Tag: review

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).