Blood at the pumps

There's not much doubt about the number one box office draw at the St James cinema this month. The multi Oscar-nominated Paul Thomas Anderson blockbuster There Will Be Blood tops the list. Starring British actor Daniel Day Lewis, who added the 2008 best-actor Academy Award to a Golden Globe and the British Film Awards. The film itself was nominated for umpteen awards and actually won quite a few. Although it lost out to No Country For Old Men in the Academy Awards for best picture.

Mr Day Lewis's portrayal of Daniel Plainview has been described as: "Just like Borat without the anti-Semitism and homophobia." And it certainly comes at the probable peak of the actor's career. After this one, it's a case of "follow that". The story, which the director has adapted from Upton Sinclair's novel, revolves around the character of Daniel Plainview, who discovers crude oil deposits in one of his silver mines. Gradually, through a combination of ruthlessness and hard work he becomes one of the most successful oil men in California. This is a must-see movie, if only for Mr Day Lewis's extraordinary performance.

Also showing at St James this month is the Jack Nicholson, Morgan Freeman vehicle The Bucket List. Rob Reiner's feature is a road movie, starring two of the most bankable stars in Tinseltown.

Mr Nicholson plays a billionaire and Mr Freeman a blue collar worker. They meet in hospital, where they have both been diagnosed with terminal cancer. They decide to set out on their jaunt together with a wish-list of things to do before they pop their clogs.

Joaquin Phoenix is an actor who either blows very hot or very lukewarm. He was brilliant in the Johnny Cash bio-pic, but quite dreadful in Gladiator. In his latest film, We Own the Night, directed by James Gray, he is very much on-form. He plays a Brighton Beach nightclub owner who gets involved with the Russian mafia. So the Russkies are the bad guys once more. This is a superior cop drama that also stars Mark Wahlberg and the ever-consistent Robert Duvall.

Also on offer at the St James cinema this month is Days of Glory, directed by French/Algerian Rachid Bouchareb. This is an indictment of the French army's treatment of indigenous North African conscripts during the North African campaign of World War II. Another non-Hollywood feature at St James this month is Water. Directed by the distinguished female director Deepa Mehta, this film focuses on the fate of a young widow in colonial India in 1938. In those days a widow had just three choices: Marry her husband's younger brother, live a celibate life until death or commit sutti by throwing herself onto her husband's funeral pyre. Sounds like a bundle of laughs.

The 2006 Dutch feature Black Book is also on offer at St James. Directed by Paul Verhoeven, it tells of the exploits of a female Jewish spy for the Dutch resistance during the German occupation. It is, to date, the most expensive Netherlands movie ever made... and also the most viewed.

You can also see the fantasy feature Pan's Labyrinth and the spectacular The Curse of the Golden Flower.

Directed by Yimou Zhang and starring Yun-Fat Chow and Li Gong, this is a worthy successor to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. The summer is already here and the heat is building, so what better way to spend an evening than relaxing in the air-conditioned cinema at St James, with plenty of A-list movies to keep you awake.