NZIFF Q&A - Tim Van Dammen

NZIFF Q&A - Tim Van Dammen

My film is....
A time-travel crime-comedy set in Thames called Mega Time Squad.

The moment I'm most proud of is....
When people are genuinely moved by the love story. It’s my long term ambition to make a really powerful love story so in preparation I slipped a romance subplot into Mega Time Squad but it almost steals the show. Seeing grown men smiling and pretending that their dewy eyes are from laughter as the credits roll is truly satisfying.

The reason I carried on with this film when it got tough is.....
No budget. First produced script. A cast of fifty. Two-dozen locations. Every second shot a VFX shot. Comedy. Right from the start it’s tough. Its either that or I didn’t get to make the film. I would do it again tomorrow – and hopefully I will.

The one moment that will resonate with an audience is.......
In a moment of triumph John says “Hey Shelton, I’m going to get up now, and I’m going to take that money, and my girlfriend, and my big-as nuts – and we’re going to go to Paeroa, and there’s nothing you can do about it.” When developing the film I wrote this line before I wrote almost anything else because I knew that this was the line that the film needed to hinge on. It says everything about our main character, his modest goals, his insecurity about standing up for himself, his insecurity about publicly declaring his feelings for his girlfriend, his naivete, and his greed… everything. And it’s a silly line.

The hardest thing I had to cut from this film is........
With 30mins of the film on the hard drive labelled ‘cutting room floor’ the part I miss most is Mick Innes and Jonny Brugh arguing about which channels of their Sky subscription to combine to form the optimal mix.

The thing I want people to take from this film is …..
A sore diaphragm and a tear in the eye.

The reason I love the NZIFF is.......
In an age of streaming platforms it’s important to remind people why going out to the cinema is such a unique and powerful experience. The NZIFF gives us this experience and focuses us back on the power of communal viewing.

What the 50th NZIFF means to me is......
The NZIFF nurtured my interest in movies as a teenager and I still find it exciting today, when my own films have become part of the programme. We’re very lucky to have such a well-run and impeccably programmed film festival in New Zealand. From quiet art-house experiences to the crash and bang of the Incredibly Strange programme, the NZIFF is a cornerstone of the film experience in New Zealand not only for audiences but for aspiring and established filmmakers too. Here’s to another 50 years – at least!

Love Simon: DVD Review

Love Simon: DVD Review

The pantheon of rom-coms and coming-of-age films is fairly full.

But it's fair to say that the adaptation of Becky Albertalli's acclaimed book, packs the sort of punch and zing that John Hughes would have been proud of.

Even if it does inhabit a world where consequences are rarely explored, and everyone behaves in a slightly sanitised way.

Robinson is American teenager Simon Spier, who, by his own confession is "just like you."

He has a pretty normal life, with liberal parents and a solid bunch of friends as he negotiates his way through high school.

However, as he admits early on, he has a huge ass confession - he's gay and in the closet.

One day, through his school's shared internet, he spies a note from Blue, someone in the school who is also dealing with their sexuality. Simon decides to drop Blue a line and a friendship and connection begins to form - and Simon tries to find out who of his peers this potential love interest could be.

Genial and harmless, this teen film is perhaps as heartfelt as you'd expect, without delving too deeply into preaching.

In many ways, it normalises its central message, a touch which makes it worthwhile as Simon negotiates his way through a life that seems relatively perky, happy and overly caffeinated - it's a fantasy take on high school life and the lack of reality over the pains faced by many.

But that's no bad thing here, as the energy of the piece, coupled with the relative charisma of the lead, and the charm of the relationships manages to carry it all along.

Sure, there are some grounds for the whimsical dismissal of the whole blackmailing angle which plays out as Simon's forced to try and make one of his female friends like the nerd; and there are certainly issues when conflict arises and is treated in a very piecemeal, narratively necessary way later on.

Regardless of these minor speed bumps, Berlanti imbues a good 80 percent of this film with a winning formula that's likely to see it as successful in the mainstream as it wants to be.

It's still galling that a film like this has to be labelled as the "gay teen rom com a generation's been waiting for", but Love, Simon makes a genial case for a degree of timelessness, living in such a world of carefree verve that it's annoyingly compelling.

In the back third of the film, despite the real representation of Simon's parents when faced with the truth about their son, the film falters and stumbles, fumbling the pass it's been expecting the whole way through.

