Something to watch tonight: Wednesday 18 December
Sorry, no recommendation today
Kia ora whānau
As we hurtle towards the holiday break time gets shorter and I realise that I won’t have time later today to send through a new recommendation.
I’m deep in prep for my six-week stint hosting At the (Summer) Movies for RNZ and that means lots of daytime preview screenings before the mad rush of Boxing Day openings.
There are also meetings today with a client about a (non-movie) project that will ramp up over 2025.
Normal service will be resumed tomorrow (Thursday) but Friday will be the last regular newsletter before the Christmas holiday. The first “Something to watch tonight” newsletter of 2025 will arrive on 6 January.
I’m very grateful for the feedback on yesterday’s long guide to many of the great films not yet released in Aotearoa cinemas, especially the corrections. Reader DD interrupted his holiday in Australia to say:
Excellent list. A few minor corrections: NO OTHER LAND got a cinema release in Auckland a few weeks ago. RAP WORLD got one of its only cinematic outings in the world in Auckland (thanks to Tom Augustine) and is now on YouTube. (It was never releasable in a conventional sense due to music rights issues.) And THE KILLER (2024) is currently on Netflix in Australia, where I am atm. Not sure if it snuck on to Netflix in NZ or not.
(And saw RUMOURS over here. Freaking loved it. But I am a Maddin fan boy.)
I double-checked and The Killer is not one Netflix in NZ.
Doug followed up with:
(Oh, and RED ROOMS played Terror-Fi 2023. James Partridge: ahead of the curve once again!)
I wasn’t sure whether some of these had played earlier festivals and had no easy way to check so congrats to James for that prescient programming.
Reader J of Ōtepoti Dunedin commented:
Unfortunately for us here in Dunedin, because we only received 37 films from NZIFF this year I had even less opportunity to see most of these!
And reader TH reminded me that border security can make lives miserable anywhere, whether they are government employees or not:
I've been through Melbourne airport a couple of times a year for the last seven or eight years and it has the second sourest & most obstructive border security I've encountered - but the outright nastiest was TSA in Honolulu where at 11.30 at night they clearly enjoyed putting a Māori whānau with young kids - invited performers at an international gathering - through a lengthy and sneering interrogation in front of everyone, with the additional pleasure of holding up the rest of the exhausted passengers whose bodies were still running on NZ time. I don't think I could bring myself to see Carry On despite all the excellent reviews - just the thought of going to an airport sends my blood pressure through the roof nowadays.