James Croot

Rather than the inventor of the iPod, it’s the spectre of Aaron Sorkin that looms largest over this tale. For not only does rookie writer Matt Whiteley’s script attempt to ape Sorkin’s Oscar-winning screenplay for The Social Network, but the perma-tanned one has a more authorised version of this same story waiting in the wings. In […]

When the end credits for Jurassic Park (an appropriate last hurrah for current and former staff) unspool on Wednesday night, a significant chapter of Dunedin’s cinematic history will close somewhat unceremoniously. Yes, there will be no solemn marches like when the Century and Octagon cinemas were replaced by the southern Edinburgh’s first true multiplex back […]

Jennifer Aniston’s bad girl makeover continues apace with this overlong but fitfully amusing action-comedy.  Shedding her Rachel Green image and plenty of outer clothing, Aniston provides the showstopping highlight as she homages Flashdance in an Aerosmith-scored sexy strip (in capri pants and sensible shoes no-less) “clearly essential to the plot” of this edgier, adult version of […]

Let the healing begin. After the sheer awfulness of James “Logan” Howlett’s 2009 Origins story, Wolvie is back with a vengeance in this brooding yet bravura tale based on one of his most popular comic arcs. Taking him from Grizzly Adams-esque recluse back into the fighting fold, this Japanese sojourn owes more than a debt […]

Having realigned the rom-com and feminised the bromance with the hilarious Bridesmaids, director Paul Feig now attempts to makeover the action-comedy with slightly more mixed success. For while Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy make for an engaging mismatched pair to rival Riggs and Murtagh and Foley and Rosewood, they’re saddled with a predictable drug cartel […]

Trying its darnedest to live up to its lofty moniker, this combination of Avatar, A Bug’s Life, Tron, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and Disney’s Tinkerbell movies boasts plenty of thrills and spills, good humour and an empowering, tall and angular female protagonist – even if things sometimes feel a little rushed and aren’t always in balance. The computer-generated animation is crisp […]

He sped up zombies in Dawn of the Dead, unleashed Sparta and Gerard Butler’s abs in 300 and made the seemingly unfilmable Watchmen watchable, now director Zack Snyder has taken on the grandaddy of superheroes – Superman – in the big-budget “clean reboot” Man of Steel. While in Sydney earlier this week for the Australian […]

This atmospheric 1920s-set tale from Mexican writer-director Dana Rotberg (who made her home in New Zealand after seeing the 2002 adaptation of Witi Ihimaera’s Whale Rider) is essentially a chamber piece populated by three very good acting performances. Best known as a Maori recording artist, Whirimako Black is a revelation in her first film role, while […]

Futuristic sci-fi adventure starring Will Smith and offspring Jaden, playing a father and son who crash land on Earth, a thousand years after humans evacuated – directed by M. Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense). Read more and find movie times. Man, Scientology’s annual summer barbecue is going to be interesting this year. For once, Tom […]

Based on the true oceanic adventure taken by Thor Heyerdahl, this Golden Globe and Oscar nominated Norwegian film follows the legendary explorer’s 1947 journey across the Pacific in a balsa wood raft. Read more and find movie times. Despite a slightly fractured narrative, Norway’s most expensive cinematic undertaking ever is very much a film of […]

Berlin Film Festival-winning French war drama that tells the story of Komona, a girl kidnapped at the age of 12 by rebel soldiers and enslaved to a life of guerrilla warfare in the African jungle. Forced to commit unspeakable acts of brutality, she finds hope for survival in protective, ghost-like visions (inspiring a rebel chief […]

Colin Firth is an art curator and Cameron Diaz as a Texas rodeo queen, teaming up to con his abusive boss (Alan Rickman) into buying a fake Monet painting. Written by the Coen brothers, adapting Michael Caine’s 1966 comedy crime caper. Read more and find movie times. With its eccentric names (Shahbandar), double entendres and […]

French comedy based on the story of Danièle Delpeuch (Catherine Frot), a modest provincial chef and restaurant-owner who in the late 1980s was summoned by President François Mitterrand (Jean d’Ormesson) to be his personal cook at his official residence, the Elysée Palace. Read more and find movie times. Lovers of gastro-porn and fine French dramedy […]

The Documentary Edge Festival is on its way with a selection of over 60 films from New Zealand and abroad. It’ll be the first film festival held at Q Theatre in Auckland from April 10th to 21st, and travels to Wellington May 8th to 19th for screenings at Reading Cinemas Courtenay and the Film Archive. […]

Romantic, sci-fi thriller adapted from the novel by Twilight author Stephenie Meyer, starring Saoirse Ronan and directed by Andrew Niccol (Gattaca). Movie times and read more. Come back Bella and Edward – all is forgiven. Yes, anyone who thought the Twilight quintology represented a low-tide mark in 21st century cinematic storytelling (and let’s be honest, Eclipse was […]

If you only know him as Captain Von Trapp or General Chang then prepare to have your eyes opened to the tour de force that is Christopher Plummer. The veteran actor gives a magnetic performance in this virtual one-man Tony Award-winning production as he brings celebrated broadway actor, screen star and infamous alcoholic John Barrymore […]

It should have been a match made in heaven. Teaming up the stars of two of the more avant-garde and risque romantic movies for the past few years – Love and Other Drugs and Across the Universe – with a Danish director who had already made an acclaimed, period-set literary adaptation. Unfortunately the end result […]

A cross between Troy, TV’s Rome and Planet of the Apes, Spanish director Amenábar’s epic but po-faced tale of shifting religious persecutions is very much a movie of two halves. The first focus is on the thinking Roman’s cheesecake Hypatia, her young acolytes (most of whom are in love with her which leads to one […]

Much like 2004’s Around the World in 80 Days remake, Gulliver’s is a star-studded reimagining of a classic piece of literature that shoots for the moon, aims for laughs and misses both targets by a country mile. Basically a vehicle for Jack Black to showcase his man-child shtick to a more family friendly audience, director […]

It’s hard to know what to make of this US remake of a French farce from last century. On the one hand, Verber’s borderline-offensive tale has been softened for American consumption, on the other it is an unrelentingly sex-obsessed cringe-comedy that follows the formula of virtually every bro and ro-mance of the past few years, […]