Movie

History

• The first public screening of a motion picture was on October 13, 1896 at the Opera House, Auckland and was part of a show presented by Charles Godfrey’s Vaudeville Company.
• The first filmmaker in New Zealand was Alfred Whitehouse, who made 10 films between 1898 and mid-1900. His The Departure of the Second Contingent for the Boer War, filmed in 1900, is the oldest surviving New Zealand film.
• The first feature film made in New Zealand was Hinemoa. It premiered on August 1, 1914 at the Lyric Theatre, Auckland.
• During the 1920s and 1930s, Director Rudall Hayward made a number of feature films using New Zealand themes. Rewi's Last Stand was probably his best, though little of this 1925 film survives. The film was remade with sound during the 1930s.
• The National Film Unit was a government-funded producer of short films, documentaries, and publicity material.
• Independent filmmaker John O'Shea was active from 1940 to 1970 making New Zealand cinema. His company Pacific Films produced numerous short films as well as the three New Zealand feature films made in that period:
  • Broken Barrier, 1952;
  • Runaway, 1964;
  • Don’t Let It Get You, 1966;
• This is New Zealand, a short film made for the World Expo in 1970 was extremely popular there and subsequently screened in New Zealand cinemas, to much public acclaim.
• During the 1970s the New Zealand Film Commission was established to fund the production of New Zealand cinema films. A number of film projects were funded and this lead to a revitalisation of the New Zealand film industry.
• The first New Zealand film to be released in the United States was Sleeping Dogs, in 1977. A dark political action thriller that portrays the reaction of one man to the formation of a totalitarian government, and subsequent guerrilla war, in New Zealand. Its timely release and politically relevant plot proved very popular with New Zealand audiences at the time. Some of its images are frighteningly realistic when compared to televison footage of the 1981 Springbok Tour protests, just 3 years later.
• In 1981 there were three New Zealand feature films released. Goodbye Pork Pie (Geoff Murphy), Pictures (Michael Black) and Smash Palace (Roger Donaldson). Goodbye Pork Pie became a huge hit and packed out the cinemas it screened at. It took in $1.5 million in 1981, (a figure comparable with big Hollywood blockbusters of the time like Star Wars or Jaws), and Geoff Murphy accepted movie offers from Hollywood. The release of Goodbye Pork Pie is considered to be the coming-of-age of New Zealand cinema as it showed that New Zealanders can make sucessful films about New Zealand.

New Zealand Film Archive

Much of the early cinema film made in New Zealand has been lost, as it was printed on unstable nitrate film base. In 1992, when film enthusiasts and the New Zealand Film Archive realised how much of New Zealand's film heritage was being lost, they mounted the Last Film Search and found 7,000 significant films, both in New Zealand and around the world.

