Here it is. Ofcourse there is only so much you can garner from two minutes. Although I’m luke warm on the musical score, Ang Lee seems to have captured the visuals just how I imagined them in head from the book. Really hanging out for this one.
On Thursday night I went along to the opening of the New Zealand Film Festival at Auckland’s Civic Theatre. For those who don’t know The Civic Theatre is a large heritage theatre seating over two thousand people in central Auckland, New Zealand. First opened on 20 December 1929, it was reopened in 2000 after a major renovation and conservation effort (yep, got that bit from Wiki). Seeing a film in a large olden style hall is something I haven’t done since I was a teenager, and being spoilt these days with hi-tech audiovisual complexes and home theatres, I was curious to see how the acoustics and and visuals would hold up. Little did I know that the visual and audio onslaught of Beasts of the Southern Wild would be just the film to test it. This was going to be something special.
Read my review of Beasts of the Southern Wild here.
Directed by Lars Hallström (Chocolat, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, Cider House Rules) Salmon Fishing in Yemen is a light weight and mildly comedic romance that centers on the absurd premise of creating a salmon fishing spot in the Yemen. Read the rest of this mini review here.
A midweek night off so Seema and I headed off to the Rialto in Newmarket to see J.C. Chandor’s Margin Call. I have not been to the Rialto for some time. Perhaps it was the particular cinema that we were in but I must say that it was awful environment to watch a film in. The sound was far too loud (and this was not an action film), yet somehow you could still hear the air-conditioning droning in the background. Oh, and the floor lighting was distractingly bright. I hoped that Margin Call was going to immerse me enough to remove me from these real world woes … and it did, ironically because it is about another very real world woe, the risky numerical terrors of the investment banking sector.
Read the rest of the review here.
I know nothing about its director, Craig Zobel, except that this is his second feature after Great World of Sound (which I have not seen). By all reports, this thriller created quite a stir at the Sundance festival. I’ve learnt not to trust trailers too much as I’ve been burnt in the past. However, as far as trailers go, this looks fantastic. It drags you in leaving you with a sense of intrigue made all the more pertinent because it is based on true events. Its soundtrack and aesthetic alone piqued my interest. Which is interesting because when you break down what little narrative you can obtain from this trailer, it may be nothing more than a schlock thriller boiled down into a cleverly defined style. Opens August 17th in the U.S. I’ll be keeping an eye out for this one.
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