ZB movie Review - World War Z, This Is The end, and Silver Linings Playbook

ZB movie Review - World War Z, This Is The end, and Silver Linings Playbook

http://newstalkzb.co.nz/auckland/player/ondemand/2032290116-darren-bevan--at-the-movies

The World's End Featurette

The World's End Featurette

A brilliant featurette on the World's End here, with interviews from all the players of the Cornetto trilogy.

The World's End hits cinemas July 18th but has its New Zealand premiere in Wellington on Saturday July 13th.

Remember - it's all for The Greater Good.

The Place Beyond The Pines: Movie Review

The Place Beyond The Pines: Movie Review

Cast: Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper, Eva Mendes, Rose Byrne, Ray Liotta,  Dane DeHaan, Emory Cohen
Director: Derek Cianfrance

The Place Beyond the Pines sees Ryan Gosling once again with the director of Blue Valentine, Derek Cianfrance, who helped put him on the map.

Gosling is Luke, a bleach blonde drifter and high-wire motorcycle performer who moves from town to town with a travelling carnival. He shares a connection with former lover Romina (an unglamorous Eva Mendes) but his world is turned upside down when he realises that she's had his son while he's been gone.

With a new family thrust upon him, Luke throws in the adoration of the crowds and the uncertain lifestyle of the carny to try and provide for them. But Romina believes he's unstable and despite Luke's efforts, rejects his push to provide.

Working as a car mechanic, Luke's thrust into the world of crime by his boss (played by Animal Kingdom's Ben Mendelsohn) and takes part in a string of bank robberies. But that puts him on a direct collision course with cop Avery Cross (Bradley Cooper) and sees their lives intertwined in ways they could never imagine as the tale unfolds.

The Place Beyond The Pines is a film whose three rich narrative strands don't get pulled together until the final third - and when the realization comes, it's devastating. Beautifully shot, compellingly acted by all those within, it defies expectations as this generational tale of fathers and sons slowly reveals its hand.

Gosling, with his bleach blonde dyed locks and tortured silences impresses in a turn which hints at the pain but never fully shows it; likewise, Cooper once again builds on the stellar acting work done in The Silver Linings Playbook and an unglamorous Mendes gives an unmissably restrained turn as the mother.

But it's Chronicle star Dane DeHaan who emerges as the real talent of this piece with his fractured and damaged character shouldering way more emotional intensity than his years would suggest as the final act plays out.

Granted, it's a little overlong with its 140 minute running time, but The Place Beyond The Pines has a power and intensity that impresses. It has a haunting quality which endures and is a drama which is weighty, compelling, intriguing and an insightful reminder of the bonds which tie us together long into our years.



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White Lies: Movie Review

White Lies: Movie Review

Cast: Rachel House, Whirimako Black, Antonia Prebble
Director: Dana Rotberg

Based on the novella "Medicine Woman" by Witi Ihimaera, White Lies is the story of Paraiti (Whirimako Black), a medicine woman in 20th century New Zealand.

Orphaned when her father's murdered by European soldiers, she leads a nomadic life, predominantly healing the sick and teaching of the old ways. One day, when in town, she's approached by Rachel House's Maraea, who needs her to help for her mistress Rebecca Vickers (Antonia Prebble).

Vickers is pregnant and she needs Paraiti to help her get rid of the baby... Initially reluctant, Paraiti ends up helping Vickers. But there's a clash between Paraiti and Maraea over cultures and traditions...

White Lies is a bit of a tough watch thanks to poor pacing.

Despite being beautifully shot, using perfectly captured period detail and settings, the live action is simply not gripping enough unfortunately to involve you as it plays out.

Whilst Black's softly spoken and spiritual Paraiti is a well put together character among the lush verdant greens of the New Zealand scenery, her interaction with Maraea and Vickers leaves a little to be desired. Using minimal soundtrack and music, you'd expect the piece to have more of a hold on you but rather than captivating you as you watch, it simply ends up making you feel like the time is dragging - despite it only being some 90 minutes long.

