Film
By Salient | October 6, 2008
When thinking about the last Salient film section I looked to the film section of ‘04 for advice about how to go out with style, but instead we decided to have a couple of drinks, give ourselves awards and talk about our favourite films: More
By Salient | October 6, 2008
About Sex and the City, Jenna Powell wrote “You expect a slaphappy rushed piece of shit and that is exactly what you get.”
About Vantage Point, Haimona Peretini Gray wrote “Vantage Point has been described as having a ‘high-concept premise’, and this would be true if the writer had meant ‘premise that is fucking stupid’.” More
By Jenna Powell | October 6, 2008
Despite several Salienteers’ attempts at destroying the film Mary Poppins (and indirectly my childhood) through highlighting some alleged LSD and deviant sexual practices it is still my favourite movie. Maybe I just do not want to grow up but there is something about the film Mary Poppins that makes me feel all warm and happy inside. It takes me back to a simpler time of fairy bread and princess shoes. More
By Matthew Proctor | October 6, 2008
The theme of ‘man alone’ is portrayed so perfectly that it brings a tear to the eye. There are few films that carry a theme as well as Fitzcarraldo does.
Fitzcarraldo tells the story of one man against the world. Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald, also known as Fitzcarraldo, is a man with dreams. Klaus Kinski brings the intensity to the role that the movie demands. His focus is singular, sublime. In order to raise enough funds to bring the opera to Peru, he develops an elaborate scheme to get to an area of rainforest where the rubber trees have never been harvested. More
By Tristan Egarr | September 29, 2008
There are deeper, dark things in this world.
Time, and its terrible legacy upon those who have lived it, seeps from Rain of the Children through a succession of clips of a younger Vincent Ward with Nick Cave hair, artfully holding his palm over the lense, interviewing an old woman care for her son. It stares at us through old stills and new recreations of Rua Kenana’s Maungapohatu. More
By Rei Ayanami | September 29, 2008
This week’s anime is Jigoku Shoujo or ‘Hellgirl’. Like Mushishi, one can drop in and out at any time as each episode has a stand alone story. The general gist is that, in each episode, somebody has been tormented to varying degrees and they can have revenge or justice upon their tormentor by calling upon Hellgirl via her website. More
By Matthew Proctor | September 29, 2008
A Brain, an Athlete, a Basket Case, a Princess and a Criminal are all in school for weekend detention. None of them know each other; none of them needs to. From how they all dress, they know everything they need to about what they are like as people. Everything relevant, conveyed purely by sight. More
By Jenna Powell | September 29, 2008
Truth be told, try as I might, I am not a film wanker. I do not delight in the harsh but oh so tragically beautiful minimalist portrayals of reality. That sentence sounds like it needs more appropriate adjectives so I’ll chuck edgy and raw in there as well. More
By Anna Macrae | September 22, 2008
Directed by Jaume Balaguero and Paco Plaza
When I heard that a new Spanish zombie movie was making people throw-up and crap themselves in the theatre, there was no way I was missing out. And although I think I’m a pretty tough girl (I only flinched once or twice in The Dark Knight), it was probably one of the top ten freakiest movies I’ve ever seen. More
By Rei Ayanami | September 22, 2008
Mushi-shi follows a man named Ginko as he travels through the world encountering the Mushi in their various forms. The Mushi are a form of bacteria - for want of a better word - that appear throughout the world. They are used to explain certain natural occurences, for example, one boy becomes deaf due to Mushi that live in his ears and eat sound. More
By Tristan Egarr | September 22, 2008
A discussion with Vincent Ward
Thirty years ago, young art student Vincent Ward spent 18 months in the Ureweras filming 80-year-old woman Puhi care for schizophrenic adult son Niki for the film In Spring One Plants Alone. Although historian Judith Binney managed to dig up information linking Puhi to the prophet Rua Kenana, whose community Maungapohatu was raided in 1916, Ward decided not to probe her on this at the time, as he was interested in how she lived in the present, rather than the factual details of his past. More
