Features

PREVIOUS – NEXT

PREVIOUS – NEXT

With Junebug, Doubt, The Fighter, The Master and now American Hustle, Amy Adams has five well-deserved Oscar nominations. Her Sydney in American Hustle is a strong female character, lithe and lissom, with dramatic plunging necklines, attractive insights, and hilarious fights with Jennifer Lawrence’s “Picasso of passive aggressive karate”. She’s also terrific on Kiwi screens this […]

Aaron Yap’s back with another batch of hardly-seen, or at the very least, barely-remembered films consigned to the dusty shelves of history – sometimes watching them so you don’t have to… In this edition Aaron checks out a perennial villain turned leading man in Johnny Cool, makes half-hearted apologies for cranking through a lot of […]

PREVIOUS – NEXT

“It’s a movie made in New York, by New Yorkers, filled with New Yorkers, at a time in New York that changed the face of this country and I think the world,” Oscar Isaac passionately exclaimed on Inside Llewyn Davis at the Gotham Film Awards. A couple of months previously, Alexander Bisley participated in Isaac’s group […]

My love for Nicolas Cage is a rare sort – one that traverses both the literal and ironic. I enjoy the talented nostalgia Nic of a bygone era, who headed such daring performances in Lord of War, Adaptation and Leaving Las Vegas. Judging by this first trailer to Joe, he looks set to regain that […]

PREVIOUS – NEXT

A favourite in the Best Documentary category at this year’s Academy Awards, The Act of Killing is a unique, surreal and impactful film that was one of 2013’s most compelling cinema experiences. As the film arrives to home video, we spoke with director Joshua Oppenheimer about his documentary which explores the contemporary consequences of mass […]

 PREVIOUS – NEXT

Before Fight Club came David Fincher’s video for Madonna’s song ‘Vogue’, and before Being John Malkovich came Spike Jonze’s video for Weezer’s ‘Buddy Holly’. Over the past few decades, music videos have proven to be an invaluable launching pad for a huge number of directors. In fact, even our very own 2013 SDGNZ Best Director […]

Aaron Yap serves up another trio of under-recognised films in this, the fourteenth edition of Shelf Life. This latest post features a typically intriguing trio of films in which a snowbound whip-wielding heroine from the Shaw Brothers rubs shoulders with a 1970s thriller starring James Coburn and a tale (set in futuristic 1994) that pits […]

PREVIOUS – NEXT

Close your eyes and conjure a ghostly narwhal lingering in the empty sea, softly crying ‘snuuuuuuuuuub’ in the distance. Now add another ghostly narwhal joining fins with the first narwhal as they both hum ‘snuuuuuuuuuub’. Picture that duo turning into a quartet, then a choir, then to Band Aid, ad infinitum. That’s the sound I […]

PREVIOUS – NEXT

 NEXT

The death of Mike Vraney on January 2nd was a real shit way to start the year. As the founder of home video distro company Something Weird, Vraney was responsible for salvaging and preserving a massive library of films few people would devote the same amount of energy, money and passion into. From the distinctive […]

Part of what made my New Year’s Eve celebrations so memorable was watching the first full trailer for The Raid 2: Berandal. Holy fucking shit. Director Gareth Evans’ tweets leading up to it, along with the glimpse in the original teaser released earlier last year, had me particularly pumped for the car action in it, […]

‘Twas the season for excessive consumption, and Liam and Alex indulged in one of the more confusing Christmas features of their childhood: Jingle All the Way. It’s a ’90s festive classic, but perhaps not in the way it intended to be. Liam and Alex re-watched it, re-thought it and relayed what the hell they were […]

With another year drawing to a close Aaron Yap presents “these brutally culled, sheepishly un-ranked bests of what I saw in 2013”. How do they stack up against the best films of 2013 as decided by all our writers? Read on to find out… TOP 10 ALTERNATIVE LIST Newish/recent movies that I saw non-theatrically, or […]

Kristen Wiig is even more beautiful in person. It’s the World Premiere of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, and the Bridesmaids star is wearing a fetching white blouse and pastel blue jersey. Moderator Dennis Lim, known for his withering critiques of below par Hollywood movies, swoons when Wiig walks on the New York Film […]