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Gravity poster

Review: Gravity, Mr. Pip, Grown Ups 2, Battle of the Year 3D and 2 Guns

By Cinema and Reviews

Gravity movie still

Gravity posterIs Gravity the first really new film of the 21st Century? I haz­ard it may be. It is cer­tainly the first to har­ness the bleed­ing edge of the cur­rent tech­no­lo­gies (per­form­ance cap­ture, 3D, soph­ist­ic­ated robot­ic cam­era rigs) to serve a story that could only really exist in this form. Sure, once his ears had stopped bleed­ing Georges Meliés would totally recog­nise what dir­ect­or Alfonso Cuarón and his screen­writer part­ner (and son) Jonás are doing here, but he would be the first to put his hand up to say that he would­n’t have been able to do it. Same for Kubrick, I suspect.

During a routine shuttle mis­sion high above the Earth, astro­nauts Sandy Bullock and George Clooney are strug­gling to make some adjust­ments to the Hubble tele­scope when Houston (a nicely cast Ed Harris) warns them of some incom­ing debris. A Russian spy satel­lite has been des­troyed by its own­ers caus­ing a chain reac­tion as the little bug­gers kick-off all over the place. Tiny frag­ments of satel­lite travel at leth­al speeds on roughly the same orbit and our her­oes have to get to safety before they risk being vaporised.

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Nine to Noon

By Audio and Cinema

Nine to Noon podcast iconFollowers of the Twitter feed (and “friends” on Facebook) will have been aler­ted to the fact that I am the new reg­u­lar film review­er on Radio New Zealand National’s Nine to Noon pro­gramme,  hos­ted for many years by the estim­able Kathryn Ryan. I’ve been a fill-in on that show – and sev­er­al oth­ers – for a few years now and I was thrilled when I got the call ask­ing me to get my boots on and start warm­ing up for a place in the first team.

Appearances are fort­nightly and I can­’t prom­ise that reg­u­lar Cinematica listen­ers won’t hear the occa­sion­al bit of repeated mater­i­al. I’m only human, after all. For those that haven’t heard the slot before, here is the item from October 10.

I’ll be back in the stu­dio on Thursday to talk about Captain Phillips and Beyond the Edge 3D – on air from about 11.50am.

Cinematica 4/25: School Holiday Roundup

By Audio and Cinematica

Cinematica_iTunes_200_cropLet Cinematica guide you towards the most age-appropriate enter­tain­ment for your little ones (with the help of the Dominion-Post’s Graeme Tuckett). Also fea­tur­ing an extract from the spe­cial Light House Cinema Q&A with Lloyd Jones, author of the nov­el that inspired Mr. Pip.