Talking the 2017 New Zealand International Film Festival with Bill Gosden

Talking the 2017 New Zealand International Film Festival with Bill Gosden

It's here for another year, the 2017 New Zealand International Film Festival. Launching in Auckland on July 20th, with the Animation Now! Festival kicking off the week before, it's the perfect cinematic smorgasbord. As ever, director Bill Gosden was around for a chat about the 49th event.

So you're in your 49th year of the festival, how's it been pulling that together with the big birthday on the horizon?

We’ve been too busy making a milestone of 49 to think about 50.

Bill Gosden, NZIFF director - picture: Rebecca McMillan

And it seems with 5 decades ahead of you, there's been some big changes this year - particularly in Auckland, with the expansion of the festival tothe Waterfront, the expansion in Manukau and Westgate, and the addition of the Hollywood cinema, the extraction out of the Animation Now festival - these must all seem tremendously exciting touches?

The ASB Waterfront Theatre is the big one, a huge vote of confidence from the Auckland Theatre Company, and a fabulous new precinct for Auckland NZIFFers.

What's precipitated all this flurry of activity for the festival?

Irresistible opportunities offered by ATEED in the case of Manukau and Westgate, and by Matt Timpson at the rejuvenated Hollywood. Animation NOW!  is too good to be swamped by the rest of NZIFF and deserves to stand on its own six feet.

Turning to the films themselves, you mentioned at the launch that Killing of A Sacred Deer caused a bit of a last minute panic....

It was the film people repeatedly told us we had to show. Sadly, we’d been advised by the local rights holder that it would absolutely not be available anywhere after Cannes before the US Fall. We learned to live without it, only to have it offered the day after the Rubik’s Cube of the schedule had finally been solved. The temptation to say ‘forget it’ was only momentary.

As a perennial to the festival, it's always about experiences for a dyed-in-the-wool viewer, which films this year do you think will provide the ultimate Film Festival experience and why?

My Year With Helen

Opening Night: The Square

Local girls do good: My Year with Helen

One to tell the grandchildren: Top of the Lake: China Girl on the giant screen in one enthralling day, introduced by Jane Campion and Gerard Lee.

Discovery: your guess is as good as mine.

Sandra's been busy with some 21 selections from Cannes - which of the Cannes selection are you particularly excited for - in terms of a viewer and also in terms of audience reaction?

Above all, The Square, but pretty much everything.

Let’s not overlook Michael McDonnell’s pre-Cannes selections, amongst which Bad Genius is the one I am most eager to see.

I can't go on without mentioning the special event binge session that is Top of the Lake: China Girl at the ASB Waterfront Theatre - I've heard you describe it as electric viewing? Are there any tips for pacing? OR is this the perfect festival response to the binge culture we now live in?

Didn't film festivals invent binge culture?  No tips are required for “sitting through” six hours of dazzling filmmaking.

My Year With Helen, Waru, a new film from Jennifer Peedom, 6 Days, the return of Florian with Spookers, Kim Dotcom - the local films have captured quite the zeitgeist this year again haven't they?

They have deservedly commandeered some big spots on this year’s programme.

I'm also impressed how strong the shorts section is this year - was it hard whittling down the content?

The difficulty is in programming the good shorts that don’t make it into New Zealand’s Best or Nga Whanaunga. We need to be confident that the people who have come to see the feature will be receptive to the short. Hence, our programming coup of the year: preceding Kedi, a film about cats, with Stay, a brilliant short film starring a dog.

Which country do you feel has provided with some surprises for viewing this year - and what's impressed you about them?

Brazil: Both Araby and the more obviously appealing Gabriel and the Mountain are richly layered character pieces that evoke whole worlds of experience.

What are the themes that stand out to you this year?

1. The rights of children are everywhere abused, not least in Aotearoa
2. Romance, not Bromance
3. Dinner parties always end in tears.

My Life as a Zucchini

My Life as a Zucchini and Ethel and Ernest look like animated stand-outs this year; what is it about these two that raise themselves above the crowd?

Let’s not overlook the Animation NOW! programmes. I thought four of these programmes were stunning: Black & White, Living Masters, the International Showcase and the New Chinese Animation programmes are amongst the liveliest things I have seen on screen this year.

