Here are last week’s highlights from my output at RNZ – on the web and on the air.
Five reasons to watch Watchmen
2019’s wonder year for television ended with a bang – I whole heartedly recommend Watchmen, still streaming on Neon.
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This week’s review comes to you from sunny/rainy Auckland where your correspondent is catching up with old friends and enjoying the Auckland cinema scene. The first thing to report is that audience behaviour in the 09 is as selfish and immature as it is at home. Texting and talking is as prevalent at commercial films like The Losers (screening at the otherwise well-appointed Sky City St Lukes) as in Wellington.
The Losers itself would be an easy film to avoid if it wasn’t the only notable Hollywood release of the week. A crack commando squad are hung out to dry by mysterious forces back in Washington. Somehow they have to get back stateside, clear their names and take their revenge on the shadowy mastermind who tries to destroy them. Sound familiar? Yes, it’s The A‑Team and a remake of that comes out in a week or two so you can safely bypass this low-rent version featuring some B‑list stars like Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Watchmen ), Chris Evans (Fantastic 4) and the blandest super villain in history, Jason Patric (Speed 2).
There’s something quite interesting going on with Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time that isn’t immediately apparent from the publicity. Somehow, screenwriters Boaz Yakin, Doug Miro and Carlo Bernard (there’s also a story credit for Jordan Mechner who created the original video game series) have snuck a clever little parable of George W. Bush’s presidency into a big budget action-adventure, past the Disney gatekeepers with the unlikely connivance of blockbuster producer Jerry Bruckheimer (Pirates of the Caribbean).
Now, I’m not suggesting for a moment that this political allegory makes Prince of Persia worth seeing – the rest of the film is so stilted I couldn’t possibly do that – but it does make for an interesting diversion while one is forced to sit through some of the poorest action directing in any recent big budget film.
My big beef with most eco-documentaries is the lack of hope. Whether it’s Rob Stewart (Sharkwater), Franny Armstrong (The Age of Stupid) or even Leonardo DiCaprio (The 11th Hour) most of these films go to a lot of trouble to tell you what’s wrong with the planet but leave us feeling helpless and depressed.
That’s why I like Kathleen Gallagher’s work so much. Her film last year, Earth Whisperers/Papatunauku told ten stories of people who were making a difference, inspiring change and showing us that there are solutions as well as problems. This year she has repeated the tonic, focusing on our waterways and our relationship with the sea: Water Whisperers/Tangaroa.
Of Tone Magazine’s 50 “must own” blu-rays 13 are not actually available in New Zealand legally, or won’t play on NZ purchased players due to region coding. Which is a bit of a waste of time, don’t you think? They also manage to spell Criterion incorrectly right the way through article which adds insult to injury.
After the jump, the list (the article itself is not online):
It’s all about the adaptations this week and contender number one is a film that deserves all the attention it has been receiving, even though it falls well short of its esteemed source material. Zack Snyder’s Watchmen is based on the greatest graphic novel of all time, Moore and Gibbons 1986 pre-apocalyptic masterpiece which is one of the darkest portraits of the modern human condition ever rendered in the bold, flat colours of a comic book.
In a parallel USA in which costumed vigilantes are real but outlawed, the spectre of nuclear annihilation looms over a supposedly free society that is coming apart at the seams. One by one, somebody is disposing of the retired heroes and only masked sociopath Rorschach (who never turned in his mask, revealed his identity or stopped beating up bad guys) deems it worthy of investigation.