Author: Dan

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

I have to keep this brief as time is short. There are anoth­er six films open­ing at Welling­ton cin­e­mas this week, three return­ing from the Film Fes­ti­val and three more. First up Ang Lee’s return to Eng­lish-lan­guage film­mak­ing (after the atmos­pher­ic Chi­nese thriller Lust, Cau­tion in 2007) Tak­ing Wood­stock. Released world­wide to coin­cide with the 40th anniver­sary of the Wood­stock Music and Arts Fes­ti­val, the leg­endary three day mud and music event, the film tells the behind-the-scenes sto­ry of how it all hap­pened. Read­ings, Empire and Pent­house.

Mul­ti­plex-only releas­es this week are anoth­er demon-child hor­ror, Orphan, and anoth­er Kather­ine Hei­gl rom-com, The Ugly Truth. I saw both this evening and can only say that new lows have been struck for both gen­res. Read­ings and Sky City Cin­e­mas.

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

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

Righto, back again with a quick run down of what’s new in cin­e­mas this week­end. First up, a spe­cial treat for film fans who want to some free enter­tain­ment tomor­row lunchtime — Read­ings are host­ing a spe­cial fif­teen minute pre­view of James Cameron’s Avatar in their dig­i­tal 3D Cin­e­ma 5. Three ses­sions (11.45am, 12.30pm & 1.15pm) are run­ning and tick­ets are avail­able on a first-come first-served. If you can’t sneak out for these you’ll have to wait until the whole film opens world­wide on 17th Decem­ber.

Quentin Taran­ti­no’s Inglou­ri­ous Bas­ter­ds is only play­ing at Read­ings and Sky City Queens­gate but don’t let that put you off. I saw it this evening and enjoyed myself tremen­dous­ly — there real­ly is a lot of enter­tain­ment to be had at the pic­tures at the moment. Brad Pitt plays the leader of a Dirty Dozen type squad of jew­ish sol­diers, para­chut­ed behind ene­my lines in WWII to extract extreme vengeance on the Nazis. Fea­tur­ing impec­ca­ble cast­ing (even the non-actors are some­how right) and his usu­al eclec­tic sound­track, Taran­ti­no is in fine form.

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

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

The big noise this week is being made by Neill Blomkam­p’s Dis­trict 9 which you can see at Read­ings, Empire, Embassy and Sky City Queens­gate. Blomkamp had been tapped by Peter Jack­son to direct the Halo movie that he was co-pro­duc­ing along with Microsoft. When that fell over Jack­son offered Blomkamp the chance to expand and revis­it his short Alive in Joburg from 2005. And the almost instant rush of acclaim for Dis­trict 9 has been intox­i­cat­ing. I don’t get to see it until the week­end but I know a lot of peo­ple who have and all are rav­ing. What is it about? A bunch of aliens are seg­re­gat­ed and ghet­to-ised in mod­ern South Africa. After near­ly 30 years as sec­ond class cit­i­zens ten­sions are reach­ing boil­ing point.

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

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

I 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.]

Cinephilia: Film Festival Preview

The Welling­ton Film Fes­ti­val (sor­ry, New Zealand Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val, Welling­ton Branch) is a huge under­tak­ing for the com­mit­ted cin­e­ma-goer. Every year we devour the pro­gramme for weeks in advance, sched­ul­ing annu­al leave and long “lunch breaks”, try­ing to work out what is essen­tial and what isn’t. After 20 years of this, I’ve only just begun to realise that in the search for the essen­tial many oth­er plea­sures have been pass­ing me by. This year, before I even looked at the pro­gramme, I asked the Fes­ti­val to choose a stack of DVDs for me, with the empha­sis on the unher­ald­ed and the unex­pect­ed. Thus, of the 13 films I’ve been watch­ing over the last three or so weeks, all but one of them were from the back half of the book (and prob­a­bly would not have been on my per­son­al short­list) but all of them had some­thing spe­cial to offer. So, is my advice for the Fes­ti­val to not book in advance but instead choose films at ran­dom depend­ing on your own avail­abil­i­ty and prox­im­i­ty to a venue? Maybe it is.

