Tag: cinephilia

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.

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]