Forthcoming seminars of note at Auckland University: the Department of Film, TV & Media Studies in conjunction with The Centre for Cultural Inquiry have invited Professor Colin MacCabe (Universities of Pittsburgh and Exeter) to give a number of talks next week. Of particular interest are those on Jean-Luc Godard and Donald Cammell/Nicolas Roeg's Performance (1970). Considered one of the leading English-language authorities on Godard, MacCabe's published works include 'Godard: Portrait of the Artist at 70' (London: Bloomsbury 2002) and 'Performance' (London: British Film Institute 1998). All talks are free and in most cases open to the public. More detailed information can be found on the Faculty of Arts and the University's 'What's On' pages. Full seminar details follow.

Due to technical issues beyond our control, the hosting server for lumiere.net.nz has been down since yesterday morning, resulting in The Lumičre Reader being offline for much of this time. Things were restored to their status quo this afternoon, although minor problems still persist, including links to The Film and Arts Reader sections of the site (empty your browser cache if this persists). New content from the last day or so has also been lost, and will be restored shortly. Thanks for bearing with us.

Further news on New Zealander Paul Amlehn's intriguing film-in-progress: progressive rock ensemble King Crimson will provide the soundtrack for Amlehn's upcoming feature film project The Tears of Eros.

King Crimson is considered one of the most important progressive rock bands of all time. Formed in 1969, their output spans nearly four decades. The individual musicians of King Crimson have produced and played on albums by artists such as: David Bowie, Brian Eno, Peter Gabriel, Laurie Anderson, John Lennon, Tom Waits, Lou Reed; as well as releasing their own solo projects. As a group, King Crimson are fiercely innovative, and have created some of the most interesting and powerful music of the modern age.

Reviewed by Megan Fleming

THIS IS A quirky-sweet and surprising film about ordinary people trying to connect in a modern world. It takes perversion and makes it cute. It takes loneliness and makes it endearing. It takes talking picture frames that say “I love you” and makes them the most melancholic symbol you can’t help laughing at.

Two further stabs at the World Cinema Showcase programme: BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM considers another autopsy of French relationships in Francois Ozon's 5 x 2, and the mass vulgarity of too many comedians (and a single, solitary joke) in documentary The Aristocrats.

The second stanza to our pre-World Cinema Showcase coverage: CATHERINE BISLEY reviews Jacques Audiard's punchy French remake of Fingers, The Beat My Heart Skipped; TIM WONG previews the must-see trifeca of Millennium Actress, Sha Po Lang and The Child; and BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM takes a stab at 5 x 2 and The Aristocrats. Our WCS festival weblog (published under The Festival Reader) commences on April 6th.

At the World Cinema Showcase 2006, TIM WONG previews three of interest: Millennium Actress, an astonishing ode to Japanese cinema and the dreamscape of film; Sha Po Lang, a rugged, back-to-basics martial arts revival from Hong Kong; and The Child, the second Cannes-winning entry from filmmakers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne.

WCS 2006
The Beat My Heart Skipped | Reviewed by Catherine Bisley

BASED ON the 1978 film Fingers and directed by Jacques Audiard, The Beat My Heart Skipped is well worth a look this coming World Cinema Showcase. Set in the dark underbelly of Paris, the narrative follows Thomas (Roman Duris), a young real estate thug, as he rediscovers his passion for playing the piano after a chance encounter with his dead mother’s agent (she was a concert pianist). As his love for the piano moves into obsession he loses the small amount of control he had in his life; he begins sleeping with his business partner’s wife and skips meetings you don’t want to miss if you’re into corruption.

Reviewed by Jacob Powell

ON THE WAY in to see Three Dollars, I saw a byline regarding the movie on a promotional poster which read:

“One of the best films yet made in Australia.”

This is the kind of comment that causes my cynicism glands to start working overtime – I cringed as I walked past – but I have to say, after leaving the theatre a couple of hours later, I thoroughly agreed.

Victor Fleming/USA/1939; R4 (2-disc SE)
Warner Bros, NZ$29.95 | Reviewed by John Spry

The Wizard of Oz has once again been released on DVD by Warner Bros. Home Video – this time around with all the hallmarks of a premium release, and is for the most part worth the price of purchase. In terms of special features, this new reissue has it all and then some.

Media Release | March 21st, 2006
The New Zealand Film Archive and Alice L Hutchison are pleased to present Kenneth Anger’s Icons; a collection of still images from American underground film legend Kenneth Anger.

For the past 40 years Kenneth Anger’s name has been a touchstone for independent film making. In films such as Scorpio Rising (1963) Anger presented a gloriously kaleidoscopic vision of glamour and decadence in the 20th Century.

