Category: Film

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

Clive Owen has his sec­ond big film of the year in cin­e­mas now, fol­low­ing the roman­tic-thriller Duplic­i­ty in March. The Inter­na­tion­al is a full-time thriller about an inter­na­tion­al bank­ing con­spir­a­cy and it’s direct­ed by Run Lola Run’s Tom Tyk­w­er. Nao­mi Watts plays sec­ond-fid­dle. What hap­pened to her career? Read­ings, Sky City Queens­gate and the Empire, Island Bay.

All the oth­er releas­es this week go straight to the art-house: 2008 Cannes-win­ner The Class gets a sea­son imme­di­ate­ly after head­lin­ing the World Cin­e­ma Show­case (Para­mount), as does The Gro­cer’s Son, about a young French wait­er forced by his father’s ill­ness to return to rur­al Provence and run the mobile gro­cery van — a sit­u­a­tion about which he is not hap­py. Pent­house and Light­house Petone.

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

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

At last I get some time to pre­view this week’s new releas­es and, frankly, it hard­ly seems worth it. I’ve just got in from two of the most dispir­it­ing expe­ri­ences I’ve had in a cin­e­ma in some time. Full reviews will come when I’ve had a chance to find the right kind of lan­guage to describe pre­cise­ly how unam­bi­tious Fast & Furi­ous and 17 Again are, a chal­lenge I must rise to before Cap­i­tal Times dead­line on Mon­day night. Fast & Furi­ous is the fourth in the series of petrol-head thrillers and orig­i­nal stars Vin Diesel and Paul Walk­er are both back. That fact might mean some­thing to some­one, some­where.

Mean­while, High School Musi­cal star Zac Efron gets a vehi­cle of his own as the young ver­sion of depressed 37 year old fail­ure Matthew Per­ry. Some not quite explained mag­ic gives him his young body back and the chance to put things right. Both Read­ings and Sky City Queens­gate.

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

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

Pick of the week at the movies must be The Wrestler, Mick­ey Rourke’s tri­umphant return to major leagues after years wan­der­ing in the wilder­ness. It’s a come­back of sorts for direc­tor Dar­ren Aronof­sky, too. His last film, The Foun­tain, was a strange and beau­ti­ful fable about try­ing to escape death but he’s prob­a­bly best-known for Requiem for a Dream, nine years ago. Rourke plays a rung-out and strung-out pro­fes­sion­al wrestler try­ing to rein­vent his life out­side the ring. Read­ings, Pent­house, Light­house Petone.

In oth­er news, Eliz­a­beth Banks (Zack and Miri Make a Porno) tries a change of pace as a (pos­si­bly) evil nan­ny in the chiller The Unin­vit­ed (Read­ings and Sky City Queens­gate) and my favourite B‑movie action hero Jason Statham returns as the epony­mous Trans­porter in the third episode of Luc Besson’s action series. Big ques­tion in Trans­porter 3? Is Frank Mar­tin gay. The direc­tor has a per­fect action movie name: Olivi­er Mega­ton. Read­ings and Sky City Queens­gate.

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

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

It’s a busy week at the Para­mount: exclu­sive sea­sons of Atom (The Sweet Here­after) Egoy­an’s new dra­ma Ado­ra­tion and the doc­u­men­tary The Spir­it of the Marathon start­ed today along with a shared sea­son of Al Paci­no Shake­speare­an vehi­cle The Mer­chant of Venice. Paci­no plays Shy­lock, and fans of his Richard III doco Look­ing for Richard will already know Paci­no’s facil­i­ty and enthu­si­asm for Shake­speare’s great­est char­ac­ters. Mer­chant is also play­ing at the Light­house in Petone.

Tony Gilroy’s debut fea­ture Michael Clay­ton was a stand-out last year and he’s con­struct­ed a new (although lighter) cor­po­rate thriller in Duplic­i­ty. Clive Owen and Julia Roberts star as spies team­ing up to sting two rival com­pa­nies. I enjoyed it a lot but remem­ber almost noth­ing. Regent-on-Man­ners, Read­ings, Sky City Queens­gate.

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

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

I expect there’ll be an awful lot of dis­ap­point­ed 15 year olds when they dis­cov­er that long-await­ed graph­ic nov­el adap­ta­tion Watch­men has been rat­ed R16 despite being trail­ered in front of every big movie since The Dark Knight. Evi­dent­ly, it earns the rat­ing being every bit as bloody as the book (not to men­tion fea­tur­ing 50 foot high blue penis­es). Direc­tor Zack Sny­der looks to have used plen­ty of actu­al frames of Moore & Gib­bons work as inspi­ra­tion (much as he did with 300 in 2006) but it remains to be seen if he can suc­cess­ful­ly film the “unfilmable” book: Read­ings, Empire, Embassy, Sky City Queens­gate.

The Para­mount pro­vides plen­ty of bal­ance as usu­al, open­ing two Amer­i­can doc­u­men­taries this week. Gonzo: The Life & Work of Hunter S. Thomp­son (which sort of speaks for itself) and Crazy Love (of which I said in my Fes­ti­val pre­view last year: “… it helps to not know too much detail going in, as the reveals are deli­cious­ly han­dled. Suf­fice to say that love is blind, in more ways than one.”

