First NZIFF Films Announced!

As we head into winter, the New Zealand International Film Festival is warming up, starting today with the announcement of the first four -- all musically-themed -- films confirmed for this year's programme: Kiwi filmmaker Florian Habicht's peek into Britpop band Pulp; the experimental Nick Cave doco 20,000 Days on Earth; Jimi: All Is By My Side, the Jimi Hendrix biopic starring Outkast's André Benjamin; and the offbeat comedy Frank, which features Michael Fassbender in a giant paper mache head for what seems to be most of the film. Check out the trailer for the latter below, and visit the NZIFF website for more info.

Trailer: Blackfish

Ever since its premiere at Sundance Film Festival early last year, Gabriela Cowperthwaite's controversial, anti-SeaWorld documentary Blackfish has been gathering major steam, igniting the debate over keeping orcas in captivity while prompting responses that ranged from bands pulling out from SeaWorld gigs to Pixar rewriting the ending to their Finding Nemo sequel, Finding Dory. There's been the expected backlash of course, not least of all, from SeaWorld themselves, who've been going on the damage control warpath to salvage their increasingly tarnished reputation. If you missed the screenings at the New Zealand Film Festival, Madman will be releasing Blackfish on DVD exactly a month from today; watch the trailer below:

Doco Short: From One Second to the Next

If you're one of those people who have been guilty on occasion of texting while driving, please take some time to watch this short 34-minute documentary by Werner Herzog (Cave of Forgotten Dreams) commissioned by AT&T for an anti-texting-and-driving campaign. Through four sets of moving stories interviewing both victims/families of victims and driving texters, it delivers a loud and clear message, highlighting how a split second decision to attend to something so trivial can irrevocably and tragically alter lives forever. Time to put away that phone while you're on the road folks!

Ocean's Eleven-Style Doco to Save the Ocean

Nat Geographic photographer Louie Psihoyos made an amazing documentary a few years ago called The Cove, which brought to the world's attention the ghastly dolphin massacres that were occurring in Japan. Now he's back with a new project, and it sounds like another ambitious, eco-conscious undertaking that's bound to enrage and educate. But he needs your help to complete it - here's the Kickstarter campaign to raise $50,000 for the film. As pitched by Psihoyos, the description of the doco is enough to pique one's interest: "Think Ocean’s Eleven, The Avengers, but this time it’s real." Can't wait to see what he comes up with.

NZFF Highlight: Room 237

A brief word of praise for Room 237, Rodney Ascher's doco exploring some incredible, out-there meanings and theories hidden in Stanley Kubrick's enigmatic 1980 adaptation of Stephen King's The Shining. Some of it definitely gets you thinking (continuity errors or is Kubrick playing tricks on us?), some of it will make you spit-take in great WTF fashion, but one thing they all have in common is the utter obsessiveness of it all. This is the perfect companion piece to The Shining (alas no double feature pairing at the fest), and if you love the movie, Kubrick or unpacking puzzles and symbols etc, head on down to the Rialto Cinemas in Newmarket at 8:30 tonight for the final screening of the doco. Last night's session sold out, so get in there quick!

Keanu: Man of Renaissance?

Perhaps Keanu's time has come? We can now all stop laughing about his non-acting and look at what he's doing behind the camera! The dude, who's almost 50 (for anyone who's wondering), has a cool little doco called Side by Side playing at the NZFF, which I strongly recommend to anyone interested in the digital takeover of the celluloid as the primary means for shooting and exhibiting movies. Furthermore, his directorial debut, the martial arts flick Man of Tai Chi, is on the way, and it was recently reported that Iko Uwai, The Raid's chief bone-obliterator, has signed on for a role. According to Reeves, there will be about "40 minutes of fighting". I am excited yes. See the clip below for what to expect as he tests out some new tech for shooting the fights:

Short Film: Caine's Arcade

Feeling a little down this morning? Watch this charming short doco about Caine, a 9-year-old boy who builds an arcade entirely out of cardboard in his dad's auto parts store. Totally worth 10 minutes of your day, and safe for work...

Doco Short: The Umbrella Man

Fans of detective fiction, conspiracy theories and oddball phenomena in general should watch this cool short documentary clip by Errol Morris (Standard Operating Procedure) about the "Umbrella Man", a seemingly enigmatic figure spotted in the Zapruder footage that filmed JFK's 1963 assassination. It's a segment from a six-hour interview he conducted with Josiah Thompson, the author of the book "Six Seconds in Dallas" which looks extensively at the Zapruder film.

