Dean Spanley UK posterAnoth­er light-ish week of cinema releases to report: Read­ings have so much con­fid­ence in the new Rob Schneider pris­on-com­edy Big Stan that the only even­ing ses­sions are at a dead­en­ing 9.20pm at night. Accord­ing to IMDb this is the first film dir­ec­ted by the Deuce Bigelow star which means we now have the phrase “a film by Rob Schneider” to ter­rify and depress us. Also Sky City Queens­gate.

Of much more interest is the new film by Wel­ling­ton export Toa Fraser (No. 2): Dean Span­ley is a UK-NZ co-pro fea­tur­ing the great Peter O’Toole, Aus­sie legend Bry­an Brown and our own Sam Neill. It’s an adapt­a­tion of a beloved, if slightly obscure, Irish nov­el by Lord Dun­sany called “My Talks with Dean Span­ley” and from such unprom­ising begin­nings a delight­ful film appears. Dean Span­ley is play­ing all over town this week­end: Read­ings, Empire, Light­house Petone, Pent­house and the Embassy.

I’m back fil­ing reviews for the Cap­it­al Times next Wed­nes­day and the lov­ingly annot­ated and hyper-linked ver­sion will be pos­ted to Funer­als & Snakes soon after.