But ultimately, what emerges with Love, Simon is the kind of high school film and timeless romcom that's winning for the Insta-generation.

Friendships feel genuine, interactions (for the most part) feel truthful in a fantasy construct and Simon's arc proves to be rewarding enough.

Meshing 10 Things I Hate About You moments with solid dependable performances all round (even Veep star Hale's over-the-top principal can't bring it down), it provides the sort of endearing care-free  blandness that's rewarding and enjoyable enough to warrant the cost of a ticket. 

NZIFF Q&A - Ant Timpson

NZIFF Q&A - Ant Timpson

My film is.... 
THE FIELD GUIDE TO EVIL

The moment I'm most proud of is.... 
ALL THE FILMMAKERS INVOLVED LIKING THE FINISHED FILM.

The reason I carried on with this film when it got tough is.....
YOU SHOULD ALWAYS FINISH WHAT YOU START PLUS WE PROMISED PEOPLE A RETURN ON THEIR INVESTMENT

The one moment that will resonate with an audience is....... 
DRINKING WINE FROM A GOBLIN’S SLASHED VEINS – WE’VE ALL BEEN THERE.

The hardest thing I had to cut from this film is........ 
NOT ONE FRAME

The thing I want people to take from this film is ...... 
MOST FOLKLORE IS ROYALLY FUCKED UP.

The reason I love the NZIFF is....... 
THEY PAY TO SHOW FILMS

What the 50th NZIFF means to me is......
TIME IS RUNNING OUT

Skyscraper: Film Review

Skyscraper: Film Review

Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Neve Campbell, a burning building, Roland Moller
Director: Rawson Marshall Thurber

Skewing towards memories of The Towering Inferno and Die Hard, but with an eye very much on the cheesy and disastrous, Skyscraper sees the Rock toning down some of his more natural elements for a PG13 audience.

Johnson is Will Sawyer, a former FBI Team Leader who lost the lower half of his leg when a hostage negotiation went wrong. Now assessing skyscrapers for security, Sawyer and his family are taken to Hong Kong to look at a new building, The Pearl.

However, when terrorists (led by Moller's timidly snarling Kores Botha) strike, Sawyer has to find his inner strength to save the day.

It's fair to say Skyscraper is a solid piece of entertainment, aimed squarely at the blockbuster crowd, but yet somehow doesn't quite manage to leap its problems as high as it should.

Johnson dials down his usual charisma, trying to aim more for an average Joe who's had obstacles to overcome and who's now trying to save his family. However, he carries out such super-human feats of strength (climbing a massive crane, running off the edge of said crane and powering into a building, holding a bridge together) that the everyman appeal is lost very early on.

Equally, the potential over the leg loss for empowerment which was promised in the initial trailers seems to have been sidelined for some kind of hanging-by-a-leg moment that seems more than a tad misjudged.

Whereas films like the aforementioned Tower and Die Hard saw ordinary people having to do extraordinary things, there's never really any question of The Rock caving, even though he takes a beating a few times during it. His earnestness only gets him so far, as the bloodless violence and gunplay escalates.

Campbell's solid, very much his equal (something Hollywood's suddenly more keen to show), giving her former army surgeon the pluck needed to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with him when necessary, even if the inability to use an iPhone seems to be more a narrative necessity than character trait.

In among the incessant dark swirling shots circling the tower on fire with CGI flames, Thurber muddies a lot of the sequences with the dark, meaning the vertiginous shots lose their head-dizzying ability early on.

It's not that Skyscraper is a roaring success, but its deep-dive more into bland rote schlockbuster territory than enticing, enthralling suspense squanders its promise and potential. It may aim for the sky, but it scrapes the bottom a little too often than is liked, with dialogue that borders on cult material, but holds back.

Ultimately, that's the biggest problem with Skyscraper - in its quest to satiate a PG13 audience and censor, it's neither one thing nor the other. It's certainly not a Towering inferno by any stretch, but its desire to not embrace what it could be, and its commitment to bland action fare means it's more a flicker than a flaming roar.

