Waru

Waru is a film which I tried to get to see at TIFF in 2017, but it was sold out. It doesn't seem to have been released outside of festivals. It's been on my watchlist but 'unavailable' on Amazon Prime for almost a year. I wondered if I would ever get to see it. And …

The Light Between Oceans

It is official. My heart is made of stone. Shannon Plumb, wife of director Derek Cianfrance, wrote that the reason this film was not well received at the Venice Film Festival is because most film critics at the screenings were men. She wrote: Women who see the film love it. When they did the weekend …

Hunt for the Wilderpeople

Shit. Just. Got. Real. I'm sure I missed a whole lot of references that would have had New Zealand audiences in stitches, but this was funny, sweet and serious in equal measure. Ricky (Julian Dennison) the young boy at the heart of the tale has led a troubled existence (from which director Taika Waititi does not shy …

Tickled

I had gathered that this film started off as one thing and ended up as another. But I wasn't prepared for the direction it ended up taking. Investigative journalist David Farrier was familiar to me from the series Short Poppies, which had been on Netflix. Tickled begins with Farrier following up a story on 'Competitive Endurance …

The Dead Lands

My research tells me there are few feature films entirely in Māori, and I certainly haven't seen any of them before now, so this was fascinating. At its heart is the story of a young man seeking revenge on a much more skilful and brutal warrior after some horrible things happen to his extended family on …

Slow West

One of the advantages of having the newly-opened HOME complex in Manchester is that we will hopefully get more of these types of events - this was the official UK premiere of the film, followed by Q&A with the director John Maclean (Michael Fassbender had chosen to launch Macbeth at Cannes instead of being in …

The Dark Horse

This New Zealand film had been on my radar for a while, having heard an interview with executive producer and star Cliff Curtis, and co-star James Rolleston on the Rancho Notorious film podcast last year. It's a powerful film based on the true story of a former chess champion living with a bi-polar disorder, who …

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

When I commented on The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey last year, I said I would try out more films in the higher frame rate when they appeared. One year on, and this is the next opportunity which arose. I think the 3D HFR technology has been tweaked a little since the last one - it's …