Category: Film

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.

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.