From Wales with love and kisses

Kenneth Branagh's filmed version of William Shakespeare's As You Like It, which we reviewed in last month's Showtime, continues for another two days in the cinema at the St James Centre For Creativity. It is then followed by director John Maybury 's The Edge of Love. Set largely in South West Wales during World War ll, the film is based on actual events surrounding the poet Dylan Thomas, his wife Caitlin and a second couple. When the husband of this second couple is called up to join the army, the promiscuous Mr Thomas wastes no time in fixing himself up with a threesome... himself, his wife and the wife of the soldier. Things turn nasty when said soldier returns on leave, finds out that his wife has been cheating on him and shoots up the house with his service revolver. The fact that nobody is killed or even hurt is something of a miracle. In fact Dylan survived, only to drink himself to death a few years later. It would be fair to say that when the film was released in the UK, it had a pretty mixed press. But any movie with Keira Knightley (who plays the third member of the ménage Vera Phillips) and Sienna Miller (who portrays Dylan's wife Caitlin) can't be all bad. Dylan Thomas is played by Matthew Rhys and Cillian Murphy is William Killick, Vera's husband.

Another movie showing at St James this month - and one that rather leaps out at you, is actor Ben Affleck's directorial debut feature Gone Baby Gone. This is an absolutely wonderful film and - having been totally underwhelmed by Mr Affleck's acting talents in the past, it has to be said that he has one hell of a career ahead of him as a director. He directs his own adaptation of Dennis Lehane's novel and casts his younger brother Casey in the pivotal role of private investigator Patrick Kenzie who, along with a female private eye Angie Denaro... Michelle Monagan, set out to track down a missing four-year-old girl, who has been abducted in Boston. This is a movie full of unexpected twists and turns and so good that it has even been mentioned as a contender for a possible Academy Award.

The pivotal moment in Sidney Lumet's latest film Before the Devil Knows You're Dead is a botched jewellery store robbery. It leaves one of the attempted robbers dead and the female owner of the store on life support. The fact that the robbery was being carried out on the behalf of the woman's two sons only adds to the intrigue. By general consensus Mr Lumet is on top form with this movie and he gets excellent performances from Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke as the sons, Albert Finney as their father and Rosemary Harris as their mother.

Smart People, directed by Noam Murro, gives us a chance to see Sarah Jessica Parker do something other than Sex and the City. She stars along with Dennis Quaid, Ellen Page and Thomas Haden Church. Mr Quaid is excellent as an arrogant English professor and Ms Parker is also very good as a doctor who ends up getting pregnant by Mr Quaid's character. A slick, literate script is somewhat undone by an overly schmaltzy ending.

Also on show at the St James cinema this month is a first feature by Roger Goldby, The Waiting Room. Set in the London suburb of Balham the film stars Ralph Little as a carer in an old people's home and Anne Marie Duff as a single mother. It also contains a host of geriatric thesps like Frank Finlay and Phyllida Law, who do a pretty reasonable job of upstaging their younger counterparts. This is a fairly modest little film, but well worth a look.

At the end of the month Martin Scorsese's tribute to The Rolling Stones Shine A Light rolls into the St James Cinema - and this is one for all Stones fans. The film shows the geriatric band performing at two concerts on their 2006 A Bigger Bang tour. It is interesting to note that the two shows concerned were at New York's Beacon Theatre and were not part of the original tour, but were inserted into it for the purpose of making this movie.

Baby Mama, which is also at the St James cinema late this month is a comedy about - of all things - surrogate motherhood. Er... one for the ladies methinks.

And finally, the French production L'Enfant (The Child) also gets an airing at St James this month. And all the films shown are distributed by KRS.