Wellington Film festival – We Recommend…

God! Where to start? We’re about a third way through the pro­gramme & EVERYTHING so far looks like a must see. Kudos to Mr Gos­den & his team this year.

Dis­claim­er: Our opin­ions are not infal­lible, we saw a prom­isingly enthralling doc­u­ment­ary a few years ago called Hybrid… and it was lit­er­ally watch­ing corn grow… inter­spersed with the most bor­ing home movie com­ment­ary… we’ll try to shield you from its ilk…

Then again, we have seen some won­der­ful films that did not sound at all prom­ising in the pro­gramme.

So… in no par­tic­u­lar order… lib­er­ally quot­ing without acknow­ledg­ment from the pro­gramme… what we’d see if we had unlim­ited time & money. You have our 100% guar­an­tee that you will like these movies… or we will call you a dum­bass.

Hid­den: Big French com­edy crowd pleas­er. Because it’s French, it’s “Art” right? This will be good. Also, it has two of the most ubi­quit­ous, and cha­ris­mat­ic French stars, Daniel Auteuil & Juli­ette Binoche.

Howl’s Mov­ing Castle: Japan­ese Anime maes­tro Miyaza­ki Hayao takes on Dianne Wynne Jones chil­dren’s nov­el. Will be eye pop­pingly fam­ily friendly.

Rize: For fans of (and any­one curi­ous about) Krump­ing… a hip-hop dance sub­cul­ture.

The Child: Young man con­siders selling his baby on the black mar­ket. Expect har­row­ing thrills, heart-break & heart-warm­ing (guess­ing here), and superb act­ing.

The Lost World: Pre-King Kong stop motion dino­saur effects based on the Arthur Con­an Doyle nov­el. Only frag­ments of this have exis­ted since shortly after it was first released (long story). But this restored ver­sion is nearly intact, as it first screened. With a live music ori­gin­al score from pian­ist Jan Pre­ston & sax­o­phon­ist Peter Boyd.

The 5000 Fin­gers of Dr T: We’ve actu­ally seen this… freaky-assed movie about a boy who hates his piano teach­er. Screen­play by Dr Seuss. Pretty much what you’d ima­gine & more. Um… if ever there were a movie to leg­al­ise can­nabis for.…

Bom­bon – El Perro: Heart­warm­ing story about a cur­mudgeon & his dog.

Little Sky: Heart­warm­ing & heart-break­ing story about a guy… and someone else’s tod­dler (not in a dodgy sense, if you get my drift).

Rolling Fam­ily: Heart­wa… OK, we’ll stop say­ing that. Exten­ded fam­ily & their camper­van.

The World: Beijing glob­al-theme park & the den­iz­ens with­in. …go-get­ters, gang­sters, social climbers and sleazeballs. But hey, that’s show-busi­ness.

36,quai des Orfevres: Daniel Auteuil & Ger­ard Depardieu (what sort of film fest­iv­al would it be without these two?) as vet­er­an cops vying for the same pro­mo­tion.

The Ax: Black com­edy about an unem­ployed cor­por­ate type who sees a niche in elim­in­at­ing (lit­er­ally) his com­pet­i­tion.

A Com­mon Thread: Chick flick involving hand-weav­ing & embroid­ery. Expect it to be heart­wa… and visu­ally sump­tu­ous.

The Intruder: Claire Denis latest. French Art-house at it’s finest. Expect to be per­plexed about what’s going on (yes, this IS a recom­mend­a­tion!)

Kings & Queen: French… tra­gi­com­edy, could­n’t make much sense of the pro­gramme notes in the quick scan I per­formed, but has Cath­er­ine Den­euve. So it must be good.

Look at Me: Con­tem­por­ary French cinema at its best. Who are we to argue? Young opera sing­er tries toes­cape the shad­ow of her super­star nov­el­ist fath­er. Prob­ably very, very amus­ing.

2046: Two of our favour­ite beau­ti­ful people, Tony Leung & Mag­gie Cheung (yes, they have both made movies with oth­er people) in Wong Kar Wai’s latest (If we read this cor­rectly, this is the sequel to his In the Mood for Love which also fea­tured these two). Also has hot­ties Zhang Ziyi, Gong Li, Carina Lau. Lucky Tony… HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!

Elec­tion: Mega-viol­ent tri­ad movie.

Hari Om: Light & lively Indi­an road movie. Looks great.

Tony Takit­ani: Adapt­a­tion of Haruki Murakam­i’s short story. Appar­ently “styl­ised” isn’t a strong enough word…

3‑Iron: We’ve read about this… from the dir­ect­or of the beau­ti­ful Spring, Sum­mer, Fall, Winter… and Spring. A drift­er breaks into houses, makes him­self at home, and then repairs the appli­ances & gen­er­ally makes things bet­ter than they were when he entered. Then he comes across an unhappy wife in one of them…

Life is a Mir­acle: A cir­cus, a love-sick don­key, and a home made bear. Sounds like a John Irving nov­el. But it’s actu­ally mad-cap sound­ing antics in war torn Bos­nia. Really.

