“If Infamous is a different interpretation, it is a queerer one: a campier rendition of Capote, more irresistibly the life of parties, more likely to be mistaken for a woman. Gleefully, all those Breakfast at Tiffany’s-inspired apartment soirees feature more prominently this time around in a film that revels in the author’s social magnetism. A persistent name-dropper, it’s also fitting that Gwyneth Paltrow, Sigourney Weaver, Isabella Rossellini, and Hope Davis get to form his haute circle of girlfriends in a world of cribbed gossip and embellished Hollywood tales that travel (and morph) as quickly from Brando to Sinatra to Bogey,” writes TIM WONG....[Read More]

One of thirty films on offer at this year’s World Cinema Showcase, Douglas McGrath’s Infamous grafts the tragic murders and birth of a literary masterpiece first detailed in Capote. The film’s second sight is curious, if not unavoidably bound to Bennett Miller’s earlier version of events. The entrée to the main course, the WCS is welcomed every Autumn; an unofficial opening to the film festival season, it curates accessible features, foreign imports and documentaries that either missed the boat the previous year, are premiering as teasers, or are returning by popular demand. Our coverage will continue over on The Festival Reader informally over the coming months. For festival venues and dates, view the Showcase media release, its full lineup of films, or worldcinemashowcase.co.nz for pending programme details.

While Borat ultimately stole the thunder from all, 2006 remained a sombre year on reflection, both in mainstream mediocrity and an ever darkening world view. Everthing from fast food to global warming to deteriorating human relations got a look in, while moral tales in two 9/11 exorcisms and our own mass murder reconstruction in Out of the Blue stood as either moving tributes or grotesque exhumations, depending on your point of view. Lumière’s list making for the year in review mirrored some of these trends, while retaining an undying enthusiasm for film of all other levels. What’s certain is that for every bad movie, there’s a good one waiting in the wings. Sometimes, they take an eternity to reach New Zealand (as indicated in some of our best-of lists). And yet when they’re of the calibre of A History of Violence, they’re more than worth the wait.

Compiling two alternate lists this year, TIM WONG sought the The Best Movie Posters of 2006, and pre-Oscars, picked Ten Actors and Filmmakers deserving of their own gilded awards. The editors and select contributors put forward their Top Ten lists for Lumière’s annual Year in Review: Best of Film, while slightly off the beaten track (as in on The Arts Etc. Reader), SIMON SWEETMAN and BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM collated each their Ten Best Albums of 2006.

Weather permitting, Twilight Cinema launch their Summer season of free outdoor movie screenings with pastiche high school musical Grease. Watch Danny and Sandy swoon on a big inflatable screen Friday, January 26 @ Waitangi Park, Wellington Waterfront, Wellington. Pre-show entertainment from 8pm; film commences at 9pm. The first in a series of free outdoor screenings around New Zealand.

AMENDMENT: Organisers have informed us that the following is a one-off free preview screening of a *ticketed* series of outdoor cinema screenings in Wellington, West Coast, and Christchurch.