Film in Elsewhere

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DEADWOOD; TIMOTHY OLYPHANT INTERVIEWED (2006): It's always the quiet ones . . .

10 Jun 2009  |  3 min read  |  1

There are few more quiet characters on television than Sheriff Seth Bullock who broods with repressed menace throughout the gritty Western series Deadwood. His dialogue usually comes down to a few lines like, “I appreciate your kind concern” or “Don’t!” Yet get 38-year old actor Timothy Olyphant -- who plays the moustachioed and troubled hunk -- on the phone... > Read more

THE HALLOWEEN HORROR SERIES ON DVD: You can't keep a bad man down

8 Jun 2009  |  3 min read

Let's get these killers and their thrillers matched up right: the murderous baddy in Nightmare on Elm Street was Freddy; in Friday 13th it was Jason; the guy with the buzzing blades in Texas Chainsaw Massacre was Leatherface, and in Halloween it was ... Yes, when it comes to evil-doers the name "Michael Myers" hardly creates a flutter, really. Wasn't he Austin Powers too? Yet... > Read more

GONE WITH THE WIND: Seven decades on and still worth giving a damn about?

7 Jun 2009  |  4 min read  |  1

Flick through reviews of the famous 1939 film adaptation of Margaret Mitchell's classic Civil War novel of romance and southern ways, Gone With the Wind, and it's hard to believe the critics were writing about the same thing. Dilys Powell wrote that Vivien's Leigh's performance as the spoilt, petulant Scarlett O'Hara was "compact of vivacity, coquettishness and rigid egoism, extremely... > Read more

THE UNIVERSE OF KEITH HARING by CHRISTINA CLAUSEN (Madman DVD)

19 May 2009  |  3 min read

By the time I got to see the work of New York-based artist Keith Haring in the early Nineties there was little to "see": he was everywhere. The originality of Haring's work -- as with that of Australian Ken Done whose briefly interesting landscapes and Australian icons had their currency debased by reproduction, commercialisation, parody and an increasing self-reflective... > Read more

Talking Heads: Artists Only (1977)

THE SEX PISTOLS; THE FILTH AND THE FURY. JULIEN TEMPLE INTERVIEWED (2000): A Rotten and Vicious business

18 May 2009  |  4 min read

The Sex Pistols changed many lives, aspiring filmmaker Julien Temple’s more than most. After accidentally meeting them in their dockland rehearsal room one afternoon in 1975, he followed them as they became the most reviled band in Britain.  He filmed their shambolic, thrilling live shows, sat junkie-punk Sid Vicious down for a rare coherent interview, was assaulted in... > Read more

Sex Pistols: Anarchy in the UK

JACKIE CHAN'S POLICE STORY (1985) AND ARMOUR OF GOD (1987): On a collision course with disaster and fame

17 May 2009  |  2 min read

Disappointed when his first film in the US market (The Protector) flopped, the great martial arts-comedian Chan returned to Hong Kong where he'd got his start and made Police Story, a violent but hilarious action caper where he is a hapless cop on a drug bust. It is a film Chan is still proud of and it is punctuated by terrific set pieces which seem to be referenced in classic American... > Read more

MONTY PYTHON'S LIFE OF BRIAN, 30 YEARS ON (2009): Still a bit of a naughty boy

28 Apr 2009  |  2 min read  |  1

It seems only yesterday that Mel Gibson’s The Passion of The Christ was being debated for its uncompromising brutality. I wonder if those who bought it on DVD watch it often? And will they watch it 30 years time? Gibson has a sense of humour -- he made Braveheart after all -- so maybe he would get a laugh out of the irreverently hilarious religious spoof, Monty Python’s Life... > Read more

HUMAN BODY: PUSHING THE LIMITS (DVD Madman)

25 Apr 2009  |  1 min read

Without wishing to create a "medical Elsewhere" section, here's a DVD series that should appeal to those with an interest in human physiology, the limits the body can pushed to and how our nuerons, muscle, tissue and tendons respond. Using 3D imaging and remarkable computer graphics (which show the body as a mass of muscles and nerves, much like Kevin Bacon in Hollow Man), we are... > Read more

KENNETH WILLIAMS: An Audience with Kenneth Williams (DVD, Madman)

12 Apr 2009  |  2 min read

Even if you'd only ever seen one film in Carry On series and hated it, you'd still remember Kenneth Williams and his nasal delivery, high camp mannerisms, effeminate manner and innuendo-laden quips delivered with a knowing look. It was in Carrry On Cleo that Williams had the funniest and most memorable line of his career when, as Caesar in fear of his life, he cries, "Infamy! Infamy!... > Read more

STEVE COOGAN INTERVIEWED (2004): Ah-haa!

