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colin firth

RN 2/8: A Very Rancho Christmas

By Audio, Cinema, Rancho Notorious and Reviews

In which Kailey and Dan attempt two impossible feats before bed­time: din­ner and a show with spe­cial guests Graeme Tuckett, John Leigh, Mike Dickison, Sebastian Macaulay, Kaarin Macaulay, Ian Freer and some tur­key, wine and crack­ers, plus live stream­ing the whole thing out to the world.

Hilarity ensues.

And Paddington is reviewed.

Cinematica 4/05: Clingonto Yourseats

By Audio and Cinematica

Cinematica_iTunes_200_cropStar Trek goes boldly Into Darkness, Colin Firth tries com­edy in Gambit, Harmony Korine’s con­front­a­tion­al Spring Breakers hits cinemas and we speak to Espen Sandberg, one of the dir­ect­ors of the true life adven­ture Kon-Tiki. Guest review­er: Andrew Todd (@mistertodd).

Review: Star Trek Into Darkness, Song for Marion, Gambit, Spring Breakers and Maori Boy Genius

By Cinema and Reviews

The 2009 Star Trek reboot went into pro­duc­tion on the eve of the writers’ strike and there­fore had no right to be as enter­tain­ing – or to make as much sense – as it did. In fact, it was so suc­cess­ful that it has become the gold stand­ard of dormant fran­chise resus­cit­a­tion and I’m hop­ing that the les­sons – what to hon­our, what to ignore, the mix of know­ing humour and state-of-the-art action – are taken on board by the forth­com­ing Superman block­buster Man of Steel.

A re-watch of Star Trek on Wednesday night con­firmed my thoughts from the ori­gin­al review. It worked so well, on so many levels, that by the end I was eagerly anti­cip­at­ing my Friday night reunion with Christopher Pine’s Kirk, Zachary Quinto’s Hot Spock, etc. So, it is with a heavy heart then, that I have to report feel­ing let down by Star Trek Into Darkness. Everything seems a lot more self-conscious than before, as if the film­makers have just real­ised that there are a squil­lion people watch­ing and they’d bet­ter not make a mess of things. Which usu­ally means that’s exactly what happens.

Not long after the Federation has been saved in the first film, our her­oes are out explor­ing the galaxy, get­ting into trouble. As pun­ish­ment for viol­at­ing the Prime Directive (and incom­plete paper­work), Kirk is relived of the Enterprise com­mand but before he has time to prop­erly lick his wounds, a ter­ror­ist bombs Starfleet’s London office and threatens to kick off an inter­galactic (intra-galactic?) war with the Klingons.

dying is easy – com­edy is hard

It’s the exe­cu­tion that dis­ap­points this time around. The humour feels a bit heavy-handed, the attempts to incor­por­ate beloved ele­ments from the Original Series are clunky and the action is repet­it­ive – there are sev­er­al last second res­cues, for example, and at least two of them involve actu­al on-screen count­downs. I can­’t say more for fear of spoil­ers but – suf­fice to say – Star Trek Into Darkness is only a B minus while its pre­de­cessor mer­ited an A. Read More

Review: Black Swan, The King’s Speech, The Fighter, Desert Flower, Unstoppable, Burlesque, Little Fockers, Green Hornet and The Hopes and Dreams of Gazza Snell

By Cinema and Reviews

Following up on the 2009 sur­prise hit The Wrestler, Darren Aronofsky has offered us anoth­er film about people who des­troy them­selves for our enter­tain­ment – this time in the rar­efied world of bal­let. Tiny Natalie Portman is plucked from the chor­us of the fic­tion­al but pres­ti­gi­ous New York City Ballet for the dream role of the Swan in a hot new pro­duc­tion. It’s the chance of a life­time but her fra­gile psy­cho­logy shows through in her per­form­ance even though her dan­cing is tech­nic­ally per­fect. Maestro Vincent Cassel tries to recon­struct her – as you would a first year drama school stu­dent – while dom­in­eer­ing stage moth­er Barbara Hershey is push­ing back in the oth­er dir­ec­tion. Something has to break and it does.

Black Swan is excep­tion­ally well made, beau­ti­ful and chal­len­ging to watch – and Portman’s per­form­ance is noth­ing short of amaz­ing – but films that aspire to great­ness need to be about some­thing more than, you know, what they’re about and once I’d decoded was going on I couldn’t see enough under the sur­face to jus­ti­fy the hype.

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Review: The Losers, Every Jack Has a Jill and A Single Man

By Cinema and Reviews

This week’s review comes to you from sunny/rainy Auckland where your cor­res­pond­ent is catch­ing up with old friends and enjoy­ing the Auckland cinema scene. The first thing to report is that audi­ence beha­viour in the 09 is as selfish and imma­ture as it is at home. Texting and talk­ing is as pre­val­ent at com­mer­cial films like The Losers (screen­ing at the oth­er­wise well-appointed Sky City St Lukes) as in Wellington.

The Losers posterThe Losers itself would be an easy film to avoid if it wasn’t the only not­able Hollywood release of the week. A crack com­mando squad are hung out to dry by mys­ter­i­ous forces back in Washington. Somehow they have to get back stateside, clear their names and take their revenge on the shad­owy mas­ter­mind who tries to des­troy them. Sound famil­i­ar? Yes, it’s The A‑Team and a remake of that comes out in a week or two so you can safely bypass this low-rent ver­sion fea­tur­ing some B‑list stars like Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Watchmen ), Chris Evans (Fantastic 4) and the bland­est super vil­lain in his­tory, Jason Patric (Speed 2).

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