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.