Category: Film

Cinephilia: Italian Film Festival

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.

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

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.

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

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:

• G‑Force. Talk­ing cute rodents audi­tion to be spe­cial agents by tak­ing down super-vil­lain Bill Nighy. Read­ings (3D), Empire (2D), Sky City Queens­gate (3D).
• Fame. The re-hash­ing of beloved 80s pop­u­lar trash con­tin­ues (Foot­loose is next). Read­ings, Empire, Embassy, Sky City Queens­gate
• Shorts. Robert Rodriguez puts togeth­er anoth­er vir­tu­al­ly home­made dig­i­tal fan­ta­sy for kids — in the spir­it of Shark Boy and Lava Girl and we all know how much we loved them. Read­ings, Sky City Queens­gate
• The Secret of Moonacre. For­mer ani­ma­tor Gabor Csupo made the smart Bridge to Ter­abithia the year before last and this is aimed at a sim­i­lar age group. Read­ings, Para­mount.

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

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]

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

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]

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

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.]

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

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]

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

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.]

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

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

Cinephilia: Film Festival Preview

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]