News
Reviews - Wish You Were Here
Reviewed by David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter.
Its core plot elements might almost be mistaken for The Hangover Part II remade as a dramatic thriller. But that would be trivializing Wish You Were Here, a psychologically complex account of one man's unexplained disappearance during a Southeast Asian vacation and the fallout for the three friends traveling with him. Anchored by a riveting performance from rising star Joel Edgerton (Warrior), Australian director Kieran Darcy-Smith's debut feature maintains a vice-like grip that reaches maximum intensity as the mystery is solved.
Co-written by the director and his wife, Felicity Price, who also acquits herself effectively in a lead role, the film begins with a cunning false clue. Looking out across the water on a pristine beach in Southern Cambodia, Jeremy (Antony Starr) answers the ultimate fantasy question of where he would most like to be by saying, "I'd stay here." The screen then explodes behind the opening titles into a kaleidoscope of vibrant color, bustling street life, chaotic movement and exhilarating music that conveys both the seductive exoticism and the dangerous otherness of the place.
A handful of ecstasy pills are distributed during a wild night of drinking and dancing, before the action cuts abruptly to pregnant Alice (Price) and her husband (Edgerton) returning home to Sydney. It's clear something is wrong from the uncomfortable glances exchanged with Alice's mother (Tina Bursill) as she hands over their two young children (Otto Page, Isabelle Austin-Boyd), and the quietest suggestion of tension as the family sits down to dinner. But only when Dave goes online later, looking for news updates, do we discover Jeremy has been missing for nine days.
Shifting in nonlinear but fluid fashion between Sydney and Cambodia, in the present and the recent past, it's revealed that Jeremy had been dating Alice's flaky younger sister Steph (Teresa Palmer) for only a month or two before the trip. She urged the couple to accompany them, partly out of insecurity about the fledgling relationship and partly to force them to take a break before the increased responsibility of a third child. But beyond a rudimentary explanation on his Asian import business, none of them knows much about handsome, easygoing Jeremy.
Read the full review here.
Read the Film.com review here.
Read the LA Times review here.
Read the Variety review here.
Love is a Street Fight
presented by I'm Not Content Productions
BASEMENT THEATRE, 14 - 18 February
i'm Not Content Productions present an evening of short theatre; six original plays inspired by the idea that 'Love is a Street Fight', written by, directed by, and featuring local and emerging talent. A mixed bag of comedy, romance and drama.
Featuring:
A Number Sacrificed, A Name Saved
written by Sophie Fletcher
directed by and featuring Ashton Brown and Tom Kane
Two Blind Men
written by Laurence Dolan
directed by Benjamin Teh
featuring Jeremy Rodmell and David Rumney
All My Dreams Are Nightmares
written and directed by Ashton Brown
featuring Kat Glass and Tom Kane
Solitaire
written by Shane Garnett
directed by Natalie Braid
featuring Daniel Cresswell and Timothy Whale
What We Built
written and directed by Kat Glass
featuring Rachel Longshaw-Park and Jonathan Riley
All My Clients Are Lonely
written by Ashton Brown
directed by Tom Kane
featuring Kat Glass and Ashton Brown
for more information and to book tickets visit the iTICKET website or phone (09) 361 1000
Netherwood coming to a town near you
Taken from TimeOut, NZ Herald.
It's had primetime current affairs coverage and celebrity endorsements. But local movie Netherwood - a rural western thriller produced by and starring onetime Shortland Street-ers Will Hall and Owen Black - hasn't been able to get itself a cinema run, despite selling out its sessions in Christchurch at the New Zealand International Film Festival last year.
So its makers are taking it on the road for a series of 23 one-off screenings starting at Auckland's Academy Cinema on January 28 and ending up at the Waipara Community Hall, near where it was shot in 2009, in late February.
Read the full article here.
For more information and to book tickets visit the Netherwood website
Tommy Lee Jones to film war movie in NZ
Taken from TimeOut, NZ Herald.
Famously gruff American actor Tommy Lee Jones is returning to New Zealand to play US General Douglas MacArthur in Emperor, a movie set in the aftermath of the Japanese surrender in World War II.
Earlier in his career Jones came here to make the 1983 adventure movie Savage Island - also known as Nate and Hayes - in which he played legendary South Seas pirate Bully Hayes.
Read the full article here.
New Performance Festival
presented by THE EDGE
17 - 25 February
Welcome to the New Performance Festival
- Stephen Bain, Curator.
New Performance Festival is a snapshot of new movements in performance from around the country and a sampler box of overseas treats.
All have been invited to take part in this festival based on their likelihood to change your minds as to what live performance can be. This selection celebrates the brave non-conformists who gleefully mix many art forms.
When I first saw Rimini Protokoll's work Call Cutta in a Box a few years ago, played out entirely on the telephone between myself and the person on the other end of the line, I realised I had to rethink what performance is.
