Academy Cinemas Announces New Streaming Service
Coming soon – Academy On Demand. Streaming curated classics and exciting recent releases direct to your lounge.
Doco Festival Goes Online as an Expression Of Solidarity And Community
To connect kiwi communities and give audiences a chance to experience a multi-faceted expression of life outside the bubble, Doc Edge is moving the full 2020 festival and industry event programme online, translating the physical festival to an innovative digital environment this June.
Mr Jones: Film Review
An historical thriller from Agnieska Holland, starring James Norton, Mr Jones features an impressive array of historical characters – but does the script truly bring them to life? Here is Steve Austin’s review.
Film Review: Guns Akimbo
Guns Akimbo is a wildly entertaining 96-minute action-comedy film starring Daniel Radcliffe and Samara Weaving, overflowing with crass, unapologetically offensive dialogue and hilariously unflinching violence and gore. Dir: Jason Lei Howden. Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Samara Weaving, Ned Dennehy, Natasha Liu Bordizzo
The Invisible Man: Movie Review
The Invisible Man stars Elisabeth Moss in an adaptation of the classic H. G. Wells novel, presenting a fresh, technophobe horror story which examines obsession, control, and the unravelling of an individual’s sanity throughout its 124-minute runtime. Dir: Leigh Whannell. Starring: Elisabeth Moss, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Aldis Hodge, Storm Reid, Harriet Dyer, Michael Dorman
The Current War: Movie Review
The Current War, directed by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon and executive produced by Martin Scorsese, is a well-written visual feast for geeks, scientists, steampunks and lovers of historical drama. Veronica McLaughlin files this review.
Film Review: La Belle Époque
La Belle Époque delivers a remarkable ensemble cast and razor-sharp comedic writing while discovering that it’s possible to truly love ourselves again.
Movie Review: The Legend of Baron To’a
The Legend of Baron To’a is the first feature film from director, Kiel McNaughton, and markets itself as an action-comedy without managing to find stability in either throughout its 108-minute runtime.
Film Review: The Peanut Butter Falcon
The Peanut Butter Falcon is a comedy-drama film about a young man with Down syndrome, Zak, who escapes an assisted-living facility and crosses paths with a troubled thief and fisherman, Tyler, which sets the two on a bonding adventure across the Deep South in search of a wrestling school situated in Florida.
The Gentlemen: Movie Review
The Gentlemen is a crime action-comedy directed by Guy Ritchie, which revisits the fast-paced, twist-heavy nature of his early work and manages to provide solid moments of fresh comedy despite feeling at times stylistically overworked.
Movie Review: Doctor Sleep
Doctor Sleep is a delightful Siamese-twin of cinema, serving both as an adaptation of the 2013 Stephen King novel of the same name, and as a direct sequel to the 1980 Stanley Kubrick film, The Shining, balancing scares and satisfaction without pandering to either fanbase.
Movie Review: Terminator: Dark Fate
Terminator: Dark Fate is the sixth installment in the Terminator franchise, and acts as a direct sequel to the 1991 film, Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Overflowing with relentless action and balanced wonderfully with laugh-out-loud comedy, Dark Fate is a cinematic robotic onslaught with a gorgeous, human heart at its core.
Film Review: Joker
Joker is directed by Todd Phillips, and stars Joaquin Phoenix as the man who would be the Clown Prince of Crime, Arthur Fleck, in a grimy, terrifying character study that shows how fear and rage fester in an increasingly disinterested society.
Film Review: Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark is mixed bag of scares, stories, and spooky monsters, a film with incredible potential that wallows in dullness by stretching its audience potential too wide across its 108-minute runtime.
Film Review: Rambo: Last Blood
Rambo: Last Blood (also known as Rambo V), is the fifth film in the Rambo franchise, and serves as the conclusion to John Rambo’s story of post-Vietnam War self-reflection and life as a renegade drifter in society.
Girls of the Sun: Film Review
In a world full of films about war, where men dominate the silver screen in heroic battles that far too often glamorise the futility of it all, how refreshing it is to see a story told from the female side.
Movie Review: IT Chapter Two
It Chapter Two is the sequel to the 2017 film It, both based on the 1986 novel It by Stephen King. Featuring a stellar cast and impeccable style and tone throughout its 170-minute runtime, it’s inarguably one of the finest horror stories – and King adaptations – we’ve had on screen to date.
Movie Review: Angel Has Fallen, Directed by Ric Roman Waugh
Angel Has Fallen is the third installment in the Fallen film series, following Olympus Has Fallen (2013) and London Has Fallen (2016), which saw Secret Service agent Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) fighting for his life while protecting the President of the United States from various terrorist threats.
Film Review: Weathering With You
Weathering With You (Tenki no Ko, which translates literally to “Child of Weather”) is a charming Japanese fantasy-romance animation about a struggling high-school runaway who meets a young girl with the ability to make the sun shine by praying.
Film Review: Palm Beach (Director: Rachel Ward)
Palm Beach is an unchallenging and pleasantly distracting Australian take on dining-table dramedies, providing just under 100 minutes of low-stakes entertainment through its playfully comedic cast of veteran actors.