6 Apr 2009  |  5 min read

We cringed when British actor Steve Coogan was appalling television, then radio, host Alan Partridge in the British television series Knowing Me, Knowing You and I'm Alan Partridge. There were few more uncomfortable television characters than this gauche, insecure and obnoxious British television talk show host whose Abba-themed show offered appalling puns, maltreatment of guests,... > Read more

THE BAND'S VISIT by ERIN KOLIRIN (Madman DVD)

2 Apr 2009  |  1 min read  |  3

This beautifully composed, delightfully understated Israeli film is at Elsewhere not because it is about music -- an Egyptian police band adrift in an unattractive town in Israel -- but because it is about silence. There is an ineffable sadness behind the thin veneer of wry humour and the astute observation of characters and gestures, and that is conveyed not through words but passages of... > Read more

Amr Diab: Aktar Wahed Beyhebak

THE SMALL FACES; UNDER REVIEW (DVD, Chrome Dreams/Triton)

30 Mar 2009  |  1 min read  |  2

While it may be fair to consider the Small Faces out of London's East End to be one of the most interesting and even musically inventive groups of the Sixties, it is pushing it -- as one commentator does here -- to claim that they were right there behind the Beatles and the Stones. That not only ignores the Kinks, for example, but fails to account for the Small Faces' patchy track record of... > Read more

The Small Faces: Whatcha Gonna Do About It

DOWN THE TRACKS; THE MUSIC THAT INFLUENCED LED ZEPPELIN (Shock DVD)

1 Mar 2009  |  1 min read  |  1

My dad had a witty but true observation of the New Zealand whisky 45 South: "Don't think of it as a whisky and it's a quite acceptable drink." The same might be said of this doco in which neither Led Zeppelin nor their music appears: don't think of it as about Led Zeppelin and its quite an acceptable documentary. One of the cliches of contemporary music -- perpetrated in large... > Read more

Led Zeppelin: Gallow's Pole

A TECHNICOLOR DREAM (featuring Pink Floyd) DVD

1 Mar 2009  |  2 min read

At the end of this fascinating doco about the April '67 happening that was the 14-hour Technicolor Dream event in north London which featured the Syd Barrett-lead Pink Floyd at their early psychedelic peak, Barry Miles says that by the end of the following year everyone was just tired so went off to have sleep for a few years. The cause of their collective exhaustion had begun two years... > Read more

Pink Floyd: Interstellar Overdrive

MANUFACTURED LANDSCAPES by EDWARD BURTYNSKY (DVD): Scarred earth policy

7 Feb 2009  |  2 min read

The breathtaking opening shot in this documentary - a single, walking-pace, almost silent, dolly shot through a seemingly endless, multi-purpose factory in China which runs a full seven and a half minutes -- is so compelling in its impact that it has somewhat blinded many writers to what follows. Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky, the subject of this doco by Jennifer Baichwal, takes... > Read more

THE THREE STOOGES: Violence spoken here

3 Feb 2009  |  1 min read  |  1

The debate about the amount of violence on television isn’t going to end soon. There are too many people doing well-funded research for it to die quietly. By the time kids get to school they have seen, oh just heaps, of violent acts on television. They’ve also seen lots of programmes about sharks, but has anyone conducted a survey about just how much the average five-year old... > Read more

PRINCE IN THE PICTURE THEATRE: Can't act, can sing and dance some

22 Dec 2008  |  2 min read

One of the most stealthy pop rehabilitations in the past decade has been that of Prince. Ten years ago he was in creative limbo after a series of poor selling albums presented under that incomprehensible squiggle. Now however he’s appearing at the right parties and his tours are sell-outs. That’s despite his recent albums not doing anything like the business of his most creative... > Read more

Prince: Insatiable

BEST OF ELSEWHERE DVDs 2008 Kraftwerk and the Electronic Revolution (DVD)

22 Dec 2008  |  1 min read

Not only does this excellent overview of the German electronic scene come in at a whopping and thorough three hours, but it also has good timing: it is released just as Kraftwerk make a rare return appearance in New Zealand. This ambitious (but not officially sanctioned) look at Kraftwerk's place in the techno-cosmos places the group within the greater picture of the German music scene from... > Read more

QUENTIN TARANTINO: The director defining the landscape

19 Dec 2008  |  3 min read

There was a scene in Michael Palin’s much acclaimed travel-doco Himalaya which, even if you didn't see it, you'll recognise. It was of a towering mountain with clouds scuttling over at about 10 times the speed. Such an image is over-familiar these days -- you see it often in ads which indicates how cliched it has become -- but the accompanying music caught my attention. It was a series of... > Read more

BEST OF ELSEWHERE DVDs 2008 Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention: In the Sixties (DVD/ through Triton)

15 Dec 2008  |  2 min read  |  1

Frank Zappa died 15 years ago this month and while it is hard to make the case his music is still of influence (Zoogz Rift anyone?) this fascinating two hour-plus doco is persuasive in its argument that nothing in rock culture (and perhaps beyond) was the same after Zappa and the Mothers of Invention gatecrashed into pop music and then hippie culture in the Sixties. Although not authorised... > Read more