As Picture Palace takes a weekend off, you’ll have to hit the road to catch the latest films

Here’s a travel bulletin for Royston film fans – you’re going to have to hit the road if you want a cinema experience this weekend, because the town’s Picture Palace is dark for the duration.

That’s because a new booking system is being installed, and the films will start flowing again next week with feisty little woman against the odds story Joy, starring Jennifer Garner – visit www.roystonpicturepalace.org.uk to book tickets.

The following week one of the planned screenings of Alan Bennett’s The Lady In The Van has already sold out, and there are also screenings planned for Oscar-winning films Spotlight and Bridge of Spies.

On the multiplex front, the selection scheduled to go on general release this weekend isn’t likely to live long in the memory.

The highest profile, and the film with the oddest title, is Divergent Series – The Allegiant, the third instalment in the movie take on yet another bestselling teen fiction series.

Cue young people battling against the system in a future world in which people are grouped into rival factions based on their personality traits.

If you don’t fit easily into one of the accepted categories you’re a divergent, and that’s not a good thing to be because the authorities don’t like oddballs.

Shailene Woodley returns as the tough and resourceful heroine but it’s still no Hunger Games.

If you’re in the mood for something arty there’s movie buff darling Charlie Kaufman’s latest, a grown-up drama about relationships and loss which just happens to be a stop motion animation.

It’s called Anomalisa, it’s pretty downbeat stuff but seeing the claymation puppets getting it on with no holds barred means you will never be able to look at Wallace and Gromit in the same way again.

Also coming out of the animation cupboard but a lot less ambitious is Kung Fu Panda 3, which comes in 3D as we’ve come to expect from any franchise that limps into a third leg.

Jack Black returns to provide the voice for the furry martial arts expert of the title, now meeting up with his long-lost dad – for Bryan Cranston, that’s a role offering some light relief after the likes of Breaking Bad and Trumbo.

Also in the voice cast are big names like Angelina Jolie, Dustin Hoffman, Jackie Chan, Seth Rogan, Lucy Liu and J.K. Simmons, but that doesn’t mean the script is any great shakes. it’s not.