I’ve been seriously busy since Christmas putting together a show for the Wellington Fringe (which has gone along very nicely, thank you for asking). It’s called “The Immortals” and you can find out all about it here. There are only three more performances and after that I’ll be retiring from actoring so if you are interested in seeing me perform this weekend is your last chance.
I’ve manage to file about four reviews for the Capital Times but haven’t had a chance to annotate, illustrate and linky them up for you good people, an omission which grieves me but that I cannot remedy until later in February (or maybe even March).
Welcome to the 2010 “cut out and keep” guide to video renting (or downloading or however you consume your home entertainment these days). I suggest you clip this article, fold it up, stick it in your wallet or purse and refer to it whenever you are at the video shop, looking for something to while away the long winter evenings of 2010.
First up, the ones to buy – the Keepers. These are the films that (if you share my psychology and some of my pathologies) you will cherish until you are old and the technology to play them no longer exists. Best film of the year remains Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire. Mashing together several archetypal stories with a vivid visual style and a percussive energy, Slumdog may not represent India as it actually is but instead successfully evoked what India feels like, which is arguably more important. After Slumdog everything I saw seemed, you know, old-fashioned and nothing has been anywhere nearly as thrilling since. There are films you respect, films you admire and films you love. Slumdog is a film you adore. “Who wants to be a … miyonaire?” indeed.
There have only been asked two questions that anybody has been asking me this week: “Have you seen Avatar?” and “Is it any good?” Thanks to the helpful people at Readings I can say “Yes” to the first one and thanks to James Cameron I can say “Whoah” to the second.
Like many Wellingtonians, I have […]
Not by me.
Christ, I’m too busy with being on holiday and preparing for my forthcoming return to the Wellington stage to think about summing up a decade in cinema (particularly as I wasn’t watching much film for the first half of it).
Luckily, Ant Timpson has done the work for me. Check out his two lists (Best of […]
Is it too early to suggest that we might be living in a golden age of cinema? Think of the filmmakers working in the commercial realm these days who have distinctive voices, thrilling visual sensibilities, solid intellectual (and often moral) foundations, a passion for combining entertainment with something more — along with an abiding love […]
This past week may have been the most consistently satisfying week of cinema-going since I started this journey with you back in 2006: seven very different films, all with something to offer. And no turkeys this week, so I’ll have to put the acid away until next week.
In completely arbitrary order (of viewing in fact), let’s […]
We’re born alone and we die alone and in between nothing goes according to plan and the people around us are mostly unreliable and occasionally malevolent. Meanwhile, God either doesn’t exist or is indifferent to our suffering. Either way, A Serious Man, the new film by the prodigiously gifted Coen Brothers, is a very serious […]
May I direct your attention to the new series of “The Gravy”, a top notch art documentary series from Wellington’s Sticky Pictures. There’s a heapin’ helpin’ of interesting content lined up including a whole episode on theatre-maker Jo Randerson and her show Good Night — The End (Downstage, Sep 2009). That’s S04E03, folks. Also of […]
After nearly three and a half years of producing this cinemagoers’ consumer guide, perhaps its time for a statement of intent. A manifesto, if you will. Something to place these musings in perspective as you skim through them over Morning Tea.
I try and find something good and interesting in everything I see, and I see pretty […]
At what point in a man’s life does he decide to become a dry cleaner? For Joaquin Phoenix’s character, Leonard Kraditor, in Two Lovers that day is never and yet he still finds himself to be one. He’s a sensitive soul whose mental health issues have resulted in several suicide attempts, a permanent relationship with […]
Dan Slevin is a New Zealand-based writer and broadcaster. He has reviewed cinema for the Capital Times weekly newspaper since September 2006, seeing and reviewing every film commercially released in Wellington in that time (except, for some reason, Flicka or Beverly Hills Chihuahua).
Why Funerals & Snakes? In Jean-Luc Godard’s Contempt (Le Mépris; 1963), Fritz Lang said of CinemaScope: “It’s only good for funerals and snakes.”
Not only are the subtitles not in a sensible, unobtrusive font so you can read them and get back to the movie, they are in The Teenage Witch's Choice of fonts, Papyrus!
The absence of classical work in my repertoire is due to the fact I can't wear those trousers," he says. "It makes me sound very shallow but I've done some really serious plays in a decent lounge suit."
They just lifted it from my blog without asking?…?I'm not talking about quotes. Am talking about the entire article. But with edits they made that make me look ill informed and unfeeling.
Andy Bull (good British name) talking about English cricket's nomads and imports in The Spin:
There is no need to mark a dividing line between those who arrived as children and those who made the decision later in life, just as there is no need to draw distinctions between players who have moved from Test-playing nations and those who haven't. The point is that they decided to come at all. That is sufficient commitment in itself.
That sentiment is true for all walks of life, not just sport.
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Even the least promising seats at the Pacific Blue Festival Club have great views. Fingers crossed for sound. 4 hrs ago
At VUP poets launch function: kudos to Kate, Bill and Geoff. /via @markcubey +1 4 hrs ago
Very looking forward to Calexico tonight at the Festival Club. 6 hrs ago
