Category: Film

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

I was real­ly hop­ing they were going to to call the Eliz­a­beth sequel Eliz­a­beth II but instead it is Eliz­a­beth: The Gold­en Age. Co-artis­tic-direc­tor-des­ig­nate of the Syd­ney The­atre Com­pa­ny and Elf Queen, Cate Blanchett returns to play Eliz­a­beth. She’s still fight­ing catholics but this time they are amassed off the coast in an Arma­da. Clive Owen plays Errol Fly­nn as Wal­ter Raleigh. Pent­house, Read­ings, Light­house Petone, Rial­to, Sky City Queens­gate, Embassy

Christ­mas is here and the first “hol­i­day” movie off the rank is Fred Claus at Read­ings, Regent-on-Man­ners and Sky City Queens­gate. Paul Gia­mat­ti is San­ta and Vince Vaugh­an plays his layabout lit­tle broth­er Fred (a bit like Bil­ly Carter or Roger Clin­ton).

Old­er read­ers will remem­ber the days when Kevin Cost­ner was the biggest star in the Hol­ly­wood fir­ma­ment. Despite some career mis-steps he remains a watch­able per­former and this week he flicks the ser­i­al killer switch in Mr Brooks at Read­ings, Regent-on-Man­ners, Sky City Queens­gate. The twist is that William Hurt plays his alter-ego, a bit like Jekyll and Hyde.

Final­ly, a poten­tial art­house treat at the Para­mount. Gold­en Door fol­lows turn of the cen­tu­ry immi­grants from Sici­ly to Ellis Island and stars Char­lotte Gains­bourg. It won six awards at the 2006 Venice Film Fes­ti­val includ­ing the Sil­ver Lion.

All these films will be reviewed at Funer­als & Snakes next Wednes­day (and in print in the Cap­i­tal Times on the same day) .

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

I have it on good author­i­ty that Quentin Taran­ti­no gave his per­son­al per­mis­sion for the Film Fes­ti­val to screen the com­plete Grind­house exploita­tion dou­ble-fea­ture as he and Robert Rodriguez intend­ed, despite it being yanked ear­ly from Amer­i­can cin­e­mas due to dis­mal box office: how­ev­er Road­show inter­vened to pre­vent the screen­ing and the only way NZ audi­ences can see Grind­house will be on DVD at some future time. That big screen expe­ri­ence has been replaced by an expand­ed ver­sion of Taran­ti­no’s Death Proof, open­ing today at Read­ings and Sky City Queens­gate. The tale of a crazed stunt­man (Kurt Rus­sell) stalk­ing two sets of beau­ti­ful women includ­ing kiwi stun­tie Zoe Bell and Syd­ney Poiti­er, Death Proof looks like more of that patent­ed Taran­ti­no-like fun.

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

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

This week the Para­mount has a spe­cial attrac­tion for fans of odd­ball genius David Lynch: Inland Empire has been acclaimed by (sev­er­al) crit­ics world­wide as a return to the edgy and out­ra­geous Lynch of his ear­ly career (think Eraser­head rather than, say, The Straight Sto­ry). Inland Empire screens exclu­sive­ly at the Para­mount for one week only. Set aside plen­ty of time.

Also return­ing from suc­cess­ful screen­ings at this year’s Fes­ti­val is Venus, star­ring Peter O’Toole as an age­ing actor get­ting a new lease on life when he meets a brash and beau­ti­ful teenage girl. Domin­ion-Post crit­ic Graeme Tuck­ett has called it his film of the year although that may have changed since East­ern Promis­es. Venus is writ­ten by the nev­er less than inter­est­ing Hanif Kureishi (My Beau­ti­ful Laun­drette and Inti­ma­cy) and plays at the Embassy, Para­mount, Rial­to and Sky City Queens­gate.

The rest of this week’s releas­es after the jump…

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

Vig­go Mortensen reunites with direc­tor David Cro­nen­berg (A His­to­ry of Vio­lence) for the acclaimed new dra­ma East­ern Promis­es, set deep in the under­bel­ly of present day Lon­don among the vicious Russ­ian mafia. Nao­mi Watts plays a mid­wife inves­ti­gat­ing the death of a young pros­ti­tute whose diary leads to king­pin Armin Mueller-Stahl. Vig­go plays his mys­te­ri­ous dri­ver. Read­ings and Queens­gate.

