The Italian Film Festival once again surveys the best of recent Italian commercial cinema. Based at their entirely appropriate new home of the Embassy Theatre, the Festival screens 16 different feature films over the next two weeks and the range means that there will (almost certainly) be something for everyone.
Highlights include The Girl By the Lake, a gripping psychological whodunit that won several Donatello Awards (the Italian Oscars) in 2008 as well as two prizes at the 2007 Venice Film Festival. Set distinctively in the northern Italian Dolemite region, the film follows the police investigation of a young girl’s death. Inscrutable detective Toni Servillo discovers several suspects, meanwhile his personal own life isn’t going so well.
As that old war film quote goes, "it’s quiet, too quiet": only three films opening this weekend as the mad rush of the last few weeks works its way through the system.
Back from the Festival (and haven’t I had to say that a lot recently?) is An Education, adapted by Nick Hornby from Lynn Barber’s memoir of growing up in 1960s England "before it became the 60s". Wise bods are picking newcomer Carey Mulligan for an Oscar nomination next year as the lead, and she’s very solid support from the likes of Alfred Molina, Emma Thompson and Peter Saarsgard (whose English accent is very good judging by the trailer). The director is Lone Scherfig who came out of the Dogme movement in the late 90s but also made the dark comedy Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself. Empire, Penthouse and Lighthouse.
The rest of this week’s new releases after the jump.
Freakin’ school holidays. 9 – count ’em – new films are opening this week and most of them are designed to keep restless young people out of the hair of their elders and betters. Time is short so I’m just going to list them here:
Still, they are returning from the Festival: Moon by Bowie’s boy Duncan Jones is a Paramount exclusive which should do quite nicely for them as they prepare for new ownership (discuss rumours you might have heard in the comments). After three years alone mining the moon Sam Rockwell might be going slightly nuts and imagining that he’s got company. Or is he?
The Penthouse and the Lighthouse both share Stephen Frears’ Chéri and the documentary that launched the Festival back in June, The September Issue. Chéri is based on two novels by Colette and is a cherished project by acclaimed screenwriter Christopher Hampton (Dangerous Liaisons, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly).
[The rest of this week’s new releases after the jump]
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I think the highlight of the Wellingtonista cinema-going week is likely to be a toss-up between the wonderful Vanguard retrospective at the Film Archive or the restored print of Casablanca. The Paramount has been bringing back the venerable old favourite regularly for the last 20 years (always with newer prints it should be said) and it’s still a big draw. Do you need to know the plot? Read Tom G’s summary here at Ornery World. Two shows a day until Sunday.
Fresher fare is on offer elsewhere but nothing is likely to be as satisfying. Atonement director Joe Wright returns to the screen with a modern day drama (and more Oscar-bait), The Soloist. Jamie Foxx plays a gifted cellist, blighted with mental illness and Robert Downey Jr is the hack who befriends him. Readings, Empire, Penthouse.
[The rest of this week’s new releases after the jump]
I have to keep this brief as time is short. There are another six films opening at Wellington cinemas this week, three returning from the Film Festival and three more. First up Ang Lee’s return to English-language filmmaking (after the atmospheric Chinese thriller Lust, Caution in 2007) Taking Woodstock. Released worldwide to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the Woodstock Music and Arts Festival, the legendary three day mud and music event, the film tells the behind-the-scenes story of how it all happened. Readings, Empire and Penthouse.
Multiplex-only releases this week are another demon-child horror, Orphan, and another Katherine Heigl rom-com, The Ugly Truth. I saw both this evening and can only say that new lows have been struck for both genres. Readings and Sky City Cinemas.
[The rest of this week’s new releases after the jump.]
Righto, back again with a quick run down of what’s new in cinemas this weekend. First up, a special treat for film fans who want to some free entertainment tomorrow lunchtime – Readings are hosting a special fifteen minute preview of James Cameron’s Avatar in their digital 3D Cinema 5. Three sessions (11.45am, 12.30pm & 1.15pm) are running and tickets are available on a first-come first-served. If you can’t sneak out for these you’ll have to wait until the whole film opens worldwide on 17th December.
Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds is only playing at Readings and Sky City Queensgate but don’t let that put you off. I saw it this evening and enjoyed myself tremendously – there really is a lot of entertainment to be had at the pictures at the moment. Brad Pitt plays the leader of a Dirty Dozen type squad of jewish soldiers, parachuted behind enemy lines in WWII to extract extreme vengeance on the Nazis. Featuring impeccable casting (even the non-actors are somehow right) and his usual eclectic soundtrack, Tarantino is in fine form.
[The rest of this week’s new releases after the jump]
The big noise this week is being made by Neill Blomkamp’s District 9 which you can see at Readings, Empire, Embassy and Sky City Queensgate. Blomkamp had been tapped by Peter Jackson to direct the Halo movie that he was co-producing along with Microsoft. When that fell over Jackson offered Blomkamp the chance to expand and revisit his short Alive in Joburg from 2005. And the almost instant rush of acclaim for District 9 has been intoxicating. I don’t get to see it until the weekend but I know a lot of people who have and all are raving. What is it about? A bunch of aliens are segregated and ghetto-ised in modern South Africa. After nearly 30 years as second class citizens tensions are reaching boiling point.
[The rest of this week’s new releases after the jump.]
I thought I’d come out of hiding for a moment to trumpet the first Wellington feature film to get a decent release in ages, Separation City. Even though you have to go a long way down the cast list on IMDb to find a Wellington actor (Grant Roa coming in at number 12) the trailer contains enough glimpses of Wellington landmarks to set audience tongues wagging and get some early traction at the box office. Written by Wellington fixture (Dom-Post cartoonist, former Press Gallery journalist, playwright) Tom Scott it’s a "painful lesson about how unrequited love lasts forever and while requited love comes with a use-by date" according to the press material.
Two of the overseas leads have worked in New Zealand before: Rhona Mitra was a leather-clad vampire in the misbegotten Underworld Rise of the Lycans earlier this year and German Thomas Kretschmann played the captain of The Venture in Peter Jackson’s King Kong. Separation City can be found just about anywhere from today: Readings, Empire, Penthouse, Embassy, Lighthouse Petone.
The Wellington Film Festival (sorry, New Zealand International Film Festival, Wellington Branch) is a huge undertaking for the committed cinema-goer. Every year we devour the programme for weeks in advance, scheduling annual leave and long “lunch breaks”, trying to work out what is essential and what isn’t. After 20 years of this, I’ve only just begun to realise that in the search for the essential many other pleasures have been passing me by. This year, before I even looked at the programme, I asked the Festival to choose a stack of DVDs for me, with the emphasis on the unheralded and the unexpected. Thus, of the 13 films I’ve been watching over the last three or so weeks, all but one of them were from the back half of the book (and probably would not have been on my personal shortlist) but all of them had something special to offer. So, is my advice for the Festival to not book in advance but instead choose films at random depending on your own availability and proximity to a venue? Maybe it is.
[Read the rest of the Wellingtonista Film Festival Preview after the jump]