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 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]
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]
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]
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.
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]
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]
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.
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.
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.