Category: Film

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Apples, Oranges, Rifles, Shotguns

Grayscale poster with the ensemble characters
By Source, Fair use, Link

I’ve been rewriting and rewriting a post about comparing the experience of watching a four-hour headache-inducing director’s cut of a blockbuster with a tender and emotionally engaging 90-minute indy, and I have finally — finally — realised that I’ve been on a hiding to nothing the last few days.

There is no comparison.

They’re two very different creatures, with two very different target audiences, and woe be to those who try connect the two.

I couldn’t help it. All humans try to make sense of the world around them, and I suppose that’s what this New Zild screenwriter was trying to do after watching such different films almost back-to-back.

I guess this is a timely reminder to self that the world is a big place, that it caters to all tastes, that it’s okay to enjoy the taste of apples and oranges, and that, yes, a rifle and a shotgun both go bang but they’re for two very different distances and animals.

Biting into an apple and wishing for juicy orange-y goodness is unrealistic. Shooting possums with a shotgun may be satisfying in the moment but the neighbours tend to want a word the following day.

A four-quadrant tentpole event is not the place to find subtext and nuanced relationships.

Wild Rose poster.jpg
By Studio and or Graphic Artist – Can be obtained from the film’s distributor., Fair use, Link

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2020 in Pixels and Points (and Sweat)

Uncut Gems poster.jpg
By Source (WP:NFCC#4), Fair use, Link

Features enjoyed:

Derry Girls.png
By Source (WP:NFCC#4), Fair use, Link

Television savoured:

  • Mr Inbetween S01–02
  • The Casketeers S03
  • Zero Zero Zero
  • Derry Girls S01–02
  • I Am Not Okay With This
  • The End of the Fucking World S01–02
  • Sextortion
  • The Young Pope
  • The Great S01
  • Last Tango in Halifax S01–02

It being the year it was, not much live theatre was attended.

Without permission from www.conundrumpress.

Pages devoured:

This year, I managed to run a personal record-beating 106 times, clocked up a PR-beating 606 kilometres, but didn’t quite manage as much calisthenics as last year. Although guilt continues to be a prime exercise motivator, this year’s outstanding stats were thanks in large part to a couple of Alert Level changes.

Cavalry at rest, September 2020.

Onwards into 2021.

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2019 in Pixels and on Stage

It hasn’t all been writing and commuting and writing this year. Though, to be honest, what year ever is?

Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse (2018 poster).png
By Source, Fair use, Link

Enjoyed on the big screen:

Honourable mentions: Captain Marvel for being smart and fun; Shazam! for being funny; High Life for leaving this viewer grinning and unable to explain why; and Jojo Rabbit for pulling one of a hat.

Poster showing Chernobyl the five part miniseries for HBO
By Source (WP:NFCC#4), Fair use, Link

Lapped up on the small screen:

Honourable mentions: the final, ultimately disappointing, season of Game of Thrones; The Leftovers, whose first season was a cracker; and The Crown, seasons one to two binged in the month of December, leaving the phrase “thenk yew” as a verbal handgrenade in Fortress Mamea.

Promotional pic for Q Theatre season
Ahi Arunaharan’s My Heart Goes Thadak Thadak, Q Theatre. Pic from 13thfloor.co.nz.

On stage:

  • Red Leap Theatre’s Owls Do Cry
  • Ahi Arunaharan’s My Heart Goes Thadak Thadak
  • Whangārei Music Society’s production of Rent
  • White Man Behind a Desk: Party at the End of the World
  • Matthew Loveranes’ MoodPorn
  • Northland Youth Theatre’s production of Romeo and Juliet

Honourable mentions: Victor Rodger’s Club Paradiso, Bleeding Black, and Black Grace: Dark Matter.

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Hello 2019

A quick jaunt to the Big Smoke and an opportune snap.

Yeah, hey ’19 and goodbye ’18.

Posting has been patchy alright but I thought the least I could do is warble a little while it’s a bit quiet.

I gave up the day job late last year. Maybe it’s my selective memory but that was a big relief and about time, too. I now have no excuse to not write.

Having a writing gig earlier in the year certainly ensured that I had a buffer between the end of the day job and… if not the next gig (because one should never presume), then some kind of writing opportunity.

Having said that, I do have another writing job lined up later this month. But after that…

That’s where my anxiety lies: I can plan all I like but there’s a will-it-put-chocolate-in-my-mouth aspect to it that is frankly terrifying.

Let’s find out.

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2018 in Pixels

Mysteryroad2013.jpg
By Source, Fair use, Link

Enjoyed on the big screen:

  • Ice King: John Curry
  • Juliet, Naked
  • Jusqu’a la garde (Custody)
  • Lady Bird
  • Lady Macbeth
  • Mystery Road
  • Puzzle
  • Small Town Crime
  • Wind River
  • You Were Never Really Here

Honourable mentions: The Shape of Water; Isle of Dogs; A Little Chaos.

SharpObjects.png
By Source (WP:NFCC#4), Fair use, Link

And on the small screen:

  • Alias Grace
  • Cobra Kai S01
  • The Casketeers S01
  • Barry S01
  • Five Came Back
  • Godless
  • The Handmaid’s Tale S02
  • Peaky Blinders S01–04
  • Sharp Objects
  • The Thick of It S01

Honourable mentions: Condor; Haunting of Hill House; Ozark S01–02; Six Feet Under S01–05.

And here’s a new “How the heck do they stay so damned good?” category for returning titles that threaten to clog up my annual top ten: The Americans S06; Better Call Saul S04; The Expanse S03. I do miss the suburban adventures of Elizabeth and Philip Jennings Nadezhda and Mischa but all good things come to an end.

