Separation City posterI thought I’d come out of hid­ing for a moment to trum­pet the first Welling­ton fea­ture film to get a decent release in ages, Sep­a­ra­tion City. Even though you have to go a long way down the cast list on IMDb to find a Welling­ton actor (Grant Roa com­ing in at num­ber 12) the trail­er con­tains enough glimpses of Welling­ton land­marks to set audi­ence tongues wag­ging and get some ear­ly trac­tion at the box office. Writ­ten by Welling­ton fix­ture (Dom-Post car­toon­ist, for­mer Press Gallery jour­nal­ist, play­wright) Tom Scott it’s a “painful les­son about how unre­quit­ed love lasts for­ev­er and while requit­ed love comes with a use-by date” accord­ing to the press mate­r­i­al.

Two of the over­seas leads have worked in New Zealand before: Rhona Mitra was a leather-clad vam­pire in the mis­be­got­ten Under­world Rise of the Lycans ear­li­er this year and Ger­man Thomas Kretschmann played the cap­tain of The Ven­ture in Peter Jack­son’s King Kong. Sep­a­ra­tion City can be found just about any­where from today: Read­ings, Empire, Pent­house, Embassy, Light­house Petone.

[The rest of this week’s new releas­es after the jump.]

For some­thing a lit­tle more dis­pos­able you might like to try G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra which is anoth­er attempt to turn a beloved toy and tv series into a fran­chise. Stephen Som­mers is at the helm — he made the first two Mum­my pic­tures as well as Van Hels­ing so you know in advance the sort of thing you’re going to get here. Inter­est­ing cast­ing — Joseph Gor­don-Levitt who has gone from “Third Rock from the Sun” to indie dar­ling (Mys­te­ri­ous Skin, Brick) to bona fide movie star (the forth­com­ing 500 Days of Sum­mer). Read­ings, Empire, Regent-on-Man­ners and Embassy.

Hen­ry Selick­’s stop-motion 3D mas­ter­piece Cora­line opens this week­end, at least it’s in 3D at Read­ings. The rest of the city (Para­mount, Empire and Pent­house) get it in flat old 2D which I can tell you is not the same at all.

With the film still warm from run­ning through the Embassy pro­jec­tor at the Film Fes­ti­val, Coco Avant Chanel returns for its wide release. Audrey Tautou stars as the fash­ion doyen: Pent­house and Light­house Petone.

The Para­mount has scrounged up an obscure Daniel Craig film this week: Flash­backs of a Fool fea­tures Craig as a washed-up actor in Hol­ly­wood, look­ing back on a trou­bled child­hood. This one was new to me so I have noth­ing more to add.

Final­ly, the Light­house Petone has a few screen­ings of a local­ly made doco, Earth Whisperers/Papatuanuku. Fea­tur­ing ten New Zealan­ders who are tak­ing a pos­i­tive approach to fix­ing our dam­aged envi­ron­ment, a lot of the film was shot by the great Al Bollinger.

Cora­line has already been reviewed at the Cap­i­tal Times (and on Nine to Noon), reviews of the oth­ers will appear in the paper on Wednes­day and online at Funer­als & Snakes soon­ish (I’m a bit behind in my post­ing).