• All the Way Up There (1978) (Director: Gaylene Preston)
• Among the Cinders (1984) (Director: Rolf Hädrich)
• An Angel at My Table (1990) (Director: Jane Campion) (A dramatisation of the autobiography of New Zealand author Janet Frame.)
• Bad Taste (1987) (Director: Peter Jackson)
• Bad Blood (1981) (Director: Mike Newell)
• Beyond Reasonable Doubt (1990) (Director: John Laing) (A dramatisation of the Arthur Allan Thomas Case by David Yallop.)
• Braindead (aka Dead Alive) (1992) (Director: Peter Jackson)
• Bread and Roses (1993) (Director: Gaylene Preston)
• Bridge to Nowhere (1986) (Director: Ian Mune)
• Broken English (1996) (Director: Gregor Nicholas)
• Came a Hot Friday (1985) (Director: Ian Mune)
• Carry Me Back (1982) (Director: John Reid)
• Dagg Day Afternoon (1977) (Directors: John Clarke and Geoff Murphy) (Features kiwi icon Fred Dagg)
• The End of the Golden Weather (1991) (Director: Ian Mune)
• Footrot Flats: The Dog's Tale (1986) (Director: Murray Ball) (Animated feature based on a popular New Zealand cartoon strip drawn by Murray Ball.)
• Forgotten Silver (1995) (Directors: Costa Botes and Peter Jackson) (A mockumentary of "lost" New Zealand filmmaker "Colin McKenzie" that created a huge uproar in the film community until everyone realised the directors were "only joking".)
• Goodbye Pork Pie (1981) (Director: Geoff Murphy) (A New Zealand road trip.)
• Gupta vs Gordon (2003) (Director: Jitendra Pal) (A cross cultural Kiwi-Indian comedy feature film set in Hawkes Bay)
• The Irrefutable Truth About Demons (2000) (Released as Truth about Demons in United States) (Director: Glenn Standring)
• Jack Brown, Genius (1994) (Director: Tony Hiles)
• Leave all Fair (1985) (Director: John Reid) (A dramatisation of the life of expatriate New Zealand author Katherine Mansfield.)
• The Locals (2003) (Director: Greg Page)
• The Maori Merchant of Venice or Tangata Whai Rawa o Weniti (2002) (Director: Don Selwyn) (William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice in Te Reo Maori and a modern Maori setting.)
• Meet the Feebles (1989) (released as Just the Feebles in United States) (Director: Peter Jackson) (Proving that Jackson can do animation too!)
• Ngati (1987) (Director: Barry Barclay)
• The Navigator: A Mediaeval Odyssey (Director: Vincent Ward)
• Never Say Die (1988) (Director: Geoff Murphy)
• Once Were Warriors (1994) (Director: Lee Tamahori)
  • Sequel What Becomes of the Broken Hearted (1999) (Director: Ian Mune)
• Patu (1983) (Documentary of the 1981 Springbok Tour compiled by Merata Mita.)
• Pictures (1981) (Director: Michael Black)
• The Price of Milk (2000) (Director: Harry Sinclair)
• The Quiet Earth (1985) (Director: Geoff Murphy)
• Scarfies (1999) (Director: Robert Sarkies)
• The Silent One (1984) (Director: Yvonne Mackay)
• Sleeping Dogs (1977) (Director: Roger Donaldson)
• Skin Deep (1978) (Director: Geoff Steven)
• Smash Palace (1981) (Director: Roger Donaldson)
• Snakeskin (2001) (Director: Gillian Ashurst)
• Solo (1977) (Director: Tony Williams)
• Sons for the Return Home (1979) (Director: Paul Maunder) (Based on the novel of the same name by Albert Wendt)
• Stickmen (2001) (Director: Hamish Rothwell)
• Topless Women Talk About Their Lives (Director: Harry Sinclair)
• Te Rua (1991) (Director: Barry Barclay)
• Utu (1983) (Director: Geoff Murphy)
• Vigil (Director: Vincent Ward)
• War Stories Our Mothers Never Told Us (1995) (Director: Gaylene Preston)
• Whale Rider (2002) (Director: Niki Caro)
• Wildman (1977) (Director: Geoff Murphy)
• Wild Horses (1983) (Director: Derek Morton)

International Release Movies

• Race for the Yankee Zephyr (also released as Treasure of the Yankee Zephyr'' on video.) (1981) (Director: David Hemmings) (An international big-budget production that uses the scenery around Queenstown and Fiordland as its setting.)
• Savage Islands (1983) (Released as Nate and Hayes in United States) (Director: Ferdinand Fairfax)
• Heavenly Creatures (1994) (Director: Peter Jackson)
• The Frighteners (1996) (Director: Peter Jackson)
• The Lord of the Rings trilogy : The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002), The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (scheduled December 2003) (Director: Peter Jackson)
• The Piano (1993) (Director: Jane Campion) (The film was an Oscar nominee for Best Picture, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Film Editing, and winner of Best Original Screenplay, Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress at the 66th Annual Academy Awards in 1994. The first New Zealand film to receive academy awards.)

Prominent Directors

• Jane Campion
• Roger Donaldson
• Peter Jackson
• Ian Mune
• Geoff Murphy : also directed Young Guns II (1990), Freejack (1992) and Absolute Zero (2000) in United States.
• Gaylene Preston
• Lee Tamahori : also directed Mulholland Falls (1996) The Edge (1997), Die Another Day (2002) in the United States. Was an assistant director on Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983).
• Vincent Ward

Notable Actors

• Timothy Balme
• Danielle Cormack
• Marton Csokas
• Cliff Curtis
• Kerry Fox
• Bruno Lawrence
• Melanie Lynskey
• Lawrence Makoare
• Temuera Morrison
• Sam Neill
• Anna Paquin (Born in Canada. Emigrated to New Zealand at age 4. First New Zealander to receive an Oscar for best supporting actress, and is the second-youngest Oscar winner ever.)
• Karl Urban

