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.