[Read the rest of the Welling­ton­ista Film Fes­ti­val Pre­view after the jump]

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

Clive Owen has his sec­ond big film of the year in cin­e­mas now, fol­low­ing the roman­tic-thriller Duplic­i­ty in March. The Inter­na­tion­al is a full-time thriller about an inter­na­tion­al bank­ing con­spir­a­cy and it’s direct­ed by Run Lola Run’s Tom Tyk­w­er. Nao­mi Watts plays sec­ond-fid­dle. What hap­pened to her career? Read­ings, Sky City Queens­gate and the Empire, Island Bay.

All the oth­er releas­es this week go straight to the art-house: 2008 Cannes-win­ner The Class gets a sea­son imme­di­ate­ly after head­lin­ing the World Cin­e­ma Show­case (Para­mount), as does The Gro­cer’s Son, about a young French wait­er forced by his father’s ill­ness to return to rur­al Provence and run the mobile gro­cery van — a sit­u­a­tion about which he is not hap­py. Pent­house and Light­house Petone.

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

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

At last I get some time to pre­view this week’s new releas­es and, frankly, it hard­ly seems worth it. I’ve just got in from two of the most dispir­it­ing expe­ri­ences I’ve had in a cin­e­ma in some time. Full reviews will come when I’ve had a chance to find the right kind of lan­guage to describe pre­cise­ly how unam­bi­tious Fast & Furi­ous and 17 Again are, a chal­lenge I must rise to before Cap­i­tal Times dead­line on Mon­day night. Fast & Furi­ous is the fourth in the series of petrol-head thrillers and orig­i­nal stars Vin Diesel and Paul Walk­er are both back. That fact might mean some­thing to some­one, some­where.

Mean­while, High School Musi­cal star Zac Efron gets a vehi­cle of his own as the young ver­sion of depressed 37 year old fail­ure Matthew Per­ry. Some not quite explained mag­ic gives him his young body back and the chance to put things right. Both Read­ings and Sky City Queens­gate.

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

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

Pick of the week at the movies must be The Wrestler, Mick­ey Rourke’s tri­umphant return to major leagues after years wan­der­ing in the wilder­ness. It’s a come­back of sorts for direc­tor Dar­ren Aronof­sky, too. His last film, The Foun­tain, was a strange and beau­ti­ful fable about try­ing to escape death but he’s prob­a­bly best-known for Requiem for a Dream, nine years ago. Rourke plays a rung-out and strung-out pro­fes­sion­al wrestler try­ing to rein­vent his life out­side the ring. Read­ings, Pent­house, Light­house Petone.

In oth­er news, Eliz­a­beth Banks (Zack and Miri Make a Porno) tries a change of pace as a (pos­si­bly) evil nan­ny in the chiller The Unin­vit­ed (Read­ings and Sky City Queens­gate) and my favourite B‑movie action hero Jason Statham returns as the epony­mous Trans­porter in the third episode of Luc Besson’s action series. Big ques­tion in Trans­porter 3? Is Frank Mar­tin gay. The direc­tor has a per­fect action movie name: Olivi­er Mega­ton. Read­ings and Sky City Queens­gate.

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

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

It’s a busy week at the Para­mount: exclu­sive sea­sons of Atom (The Sweet Here­after) Egoy­an’s new dra­ma Ado­ra­tion and the doc­u­men­tary The Spir­it of the Marathon start­ed today along with a shared sea­son of Al Paci­no Shake­speare­an vehi­cle The Mer­chant of Venice. Paci­no plays Shy­lock, and fans of his Richard III doco Look­ing for Richard will already know Paci­no’s facil­i­ty and enthu­si­asm for Shake­speare’s great­est char­ac­ters. Mer­chant is also play­ing at the Light­house in Petone.

Tony Gilroy’s debut fea­ture Michael Clay­ton was a stand-out last year and he’s con­struct­ed a new (although lighter) cor­po­rate thriller in Duplic­i­ty. Clive Owen and Julia Roberts star as spies team­ing up to sting two rival com­pa­nies. I enjoyed it a lot but remem­ber almost noth­ing. Regent-on-Man­ners, Read­ings, Sky City Queens­gate.

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