I missed out on grunge’s guitar-spat sludge of teennui; a religious upbringing will do that to you. But having been accompanied to Last Days by a +1 who defers heart-in-hand to the gospel of Kobain, I imagine that might have been for the best. Because sorry to break it to ya kids, but no juiced-up it-was-Courtney-in-the-greenhouse-with-the-shotgun redeyeing here.

Junk-time runs on a needle-to-know basis (ever wondered why the fuckers can’t keep their dates straight?); Friend says when you’re not high you’re horny, and when you’re not horny everything’s expendable. But nine years later and Boyle’s grit-licked misshapes are right where we left ‘em, clouded in heroin smoke, sadhappy Brit-pop on loop.

Bertolucci doesn’t like to beat around the bush: In The Dreamers he gets anti-Oedipal on our ass with softcore conviction. You might ask, do we really need more horny, ageing Eurateurs flouting viagra prescriptions in the name of bird-flipping American puritanism?

MILF hunters beware: Isabelle Huppert might be the most desirable 50-year-old woman in cinema right now, but tread carefully, 'cos if her on-screen sexual history is anything to go by, then you're in for some seriously f'ed up shit. Fuck, being the operative word in Christophe Honoré's appropriately depraved take on Georges Bataille's posthumous novel Ma mère (My Mother): basically the birds and the bees, role-played for real, with not a pamphlet or euphemism in sight.

Belgium cinematographer Benoit Debie is to shoot Paul Amlehn's upcoming feature films Jeanne Tripier Jeanne d'Arc and The Tears of Eros. Debie is best known for his work on Gaspar Noé's controversial film Irréversible, as well as on Lucile Hadzihalilovic's Innocence, Dario Argento's The Card Player, and Fabrice Du Welz's The Ordeal (part of Ant Timpson's programme at this year's International Film Festival). "Benoit has an excellent feel for mood and atmosphere. His use of color and texture is exemplery. He is, in my opinion, the finest cinematographer working today," says Amlehn. Jeanne Tripier Jeanne d'Arc will being shooting in France and Italy in 2006.

Paul Amlehn was born in Auckland, 1970. He is a writer, a performance artist, and a director of film and video art. His works in progress have featured previously on Lumière.

From the wires: Calling all potential Spielbergs and Jacksons. Looking for something to do this summer? Then Moonlight Shorts, a frickin’ fun new film competition from the creators of 48HOURS, is looking for you. The premise is so ingeniously simple – it may just work.

Joe Dante/USA/1990; R4
Warner Bros, NZ$14.95 | Reviewed by John Spry

THIS 1990 sequel to the modest 1984 hit Gremlins, also available from Warner Bros. Home Video, comes newly released to DVD. With its intertextuality and layered pop culture references, Gremlins 2: The New Batch deserves a revisit – not only via the Spielberg influence, but through the B-movie pedigree brought to the plate by director Joe Dante making the most of a formulaic script.

Alejandro Amenábar/Spain/2004; R4
Anthony Jay, Jonathan Lynn/UK/1986-87; R4 (2-disc)
Roadshow, NZ$34.95/59.95 | Reviewed by Alexander Bisley

IT'S disquieting to see the great Javier Bardem, such a sensual, lively presence in films like The Dancer Upstairs and Live Flesh, play a man whose body is so cruelly withering away in The Sea Inside. The Oscar-lauded film tells the true story of Ramon Sampredo, the Spanish artist, who challenged the Spanish government for thirty years for the right to end his life after a horrific swimming accident left him a quadriplegic. As Ramon, the great Javier Bardem is once again passionate, generous and brilliant.

The ape has escaped. On the eve of King Kong straddling the Empire State Building all over again, SAM KELLY and SHAHIR DAUD chart the history of the beast – via the classic thirties original, and the much-maligned seventies remake – before offering a firsthand review of Peter Jackson's new $200-million version.

Media Release | December 10th, 2005
Following last year's inaugural success, Havelock North entrepreneurial film lovers, Doris and Urs Blum have prepared a cinematic smorgasbord for their second season, opening at the Black Barn Amphitheatre on January 24th.

