Author: Dan

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

Just the one new film open­ing this week: Mr. Magorium’s Won­der Empo­ri­um about a mag­ic toyshop fac­ing unex­pect­ed change. It stars Dustin Hoff­man and Natal­ie Port­man and is reviewed here, at Funer­als & Snakes. Mago­ri­um is play­ing at Read­ings, Regent-on-Man­ners, Empire and Sky City Queens­gate.

It’s a qui­et week before the big Box­ing Day and New Year’s Day releas­es which, by my cal­cu­la­tion, will see 13 more films open in cin­e­mas around Welling­ton.

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

First up, I think my nor­mal­ly metic­u­lous research went astray last time and I missed that Shane Mead­ows’ new film This is Eng­land was open­ing at the Rial­to. So, not only did I fail to men­tion it in this space last week but it did­n’t get a review at Funer­als & Snakes or the Cap­i­tal Times and it was such a slow week too… This is Eng­land has instant appeal to me as it’s about my manor and my gen­er­a­tion: Thatcher’s pro­to-fas­cist Eng­land and the dis­af­fect­ed, aim­less youth run­ning wild on the ground. Mead­ows is one of the UK’s finest young film­mak­ing tal­ents (Twen­ty­Four­Se­v­en and A Room for Romeo Brass are the best) but he lost his way for a while. Rial­to exclu­sive.

Sky City Cin­e­mas real­ly don’t know how to pro­gramme the Embassy: block­buster then art-house then bol­ly­wood, etc. Now they’re try­ing a bit of both with ultra-vio­lent video-game adap­ta­tion Hit­man and nature doc­u­men­tary The White Plan­et. What a dou­ble-fea­ture that will be. Hit­man is also play­ing at Read­ings and Regent-on-Man­ners. The White Plan­et is in the same mode as the huge hit March of the Pen­guins: this time the focus is on polar bears and the nar­ra­tor is Queen Lat­i­fah (sor­ry, wrong Arc­tic movie). Also screen­ing at the Para­mount and the Pent­house.

UPDATE: Sky City don’t even know how to pro­mote their Embassy ses­sions either! Miss­ing from their cor­po­rate web site on Wednes­day was any men­tion of the dai­ly screen­ings of This Is New Zealand, the sen­sa­tion­al wide-screen epic that show­cased New Zealand to the world at the Osa­ka Expo in Japan in 1970. Not to be missed. Ses­sion times can be found at the old Deluxe site which I thought had died.

The rest of this week’s new releas­es after the jump…

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

If you are at all inter­est­ed in the future of cin­e­ma tech­nol­o­gy, the ener­getic retelling of dark age Norse Anglosax­on Anglo-Sax­on leg­ends or theme park rides then Beowulf 3D is the thing for you this week­end. The 3D ver­sion only screens at Read­ings and I under­stand from Road­show, the dis­trib­u­tor, that only two cin­e­mas in New Zealand are equipped to screen it: Read­ings at Courte­nay Cen­tral and Hoyts Sylvia Park in Auck­land.

The dig­i­tal equip­ment required to screen Beowulf in 3D cost upwards of $100k and is only in Cin­e­ma 5 (i.e. not one of the big ones). That cost puts it out of reach of all Welling­ton cin­e­mas apart from Read­ings (and pos­si­bly Sky City at Queens­gate) until the eco­nom­ic dri­vers to replace 35mm film become over­whelm­ing. Check the list­ings care­ful­ly as the 3D ver­sion is def­i­nite­ly the one to see. The flat ver­sion can also be found at Regent-on-Man­ners and Sky City Queens­gate.

The rest of this week’s new releas­es after the jump…

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

A whole day late, sor­ry. Curse this day job.

Direc­tor Karen Mon­crieff assem­bled a superb cast for The Dead Girl, a film about the impact of a mur­der on sev­er­al dif­fer­ent and unre­lat­ed groups of char­ac­ters; told in five chap­ters. Fea­tur­ing high­ly applaud­ed per­for­mances from Toni Col­lette, Mar­cia Gay Hard­en, Mary Beth Hurt and tem­po­rary Welling­ton­ian Gio­van­ni Ribisi, plus James Fran­co and Mary Steen­bur­gen. The Dead Girl is play­ing now at The Empire in Island Bay and Rial­to.

