In The Shade film festival - these are the titles which are already announced

On Tuesday December 7, tickets for Auckland's newest film festival go on sale.

The festival runs from January 19 to February 1 in Auckland at the Hollywood Theatre and the Academy cinemas.

The full line up is announced on Tuesday, but these are the films we already know about.

Benedetta 

Nightmare Alley  

The Eyes of Tammy Faye  

Annette

   

Nitram

   

Lamb

   

Licorice Pizza  

A Hero

   

Memoria

   

 Fiona Clark Unafraid  

Flee

   

Bergman Island  

Drive My Car  

C'mon C'mon

Dune: Film Review

Cast: Timothee Chalamet, Oscar Isaac, Rebecca Ferguson, Jason Momoa, Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgard, Zendaya

Director: Denis Villeneuve

An immersive and propulsive 2021 take on Frank Herbert's sprawling novel, the Denis Villeneuve version of Dune feels like it's best suited to an audience brought up on the political machinations in the like of Game of Thrones - even if it does feel like an at times pompous sci-fi soap.

And there's definitely a feeling that Dune Part One is really mainly about setting things up over its 150 minutes and laying a groundwork for a follow-up that won't come for another few years.

Set 8000 years in the future, Dune is the story of Chalamet's Paul Atreides, a boy whose role in a dynasty is initially unclear but bought sharply into focus when his father Duke Leto (Isaac) is ordered to take control of the desert planet Arrakis.

The desert planet is a vital asset to own, thanks to the mysterious element on the world called Spice which powers travel through the stars - but the ownership of the world is not without its problems and Leto is aware his house is being set up to fail. 

From the House Harkonnen's disgust at having to cede ownership to the native race the Fremen who attack those mining the world, Paul Atreides finds he is suddenly on a path from boyhood to becoming a man - even if he is troubled by visions of what lies ahead, and his part in a prophecy that he doesn't understand...

The 2021 version of Dune is in no rush to go anywhere fast.

While it's incredibly immersive and a masterclass in world-building, the sci-fi scope may not be for everyone. And that's perhaps something Villeneuve and his team have been aware of, stripping away some of the other elements to a bare bones version of what is a very familiar story - one of a power struggle and one of a coming-of-age.

Villeneuve knows about building the sense of anticipation and creating a vast canvas to populate a world - and in truth, Dune feels familiar to Arrival in the way it builds suspense and expectation. Some sequences are riddled with basic sci-fi tropes, and of fantasy heroes and villains - and others are written for the big screen, with impressive CGI to back them up and make them feel real. But none of them lack the human element making it universally accessible to all - if you have a little patience.

There is an overriding sense of pomp that pervades much of Dune, and the dialogue is riddled with it. It falls to Jason Momoa and Josh Brolin's characters to bring a little more levity into proceedings. And Chalamet's burdened-with-destiny Paul Atreides is a little more than a cypher in this first outing, a vessel for a coming-of-age narrative that feels complete at the end of part one, but which tantalises what's to come.

Dune makes a strong argument for the big screen experience, and it is a world to lose yourself in. Villeneuve has made a superior slice of sci-fi that has once again boosted the benchmark for the genre.

No Time To Die: Film Review

Cast: Daniel Craig, Lea Seydoux, Rami Malek, Ana De Armas, Ben Whishaw, Lashanna Lynch
Director: Cary Joji Fukunaga

When Daniel Craig donned the tux some 15 years ago, there were many who said that Bond was not blonde, and who despised the grittier reboot of Ian Fleming's spy away from the cheesier innuendo-laden films that had become the staple of the series.

But in truth, the harder edge suited a world that was changing and made Bond more relevant at a time the spy franchise was threatening to leave him behind. 

So, how do you bring down the curtain now Craig is moving on?

In No Time To Die's case, the answer to that is to bloat out the running time, ramp up some of the stunts and draw on some of the film series' own history to provide resolution.

