95

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• It’s effectively impossible to view this movie with fresh eyes. You’d have to avoid the near century of pop culture in its wake to see this movie and not gasp at every minute detail which later became a Simpsons gag, or sitcom Very Special Episode, or the very real actual plot of Shrek 4 (WFS 2026, anyone?). 5 stars, no notes*, one of the greatest films ever made. *okay one note: did you notice in the close up of the crashed car that the snow was soap bubbles. They didn’t think we’d notice, but we saw it. We all saw it.

• A glowing masterpiece. Stewart is extraordinary here, delivering perhaps his most human performance as Capra steers us between despair and grace with absolute confidence. For all its shadows, the film remains joyous and deeply uplifting – the kind of cinematic catharsis that lingers long after the lights come up.

• I was so drawn into this film, as it gave me the time and space to get to know the people of the town and all their quirks, and to fall in love with them. Whilst I could understand George Bailey’s desire to spread his wings, I could also understand this tremendous love, of family, people and place, that kept him in Bedford Falls. A shorter film would struggle to do this. Plus, James Stewart’s performance was brilliant- utterly compelling, endearing and believable. I felt great for experiencing this film on the big screen – thank you so much for showing it.

• A wonderful film to end the year on! Aside from a couple of jokes that showed their age, this film and its message hold up amazingly well after almost 80 years. A true classic.

• The kind of film that you *could* pick holes in, but really don’t want to. I love that “Zuzu’s Petals” has such a life outside of this film — so many viewers must have something spark in their brain as that scene plays!

93

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• I think I could talk forever about this movie, and its constant, lovely juxtaposition of high and low, gorgeous and gritty – a perfect pirouette in a damp community hall, gilt hotel furniture accented with a dirty ash tray, a smash cut from black tie to a shattered body – but it would just be noise. This is one of the best and most beautiful movies I’ve ever seen, and I’m so glad I saw it for the first time here.

• What a fantastic way to end the year. A film I’ve known of for over 50 years, but never seen. The excitement of being able to see it on a big screen was only matched by it’s brilliance.

• How did the Archers make so many different unique masterpieces? This might be the most beautiful of them all. The centrepiece is almost a self-contained short horror movie told entirely in dance.

• Was everyone else thinking about the Wellington Film Society queue during the opening scene (with the students entering the theatre)?

• An imperfect masterpiece with a kinetic first half and an overly long second. But all is forgiven for the 17-minute ballet sequence, stunning score, and Lermontov’s collection of sunglasses.

79

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• Despite the tawdry melodrama and overwrought performances, the interleaving of superb cinematography, captivating music, and seamaless editing made this one a complete revelation.

• The only problem with having an ever-present mariachi band is they will play your (very cool) theme song as you bleed out on the railway tracks.

• The star of the film was also the choreographer of her dance moves. Apparently she made this type of “bad” woman with a heart of gold her thing. Rough around the edges dialogue that could well be the sub-titler’s fault, but still a gem of a hodgepodge of noir and musical. Note: I’d have loved to have the other songs translated given the magnificent double entendre of the one that was – I have a feeling that true to musical roots, there was meaning in each interlude.

• A stunning 4K resurrection – thanks to Wellington Film Society for hauling this gem into the light. Noir grit, musical swagger, and melodrama dialled up to glorious excess.

• A film that I should have loved, with all of its noir posturing and dramatic shadows. And I certainly did love the aesthetics of the film. Unfortunately some of the pacing decisions were a bit questionable. Barely were we introduced to a new status quo before that status quo is overturned by a dramatic action of some sort. Perhaps there could have been one fewer musical performance and one more scene establishing the child as a tool of crime.

87

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• I think I must’ve seen this at the Auckland film festival in 1987. Just that once till now, as far as I recall, but it left me with a hugely positive impression that’s still with me after this latest viewing. The film feels like a window into the world of a likeable, highly strung, adventurous kid with an over-active imagination, during some of the most stressful times of his life. We experience his relationships with everyone around him, a lot of fun & mischief as well as love & sadness; there’s a fair bit that isn’t explained but that’s okay, how often do people really explain things to kids? Not sure I expected so many sharp intakes of breath, there are some fairly perilous moments. Lots of laughter as well though.

• I’m not sure whether I Laika or not.

• Seriously, why does the dog always have to die? We need a new Bechdel-type test. “Does the film demonstrate that a character/situation is bad without killing the dog?”. — Editor’s note: we recommend www.doesthedogdie.com for exactly this question! It also covers plenty of other topics.

• It’s always nice to see a rural environment portrayed as interesting, eccentric, fun and utterly free of health and safety officers as opposed to a mean spirited hell hole. I vastly preferred those rural scenes to the grindingly grim scenes back in town which had all the grace and subtlety of someone dragging their fingers down a chalkboard. As an aside, it was curious how a bunch of 12 year old kids in Sweden in 1958 play more entertaining football than the Phoenix does in 2025.

• Adolescence can be ruff, especially with a sick mother and foriegn town. Maybe not as rough as being Laika orbiting earth with no food.

81

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• The definitive haunted house story? With its title, setting and backstory, The Haunting sets itself as a true horror classic. You will never see a spiral staircase the same way again.

• Much like the guests of hill house this film overstays it’s welcome. Some fun camera work and quippy dialogue prop it up but not enough to justify the runtime. A few more spooky sequences and less idle yarns and it could have lived up to its title.

• It was sort of a silly sort of enjoyable. I liked the inner monologue voice-overs and the inconsistent behaviours of some of the characters – like the women often swung from bold to meek, somewhat randomly.

• Utterly gripping, and exuding a level of strangeness and mystery which manages to feel fresh all these decades later. The camera work and special effects are remarkable, but none of that would matter without the superb central performance of Julie Harris. The Halloween film I needed.