Prebble's porcelain and haughty Vickers is a difficult creature to warm to, even when a shocking revelation comes to light; and House's Maraea is more angry than shades of grey as the tensions play out within the house. That's the thing too - it feels very much like a theatre play that's not translated well to the big screen. I'm not particularly au fait with Ihimaera's novella, but I'm sensing there may have had to have been some padding out at this point to fill the time - and unfortunately, the film suffers from it.

In all honesty as well, this film is not an emotionally easy watch - there's a real feeling of maudlin melancholia as it unspools which won't really strike a chord with many heading to the cinema hoping for a bit of escapism.

Rating:

Bill Gosden talks the 2013 Film Festival

Bill Gosden talks the 2013 Film Festival

Tonight has seen the launch of the 2013 New Zealand International Film Festival in Auckland, with the programme being unleashed to the masses.
Now, the scheduling of the film smorgasbord begins - and I managed to catch up with Bill Gosden, the festival director to get a look inside this year's fest:

It's the 45th Film Festival - that's quite the achievement; give us a summary of how you feel on this auspicious occasion.

Well, it’s not my 45^th, but I’ve been around long enough to know the thick and the thin of it. I’m amazed that we’ve weathered so many changes, and kept on fronting up every year with something new and lively, because it has never, not even once, felt that it was getting easier. Anyone keeping an arts organisation afloat in this fair land will know what I mean. Fortunately we have had some great allies, best of all an enthusiastic audience.

Every year, it's a veritable feast of film, how do you manage to top it each year?

Topping oneself is probably not a healthy ambition...We’re just trying to identify what’s new and exciting and channel it New Zealand’s way.

How would you describe this year's selection? Are there any over-arching themes? 

Trends that became apparent a year ago are still trending. The idea still holds that there are multifarious clearings in the forest where the multiplex monsters don’t play, so that individuality, even eccentricity can and do occasionally flourish. The increasing concentration of “event” movies in the cinemas has led to a proliferation of smaller scaled productions for varied, smaller scaled platforms. A big, generalist festival such as NZIFF can turn an aggregation of the best examples into an event in its own right.

There is one specific tendency that I have noticed: the ‘everything old is new’syndrome, which is reflected in the retro-futurist look of our own poster, but has also prompted an unusual number of filmmakers in the last year to shoot their films in lustrous black and white. It may look as if they are picking up the abandoned tools of a suddenly obsolete technology, but of course they’re achieving these old effects through entirely new means.

The festival starts with a bang of fabulousness with Behind the Candlebra, a film rumoured to be Soderbergh's last. What made this the opening night film?

You got it, fabulousness.

We've had over 91 short films sent in this year - does that mean the quality's higher than ever and we're in rude health?

No, but the good ones are very good.

It's a veritable extravaganza of live theatre this year - A Buster Keaton, a Goblin and Suspiria and The Crowd. Where do you get the ideas every year for these events and how much of a collaborative process is it?

Ideas are never a problem. It’s the resources that are hard to stack up. We are sharing Goblin tour costs with some Australian shows. The Cameraman stems from our long association with composer Timothy Brock who never scored a film that wasn’t worth watching 100 times over. I may have been the one who nudged Wellington composer Jo Contag towards The Crowd, and I certainly wasn’t surprised when he was excited by the movie. I could not have been happier when he applied, with NZIFF support, to Creative NZ for funds to score it and they said yes.

Plus a couple of great Hitchcock films (after last year's Live Event) and Joss Whedon doing Shakespeare - variety is indeed the spice of life?

 North by Northwest is simply one of the great movies, don’t you think? And it never looked better than it does now. Hitchcock makes inventive use of 3D to define a very constricted space in Dial M. It’s fascinating to watch how he works it. And no Grace Kelly fan will want to miss the chance to see her at her most perfectly porcelain-like. Joss Whedon’s Much Ado About Nothing is a treat. Even the low comedy that can seem such heavy lifting in otherwise fleet Shakespeare productions is funny in this one.

