Movies playing in English at Chamonix Cinema Vox

Classic film The Vikings is part of the autumn matinee series and will be showing on Sunday 21st November at 2.30pm.

THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT

A comedy drama: teenage siblings Joni and Laser live with their two mothers, Nic and Jules, lesbian life partners who both used the same sperm donor to have them. Laser convinces Joni to contact the donor, she does, and he bonds with the teens. Hard-working Nic is wary of the donor, while free-spirited Jules creates a tentative rapport with him and agrees to landscape his garden.

Annette Bening (American Beauty) and Julianne Moore (Children of Men) play Nic and Jules and are completely convincing as a couple. Child-rearing has put a strain on their relationship, which is only exacerbated when the sperm donor, Paul, played by Mark Ruffalo, (Shutter Island) enters the picture. The kids are well-adjusted and okay with the inevitability of change, signalled by the entry of this additional member of the family, but the adults have a harder time coping.

Astutely directed (Lisa Cholodenko, High Art), this is a keenly observed portrait of marriage tested, and of human behaviour in the face of change. A funny and poignant film whose characters and their actions are utterly relatable, and with every little smart observation and awkward moment, there's humour (such is life!).

KABOOM

This independent film is a science fiction story about the sexual awakening of a group of college students. The Toronto International Film Festival (one of “The Big Five” for film festivals) where it was recently screened, summarises: “Smith's everyday life in the dorm - hanging out with his arty, sarcastic best friend Stella, hooking up with a beautiful free spirit named London, lusting for his gorgeous but dim surfer roommate Thor - all gets turned upside-down after one fateful, terrifying night.” Tripping on some hallucinogenic cookies he ate at a party, Smith is convinced he's witnessed the gruesome murder of a mysterious Red Haired Girl who has been haunting his dreams.

As mentioned, it has only completed the (film) festival circuit and hasn't been released in the UK or stateside as yet. Its selling points are that it boasts a gorgeous, hot young cast, in a wild and sex-drenched horror-comedy, that's a type of stylised Twin Peaks for the Facebook generation.

YOU WILL MEET A TALL DARK STRANGER

Woody Allen's latest film follows a pair of married couples struggling to find love and fulfilment, often in unorthodox ways.

As is always the case for an Allen film, the cast is amazing: Anthony Hopkins, Naomi Watts (replacing Nicole Kidman), Josh Brolin, Antonio Banderas, and Gemma Jones. While the film is set in London, it could be any urban, sophisticated setting. Woody Allen has been prolific throughout his career, making a film each year for the last forty – no easy feat. Each of his films, including this one, has the theme of personal discontent and the consequent search for fulfilment, with the ‘moral' being that life is brief and this search is futile.

This film is worth seeing for the cast, the competent directing and, of course for Allen devotees. However, the difference between this film and his classic works such as Annie Hall and Manhattan, are that these early films were groundbreaking and hilarious even as they were cerebral.

THE VIKINGS

In this film from 1958, Einar (Kirk Douglas) and Eric (Tony Curtis) are two Viking half-brothers. Einar is a great warrior and Eric is an ex-slave, but neither knows the true identity of the other. When the kingdom and the princess (Janet Leigh) become free for the taking in Northumbria, England, the two brothers compete against one another for the prize. Their motives for doing so may be different, but their desire for the princess is shared and leads to rivalry.

You're never completely convinced that Douglas and Curtis are the mead-guzzling, maiden-ravishing, ninth-century men of macho legend, but the scenery is gorgeous and the sword fighting is great. This is a proper overblown Hollywood Viking adventure that doesn't have a shred of authenticity but does have a lot of ‘glam and ham,' ‘sun and sand.' This is a perfect Sunday matinee and it happens to be playing only on November 21 at 3pm.