DIRECTED BY Woody Allen

STARRING Woody Allen, Helen Hunt, Charlize Theron, Dan Aykroyd

OPENS December 6, Cert 12, 100 mins

One suspects that Woody Allen only makes films nowadays so that he gets to make out on screen with women twice his size and half his age. Mind you, given his body of work, he’s earned the right to make entertaining if slight cinematic confections like this.

Set in a deftly recreated 1940, The Curse…stars Allen as CW Briggs, a New York insurance investigator whose working methods are threatened by the arrival of Helen Hunt’s executive Betty Ann Fitzgerald. Matters are complicated when he’s hypnotised by a charismatic, turbanned jewel thief (David Ogden Stiers) in a nightclub and subsequently forced to carry out heists under his thrall.

Allen pays homage here to Howard Hawks, Billy Wilder and fast-talking and/or sultry dames like Veronica Lake, of whom Charlize Theron does a straight impersonation, coming on to Allen like a femme fatale-o-gram. Hunt at times seems uncomfortable at the ’40s-style corset her character is forced into, but gives Allen a decent run for his money, while Aykroyd adds solid support as an adulterous coward

DIRECTED BY Stephen Frears

STARRING Chiwetel Ejiofor, Audrey Tautou, Sergi L

Opens December 6, Cert PG, 125 mins

The Private Life Of Sherlock Holmes (1970) was a box office dud for Wilder. Certainly, it’s flawed?there’s an embarrassingly ill-judged scene involving Queen Victoria, and the film takes a while to get going. But get going it does.

The opening sees Holmes (Robert Stephens) amusingly castigate Watson for embroidering him in his memoirs, to the extent that he has to wear a ridiculous deerstalker to pander to public expectations. Subsequently, Holmes pretends he’s in a homosexual relationship with Watson (Colin Blakely) to repel the propositions of a Russian ballerina. Aghast, Watson wonders whether Holmes is indeed gay. However, when a mysterious amnesiac Belgian female arrives on his doorstep, initiating an adventure which takes him from London to Loch Ness involving a submarine, a troupe of midgets and German espionage, Holmes’ indifference to women is tested. Moving symphonically from farcical to melancholic, peppered with tart, bittersweet dialogue and bolstered by fine performances, The Private Life… merits a more sympathetic viewing than it was initially granted.

DIRECTED BY Various

STARRING Ernest Borgnine, Maryam Karimi, Dzana Pinjo

Opens December 27, Cert 12, 135 mins

This fascinating project is the brainchild of French producer Alain Brigand, who asked 11 directors to contribute a film lasting 11 minutes, 9 seconds and one frame which “evoke the planetary echo” of September 11, 2001. Needless to say, the diverse nationalities and cultures of the directors involved makes for a broad spread of opinion. Ken Loach focuses on September 11, 1970, the date when a CIA-sponsored coup deposed Allende’s government in Chile, an event that led to the Pinochet regime’s appalling abuse of human rights. Loach (like Japanese director Shohei Imamura, who reminds viewers of Hiroshima) suggests 9/11 was an inevitable act of karma.

Other directors include Danis Tanovic, Amos Gitai, Idrissa Ouedraogo and Mira Nair. Amores Perros director Alejandro I

Opened November 15, Cert PG, 160 mins

It’s Harry’s second year at Hogwarts, and someone’s foolishly opened up the long-hidden Chamber of Secrets?which is bad news for any of the student wizards who come from ordinary human backgrounds, as it’s only a matter of time before one of them gets killed. While Harry’s allies Dumbledore (Richard Harris) and Hagrid (Robbie Coltrane) are forced to leave the school, some of the new faces on hand are a lot less comforting: Draco Malfoy’s evil father Lucius (Jason Isaacs in full-on panto villain mode) and the narcissistic new Dark Arts teacher Gilderoy Lockhart (a wonderfully vain Kenneth Branagh).

There’s a lot less time wasted on exposition, the child actors are mercifully less precious than previously, and the likes of Julie Walters and Alan Rickman get more to do. Plus there’s a flying Ford Anglia, a whole forest full of giant spiders, a self-combusting phoenix, a huge serpentine dragon for Harry to slay and, of course, a hankie-waving farewell to Richard Harris. All in all, it’s darker, deeper, funnier and scarier than last time?just like magic ought to be.

Opens December 6, Cert PG, 122 mins

Vincent (Jacques Bidou) is not a happy man. A French factory worker, his monotonous, backbreaking toil holds scant rewards. There’s little compensation at home, too, as routine set meals, domestic drudgery and joyless sex only compound his grey existence. After deciding enough is enough, Vincent spontaneously decides to leave home and travel around the world. Beginning with a trip to Venice, Vincent encounters numerous cranks and misfits on his canal-side strolls.

Occasionally, his bewildered family are seen pondering his motives and next moves, but there’s little about Monday Morning to invite a similar reaction. Esteemed, veteran director Otar loseliani captures dowdy rural France and Venice’s waterways with broad, elegant strokes. But Bidou’s painfully mannered acting and a lifeless script ensures the film is as directionless as Vincent’s travel plans. Rather than offering any wisdom on personal collapse, this appears like one long Stella Artois advert with grizzled old men hitching lifts down cobbled country lanes. Tepid and frankly tedious, loseliani is capable of so much more.