This year they're inviting guests to pick and choose from twelve films, each carefully chosen to tantalize and delight in the open air under the stars. From the Hawke's Bay Premiere of 3-Iron, a beautiful romantic drama exploring destiny and diversity from Korean director Kim Ki-duk, to a big wave roller-coaster romp through the history of surfing, Riding Giants, there's plenty of variety to more than satisfy a broad range of film appetites.

A Bradlands followup: by all accounts a successful night, with the holy grail Auckland Film Festival pass – valid for 20 years – closing at $5000 (for some cine-maniacs, at $250 a year, an theoretical saving in the long run). The man of the moment, Brad McGann, was unable to attend to event himself – his poor health preventing him from doing so. Post-fundraiser, those still wishing to donate to the cost of McGann's treatment can do so via the following.

Briefly: The Festival Reader is in hibernation until next year, when the local festival season picks up. Upcoming theatrical releases of festival films that screened this (or sometimes last) year include Howl's Moving Castle (Dec 22, NZIFF05), Mad Hot Ballroom (Dec 26, NZIFF05), Kiss Me First (Dec 29, ITALIAN) + to DVD Head-on (Dec 11, NZIFF04), Robot Stories (Dec 11, AFFA04), One Night in Mongkok (Dec 11, AFFA), Phone (Dec 14, AFFA05), Three Extremes (Jan 11, NZIFF05) and Red Lights (Jan 18, WCS05).

The bomb has dropped. Call it what you will, but Veronica Mars (Friday, 7.30pm, TV2) is the most subversive thing on the box at the moment – a statement anyone who saw Friday night's anvil-of-an-episode will vouch for. That includes ruling out Desperate Housewives, the so-called sophisticate of the soap-dish: really nothing more than four dolled-up MILFs on a hiding to nothing 'cos – surprise, surprise – they're trapped in the infinity of suburbia. Wisteria Lane just happens to be another Rockwell-tinted derivative of the suburban facade, something that might've been pertinent back in the fifties when pre-packaged living was all the Time-Life rage, only *yawn* nowadays, the bubble-wrap culdesac is as ubiquitous as it is problematic (don't get me started).

Media Release | December 1st, 2005
This is your last reminder to get tickets to the Bradlands Fundraiser on Monday December 5th. If you haven't bought your ticket from Ticketek, what are you waiting for? Check out all the new auction items below.

A terrific auction with one-off items donated from NZ film luminaries (Peter Jackson, Sam Neill, Roger Donaldson, Vincent Ward, Ian Mune) – as well as once-in-a-lifetime opportunities (A 20-year Film Festival Free Pass) – kicks off a fundraiser to help raise medical funds for Brad McGann, the award-winning director of the NZ box-office hit In My Father’s Den.

Reviewed by Kim Lesch

HUMAN BEINGS aren't connected by all that much; we, as a species, perhaps aren't known for recognising that people all have the same basic wants and needs. To be loved, to be respected, to be recognised, to do right. Good art tends to showcase and draw upon these very emotions. Just as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind effortlessly demonstrated how great human stupidity (or genius) can be when love is involved, Joyeux Noël (Merry Christmas) puts on a great show of the emotive power that music holds, and even moreso, that of the value of human life in a wartime mentality of 'us' versus 'them'.

Congratulations to S. Douglas of Bay of Plenty, winner of The Complete Superman Collection, courtesy of Warner Bros. Home Video. Your prize will be mailed shortly. Thanks to the many who entered.

What is it with Six Feet Under (Thursday, 9.30pm, TV1) and dead people? Being harassed from the grave isn't unheard of in television drama, but for a show about undertakers, you almost expect it to be commonplace. The Fisher family pillar head, Nathaniel Fisher (Richard Jenkins), carked it in the pilot episode, and since then has made regular visits from the afterlife to see his wife, daughter and sons. He usually offers advice; not so Lisa (Lili Taylor), Nate's (Peter Krause) dead hippy wife who materialized in last week's season opener (the fifth and final) to lay the smackdown on Brenda (Rachel Griffiths). She was pregnant with Nate's child, only miscarried the night before their wedding. Most sane folk would have postponed, but fuck that. They tie the knot the next day as scheduled, despite placenta still running between her legs.