Frac­ture is a twisty court­room thriller star­ring Ryan Gosling (just pulled/pushed out of The Love­ly Bones) and Antho­ny Hop­kins. Hop­kins plays Ted Craw­ford, accused of mur­der­ing his wife; Gosling is the ambi­tious Deputy DA who sees this case as his tick­et out to the big mon­ey cor­po­rate world but the case proves more com­pli­cat­ed than it first appears. Read­ings, Empire and Queens­gate.

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

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

The best grown-up film of the year opens today. Atone­ment is direct­ed by up-and-com­er Joe Wright (Pride & Prej­u­dice) and is adapt­ed from the acclaimed nov­el by Ian McE­wan. 12 year old Briony Tallis (played by Saoirse Ronan from Peter Jackson’s forth­com­ing The Love­ly Bones) tells a ter­ri­ble lie, con­demn­ing fam­i­ly friend Rob­bie Turn­er (James McAvoy) to prison and dis­grace and her sis­ter Cecil­ia (Keira Knight­ley) to heart­break and loss. It takes a life­time for Briony to atone. Atone­ment is play­ing at the Embassy, Read­ings, Pent­house, Light­house Petone and the Empire Island Bay.

New Zealand vam­pire thriller Per­fect Crea­ture gets a long-await­ed cin­e­ma release, more than two years after com­ple­tion. Direct­ed by Glenn Stan­dring (The Irrefutable Truth About Demons) and star­ring imports Dougray Scott and Saf­fron Bur­rowns along with locals Scott Wills and Rob­bie Mag­a­si­va, Per­fect Crea­ture offers us an alter­na­tive New Zealand known as Nuo­vo Zelandia where vam­pires and humans peace­ful­ly co-exist – until the bal­ance is chal­lenged by a rene­gade vam­pire known as Edgar (Leo Gre­go­ry). Read­ings, Embassy and Sky City Queens­gate.

A kinder, gen­tler option is pro­vid­ed by Con­ver­sa­tions With My Gar­den­er from direc­tor Jean Beck­er (Chil­dren of the Marsh­lands). Daniel Auteuil plays an artist who returns to the fam­i­ly home to escape a messy divorce and renews a friend­ship with the old school mate (Jean-Pierre Dar­roussin) who tends his veg­gie gar­den. Pent­house and Light­house Petone.

Final­ly, the Ital­ian Film Fes­ti­val kicked off with a gala shindig at the Para­mount last night. It runs for a fort­night and there’s plen­ty to keep you enter­tained.

Atone­ment and Con­ver­sa­tions With My Gar­den­er are reviewed at Funer­als & Snakes, to be joined next week by Per­fect Crea­ture.

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

In 2006 the New Zealand Film Com­mis­sion announced a new ultra-low bud­get fea­ture film scheme called Head­strong and asked for sub­mis­sions. The Head­strong team (includ­ing the Incred­i­bly Strange Ant Timp­son, direc­tor Paul Swadel and pro­duc­er Leanne Saun­ders) went through the 300 scripts to select 10 to devel­op in the hope that four would go in to pro­duc­tion. The first com­plet­ed film gets a large scale nation­al release today: The Dev­il Dared Me To (in which leg­endary stunt­man Randy Camp­bell attempts to jump Cook Strait in a rock­et car).

The Dev­il is screen­ing at Read­ings, Empire, Regent-on-Man­ners, Sky City Queens­gate

At Read­ings, Light­house Petone and the Pent­house, Angeli­na Jolie plays Mar­i­anne Pearl, wid­ow of mur­dered jour­nal­ist Daniel Pearl, in the true sto­ry A Mighty Heart. Direct­ed by the great Michael Win­ter­bot­tom, A Mighty Heart has been described as “moving and fright­en­ing­ly real” by the LA Times.

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

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

Edith Piaf’s life was full of dra­ma, dra­ma that poured out of her when she sang. Born into pover­ty in WWI-era Paris, raised in a broth­el when both par­ents aban­doned her, dis­cov­ered singing on street cor­ners, she became one of the biggest stars of the 20th Cen­tu­ry and died of liv­er can­cer at the age of only 47. Her life is giv­en the big screen treat­ment in La Vie En Rose, a big bud­get French pro­duc­tion that opened the Berlin Film Fes­ti­val this year. La Vie En Rose is play­ing almost every­where from today: Read­ing Courte­nay Cen­tral, Rial­to, Light­house Petone, Pent­house and Embassy.

