Category: Film

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

Fol­low­ing the flurry of Christ­mas and New Year releases (all of which are still play­ing), there are only two new titles to report this week. Firstly, The Tale of Des­per­aux an anim­ated adapt­a­tion of a sup­posedly beloved chil­dren’s book. Mat­thew Bro­d­er­ick plays a noble little mouse with enorm­ous ears who teams up with a kit­chen-lov­ing rat (Dustin Hoff­man) to res­cue a lonely Prin­cess (Emma Wat­son) – sounds a bit like Dumbo meets Rata­touille. The rest of the voice cast is sim­il­arly pres­ti­gi­ous includ­ing two gen­tle­men prob­ably on the the Academy long-list for Best Act­or this year: Frank Lan­gella (Frost/Nixon) and Richard Jen­kins (The Vis­it­or). Play­ing at the Empire, Regent-on-Man­ners, Read­ings Cour­tenay and Sky City Queens­gate (does any­one go there?).

Frank Miller is a hero to com­ic book afi­cion­ados every­where. He cre­ated The Dark Knight Returns, 300 and Sin City (and co-dir­ec­ted the Sin City movie along with Robert Rodrig­uez). Now he has both hands on the wheel of anoth­er com­ic book adapt­a­tion, Will Eis­ner­’s The Spir­it and the pro­mo­tion­al mater­i­al makes it look like a long-lost cous­in of Sin City. US reviews have not been kind but you can check it out at either Read­ings or Sky City.

The Para­mount’s Sum­mer “Best of” series con­tin­ues: Adam’s Apples, The Edge of Heav­en, I’m Not There. and Lars and the Real Girl get a second chance and they’re also raid­ing the vault with rare oppor­tun­it­ies to see West Side Story, The Con­ver­sa­tion, Elvis: That’s The Way It Is and North by North­w­est.

Along with a run­down of all the Christ­mas releases, Des­per­aux and The Spir­it will be reviewed next week at Funer­als & Snakes (and in the Cap­it­al Times on Wed­nes­day).

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

Too late to be of any use for Fri­day night enter­tain­ment, here’s a sum­mary of the films open­ing this week across the city.

The Day the Earth Stood Still (Read­ings, Sky City Queens­gate and Empire). That’s it. The calm before the inev­it­able Box­ing Day storm.

But if Keanu Reeves play­ing a dead­pan ali­en isn’t enough there’s always the annu­al ‘V’ Movie Mara­thon at the Para­mount, kick­ing off at 4.00pm on Sat­urday. Organ­iser Ant Timpson has been some­what scath­ing of Wel­ling­ton’s abil­ity (or inab­il­ity) to hack the Mara­thon and is offer­ing a spe­cial mini-Mara­thon tick­et val­id for 12 hours. Only prob­lem, is you have a wear a nappy for the whole 12 hours ’cause you’d be a big baby.

On a dif­fer­ent kind of kick, this week­end sees the first Korean Film Fest­iv­al in Wel­ling­ton – (only) three screen­ings of recent Korean movies, all at the Light­house in Petone on Sat­urday and Sunday.

The Day the Earth Stood Still will get a review in the Cap­it­al Times on Weds (and online at Funer­als & Snakes soon after).

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

If you are con­sid­er­ing going to the cinema this week­end, and you’ve already seen Bond and the oth­er 21 films cur­rently play­ing in Wel­ling­ton, here’s a quick guide to the new releases.

Cinema own­ers all over the city are breath­ing a little easi­er now that two of the biggest box office releases from the States have opened at the same time. High School Music­al 3: Seni­or Year is the third in the tri­logy and the first to get a full cinema release: Read­ings, Empire, Sky City Queens­gate. I saw it tonight at the Empire and my eyes and ears are still hurt­ing.

Knock­ing Bond off his perch last week­end in the US was the Christ­mas rom-com Four Hol­i­days star­ring  Vince Vaughan and Reese With­er­spoon. I believe I am out of step with most crit­ics but I actu­ally quite enjoyed it – and so did US$31m worth of oth­er people. Read­ings, Empire, Sky City Queens­gate.

Quar­ant­ine is a very quick-out-of-the-blocks Hol­ly­wood remake of the Span­ish hor­ror film [REC] that Ant Timpson was pro­mot­ing earli­er this year. It’s a Read­ings exclus­ive. Might be worth a look if, like me, you found it hard to read the sub­titles in the ori­gin­al with your hands over your eyes.

The Vis­it­or is going to be pop­u­lar, mark my words. From Thomas McCarthy, writer-dir­ect­or of The Sta­tion Agent (which did more busi­ness per cap­ita here than any­where else in the world), this one is about a depressed middle-aged eco­nom­ics pro­fess­or who redis­cov­ers life when he meets an illeg­al immig­rant couple in New York City. Oh man, it is so much bet­ter than I just made it sound. Pent­house, Para­mount, Light­house Petone.

