At The Movies

Join Simon Morris in the best seat in the house as he reviews the latest movies. At The Movies also plays at 1.30pm on Sunday afternoons on RNZ National.

Hosted by Simon Morris

A podcast cover for "At the Movies" with an abstract cinema screen with a big title.

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Review - How To Train Your Dragon

How To Train Your Dragon is a remake of the popular animated feature with a difference. The live-action version is written and directed by the maker of the original Dean DeBlois (Lilo and Stitch). Once again starring Gerard Butler as Viking chief Stoick.
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A scene from How To Train Your Dragon.

Review - K O

K O is a French Netflix thriller, that sees an MMA fighter accidentally kill an opponent in the ring, then feels obliged to protect his family from dangerous gangsters. Starring actual former MMA star Ciryl Gane.
K O

Review - Materialists

Materialists sees a successful matchmaker (Dakota Johnson) find herself torn between her heart and her head – between Mr Perfect and the far-from-perfect One That Got Away. Also starring Pedro Pascal and Chris Evans, it’s written and directed by Celine Song, who made the Oscar nominated Past Lives.
A screenshot from the movie Materialists. Two actors look at each other across a night-time garden party scene.

FULL SHOW: Festival Blues

Simon Morris looks enviously at the French Film Festival highlights that he can’t see until their general release. While he waits he checks out the “re-imagining” of the recent How To Train Your Dragon, the French John Wick, K O on Netflix, and a superior romance from the director of Past Lives. It’s called Materialists.
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Wishing On A Star

Simon Morris regrets the passing of the old-fashioned film star, and reviews two movies featuring one-time “stars of tomorrow” – Ana de Armas in Ballerina, and Prime Video’s The Assessment, starring Elizabeth Olsen and Alicia Vikander. And from Wales, an indie film with no stars to speak of, Chuck Chuck Baby.

Review - Chuck Chuck Baby

Chuck Chuck Baby sees a woman in the production line of a chicken farm of the same name, suddenly confronted by her school crush. A winner at last year’s Welsh Baftas, it features a string of director Janis Pugh’s favourite songs.
Chuck Chuck Baby

Review - The Assessment

The Assessment finds a couple in a dystopian future trying to get permission to have a baby. But first they need to pass an assessment. Stars Elizabeth Olsen (WandaVision), Himesh Patel (Yesterday) and Alicia Vikander (Ex Machina). Streaming on Prime Video.
The Assessment

Review - Ballerina

Ballerina – now prefaced "From the world of John Wick" – sees a new face at the Continental Hotel for assassins. A young dancer seeks revenge for the death of her father. Joining John Wick regulars Keanu Reeves and Ian McShane is Ana de Armas (Knives out), Anjelica Huston (The Witches) and Gabriel Byrne (The Usual Suspects).
Ballerina - From The World Of John  Wick

Review - The Phoenician Scheme

The Phoenician Scheme opens on the fabulously wealthy Zsa Zsa Korda setting out to make even more money, with the help of his daughter, a novice nun, and a Swedish tutor called Bjorn. Directed by Wes Anderson, it stars Benicio del Toro, Michael Cera, Scarlett Johanssen, Willem Dafoe, Benedict Cumberbatch, Richard Ayoade, Tom Hanks and Bill Murray as God.
The Phoenician Scheme

Full SHOW: Where Are We?

Simon Morris finds himself confused by flashbacks, dream sequences – and Wes Anderson’s convoluted story structures. He sets out through the thickets of The Phoenician Scheme, Bring Her Back and New Zealand road-movie Kōkā.
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Review - Kōkā

Kōkā sees an ailing Māori matriarch and an angry delinquent form an unlikely team as they take a journey away from past traumas towards healing and reconciliation. A first feature by writer-director Kath Akuhata-Brown.
Kōkā

Review - Bring Her Back

Bring Her Back is a stylish Australian horror, in which two teen siblings are fostered by a woman who turns out to have her own issues. Can partially-sighted Piper get through an unexpected ordeal? Starring Sally Hawkins (The Shape Of Water), it’s directed by brothers Danny and Michael Philippu (Talk To Me).
Bring Her Back

Review - Lilo and Stitch

Lilo and Stitch – the latest in a string of Disney animated films remade in live action. Lilo is a lonely Hawaiian 6 year old who wishes for a best friend and gets Stitch an anarchic alien who lives for trouble. Look out for cameo appearances from the stars of the original animated version.
Lilo and Stitch

Review - Tarrac

Tarrac is an Irish-language feelgood tale of an amateur team of women rowers who enter the semis in County Kerry. Can they beat the 20 year jinx? And will they pronounce the name of the sport? It’s naomhóg rowing, by the way…
Tarrac movie 2

Family Values

Simon Morris looks at three different films with one thing in common. They all feature “chosen families” - an Irish rowing team in Tarrac… an extended family of sisters, neighbours and a mischievous alien in Lilo and Stitch… and Bob Trevino Likes It – where a lonely young woman is let down by her real father and finds a better one online.

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