Monday new releases: 18 November 2024

Last week was a busy one for writ­ing broad­cast­ing but a little less so for watch­ing. The third review in today’s news­let­ter is actu­ally an extract point­ing at a longer ver­sion on the RNZ web­site, hence this edi­tion will stay on the free side of the paywall.

Also, for those pay­ing close atten­tion, Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point was a new release in New Zealand but a short­age of avail­able screens meant no ses­sions in my home town of Wellington. We’ll see if we can fix that for next week.

When I recom­men­ded Alex Garland’s Civil War here the oth­er day, I didn’t think that I would be revis­it­ing it quite so quickly but Lucy Lawless’s new doc­u­ment­ary about fear­less pho­to­journ­al­ist Margaret Moth, Never Look Away, promp­ted me to think about it all over again.

In my review, I said I thought that Garland was less inter­ested in the geo-political cir­cum­stances for his story than he was about the kind of char­ac­ter who goes chas­ing wars the way that the sci­ent­ists in Twister chase tornados. 

As vivid detail after vivid detail is revealed in Lawless’s film, I found myself won­der­ing wheth­er Garland might wish to have his time over and start his film again. Moth is a huge char­ac­ter, with giant appet­ites, and she makes the fic­tion­al ver­sions in Civil War look ter­ribly tame.

Moth was born Margaret Wilson in 1950s Gisborne, New Zealand, and one of the fas­cin­a­tions of her story is the New Zealand-ness of it. Her fam­ily straddled the common-at-the-time line between love­less and abus­ive and she was determ­ined to get out as soon as she could. The Swinging 60s beckoned the young adult Margaret (even­tu­ally tak­ing the name Gipsy Moth) and she was determ­ined to enjoy everything that era offered – drugs, sex and adventure.

After work­ing as a cam­er­a­wo­man for the BCNZ, she went to the States in 1980 and began work­ing in loc­al tele­vi­sion in Texas, mak­ing a name for her­self as someone who would rather chase storms – see the Twister ref­er­ence above – than school board elec­tion press conferences.

The new inven­tion of 24-hour cable news needed tal­ent and she was soon work­ing for CNN, even­tu­ally – like a true cit­izen of the world – trav­el­ling to hot­spots in Africa, Eastern Europe and the Balkans.

In Sarajevo in 1992 the con­voy she was in came under fire in “Sniper Alley” and she took a bul­let to the face, los­ing most of her jaw and tongue. She was, of course, lucky to be alive, but she went back to work as soon as she should, even­tu­ally even return­ing to Bosnia.

Never Look Away is the first film by the Xena act­or Lucy Lawless and it is impossible to take your eyes off – Never Look Away indeed. Moth appears to have been some­thing of an enigma to the ex-lovers who tell most of the story of her early life, and an inspir­a­tion to the journ­al­ist col­leagues who tell the rest of it, but it presents the world of the war zone cor­res­pond­ent with gusto. 

Before Gladiator in 2000, Russell Crowe was a char­ac­ter act­or who could lead films. Best known for Romper Stomper and The Sum of Us in Australia and then L.A. Confidential and The Insider in the States, when Gladiator came along he was ready to take the step up to full-fledged movie star­dom. Most import­antly, he knew what was required to turn a per­form­ance from some­thing that was simply believ­able to some­thing that could inhab­it all corners of a giant screen.

It’s the dif­fer­ence between a per­form­ance that asks the audi­ence to come to you and a per­form­ance that goes out and grabs them. It’s a dis­tinc­tion that Paul Mescal – a very fine act­or – hasn’t quite man­aged to pull off in his first attempt in Gladiator II. Mescal’s call­ing cards so far have been the slightly unknow­able young men at the centre of Aftersun and All of Us Strangers, emphas­ising interi­or truth but not much inter­ested in ingra­ti­at­ing him­self to his audience.

He plays Lucius, the son of Crowe’s Maximus – there was a clue in his name, wasn’t there – the right­ful heir to the throne of Rome, sent away by his moth­er for his own safety. As an adult, he is liv­ing peace­fully and hap­pily in Northern Africa when Rome – run­ning out of worlds to con­quer – comes to invade. His wife is killed and he is cap­tured, trans­por­ted back to Rome to be a gla­di­at­or slave like his father.

Mescal has the phys­ic­al chops to pull of the fight­ing part of the job but retreats into him­self the rest of the time, ced­ing the screen to a real movie star, Denzel Washington. As the former gla­di­at­or who dis­cov­ers who Lucius really is, and uses him for his own polit­ic­al ends, Washington doesn’t wait for us. The only prob­lem with him is that his char­ac­ter chooses to remain opaque, but that’s the most inter­est­ing part of the story.

Content to ride on the coat­tails of its pre­de­cessor, Ridley Scott’s pro­duc­tion nev­er rises above lacklustre and that’s largely down to the empty space Mescal leaves at the heart of it.

I reviewed Music by John Williams for RNZ’s flag­ship film show, At the Movies, last Wednesday and the web team turned it into an art­icle here:

Music by John Williams brought me so much hap­pi­ness that I had to go right back to the begin­ning and watch it again.

A film that reminded me why I got into this busi­ness in the first place, a film that will send you back to your DVD col­lec­tion, your favour­ite stream­ing ser­vice or – if you’re lucky – your loc­al video store.

The new doc­u­ment­ary Music by John Williams restores your faith in the power of cinema to trans­port you – to make your day bet­ter, your life bet­ter, the world around you look and feel better.

John Williams is 92 years old and still work­ing. His most recent score was for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny last year.

I thought I knew a thing or two about the great man – after all I know so many of his icon­ic themes – but this film told me so much more. He was already 40-years-old, and had been work­ing in Hollywood as a musi­cian, arranger and com­poser for 16 years, when fresh-faced Steven Spielberg knocked on his door to ask about The Sugarland Express in 1974.

You can read the rest at the link but I’d rather you listened to the seg­ment as the clips from the film are really well-chose and well-integrated, even if I do say so myself. It’s my favour­ite At the Movies piece I’ve ever done.