Which is the film that you will expect will get the best crowd reaction?

My Year with Helen.

The visiting roster of talent, from the likes of Jane Campion to Kate Adie all seem very esteemed this year - whose Q&A do you think will provide the most fascinating post-film fodder?

Ant Timpson, if you can find him after the Secret Screening.

Which film from Ant's Incredibly Strange do you want to see and why?

It must be possible to see Multiple Maniacs once too often, but after 30-years of a cherished bootleg VHS, I’m feeling ready for the deluxe Criterion experience.

Finally, there's way too many films to talk about, which ones would you urge people not to skim over and take a chance on?

Gabriel and the Mountain

For travel that expands the spirit:

Gabriel and the Mountain

For peace of mind in a wild world:

Kobi, Leaning into the Wind: Andy Goldsworthy

For a villain to love to hate:

The Teacher

You only think you have seen it before:

Step

And for a laugh

That’s Not Me, A Date for Mad Mary

The New Zealand International Film Festival gets underway in Auckland in a couple of weeks, before opening around the country. Check out nziff.co.nz for more information and also to compile cinematic wishlists, before buying tickets!

Rings: DVD Review

Rings: DVD Review

The Hex files returns in the second sequel to the 2002 American horror that was a remake of 1998 Japanese scare fright.

But, quite frankly, with a run time of nearly 2 hours and nary a scare at all, its return is hardly warranted.

This time around, it centres around Matilda Lutz's Julia whose boyfriend Holt (Alex Roe) is heading off to college while she stays home and nurses her sick mother.
However, when Holt misses a Skype conversation and a strange girl is seen on the other end demanding to know where he is, Julia packs up the car and drives the 514 miles to his college to find him.

And it's here that Julia finds herself sucked into the world of Samara after she discovers that Holt's watched a computer file of the original video tracked down by Professor Gabriel Brown (a pudgy downbeat Johnny Galecki from The Big Bang Theory).

Realising that the only way to shake the curse is to find herself a tail (ie someone who will watch the video and take the curse on), Julia tries to do this - but she finds her digital file won't copy, so she can't pass it on (a la It Follows).
With 7 days before Samara claims her victim, Julia and Holt race to track down the truth of Samara before it's too late.

A ghost story with no (after) life and with generic leads that look like they're sleep-walking through proceedings, Rings is a dull, uninspired, frustratingly gloomy and predictable piece of fare.

It's a shame as it starts brilliantly on an aeroplane with tension and a devilishly clever way of bringing the curse to life (Samara's static image appears on flight instruments, in chair entertainment) before squandering its visual touches for a cut that robs you of anything other than a feeling you've been watching an out-take from a Final Destination film.

Director F J Guiterrez assembles some truly impressive apocalyptic visuals, from crows twitching to birds flocking near a church, but over-use of them dilutes their initial impressiveness and the final product resembles something from a 90s Nine Inch Nails video that didn't quite make the cut.
The leads don't do much better - Lutz looks like Rachel McAdams and Roe a little like Devon Sawa - and they can't do anything to bring any of this script to life, as they splutter from one choppy encounter to the next.

Every jump scare is signposted from a mile off and hits with a sickening dull thud that barely registers on the scare-o-meter - it's as if the execution of Rings is nothing more than hitting a series of familiar tropes and beats as a series of set pieces emerge into proceedings. There's a bit of an upgrade with phones and flatscreens taking on Samara's curse, but quite frankly, the film works too hard to achieve so little.

In much the same way that old VHS tapes used to fade in quality the more you used them or copied them, Rings is a pale imitation of the genuinely terrifying original. To call it derivative is to point out the blatantly obvious, but quite frankly, this shoddy sequel which has been shunted around the release schedule since November 2015 is nothing but a frank and unadultered stultifying mess of a movie, guaranteed to make you wish the curse would just take you out of the cinema. For a film that's supposed to look at what happens next to the soul, it's distrubingly soulless. 

