Hello NZ Girls!

We heard you might be dropping by… and in your honour, we’d like to offer you the chance to WIN A DATE WITH ORLANDO BLOOM* Hope you find something of interest here, we’ll endeavour to target your particular demographic (reliably informed: female, 18-25 years) over the next say… until we get bored with it. In […]

Film Society for August

Apologies, a bit slow on film society news this month… I’m posting this too late to cover Place Vendome, but what remains is well worth seeing. JEANNE AND THE PERFECT GUY (1998). At first glance, Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau’s film appears to be a relatively traditional French melodrama about AIDS – well acted and […]

Wellington Film festival – We Recommend…

God! Where to start? We’re about a third way through the programme & EVERYTHING so far looks like a must see. Kudos to Mr Gosden & his team this year. Disclaimer: Our opinions are not infallible, we saw a promisingly enthralling documentary a few years ago called Hybrid… and it was literally watching corn grow… […]

A preview of coming attractions…. soon!

That’s a clever quote from Hitchcock’s Rear Window… But that’s irrelevant right now… Coming soon (only just scored the brochure, so bear with us)… I’ll give you my legendary (unaffiliated with any sponsors – so far…) Film Festival rundown. What’s hot, what’s good (they’re all good), what’s heart-warming, what’s art-house, what’s sleaze, what’s art-house sleaze, […]

Wellington Film Society screenings for June

What with Queen’s Birthday and all, it’s a light, but good month for Film Society screenings. First up is the 1998 German movie 23, a film by young German director Hans-Christian Schmid is based on the true story of Karl Koch, a young computer hacker who stumbles across a hidden world of intrigue, deception and […]

“The best Elvis-fighting-a-mummy-movie I have ever seen”

So said (words to that effect) Simon Morris on his National Radio movie programme about Bubba Ho-Tep. I haven’t seen it yet, but I’ve read & heard quite a bit about it since its release in 2002. And now it’s coming soon, to the Paramount & Lighthouse Theatres. I’ve suggested to my wife on several […]

Psst… wanna be a movie star?

48 Hours – Officially NZ’s largest film competition. Hundreds of teams of film-makers kick off tonight all around the country & finish on Sunday night. Damian Christie suggests “if you’re approached by a bedraggled film crew (the chances are high, there’s a couple of hundred teams around the country), be nice to them, do what […]

The Film Festival that lasts all year long…

We thought we’d be the first to post here actually. That’s “we” because James has given strict instructions that there is no “I” in “Wellingtonist”. Um… possibly he said it “starts with “we””. But anyway, it’s clear already who the team players are, eh? So we had this epiphany in the bath last night. (By […]

Kaikohe Demolition

A reminder that the Film Archive‘s Media Theatre has a couple more screeings of the excellent Kaikohe Demolition documentary later this week, on Saturday 14 May at 6pm and 7:30pm. …[A] documentary by intrepid New Zealand filmmaker Florian Habicht captures the gracefulness and poetry of demolition derbies. Ah, yes: there is a harsh, strangely lyrical […]

The Oxford Union Debate on Nuclear Weapons

If you’re still looking for things to do after being harangued by street performing Estonians later this evening, then head along to the Film Archive on Taranaki Street, where they’re screening the famous 1985 Oxford Union Debate on Nuclear Weapons, in which our PM, David Lange debated and defeated the then American Moral Majority leader, […]