Tag: cinephilia

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]

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

After last week’s pathet­ic attempt at weath­er fore­cast­ing, I will refrain from sug­gest­ing any­thing oth­er than there are three new films at the movies this week.

First up, slip­ping in to the wee cinemas at the back of the Para­mount is French romantic com­edy Change of Address. Musi­cian Emmanuel Mouret has arrived in Par­is without accom­mod­a­tion and is approached by Fre­derique Bel about shar­ing her flat. Ignor­ing the life-rule that goes “Don’t f*ck your flat­mates, don’t mix your drinks” they become, er, acquain­ted. Com­plic­a­tions ensue. Change of Address is described by Urb­an Cine­file in Aus­tralia as “play­ful and amus­ing”. Para­mount only.

I saw Nev­er Back Down yes­ter­day and I’m not giv­ing too much away if I tell you that it is then most repuls­ive and objec­tion­able film I have wit­nessed in a long time. As Ken Duncum once said (in anoth­er con­text) not only should this film nev­er have been made but all those respons­ible should have to atone for hav­ing made it. Read­ings (and maybe Regent-on-Man­ners but their web site is down).

Finally Def­in­itely, Maybe is a romantic com­edy star­ring Ryan Reyn­olds and Abi­gail Breslin (relax, they’re not the romantic­ally entwined couple – give her a few more years yet). Breslin plays Reyn­old’s 11-year-old daugh­ter who wants to know why Daddy is get­ting divorced. Through the medi­um of exten­ded flash­back, Reyn­olds then tries to explain his life and how he and her moth­er fell in love. The twist: we don’t find out which of his three sig­ni­fic­ant former lov­ers is his one true love until the end. Read­ings.

I’ve slipped a bit behind in review­ing cur­rent releases thanks to the Show­case but these three plus Rambo, Bon­neville and The Eye will be reviewed at Funer­als & Snakes next Wed­nes­day.

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

Looks like the week­end is going to be beau­ti­ful, again. Per­fect weath­er for, ahem, sit­ting in a darkened air-con­di­tioned room watch­ing a flick­er­ing light on a screen. And Hol­ly­wood has come to the party with a couple of films that are going to make sit­ting in the sun­shine seem like the most nat­ur­al thing in the world.

Sly Stal­lone brings John Rambo out of retire­ment for his first film since 1988 at Read­ings and Regent-on-Man­ners. Liv­ing in quiet retire­ment in Thai­l­and, Rambo is forced back into action to res­cue Chris­ti­an mis­sion­ar­ies in Burma. In Rambo tra­di­tion it’s rated R18 for viol­ence and offens­ive lan­guage.

The second asia-hor­ror-remake to come out in two weeks (Shut­ter was last week) is The Eye. Jes­sica Alba plays a blind woman who gets a haunted cornea trans­plant and can see more than she bar­gained for. Read­ings and Regent-on-Man­ners.

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

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

The Fest­iv­al of the Arts has been soak­ing up almost every spare minute of my work­ing day so this is going to be a bare bones update.My high­light: Simon “Shaun of the Dead” Pegg back on screen in Run Fat­boy Run about a mar­riage-shy waster who tries to win the love of his life (Than­die New­ton) back by run­ning the Lon­don Mara­thon. Read­ings, Empire, Regent-on-Man­ners, Light­house Petone, Pent­house.

For the kids who like those dance-as-a-sub­sti­tute-for-gang-war­fare movies we have Step Up 2 The Streets, sequel to the massive 2006 hit that launched Chan­ning Tatum on an unsus­pect­ing world. He returns for the sequel. Read­ings only.

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

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

After the excite­ment of the pre-Oscar rush it’s anoth­er quiet week at the cinema. Open­ing all over town (that’s Read­ings, Empire, Pent­house, Regent-on-Man­ners and Light­house Petone) is the his­tor­ic­al drama The Oth­er Boleyn Girl fea­tur­ing the dream team of Nat­alie Port­man and Scar­lett Johans­son along with Eric Bana as ‘Enery the Eighth.

Even more his­tor­ic­al (at least in terms of dis­tance if not accur­acy) is 10,000 B.C. which stars our own Cliff Curtis as a char­ac­ter called Tic’T­ic (I kid you not). Dir­ec­ted by Inde­pend­ence Day’s Roland Emmerich, 10,000 B.C. was par­tially filmed in New Zea­l­and last year and tells the story of a young mam­moth hunter­’s des­per­ate efforts to save his tribe. There’s no sign of Raquel Welch but Cam­illa Belle (When a Stranger Calls) comes off the bench to play eye-candy: Read­ings and Regent-on-Man­ners.

If neither of these take your fancy, there are sneak pre­views again this week­end of the Simon Pegg rom-com Run Fat­boy Run (dir­ec­ted by his good mate Dav­id Schwim­mer). You’ll find that at Read­ings, Empire, Regent-on-Man­ners and Pent­house today, Sat­urday and Sunday only.

All three of these titles will be reviewed at Funer­als & Snakes next Wed­nes­day (and in the Cap­it­al Times on the same day). Mean­while, tick­ets have gone on sale for the 2008 World Cinema Show­case which is an abso­lute doozy this year – a worthy com­pet­it­or to the main Fest­iv­al. And the Film Soci­ety got under way on Monday which must mean that Sum­mer is nearly over.

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

Just in time for the week­end, here’s a quick run down of the films open­ing this week in cinemas across town.

Return­ing from last year’s Film Fest­iv­al is Lady Chat­ter­ley, a French adapt­a­tion of an earli­er (“kinder, gentler” accord­ing to Ebert) ver­sion of D. H. Lawrence’s fam­ous erot­ic nov­el Lady Chat­ter­ley’s Lov­er. It sounds like it could have been titled There Will Be Sex: Rialto only.

Also return­ing, but from the more recent French Film Fest­iv­al is big-budget cos­tume drama Molière, about the great dram­at­ist played by Romain Duris.That one is a Pent­house exclus­ive.

Finally this week, 300’s Ger­ard But­ler romances Hil­ary Swank from the dead in P.S., I Love You. Described by one review­er as hav­ing a “high ick factor”. Read­ings and Regent-on-Man­ners.

All these films will be reviewed at Funer­als & Snakes by next Wed­nes­day (and in the Cap­it­al Times on the same day).