In the Slumdog Millionaire review the other day I called composer A.R. Rahman a “Bollywood legend” and, for those of you unfamiliar with his oeuvre I thought I’d give you a few samples to demonstrate what I mean. I first heard Rahman’s music when I stumbled across an mp3 from the 1998 film Dil Se.. on […]
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I’ve just got home from watching The Day the Earth Stood Still at the Empire in Island Bay. It has several shortcomings (which I’ll cover off in the review later this week), one of which is the lack of decent theme music. Sure, it has a score (written by Tyler Bates) but that score is like […]
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I haven’t remarked on the amazing powers of the iTunes shuffle facility for over two years but this one is a zinger. From Eminem’s angry attack on the Iraq War, “Mosh” (from the 2004 CD Encore) straight to Hendrix’s “Star Spangled Banner”. There are 17,000 songs in that playlist so a seque like that kind …
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In my rush to upload my Hancock and Mamma Mia! etc. reviews earlier I forgot that I was always intending to offer up a digital copy of my own favourite ABBA tune, “The Day Before You Came”, as it is rarely heard and quite marvellous: ABBA — The Day Before You Came [right-click to download] […]
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This morning I hustled across town to Radio NZ House on The Terrace to review Duncan Sarkies’ new novel “Two Little Boys” for Nine to Noon. You can click here (for a week at least) to listen to what Kathryn and I had to say. As is often the case when I’m doing something …
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I first heard of Charles Burnett’s Killer of Sheep when it was admiringly referenced in Los Angeles Plays Itself, Thom Anderson’s witty and knowing appreciation of LA in the movies, during the 2004 Film Festival. I’ll confess that it didn’t seem all that promising — a black and white, neo-realist, micro-budget drama set among the black […]
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Dan Slevin is a New Zealand-based writer, broadcaster and consultant. 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).
Dan is a regular contributor to Radio New Zealand National’s Nine to Noon programme and produces and co-hosts the weekly movie podcast, Cinematica.
In addition to being the finest swordsman in all France, he is also the meanest hombre west of the Pecos. He tweets here.
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.”