I don’t think I’m giv­ing too much away if I reveal that The Heart­break Kid is only the third film I have failed to com­plete since I start­ed review­ing for the Cap Times back in Sep­tem­ber last year. Ben Stiller reunites with the Far­rel­ly Broth­ers for the first time since There’s Some­thing About Mary in 1998 in a roman­tic com­e­dy that is nei­ther. Play­ing at Read­ings, Regent-on-Man­ners and Sky City Queens­gate.

Nina’s Jour­ney is a Holo­caust dra­ma from Swe­den fea­tur­ing present day rem­i­nis­cences from the real Nina: Vari­ety called it “low-key but pow­er­ful”. It screens at the Para­mount, exclu­sive­ly. The Pent­house gets two exclu­sives this week. First­ly, art-house dra­ma Bel­la has been praised by Chris­t­ian media for what they call a “pro-life” stance; Roger Ebert said, “It’s about lov­able peo­ple hav­ing impor­tant con­ver­sa­tions and is not pro-choice or pro-life but sim­ply in favor of his feel­ings — and hers, if she felt free to feel them.”

Final­ly, also at the Pent­house and direct from the Fes­ti­val, is The Secret Life of Words: a fol­low-up to Isabel Coixet’s love­ly and sad film My Life With­out Me from 2003. Words also stars Sarah Pol­ley and fea­tures Tim Rob­bins who won’t look quite as tall as usu­al as he’s play­ing an oil rig work­er being nursed by Pol­ley after an acci­dent.

All these films will be reviewed next week at Funer­als & Snakes, and (space-per­mit­ting) in the Cap­i­tal Times on Wednes­day.

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

I was real­ly hop­ing they were going to to call the Eliz­a­beth sequel Eliz­a­beth II but instead it is Eliz­a­beth: The Gold­en Age. Co-artis­tic-direc­tor-des­ig­nate of the Syd­ney The­atre Com­pa­ny and Elf Queen, Cate Blanchett returns to play Eliz­a­beth. She’s still fight­ing catholics but this time they are amassed off the coast in an Arma­da. Clive Owen plays Errol Fly­nn as Wal­ter Raleigh. Pent­house, Read­ings, Light­house Petone, Rial­to, Sky City Queens­gate, Embassy

Christ­mas is here and the first “hol­i­day” movie off the rank is Fred Claus at Read­ings, Regent-on-Man­ners and Sky City Queens­gate. Paul Gia­mat­ti is San­ta and Vince Vaugh­an plays his layabout lit­tle broth­er Fred (a bit like Bil­ly Carter or Roger Clin­ton).

Old­er read­ers will remem­ber the days when Kevin Cost­ner was the biggest star in the Hol­ly­wood fir­ma­ment. Despite some career mis-steps he remains a watch­able per­former and this week he flicks the ser­i­al killer switch in Mr Brooks at Read­ings, Regent-on-Man­ners, Sky City Queens­gate. The twist is that William Hurt plays his alter-ego, a bit like Jekyll and Hyde.

Final­ly, a poten­tial art­house treat at the Para­mount. Gold­en Door fol­lows turn of the cen­tu­ry immi­grants from Sici­ly to Ellis Island and stars Char­lotte Gains­bourg. It won six awards at the 2006 Venice Film Fes­ti­val includ­ing the Sil­ver Lion.

All these films will be reviewed at Funer­als & Snakes next Wednes­day (and in print in the Cap­i­tal Times on the same day) .

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

I have it on good author­i­ty that Quentin Taran­ti­no gave his per­son­al per­mis­sion for the Film Fes­ti­val to screen the com­plete Grind­house exploita­tion dou­ble-fea­ture as he and Robert Rodriguez intend­ed, despite it being yanked ear­ly from Amer­i­can cin­e­mas due to dis­mal box office: how­ev­er Road­show inter­vened to pre­vent the screen­ing and the only way NZ audi­ences can see Grind­house will be on DVD at some future time. That big screen expe­ri­ence has been replaced by an expand­ed ver­sion of Taran­ti­no’s Death Proof, open­ing today at Read­ings and Sky City Queens­gate. The tale of a crazed stunt­man (Kurt Rus­sell) stalk­ing two sets of beau­ti­ful women includ­ing kiwi stun­tie Zoe Bell and Syd­ney Poiti­er, Death Proof looks like more of that patent­ed Taran­ti­no-like fun.