There's an extremely strong slate of Independent films this year....talk us through some of the best.

I liked Starlet a lot, and it’s probably the hardest one to talk through. Dree Hemingway plays an independent young woman in Los Angeles who gets caught up in a strange, guilt-laden stand-off with an elderly widow. It’s fresh and constantly surprising. The little truths stirred up by their encounter have really stayed with me months after. Computer Chess, set at an early computer chess tournament, is a hoot, but you need to be prepared for a film that looks like it was shot on home video in 1982, which is very much part of its geek-loving, nostalgic vibe.

As well as some truly unique New Zealand films - what more can you tell us about Romeo and Juliet on a campsite? And the Deadly Ponies gang as well as nature doco Antarctica on Ice. These films have some truly delicious premises...

I thought Romeo and Juliet: A Love Song was great fun, full of marvellous visual invention. Deadly Ponies nails a great pair of rural clowns. Anthony Powell’s Antarctica: A Year on Ice bursts with his love of the place. He invented his own tools and taught himself film-making to make it. He succeeds impressively not only in sharing his wonder at the environment, but also in conveying the special proprietary sense that grows from actually living there.

What's the strangest film on this list in your section - is it a toss up between a Pedro Almodovar mock airplane movie or Upstream Colour?

The Almodovar film came to us late and could only be accommodated into Auckland, but it’s not really especially strange, more a regression to sex farce basics, and nelly gay stereotypes no straight director would dare revive. Upstream Colour is consummately weird and utterly seductive on the big screen.

You've tapped into the zeitgeist of fears over privacy with Terms and Conditions Apply and Wikileaks - is this the year of paranoia / Big Brother do you think?

It’s not paranoia when it turns out they really are watching. Terms and Conditions delves into precisely the issues that prompted Edward Snowden to blow his whistle. Alex Gibney’s Wikileaks film provides a bracingly clear assessment of the issues that need to be discussed when you discuss Julian Assange.

What's your personal pick from the festival fare this year and why?

I’m hanging out for all 21 Cannes titles, vetted for us by our Paris-based programmer Sandra Reid. Here are a few picks from the extensive register of films I have already seen and would hate anyone to overlook:

2 Autumns, 3 Winters. Don’t be put off when I say that the three principal characters often speak to camera.  This tale of two 30something couples is inventive, funny and charmingly self-aware. I was a little reminded of Florian’s Love Story.

The Act of Killing

The Act of Killing. Joshua Oppenheimer’s encounter with veterans of the murder squads who devastated Indonesia in the 60s is startling and utterly revealing.

Dormant Beauty. Superb classical filmmaking applied to an utterly contemporary subject by Italian master Marco Bellochio.

Museum Hours. A lovely low key drama in praise of platonic friendship and great museums.

Stories We Tell. Sarah Polley’s painful family secrets and lies are revealed and inspected with inimitable poise and discretion.

Utu Redux. It’s even better than you remember.

Wadjda. From a country where movies are never shown, at least not in public. This gentle drama proves a sly, surprisingly funny bid for gender equality on behalf of Saudi Arabian schoolgirls (and their mothers).

What's the movie you feel has the propensity to change lives and which do you feel would garner great word of mouth?

To name just one: Gardening with Soul might open a few minds to the wealth of life possible in a convent. Jess Feast’s documentary about a nonagenarian gardening nun is completely winning. There’s an irresistible spark to Sister Loyola, and the camera really catches it.

Is there any chance of securing last minute the Cannes Palme D'Or winner, Blue is the Warmest Colour?

No. The word is that the film was rushed to Cannes in an incomplete state. I think it will be quite some time before the ‘complete’ version is ready to be seen at an art house near you.

The Isaac Theatre Royal

Just as an aside from the festival, there are just days to go with the Isaac Theatre Royal project in Christchurch - how's that going?

There are several other strands to this appeal, but more Boosted donations would definitely be in order at this point. Please donate the price of a ticket to help provide Christchurch with a fitting home for NZIFF.

