Florian Habitcht/NZ/2004; R0
Magna Pacific, NZ$29.95 | Reviewed by John Spry

WHAT A HAPPY accident it appears Florian Habitcht’s documentary Kaikohe Demolition was – both for Kaikohe and the country at large. Originally slated as a tourism film intended for sale, as well as brokering some interest in a burgeoning career, Florian started and seemingly finished after filming the demolition derby in Kaikohe, Northland. He saw the potential, and with his own brand of narrative and thematic charm broadened the film into a mini-feature celebrated in theatres and on television.

Martin Scorsese/USA/1967+74; R4
Warner Bros, NZ$19.95 | Reviewed by Tim Wong

ORIGINALLY a graduate piece for NYC Film School, Martin Scorsese's Bring on the Dancing Girls (1965) developed into an ongoing affair, first with the addition of a romantic subplot in 1967 (retitled I Call First), and then a year later with the inclusion of a gratuitous "skin" scene at the request of exploitation distributor Joseph Brenner. The picture became known as Who's That Knocking at My Door?; Scorsese would go onto to direct his first great feature Mean Streets; star Harvey Keitel would traverse a similar route of critical success.

Reviewed by Jacob Powell

Little Fish. Small time. Small fry. Those little plastic ‘bottles’ filled with soy sauce you’ll find at any number of sushi outlets – though in this film the ‘little fish’ come filled with a more ‘expensive’ condiment. A pun, seemingly without end, Little Fish works well as the title for this very enjoyable piece of cinema. Forget ‘big fish in a little pond’ or even ‘little fish in a wide ocean’. This is more like ‘little fish in an even smaller, muddy, weed choked pool’.

Three new book reviews from associate editor ALEXANDER BISLEY of filmic interest: Sontag and Kael: Opposites Attract Me, Craig Seligman's "channeling" of two of cinema's greatest film critics; White Cloud, Silver Screen, a new handsome coffee table book that pays homage to NZ-filmed landscapes (text and capsule reviews by Bob Harvey, photographs by Tony Bridge; and The Selling of New Zealand Movies, Lindsay Shelton's account of NZ film and film industry from Slepping Dogs onwards (all reviews located under The Arts Etc. Reader book log).

So the ice has thawed. Those of you who follow the mercurial David Letterman (weekdays, 10.30pm+, Prime) will be well-aware of his perpetual loathing for the Queen of Daytime, O. As with all Dave's pet hates, however, there's never really any deep-seated malice to it: it's all in good jest, and he gets away with it by reverting to self-deprecation when not stand-up defaming. Those who get his schtick – Martha Stewart, Bill Clinton, Dr. Phil – appear happily on The Late Show, despite being the constant butt of jokes. But not Oprah. It goes without saying that she's made for some comedy gold over the years; namely, the seemingly now-defunct Pat & Kenny Read Oprah Transcipts skit, or Dave's failed "Superbowl of Love", which proposed that Oprah and Dave be seated, on stage, facing each other, knees locked together, with Dr. Phil mediating as the two purge their differences in a rainbow of hugs and tears.

Our long-neglected links + resources database is now back online, although granted, still needs some reorganisation and plenty of updating. Those with websites that fit the bill can email a request to be linked to lumiere@lumiere.net.nz for consideration. Where possible, we expect a reciprocal link.

Hysterical, and most definitely strained: Shirley MacLaine's a closet lesbian with a thing for Audrey Hepburn, only it's, like, forbidden 'n all. And when a spiteful young girl at the boarding school they run gets the funny idea they could be more than just close friends, she blurts to her blue-blooded Grandmother – and you know what they say about rumours. Soon, every other mother in town's recalled her daughter from school; rednecks in a pickup truck circle the premises; even the delivery guy leers, fantasizing lewd thoughts about the hot pair. James Garner doesn't strike me as a romantic foil to Hepburn at all, but he's cast as her husband-to-be with a flawed noble streak. They look nothing like a couple, but it gets under MacLaine's skin anyway. She pines and pines some more until she can no longer bear to hide it: she likes girls!

