Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles (12A)
Directed by Chuck Workman
5/5

ORSON WELLES’S genius and, fascinatingly, his sad, slow fall from grace after his extraordinary debut as director and star of the classic Citizen Kane, could use a much longer running time than this fascinating biopic.

Happily, director Chuck Workman capitalises on its relatively short length.

Cineastes cannot fail to enjoy another trip through the cinema legend’s life and work, commented on by fellow film-makers. And, for celluloid neophytes or film studies undergraduates cramming Welles, it’s a potent picture.

It can be argued that after Citizen Kane, Welles’s career was never likely to rise to such heights again. A smug Steven Spielberg and passe film-maker Peter Bogdanovich veer towards that viewpoint.

Nevertheless, accompanied by vivid extracts and footage of Welles in riveting vintage interviews, it’s a film to savour. More than once.
Review by Alan Frank

Housebound (18)
Directed by Gerard Johnstone
3/5

THIS Kiwi haunted-houser is a small horror gem which breathes new life into a tired genre.

Gerard Johnstone’s debut feature film is a surprising breath of fresh air, with its combination of deadpan humour and B-movie antics.

It tells the story of Kylie Bucknell (Morgana O’Reilly), sentenced to house arrest, who’s forced to come to terms with her madcap mother (Rima Te Wiata) who believes in ghosts and the haunting presence in their old house.

What starts off as a crime drama before turns into a smart, uber-tense ghost story which nevertheless has its moments of hilarity.

O’Reilly as the troubled Kylie who declares war on her haunted home, and Glen-Paul Waru as the ghost-obsessed home detention security guard who helps her, give superb performances.

A must-see.

Review by Maria Duarte

Amy (15)
Directed by Asif Kapadia
4/5

DIRECTOR Asif Kapadia’s story of the ultimately fatally flawed life of six-time Grammy Award-winning jazz singer Amy Winehouse is undoubtedly powerful film making.

He’s assembled an extraordinarily vivid treasure trove of archive footage, previously unheard tracks and interviews with family and friends to create a compelling, ultimately heartbreaking portrait of a unique talent.

Winehouse’s brief fame was inevitably accompanied by a relentless, amoral exploitation of her by the pursuing media.

While at times Amy seems more hagiography than biography as we follow her rise to fame, subsequent notoriety as a drug addict and alcoholic and early death, Kapadia’s portrait of a tarnished and sadly vulnerable character who “was a very old soul in a very young body” steers away from celebrating her talents to portray her as a victim.

Controversially, her father Mitch is portrayed as using his daughter as a cash cow, even to the extent of following her to the West Indies with a film and sound crew in tow. 

Yet, in the final analysis, fine filmmaking transcends mere fact. Amy grips from start to finish.

Review by Alan Frank

Still the Water (15)
Directed by Naomi Kawase
4/5

WRITER-DIRECTOR Naomi Kawase’s moving coming-of-age drama, an acute meditation on the painful reality of life and death, could all too easily simply be hailed as “art house film of the week.”

There are no stars or fast-paced action and, of course, it’s subtitled.

But it’s a film which transcends neat pigeonholing, thanks in no small part to the beautifully photographed locations by Yutaka Yamazaki on the Japanese island of Amahi-Oshima, which add depth to dual storylines.

The first has 16-year-old Kaito (Nijiro Murakami) finding a dead man floating in the sea after a typhoon, an event that affects his burgeoning relationship with classmate and girlfriend Kyoko (Jun Yoshinaga).

In the second, Kawase movingly parallels this sharply observed relationship with the emotional traumas undergone by Kyoko as she tries to come to terms with her mother’s impending death.

The evocative settings are patently Japanese but the emotional core of the film is universal.

Review by Alan Frank

The First Film (PG)
Directed by David Wilkinson
3/5

The First Film is an extraordinary labour of love.

It follows the 33-year-long quest by film-maker David Wilkinson to prove that the world’s first film was made in Leeds by unknown French inventor Louis Le Prince in 1888.

Wilkinson embarks on a fascinating and remarkable fact-finding mission to dispel the commonly held notion that it was the Lumiere Brothers and Thomas Edison who were the pioneers of film production.

The first half of the documentary, in which Wilkinson interviews numerous experts in Yorkshire, France and the US, concentrates on the race against time for Le Prince to become the first person to make a film.

The second half, focusing on Le Prince’s mysterious death, is more intriguing.

Despite the overly technical minutiae of Le Prince’s bid, which is a little hard to follow, it’s nevertheless a compelling film.

Review by Maria Duarte

Magic Mike XXL (15)
Directed by Gregory Jacobs
2/5

AFTER Steve Carrell’s prosthetic nose cruelly upstaged him in Foxcatcher, Channing Tatum seizes on a role where he’s very much the centre of attention.

He returns crammed into a jockstrap as male stripper Magic Mike Lane in a sequel that sees him and his clothes-shedding pals driving to a stripper convention in Florida.

Playwright Luigi Pirandello had six characters in search of an author, here director Gregory Jacobs and screenwriter Reid Carolin have six characters in search of a solid storyline, which they never really find.

Instead, inspired by the spirit of “Seize the day!” Lane and his chums, played by Matt Bomer, Joe Manganiello, Kevin Nash, Adam Rodriguez and Gabriel Iglesias, drive to Florida on an undernourished strippers’ safari.

Along the way they meet “love interests” in the shapes of Andie McDowell, Amber Heard and Jada Pink, to little narrative effect, before hitting the heights at Myrtle Beach.

The climatic strip-dancing sequences, the film’s raison d’etre, are truly terrific. A pity they turn up so late.

Review by Alan Frank