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Horror Roundup

Impressive British witchcraft yarn set in the 17th century. After a ploughman unearths a bizarre-looking skull, the local villagers all start growing fur and claws and conducting saucy rites out in the woods with teen temptress Linda Hayden. Murder and madness abound as the victims' body parts are used to bring an ancient demon back to life. A notch above Hammer.

Funeral In Berlin

First sequel to The Ipcress File, with Michael Caine as blockbuster spy author Len Deighton's bespectacled kitchen-sink Bond, Harry Palmer. Made in 1966, it doesn't have that first film's grubby chic, and the convoluted double-crossing gets almost impossible to follow, but there's much to enjoy, not least Berlin in all its drab Cold War glory, and Caine's sullen, funny, unblinking cool as he travels there to unravel the story surrounding a Soviet officer wishing to defect.

Brannigan

This late John Wayne movie has The Duke as a Chicago cop trailing his man to London, while a hitman seeks to fulfill a contract on Wayne's life. It's middling, fish-out-of-water fare, the kind of bawdy, roustabout stuff Wayne did far too often, but by way of compensation you get Richard Attenborough as Wayne's finicky Scotland Yard sidekick.

The Human Stain

Superior adaptation of Philip Roth novel

The Principles Of Lust

Frank, emotionally-charged British sex drama

Tokyo Story

From 1953, one of the classic texts of Japanese cinema

Bartleby

When filing clerks answer back

Girl With A Pearl Earring

Reimagining an artist's life through his art

Piscine In The Wind

Director Tim Burton's father-son fable is his best movie yet

Top Of The Chops

DIRECTED BY Edward Zwick STARRING Tom Cruise, Ken Watanabe, Hiroyuki Sanada, Timothy Spall Opens January 9, Cert 15, 154 mins Very loosely based on the development of trade links between the US and Japan in the 1870s, signalling the end of Shogunate rule and the beginning of Japan's Meiji Restoration era, The Last Samurai details the exploits of fictional cavalry hero Captain Nathan Algren (Cruise). Dispirited by the violence he's inflicted on the Indian nation, Algren accepts a lucrative assignment to train Japanese riflemen.
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