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

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

Anoth­er light-ish week of cin­e­ma releas­es to report: Read­ings have so much con­fi­dence in the new Rob Schnei­der prison-com­e­dy Big Stan that the only evening ses­sions are at a dead­en­ing 9.20pm at night. Accord­ing to IMDb this is the first film direct­ed by the Deuce Bigelow star which means we now have the phrase “a film by Rob Schnei­der” to ter­ri­fy and depress us. Also Sky City Queens­gate.

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

With most Welling­ton screens grown­ing under the weight of Oscar-bait, only Read­ings (and Sky City Queens­gate if you are so inclined) is open­ing any­thing new this week. My Bloody Valen­tine 3D was well attend­ed at sneak pre­views last week but sad­ly isn’t much of a film. It’s a remake of a beloved hor­ror of the same ear­ly-80s (same vin­tage as last week’s Fri­day the 13th). Apart from the title though there isn’t any­thing ter­ri­bly ‘Valentine‑y’ about it.

A poten­tial date movie (for a cer­tain kind of date, maybe) is Zack and Miri Make a Porno, the new film by Clerks’ Kevin Smith. Love­able schlub Seth Rogen (Knocked Up) stars with Eliz­a­beth Banks in a com­e­dy about flat­mates need­ing to find mon­ey for the rent.

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

This has to be the most mid­dle-of-the-road week for new cin­e­ma since I start­ed these lit­tle updates. Check these out:

First up Mar­ley & Me, a rom-com-weepy best-sell­er adap­ta­tion star­ring Jen­nifer Anis­ton and Owen Wil­son as a cou­ple who adopt a pup­py. Click here for the Defamer.com spoil­er. Read­ings, Empire, Light­house Petone, Sky City Queens­gate. Then we have He’s Just Not That Into You, the first film to be based on a best-sell­ing book based on a throw­away line of dia­logue from “Sex and the City”: Read­ings, Empire and Sky City Queens­gate.

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

More Oscar con­tenders hit our screens this week­end. Gus Van San­t’s biopic of the first open­ly gay elect­ed politi­cian in the USA, Milk opens today at Read­ings, Pent­house and Light­house Petone. Sean Penn plays San Fran­cis­co city super­vi­sor Har­vey Milk who was assas­si­nat­ed by fel­low city offi­cial Dan White in 1978. Penn is sup­port­ed by Josh Brolin (No Coun­try for Old Men), Emile Hirsch (Into the Willd) and James Fran­co (Pineap­ple Express).

I got to see Slum­dog Mil­lion­aire last Fri­day at the Embassy - if it does­n’t romp home with the best pic­ture Oscar I’ll be very sur­prised. Kinet­ic, colour­ful and heart­felt, it’s an object of great beau­ty. Slum­dog is also play­ing Read­ings, Pent­house and Light­house Petone.

[The rest of this week’s releas­es — and there’s heaps — after the jump]

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

As Oscar night approach­es anoth­er of the expect­ed heavy­weight con­tenders goes into cin­e­mas: Sam Mendes’ Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Road reunites Kate Winslet and Leonar­do DiCaprio for the first time since Titan­ic (still the high­est gross­ing film of all time fact-fans) in a sto­ry of a mid­dle-class 1950s cou­ple dis­sat­is­fied with the Amer­i­can sub­ur­ban dream. Based on (what I under­stand to be) an awe­some nov­el by Richard Yates. Play­ing at Light­house Petone, Regent-on-Man­ners, Read­ings, Pent­house and Sky City Queens­gate.

Road­show will be hop­ing that Clint East­wood light­ning will strike twice at the Oscars and are using that rare tac­tic, the sneak pre­view, to launch his new film (and his last as an actor) Gran Tori­no. His last per­for­mance was in the mul­ti-award-win­ning Mil­lion Dol­lar Baby in 2004. You can see Gran Tori­no ear­ly at Empire, Read­ings, Pent­house and Sky City Queens­gate. (East­wood’s oth­er new film Changeling opens on Feb 12)

For those inclined toward the crap­pi­er end of the mar­ket there’s Bride Wars, a “com­e­dy” star­ring Anne Hath­away and the woe­ful­ly-man­aged Kate Hud­son. Please note that I total­ly have an open mind about this film — I just don’t have any hope or faith: Empire, Regent-on-Man­ners, Read­ings, Sky City Queens­gate.

The Pent­house keeps it classy with a big­gish-bud­get French WWII movie called Female Agents about some young French women enlist­ed into the British Spe­cial Forces and sent on a sui­cide mis­sion to res­cue a British geol­o­gist. True sto­ry appar­ent­ly. Mean­while the Para­moun­t’s eclec­tic run con­tin­ues with a Czech com­e­dy-dra­ma called Beau­ty in Trou­ble. It’s by one of my favourite film­mak­ers, Jan Hre­be­jk who made the fan­tas­tic Divid­ed We Fall from 2000. Also at the Para­mount, for just a few ses­sions, is a surf­ing movie called Bustin’ Down the Door.

All of the above will be reviewed in next week’s Cap­i­tal Times (and online at Funer­als & Snakes), although I may draw the line at the surf­ing flick.