Reviewed by Bob Rigg

THIS challenging and absorbing account of the 1972 killing of 11 Israeli athletes by the Palestinian terror group Black September marks a new peak in the cinematic work of Steven Spielberg. Well known for his mega-movies, he is less well known as the man who, in addition to directing Schindler's List, has provided funding and inspiration for a massive project documenting and archiving the stories of survivors of the Shoah (or Holocaust).

In our pre-World Cinema Showcase coverage, MUBARAK ALI comes to terms with the atrocities of war in the searing 1971 documentary Winter Soldier; CALEB STARRENBURG recalls his own Tokyo story by way of Mamoru Oshii's landmark anime twinset Ghost in the Shell and Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence; and NICHOLAS BUTLER discovers The Bard's prose in the most unlikely of places in Shakespeare Behind Bars. On the horizon: The Beat My Heart Skipped, Millennium Actress, Sha Po Lang, AND the return of our festival weblog, scheduled for daily reports during the Wellington leg of the Showcase. Read more via The Festival Reader (including an updated programme + censor ratings).

WCS 2006
Winter Soldier | Reviewed by Mubarak Ali

IT'S NOT too difficult to come up with a quasi-theme for the two retro picks at this year's World Cinema Showcase: War, and how it manipulates and mutates unsuspecting individuals. Sergio Leone's voluptuous and exhilarating, A Fistful of Dynamite (aka Duck, You Sucker!, 1971), is firmly situated within this sphere of war and revolution. The other pick is the rarely-screened and virtually unavailable, Winter Soldier (1972), the only document of the historical Winter Soldier Investigation which took place in January 1971, featuring interviews with more than 100 Vietnam veterans (only a number of which find their way into the 90-minute film) who present testimonies of committed and witnessed atrocities on Vietnamese civilians during the then-ongoing war, the entire project shot and assembled by a collective of 16 New York filmmakers.

WCS 2006
Ghost in the Shell,
Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence | By Caleb Starrenburg

BEAUTIFULLY incomprehensible: Watching Ghost in the Shell, and its sequel Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, is reminiscent of the time I found myself lost in Tokyo at three in the morning, having spent the best part of the evening at a Shibuya karaoke bar. Although I was rescued on that occasion by a kindly taxi driver, wandering lost through Tokyo’s striking neon maze was a paradoxically disquieting and exhilarating experience. In much the same way, I’ve become so immersed in the aesthetic wonderment of Mamoru Oshii’s films, at some point I’ve stopped caring I have no idea what’s going on.

WCS 2006
Shakespeare Behind Bars | Reviewed by Nicholas Butler

HANK ROGERSON and Jilann Spitzmiller's documentary, Shakespeare Behind Bars, takes place in Luther Tuckett Correctional Complex in Kentucky. It traces a male Shakespeare troupe over the course of a year working on The Bard’s last play The Tempest. The actors are not your usual cast – they are inmates doing time, each with unique criminal backgrounds to identify with and to explore on many levels.

The film double-header has become something of an emperor’s holy grail (to splice fables): with a paucity of revival theatres/drive-thru’s on hand, it seems the closest we’ll ever get to making out in the back of that topdown chevrolet is the gluttonous overkill of the 24 Hour Movie Marathon. In the meantime, stay-at-homes whose Eraserhead t-shirts have long since seen their last spin cycle can continue to wax elegiac: Everyone knows trash culture died the second it was wrung through the hands of a generation spoon-fed on borrowed nostalgia and nervously glanced is-anyone-else-dancing? Irony.

A roundup/recap of the current best and rest in film and DVD. In this installment: Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, Capote, The Assassination of Richard Nixon, Crash, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, 9 Songs.

Reviewed by Megan Fleming

AUTHOR Truman Capote’s greatest work is the nonfiction novel In Cold Blood. The first novel of its kind, it explores the shotgun murder of a respectable Kansas family by perpetrators Perry Smith and Dick Hickock. The film Capote centres around the years Truman Capote spent writing the book, and the relationship he built with one of the murderers.

Some tree-swinging news from abroad that's too good to pass up: Catherine Keener, fresh from reminding the ignorant world that Harper Lee is not a man, is said to be reprising her collaboration with Spike Jonze in a film adaptation of Maurice Sendak's bookshelf essential, Where the Wild Things Are. The local connection? That it's being shot in New Zealand (apparently). Her comments come via the roundtable prowess of Charlie Rose. Keener is set to play the mother of Max; Jim Henson's workshop are slated to make the puppets. We wouldn't have it any other way.

Wi Kuki Kaa, one of our great theatre and film actors, has passed.

Wi (Ngati Porou) was a major figure in the social, cultural and political life of Aotearoa. Wi’s screen roles included Wiremu in Utu; Iwi in the beautiful, magnificently instructive Ngati; Trinity Roots’ serene, meditative Little Things; and a fine, piquant last role, Old Rangi, in River Queen.