It seems like only yesterday we were worried about the ‘millennium bug’ and now here we are, 10 years on! Interestingly enough, it’s one of those rare years with a film bearing its name, in this case Peter Hyams’ disappointing sequel to Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece, 2001. Looking at the list of these films, none of them seem to be very good at predicting the state of the world and its technological progress in the year they depict. The totalitarian state of 1984 didn’t happen (though to be fair it was the book that got it wrong!), and by 2001/2010 we hadn’t/won’t have switched off the computers, reached Jupiter and evolved into starchild superbeings. And as for Wong Kar-wai’s 2046, well, he wasn’t even trying. Let’s hope that in a couple of years time Roland Emmerich’s 2012 doesn’t buck the trend. If it does, in my best Private Fraser, “We’re doomed… doomed...”

I’ve often talked in this column of my fear of the literary adaptation (for every To Kill a Mockingbird there’s a The Cider House Rules), and we’ve two big ones this month, both of which are definitely more ‘Mockingbird’ than ‘Cider’. First up is John (The Proposition) Hillcoat’s adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s much-loved post-apocalyptic novel, ‘The Road’ – with the film being every bit as haunting, gripping and moving as its remarkable source. Next there’s Scott (Shine) Hicks’ sensitive adaptation of Simon Carr’s 2001 memoir of single-parenthood after his wife’s untimely death, The Boys are Back. A long-cherished project of the film’s lead, Clive Owen, this is a funny and authentically moving translation to the big screen. Our other new releases include two excellent documentaries: gripping legal drama Crude, which tells the story of a multibillion-dollar lawsuit filed by Ecuadoreans who contend their Amazonian jungle has been toxified by US petrochemicals giant Chevron; and Mugabe and the White African, which follows another legal battle, this time that of a white farmer in Zimbabwe who is trying to hold onto his farm in teh face of Rovert Mugabe's aggressive land reform measures. Drama-wise, we have The Sea Wall (another adaptation, this time from a novel by Marguerite Duras), featuring a welcome return from Filmhouse fave Isabelle Huppert as a French woman facing all manner of difficulties in 1930s Indochina; and, from Japan, last year’s best foreign film Oscar®-winner, the warm, wryly comic Departures.

January sees part one of a season of films from the great Japanese master Yasujiro Ozu, including re-releases of his masterpieces Tokyo Story and Late Autumn (part two will be in February, but we can’t tell you what it will contain as we don’t know ourselves yet!); and we also take a look at the work of American maverick filmmaker/documentarist Joseph Strick.

And I’ve indulged myself even further than usual by naming and screening my top ten of new releases of 2009: a 3-screen cinema is, after all, the best train set a boy ever had! And if you think I’ve missed something essential from the list, send us a few words (to: admin@filmhousecinema.com) in support of your choice, and if we agree, we’ll show it!

And for those of you in need of a New Year Resolution, I’ve an idea for you: Come to Filmhouse more often, eat and drink in the café bar to your heart’s content, and come and see more films!