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.