The Sea Inside: This year’s Best For­eign Film Oscar win­ner. The true story of a Span­ish quad­ra­ple­gic who fought the Span­ish gov­ern­ment for the right to end his life. Not nearly as gruelling as it sounds…

The Way­ward Cloud: At last! The Art-house sleaze! The story of a Taipei porn star which does­n’t sound very tit­il­lat­ing.

9 Songs: More Art-house sleaze! Michael Win­ter­bot­tom’s con­tro­ver­sial fea­ture about a love affair. Con­tro­ver­sial for the hard­core sex… but appar­ently it’s tender, heart-warm­ing & all in the best pos­sible taste.

The Queen of Sheba’s Pearls: UK/Swedish sweet, com­ic hymn to post WWII Eng­lish­ness. A beau­ti­ful, mys­ter­i­ous for­eign­er (swedish) enters the lives of an Eng­lish fam­ily & she’s the dead ringer of their dead moth­er.

Yes: Sally Pot­ter­’s latest. Has Joan Allen in it as a molecu­lar sci­ent­ist so it must be good.

Pal­in­dromes: More Todd Solondz weird­ness about the ter­min­ally uncool in Amer­ic­an sub­ur­bia.

Under­tow: Con­tem­por­ary South­ern Goth­ic movie thrill­er. We can­’t res­ist them.

4: Right from the pro­gramme here: “The fer­al and the heavy metal­lic vie for dom­in­ance in this extraordin­ary assault on the senses, the year’s most trans­fix­ingly baff­ling movie – which among oth­er things, pur­ports to reveal the mean­ing­less­ness of the num­ber 4…” No need to read any more, We are SO there! Although we quite like “a howl­ing orgy of decrep­itude and decay” also.

Homegrown – Works on Film & Homegrown – Works on Video: I mean… you HAVE to don’t you? Besides, these are always fas­cin­at­ing & enter­tain­ing.

Kekex­ili – Moun­tain Patrol: Superbly pho­to­graphed eco­lo­gic­al man­hunt movie.

Look Both Ways: Very funny sound­ing Ock­er com­edy about an etern­al pess­im­ist.

Me and You and Every­one We Know: We’ve read (good things) about this one too – true indie fea­ture about rela­tion­ships.

My Sum­mer of Love: And this one too. UK com­edy drama about infatu­ation. Sports great per­form­ances from its young cast, appar­ently.

Whisky: The first Uruguay­an sock fact­ory movie you have prob­ably ever seen.

Fic­tion Artists: One of those clev­er & hil­ari­ous com­pil­a­tions of clips from old movies, this time show­ing Hol­ly­wood’s depic­tion of the tor­tured artist.

Banana in a Nut­shell: We only heard the term ” “http://www.publicaddress.net/default,2017.sm#post2017”>Banana” recently. And now here’s a film about one.

Double dare: A doc­u­ment­ary about Xen­a’s stunt double, Zoe Bell. and vet­er­an stun­t­wo­man, Jean­nie Epper.

Enron – The Smartest Guys In The Room: Yeah right.

Sedi­tion: The sup­pres­sion of dis­sent in NZ. Could be an eye open­er.

The Man from Lara­m­ie: We’ve seen this too. The greatest movie star ever, James Stew­art, searches for the man who killed his borth­er in this lush west­ern dir­ec­ted by Anthony Mann. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

East of Eden & Rebel Without a Cause: Ever wondered if james Dean could live up to the post-death hype? Won­der no more… check out the less­er known Nick Ray films too, they’re all going to be great.

Kung Fu Hustle: “Like a gonzo fusion of Tarant­ino & Tex Avery” (Looney Toon maes­tro). Ultra­vi­olence. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

High Ten­sion: As the title sug­gests. A white knuckle ride about a girl & her chain­saw. “One film you won’t want to take home to meet mum”.

Inside Deep Throat: Doc­u­ment­ary sleaze, so that’s alright then!. It’s not about Water­gate.

Overnight: Doc­u­ment­ary mor­al­ity tale about a blow­hard who blew his big chance in Hol­ly­wood. You won’t feel sorry for him.

Because the Wel­ling­ton­ists are such avid musos, we’ll also be going to ALL the music­al doc­u­ment­ar­ies… and there are sev­er­al, includ­ing: Sor­ceress of the New Piano; Touch the Sound; A Labyrinth of Time; Fallen Angel – Gram Par­sons; Hank Wil­li­ams – Honky Tonk Blues; The dev­il and Daniel John­ston; DIG!; Brasileir­inho; and Be Here To Love Me – A Film About Townes Van Zandt.

And that’s it! There are many more that we missed that you might quite like (in fact, enthu­si­ast­ic word of mouth always fol­lows sev­er­al films we decide not to both­er with), so do check out the pro­gramme, and/or the web­site.