External Links

History of cinema

Originally moving picture film was shot at various speeds using hand-cranked cameras; then the speed for mechanized cameras and projectors was standardized at 16 frames per second, which was faster than much existing hand-cranked footage. A new standard speed, 24 frames per second, came with the introduction of sound. Improvements since the late 1800s include the mechanization of cameras, allowing them to record at a consistent speed, the invention of more sophisticated filmstocks and lenses, allowing directors to film in increasingly dim conditions, and the development of synch sound, allowing sound to be recorded at exactly the same speed as its corresponding video. Since the advent of many other media technologies, film may include a broad range of media — both linear and non-linear, dramatic and informational, motion and still (though progressive).

Actors

Film crew

film criticism

Film directors

Screenwriter

Movie studio

Experimental filmmaker

Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince

Etienne-Jules Marey

Classification by chronology

List of 'years in film'

1960s movies

1970s movies

1980s movies

1990s movies

2000s movies

Classification by geographical location of production

• Cinema of Albania
• Cinema of Argentina
• Cinema of Australia
• Cinema of Brazil
• Cinema of Canada
• Cinema of Chile
• Cinema of China
• Cinema of the Czech republic
• Cinema of Egypt
• Cinema of France
• Cinema of Germany
• Cinema of India (Bollywood, Kollywood, Malayalam cinema)
• Cinema of Indonesia
• Cinema of Iran
• Cinema of Italy
• Cinema of Japan
• Cinema of Malaysia
• Cinema of Mexico
• Cinema of Nepal (Woodmandu,Documentry cinema)
• Cinema of New Zealand
• Cinema of Quebec
• Cinema of Russia
• Cinema of South Africa
• Cinema of South Korea
• Cinema of Sweden
• Cinema of Turkey
• Cinema of the United States (Hollywood)

External links, references, and resources

Works Cited

Sobchak, Vivian. Screening Space: The American Science Fiction Film. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1998.

See also: List of science fiction films

Wikipedia contains spoilers.

The hero of the story is Peter Parker who is a precocious teenager, but also a complete social outcast who is too shy to even approach Mary Jane, a girl from next door he is smitten with. His only friend is Harry Osborn, and even that is tainted with jealousy by the fact that Harry's successful father, Norman, favours the brilliant Peter over himself.

On a student tour of a genetics laboratory, Peter is bitten by an escaped experimental spider that has been created with various traits from a variety of spiders. The spider's venom causes him to fall ill and he barely arrives home before collapsing into bed. After a difficult night's sleep while the venom alters his genetic makeup, he wakes up seemingly unharmed. However, he learns to his surprise that his body has changed dramatically and literally overnight. Over the course of that amazing first day, Peter learns that not only has he acquired perfect vision and muscle tone, but he has also gained greatly increased strength and agility, the ability to fire strands of strong webbing from his wrists, a "spider-sense" which gives him a psychic warning of any danger to himself and the ability to extend a mass of minute barbs from his skin which can allow him to adhere to any smooth surface. While he glories in these new abilities which allow him to fend off bullies like Flash Thompson and jump from rooftop to rooftop with ease, Aunt May and Uncle Ben, who care for him, become concerned for their nephew's new strange and secretive behaviour.

On a trip to the library, Uncle Ben confronts Peter about it and stresses to him that with maturity and power comes great responsibility. Peter impatiently snaps at him and secretly heads off to his true destination, a sports arena that promises a $3000 prize to any man who can stay for 3 minutes in the ring with the wrestler, Bonesaw McGraw. With some difficulty, Peter defeats the wrestler and is cheered as the Amazing Spider-Man. However, Peter is cheated by the fight promoter and in retaliation, does not stop a criminal who has stolen the gate money.

Walking to the library with some satisfaction, he finds that his Uncle has been shot by a carjacker in the street and Ben dies in front of him. Enraged, Peter dons his spider costume to pursue the murderer using his webs for transportation for the first time. He confronts the killer in an abandoned warehouse only to learn to his horror that the killer is the same criminal he could have stopped earlier when he had the chance. The murderer then dies accidentally and Peter is left to kick himself for his selfishness.

