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leanne pooley

Beyond the Edge poster

Review: Beyond the Edge, Thor- The Dark World, Inch’Allah, Valley of Saints, Thanks for Sharing and The Counselor

By Cinema, Reviews

Tim Robbins and Mark Ruffalo in Thanks for Sharing (2013)

It’s one of those rare sunny Saturday after­noons in Wellington and I have work to do. But I’m not going to do that work because it does­n’t look like much fun and – for once – writ­ing tiny film reviews seems like the bet­ter option.

Beyond the Edge posterLeanne Pooley made New Zealand’s most suc­cess­ful doc­u­ment­ary ever in 2009 – The Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls – and now turns her eye towards a mountain-sized Kiwi icon, Sir Ed Hillary and his ascent of Everest in 1953. Beyond the Edge is a limp title for the greatest adven­ture ever under­taken by a New Zealander and the film some­times seems a bit blood­less too. The 3D recre­ations of Himalayan scenes – filling in the gaps in the archive of avail­able still and mov­ing pic­ture ele­ments – are thrill­ing though, espe­cially if heights get your heart racing faster as they do I.

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Review: The Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls, Monsters vs. Aliens, The Uninvited, 12 Rounds, Pink Panther 2 and Ip Man

By Cinema, Reviews

I’m not nor­mally one to make box office pre­dic­tions but I have a gut feel­ing that The Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls is going to be massive. It’s an inspir­ing New Zealand story, well told with plenty of humour and music, and the lit­er­ally irre­press­ible Topps’ lust for life shines like a beacon through­out. Using plenty of archiv­al foot­age and pho­tos, Leanne Pooley’s doc­u­ment­ary fol­lows the Twins from idyll­ic rur­al Calf Club Days, through the rough and tumble protests of the 80s, to their cur­rent status as liv­ing legends.

I recom­mend you take your kids so they can see how much of what’s good about New Zealand (that we take for gran­ted) was fought for by these strong and prin­cipled women, who also just hap­pen to be beloved fam­ily entertainers.

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