Movie Releases - 19 December 2014

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014)

Stars: Ian McKellen, Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage, Cate Blanchett

Director: Peter Jackson

Genre: Adventure/Fantasy

New Line Cinema, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), WingNut Films

Time: 144 min

Rating: PG-13

Plot

Bilbo and Company are forced to engage in a war against an array of combatants and keep the terrifying Smaug from acquiring a kingdom of treasure and obliterating all of Middle-Earth.

Annie (2014)

Stars: Quvenzhané Wallis, Cameron Diaz, Jamie Foxx, Rose Byrne

Director: Will Gluck

Genre: Comedy/Drama/Family/Musical

Marcy Media, Olive Bridge Entertainment, Overbrook Entertainment

Time: 118 min

Rating: PG

Plot

Academy Award® nominee Quvenzhané Wallis (Beasts of the Southern Wild) stars as Annie, a young, happy foster kid who's also tough enough to make her way on the streets of New York in 2014. Originally left by her parents as a baby with the promise that they'd be back for her someday, it's been a hard knock life ever since with her mean foster mom Miss Hannigan (Cameron Diaz). But everything's about to change when the hard-nosed tycoon and New York mayoral candidate Will Stacks (Jamie Foxx) - advised by his brilliant VP, Grace (Rose Byrne) and his shrewd and scheming campaign advisor, Guy (Bobby Cannavale) - makes a thinly-veiled campaign move and takes her in. Stacks believes he's her guardian angel, but Annie's self-assured nature and bright, sun-will-come-out-tomorrow outlook on life just might mean it's the other way around.

Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb (2014)

Stars: Ben Stiller, Robin Williams, Owen Wilson, Dick Van Dyke

Director: Shawn Levy

Genre: Adventure/Comedy/Family/Fantasy

Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, 21 Laps Entertainment, 1492 Pictures

Time: 97 min

Rating: PG

Plot

Larry spans the globe, uniting favourite and new characters while embarking on an epic quest to save the magic before it is gone forever.

Mr. Turner (2014)

Stars: Timothy Spall, Paul Jesson, Dorothy Atkinson, Marion Bailey

Director: Mike Leigh

Genre: Biography/Drama/History

Film4, Focus Features International (FFI), Lipsync Productions

Time: 150 min

Rating: Restricted

Plot

Mr. Turner explores the last quarter century of the great if eccentric British painter J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851). Profoundly affected by the death of his father, loved by a housekeeper he takes for granted and occasionally exploits sexually, he forms a close relationship with a seaside landlady with whom he eventually lives incognito in Chelsea, where he dies. Throughout this, he travels, paints, stays with the country aristocracy, visits brothels, is a popular if anarchic member of the Royal Academy of Arts, has himself strapped to the mast of a ship so that he can paint a snowstorm, and is both celebrated and reviled by the public and by royalty.

Goodbye to All That (2014)

Stars: Paul Schneider, Melanie Lynskey, Anna Camp, Heather Graham

Director: Angus MacLachlan

Genre: Comedy/Drama

Epoch Films, RC Pictures

Time: 87 min

Rating: (not known)

Plot

When his wife unexpectedly informs him that she wants a divorce, well-meaning but oblivious husband Otto Wall finds himself thrust back into bachelorhood, where he searches for the real thing amidst a string of one night stands.