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Welp

With the festive season screaming towards us, I flashed on this moment in that 1986 classic, Critters:

I leave the interpretation of relevance to you, dear reader.

Have fun, and be safe.


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2017 in Pixels

Teaser poster for 2017 film Get Out.png
By Source, Fair use, Link

Enjoyed on the big screen:

  • Rogue One
  • O le Tulafale (The Orator)
  • Nocturnal Animals
  • The Lobster
  • Get Out
  • The Big Sick
  • Blade Runner 2049
  • Lucky Logan
  • Dunkirk
  • Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Honourable mentions: the hilarious and disgusting Girls Trip; David Michôd and Brad Pitt‘s slow burning War Machine;  the chemistry between Samuel L Jackson and Ryan Reynolds in The Hitman’s Bodyguard; and the excellent I, Tonya Harding.

Goliath, 2016 TV series, title card.jpg
By Source (WP:NFCC#4), Fair use, Link

Binged on the small screen:

  • Goliath
  • American Crime Story: People vs OJ Simpson
  • Legion S01
  • The Knick S01–02
  • The Expanse S02
  • Better Call Saul S03
  • The Handmaid’s Tale S01
  • The Americans S05
  • Stranger Things S01
  • The Punisher S01

Honourable mentions, including those moved here to give new titles a shot: Emily Watson and Ben Chaplin in Apple Tree Yard; the fitfully funny Brooklyn Nine-Nine S01;  creator and showrunner Noah Hawley shows how it’s done in Fargo S03; and, of course, Game of Thrones S07.

Favourite poster of the year? Without a doubt:

Courtesy JoBlo Movie Network — www.joblo.com


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SWANZ and BSS 2018

The weekend was kicked off by the New Zealand Writers Guild SWANZ Awards. The ever effervescent Nick Ward MCed the event while I did my best Vanna White impression handing him the awards as required. It was a great turn out — my evening ensemble was admired (21st century Miami Vice, courtesy of various op shops), the food was good and plentiful, and it’s always nice to see so many writerly faces in one place.

The symposium was a more formal affair — collegial rather than fraternal — and was rampant with speakers and attendees, some of them I knew from one thing or another, and some I met for the first time.

Over the three days, I caught up with:

  • Alice, Mel, Alan, Allan, Kathryn and Rachel from the guild represented;
  • three from the class of 2016 — the unstoppable Maraea Rakuraku, the inquisitive William Duignan, and the observant Myfanwy Fanning-Randall;
  • former guild ED Steve Gannaway and his partner Alex Cole-Baker; One Thousand Ropes‘ Tusi Tamasese and Catherine Fitzgerald; PIFT stalwarts Aaron Taouma, Arnette Arapai and Sandra Kailahi; South Pacific Pictures’ Tim Balme and James Griffin; and Waru‘s Chelsea Cohen, Ainsley Gardiner, Paula Jones, Casey Kaa, Renae Maihi, Josephine Stewart-Te Whiu and Katie Wolfe;
  • Chantelle Burgoyne; South Seas’ Gerben Cath; the indefatigable Tony Forster; Paula Jones (no, the other one); Roseanne Liang; Christina Milligan; producing titan Robin Scholes; Riverside Kings‘ Sarita So; and the redoubtable Louise Tu’u.

Speaker highlights of the symposium were:

  • an small-group Q-and-A with David Michôd;
  • a refreshing and irreverent talk by Neil Cross;
  • filmmaker So Yong Kim‘s oeuvre is a fascinating thing I need to look into;
  • agent Bec Smith‘s talk was a confirmation of how talent always finds a way;
  • and Oz drama commissioners Kyle Du Fresne and Penny Win, was an interesting session on how things happen across the ditch.

A bit of a blur but I’m glad I attended.

(I’ve done it again: even though I name-checked the Screenwriting Research Network Conference in August, I’ve neglected to write about this year’s Arts Market in Auckland. Next year. Promise.)


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2017 Screenwriting Research Network Conference

University of Otago in Dunedin, NZ.jpg
By Nathan Hughes Hamilton – https://www.flickr.com/photos/nat507/12468333624/, CC BY 2.0, Link

The past four days have been such a blur of ideas, conversation, food and shockingly warm weather that I’m still having trouble believing it’s Thursday already — I only flew down on Sunday to get a headstart on things and —. Did I say I’m having trouble believing it’s Thursday already?

I was very chuffed to attend the 2017 Screenwriting Research Network (SRN) Conference in Dunedin this week. It took me a good day or so to get my head around what the SRN mean by “rethink[ing] the screenplay in relation to its histories, theories, values and creative practices”.

Screenplays as more than just the starting points for film and television productions. I could dig that. Kind of.

Since Monday, academics and practitioners have rubbed shoulders and broken bread together on the Otago University campus, and I thought everyone played rather nicely together. Highlights included — beware shameless name-dropping:

Big props to organisers Davinia Thornley, Al, Amie, Maureen Lloyd, Pippa, Katie Baddock, and a small army of volunteers for making the whole occasion smooth sailing.

The next conference is in Milan. How hard can it be to knock up an abstract on Screenwriting as discomfit: at which point did I begin to self-identify as a writer?


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Hometoon

I saw Ghost in the Shell the other week. It was fun: it had gunfights, sci fi techy stuff, Beat Takeshi and flashes of me oul’ hometoon of Wellington under layers of set dressing and CGI.

Victoria Street, Wellington. (Photo: www.imfdb.org.)

Victoria Street, Wellington. (Photo: www.filmnz.com.)

Victoria Street alley, Wellington — in a previous life, I worked in the building on the right there. (Photo: www.atlasofwonders.com.)

It made me feel unexpectedly homesick.

Might be time for a visit soon.


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