The acclaimed doc­u­ment­ary The Sur­viv­ors (about the final year of the Holo­caust) gets two screen­ings at the Film Archive on Fri­day and Sat­urday respect­ively as part of their Human Rights series and finally, a Pent­house exclus­ive: Sud­denly, a Swedish drama about a man and his son recov­er­ing from the death of the moth­er and broth­er. “A quiet and beau­ti­ful film,” says IMDb.

The Vis­it­or has already been reviewed at Funer­als & Snakes, with the oth­ers fol­low­ing next week (and in the Cap­it­al Times next Wed­nes­day).

UPDATE: My inter­view with The Vis­it­or star Richard Jen­kins is up at F&S

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

So, this is the week I come out of hiberna­tion to resume post­ing and what do I have to report? Only the bleed­ing obvi­ous inform­a­tion that the new Bond (Quantum of Solace) is every­where this week­end and that the only cinema dar­ing to go up against the behemoth is plucky little Para­mount which is play­ing Amer­ic­an Teen from today.

QoS is the middle film of an expec­ted tri­logy so don’t expect much in the way of res­ol­u­tion. And des­pite being the most expens­ive Bond film in his­tory it’s a wel­come half an hour short­er than the pre­vi­ous Casino Roy­ale: More ses­sions = more money. Play­ing at Read­ings, Empire, Pent­house, Regent-on-Man­ners, Embassy and Light­house Petone.

A big win­ner at Sund­ance this year, Amer­ic­an Teen is a doc­u­ment­ary sur­vey­ing a cross-sec­tion of cur­rent US young-adult-hood in the town of Warsaw, Indi­ana. The char­ac­ters are stock (which is sort of the point): the Jock, the Nerd, The Queen and the Out­sider. You’ve got to love a film with this poster though. Para­mount exclus­ive.

Quantum of Solace was reviewed this week at Funer­als & Snakes and Amer­ic­an Teen will join it next week (and in the Cap­it­al Times if you prefer ink and paper).

Cinephilia: Film Festival preview

The Film Fest­iv­al has been a fix­ture of Wel­ling­ton’s winter cal­en­dar for nearly 40 years and for those of us who organ­ise our lives around glow­ing rect­angles of one kind or anoth­er there is no bet­ter way to spend a cold and wet after­noon than in the com­fy leath­er chairs at the Embassy, engrossed in a work of art.

Pro­gram­ming a Fest­iv­al like Wel­ling­ton may seem easy but I can assure you it’s get­ting tough­er every year. The sheer volume of inde­pend­ent film is grow­ing bey­ond all reas­on (I read that there were around 5,000 films sub­mit­ted to Sund­ance last year) and atten­tion must be paid to all four corners of the globe nowadays.

The glossy pro­gramme (doing double-duty this year as Fest­iv­al Guide Book and Souven­ir Pro­gramme) is 90 pages long and I dir­ect you to it forth­with – my role here is, with the help of some pre­views from the Fest­iv­al office, to point your atten­tion towards some of the unher­al­ded titles avail­able amongst the hun­dreds on offer. This year I only men­tion films I have seen and read­ers are asked to add their picks/hopes/reports in the com­ments.

The first thing to point out is that, unlike the old days, there is noth­ing to be gained in try­ing to guess which films will return for a com­mer­cial sea­son. With the loss of the three (oth­er­wise unla­men­ted) Rialto screens in June, there is even less chance of a film com­ing back than before and the gen­er­al down­turn in attend­ance this year has made dis­trib­ut­ors wary. At the moment there are no plans to release The Sav­ages (a well-observed, superbly acted drama with plenty of black humour star­ring Philip Sey­mour Hoff­man and Laura Lin­ney) and even the Jack Black – Michel Gon­dry com­edy Be Kind Rewind is expec­ted to go straight to DVD post-Fest­iv­al (although strong loc­al sales may pro­voke a change of mind). Recom­mend­a­tion: if the big screen exper­i­ence is import­ant to you, don’t wait.

[Pre­view con­tin­ues after the jump]

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

The big guns still dom­in­ate pro­ceed­ings at our cinemas (at least until Thursday when the little art-house films all gang up for the Fest­iv­al). Last week was hardly worth writ­ing a column about as all the big dis­trib­ut­ors sens­ibly made way for Will Smith’s annu­al 4th of July block­buster, Han­cock (Read­ings, Empire, Regent-on-Man­ners & Embassy).