NZIFF Q&A - Pietra Brettkelly

NZIFF Q&A - Pietra Brettkelly

My film is.... 
YELLOW IS FORBIDDEN

The moment I'm most proud of is....
…it's that I completed this film, against the odds.  But highlighting a specific moment it would be backstage with Guo Pei, the designer and subject of my film, in the final scene of my film, as she’s watching her collection in Paris walk the runway.  It's the moment she creatively challenges the status quo, the inherent arrogance, the largely European males club of the Haute Couture Commission.  And says take a look at what I can do, this diminutive Chinese woman.  And the emotion on her face as we hold the extreme close up shot, gets me every time.  She’s in tears and I’m in tears.  Her face is one of anguish, tension, pride

The reason I carried on with this film when it got tough is.....
I’m incredibly curious, and driven and believe completely in the importance of story-telling – to capture our time now, to open a window into another world, another culture and to break down barriers through understanding each other more, through the power of storytelling, and the ability for my films to travel internationally which they do.
But it is also that moment that I’ve described above - it's a truly beautiful moment that keeps me passionate about documentary filmmaking and passionate about this film, that moment you can’t predict but hope through my skills as a director I might get to when I launched into this film two years previously – a moment of intense emotion, intimacy and trust between myself and my subject.

The one moment that will resonate with an audience is.......
This film is so complex and will truly appeal to many different people. 

The hardest thing I had to cut from this film is........
Filmed over two years, I amassed something like 200 hours of footage.  The edit process that took one year, was so painful I try not to think back on what I had to cut.  But the access I got to Guo Pei’s life was so extraordinary – she had signs up throughout her salon of NO FILMING and yet we were allowed to film, the intricacies of her designing, the craftswork of her 500 staff, the phenomenal skills that go into these artworks she creates.  
There was a scene when we were filming with the famous Rihanna cape, the 27kg yellow cape Rihanna wore on the Met Gala red carpet in 2015 that luanched Guo Pei internatinally, and began my film.  We were in Paris and filmed scenes with the cape and the delicate and treasured way the cape was handled and looked at by the models, by the photography team, by passers by was extraordinary.  It was like a superstar in its own right.  And then one of the team stripped down and put it on and got the photographer to take photos of him.  There was a tension in the air. I would have liked this scene to be somewhere in the film but I feel the aspect of how the cape is reverred is covered in another scene of a Guo Pei exhibition at the Louvre.
And there was another scene with the cape, the Queen of Malaysia and Michael Jackson’s brother….


The reason I love the NZIFF is.......
I travel often to festivals and markets and watch a lot of films.  
My film YELLOW IS FORBIDDEN just premiered at Tribeca Film Festival, New York and then went on to market screenings at Cannes Film Festival.  Bill Gosden and his team at NZIFF have curated some of the best films I was lucky to see at those festivals – and some I didn’t manage to get to so am relieved they’re going to be in NZIFF.  Bill brings to us here in New Zealand an eclectic, thought-provoking, entertaining and intelligent range of the best films.   

What the 50th NZIFF means to me is......
NZIFF has fed me over the years.

We are so lucky to have had access to the world’s best films  in the last 50 years – and it has certainly encouraged my learning, love and appreciation of film.   I’m often walking away from a film at the Civic, wrapping myself up in a scarf, just thinking over all that I’ve just experienced in the last 90 minutes – another storyteller’s visual perspective on another place, another land, another people.  It's the richness of inspiration itself.  

Super Bomberman R: PS4 Review

Super Bomberman R: PS4 Review

Released by
Platform: PS4

It's a simple concept - place bombs around a maze, and take out your enemies, giving you the chance to progress to the next phase of your campaign.

But Super Bomberman R's simplicity is also what ensures its playability.

It's not a difficult concept to grasp, it's an easy one to execute, but it's also an easy one to mess up. However, the 3D edges, combined with the chunky graphics give Super Bomberman R the universality the series has always embraced.

While the campaign level is easy enough to play through, some of the maze's 3D edges take a bit of time to get used to as you try and work out where you can and cannot go.

With Battle modes allowing for 8 players to take part, and single player Story mode, the game has enough to keep people engaged, even if after a while, it starts to feel a tad repetitive.

It may be fun for all ages, and nicely executed, but Super Bomberman R's repeat playability is occasionally in question - from time to time, it does feel like the game's disposability is also its downfall.

NZIFF 2018 Preview

NZIFF 2018 Preview

Cheers to 50 years.

That's easily the cry to festival director Bill Gosden and the rest of his team at the New Zealand International Film Festival gears up for its fifth decade of bringing the world of film to our screens.

