Your guide to this weekend’s new releases, advance screenings, and retro classics.
New Releases
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Miles Morales returns for Sony Animation’s superhero sequel (part one of two follow-ups to 2018’s Osccar-winning triumph) in which he encounters a team of Spider-People charged with protecting its very existence. “This is a gargantuan beast of a big-screen experience,” wrote Liam Maguren in his review for Flicks.
The Boogeyman
50 years after it first publication, Steven King’s short story about the… you-know-what makes its way to the screen. Yellowjackets‘ Sophie Thatcher and Sharp Objects‘ Chris Messina lead this horror featuring a monster with a taste for hanging out under beds and in wardrobes. “The Boogeyman’s derivative presence will make any viewer long for Pennywise’s demonic, shapeshifting playfulness,” observed a disappointed Eliza Janssen in her review for Flicks.
Bank of Dave
British comedy tells the heartwarming true story of Dave Fishwick, a regular bloke who attained Britain’s first new bank licence in more than 100 years just to help his local businesses survive.
Film Festivals
French Film Festival
Whether you’re a Francophone or merely a fan of great new cinema, The L’Or French Film Festival Aotearoa lineup is a taste of wonderful modern Gallic filmmaking (see more on what’s playing here). The fest in on now in Auckland, Masterton, Whitianga, Kerikeri, Tauranga, Palmerston North, Nelson, Arrowtown & Wanaka.
Advance screenings
The Tank
After mysteriously inheriting an abandoned coastal property in this NZ-shot horror, Ben and his family accidentally unleash an ancient, long-dormant creature that terrorised the entire region.
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
Harold is an ordinary man who has passed through life, living on the side lines, until he goes to post a letter one day…and just keeps walking. From BAFTA-winning director Hettie Macdonald (Normal People), adapting the novel by Rachel Joyce and starring Oscar-winner Jim Broadbent.
Retro screenings
Donny Darko turns back time at Auckland’s Academy Cinemas on Friday, with The Truman Show playing there in celebration of its 25th anniversary on Saturday. Spielberg classic Close Encounters of the Third Kind touches town at Auckland’s Hollywood Avondale on Sunday, and that same day in Christchurch Lumière Cinemas screens 80s Scottish classic Local Hero and Wellington’s Roxy Cinemas hosts 1983’s heartwarming Nic Cage-starring star-crossed lovers pic Valley Girl.