By Haimona Peretini Gray | September 15, 2008
While it may seem too great an ambition and too harsh a criticism to compare Mad Men to anything produced in this country — its single series budget would be equal to the entire TVNZ local content budget — it does illustrate the quality difference between the best of us (umm I guess Outrageous Fortune isn’t bad) and the best of the world. More
By Haimona Peretini Gray | September 15, 2008
There is an undeniable theatre to the 1960s: the flowing suburban dresses, the sharp pinstriped lines of the suits, even the typewriter has its own overcoat. This kind of idiosyncratic design is shown in full bloom in Mad Men, former Sopranos writer Matthew Weiner’s take on the cutthroat world of advertising. Its aesthetic beauty is symptomatic of the appearance-conscious setting and fits faultlessly into this world. Mad Men’s greatest asset (besides its acting) is its attention to the minutiae. More
By Tristan Egarr | September 9, 2008
Season two of Skins opens with a hip hop dance routine, followed by a dramatic musical performance of a jingoistic US take on 9/11. Later in the season we get a climactic bonding moment across a crowded room to the jarring bleeps of Crystal Castles; a trip to the beach to the sound of the Arcade Fire, which devolves into a fist-fight to Battles’ ‘Atlas’; and, in the final episode, a car chase to ‘Baby One More Time’ followed by a funeral with fireworks to ‘Seven Nation Army’. More
By Anna Macrae | September 8, 2008
Directed by Phyllida Lloyd
Take a 70s pop ‘band’ (if you can call them that), an unspoiled Greek island, and an actress whom in previous films has played a chick with boobs that tell the weather, and what do you end up seeing one sad Thursday morning? Mamma Mia! of course! My my, how could I resist it!? More
By Tristan Egarr | September 8, 2008
Directed by Deepa Mehta
On the night of 2 December 1998, two hundred followers of the Hindu nationalist party Shiv Sena stormed a cinema in suburban Mumbai and smashed equipment in protest at Deepa Mehta’s Fire. The film, which had been running to full houses for almost a month, offended them not so much because it depicts a pair of neglected housewives forming a lesbian relationship, but because they take their names from the goddesses Sita and Radha; More
By Sarah Leslie | September 8, 2008
Directed by Ole Christian Madsen
Christoffer (Mads Mikkelsen, last seen in the compelling family drama After the Wedding, and, more notoriously, scratching Daniel Craig where the sun don’t shine in Casino Royale) and Maja travel from Denmark to Prague to retrieve Cristoffer’s father’s body. The father inexplicably left when Christoffer was 12, and had barely spoken to him since. More
By Jenna Powell | September 5, 2008
Bryan Bertino’s The Strangers is the perfect date movie. It’s the kind of film you watch with that significant someone, hold each other, get shit scared then go home and make hot passionate love. THIS IS NOT HOW I WATCHED THIS FILM! Like a fool I went with my equally wussy flatmate and got so scared we were laughing hysterically – not because it was amusing but because if we did not laugh we would cry. More
By Haimona Peretini Gray | September 1, 2008
Directed by Fritz Lang
It is said that Joseph Goebbels was so impressed by Metropolis that he offered Fritz Lang the position as head of Universum Film AG (the powerful German film studio, which became synonymous with propaganda following the ascension of the Nazi party), however not being a fan of the fascists he chose to flee his home land, continuing to direct in Hollywood, but none of his US films ever lived up to Die Nibelungen and Metropolis which ensured his place as one of the silent era’s greatest directors. More
By Haimona Peretini Gray | September 1, 2008
Directed by Ben Stiller
Parody has been given a bad name recently. The constant stream of excrement poured out by members of the Scary Movie team has tarnished what used to be one of the most entertaining genres of film, but Zoolander Writer/Director/Star Ben Stiller is back to save the genre with his homage to the war film. More
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