We have some international guests heading this way as well - can you tell us more?

 I first knew about the director of This Ain’t No Mouse Music! Maureen Gosling from her longstanding association with the films of Les Blank. We showed her Blossoms of Fire about a matriarchal culture in Oaxaca, Mexico a decade ago. The film she made with Chris Simon about roots music producer Chris Strachwitz is a lovely celebration of the music he’s preserved and helped feed into the American mainstream. Sean Baker seemed a great choice as Starlet shows what resonance can be achieved with small resources – assuming, of course, that those small resources are as potent as Starlet’s arresting scenario and two actresses.

What's the perfect NZ Festival day for you?

 Only the movie titles have changed since you asked the same question a year ago. A perfect NZIFF Sunday begins when I look out my window, find an overcast sky and feel assured that it’s a perfect day for indoor pursuits. A wake-me-up documentary, The Human Scale perhaps, is followed by a World Premiere of a new Kiwi film. The filmmaker is delighted by the projection. The audience is delighted by the film. The Q+A is lively.  An exercise break at this point seems unlikely but would pay dividends ahead of the Australasian premiere of one of those Cannes winners I’ve yet to see. Then it might be time to sneak into something of Ant’s for cathartic mayhem. Or I could just go to bed....

The New Zealand International Film Festival is now launched - the site is live with all the smorgasbord of treats available - check it out at www.nzff.co.nz and then drop us a note in the comments as to what we can expect to see you all at! 

The Heat: Movie Review

The Heat: Movie Review

Cast: Sandra Bullock, Melissa McCarthy, Marlon Wayans, Michael Rapaport
Director: Paul Feig

The cop buddy movie returns - this time with two female leads.

Oscar winning actress Sandra Bullock stars as uptight FBI agent Sarah Ashburn in The Heat; she's hoping for a major promotion despite being unloved by most of the troops she works with. Keen to please the powers that be, she's sent to Boston to help bring down a ruthless drug lord.

The only thing standing in her way is the brash and abrasive Boston cop Shannon Mullins (Melissa McCarthy, re-teaming with her Bridesmaids director Paul Feig) - they're as incompatible as chalk and cheese.

But, whaddya know, they've got to work together to bring down the bad guy - cue friction and fireworks.

The Heat is a buddy-cop movie which is lacking in sizzle, despite initially showing some promise.

Sandra Bullock does uptight very well - and perhaps a little too much, given how her character's roundly disliked by all those working with her but she borders on being arrogant and unwatchable that it's hard to initially latch onto her.

Likewise, Melissa McCarthy once again rocks her out abrasive, brash and rough cackling character to maximum crude comic effect throughout - and of course, given the two extremes of these career women, there's likely to be clashes ahead before the inevitable buddying up / slight agreeing to each other's point of view / thawing of the female rivalry gives way to their complementing each other.

Sure, it's formulaic with the slightly different slant on the cop movie in that this time, it's two female cops who don't quite gel (what a shocker), but what's more problematic about this film is how unfunny it actually is during its nigh on two hours running time. Which is a real shame given the pedigree it's come from. A few unexpected curve balls here and there in the forms of acerbic put downs really lighten the mix. There's a lot of fun to be had at a couple of running gags - one of which comes at the expense of an albino cop and another about Ashburn's penchant for the neighbour's cat, but it's not enough to sustain the load.

McCarthy and Bullock have good chemistry together but after a while the abrasive squabbling and squirm inducing excruciating moments tend to outstay their welcome and really grates. The Heat had real potential as a final pre-end credits piece shows which brings more laughs than have gone before.

The buddy cop genre has many entrants - and this recalls Rush Hour in some ways given the clashes - but The Heat isn't a memorable entrant into the admittedly already crowded pantheon thanks largely in part to a weak script and a lack of doing anything really new and different with the formula.

Rating:

Man Of Steel: Movie Review

Man Of Steel: Movie Review

Cast: Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Russell Crowe, Kevin Costner, Diane Lane
Director: Zack Snyder

Epic.

