New Zealand Listener - May 26, 2018

MAY 26 2018 LISTENER 69

Films are rated out of 5:

(abysmal) to (amazing).

Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the

Clones, Wednesday.

Olympus Has Fallen,

Sunday.

Matchstick Men,

Monday.

Ain’t Them

Bodies Saints,

Sunday.

Blue Jasmine, Sunday.

bleached look of the film gives

it an elegiac mood, like a side

story from a bygone western,

and the music by Daniel Hart

only adds to the atmosphere.

(2013)

MONDAY MAY 28

Matchstick Men (TVNZ Duke,

9.00pm). Nicolas Cage’s OCD

con artist may be offensively

OTT, but director Ridley Scott

keeps things upbeat and light,

thanks to Cage’s bouncy pro-

tégé Sam Rockwell and Alison

Lohman, who is particularly

good as the 14-year-old daugh-

ter he didn’t know he had. A

few good twists largely keep

the film from sentimentality.

(2003)

WEDNESDAY MAY 30

Star Wars: Episode II – Attack

of the Clones (Three,

7. 3 0 p m ). That Tem-

uera Morrison as

Jango Fett gets the

movie’s best line (“I’m just a

simple man, trying to make

my way in the universe”)

should tell you enough about

the second prequel, which

is really just a stop on the

way to Hayden Christensen’s

inevitable transformation

into wearing the Darth Vader

mask. Ewan McGregor is busy

with his transformation into

Alec Guinness, but George

Lucas’s words tend to die in

the mouth. (2002)

FRIDAY JUNE 1

Shakespeare in Love (Bravo,

8.30pm). The delightful

romcom that charmed both

the Academy and Bafta voters

in 1998. Writers Marc Norman

and Tom Stoppard joyfully

imagine an Elizabethan age of

backbiting theatre types, rau-

cous taverns and hot-blooded

meetings between Joseph

Fiennes, as Shakespeare, and

Gwyneth Paltrow, as his muse

Viola, in which dialogue spills

from stage to real life and

back again. The cast is chocka

with England’s finest: Colin

Firth, Tom Wilkinson, Imelda

Staunton, Simon Callow,

Rupert Everett. Geoffrey

Rush is hilarious as the

producer who needs

a new play from the

author (Romeo and Ethel the

Pirate’s Daughter is not really

cutting it) and Judi Dench,

with just eight minutes on

screen, won an Oscar as the

effortlessly imperious Queen

Elizabeth I. (1998)

From Nowhere (Rialto, Sky 039,

8.30pm). A film for the times:

a story about three undocu-

mented high school students

in the Bronx that lays bare the

inequities and obstacles for

immigrants. Julianne Nichol-

son plays a teacher who tries

to help Guinean Moussa (J

Mallory McCree), Dominican

Sophie (Octavia Chavez-

Richmond) and Peruvian

Alyssa (Raquel Castro). Lawyer

Denis O’Hare advises trying for

political asylum – “genocide is

good” – but their chances are

slim at best. (2016)