Also open­ing today is a Michael (Heat) Mann pro­duced thriller called The King­dom, star­ring Jamie Foxx. A bomb explodes in Sau­di Ara­bia, tar­get­ing Amer­i­cans work­ing there. The US Gov­ern­ment offers the locals an elite team of FBI inves­ti­ga­tors to sup­port the inves­ti­ga­tion and they rapid­ly find them­selves cul­tur­al­ly out of their depth even though they have the skills and tech­nol­o­gy to locate the ter­ror­ists before they strike again. Also star­ring Jen­nifer Gar­ner, Chris Coop­er (Breach) and Jason Bate­man. The King­dom plays at Read­ings, Regent-on-Man­ners and Sky City Queens­gate.

Final­ly this week, Scar­lett Johans­son stars in The Nan­ny Diaries, adapt­ed from the smash hit nov­el by the peo­ple who brought you the won­der­ful Amer­i­can Splen­dor (Robert Pul­ci­ni and Shari Springer Berman). Star of Amer­i­can Splen­dor, Paul Gia­mat­ti, also fea­tures as one of the poi­so­nous par­ents entrust­ing their off­spring to decent hard­work­ing Scar­lett (the oth­er is Lau­ra Lin­ney). Read­ings Courte­nay Cen­tral and Sky City Queens­gate.

La Vie En Rose has been reviewed at Funer­als & Snakes and the oth­er two will show up in due course.

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

Ful­ly 60% of all the open­ing films this week are at the Para­mount: first up indie thriller Unknown has a great ensem­ble cast includ­ing James Caviezel, Greg Kin­n­ear and Bar­ry Pep­per. It’s a rid­dle of a thriller as five guys wake up locked in a desert­ed ware­house unable to remem­ber what hap­pened or which of them are the good guys and which are the bad­dies. A gas leak has caused mul­ti­ple amne­sia and the race is one to work out who is the kid­nap­per and who the kid­napped. By all accounts there are plen­ty of twists which make this a thriller to get the old brain box going.

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

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

The school hol­i­days get under way on Mon­day and the major movie dis­trib­u­tors are mak­ing sure you have plen­ty of choice about where to drop the sprogs while you head off to play the pok­ies. First up British fan­ta­sy film Star­dust, based on a Neil Gaiman nov­el and fea­tur­ing a cat­a­logue of famous names, from Robert De Niro and Ricky Ger­vais to Sien­na Miller and Michelle Pfeif­fer. In the tra­di­tion of The Princess Bride (as the say­ing goes), Star­dust is direct­ed by Matthew Vaugh­an who pro­duced Lock, Stock and Two Smok­ing Bar­rels and Snatch and direct­ed Lay­er Cake so expect plen­ty of swear­ing and gun­fights (per­haps not). Read­ings, Empire, Regent-on-Man­ners, Queens­gate.

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

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

After a dis­ap­point­ing week of un-sus­pense­ful sus­pense films we wel­come a cou­ple of poten­tial­ly comedic come­dies this week. First­ly, from Judd Apa­tow, cre­ator of The 40 Year Old Vir­gin and Knocked Up, comes Super Bad. Co-writ­ten by Knocked Up star (and fun­ny guy) Seth Rogen with child­hood friend Evan Gold­berg when they were about 14, it fol­lows two High School kids (who at one point were going to be called Seth and Evan) on a search for booze and girls so they can lose their vir­gin­i­ty before they go to col­lege. Play­ing at Read­ings, Regent-on-Man­ners, Sky City Queens­gate.

The 40 Year Old Vir­gin him­self, Steve Carell, stars in an un-antic­i­pat­ed sequel to Jim Carrey’s Bruce Almighty: Evan Almighty. Carell returns as Evan Bax­ter: ego­tis­ti­cal news­cast­er in the orig­i­nal; ego­tis­ti­cal Con­gress­man in this one and Mor­gan Free­man is also back as God. Read­ings, Regent-on-Man­ners, Sky City Queens­gate.

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