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]