Our Kiwi cousins are renowned for punching above their weight with sporting success, Russell Crowes and musical superstars like Split Enz and Crowded House. New Zealand also has a thriving post-punk and alternative music scene largely based around the famed Flying Nun record label. Before that, was a small but energetic punk scene in the 1970’s. The erratic, undercooked but
Read moreBob Trevino Likes It is a low-key American drama based partly on the experiences of its writer/ director Tracie Laymon. At first it feels very slight, almost like a quirky, amiable tele-movie but it ends up packing a surprising emotional punch. Barbie Ferreira (Nope) plays Lily Trevino a very easy going and unassertive young woman who is treated with indifference
Read moreThe success of 2023’s The Super Mario Bros Movie and the dollar signs it registered in the gleaming eyes of studio execs guaranteed we would be subjected to many more years of video game movie adaptations. The latest is A Minecraft Movie which is based on the hugely successful game Minecraft that has obsessed tweens the world over. For those
Read moreAnyone making a gangster film these days faces unenviable comparisons with the genre’s classics, The Godfather, Goodfellas and to a lesser extent Casino. The Alto Knights, from director Barry Levinson and writer Nicholas Pileggi (Goodfellas, The Irishman), is destined to be another victim of this comparison. While well-made and well-acted, it’s a straightforward mobster biopic that noticeably lacks the poetic
Read moreThe unusual but beguiling Latvian animated feature, Flow intrigued an entranced viewers enough to win its category amid a very strong field at the recent Academy Awards. Flow is set in the aftermath of an environmental catastrophe where a flood has submerged most of the land. It’s not explicitly stated but it seems to be a product of climate change.
Read moreSteven Soderbergh’s latest film, Black Bag is a frosty, talky, but intriguing Le Carre-esque British spy thriller where the events mostly play out through computer screens and spiky conversations rather than violent action. Michael Fassbender plays George, an unnervingly clean-cut intelligence agent whose penchant for skivvies and thick-rimmed black glasses make him look like someone from the 1960s and a
Read more