Spider-Man Homecoming: Film Review

Spider-Man Homecoming: Film Review

Cast: Tom Holland, Robert Downey Jr, Michael Keaton, Jon Favreau, Marisa Tomei, Zendaya, Laura Harrier

Director: Jon Watts

Here we go again, with the return of the Amazing Spider-Man.

There's no denying that the latest adventure, Spider-Man Homecoming, has the Avengers DNA coursing all through its veins.

While that's no bad thing to the legions of Marvel Universe fans out there, the reliance on Stark and his technology almost threatens to over-burden parts of this go-round-again for Spidey, but never quite overwhelms but it does provide a deus ex Stark machina from time-to-time.

However, it's a great deal of charm from English actor Tom Holland that helps make this Spidey such a joyous high to behold.

After Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield's attempts at the web-slinger saw more of a mope-fest, this latest seizes on the sense of fun as Parker tries to wait for his call up to the Avengers, following his part in the Civil War.

Stripped of yet another take on the origins of the character, Homecoming builds on the work done with the brief Civil War appearance when everyone was at each other's necks.

Desperate to get the call back from Stark and the gang (Spidey's enthusiasm and Civil war moments are captured on phone cam) Peter finds himself stonewalled and sidelined.

Stuck doing the "friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man" thing and juggling school life as well, Parker's caught in a web of his own when he discovers that Michael Keaton's Adrian Toomes (aka Vulture) is taking Chitauri tech and re-purposing it for his own nefarious ends.

Unable to get a message through to Stark via Jon Favreau's dismissive Happy Hogan, Parker decides to take matters into his own hands...

Spider-Man Homecoming has a definite bluster to proceedings as it pastiches John Hughes' Ferris Bueller's Day Off, and as already mentioned, it's great to see a lot of the angst jettisoned from previous films in favour of a take on the teen growing up and dealing with average stuff, while desperately wanting to be older. 

From the pratfalling to being ungainly, Holland brings a humanity to Parker that is both refreshing and endearing; this really is a definitive stamp on the role and a signal of intentions that Spidey won't become burdened with the usual considerations of the MCU.

The Stark touches are there throughout, whether it's the female Jarvis style suit (voiced by Jennifer Connelly) or the brief moments appearing as a mentor; and peppered with a couple of other appearances throughout from one other Avengers alum and mentions of the Sokovia Accord, there's no denying the DNA of this movie runs deep from the Avengers' world. But it's the lighter touch employed by the script that helps keep it refreshed and entertaining.

And a great deal of stock has to be set in Keaton's performance as the blue-collar Toomes whose evil aspirations seem drawn from economic concerns many will feel are familiar and timely. There's a great twist involving Toomes that helps Spider-Man Homecoming subvert expectations but there's also a very strong performance from Keaton as the Vulture that meshes both elements of Green Goblin and Birdman throughout.

Perhaps less successful is the muddied final CGI showdown sequence which takes place in a night-time setting and is hard to make out as it whirls around.

And unfortunately, women get very short shrift in Spider-Man Homecoming, a film that's definitively and disappointingly, predominantly for dudes.

Whether it's the unattainable hot girl of the school who needs to be rescued or the slightly ditzy Aunt May, the female sector of the MCU feels like a real step-back. Equally disappointing is the deployment of some Korean/ Asian stereotypes - one's a chess club nerd, the other's a schlubby goofball friend; there's an argument to say it's great to see roles represented, but given the piecemeal once over of the writing, it feels like a veritable slap-in-the-face for inclusivity of all genders and races.

Ultimately, despite a bit of a mid-way slump, Spider-Man Homecoming represents a strong signal of intent from the MCU in their handling of the web-slinger.

Relying more on the fun side rather than the relentless quippery of before, this Spider-Man is a dazzling blast of entertainment, a deftly-delivered film that brings the entertainment in much the same way that Ant-Man did. And because of that blast of freshness in the ongoing stale atmosphere of the Infinity War cosmos, it scores highly on many levels.

It's a geeky heady treat, albeit one that has a few foibles but not enough to unpick the web that's been spun on screen.

The Greasy Strangler: DVD Review

The Greasy Strangler: DVD Review

Best suited to a midnight screening rather than a more temperate Thursday afternoon's viewing, Jim Hosking's The Greasy Strangler is definitively lurid and trashy.

