TNZIFF Dispatch #7
For a film-within-a-film about the making of a film, Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story doesn't manage to dethrone Irma Vep, Lumière's all-time favourite movie about making movies. But we haven't had as much fun since. Michael Winterbottom, a ridiculously prolific and erratic director, turns his latest film into a reflection of behind the scene featurettes, production debacles, celebrity arrogance (this is pretty much the same Steve Coogan from Coffee and Cigarettes), and a thousand other tid bits usually destined for the extra disc of a deluxe special edition DVD. It is extremely digressive, shambolic for the most part, and rather like a hall of mirrors – and yet dastardly entertaining. Coogan upside-down in a giant see-thru womb says as much. For UK TV fiends, the familiar faces are in ample supply: among many, Stephen Fry, Dylan Moran of Black Books, Ashley Jensen of Extras, and everyone's favourite squeaky Scottish lady, Shirley Henderson. Also, we've extended our ticket giveaway to The New World for Wellingtonians until the 24th. [Enter Here]
Latest Additions: CALEB STARRENBURG goes back to school in Brick; DAVID LEVINSON has words with Laurent Cantet's Heading South, John Cameron Mitchell's Shortbus and Richard Linklater's A Scanner Darkly; both JACOB POWELL and NICHOLAS BUTLER check out Homegrown: Works on Film [a] [b]; TIM WONG learns more about manic depressives in It's Only Talk; + new capsule reviews for Police Beat, Pulse and more in our Festival Form Guide.







