I Capture the Castle

This touching and humorous film about the pain of adolescence, first love and lost ambition, comes from a novel by Dodie Smith – best known for her children’s classic, 101 Dalmatians.

In a cold, gloomy English castle in the 1930s lives reclusive widowed writer James Mortmain (Bill Nighy), who has not written anything since his best-selling novel 12 years before.

His 17-year-old daughter Cassandra (Romola Garai) takes refuge from the world by writing a diary in which she imaginatively and wittily re-interprets her life as she would wish it to be.

The bleak reality, however, is that the family is broke. James Mortmain’s royalties have dried up and the rent is two years in arrears.

When the family’s benevolent landlord dies, wealthy American Mrs Cotton (Sinead Cusack) inherits the estate.

Her sons – Simon (Henry Thomas, Gangs of New York) and Neil (Marc Blucas, Buffy the Vampire-Slayer) – are attracted to Cassandra and her striking-looking older sister Rose (Australian actress Rose Byrne).

A marriage to one of the Cotton brothers would rescue the Mortmain family from poverty, but a complex web of romantic relationships threatens to jeopardize such a possibility.

Danny Deckchair

In this whimsical Aussie romantic comedy, Danny Morgan (Rhys Ifans, Notting Hill’s Spike) plays an easygoing brickie whose marriage is on the rocks.

His wife Trudy (Justine Clarke), an ambitious real estate agent, has come to despise Danny as “one of the little people”. She cancels their planned camping holiday in Port Douglas so that she can woo her latest client, the glamorous and wealthy TV personality Sandy Upman (Rhys Muldoon).

Disillusioned with life, Danny ties some oversized helium balloons to his deckchair and sails away into the sky over the suburbs of Sydney, willing to drift wherever life takes him.

A freak thunderstorm blows Danny northwards until he is suddenly brought down to earth in the small Outback town of Clarence (Bellingen, NSW).

The backyard he tumbles into belongs to a lonely young woman, Glenda Lake (Miranda Otto, Lord of the Rings), with whom he falls in love.

As Danny settles down to his new life incognito, the media go into a frenzy over his apparent disappearance.

The Night We Called It a Day

Dennis Hopper (Easy Rider, Apocalypse Now, Speed) plays Frank Sinatra in a comedy-drama about Sinatra’s tumultuous 1974 tour of Australia.

Joel Edgerton plays the battling promoter who pulled off a coup by bringing Sinatra to Australia.

On his arrival, Cranky Franky got off to a flying start by referring to Australia’s female journalists as “buck-and-a-half hookers”. This remark saw his private jet banned by airport refuellers, a three-day siege of the Boulevard Hotel where Sinatra was ensconced in the presidential suite, and intervention by the then ACTU president Bob Hawke (David Field, Two Hands, Chopper).

Take Away

Vince Colosimo (Lantana) and Stephen Curry (Changi) play two businessmen who own their own takeaway fish-and-chips shops in the Melbourne suburbs.

The only problem is they’re only three doors away from each other in the same street.

They put aside their rivalry, however, when the multinational fast food chain “Burgies” threatens to open a new outlet across the road from them.

With the help of the local community, they take on the takeaway giant.

A Mighty Wind

Even people who regard folk music as seriously uncool will get a good laugh out of this hilarious send-up of the industry.

Told in mockumentary style, the film opens with the death of folk music icon Irving Steinbloom.

Irving’s tone-deaf son Jonathan (Bob Balaam) dreams of reuniting the groups his father once managed, for a once-off memorial concert at New York’s prestigious Carnegie Hall.

The groups include classic troubadours The Folksmen, who produced traditional folk ballads about train wrecks in coal mines as well as songs with irresistible titles such as Old Joe’s Place.

Another group is the nine-strong The New Main Street Singers who, with their bright costumes and nauseatingly sunny personalities, perform upbeat harmonies on their guitars, with much smiling and winking.

Mitch & Mickey (Eugene Levey and Catherine O’Hara) – once the sweethearts of the folk world until their marriage broke down 28 years ago – are brought together to sing their signature hit A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow, an audience favourite that requires a romantic kiss at the end of the song.

Confidence

Suave fraudster Jake Vig (Edward Burns) commits a serious blunder when he swindles thousands of dollars from an unsuspecting victim.

Too late, Jake learns who his victim is – none other than accountant for sleazebag crime boss Winston King (Dustin Hoffman).

Eager to make amends, Jake offers to repay “The King” by pulling off the biggest heist of his career. His proposed victim is Morgan Gillette, a banker with close connections to organized crime.

Jake’s crew includes a brash, blonde pickpocket Lily (Rachel Weisz) and two corrupt LAPD officers.

Together, they must also contend with Jake’s old nemesis, FBI agent Gunther Butan (Andy Garcia), the King’s henchman Travis (Morris Chestnut) and a double-crossing partner.

Narc

This taut police thriller – which has already been favourably compared with such film classics as The French Connection and Serpico – is not for the faint-hearted.

Narc takes moviegoers on an unforgettable journey into the menacing urban underworld of drug-dealers, which involves shootings, beatings and a heart-stopping chase scene.

The “narcs” are undercover officers who leave their loved ones each day as they willingly put themselves on the front line of the war against drugs.

Two of them, Nick Tellis (Jason Patric, Your Friend and Neighbours, Rush) and Henry Oak (Ray Liotta, Hannibal, Goodfellas), investigate the murder of a young police colleague, but in doing so they stumble across a mystery that threatens to destroy them both.

Written and directed by Joe Carnahan (Blood, Guts, Bullets and Octane), Narc has won the Special Prize Policier Award at the Cognac Film Festival in France and been nominated for the Dramatic Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah.

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