20th Anniversary Screening.

The tone and meaning of 'American Beauty’ remains debated by scholars and critics today.

Seen by some as a dry satire on the hollow existence of the American suburbs, by others as a meditation in the beauty of the mundane. It defies categorisation & remains one of the most interesting views of the American microcosm from the end of the 20th century.

5 Oscars were given, first time screenwriter Alan Ball and first time director Sam Mendes included.

Coen Brothers debut is a magnificently moody neo-noir , and a trailblazing masterpiece.

“Arguably the first American independent film that wanted to do nothing more — or less — than enthrall its audience with the sleight-of-hand rogue cunning of a Hollywood thriller… The Coen brothers made the impulse toward sheer entertainment seem, for an ‘art’ film, a revolutionary act… Quentin Tarantino, you’d better believe, took a good, hard look at Blood Simple; so did David Lynch and Steven Soderbergh.”-Owen Gleiberman

Presley's last movie and he never looked better!

A hip, young Dr. John Carpenter (Elvis Presley) comes to a bad neighbourhood slum to manage a clinic. He hires three nurses, unknowing that they are nuns in plain clothes. One of the nurses (Mary Tyler Moore), falls in love with the guitar playing doctor and has to make up her mind to stay with him or go back to the church.

Infused with some enjoyable songs ,including a rock spiritual in that church.

Elvis’s attempt at a "real" movie, and he fares well. Amazing to think Midnight Cowboy was made the same year and was set to star Elvis! Rated PG

Peckinpah’s rousing modern-day Western stars Kris Kristofferson as laconic big-rig driver Martin “Rubber Duck” Penwald, the head of an ever-increasing convoy of 18-wheeler-driving renegades who lead a corrupt, trucker-hating cop (Ernest Borgnine) on a wild, death-defying interstate chase.

Mixing pedal-to-the-metal action set pieces—including a fiery tractor-trailer explosion and stick-it-to-the-man attitude, Convoy is a rowdy, rambunctious ode to the anti-authoritarian spirit of the 1970s.

It’s also surpassingly beautiful, rendering the huge tractor trailers graceful, seemingly weightless.

Screens with “Superhero”, 1982 - Ray Winstone 35mm, 30 min before feature.

This ill-fated production was meant to be the next Star Wars but the dense nature of the source material and David Lynch’s idiosyncratic vision made that an impossibility.

Instead, this ungainly but beautifully weird sci-fi epic has become a cult classic. If the movie’s goal was to create, like the book, a world that felt utterly alien, then Lynch and his surreal style were the right choice.

With its bizarre dream sequences, rife with images of unborn foetuses and shimmering energies, and unsettling scenery like the industrial hell of the Harkonnen homeworld, the film’s actually closer to Kubrick than Lucas.

It seeks to put the viewer somewhere unfamiliar while hinting at a greater, hidden story.

If Blood Simple launched the Coens’ career, Fargo cemented their reputation as first-rate auteurs.

Both are thrillers involving everyday folk, but while their first film was infused with sweltering Texas heat, Fargo is stuck in a Minnesota deep freeze cheek by jowl with so-called “Minnesota Nice.”

Roger Ebert declared it simply “one of the best movies I’ve ever seen.” Oscar winner for Best Original Screenplay and Best Actress and awarded Best Director at the Cannes Film Festival.

A celluloid memento mori that unspools in reverse from gut-wrenching violence to sweetly observed moments of sublime tenderness.

Gaspar Noé’s Irreversible is a demanding but rewarding emotional odyssey in a challenging visual package.

Uncompromising , it raises complex questions about the depiction of sexual violence.

Golden Era musical highlights as legendary stars from MGM’s musical heyday introduce musical numbers culled from more than 100 films.

We chose to play number 3 because scenes in this film never found their way into movie theatres, and have languished for years, unseen, in the studio's vaults.

The result is a genuinely fascinating film, one that may tell more about MGM musicals, and aspects of American society, as they were cut because of commerce, taste, race, sex.

Some brilliant, some awful, and if not for this film we would never have seen them!

From the opening scenes of hunter Robert De Niro and friends Christopher Walken, John Savage and John Cazale stalking deer in the mist-shrouded Pennsylvania hills, to the shattering prisoner-of-war games in the jungles of Vietnam, director Michael Cimino's masterwork is a sprawling, ambitious epic of men wounded by pride, country and friendship, struggling to drag each other back to a place of safety.

Co-starring Meryl Streep. Winner of five Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Supporting Actor (Walken).

“A remarkably full screen treatment of the mystic bond of male comradeship… it’s an astonishing piece of work, an uneasy mixture of violent pulp and grandiosity, with an enraptured view of common life – poetry of the commonplace.” – Pauline Kael, New Yorker

David Cronenberg's The Fly is that absolute rarity of the '80s: a film that is at once a pure, personal expression and a superbly successful commercial enterprise.

David Cronenberg directs this meditation on obsession and power, creating a pitch perfect mad scientist story.

When an experiment goes horrifically wrong, scientist Seth Brundle begins to experience a metamorphosis that threatens to overtake his humanity. Cronenberg handles Brundle's transformation into a giant fly masterfully, utilising creature effects that still make audiences sick to their stomachs thirty something years later.

Truly one of the better examples of the modern monster movie. As a remake, The Fly transcends the original, taking it in new directions and exploring its underutilised potential.

*This public event is not produced by The Hollywood Avondale*

Te Whānau Awahou Movie Fundraiser 2019

We are excited to invite you to come and view this years most anticipated New Zealand Film 'Vai', here at Hollywood Avondale.

Vai is a portmanteau feature film made by nine female Pacific filmmakers, filmed in seven different Pacific countries: Fiji, Tonga, Solomon Islands, Kuki Airani (Cook Islands), Samoa, Niue and Aotearoa (New Zealand).

It is about the journey of Vai, played by a different indigenous actress in each of the Pacific countries. In each of these Pacific nations ‘vai’ means water.

Vai premiered at the 2019 Berlin Film Festival. The nine Pasifika women filmmakers are Sharon and Nicole Whippy, Becs Arahanga, Amberley Jo Aumua, Matasila Freshwater, Dianna Fuemana, Mīria George, 'Ofa-ki Guttenbeil-Likiliki and Marina Alofagia McCartney.

There will be a Q & A after the movie from a couple of the women involved.

Tickets are $25 (including your selection of a snack) All proceeds will go to support our tamariki within Te Whānau Awahou Māori-Medium community at Newton Central School.

Doors/Bar - 5pm

Vai - 6pm