Film

La Chambre bleue/The Blue Room

Posted 2:16pm Sunday 2nd August 2015 by Greta Melvin

Rating: 4/5 Based on George Simenon’s novel of the same name, Mathieu Amalric’s film adaptation of La Chambre bleue is an erotic psychological thriller with an element of crime. However, La Chambre bleue doesn’t position itself as a whodunnit but, instead, invites the audience Read more...

Interview with Virginia Heath

Posted 2:12pm Sunday 26th July 2015 by Mandy Te

Critic: When going through all the Scottish film archives, did you have specific things in mind when choosing what you would use, and how did you know which footage to pick? It was a fluid process. I wanted an overall theme of love and loss, which relates to a lot of things such as war, Read more...

Scream Season 1 (Episode 1)

Posted 2:07pm Sunday 26th July 2015 by Mandy Te

TV With slasher films being seen as a fad of the 1980s, the Scream franchise was said to have revitalised the horror genre in a way that was both satirical and enjoyable for teenagers in the 1990s. MTV’s Scream: TV Series is the television adaptation of the popular franchise and, in several Read more...

Paper Towns

Posted 2:03pm Sunday 26th July 2015 by Mandy Te

Rating 3/5 Like all things John Green, Paper Towns is a metaphor. With last year’s release of The Fault in Our Stars, comparisons will inevitably be made between these two films. However, Paper Towns — while similarly containing teenage characters who speak unnaturally — takes Read more...

Magic Mike XXL

Posted 2:01pm Sunday 26th July 2015 by Shaun Swain

Rating: 4/5 Steven Soderbergh’s Magic Mike was a low-budget arthouse tragicomedy about male strippers that surprised audiences with its narrative depth. Now removing the “tragedy” and substituting the “arthouse” with “road trip”, Gregory Jacobs’ Read more...

Aliens

Posted 1:59pm Sunday 26th July 2015 by Alex Campbell-Hunt

Classic From a time when quality sequels were probably even rarer than they are now, Aliens is a mind-blowing second instalment to the 1979 Alien. After surviving the events of the first movie, Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) returns to civilisation after being in stasis for 57 years. Read more...

Interview with Bill Gosden

Posted 2:09pm Sunday 19th July 2015 by Mandy Te

From 30 July to 16 August, the New Zealand International Film Festival (NZIFF) will be screening almost 100 films from 25 countries. Critic interviewed Bill Gosden, the director of NZIFF, to learn more about the event. What does your role as director of NZIFF entail? I’m responsible for Read more...

Ted 2

Posted 2:05pm Sunday 19th July 2015 by Shaun Swain

Rating: 1/5 If I described Seth MacFarlane’s sequel to Ted as incredibly masturbatory, I would only be lowering myself to the level of MacFarlane’s tasteless sense of humour. But it doesn’t matter. Ted 2, despite its painfully large budget, provides no inspiration for good Read more...

The Falling

Posted 2:02pm Sunday 19th July 2015 by Jaxon Langley

Rating: 3/5 Following her heartbreaking docu-drama, Dreams of a Life, Carol Morley brings us The Falling — a bewitching, deadpan period portrait of female adolescence that explores the subject of mass psychogenic illness and treads into other dark territory. Although it is well-written and Read more...

NZIFF Programme Launch Film: Mavis!

Posted 1:59pm Sunday 19th July 2015 by Mandy Te

Rating: 3/5 This year’s New Zealand International Film Festival (NZIFF) is Dunedin’s biggest film festival to date. With almost 100 films from 25 countries, the 39th Dunedin International Film Festival celebrated the launch of its programme with a delicious array of macarons, dips, Read more...