Months later after graduation, Peter decides to live up to his Uncle's words, "With great power, comes great responsibility" by becoming a superhero fighting crime all over the city. He eventually learns a way to make it pay by supplying photographs of himself to Daily Bugle publisher, J. Jonah Jameson who has a continual need for Spider-Man photos even though he vilifies the vigilante in his paper.

While this is happening, Norman Osborn has experienced a dramatic transformation himself. To save his company from losing a vital military contract, he subjects himself to a dangerous human test of an experimental performance enhancement chemical. The chemical increases his strength and intelligence, but also drives him insane, creating a new malevolent personality which comes forth to murder any one standing in his way. Using his company's prototype armour, a personal flight device called a glider and a nightmarish green facemask from his collection, Norman lashes out as a figure that is later dubbed the Green Goblin.

Spider-Man and the Goblin eventually meet at the World Unity Festival where the Goblin murders the company board of directors that were planning to fire him. Spider-Man drives the Goblin off and saves Mary Jane as well.

While Peter mourns the fact that he seems to have lost MJ for Harry during all this time; the Goblin tempts him, after abducting him as Spider-Man, to join with him against an ungrateful world that hates him. Spider-Man refuses and the insulted Goblin vowes revenge. This takes on a terrible nature when Norman deduces that Peter is Spider-Man and begins to strike at his loved ones, first Aunt May and MJ.

This leads to a climax on the George Washington Bridge where the Goblin forces Spider-Man to choose whether to save MJ or a cable car of children. Spider-Man, with some help from the New York population, manages to save both. The Goblin, enraged at being thwarted, brings Spider-Man to an abandoned building where they duel in brutal hand to hand combat. Spider-Man defeats him, only to be begged to stop his attack when the Norman personality regains control. Tearfully, Norman begs Peter to help him control his mental problem, unaware that the Goblin personality is manipulating his body subconciously for a sneak attack on Spider-Man using his glider's remote controls. Peter rejects the overture and barely avoids the charging glider that is hurtling in to spear him in the back, only to impale Norman instead.

Honouring Norman's request not to tell Harry the truth, Spider-Man brings Norman's body home and Harry becomes convinced that Spider-Man murdered his father. At the funeral, Harry swears revenge on Spider-Man while reaffirming his friendship with Peter. Dismayed at the tragedy he seems to cause to all those close to him, he rejects Mary Jane's words of love to keep her from becoming a potential target of his enemies yet again. The film ends with Peter walking away from MJ, who seems to now suspect that Peter is Spider-Man, while trying making the best of the situation with a de facto victory lap as he swings around the city with ease.

79 years later, the Enterprise NCC-1701-D find themselves fighting the insane scientist Soren (Malcolm McDowell), who, with the aid of some renegade Klingons, is attempting to reach the same energy ribbon so he can enter it and live in its simulated bliss forever. Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) is forced to try to stop Soren himself while Commander Riker (Jonathan Frakes) attempts to stop the Klingons.

As in several earlier films, Generations contrasts a man who will stop at nothing to get what he wants (Soren) with men who are willing to put aside everything they love and cherish to save others. Kirk makes the ultimate sacrifice, as does the NCC-1701-D, in one of the more thrilling special effects sequences of the film series.

Commander Data also has to grapple with an emotion chip which he plants in his brain, and which often threatens to overwhelm him. Recognizing and overcoming his own personal failings is his story arc.

The original director was Leonard Nimoy, but he pulled out before signing his contract. It's thought that he didn't like the screenplay and wanted it altered, but Rick Berman refused any further changes.

Major plot elements were inspired by writings of Delmore Schwartz and Schwartz was given screen credit.

Reportedly Kirk's death scene went over poorly in test screenings, and was re-filmed to be more heroic for the theatrical release.

The next film in the series is Star Trek: First Contact.

• Bob Hoskins - Mario
• John Leguizamo - Luigi
• Dennis Hopper - Koopa
• Samantha Mathis - Daisy
• Fisher Stevens - Iggy
• Richard Edson - Spike
• Fiona Shaw - Lena
• Dana Kaminski - Daniella
• Mojo Nixon - Toad

It was directed by Annabel Jankel and Rocky Morton and was distributed by Hollywood Pictures.