• Does what literary adaptations ought to do: figure out what this medium can do that a book can’t and do it well. The spectacular set is combined with brilliant camerawork to make Hill House a constant, malevolent presence, leering over shoulders of our protagonists through every statue, window, and mirror. The Haunting is not, in my opinion, as good as the book, but it is still damned good.

67

%

• The first half was some of the most effective and terrifying J-horror I’ve ever seen, as well as a shotgun-blast of Milliennial nostalgia. The second half was a wonky post-apocalyptic melodrama that limped to a nonsensical conclusion in a barrage of sub-PS2 special effects, like someone let Steven King direct one of his own books. A deflating end to some knuckle-biting stuff.

• An incoherent fever dream committed to celluloid. I was unable to make it to last week’s “highest rating of all time” High and Low, and THIS is what I come back to?! (Were you trying for a “High and Low” pun in film rating form?)

• Milennials like me remember the old days of dial up when, if you needed to go on the computer you had to ask your parents nicely whether you were allowed to go into *~*ThE fOrBiDdEn RoOm*~*

• This film is based on an interesting if not implausible idea, and explores themes of loneliness and isolation in the internet age. However these themes were established quite early in the film, so after the first hour it got a bit boring and I found myself looking at my watch hoping it was about to end.

• It wasn’t scary, and I was a bit confused about the storyline, but I enjoyed the by turns quaint and prescient commentary about the dangers of the internet. An enjoyable, atmospheric watch if you let it wash over you and don’t expect it to make much sense.

96

%

• So perfectly blocked that a room full of talking heads took on the careful choreography of a ballet, and the three-hour runtime miraculously didn’t drag – this is a shockingly nimble movie! Also clearly an influential one: it made me think of Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite, and every anime villain whose glasses ever flashed menacingly to show their empty soul.

• Nearly 3 hours of stunning faces, interesting police work, and chrome sunglasses that are as iconic as Thorwald’s cigarette in Rear Window. Glad I waited to see it on the big screen.

• A tense bottle episode, followed by a police procedural, finishing with a serial killer thriller all wrapped in class politics. But still filled with such love for humanity with all its flaws.

• It feels like sacrilege to say this about the same man who made ‘Ikiru’, ‘Rashomon’, ‘Ran’, ‘Throne of Blood’, ‘Seven Samurai’, ‘Yojimbo’ and ‘Stray Dog’, but this might be the best thing Akira Kurosawa ever made. Absolute perfection in celluloid.

• Kudos to whoever came up with the English title for the film, that was genius. So many meanings. And now I get why Kurosawa is so well regarded. There was so much to think about from this story. Starting with the principled executive who refuses to allow his firm to make shoddy products having his morality tested with a way more difficult dilemma that could ruin him either way. I kept thinking about what I might do in that situation. Life savings or life saving?!

66

%

• A very handsome and sweet bit of visual poetry. Brings me back to the halcyon days of 2017, when digital images were soft and men made Arcade Fire songs on their laptops. I could’ve used a bit less score, as enchanting as it is!

• Had moments of genuine existential terror. The construction to skyscraper time jump was very disturbing. I was not prepared for that digger jumpscare either!

• Suffice to say my taste in sad ghosts is a little more India Song than Casey Affleck stuck in a 93 minute 2010s indie music video. Nice ghost design though

• About 50/50 profound and blandly obvious. There’s some really powerful and moving stuff, here I just wish it was more consistent. Really wish we had been given more time with its characters before tragedy strikes. Also could have done without the world’s most asinine monologue from the world’s most annoying character.

• Shot in a 4:3 format the movie had a kind of home-movie vibe from the start but the simplicity of the sheet belied the deep emotional heart of the story. A superb realisation of loss and having to move on.

77

%

• A cornucopia of genres: quite possibly the best car chase since Bullitt, tenderest coming of age movie since American Pie, tautest police procedudral since the keystone cops and funniest avian plot since The Birds. Brilliant

• Good to know that had film directing not worked out for Robert Altman he could’ve made a steady living directing that bit in every Dukes of Hazzard episodes where massive American cars go over a hump in the road in slow-mo and get a tiny bit airborne

• I can forgive a movie just about anything if it makes me laugh, and Brewster McCloud made me laugh a lot.

• What a great juxtaposition to last week’s La Chinoise: It’s as if someone watched a lot of nouvelle vague back in the day and thought that it’s the disjointedness that makes that great. It’s not. People don’t love goofy nonsense unless it’s covering something of substance.

• Wildly entertaining, and bat- no, bird-s#%@ bonkers. I just can’t decide which character is the craziest — is it the literal guardian angel of death, or Shelly Duvall’s lower eyelashes?

53

%

• I didn’t hate this but I also didn’t love it. Godard either wants me to think these kids are the vanguard of radical thought, or foolish youth lip-syncing to ideology they don’t understand. I don’t know if I just didn’t get it, or if I did get it and there just isn’t much there.

• It’s one thing to be an insufferable, ineffectual Maoist revolutionary, but quite another to be dumped by one’s Marxist-Leninist girlfriend for having an annoying sweater.

• All the political quarrelling and infighting in this movie made me feel seen, as it reminded me of my own revolutionary cell’s efforts to get WFS to play Cool Runnings.

• Brilliant. One of the year’s best. Intelligent script and vivid cinematography. A gentle mocking of young students who took themselves far too seriously, and whose debates reminded me of Monty Python’s Judean People’s Front. I’d prefer to have a beer with the students from Scarfies.

• Like sunlight reflecting off water the light becomes polarised, just like projection light reflecting off the Embassy Grande screen it made the audience polarised. I was one of those love/hate members. Mostly hate.