That's the only way to describe the latest reboot of the Superman story.

Sucker Punch, Watchmen and 300 director Zack Snyder is the latest to dip his toes into the mythology of the red and blue caped crusader for justice - and relative unknown Henry Cavill is the latest actor to don the cape and giant S and stand for truth, justice and the American way.

As the film opens, we're transported to the world of Krypton, a planet about to fall thanks to the greed of its leaders who have mined the core for their own progress. Opposed to them but opting for a peaceful solution is Russell Crowe's haughty Jor-El; also opposed to them but via a diametrically opposed and violent solution is General Zod (a vicious Michael Shannon).

Realising their planet's number is up, Jor-El sends his only son to Earth to save him; but it's too late. Krypton is destroyed, Zod is banished and Kal-El is a loner, drifting from town to town, doing good deeds and hoping to go unnoticed. One plucky reporter, Lois Lane starts connecting the dots though...and things get worse when Zod escapes and turns up on Earth demanding Kal-El.

Threatening destruction of the world he now calls home, Superman has no choice but to reveal himself.

Man of Steel is brash, loud, epic, big, noisy and blockbuster in many ways.

It starts with nothing short of bold and big with the fight on Krypton (which looks stunning and sets out Snyder's visual flair with some considerable aplomb) - though Snyder does his best to give the prelude something of a heart and soul as Jor-El and Lyra mourn the loss of their son but face the potential of the saviour of their race. In amongst the FX and wonderfully realised technology, there sorely needs to be some quieter moments brought to the fore for the benefit of the movie itself and to allow the audience to catch their breath.

Crowe is all statesmanlike gravitas as Chief Scientist Jor-El, whose world is crumbling on many fronts - and a computer version of himself later on, certainly brings the more dour and serious elements of the sci-fi exposition and MacGuffin to the fore. Shannon by turns, is vicious and seething as Zod, whose desperation to find Kal-El is understandable (it's all for The Greater Good) and whose descent into military madness is perfectly executed. Amy Adams is to be praised for her Lois Lane. Granted, there's a bit of the spark missing between her and Clark, (as well as some of the playful banter) but she's got a dogged seriousness and stoicism which is endearing. Other players within the Superman mythos are given scant time to breathe and show personality (Perry White, Pete Ross) but that could come with time.

Henry Cavill is a commendable Superman (with one military type at the end commenting on how his cheekbones and steely jaw are "hot") but he never fully imbues his character with the humanity and potential moral turmoil that he really needs. Sure, he drifts from one place to the next, but could do with a little more humour and warmth as he does so. The brief moments when that does begin to shine through (such as his first flight through the clouds where he smiles with giddy joy) are sorely missed throughout as they bring soul to the piece which is occasionally bordering on the bloated.

But Snyder and the writers are to be commended in how they have executed the comic's 75 year history.

It's a Superman film which is completely respectful of the legend - iconic moments within the character's history are gracefully woven into the narrative via flashbacks here and there; and a future nemesis is glimpsed in a blink and miss it moment involving some tankers in the final showdown between Supes and Zod. The story blends in elements of Superman and Superman II with nary a care in the world - or a chance to stop and admire the view.

Perhaps, though, it's a touch too much - particularly during the final showdown sequences with General Zod, which see infinitely more destruction than the Avengers did, with very little consequence. It's a little too much smashing, bashing, flying and fighting as Snyder layers level on level of action that's almost constricting. This is a Superman where clearly the S is not meaning subtle. It could have used a few more moments to pause and reflect.

And an ending which has sent parts of the internet into meltdown with its moral dilemmas is to be commended for bringing a level of danger to Supes that has been missing from his do-gooder image for many years.

All in all, Man Of Steel is an epic blockbuster ride. Sure, it could do with easing off once in a while and stopping to take in some of the view but it's a breathless and creatively solid re-imagining of the Superman legend - with a sequel due next year, you'll believe a man can fly once again.

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