Beary Creepy Paddington

If you were around your usual social media haunts yesterday, chances are you would've come across a bunch of memes skewering the forthcoming live-action version of children's book favourite Paddington by inserting the character into famous horror movie scenes (click here for a collection of them). Now the first trailer's out, and though Paddington comes off slightly less creepy than the memes have made him out to be, the film does have a weirdly disgusting WTF moment where the CGI bear (voiced by Colin Firth) sticks toothbrushes into his ears and pulls out globs of earwax and proceeds to sniff and lick said earwax.

Anyway the trailer seems to have Garfield/Yogi Bear vibe, which isn't really a good thing in my books. But I didn't grow up reading Paddington so hey what do I know... Gather your kids close around the monitor and watch Paddington destroy a bathroom:

Trailer: The November Man

Perhaps inspired by the recent career paths of greying 60+ actors like Liam Neeson (Taken) and Kevin Costner (3 Days To Kill) back into action-movie bad-assery, Pierce Brosnan is getting his chance to walk away unharmed from explosions once again in Roger Donaldson's thriller The November Man. The veteran-CIA-operative-trains-young-protege dynamic here bears more than a little semblance to Donaldson's 2003 spy flick The Recruit (and countless other films), so I'm not expecting anything terribly original, but the actor's fans who miss his days as James Bond are likely to be pleased what they see in this trailer:

Grand Theft Auto V: Judgement Day

The geekier contingent of our customer base might dig this Grand Theft Auto V remake of the killer truck chase scene from Terminator 2: Judgement Day. It's a really impressive recreation that makes you appreciate just how awesome that original chase scene is (and that there are people out there who have enough time on their hands to do things like these).

Goodnight, Prince of Darkness

The contributions of celebrated cinematographer Gordon Willis to movies are so monumental it's hard to imagine what modern filmmaking would look like without his influence. Here's a look back at some of his most memorable images:

The Curse of the Sad BatAffleck

When the first image of Ben Affleck from Zack Snyder's upcoming Batman Vs Superman movie was revealed yesterday, I can't say I was able to get too excited about it. But thanks to the internet's army of hard-working photoshoppers and gif-makers, there's at least some amusement to be had from the hilarious memes flooding in...

If you need a quick laugh, click here to see a bunch of 'em.

One Perfect Shot

For those of you geekier -- perhaps more technically inclined -- movie buffs who have Twitter, you need to follow Geoff Todd's One Perfect Shot. The Portland filmmaker has been tweeting what he constitutes "a perfect shot" -- that one single, perfectly composed moment that captures the soul of an entire movie. Some great eye candy for your Twitter feed, plus of course, a fantastic reminder of the beauty of cinema.

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.