Summer cinema sampler – Part 2

The awards season is in full swing and local cinema goers can check out all the top films over the next few weeks. Below is a sampling, arranged in order of release:

JANUARY 20
The King’s Speech Frontrunner for the main Oscars and has already collected more than its share of awards. This period drama about a stuttering King George VI presses all the buttons as a crowd-pleaser for all audiences. Geoffrey Rush (the Oscar winner for Shine) is in top form as an eccentric Australian speech therapist who spars with Colin Firth as the stuttering monarch. Director Tom Hooper, whose previous best-known work is the US TV miniseries John Adams, and screenwriter David Seidler mount an impeccable production that focuses on events in 1936 as "Bertie" Windsor, the Duke of York (Firth), employs the therapist to overcome his stammer, which has stunted his ability to perform his public duties. These are ramped up when his older brother "David" (Guy Pearce as King Edward VIII) abdicates after less than a year on the throne so he can marry twice divorced Wallis Simpson. Helena Bonham Carter plays King George VI's devoted wife, Queen Elizabeth (later the Queen Mother), while there are excellent cameos by Timothy Spall (Winston Churchill), Derek Jacobi (Archbishop of Canterbury), Michael Gambon (King Edward VII) and Anthony Andrews (Stanley Baldwin).

JANUARY 27
Black Swan Ballet audiences will never view Swan Lake the same again after this behind-the-scenes curtain-puller goes over the top into theatrical Grand Guignol. More horror than horrific, the story follows Natalie Portman for a full two hours as she descends into madness and then triumphs, after a fashion, in the time-honoured climax. Portman’s gruelling role, from her hallucinatory head down to her tortured feet, is certain to be the award-winning performance of the year for an actress. Director David Aronofsky (The Wrestler) ensures she is well supported with superb casting, from co-star Vincent Cassel to welcome comebacks from Winona Ryder and Barbara Hershey. Audiences react with both terror and laughter at Mr Aronofsky’s bag-of-tricks, which come from as far back as The Red Shoes (1948) up to today’s explicit sex-and-horror shows. Be warned.

Inside Job Top drawer documentary-maker Charles Ferguson gains access to some of the important players in the Wall Street implosion of 2008 as he puts the case for the prosecution against the biggest names in the business. But most of them turned him down for interviews, though they appear in news footage. Ferguson's indignation that no one has paid a price for the causing the Global Financial Crisis is palpable. The no-shows are replaced by experts who explain how derivatives and credit swaps inflated the subprime mortgage bubble and why no one did anything to preventing it bursting with dire consequences. Ferguson concludes that the “progressive deregulation of the financial sector since the 1980s gave rise to an increasingly criminal industry.” His take-no-prisoners approach is a gripping and persuasive because it raises the right questions.

The Hopes and Dreams of Gazza Snell The first Kiwi film of the year has more appeal than its low-key release suggests. Don't let the title put you off just because "Gazza" sounds just like one of those suburban characters you try to avoid (which he is). His intentions for his business, his kids and his attempt to be elected to local government career are hopelessly are odds with reality, as is his throw-back racism and sexism. Gazza's comeuppance comes when one of his two sons is tragically pushed too far on the go-karting circuit, which is a neat twist on the stage mother theme (something Black Swan takes to the extreme). Expat co-writer and director Brendan Donovan gets the pace right and good performances from his cast: Aussie actors William McInnes and brothers William and Josh McKenzie as his sons. Robyn Malcolm, as the long-suffering mother, and Joel Tobeck as the family's sometimes too-close friend provide familiar faces, as does the setting in Auckland's suburban Howick. This also allows a cross-cultural element as one of the Snell boys romances a Kiwi Chinese (Melissa Xiao).