Author: Dan

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

The Fest­iv­al of the Arts has been soak­ing up almost every spare minute of my work­ing day so this is going to be a bare bones update.My high­light: Simon “Shaun of the Dead” Pegg back on screen in Run Fat­boy Run about a mar­riage-shy waster who tries to win the love of his life (Than­die New­ton) back by run­ning the Lon­don Mara­thon. Read­ings, Empire, Regent-on-Man­ners, Light­house Petone, Pent­house.

For the kids who like those dance-as-a-sub­sti­tute-for-gang-war­fare movies we have Step Up 2 The Streets, sequel to the massive 2006 hit that launched Chan­ning Tatum on an unsus­pect­ing world. He returns for the sequel. Read­ings only.

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

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

After the excite­ment of the pre-Oscar rush it’s anoth­er quiet week at the cinema. Open­ing all over town (that’s Read­ings, Empire, Pent­house, Regent-on-Man­ners and Light­house Petone) is the his­tor­ic­al drama The Oth­er Boleyn Girl fea­tur­ing the dream team of Nat­alie Port­man and Scar­lett Johans­son along with Eric Bana as ‘Enery the Eighth.

Even more his­tor­ic­al (at least in terms of dis­tance if not accur­acy) is 10,000 B.C. which stars our own Cliff Curtis as a char­ac­ter called Tic’T­ic (I kid you not). Dir­ec­ted by Inde­pend­ence Day’s Roland Emmerich, 10,000 B.C. was par­tially filmed in New Zea­l­and last year and tells the story of a young mam­moth hunter­’s des­per­ate efforts to save his tribe. There’s no sign of Raquel Welch but Cam­illa Belle (When a Stranger Calls) comes off the bench to play eye-candy: Read­ings and Regent-on-Man­ners.

If neither of these take your fancy, there are sneak pre­views again this week­end of the Simon Pegg rom-com Run Fat­boy Run (dir­ec­ted by his good mate Dav­id Schwim­mer). You’ll find that at Read­ings, Empire, Regent-on-Man­ners and Pent­house today, Sat­urday and Sunday only.

All three of these titles will be reviewed at Funer­als & Snakes next Wed­nes­day (and in the Cap­it­al Times on the same day). Mean­while, tick­ets have gone on sale for the 2008 World Cinema Show­case which is an abso­lute doozy this year – a worthy com­pet­it­or to the main Fest­iv­al. And the Film Soci­ety got under way on Monday which must mean that Sum­mer is nearly over.

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

Just in time for the week­end, here’s a quick run down of the films open­ing this week in cinemas across town.

Return­ing from last year’s Film Fest­iv­al is Lady Chat­ter­ley, a French adapt­a­tion of an earli­er (“kinder, gentler” accord­ing to Ebert) ver­sion of D. H. Lawrence’s fam­ous erot­ic nov­el Lady Chat­ter­ley’s Lov­er. It sounds like it could have been titled There Will Be Sex: Rialto only.

Also return­ing, but from the more recent French Film Fest­iv­al is big-budget cos­tume drama Molière, about the great dram­at­ist played by Romain Duris.That one is a Pent­house exclus­ive.

Finally this week, 300’s Ger­ard But­ler romances Hil­ary Swank from the dead in P.S., I Love You. Described by one review­er as hav­ing a “high ick factor”. Read­ings and Regent-on-Man­ners.

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

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

In 1998 Wern­er Herzog made an acclaimed doc­u­ment­ary called Little Dieter Needs to Fly about Ger­man-born Viet­nam hero Dieter Den­gler and his adven­tures as a US Navy pilot. He obvi­ously had a big con­nec­tion to that story as he has now gone back and made a fea­ture about the most amaz­ing chapter of Dengler’s life: the escape from a jungle-bound Viet Cong pris­on camp after 6 months of near star­va­tion. The Dark Knight’s Chris­ti­an Bale stars. Rialto exclus­ive.

Jack Nich­olson and Mor­gan Free­man star togeth­er as two old men on their last legs in The Buck­et List, dir­ec­ted by Rob Rein­er. It opens today at Read­ings, Empire, Light­house Petone and Pent­house. Also, from the com­mer­cial depart­ment is tele­port­ing adven­ture Jump­er star­ring Hay­den Christensen and Samuel L. Jack­son. Rumours that the pro­posed sequels to Jump­er will be called Sweat­er and Pullover are simply reck­less. Read­ings, Empire, Regent-on-Man­ners.

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

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

It’s a quiet week for qual­ity releases so you can all go to No Coun­try for Old Men. Altern­at­ively, if you’ve already done that or want a pal­ate cleans­ing in advance of There Will Be Blood, you can check out com­edy-thrill­er-romance Fool’s Gold at Read­ings, Regent or Sky City Queens­gate. Mat­thew McConaughey reunites with Kate Hud­son (How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days) as an estranged couple who reunite to search for sunken treas­ure (as you do). Don­ald Suth­er­land and Ray Win­stone are the good act­ors lend­ing their name to the pro­ject.

John C. Reilly goes from sidekick (Tall­adega Nights, The Avi­at­or) to front and centre in Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. Reilly plays the eponym­ous rock­er in a biop­ic that fol­lows his up and down career across five dec­ades and spoofs clas­sics like Ray and Walk the Line. Writ­ten by Judd Apatow (Knocked Up and The 40 Year Old Vir­gin), Walk Hard opened yes­ter­day (Wait­angi Day spe­cial) at Read­ings, Regent-on-Man­ners, Empire and Sky City Queens­gate.

