Something to watch tonight: Thursday 3 April
Zootopia (Howard/Moore/Bush, 2016)
Searching for an ‘on this day’ topic that a) I recommend and b) is actually available to watch, I stumbled across this modern classic from Disney.
This review is in video format, from the days when I was the spearhead of the RNZ pivot to video. I produced, wrote, presented and edited a review every week for about six months before RNZ realised that two film reviewers on staff was at least one too many and the initiative was canned. I’m pretty proud of what I came up with and I wonder whether anyone ever stumbles across these in the very long tail of the RNZ website.
Also, (roughly) on this day in 2011, Wellington suburban cinema The Roxy in Miramar opened its doors. Happy birthday Roxy!
I wrote about the opening for the Capital Times:
Wellington’s first Roxy Cinema was either notorious or legendary depending on your point of view. Originally the Britannia on Manners Street, it was renamed the Roxy in 1935 and ran as an idiosyncratic independent until demolition in 1974. Old school projectionists would tell you that the Roxy was a genuine fleapit, running continuous sessions (no cleaning) and providing a central city hideout for people skipping work or school.
According to “The Celluloid Circus”, Wayne Brittenden’s wonderful history of cinemas in New Zealand, owner Harry Griffith was once asked by a cashier if she should call the truant officer to apprehend some young miscreant. “Let him buy his ticket first,” snapped Griffith, “then report him.”
Griffith took a showman’s approach to programming, once risking the wrath of 20th Century Fox by scheduling an impromptu double feature of Elizabeth Taylor’s Cleopatra and Kenneth Williams in Carry On Cleo. That’s the kind of spirited whimsy we tried to encourage at the Paramount in my day and I do miss it.
And now, we have a new Roxy in town. Actually not in town – in suburban Miramar where the movies get made. Now the good burghers of the Eastern Suburbs get a picture palace of their own on the site of (and incorporating the frontage of) the old Capitol – a Kerridge cinema for years until the arrival of television kept people in their homes. So which Roxy are we going to get? The glamorous and opulent original New York version (that gave all the other Roxies their name) or the dubiously dingy Wellington one?
You can read the rest here (along with reviews of animated films Rio and Hop, nature documentary Oceans and Zach Snyder’s Sucker Punch).
Where to watch Zootopia
Aotearoa: Streaming on Disney+
Australia: Streaming on Disney+
Canada: Streaming on Disney+
Ireland: Streaming on Disney+
India: Streaming on Hotstar
USA: Streaming on Disney+
UK: Streaming on Disney+