But it's also a test of an audience's patience, with repetitive scenes, oft-repeated dialogue (from arguments) and looped soundtrack interludes.

It's a conventional story about an unconventional father and son relationship - of co-habiting Big Ronnie and Brayden, the pink wearing disco tour kings of a small town. By day, the duo lead people on tours of areas claiming that's where parts of disco were invented, or where "The Earth, The Wind and The Fire" set up shop.

But by night, Michael St Michaels' Big Ronnie has a secret - he likes to get slopped down in grease and go on a killing spree...

And things are further complicated when Sky Elobar's Brayden falls for Janet....

The Greasy Strangler certainly has the power to leave speechless and will polarise audiences.

With its lo-fi feel, its schlocky gross-out edges and its penchant for older male nudity, it's certainly there for pressing the buttons.

Coupled with the repetition of the lo-fi dialogue that taps into the clear streams of consciousness rhythms that Hosking is clearly aiming for with some of it feeling like it's barely being delivered with any hint of anything other than over-acting, there's potentially something meta going on here.

And yet, this is a film that clearly knows what it is, how low it can go and how its audience will react - either embracing all of this with puerile chutzpah or being turned off completely. There's no middle ground in this polarising piece which doesn't bother to give you such trivial things as to why this greased up monster is killing, preferring to settle for scatalogical laughs that really do mine the essences of relationships in many ways.

Slopped down in congealed gloop, St Michaels' Big Ronnie is a Swamp Thing type creature, that exerts such force, his victims' eyeballs literally pop out. When his killing's done and before heading home, he takes a trip to a local car wash run by a blind guy to clean up.

If that doesn't tell you all you need to know about The Greasy Strangler, nothing will.

Scenes dovetail into the next with the dialogue of a teen argument and always culminate in a who can shout the loudest and the rudest; if you're on board with that, then this surrealism and silliness is for you to lard it up over everyone else. It has to be said though, the romance between Brayden and Janet has a sweetness and the triangle that forms is quite cleverly put together - with more being said under the surface than is fully put on screen.

The Greasy Strangler is a perverse film in many ways, and one suspects its film making team (including gonzo supremo Ant Timpson and Elijah Wood) takes a perverse pleasure from the fact it's designed to leave you speechless. It's also probably destined for cult status with large swathes of its dialogue being written solely  for being ripped out and hurled at fans by other fans as wanton catchphrases.

It's a singular NZIFF experience, of that there is absolutely no doubt.

And given what the film-makers probably set out to do, this unconventional rom-com, typical boy meets girl, boy suspects dad is greased up killer, delivers everything it sets out to in the trashiest way possible. 

Cameraperson: Review

Cameraperson: Review

Kirsten Johnson has spent her life working on films.

From working with Michael Moore on Fahrenheit 9/11 to CitizenFour, she's been a documentarian capturing moments of life within and committing them to screen.

In Cameraperson, she's collected and strung together some of the scenes which she claims have most marked her and created a tapestry of lives, with loose threads that appear random but are cleverly interconnected.

From the scenes of getting a newborn baby to breathe in Nigeria to getting a big baby boxer to breathe before exploding after losing a fight in New York, some of the threads are more obvious than others. From scenes of children playing in Bosnia with an axe after they return from ethnic cleansing fears to her own twins playing with the camera, these recoursive snapshots of life offer tempting insights into her world from the past 20 years.

There's no timeline - and nor should there be; but what emerges is a deeply personal timeline of a life lived in the world, and of moments captured for posterity (or perhaps B-roll) that ultimately stand out. Themes of life, death and justice recur, a tacit admission that these themes are universal, but in the end, Cameraperson becomes a study of how to make documentaries and of the form itself.

And yet at times, it feels like the scenes are tantalising glimpses into stories we want to know more of -specifically, the horror of the death of James Byrd Jr in Jasper New York, whose story is told briefly by scenes of attorneys being interviewed.  Admittedly these films already exist, and it's perhaps more a testament to the powerful snippets of choice and admission that these have haunted her that they still feel so raw and numbing.

