Fanis, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics, recalls his childhood growing up as a Greek boy in Istanbul and the time spent with his shopkeeper grandfather learning about life and, in particular, the art of cooking. And it was here, in his grandfather's store, that he first fell in love, with Saime. After political tensions over Cyprus in 1963 Fanis's family were deported, but his grandfather stayed in Istanbul, and it is decades later that they meet again as Fanis returns 'home', after yea find out more...

Lucille (Andrea Burchill) and Ruth (Sara Walker) come to live with their off-the-wall Aunt Sylvie (Christine Lahti) after their mother kills herself. From sleeping on park benches to methodically stacking tin cans into pyramids, Sylvie's quirks are at first hard to get used to. While Ruth eventually grows fond of the woman's irrepressible spirit, Lucille starts to resent her aunt's behaviour -- especially find out more...

'Julie and Julia' tells the story of 2 women; Julia Childs, who wrote 'Mastering the Art of French Cooking' and 'My Life in France', the latter of which is adapted for one half of this film, and Julie Powell, a present day New Yorker who, to escape the tedium of her own life, decided to cook her way through Julia's 524 recipes and writes a blog about doing so. The parallels and the differences between their two lives are highlighted. In the more interesting of the 2 stories Meryl Streep contin find out more...

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It's 1950s America and recent graduate Katherine Watson has been employed by a prestigious, but archaic, girls' school as their new art history teacher. Katherine however is keen to teach way beyond the set curriculum, she feels it her duty to expand the minds of her repressed pupils and drag a reluctant social strata into the modern world. 'Mona Lisa Smile' is not unlike 'Dead Poets' Society', ruthlessly adept with the emotional manipulation, intense and earnest but head crunchingly shallow; yo find out more...

This thoughtful, feelgood fantasy-comedy-drama is Hollywood at its best. Nineties teenager Tobey Maguire and his wild child sister Reese Witherspoon get the culture shock of their lives when they're sucked through the TV into '50's sitcom Pleasantville. Given that in Pleasantville there's never been passion, hatred, war, tears, rain, or even colour, the residents get quite a surprise too when real life starts creeping into their perfect, monochrome world. Thought-provoking and thoroughly enterta find out more...

It's the McCarthy era in Hollywood and screenwriter Peter Appleton is a predictably ambitious man, but when he is blacklisted for a communist connection in the past his life takes a nosedive. Depressed and confused Peter crashes into a torrential river and is saved by the inhabitants of the sleepy little town of Lawson, who welcome him home as missing in action hero, Luke Trimble. Luke/Peter sets about rekindling the small town's cinema 'The Majestic', but with the FBI closing in and the memory find out more...

Intelligent, affectionate rites-of-passage drama set in the late 1950s. 14-year-old Dani is on the verge of womanhood and her loins start astirring with the arrival of a tasty newcomer in town. But adolescent angst sets in when her worldly older sister catches his eye instead. Tear-jerking. find out more...

Adapted from a story by Stephen King, this is the best prison movie you'll ever see. A city banker's life is changed forever when he receives a double life sentence in the notorious Shawshank prison. Freeman is superb as the old-timer who befriends him. A powerfully uplifting tale with a twist. find out more...

A huge hit in its native South Korea this witty pacifist movie takes place during the Korean Civil War with two opposing units of soldiers simultaneously stumbling on a remote and pastorally idyllic village where news of the hostilities has yet to arrive. Together the two groups see past their differences and discover their shared humanity. Light on politics, strong on fraternal bonding it's a genial mix of sentiment, laughs and action. find out more...