated Yogi Bear movie in two dif­fer­ent formats, com­pare the two and then have an eru­dite dis­cus­sion of the related strengths and weak­nesses of the new “re-booted fran­chise” versus the beloved, barely 2D, ori­gin­al. Or, you can watch a drama about female cir­cum­cision. Tough call.

Dan Ayk­royd and Justin Tim­ber­lake are the voices of Yogi and Boo Boo and if you look closely you might find some recog­nis­able Kiwi faces amongst the sup­port­ing cast – Yogi Bear was shot mostly in Auck­land last Sum­mer. The 3D ver­sion is play­ing at the Empire, Read­ings and Event Cinemas Queens­gate while the stand­ard format is at … all the same cinemas! Price might be factor for some of you as there is still a premi­um charge for 3D – for a while at least.

Thank­fully not in 3D, is campy music­al Bur­lesque which brings togeth­er “legend” Cher with “legend” Christina Aguilera for a back­stage story of rags to riches in the cut-throat world of Los Angeles cab­aret: Empire, Read­ings, Event Cinemas Queens­gate and a few ses­sions at the Embassy.

Ron Howard can usu­ally be relied on to make some­thing com­pet­ent (when he’s not in Dan Brown Hell) so I am mod­er­ately hope­ful that The Dilemma will prove more inter­est­ing than the pres­ence of Vince Vaughan and Adam Sand­ler­’s 2nd best mate Kev­in James might indic­ate. Vaughan and James have been best friends since col­lege. Vaughan dis­cov­ers that James’ wife (played by Hot Spock­’s Mom, Winona Ryder) is hav­ing an affair. Does he risk get­ting involved and jeop­ard­ising their friend­ship and their busi­ness togeth­er? Read­ings and Event Cinemas Queens­gate only.

Finally, the Para­mount is the only loc­al cinema to hold the art­house candle aloft. They are open­ing Desert Flower, an adapt­a­tion of the best-selling mem­oir by War­is Dir­ie about her life sub­sequent to, and her recov­ery from, a bru­tal cir­cum­cision at the age of 3. There’s a good cast: Sally Hawkins (soon to be star­ring along­side Rhys Darby in Love Birds), Juliet Steven­son and Timothy Spall fea­ture. Beau­ti­ful Ethiopi­an mod­el Liya Kebede plays beau­ti­ful Somali­an mod­el Dir­ie.

All these films (and the rest of the sum­mer hol­i­day open­ings) will be reviewed at Funer­als & Snakes next Tues­day and in the Cap­it­al Times news­pa­per on Wed­nes­day – space per­mit­ting. In the mean­time, feel free to tell us all about your Yogi Bear exper­i­ences in the com­ments.