The rest of this week’s new releas­es after the jump…

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

This week the Para­mount has a spe­cial attrac­tion for fans of odd­ball genius David Lynch: Inland Empire has been acclaimed by (sev­er­al) crit­ics world­wide as a return to the edgy and out­ra­geous Lynch of his ear­ly career (think Eraser­head rather than, say, The Straight Sto­ry). Inland Empire screens exclu­sive­ly at the Para­mount for one week only. Set aside plen­ty of time.

Also return­ing from suc­cess­ful screen­ings at this year’s Fes­ti­val is Venus, star­ring Peter O’Toole as an age­ing actor get­ting a new lease on life when he meets a brash and beau­ti­ful teenage girl. Domin­ion-Post crit­ic Graeme Tuck­ett has called it his film of the year although that may have changed since East­ern Promis­es. Venus is writ­ten by the nev­er less than inter­est­ing Hanif Kureishi (My Beau­ti­ful Laun­drette and Inti­ma­cy) and plays at the Embassy, Para­mount, Rial­to and Sky City Queens­gate.

The rest of this week’s releas­es after the jump…

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

Vig­go Mortensen reunites with direc­tor David Cro­nen­berg (A His­to­ry of Vio­lence) for the acclaimed new dra­ma East­ern Promis­es, set deep in the under­bel­ly of present day Lon­don among the vicious Russ­ian mafia. Nao­mi Watts plays a mid­wife inves­ti­gat­ing the death of a young pros­ti­tute whose diary leads to king­pin Armin Mueller-Stahl. Vig­go plays his mys­te­ri­ous dri­ver. Read­ings and Queens­gate.

Frac­ture is a twisty court­room thriller star­ring Ryan Gosling (just pulled/pushed out of The Love­ly Bones) and Antho­ny Hop­kins. Hop­kins plays Ted Craw­ford, accused of mur­der­ing his wife; Gosling is the ambi­tious Deputy DA who sees this case as his tick­et out to the big mon­ey cor­po­rate world but the case proves more com­pli­cat­ed than it first appears. Read­ings, Empire and Queens­gate.

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

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

The best grown-up film of the year opens today. Atone­ment is direct­ed by up-and-com­er Joe Wright (Pride & Prej­u­dice) and is adapt­ed from the acclaimed nov­el by Ian McE­wan. 12 year old Briony Tallis (played by Saoirse Ronan from Peter Jackson’s forth­com­ing The Love­ly Bones) tells a ter­ri­ble lie, con­demn­ing fam­i­ly friend Rob­bie Turn­er (James McAvoy) to prison and dis­grace and her sis­ter Cecil­ia (Keira Knight­ley) to heart­break and loss. It takes a life­time for Briony to atone. Atone­ment is play­ing at the Embassy, Read­ings, Pent­house, Light­house Petone and the Empire Island Bay.

New Zealand vam­pire thriller Per­fect Crea­ture gets a long-await­ed cin­e­ma release, more than two years after com­ple­tion. Direct­ed by Glenn Stan­dring (The Irrefutable Truth About Demons) and star­ring imports Dougray Scott and Saf­fron Bur­rowns along with locals Scott Wills and Rob­bie Mag­a­si­va, Per­fect Crea­ture offers us an alter­na­tive New Zealand known as Nuo­vo Zelandia where vam­pires and humans peace­ful­ly co-exist – until the bal­ance is chal­lenged by a rene­gade vam­pire known as Edgar (Leo Gre­go­ry). Read­ings, Embassy and Sky City Queens­gate.

A kinder, gen­tler option is pro­vid­ed by Con­ver­sa­tions With My Gar­den­er from direc­tor Jean Beck­er (Chil­dren of the Marsh­lands). Daniel Auteuil plays an artist who returns to the fam­i­ly home to escape a messy divorce and renews a friend­ship with the old school mate (Jean-Pierre Dar­roussin) who tends his veg­gie gar­den. Pent­house and Light­house Petone.

Final­ly, the Ital­ian Film Fes­ti­val kicked off with a gala shindig at the Para­mount last night. It runs for a fort­night and there’s plen­ty to keep you enter­tained.

Atone­ment and Con­ver­sa­tions With My Gar­den­er are reviewed at Funer­als & Snakes, to be joined next week by Per­fect Crea­ture.