As the strands pull together and more personal moments are revealed, Cameraperson becomes a real salute to those who work in documentaries, whose cameras are an extension of their body, an extra limb to help them in the world.

Cameraperson itself may be a humble title, and the images within may be humbling, but this prosaic documentary about the documentary form is nothing short of impressive. 

Despicable M3: Film Review

Despicable M3: Film Review

Cast: Steve Carell, Kristen Wiig, Trey Parker, Minions gibberish
Director: Pierre Coffin, Kyle Balda

Third time's less of the charm for Illumination's animated antics in this latest outing for Gru and the gang.

In Despicable Me 3 (stylised as Despicable M3), Gru and Lucy (Carell and Wiig respectively) are kicked out of the anti-villains league when they fail to stop 80s obsessed former child star and wannabe crimelord Balthazar Bratt (South Park's Trey Parker) from stealing one of the world's largest diamonds.

Suffering from a crisis of faith, Gru discovers he has a twin brother, Dru (also played by Carell), who's the opposite to Gru's villain.

When the pair finally meet, Gru's jealous of Dru's seemingly successful lifestyle. But he's shocked to find out that Dru just wants to be a villain as that's all their father ever wanted for his son...

Will Gru re-embrace his dark side?

Feeling distinctly flat and disappointingly disparate, Despicable M3 lacks the zaniess and the bite of prior outings.

While the 80s nostalgia vibe may help the older end of the audience feel a little jaded and satiated at the thought of a fourth film with the Minions.

Wiig feels particularly underused as the surrogate mother and the separate threads involving dispirited minions, the kids, Gru / Dru's antics don't quite seem to gel as well as they should.

It helps little that the animation which had such zing before looks great but delivers little in terms of memorable moments; it's slickly produced but its sweetly sentimental edges don't really bring the feels that it should this time around.

Granted, the children in the audience may well enjoy the brief interludes (though the shoe-horning in of Sing, another Illumination property is almost as bad as any product placement from Michael Bay's outings), but there aren't enough of them to keep everyone entertained.

There are flashes of visual brilliance though, such as when Gru and Dru raid the villain's lair (there's plenty of fun to be had in being bad) - and the 80s obsessed Bratt is a non-stop laugh-fest of nostalgia and desperation all wrapped up in one go, but these are fleeting moments few and sadly far in between, making you desperately miss the kinetic silliness that's been on show before.

All in all, Despicable M3 is pretty much a formulaic piece of CGI animation for the school hols - there's nothing inherently wrong with that, but the fact it betrays the very best of what the Despicable Me series could offer and distills it down into a series of mere moments is nothing short of a crying shame.

Le Ride: DVD Review

Le Ride: DVD Review

Le Ride sees Phil Keoghan take on his own Amazing Race.

Shorn of the majority of the glamorous trappings of the TV show, Keoghan's desire to demonstrate a little known Kiwi's achievements of the world stage is admirable in its intent.

For many, the name Harry Watson means nothing; but after Le Ride, Keoghan's hope of restoring his name to the annals of history may have taken a large leap. Mixing the Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman ethos of the Long Way Round with a road trip in France, Keoghan and his mate Ben Cornell are determind to follow Watson's path from the 1928 Tour De France.

Le Ride

With a bike that was from the 1928 ride (ie no real gears).

While some of those roads are long gone, this doesn't stop the duo from instigating "the story that has to be told" and setting out on the trail. Mixing archive footage, present day suffering (Keoghan even insisted on keeping to the 1928 diet of bread, cheese and wine) and plenty of lashings of camaraderie and good nature, Le Ride is a journey well worth taking.

With the typical Keoghan charm in the face of growing adversity (from cracks on the bikes to being outbiked by someone in their 60s who took part in the original race), this is never less than genial - and while less is known about Kiwi Harry Watson than any other of any of our more prolific sports exports on the world stage, Keoghan and Cornell ensure that his profile is raised considerably in this piece that quietly salutes his achievements.

Le Ride's greatest achievement has come from being on the NZIFF circuit - granted, Keoghan's high profile should see many more through the doors than simply those within the biking community, but a wider audience will leave feeling they've had access to a story they would normally have never glimpsed into.