Similarly, the New Zealand artists I have selected take the live experience into rich new territory with a fresh playfulness and absolute conviction.
The local programme is complemented by leading artists from Canada. Europe and Australia.
About half of the shows were created last year and made a big impression, the other half are brand new artists whose work I admire. The prices for the new shows are a steal of $10 to encourage you to see something you might not have seen before.
Join us in the festival bar for the Ping Pong Pit action-enhanced conversations with some of the artists, visiting bands for good-time dancing into the night, and three day-time workshops from performance specialists.
Most shows are in the pop-up underground theatre venue (Auckland's best kept secret) just downstairs from the Festival Bar on the ground level of the Aotea Centre, so track me down after the show and tell what you think!
For further information visit the New Performance Festival website
Madeleine Sami on CBC Radio
Listen to Madeleine Sami talk to Laurie Anderson of CBC Radio about her upcoming international tour with No. 2.
Listen to the interview here.
Review - Sione's 2
Reviewed by Steve Kilgallon, Stuff.
Writers James Griffin and Oscar Kightley first proposed a sequel to Sione's Wedding back in 2006 but, despite the landmark success of that movie, nearly six years have now passed since the original was released.
Explaining that time lapse in the lives of their characters was clearly the most substantial challenge Kightley and Griffin faced in producing this sequel, and their answer comes in the catalytic events of the opening scenes, which makers South Pacific Pictures asked (very nicely) that we don't reveal.
So we won't, except to say it ain't about a wedding this time.
Essentially, Sione's 2 becomes a quest movie, sending the bous off on a mission designed to show that they've finally grown up.
Of course, they haven't quite. One of the appeals of Sione's 2 is that the entire core cast have returned, and we know their characters so well: nerdy Albert (Kightley), pants-man Michael (Robbie Magasiva), drunk Sefa (Shimpal Lelisi), impressionable Stanley (Iaheto Ah Hi) and Dave Fane's otherworldly Bolo.
Now Michael is living offshore, Albert is living on the Shore, Sefa is unemployed and Stanley has found God and, in particular, Kirk Torrance's entertaining and thinly disguised version of Destiny Church leader Brian Tamaki.
The shared histories of those lead actors again translates well to an on-screen understanding which keeps the pace quick and the story rolling.
Despite a somewhat darker plot, it retains the resolutely cheerful, upbeat tone of Sione the first. It also has neatly etched cameos (I do like Mario Gaoa's saturnine cab driver) and a side attraction of location-spotting.
But some of the humour is perhaps a little insular. I found the funniest part to be a riff by Kightley's character Albert - tussling with the ennui of middle-aged, middle-class life away from his old mates - about the soullessness of Glenfield.
It's a joke any Aucklander will appreciate but which may be lost in the provinces and completely meaningless to viewers further afield.
The other challenge of a five-year gap is the anticipation involved. Sione's Wedding, fresh, genuinely funny and innovative, was something special in New Zealand cinema.
Sione's 2 won't and never could have attained quite that status, but seen on its own merits, it proves worth the wait.
Watch the trailer HERE.
Matthew Fox coming to Auckland for war movie
Taken from NZ Herald, by Andrew Koubaridis.
Lost actor Matthew Fox is coming to Auckland to star in a new movie that has been called a major coup fo the local film industry and the city,
The 45-year-old will play the lead role in Emperor, a film based on post-World War II Japan. Filming begins at film studios in Henderson this month.
Emperor will be the first major production filmed at the West Auckland facility since Auckland Council Investments (ACIL) took control of the studios last year.
Read the full article here.
New Year's Honours: Pio Terei
Taken from NZ Herald, by Amelia Wade.
Working as a salesman at an Auckland car yard in the 1980s, Pio Terei had no idea he would carve a successful career in entertainment.
But that was exactly what he did, and today he is recognised for his shaping a life around making others smile.
The New Year honour for his services to entertainment came "out of the blue" for the ever-humble man, who said he was still having trouble believing it was true.
"I'm wondering who put me up for it, but it was really cool."
As Terei sees it, the greatest part about being made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit is the honour it has brought to his family name. "To see your grandparents' name, or our name, in that category is pretty special you know? I think that's the big buzz for us to see.
"Maori think that way, it's not just about you," he said.
Read the full article here.
NZ named one of the world's top film locations
Taken from NZ Herald.
New Zealand has been named as one of the "Top Ten Filming Locations in the Universe" by United States movie magazine P3 Update in its December issue.
New Zealand and Canada were the only two countries individually named in a list comprising the United Kingdom and several states of the USA.
Film New Zealand chief executive Gisella Carr said the accolade was a tribute to the hard work of the country's industry and was also an incentive to invest in our talent.
Read the full article here.