In truth, this final entrant into the Daniel Craig James Bond era is a film that's as flawed as it is spectacular, an interesting juxtaposition of emotional edges and occasionally incoherent plot machinations. 

With Bond seemingly in retirement after one betrayal too many, he's forced back into active service when he's asked to rescue a kidnapped scientist who has a part in a global conspiracy. But Bond soon discovers this case has a personal connection to his past.

No Time To Die is a fitting conclusion to the Craig years, but it's too bloated and drawn out to be engaging all the way through. Despite some scene-stealing action in Italy, and a spectacular Cuban expedition that zings thanks to Ana De Armas, the film suffers from a lack of a majorly iconic villain to bring the curtain down.

Perhaps that's the point, and it's about getting Craig to shine in a more human story than a global espionage shoot-em-up, but Rami Malek's Safin never really rises beyond his "angry little man playing God" insult hurled at him during one key scene.

No Time To Die is a Bond film that toys with conventions, and tries to have it all - sometimes not successfully. Ironically for a film that has prestigious writers attached to it, it suffers from trying to do too much and for leaving some parts underwritten.

Lea Seydoux's Madeleine Swann feels underwritten in parts, blown out of the water by Ana De Armas' new field agent; and Lashanna Lynch's 007 feels undercooked as well, a role that promised more in trailers than is actually delivered.

There's much to debate about No Time To Die that's too filled with spoilers for discussion here, but fittingly, it's Craig who rises to the top of this outing. He gives his all both physically and emotionally - and in some scenes, he lends a great deal of emotional poignancy and heft to material that he massively elevates.

While No Time To Die may fall short in parts, there's no denying that it offers spectacle you'd expect from the series, along with a stellar leading man that you know the franchise will desperately miss.

What to see at Auckland cinemas now the movies are back open

After 100+ days, and some big movie releases while cinemas have been shuttered up, there's plenty of pent up movie viewing waiting to happen.

Here are the films you can see at Auckland cinemas now the Covid protection framework is up and running.

The Rescue

James Bond: No Time To Die

Venom: Let There Be Carnage

Last Night in Soho

Marvel's Eternals

Dune

Encanto

Petit Maman

Old: DVD Review

There's a kernel of a good intriguing mystery in M Night Shyamalan's latest, Old.

But it's so crushed down by appallingly stilted dialogue and badly written characters that it makes it hard to appreciate the elements that could help it work.

Essentially a threadbare story of a disaparate group of travellers who win a trip to an exotic island via the internet only to find themselves on a beach where they age prematurely, Shyamalan's tale has some groundwork in a Covid-19 world and a "stop to smell the roses" mentality.

Bernal and Krieps are Guy and Prisca, a married couple on the verge of splitting, and one last family holiday with their young kids. Offered the chance to go to a secluded beach at the resort owner's insistence ("It's our little secret") the family finds themselves paired with Rufus Sewell's doctor and trophy wife, elderly mother and young child. 

But when a body washes up on the shores of the beach, the group decides to escape - only to find to their horror, they're trapped. And things get more complicated when their children age suddenly and inexplicably  before their eyes....

It's hard to love Old when characters talk in ways that no real humans do.

Whether it's exposition-heavy mumbo jumbo or talking around the plot holes, the growing mass of hysterical babble dropping from a talented cast's lips seems like something that should have been scrapped at a scripting phase.

Shyamalan is great at making the everyday seem unsettling.

This time he uses shots of waves, innocuous-seeming rocks and swaying palm trees to convey a sense of dread, their beauty entrenched in a feeling of unsettling calm.

And by using tracking shots moving left to right, passing by characters on the beach, he builds a sense of uncertainty over what will be in frame next when the camera moves back. It's much more effective than the human elements of the film which just alienates you from the characters, rather than caring about their collective fates.

