Prospective new migrants to New Zealand should be shown Ian Mune’s movie Billy T: Te Movie in order to weed out the uncommitted. Of course, we needn’t tell them that the country has changed beyond all recognition in the the last 25 years — that would spoil the fun. We could stick a hidden camera […]
{ 2 comments }
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 […]
{ 0 comments }
Australia (Evidently, modern Australia was built on racism, bigotry, corruption and alcohol). Not the debacle that some media would have you believe, Straya is an old-fashioned epic that looks right at home on the big Embassy screen. If only Lurhman the director had more confidence in Lurhman the writer, he might have avoided some of …
{ 4 comments }
Dollar for dollar (if not lb for lb) Vince Vaughan is the biggest star in Hollywood. For every dollar invested in a Vaughan film he returns fourteen making him a better bet than Cruise, Pitt, Clooney or Roberts. It’s easy to see why he’s so popular — his easy-going everyman quality annoys fewer people than […]
{ 0 comments }
When the current Writer-in-Residence at Victoria University’s Institute of Modern Letters suggested I take another look at my negative review of Blades of Glory, I made a promise that (while I couldn’t bring myself to watch that turkey again) I would approach the next Will Ferrell with a consciously open mind. Sadly, with Semi-Pro (a […]
{ 0 comments }
This week’s Capital Times film review: Superbad (Greg Mottola); Evan Almighty (Tom Shadyac); Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (Tom Tykwer); I Do: How To Get Married and Stay Single (Eric Lartigau); Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten (Julien Temple)
{ 1 comment }
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.”