Movies

Stanley & Iris (1991)

MGM – Wednesday 5 December, 8.30pm

Romantic drama about two lonely people escape their own private prisons – he can’t read, she’s grieving for her dead husband -to explore a tender relationship.

Starring: Jane Fonda, Robert De Niro, Swoosie Kurtz, Martha Plimpton.

Director: Martin Ritt (The Long Hot Summer, The Front, Norma Rae).

NZ Feature Film Season: Heavenly Creatures

Rialto – Wednesday 5 December, 8.30pm

Two girls have an intense fantasy life; their parents, concerned the fantasy is too intense, separate them, and the girls take revenge.

Directed by Peter Jackson

Starring Melanie Lynskey, Kate Winslet and Sarah Peirse.

Network (1976)

MGM – Tuesday 4 December, 8.30pm

A brilliant satire, about a TV fictional network, UBS, that cynically exploits a deranged TV anchor’s ravings and revelations about the media, purely for their own profit.

Winner of four Oscars (for Peter Finch, Faye Dunaway, Beatrice Straight, and for Chayefsky’s script), a BAFTA (for Peter Finch) and four Golden Globes (Peter Finch, Faye Dunaway and Director: Sidney Lumet and Chayefsky’s script). Ranked as number 64 on the American Film Institute’s list of Top 100 Greatest American Films. Written by Paddy Chayefsky (The Hospital, Altered States, The Americanization Of Emily). In 2006, Chayefsky’s script was voted one of the top ten movie scripts of all-time by the Writers Guild of America. Network was inducted into the Producers Guild of America Hall of Fame as a film that has “set an enduring standard for American entertainment”.

Director: Sidney Lumet (Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon, Network).

Starring: Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Robert Duvall, Peter Finch, Wesley Addy, Ned Beatty, Beatrice Straight.

“When Chayefsky created Howard Beale, could he have imagined Jerry Springer, Howard Stern and the World Wrestling Federation?” – Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times.

World Cinema: The Cave Of The Yellow Dog

Rialto – Tuesday 4 December, 8.30pm

In the vast flat tundra of Mongolia, where nomadic families tend sheep and live frugally, six year old Nansaa finds a puppy in a mountainside cave, and names it Zochor (Spot). Her father fears Zochor might have been living with the wolves who often attack his flock and wants Nansaa to send the puppy away, much to her anguish. He goes to town to sell the skin of two sheep recently killed by the wolves, and Zochor stays. The family, including Nansaa’s two little siblings, get ready to move on, dismantling their ‘yurt’ (circular tent-like home) and loading up the carts for the yaks to trudge. When Nansaa’s kid brother goes missing, Zochor – who’s been left behind – gets to be a hero.

Directed by Byambasuren Davaa

Starring Nansal Batchuluun, Babbayar Batchuluun, Nansalmaa Batchuluun.

Monday Comedy Madness: A Fish Called Wanda (1988)

MGM – Monday 3 December, 8.30pm

Four very different people team up to commit armed robbery, and then try to double-cross each other for the loot. John Cleese co-wrote the script with British comedy veteran Charles Crichton (The Lavender Hill Mob), whose smooth direction balances Monty Python-style farce, hysterically tasteless gags, and an unexpectedly romantic subplot with style and confidence. Winner of an Oscar (for Kevin Kline) and two BAFTAs (for John Cleese and Michael Palin). Also received nominations for two more Oscars, seven BAFTAs, and three Golden Globes.

Director: Charles Crichton (TV Series The Avengers).

Starring: Kevin Kline, John Cleese, Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Palin.

“’A Fish Called Wanda’ is the funniest movie I have seen in a long time; it goes on the list with ‘The Producers,’ ‘This is Spinal Tap’ and the early Inspector Clouseau movies.” – Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times.

British Theatre: The Front Line

Rialto – Monday 3 December, 8.30pm

Joe, a political refugee from the Congo whose body bears the barbed-wire marks of his trauma, has seemingly put his past behind him. Newly reunited with his wife and son, he enjoys his job as a security guard at a Dublin bank. The inbred suspicions of his immigration officer and the racist mutterings of the bank’s alcohol-inclined janitor appear unable to ruffle his hard-won equanimity. But when a gang of murderous young goons, led by curly-haired sociopath Eddie, kidnaps his family in exchange for his help in robbing the bank, it awakens dormant demons in Joe.

Starring Eriq Ebouaney, James Frain, Gerard McSorley

Directed by David Gleeson.

Being There (1979)

TCM – Sunday 2 December, 10.30pm

What would happen if the American public got the leader it deserved? Peter Sellers plays an innocent and illiterate gardener who ends up the most influential man in Washington, D.C. – simply by Being There. Gentle and slow-witted Chance (Sellers) tends a garden on a palatial estate and knows nothing of the outside world except what he sees watching television. Then a limousine hits him, and everything changes. Elevated to celebrity status by the limousine’s powerful passenger, Eve Rand (Shirley MacLaine), Chance charms everyone, including the President of the United States (Jack Warden). Can his simple but wise gardening metaphors solve the country’s complex problems? Chance helps peace grow and flourish in this comic, cautionary fable about the power of simplicity. Based on the novel by Jerzy Kosinski.

Salvador (1985)

MGM – Sunday 2 December, 8.30pm.

Oliver Stone (Platoon, Wall Street, Born On The Fourth Of July, JFK) co-wrote, co-produced and directed this brilliant, engrossing true-life account of the violent civil war in El Salvador as told through the perspective of a has-been journalist trying for one last grasp at glory and finding the true horror of war. James Woods (who received an Oscar nomination for his brilliant performance) stars as freelance journalist Richard Boyle, who leaves San Francisco, broke, with a friend to cover the escalating conflict and hopefully return to his former stature as a war correspondent. What he finds is a nation torn apart by random violence, shifting ideologies, poverty, and the malevolent influence of the United States. The screenplay, written by Oliver Stone along with the real Richard Boyle, was nominated for an Oscar. The movie had an advisor who was killed in El Salvador during the production.

Starring: James Woods, James Belushi, John Savage, Elpidia Carrillo, Michael Murphy, Tony Plana, Cynthia Gibb.

“Salvador” stars James Woods, that master of nervous paranoia, as a foreign correspondent who has hit bottom… This is the sort of role Woods was born to play.” – Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times.

Sunday Blockbuster Premiere: The Grudge 2
SKY Movies – Sunday 2 December, 8.30pm & 10:30pm SM2

What was once trapped will now be unleashed.

In Tokyo, a young woman is exposed to the same mysterious curse that afflicted her sister. The supernatural force, which fills a person with rage before spreading to its next victim, brings together a group of previously unrelated people who attempt to unlock its secret to save their lives.

Starring Sarah Michelle Gellar, Amber Tamblyn

Channel Premiere: Valley Of The Kings (1954)

TCM – Saturday 1 December, 10.30pm

A couple persuades an archeologist to help them find the undiscovered tomb of Pharoah Rahotep. The wife believes this will confirm her late father’s theory of the authenticity of the Biblical account of Joseph in Egypt. Based on C.W. Ceram’s book.

Sunday Blockbuster Premiere: The Grudge 2