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

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

As we approach the apex of the inter­na­tion­al awards sea­son the biggest week for qual­ity cinema releases in memory is upon us. With 8 Oscar nom­in­a­tions, the Coen Broth­er­s’ No Coun­try for Old Men leads the pack and opens today at Read­ings, Light­house Petone, Para­mount, Sky City Queens­gate and the Embassy. Based on a Cor­mac McCarthy goth­ic crime nov­el, No Coun­try reportedly sees the Coen’s back in their finest form since Fargo . Josh Brolin (Amer­ic­an Gang­ster) plays a hunter who stumbles on a suit­case full of money and decides to keep it. He doesn’t real­ise that one of the biggest badasses in screen his­tory (Javi­er Bardem) is com­ing to get him – and the money.

George Clooney as Best Act­or is one of sev­en Oscar nom­in­a­tions gained for Michael Clayton, a para­noia-thrill­er about a cor­por­ate fix­er who uncov­ers a plot that can­not end well for his cli­ents – or for him. Writ­ten and dir­ec­ted by first-timer Tony Gil­roy (co-writer of the Bourne tri­logy), Michael Clayton brings to mind 70s clas­sics like The Par­al­lax View and Three Days of the Condor (dir­ec­ted by Sydney Pol­lack who stars in Michael Clayton). Read­ings, Empire, Light­house Petone, Pent­house and Sky City Queens­gate.

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

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

There are at least two crack­ers in this week’s line-up. Firstly, Johnny Depp re-unites with Tim Bur­ton for faith­ful adapt­a­tion of Steph­en Sondheim’s acclaimed music­al Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Depp is in his finest form (des­pite not hav­ing a Broad­way-strength voice) and is joined by a won­der­ful cast includ­ing Helena Bon­ham Carter, Alan Rick­man, Timothy Spall and Sacha Bar­on Cohen. Read­ings, Empire, Sky City Quens­gate.

“The West Wing” cre­at­or Aaron Sor­kin returns to DC to script Charlie Wilson’s War: the true story of a reneg­ade but prin­cipled play­boy Con­gress­man (Tom Hanks) who almost single-handedly fun­ded the Afghan res­ist­ance to the Soviet inva­sion in the 1980s. I was sur­prised to see this wasn’t nom­in­ated for an Oscar in the Best Adap­ted Screen­play cat­egory but Philip Sey­mour Hoff­man is in there as Sup­port­ing Act­or for his excel­lent turn as impol­it­ic CIA oper­at­ive Gust Avrako­tos. You can see this one at the Embassy, Read­ings and Sky City Queens­gate.

[The rest of this week’s new release sum­mar­ised after the jump…]

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

After a few weeks off list­ing new releases I’m return­ing to record a typ­ic­ally eccent­ric mix of block­buster and art-house for you to while away those long, balmy sum­mer even­ings.

First up is Oscar-win­ner Ang Lee’s first film since Broke­back Moun­tain, an erot­ic espi­on­age thrill­er set in war­time Shang­hai. Already nom­in­ated in last week’s Golden Globes Lust, Cau­tion is a Para­mount exclus­ive.

New York gets yet anoth­er ter­rible pound­ing in Clover­field, as a mon­ster of some descrip­tion rips the head off the Statue of Liberty among oth­er atro­cit­ies. The catch here is that the entire tale is told by “ordinary people” with their cam­cord­ers, a little like Blair Witch a few years ago. It’s pro­duced by J. J. Abrams (“Lost”) and dir­ec­ted by anoth­er t.v. alumni Matt Reeves (best known thus far as cre­at­or of “Felicity”). At Read­ings Cour­tenay Cent­ral and Sky City Queens­gate.

Patrick Melton and Mar­cus Dun­stan have been up nights devis­ing yet more sad­ist­ic tor­tures for deserving and undeserving suck­ers and have come up with Saw IV. Jig­saw carked it at the end of Saw III but that doesn‘t appear to slow things down at all. You’ll find it at Read­ings, Sky City Queens­gate and Regent-on-Man­ners: look for the teen­age boys try­ing to sneak in on bor­rowed ID’s.

Bond vil­lain Mads Mikkelsen crosses over to the side of the angels in Susanne Bier’s acclaimed After the Wed­ding (Para­mount and Pent­house). He plays Jac­ob, an aid work­er who returns to Den­mark on a fund-rais­ing mis­sion but instead dis­cov­ers a life-chan­ging fam­ily secret. After the Wed­ding was nom­in­ated for an Oscar last year in the Best For­eign Lan­guage Flick cat­egory. Finally, a geri­at­ric romance is on offer in Elsa and Fred, from Spain. Described by one crit­ic as “simultaneously heart­break­ing and heart­en­ing” this one seems tail­or-made for the Pent­house.

Read­ings, in their wis­dom, have decided not to offer the Cap­it­al Times any reviewer’s passes in 2008 which makes writ­ing about their films very close to being more trouble than it’s worth. So, Clover­field and Saw IV may not be reviewed there (and thus also at Funer­als & Snakes) next Wed­nes­day but the oth­ers will.