The event kicks off again this next Thursday in Auckland's mighty Civic Theatre before heading around the country, and yes, the veritable cinematic smorgasbord is ready to be troughed upon, with local delights mingling among viewers' tastebuds along with tasty international morsels to sink your teeth into.

As well as the Cannes' big hitters, and the local premieres, and the films we've been waiting for but no local distributors will take a chance on, there's much to indulge on, but equally much to choose over, and to schedule.

Pick Of the Litter

This year's Kedi, though perhaps a little less effective but none the less fluffy, is the puppy overload that is Pick Of The Litter. This sweet-natured doco goes skin-deep on the world of the training of five potential pooches to take on the mantle of would-be guide dogs. Five are plucked from the kennels, and your time is invested in the group - will they make the cut? It's amiable fare, that shies away from some of the details (costs etc) but shows the ruthlessness in which they thrive. It's certainly also one to give animal lovers the fluffy vicarious fuzzies they may seek.

Dog's Best Friend

At the other end of the spectrum, Dog's Best Friend follows Aussie hardknock dogs rehab centre and its tattooed boss, Jacob Leezak, as he tries to rehabilitate some of the pooches who've been labelled menaces. With a no-nonsense approach to what the dogs need and the mantra it's the owners who make them what they are, director Eryn Wilson's determination to turn these perceptions around is laudable. Never confronting but always insightful, Dog's Best Friend makes a valid case for all animals, even if the fuller details of the humans involved isn't quite as fulsome as it could be.

I Used to be normal - A Boyband Fangirl Story

Equally confusing to outsiders, I Used to be normal - A Boyband Fangirl Story's affectionate look at what fuels fandom sees director director Jessica Leski's affectionate douse its subjects in such a universal appeal that it makes their obsessions seem normal - and whisper it, almost relatable.

Centring on four different fans - 16 year-old Elif, who's a One Directioner, Dara, 33, who's a proclaimed Take That fan, 25 year old Sadia, a US Backstreet Boys fan and 64-year-old Susan who was there at the start of the trend with her Beatles love - Leski's piece becomes more of a rounded piece as it goes on, and makes the case that it's as much a coming-of-age ritual as it is a shared obsession. Packed with energy and soundtracks, as well as some social commentary, the boyband obsession has never been so openly approachable and watchable.

Aga

Opening with potentially one of the most visually arresting images of the festival, genial and benign in its intentions, Aga is an intriguing, minimalist slice of slow cinema the festival specializes in.

Set in a location unknown, it's the story of an old couple, Nanook and Sedna. This duo, old and wizened, but clearly blessed with a love for each other that's endured more than just the harsh winters on show, spend their time in their yurt, living the traditions of their ancestors.

From ice-fishing to lying back in a snow angel on the frozen wastes as a plane and its chem-trails head over, life is simple. But it's becoming more of a struggle - and with life encroaching on them, things are about to cataclysmically change. 

If the scope of Aga's white snowy vistas and visuals is vast, the intent of the drama is intimate. Patience is rewarded with a window into a world seldom glimpsed on our screens - and showing the NZIFF is still intent on opening minds.

More loopy, than Looper, Thames-shot crime caper Mega Time Squad is a blast.

Mega Time Squad

A ludicrously-fuelled tale of crime and lack of ambition in middle New Zealand, director Tim Van Dammen's follow up to NZIFF hit Romeo and Juliet: A Love Story is nonetheless stylish.
Centring on Anton Tennet's John, a low-level hoodlum who's in the thrall of Johnny Brugh's crime boss, Mega Time Squad follows the story as John gets ambitions for more - a move to Paeroa for love.

Aided by a mysterious Chinese trinket, the film's heart is in its love story - but not at the expense of anything else that matters as it brilliantly unspools.

Fresh, enticing and flipping funny, Mega Time Squad is easily the 2018 New Zealand International Film Festival's best time at the movies.

With over 150 choices to be made at the festival, Q&As to be attended and premieres to be seen, this year's NZIFF feels wider in scope, more enticing in its offerings and proffers more guarantees of good times in the cinema. There's no sign of it going away, and although they say life begins at 40, it's clear hitting 50 for this festival is showing no signs of slowing down.

Stay tuned for more previews, director Q&As and reviews as the Auckland leg of the festival gears up for kick off!