Summer not withstanding, Costa-Gavras' The Ax (Various) – a scathing black comedy of redundancy and revenge – opens November 24th. For those who missed it first time around at the TNZIFF, it's easily one of the year's most bitter and twisted – although the country's record low unemployment rate renders it less than pertinent right now. Later in the season, Vincent Ward's River Queen opens on January 26th; our review is embargoed until then, but without giving away anything, its well-documented production turmoil should not at all be a deterrent in seeing it. Swooping NZ-orientated blockbusters Narnia and Kong needn't get in the way of lesser-known holiday options either: the apparently fantastic Chicken Little and the latest Hayao Miyazaki, Howl's Moving Castle, will both jostle for position come December 22nd. Of the under-the-radar selections screening now: Mysterious Skin (Paramount), a hard-as-nails ordeal; In the Realms of the Unreal (Academy), also from the TNZIFF; Me and My Sister (Penthouse), In Her Shoes-esque going by its description, and with Isabelle Huppert (enough to swing our vote); Gallipoli (Various), the unique retelling of Anzac and Turkish war remembrance; glorious new prints of The Leopard and Dr. Strangelove (Empire); and The Land Has Eyes (Reading), the first ever film made in Fiji by a native. Partly self-financed by director Vilsoni Hereniko, our sources tell us it impressively depicts violence and rape, and is well worth wading through the slosh at Courtenay Central etc. to see.

Martin Scorsese/USA/2005; R4 (2-disc)
Garth Jennings/USA/UK/2005; R4
Roadshow, NZ$39/34.95 | Reviewed by Alexander Bisley

Martin Scorsese directing a documentary on Bob Dylan: How choice a combination is that? Scorsese is possibly the greatest living film director; Dylan is the Buddha of singer-songwriters. No Direction Home develops over 208 beautiful minutes, focussing on the classic 1961-66 period.

"Fucking Hilton!" exclaimed Amy Sherman-Palladino. In a recent interview for Entertainment Weekly, the Gilmore Girls creator took a swipe at the heiress to absent-mindedness – after all, remind me again how this woman got to be so famous? Sherman-Palladino is talking role models here, and while the very idea that said Paris could be one seems paradoxical enough to rip the space-time continuum of our universe apart, truth be told she's an idol to thousands of young women and teen/tween girls. Despite an internet sex tape. Despite a complete lack of vocab. Despite an engagement to a guy (also) called Paris. Such things do not make a role model. By admission though, if riding the cusp of fashion or keeping A-list company gets you on the front of Vanity Fair, then kids these days are more than likely to aspire to be you; meanwhile, making the cover of Time constitutes shockingly, much, much less.

Media Release | November 17, 2005
You are invited to attend a very special event to be held at Sky City Theatre Auckland, on Monday 5th Dec, to help raise medical funds for Brad McGann – the award-winning director of In My Father’s Den.

As some of you may already know, Brad was diagnosed recently with secondary cancer. His doctors have recommended that he take a drug available only through the private sector. Although Brad and his family will contribute the majority of funds, the treatment is expensive and he will need help, not only to afford the medicine but for living expenses while recovering.

Decry as we might the obnoxious aesthetic of modern Hollywood movie posters – you know, big, leering headshots Photoshopped over excessively layered backgrounds where the channels have been mixed and the opacity's been fried – it's generally all we've got to go on. But for one day only, those in search of something more refined are in luck. Collectors, film buffs and interior decorators take note: The NZ Film Festival Trust are spring cleaning their stocks with a Massive Poster Sale, with hundreds of back catalogue film festival posters (including large European and block mounted posters) and souvenir programmes on offer. The rummage sale commences Saturday, November 26 at The Paramount (Wellington) from 10am-1pm. We already have dibs on the Irma Vep poster.

Coming Soon to The Film Archive: You may know Wellington filmmaker D. Thomas Herkes (aka Phats Valient aka Segue Lugosi) for his award-winning documentaries, Boss Christ - Mongrel on the Dance Floor (2001) and Vampire Beach Party (2004). You may know him as a member of hysteria-inducing band Pro Drag, you may even know him as that weird kid from school. But D. Thomas is about to find a new place in the national consciousness. Months of research by buffs at the New Zealand Film Archive have finally confirmed what D Thomas and the team at Vulcan-Electro Picture Productions had long suspected… D Thomas has directed New Zealand’s FIRST EVER Werewolf film. On Thursday November 17 at 7pm the Film Archive is thrilled to bring you the world premiere of D Thomas’ masterpiece Weekend Werewolf or How I became a Homicidal Hotdog.

Donner, Lester, Furie/USA/1978-87; R4 (4-disc boxset)
Warner Bros, NZ$59.95 | Reviewed by Shahir Daud

I’LL BE the first to admit, I cried when Christopher Reeve died. While he was magnificent in James Ivory’s The Remains of the Day, and hysterically funny in Peter Bogdanovich’s Noises Off, no man would ever look as cool wearing blue tights and red underwear (trust me, I tried).

Television may get a bad rap – and by most accounts, it's deserved – but at the same time there's something to be said for its potential as an extension of cinema. Moving images don't operate any differently via a television set, but that they're made to unfold periodically makes for an especially unique, if not inherently thrilling experience. Indeed, given the low threshold and waning attention span of today's accelerated movie audiences, the sixty minute screenplay makes perfect sense; when serialized across twenty or more episodes, the momentum gained is virtually unrivaled.

