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Nanny McPhee is back with a Big Bang!
DVDs out this week.
SCHMALTZY and twee to a heavenly degree, NANNY MCPHEE & THE BIG BANG (U: Universal) is definitely not for the cynical.
But magical moments come thick and fast in this first sequel to the equally magical original and the whimsical script is bursting with humour and warmth.
It's the Second World War and three children are running rings around their mother (Maggie Gyllenhaal) and fighting with their spoilt evacuee cousins.
Mother is desperate to save her farm from the clutches of her brother-in-law (Rhys Ifans) while trying to keep an absent-minded shopkeeper (Maggie Smith) from turning her shop floor into a treacle pudding.
Nanny McPhee (Emma Thompson) arrives to find order in the chaos, while a subplot involves the war ministry, featuring a Ralph Fiennes cameo.
Bill Bailey's brief appearance as a local farmer and the synchronised swimming piglets are among the highlights - plus a blink and you'll miss it shot of Ivinghoe Windmill and, in the extras, Edlesborough Ford.
> This column is in its 28th year, so with well over 5,000 films reviewed it has got to be something special to break into my all-time top ten.
But THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO (18: Momentum), the movie version of Stieg Larsson's best-selling mystery, has done just that.
This dark tale is full of twists and turns and stays faithful to the book's bleak atmosphere, with the tension gradually building and the chilling sub-plots delivering shock after shock.
Disgraced investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist), is hired by the patriarch of a family of wealthy industrialists to solve the mystery of his niece's disappearance 40 years earlier.
Blomkvist uncovers a complex series of brutal slayings that may or may not involve other relatives and he receives unexpected help from misfit computer hacker Lisbeth (Noomi Rapace, the tattooed girl of the film's title) whose past is mysterious and violent.
> THE CRAZIES (15: Momentum) is the remake of horror maestro George A. Romero's 1973 cult favourite, which even he admits wasn't a satisfactory treatment of the devastating effect a biochemical disaster has on a small town.
Despite effectively making points about potential quarantine dangers and how they could be horribly mishandled, there's not enough in this upgrade to justify the large amount of dosh that was thrown at it.
Timothy Olyphant is a bland leading man as the sheriff who, along with his pregnant wife, is trying to escape the deadly virus that's turning the local population into zombie-like psychopathic killers and spreading faster than the panic it creates.
Iconic images are appropriated from the original and buffed up, but although the action is put on a much bigger canvas, the wide-open spaces are not used particularly well. The only horror moment that's well staged and maintained is an attack in a car wash.
> Comedy drama SHRINK (15: Lionsgate), starring Kevin Spacey, sets out to be quirky but ultimately is just dull.
LA's top celebrity psychiatrist, Henry Carter, has an A-list clientele that features a famous Hollywood actress, an insecure writer and an obsessive-compulsive agent.
Carter turns to drugs after his wife's death and as his career nosedives, you've guessed it, he's the one in need of help.
TOP TEN: 1. Green Zone; 2.Shutter Island; 3.The Crazies; 4.Sherlock Holmes; 5.The Lovely Bones; 6.The Book Of Eli; 7.Alice In Wonderland; 8.Edge Of Darkness; 9.Percy Jackson And The Lightning Thief; 10.The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.
Chart supplied by Blockbuster
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Weather for Leighton Buzzard
Wednesday 08 February 2012
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: -3 C to 1 C
Wind Speed: 14 mph
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Cloudy
Temperature: -1 C to 2 C
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