Something to watch tonight: Tuesday 27 May

Scratching around the archives for some­thing to recom­mend that’s actu­ally avail­able online in Aotearoa, I wondered wheth­er you’d be more inter­ested in some­thing com­mer­cial and family-friendly or an obscure but effect­ive Icelandic thriller.

Then I thought – why not both?1

Zach Galifianakis pretty much phones in his per­form­ance in the new Lilo & Stitch but back in 2009 he was a bit more reli­able. It helps that in G‑Force he’s part of a much more high-powered vocal ensemble:

In G‑Force 3D guinea pigs save the world from – actu­ally I can’t tell you as the twist is quite a good one. A top secret research pro­ject involving Zach Galifianakis (The Hangover) and rodents with the voices of Nic Cage, Sam Rockwell and Penélope Cruz is pressed into ser­vice when an entire con­sumer brand (toast­ers, cof­fee makers, etc) goes ber­serk. The anim­a­tion is first class (and CGI rodents are always cute) but the film as a whole nev­er really gets going. It’s a Bruckheimer pro­duc­tion so was prob­ably con­sumer tested bey­ond endurance.

Also reviewed in that October 2009 Capital Times school hol­i­days column: Robert Rodriguez’ Shorts (“worth a look”); The Secret of Moonacre; Miyazaki’s Ponyo; Jack Black and Michael Cera play cave­men in Year One; inspired by High School Musical, Fame gets a reboot; a ter­rif­ic doc­u­ment­ary about the 2007 Broadway reviv­al of A Chorus Line, Every little Step; Nazis and the res­ist­ance race to the top of the Eiger in North Face (“It’s def­in­itely not for ver­tigo suf­fer­ers but the alpine scenery is stun­ning. Sadly, the film fails to man­u­fac­ture much ten­sion back down on the ground.”); John Malkovich in the fea­ture adapt­a­tion of J.M. Coetzee’s Booker Prize-winning Disgrace; Michelle Pfeiffer, Stephen Frears and Christopher Hampton reunite for Chéri.

Or maybe you would prefer this (from my pre­view of the 2013 NZIFF Autumn Events festival):

I was a little snarky towards the NZFF on Twitter when they announced that Baltasar Kormákur’s The Deep was going to play. After all, the last film of his that loc­al audi­ences got to see was the woe­ful Contraband star­ring Mark Wahlberg. It turns out that was a Hollywood remake of an already suc­cess­ful Icelandic thrill­er that Mr. Kormákur pro­duced and very likely his director’s fee made The Deep pos­sible. So, snark withdrawn.

The Deep (oth­er­wise known as the typo­graph­ic­ally chal­len­ging Djúpið) is the true story of a fish­ing boat that sinks off the coast of Iceland in 1984 and the remark­able story of the sole sur­viv­or, played by Ólafur Darri Ólafsson. After watch­ing his col­leagues expire one by one in the freez­ing North Atlantic, he man­aged to swim to shore and then stumble bare­foot across the vol­can­ic ter­rain back to town. His reward: sci­ent­ists pok­ing him like a cir­cus freak and the guilti­est of guilty con­sciences. The Deep is a very good film and among oth­er things it gives the lie to that myth that Icelanders are the best trawl­er­men in the world.

Autumn Events (and its pre­de­cessor, the World Cinema Showcase) was a ter­rif­ic fest­iv­al and there’s noth­ing quite like it for New Zealand audi­ences now. In that pre­view I men­tion the 4K res­tor­a­tion of Lawrence of Arabia (Embassy Theatre); Asghar Farhadi’s About Elly; chilling doc­u­ment­ary about American incar­cer­a­tion, The House I Live In; and behind-the-scenes doc­u­ment­ary Where the Condors Fly2.

Where to watch G‑Force

Worldwide3: Streaming on Disney+

Where to watch The Deep

Aotearoa, Australia: Streaming on Beamafilm (free from par­ti­cip­at­ing pub­lic lib­rar­ies but they have rent­al options, too)

Canada, Ireland, India, USA, UK: Digital rental