Even though the man is utterly fascinating and chilling the first time we see him (it's a sunny day, open black umbrella, what the hell??), the "mystery" is not so much what's interesting about this doco, but how it illuminates the notion of macro/micro levels of historical research which Thompson talks about, and what Morris describes as "the nature of investigation and evidence" in his statement. I look forward to seeing more.

(This actually kind of reminds of that silly Cellphone Time Traveler case from last year...)

West Memphis 3 Free!

Incredible news today that the West Memphis Three have been freed! If you've never heard of them, their story has been a truly heartbreaking one, brilliantly captured in two documentaries by Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, Paradise Lost (1996) and Paradise Lost 2: Revelations (2000) - both which sadly, have yet to be released on DVD in our part of the world. It has also come to light that Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh had a hand in helping them, contributing everything from paying legal costs and hiring private eyes to look deeper into the case. A third doco is also on the way - with an ending that no doubt will need to be changed - here's a brief clip from it:

Coming to a Film Festival Near You

The New Zealand International Film Festival (twitter) is just around the corner, so here's a sneak peek at one of the films that's been announced, Exit Through the Gift Shop. This documentary by legendary mystery UK street artist Banksy (or is it?) is destined to be among the the year's most talked-about films... jot this one down in your diary and don't miss out on getting a ticket!

Covin' In

Louie Psihoyos' disturbing dolphin-killing doco The Cove, which opened here last week, seems to be making quite a splash about the place. Which is what it's intended to do of course. The subject matter is so sensitive that the Tokyo International Festival has refused to screen it, citing the film's highly critical stance on Japan's environmental policies as the reason for the rejection. Psihoyos said the decision was "hypocritical", since the festival's theme this year involved protecting the environment.

Another side effect has been the parting of ways between the Australian coastal town of Broome and Taiji, the Japanese village where the dolphin killings take place. Broome and Taiji have been sister cities since the late 19th century, but pressure from residents in Broome have forced the town to sever their historic ties until the slaughter stops. It's also, unfortunately, invited anti-Japanese sentiment there - which is one of the concerns Psihoyos and a Japanese audience member raised when he spoke after the film's second screening at the NZ Film Fest back in July.

Although I don't think Psihoyos has made an anti-Japanese film in any shape or form - and he does point out that the average Japanese citizen does not know about nor do they condone these killings - such extreme, racially motivated reactions seem inevitable, since it depicts strong stuff that inspires strong emotions, and strong emotions often overwhelm reason and perspective.

NZFF: 5-Day Round-Up

Sorry for the lack of film fest udpates, haven't had the time to blog about them in detail, so here's a brief round-up of what I've seen in the last week or so (though if you're following fatso on twitter you might have been enlightened by the occasional NZFF-related tweet):

Winnebago Man - Funny, very touching documentary, truly one of the highlights of the festival so far. Almost left me in tears. Director Ben Steinbauer and producer Joel Heller were in attendance and did a great Q&A after the screening where they called Jack Rebney! Amazing.

Goodbye Solo - Ramin Bahrani's intimate, bracing two-character drama contains some of the finely nuanced writing and acting in a film this year. Kind of like Happy-Go-Lucky by way of Taste of Cherry. Depressing subject matter, but not depressing at all. And it doesn't cop out.

Embodiment of Evil - Brailizian horror maestro Jose Mojica Marins returns to the character that made him famous, Coffin Joe. Third film in the series which began in the '60s; lots of midnight movie yucks in this one, including skin-munching and meat hook-hanging and rats crawling into vaginas, but I fell asleep through most of it (mainly due to the late hour/fatigue).

Birdsong - Still not sure what to make of this piece of IMMENSELY slow cinema from Albert Serra, a minimalist re-telling of the nativity story, but there's something about its mix of the absurd and the spiritual I found quite hypnotic and beautiful. I counted two or three walkouts.

Mother - Bong Joon-Ho's new darkly comic mystery-drama isn't as great as The Host and Memories of Murder, but it's still pretty solid work from a master storyteller whose films I'll always look forward to. Awesome main character and lead performance. Opening and final shots are killer.

The Horseman - Low-budget, DV-lensed Aussie revenge thriller might be the most violent and brutal thing I've seen this year. Father goes on a rampage to knock off porn-peddlin' baddies who killed his daughter. I love a good B-movie revenge flick, but the violence here gets numbing and repetitive after a while.

