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.