Today someone pointed out to me that at New Years the 'naughties' will be over. The next decade of cringe-worthy name, (what will it be? the tens? the twentyteens?) will begin and we will start looking back on the past decade and thanking the style-gods that hair straightening is over once and for all. True. I read that in NW.

And so tonight I went to the premiere of This Is It, the Michael Jackson documentary feature that has been released by the people who weren't able to realise their 50 performances and billion trillion dollar dreams. It's a humble offering compared to the show they promised the world.

Posted by claire in Film

Tags: Elvis, Michael, michael jackson, Michael Jackson film, Michael Jackson movie, MJ, This Is It

Hey so this film that was part of the International Film Festival (bring those heady weeks of arthouse back, please, I miss them), has got general release now and is on at several cinemas around the country. I’m pretty particular about the films I see but I can honestly tell you that this one is serious and great. And seriously great.

Directed by David Bowie’s son Duncan Jones (Zowie Bowie to his mates), and with a major debt to 2001, this slow psychological thriller (perhaps too strong a word, but you get the idea) introduces you to this awesome bloke, Sam. He mans a Korean station on the moon in the future. Totally the loneliest job ever, especially because he can’t even Skype home, he has to wait for recorded messages from his wife and child to come up to him.

He has this cool robot that keeps him company and helps him run the space station. But he’s basically a janitor stuck in this place for three years who can’t wait to get home. Then he finds that there has been an accident out on the lunar surface, and everything starts coming undone.

Posted by claire in Film

Tags: Arthouse, Cinema, David Bowie, NZIFF, robots, Zowie Bowie

Nothing irritates me more than lame dolphin paintings and little statues and dolphin stained glass in shitty beach houses or in far flung suburban houses, always cluttering up the place with their smug dolphiny smiles.

Apparently you can trace the popularity of dolphins back to a seemingly innocent TV series that you might have heard of, Flipper. It was like Skippy except with dolphins.

So it makes me feel better that the guy who trained that famous Bottle-nose dolphin back in the day is now consumed with terrible, acerbic guilt that is eating up his life. Uh huh. You heard right. Except he doesn’t feel bad about terrible kitsch. He feels bad about the enslavement of thousands of other dolphins all over the world in theme parks and SeaWorlds. Those places didn’t even exist before Flipper.

So this guy, Ric O’Barry, sets out to stop wild dolphins being caught and enslaved, or worse, beaten to bloody pulps and fed to unsuspecting Japanese school children who think they’re eating normal, regular whale meat. Look Out! The dolphins are full of Mercury. Oh no! The Japanese are trying to trick the International Whale Commission!

There are so many things wrong with this picture. Let’s get some awesome state of the art camera equipment and military heat seeking technology and an all American eco-loving money-lashing swat team. Let’s expose these Japanese once and for all!

Posted by claire in Film

Tags: dolphins, Film, Japanese, Mercury poisoning