Nathaniel Khan/USA/2003; R4
Pedro Almodóvar/Spain/2004; R4
Roadshow, NZ$34.95 | Reviewed by Alexander Bisley

My Architect is a son’s intimate, moving journey. Nathaniel Kahn, the publicly unacknowledged child of Louis I Kahn, the architect (and one of his mistresses, Harriet), pieces together his late father’s life. The enigmatic Jew was the driving force behind some amazing buildings. His CV includes the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad and the Exeter Library, New Hampshire. Sadly, many promising projects, such as his beloved Jerusalem synagogue, fell through. His legacy is his visionary ideas from urban design to the commonality of Jews and Muslims.

TV1 continues its fest-orientated doco spurt this Thursday with the fast food binge-experiment Super Size Me (8.30pm). Director Morgan Spurlock downs McDonald's three times a day for an entire month; needless to say, it's discovered to be unhealthy. A given, but questions still remain: how does McFanatic Eric Gorske, for example, eat Big Macs daily and stay a picture of health, while green-preaching Rod Donald dies almost randomly of a heart attack? On a less downbeat note, Sunday sees TV2 embark on its own miniature B-movie marathon: the you-can't-cheat-death teen theatrics of Final Destination (12.10am), followed by the Scientology bomb threat of just about the worst movie ever made, Battlefield Earth (2.35am) – although Travolta's own Perfect gives it a pretty good (or should that be bad?) run for its money. Midday, and Wes Craven gets melo-serious with Music of the Heart (12pm, TV2), while horror gets a proper look-in later that night with Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (10.50pm, TV2). Part of the channel's Sunday night horrors, the slot persists as a hit-and-miss affair, but dredges up the occasional spot of excellence. Previous highlights include The Ring, Body Snatchers and Eyes Wide Shut.—TW

Remake of a remake that even without context, still manages to terrify in its blunted end-of-worldness. Its predecessors were strung up on real-life uncertainties (communism in the Don Siegal original, late-seventies insecurity in the Philip Kaufman version); bold and analogous, they exploited current social and political unease. Abel Ferrara's Body Snatchers does no such thing – but why should it? Consider that human beings have always had a propensity for harvesting fear from the unknown (those Americans, for a start), and you have the basis for a good horror film. Successfully merge that with creepy shit, like organisms which leech onto you in your sleep and suck the very life out of you whilst giving birth to your clone, and you actually have a scary movie.

Reviewed by Catherine Bisley

JANE AUSTEN’s Pride and Prejudice is an addictive drug. Joe Wright’s adaptation is tolerable I suppose, but when compared to the novel or the 1996 BBC mini-series, it is a mediocre hit.

To celebrate our new and improved website (not quite 100% complete, but almost there), The Lumičre Reader has courtesy of Warner Bros. Home Video a fantastic 4-disc boxset of The Complete Superman Collection to giveaway. The recently released edition boasts all four Superman movies, plus countless extras of toil over (see our DVD review here). To enter, simply subscribe to our mailing list by emailing your name and address to giveaways@lumiere.net.nz under the subject heading "SUBSCRIBE + SM". Current subscribers can also enter. New Zealand residents only. One entry per person. Entries close November 30, 2005. Standard terms and conditions apply.

Briefly: our mailing list feature has been offline for the past couple of months, but is now back online. Those wishing to subscribe (or unsubscribe) to our email newsletter The People's Republic of Lumičre can do so by following the link under the "Extras" section on the sidebar, or clicking directly [here]

Reviewed by Tim Wong (2nd take)

RELOCATING premises from contemporary urban Japan to contemporary urban New York makes reasonable sense when considering the All-American J-horror makeover. Going that one step further and taking the sky tram over the East River to Roosevelt Island makes even better sense, and Walter Salles knows it. H20 might be the title character of Dark Water – yet another Hollywood remake of yet another Hideo Nakata film – but the real star on display here comes in towering, foreboding, ghettoized form.

More cherry pickings from the box: this week, festival documentaries get a significant look in. American Experience: Citizen King (9pm, Maori TV) broadcasts Sunday night. Known simply as Citizen King when it screened at the 2004 Telecom New Zealand International Film Festivals, its appearance on the Maori network a year on adds more rep to a channel that's getting noticed for its eclectic film selections. Earlier in the week, the World Cinema Showcase, pre-Charlize doco Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer (8.30pm, TV1) shows Thursday night; the footage and candid interviews at hand in part the basis for the fictionalised account of real-life serial killer Wuornos and Ms. Theron's Oscar-thieving performance in 2003's Monster.