This week, the ABBA music­al (that had a sea­son at the Civic in Auck­land a couple of years ago) Mamma Mia! leads the pack. Jus­ti­fi­ably described as a phe­nomen­on since the stage show launched in Lon­don in 1996, the film fea­tures Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan, Stel­lan SkarsgÃ¥rd and Colin Firth singing and dan­cing their way through the ABBA back cata­logue. It’s been trailered for months now, so aware­ness should be pretty high and it’s play­ing every­where: Read­ings, Empire, Pent­house, Embassy, Light­house Petone, Regent-on-Man­ners.

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

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

Yet anoth­er school hol­i­day looms and Dream­works’ attempt to cap­ture the anim­ated audi­ence (or rather ‘the audi­ence for anim­a­tion’) before Pix­ar’s WALL·E emerges in Septem­ber, is Kung Fu Panda star­ring the voice of Jack Black. Launched on the crois­ette at the Cannes Film Fest­iv­al only a few weeks ago, KFP has been acclaimed by crit­ics (88% at Rot­ten­To­ma­toes) and looks like it will be worth check­ing out this week­end. Read­ings, Empire, Regent.

The Para­mount con­tin­ues to slip inter­est­ing, single-print, releases into the mar­ket­place: this week’s entry is a John Boor­man (Deliv­er­ance, Excalibur) mor­al­ity tale, The Tiger­’s Tail, in which a self-made busi­ness­man (Brendan Gleason) dis­cov­ers he has a sin­is­ter double who seems to determ­ined to bring him down.

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

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

When times are quiet in the cinema busi­ness (as they have been all year) own­ers respond by open­ing more and more films and hop­ing some­thing will stick. This week sees the Pent­house open yet anoth­er con­tem­por­ary Brit­ish com­edy-drama, fun­ded by the UK Film Coun­cil using Nation­al Lot­tery funds (much like Happy-Go-Lucky and Brick Lane which are still screen­ing), Grow Your Own. Fea­tur­ing the rap­idly-becom­ing-ubi­quit­ous Eddie Marsan (Vera Drake, Pierre­point), Grow Your Own is about the inhab­it­ants of a Lon­don allot­ment (where the poor grow their veget­ables and/or get away from the Mis­sus) forced to deal with the arrival of a fam­ily of refugees. Pent­house and Light­house Petone. [Check out the rest of this week’s new releases after the jump]

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

Back from an unsched­uled lay­off, and hope­fully in time for the week­end, here’s a run-down of this week’s cine­mat­ic open­ings. At the top of the list is Todd Haynes’ mas­ter­piece I’m Not There. fea­tur­ing Chris­ti­an Bale, Cate Blanchett, Mar­cus Carl Frank­lin, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger and Ben Whishaw as ver­sions of the legend of Bob Dylan. I wasn’t expect­ing it be as funny as it is but once I recal­ib­rated I enjoyed myself enorm­ously. Para­mount, Light­house Petone and Rialto.

Camer­on Diaz and Ashton Kutcher team up for romantic com­edy about two indi­vidu­als forced to become a couple in order to win a $3m slot machine prize. Domin­ion Post film review­er Graeme Tuck­ett told me by text that he was sur­prised he liked it, but then he enjoyed Maid in Man­hat­tan too. Vegas is all over the place: Read­ings, Empire, Regent-on-Man­ners.

Music With­in is an indie Amer­ic­an drama based on a true story about a deaf Viet­nam vet­er­an (Ron Liv­ing­ston from “Band of Broth­er­s”) who returned to the States and began a battle with the author­it­ies for sup­port for all Amer­ic­ans with dis­ab­il­it­ies. Rialto exclus­ive (and lim­ited ses­sions due to the build­ing work at the site so check in advance).

Finally, the Pent­house and Light­house (Petone) are play­ing an Irish film, set in a retire­ment home, called How About You, based on a short story by Maeve Binchy.

I’m Not There. and How About You have already been reviewed at Funer­als & Snakes. The oth­er two will appear next week.

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

First up, Lars and the Real Girl is delight­fully odd indie star­ring Ryan Gos­ling as a lonely and dam­aged young man who finds love on the Inter­net. With a doll named Bianca. Para­mount, Pent­house.

Also at the Para­mount, just for Wahine Week is a doc­u­ment­ary about the dis­aster called The Wahine Dis­aster. Anoth­er doc­u­ment­ary, that I missed in my sweep last week, is John Pil­ger­’s The War on Demo­cracy which is now play­ing at the Light­house Petone only. It was ori­gin­ally going to play at the Para­mount as well but was cut by the own­ers for being ‘too left wing’. Some Para­mount cus­tom­ers have already begun a boy­cott protest­ing this simple-minded attack on free speech (not to men­tion an attack on the Para­mount itself and it’s grand his­tory of show­ing films with a human­it­ari­an and anti-estab­lish­ment pos­i­tion). Feel free to voice your dis­pleas­ure to the man­age­ment.

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