Film

Pietra Brettkelly

Posted 2:26pm Sunday 12th May 2013 by Jonny Mahon-Heap

Maori Boy Genius examines a year in the life of 16-year-old Maori boy wonder, Ngā Raūira Pumanawawhiti, an adolescent, Yale student and future Prime Minister. The film’s director, Pietra Brettkelly, discusses Ngā Raūira’s life pathway, the gamble of documentary filmmaking, and Read more...

The Company You Keep

Posted 2:26pm Sunday 12th May 2013 by Lyle Skipsey

Rating: 3/5 The Company You Keep, directed by Robert Redford, was based on a novel of the same name, and a novel it should have stayed. The story revolves around Jim Grant (Redford) a former Weather Underground militant, who becomes a wanted fugitive after his identity is exposed by a Read more...

American Psycho (2000)

Posted 2:26pm Sunday 12th May 2013 by Jonny Mahon-Heap

The story behind American Psycho’s adaptation from page to screen is almost as troubled and manic as the titular character. Based on Bret Easton Ellis’ seminal work on the moral and materialist woes of 1980s Wall Street America, the work was initially labelled “misogynistic garbage” and “snuff” by Read more...

Jurassic Park 3D

Posted 2:26pm Sunday 12th May 2013 by Basti Menkes

Rating: 5/5 As you may or may not have heard, Steven Spielberg’s seminal Jurassic Park was recently rereleased in theatres in 3D to celebrate the film’s 20th anniversary. Though many films that were shot in 2D and later converted into 3D look like shit (Clash Of The Titans being the classic Read more...

Star Trek Into Darkness

Posted 2:26pm Sunday 12th May 2013 by Sam McChesney

Rating: 2.5/5 I arrived at the midnight premier for Star Trek Into Darkness, two equally bewildered friends in tow, to encounter a menagerie of costumed oddities standing in the Rialto foyer. Trekkies have always been something of a mystery to me; I watched my first Star Trek film only last Read more...

West of Memphis

Posted 4:00pm Sunday 5th May 2013 by Rosie Howells

Rating: 5/5West of Memphis is a documentary film following the case of the West Memphis Three, the teenagers accused and jailed for the murder of three eight-year-old boys from their Arkansas neighbourhood in 1993. With personal interviews with the family of the deceased children, the loved ones of Read more...

Five foreign-language films that should have won Best Picture (this century alone)

Posted 4:00pm Sunday 5th May 2013 by Sam McChesney

Everybody knows that the “World Series” of baseball is anything but; in reality, it’s a competition held between the winners of two different American baseball leagues. The competition’s name is often (and rightly) ridiculed, the perfect embodiment of America’s mentality vis-à-vis the world. Read more...

The Room (2003)

Posted 3:14pm Sunday 28th April 2013 by Rosie Howells

The Room – the “Citizen Kane of bad movies” – brings me unprecedented joy. An American romantic drama concerning the love triangle of Lisa, Jonny and Mark (all wonderfully underdeveloped and wooden characters), it is one of the greatest gifts in my life. The bearer of this gift is Tommy Wiseau. The Read more...

Eternity

Posted 3:14pm Sunday 28th April 2013 by Basti Menkes

Eternity is a Kiwi sci-fi thriller written and directed by Alex Galvin. Set in the near future, it stars Elliot Travers as Richard Manning, a Hong Kong-based police detective who makes a right mess of things in the film’s tense opening sequence. His only shot at redemption is to travel to New Read more...

Iron Man 3 (3D)

Posted 3:14pm Sunday 28th April 2013 by Sam McChesney

Much like the prodigious production of Marvel superheroes themselves, a veritable avalanche of Marvel films has been unleashed in recent times. This century alone, 27 Marvel superhero films have assaulted New Zealand cinemas. Some of them – The Avengers and The Amazing Spider-Man – were damn good. Read more...