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bradley cooper

RN 3/1: Faults

By Audio, Cinema, Rancho Notorious and Reviews

Dan and Kailey are joined by film fest­iv­al stal­wart and emer­gency man­age­ment spe­cial­ist Rebecca Goodbehere to dis­cuss the new Dwayne Johnson dis­aster movie San Andreas and the new Cameron Crowe dis­astrous movie Aloha. Plus the latest announce­ments from this year’s NZIFF and the usu­al mix of news and box office stats from around the world.

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RN 2/10: Straight to video

By Audio, Cinema, Rancho Notorious and Reviews

Dan and Kailey are joined by Steve Austin on the line from Auckland to talk about “Straight to Video”, his blog review­ing the increas­ing num­ber of films that don’t get a the­at­ric­al release in New Zealand (includ­ing James Gray’s The Immigrant). He sticks around to help the team review Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper which stars Bradley Cooper as an all-American hero trau­mat­ised by the Iraq war.

Plus, Kailey inter­views Tess and Jamie from the Circa Theatre pro­duc­tion of Seed.

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Before Midnight poster

Review: Before Midnight, The Lone Ranger, This Is the End, The Internship, Camille Rewinds, The Place Beyond the Pines and Thérèse Desqueyroux

By Cinema and Reviews

Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy in Before Midnight, 2013.

As is so often the case at this time of year (usu­ally related to 48 Hours com­mit­ments) I am a little behind on my review­ing. This week­end I caught up on a lot the actu­al watch­ing (although apo­lo­gies to John Davies who sent me a screen­er of Remembrance that I haven’t yet sat down and watched) so now I will try and rustle up anoth­er one of my trade­mark col­lec­tions of “Capsule Reviews of Questionable Utility”.

Before Midnight posterOf all the movies I’ve seen so far this year, Linklater, Delpy and Hawke’s Before Midnight (after three movies I think it’s fair to cred­it author­ship sev­er­ally) is the one that has stuck in my brain the longest. In it, we catch up with the lov­ers from Before Sunrise (1995) and Before Sunset (2004) as they reach the end of an idyll­ic vaca­tion in Greece. Hawke’s Jesse is won­der­ing wheth­er he should try and spend more time with his teen­age son who lives with his moth­er in the States. Delpy’s Celine is about to start a dream job back in Paris where they cur­rently reside with their two ador­able daughters.

They are at a cross­roads but, as the film makes clear, when are we ever not? Delpy is mag­ni­fi­cent, cre­at­ing a won­drous, beau­ti­ful, insec­ure, infuri­at­ing and right­eous woman who is sim­ul­tan­eously proud and frus­trated at the role she has found her­self play­ing. Watching her I was think­ing about a couple of rela­tion­ships of mine that I ended. Maybe I was a little bit hasty. Maybe I was­n’t really listening.

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Shopping poster

Review: Shopping, The Reluctant Fundamentalist and The Hangover Part III

By Cinema and Reviews

Julian Dennison and Kevin paulo in Shopping (Mark Albiston and Louis Sutherland)

Shopping (Mark Albiston & Louis Sutherland) starts with archive tele­vi­sion news foot­age of the infam­ous 1970s dawn raids, tooled-up cops break­ing down doors to track down “over­stay­ers”. As a scene-setter it’s impress­ive. It gives the film an imme­di­ate sense of men­ace but it doesn’t fol­low through – the cops nev­er arrive and the threat of deport­a­tion back to the islands (like almost everything else in the film) is nev­er dis­cussed. So, nar­rat­ively then, Shopping may dis­ap­point but as a psy­cho­lo­gic­al por­trait of ali­en­ated work­ing class teen­age life it excels.

Shopping posterNewcomer Kevin Paulo is Willie, stuck in a dead-end job dream­ing of some­thing bet­ter. His white fath­er (Alistair Browning, often threat­en­ing but with a heart in the right place) wants him to work hard and get on while his Samoan moth­er Theresa (Maureen Fepuleai) wants him to behave him­self and set a good example to young­er broth­er Solomon (Julian Dennison). He does neither of those things and falls in with a bad crowd of loc­al crims led by cha­ris­mat­ic Bennie (Jacek Koman). In their world “shop­ping” means thiev­ery and the adren­aline, the parties and beau­ti­ful Nicky (Laura Peterson) keep Willie away from his own home and a fam­ily that needs him more than he realises.

[pullquote]I won­der wheth­er the world is ready for a Pakistani James Bond.[/pullquote]Shot with style – and a budget-protecting shal­low focus – by Ginny Loane, Shopping leaves the audi­ence with plenty of work to do – filling in the gaps – until it reaches a suit­ably enig­mat­ic con­clu­sion. Strong per­form­ances from seasoned pros and new­comers alike keep the ten­sion up in indi­vidu­al scenes but I some­times felt that the through-line was no more than a slender thread.

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Review: Lincoln, Django Unchained, Zero Dark Thirty, Silver Linings Playbook, Anna Karenina, The Impossible and Celeste & Jesse Forever

By Cinema and Reviews

Local audi­ences can pre­tend they are Academy voters for the next few weeks because almost all the big nom­in­ees are being released at the same time. It’s the NZ way – try and max­im­ise atten­tion for your films while they are still con­tenders but before they become losers. It makes for a crush at loc­al screens – you may not find the film you want at the time you want – but it also means the odds of see­ing some­thing really good are much bet­ter than usual.

Spielberg’s Lincoln is classy old school film­mak­ing, as you might expect from such a vet­er­an. He’s assembled an A‑team of writers, per­formers and tech­nic­al crew to tell one of the most import­ant – and res­on­ant – stor­ies of the last 150 years. Abe Lincoln (Daniel Day-Lewis) has been re-elected to his second term as President and the pain­ful and bloody Civil War is almost won. Why would he risk his con­sid­er­able polit­ic­al cap­it­al to try and pass the Thirteenth Amendment to the con­sti­tu­tion – pro­hib­it­ing slavery – when the slave-owning south is almost defeated and many on his own side don’t feel it is necessary?

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Review: Arrietty, Taken 2, On the Road, Life in Movement, Searching for Sugar Man, The Last Dogs of Winter and The Words

By Cinema and Reviews

After an intense week­end run­ning from pic­ture theatre to pic­ture theatre between – and some­times dur­ing – rain showers, I have now caught up on everything in cur­rent loc­al release. Except Tinker Bell and the Secret of the Wings but a Twitter cor­res­pond­ent assures me: “Just FYI my 5 year old great niece loved it so much she stood up at the end clap­ping & dancing…you should go you’ll love it ;)” and that review might just have to do for now.

Arrietty posterA little harder to track down than Tinker Bell, Madagascar 3 or Hotel Transylvania – but well worth the effort – is Arrietty, a Studio Ghibli anim­ated adapt­a­tion of The Borrowers, Mary Norton’s fam­ous children’s book about tiny people liv­ing under a house who are dis­covered by a frail young boy who needs a friend. Beautifully anim­ated – as always – and told with emo­tion and sim­pli­city, Arrietty is a fine altern­at­ive to those over-hyped Hollywood con­fec­tions. The ver­sion play­ing in Wellington is the English voiced one fea­tur­ing Saoirse Ronan, Olivia Colman and Mark Strong – much easi­er on the ears than the American voices and much easi­er to fol­low for the lit­tlies than the ori­gin­al Japanese.

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