Film Guide

1. Star Wars didn’t win Best Picture
It’s no secret that Avatar employed revolutionary visual effects like, as many critics happily recall, Star Wars did back in 1977. Both are regarded as technological breakthroughs in respect to their generations, and it’s true. My father described his experience of sitting in the theater watching the original Star Wars, and it sounded remarkably similar to the experience I (and millions of others) had with Avatar. Roger Ebert called it “an event”, and that’s exactly what it was. With such a large array of similarities, it’s only expected that Avatar be nominated for Best Picture, just as Star Wars was. Viewers should note, however, that the film lost to Annie Hall that year for the Oscars’ top award. It’s easy to assume that the same will happen with Avatar. Now that’s not to say the two films are one in the same. They’re not. But we should be open to looking at this year’s Academy Awards with a historical frame of reference in mind. Take the 1975 Academy Awards for example. Jaws was up for the Best Picture grab that year, but lost to One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Majority of us know that Jaws is more of a visually sustaining crowd-pleaser than Cuckoo’s Nest, but Cuckoo’s Nest is an all-around better movie than Jaws. The same thing applies when comparing Star Wars and Annie Hall, as well as Avatar and a number of other Best Picture contenders this year. The bottom line? Traditional movie elements and substance over pretty images and on-screen surreality, which brings up my next point.  Read the rest of this entry »

History
James Cameron has been nominated for three Oscars in the past. And he’s won three Oscars.
Statistically, that’s what we call a 100% pass rate.
It also means that not only do the blokes working behind the scenes at the Academy Awards like Cameron, they’re also more than a little inclined to shove awards his way whenever he makes a film.
We like them odds.  Read the rest of this entry »

FilmGuide will be taking a couple of days off over Christmas, but We’ll be back with a load of DVD reviews and some more great giveaways shortly. Happy Christmas to one and all.

Ok, so it’s that time of year when just about everyone is making their best of lists, and we’re no exception. Being that we’re a film website, we’ll just be doing the top ten films of 2009. If you want baby names or dog breeds, head over to google where you’ll probably find a bajillion blogs with the information you want.

For our top ten films, I decided to do things a little differently. Rather that asking our reviewers what they though, in hindsight, were the best ten films of the year, I complied a list of the ten highest rated films on FilmGuide this year, then asked our reviewers to vote on what order they should appear on our list.

The result is a list that you probably won’t find on any other film website, and will probably make our reviewers think twice before rating movies for the duration of 2010!  Read the rest of this entry »

Yes we all know the world of movies revolve around the American Seasons.. Which isn’t such a bad concept, as it means we get to spend our winters sheltering in cinemas nationwide watching the very best (?) the United States has to offer. So just how did the Summer Movie season pan out?  Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been mulling over my Transformers experience for half a day now – if you want to read my review, go here – and a couple of things stand out for me personally. The first was prompted by a workmates question: “Can I take my kids to it?” To which I responded that I’d taken my oldest daughter. He then asked the rhetorical “So it hasn’t got any dodgy content like the first one.” I immediately knew what he was talking about and had to back track a little, being honest and telling him that actually, it had more ‘dodgy’ content than the first. Which got me thinking…

Did Michael Bay really need to include sexual innuendos and humour in a film based around what are essentially children’s toys? If you’ve seen the film, ask yourself; did the inclusion actually improve the movie, or did it just make it more appealing to the adult male target market?  Read the rest of this entry »

Fear[s] of the Dark is more an investigation of what is scary rather than a scary film in its own right.  Six of the world’s best graphic artists were asked to create short stories, based on their own experiences of fear or disgust, using the medium of animation and the restrictive palette of black and white.

The visual presentation is as varied as the stories being told, which in themselves are intermingled with each other, connected through the narration of various fears and phobias.

Fear[s] is a compelling, original experience that is a pleasure to watch that will leave a lasting impression for you to mull over for some time to  come.

Reviewed by: Jonathan Read
Released on: January 22nd, 2009
Year of Original Release: 2007
Length (Minutes): 85
Media Format: DVD
Languages: French
Subtitles: English
Director: Various
Studio: Madman

That the days are swiftly getting shorter and colder is a happy reminder that we are accelerating towards the New Zealand International Film Festival. With this in mind, the good people that run the festival have just updated their website with anew look, and have listed a few of the movies chosen so far:

Big River Man
John Maringouin, USA 2008, 94 mins

Che
Steven Soderbergh, USA 2008, 262 mins
Trailer & Synopsis

Departures
Yojiro Takita, Japan 2008, 131 mins
Trailer & Synopsis

Séraphine
Martin Provost, France 2008, 126 mins
Trailer & Synopsis

The Agony and Ecstasy of Phil Spector
Vikram Jayanti, United Kingdom 2008, 100 mins

The Baader Meinhof Complex
Uli Edel, Germany 2008, 150 mins
Trailer & Synopsis

The Beaches of Agnès
Agnès Varda, France 2008, 110 mins

Tyson
James Toback, USA 2008, 88 mins
Trailer & Synopsis

For more information, visit nzff.co.nz