The American nightmare

So it's finally reached the St James cinema, Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan has just got to be one of the funniest movies ever. Directed by Larry Charles and starring the British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, Borat (to give it its truncated name) purports to be a "documentary" account of Kazakh journalist Borat Sagdiyev's travels throughout the US, to make a documentary film about the country at the behest of the fictitious Kazakhstan Ministry of Information.

A lot of the comedy in the movie develops from unscripted vignettes of Borat interviewing and interacting with Americans who believe he is an actual foreign TV personality with no understanding of US customs.

Mr Baron Cohen won the Golden Globe for best actor in a musical or comedy. The film was also nominated for best picture. Borat was also nominated for a best adapted screenplay Oscar. Borat will be shown at St James from March 24.

Also showing at the St James cinema this month will be The Last Mitterand, an account of the last months of French President Mitterand's protracted 14 years in office, as, in between exasperating his entourage and sharing his memories with a young journalist Antoine Moreau, he fights a losing battle against prostate cancer. Director Robert Guédiguian's film is an engaging and sumptuously shot portrait of one of the last great statesmen of the 20th century in decline. Mitterand is played by one of France's greatest actors, Michel Bouquet, who gives possibly the finest performance of his long and distinguished career.

The English actor Clive Owen has come a long way from playing Romeo in the Young Vic's production of R & J that played at The Manoel Theatre back in the 1980s to the A-list Hollywood actor, who has starred in some recent critical and financial blockbusters. His latest film to hit Malta is Children of Men, directed by the Mexican director Alfonso Cuaron and also being shown at the St James cinema this month. Co-starring Julianne Moore and Michael Caine, the film describes what happens when society is unable to reproduce, using male infertility to explain this problem. Some of the special effects are dazzling and quite a few respected film critics have raved about this movie.

Russell Crowe in a light comedy? Surely not! But oh yes, he indeed does star in Ridley Scott's charming movie A Good Year, again at the St James cinema this month. Mr Crowe plays a London investment banker suspended from his job on suspicion of fraud. So he relocates to a small vineyard in France, which has been left to him by his uncle. Things go swimmingly at first, until a young girl, played by Abbie Cornish, turns up claiming to be the uncle's illegitimate daughter. A Good Year also features veteran English thesp Albert Finney.

Walk on Water is an Israeli film, which harks back to World War II and the Jewish obsession with Nazi hunting. The film actually took six years, from conception to going before the cameras. The actual shoot then took just 30 days, less a few unscheduled interruptions and the budget was just $1.4 million... the cost of a medium-sized commercial.

When Eytan Fox's film Walk on Water was released in 2004, it's fair to say it had a mixed press from reviewers. But most felt that the director had managed to draw very good performances from a largely unknown cast.

Michael Caine seems to be becoming the epitome of the jobbing actor these days. He pops up again in Christopher Nolan's Oscar-nominated feature The Prestige - also featuring at St James this month. Based on a novel of the same name by Christopher Priest, the film stars Christian Bale, Scarlett Johansson and Hugh Jackman. Set in the late 19th century the movie depicts the rivalry between two stage magicians who will go to any lengths to discover the secrets of each other's tricks. Unfortunately it all ends in tears when tragedy intervenes.

Many of the films mentioned above have been distributed by KRS.