Whereas the graphic novel Sandcastle had a more ambiguous ending, Shyamalan's massive information dump over what the reason for the beach is proves to be a real damp squib that can't stick the patented Shyamalan twist raison d'etre. It does have to be said though that the grey area the end inhabits is a welcome distraction to the mediocrity that has transpired.

There may be themes of being forced to come to terms with yourself, and to examine your past and future (as emphasised by repeated dialogue early on over living in the past, stop wishing the future away etc), but the empathy to do so with the characters is really lost in proceedings.

Old may age its protagonists throughout, but you'll leave the cinema certainly older, but none the wiser as to how Shyamalan keeps trying to pull rabbits out of the hat that never quite live upto the calibre of the surprise of the Sixth Sense and Signs from his own back catalogue.

What's on DocPlay in December 2021

Here's what on DocPlay in December 2021, a mix of series and long form documentaries.

Seeds of Deceit

Prior to his death in 2017, Jan Karbaat was the most renowned fertility doctor in the Netherlands. As his patients’ offspring began connecting the dots of their ancestry, an extraordinary story emerged about a man who secretly impregnated more than 65 of his own patients.

Episodes
1. A Promise
2. Offspring
3. Liquid Love

Philly D.A.

8 Episodes
 
A groundbreaking documentary series embedded inside the long shot election and tumultuous first term of Larry Krasner, Philadelphia's unapologetic District Attorney, and his experiment to upend the criminal justice system from the inside out.

 

Women Make Film

14 Episodes

This epic, five years in the making, is made up of forty “chapters” narrated by Tilda Swinton, Jane Fonda, Adjoa Andoh, Sharmila Tagore, Kerry Fox, Thandie Newton and Debra Winger. WOMEN MAKE FILM follows in the footsteps of Mark Cousins’ “The Story of Film: An Odyssey”, to give us a guided tour of the art and craft of the movies. Using almost a thousand film extracts from thirteen decades and five continents, Cousins asks how films are made, shot and edited; how stories are shaped and how movies depict life, love, politics, humour and death, all through the compelling lens of some of the world’s greatest directors – all of them women.

JFK: Destiny Betrayed

Uncover the truth in Oliver Stone's four-part series. 

WORLD PREMIERE EXCLUSIVELY ON DOCPLAY

Award-winning and critically acclaimed filmmaker Oliver Stone takes a deep dive into new evidence surrounding the assassination of JFK.

Directed by Oliver Stone with a script by JFK assassination expert James DiEugenio, this captivating mini-series is narrated by Whoopi Goldberg and Donald Sutherland.

New episodes will drop every Monday with the full series available to binge from December 13.

Screened Out 

Screened Out is a provocative look at screen and smartphone addiction and how the tech industry continues to groom future generations of screen addicts. All over the world, as technology grows, so does our addiction to our devices. Join filmmaker Jon Hyatt and his family on a journey through the life changing effects of screen addictions, how the tech industry hooked global consumers and its greater impact on our lives. From smartphones, portable tablets and social media, the tech industry has designed these fun immersive technologies, but are they good for us? Are we too dependent on our devices? What keeps us hooked? How is it impacting our children? (December 9)

When We Were Kings

Academy Award Winner, Best Documentary

On October 30, 1974, perhaps the most famous heavyweight championship boxing match of all time took place in Kinshasa, Zaire: the "Rumble in the Jungle" between champion George Foreman and challenger Muhammad Ali. In historical footage and new interviews, this documentary explores the relationship between African-Americans and the African continent during the Black Power era in terms of both popular culture and international politics, including the brutality of then-dictator Mobutu Sese Seko. (December 16)

The Story of Drug Trafficking

There are few commodities as global as drugs. How this trade influenced relations between states, global financial interests, secret diplomacies, secret special forces and mafias, on all continents over a century in a half. This series explores the history of drug trafficking from a political perspective and reveals the murky role played by many states which have used the drug trade as an instrument of power. Opium, heroin, cocaine, and designer drugs have sparked wars, financed militias, and brought down states. (December 27)