Blind Loves -A wonderful Slovakian film which follows the lives of four blind people and their relationships. Droll, moving doco with fictionalised elements, another festival winner.

Yes, Madam Sir - Megan Doneman spent 6 years documenting India's first policewoman Kiran Bedi and the result is this stunning, inspiring, illuminating portrait of one woman's resilience and determination to forge ahead in a bureaucratic system that wishes nothing more than to crush her. Must-see.



In the last week of the festival now, and only 5 films to go!

NZFF: The Cove

The first weekend of NZFF's just been and all in all it was a solid, albeit exhausting, start to the fest. I used to be able to sit through 50+ films in two weeks, now seeing 8 in the space of two-three days has become a bit of a slog (chalk it up to age? burnout? This kind of thing is bound to happen when you're in the business of watching movies 24-7, 365 days a year). The snooze factor sunk in during Bright Star and Double Take, but I stayed very much awake through the likes of Troll 2 (funnest screening yet), Still Walking, Red Cliff, Ponyo, Drag Me To Hell, and especially The Cove - which I want to plug a little here.

If you love animals - heck, LIFE - and are free tomorrow at 6:15pm, I urge you to go catch The Cove at the Civic Theatre. I saw this doco on Saturday morning - with a disappointingly small crowd - and it packed a tremendous wallop. Directed by top National Geographic photographer Louie Psihoyos, this riveting work of activism exposes the heart-breaking, though little-known atrocity of dolphin killing in the small seaside village of Taiji, Japan. Ok, so you might be thinking "I'm squeamish, I don't want to see dolphins being killed on film" - and rightly so: when the massacre unfolds, it's as upsetting and disturbing as anything you'll see in a theatre this year. But why The Cove is so effective is that it's not just about that; it's not only about Man's inhumanity to Nature, it's also about Man's inhumanity to Man (dolphin meat made toxic by mercury knowingly being sold to school children for lunch - how wrong can you get?).



And despite the heavy-duty subject matter, Psihoyos has also made a film that's thoroughly accessible and ultimately hopeful. It works as a spry Mission: Impossible-style thriller - the stuff with the crew gearing up to infiltrate the cove is riveting - and the concluding message instills optimism in the viewer, suggesting individuals have the power to bring about change. So go see it, and spread the word! Follow The Cove on twitter here and check out their website here.

Shock News: Worst Movie Ever Made to Play NZFF

Could NZFF be the only "prestigious" international film festival in the world to screen Troll 2, one of the most notoriously, lovably awful movies ever made? If so, I have to say I'm proud to be living in a country where we have film fest programmers who can make such a wonderful thing happen. At the Civic, there'll be showing the latest lovely period art-pic by Jane Campion, then down the road there'll be a bunch of vege-munchin' goblins turning humans into green goo.

We actually have Troll 2 (paired with unrelated Troll 1) on our site but if you've never seen the movie, I totally recommend buying a ticket to the ONE-OFF screening at SkyCity Queen St. on July 10 at 10:00pm. The film goes down like a riot with a packed audience, and it'll be a special experience you won't forget anytime soon - plus its star, former child actor Michael Stephenson will be there to introduce the film and probably do a Q&A after and sign your Troll 2 mousepad or whatever.

Stephenson also made the FANTASTIC documentary Best Worst Movie, which is also playing at the fest, about the rabid Troll 2 cult phenomenon that's grown exponentially over the last decade or so - something best appreciated after you've seen the movie. Best Worst Movie might also be the best feelgood movie of the year - it's that good! Check out this sneak peak...

Winnebago Man Confirmed for Film Fest!

"WINNEBAGO who?" you say... If you've never heard of him, he's the star of one of the most side-splittingly funny viral videos ever: Jack Rebney, a 40-something Gerald McRaney-lookalike who's trying to remember his lines for an RV promo video but keeps screwing up, leading to a torrent of expletives hilariously edited into a blooper reel by the crew he hired to shoot the vid. I originally became aware of Rebney through the Found Footage Festival DVD, and since then the clip has become an internet phenomenon, so much so that filmmaker Ben Steinbauer was compelled to track down Rebney and make a documentary on him! The doco has played to some very good press in the US, and word has it that it is now confirmed to play at this year's Auckland International Film Festival as part of the Incredibly Strange Film programme. Anywho, here's the original clip (WARNING: contains offensive language):