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Whether or not Spanish director Pedro Almodovar's latest film Volver, which is showing at the St James cinema this month, should or should not have been nominated for an Oscar is a moot point. It is certainly not his best film, but then, some might say that - the movie some acknowledge as his masterpiece - Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown did not get its just deserts either _ although the latter was at least nominated for an Oscar.

Volver is a story of three and a half decent women: A good mother who is desperately in love with a pretty dodgy guy, a young mother who is going through a hard time and a hairdresser whose shop is the meeting point for all the neighborhood gossips. The women are: Penélope Cruz, her teenage daughter Yohana Cobo, the hairdresser Lola Dueñas, and the half woman is their dead mother Carmen Maura... who appears as an apparition. Set in Almodovar's native region of La Mancha in Spain, the film points up the way that the dead are still present in local people's lives.

Also showing at the St James uniplex this month is the film of the Broadway and West End hit play The History Boys. It would be fair to say that the movie did not enjoy the success of Allan Bennet's award winning stage version of the same name, but it is still well worth a gander.

Set in a Yorkshire grammar school in the 1980s, the film tracks a class of above average boys getting to grips with the contrasting styles of teaching by a member of the "old school" on the one hand and a bright young teacher with more contemporary skills. It is very funny and also revealing as it tracks the progress of the class both academically and through the process of growing up. The plot touches on several themes including homosexuality and the pros and cons of the British educational system.

Another movie that has not exactly set the world on fire is the much-trailed All The King's Men, starring Sean Penn. Directed by Steven Zaillian, this is actually a remake of Robert Rossen's 1949 movie, which starred Broderick Crawford.

This latest version opened to decidedly lukewarm... not to say downright arctic reviews in 2006 and in some quarters has even achieved the unenviable laurel of worst film of 2006. One wonders how any movie starring Sean Penn could bomb... but hey - there's always a first time. All The King's Men is being shown at the St James cinema this month.

Clint Eastwood's Oscar nominated Flags of Our Fathers is another movie on release at St James this month. This is the story of the battle for the Japanese island of Iwo Jima during the last World War. Shot with a largely unknown cast and in conjunction with another Eastwood movie, Letters From Iwo Jima, which purports to show the battle from the Japanese viewpoint.

The lavishly shot costume drama Marie Antoinette, directed by Francis Ford Coppola's daughter Sophia and starring Kirsten Dunst as the ill-fated French queen, will also be at the St James cinema this month. This, the first film by Ms Coppola since her Oscar nominated Lost In Translation, has been largely praised for her sympathetic treatment of the hedonistic lifestyle of the Austrian grand duchess who gains a throne but loses her head... literally.

Two other films to get a St James showing this month are Mel Gibson's brilliant but bloody movie about the Mayan people of North America Apocalypto and Allen Coulter's crime pic Hollywoodland, starring Adrian Brody and Ben Affleck.