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October 31 is Peter Jackson’s birthday, and, as has been noted before, it seems pretty fitting that the man who began his film career as the king of low-budget splatter should have been born on Halloween.
Of course Peter Jackson is now a lot more than the king of NZ splatter – he’s a globally-known filmmaking genius who has had both phenomenal commercial success and critical acclaim.
New Zealanders love him for putting our country on the world map, for creating work for our film industry, for making films that we love to watch, and for providing such a shining display of the Kiwi ingenuity that we pride ourselves in.
Peter is understandably protective of his early work, and his later blockbuster films are bound up in international distribution rules, so he is not as represented on our site as his stature in the NZ film industry would dictate – but he and his team have been helpful and supportive to NZ On Screen, and we do have some material available to view.
We have the trailers for his trio of early splatter films – Bad Taste (1988), Meet the Feebles (1990), and Braindead (1992); as well as The Frighteners (1996), which marked an early landmark in the growth of special effects company Weta.
We also have excerpts from the Tony Hiles documentary short Good Taste Made Bad Taste (1988). In this documentary about the making of Peter’s first feature, he talks about – and demonstrates – some of the ingenious special effects and camera equipment he created for the film.
The part of Sam Neill’s Cinema of Unease documentary (1995) that is on our site features excerpts from Heavenly Creatures (one of the many scripts that Peter has worked on over the years with partner Fran Walsh), including Peter’s own brief cameo in the film.
The trailer for Tony Hiles’ 1995 feature film Jack Brown Genius (which Peter helped write) is also on the site, as is the trailer for Peter and Costa Botes’ much-loved mockumentary Forgotten Silver.
Another treat for Peter Jackson fans is the Grant Lahood short film Bogans – which is about a bunch of bogans trying to get roles in Lord of the Rings, and features a cameo role by Peter himself.
We’re all eagerly awaiting the release of Lovely Bones at the end of the year. When Peter is doing press for the film, we will attempt to score a ScreenTalk interview with him for the NZ On Screen website. In the meantime, we do have a full written profile of him, and all of the above mentioned footage.
So why not use Peter’s birthday to take a look at what we have of him on the site so far – hopefully we’ll have more material for you in the months ahead.
Happy Birthday Peter – NZ On Screen salutes you!
Today saw the release of our Labour Day collection – below is the media release we put out that went to all our subscribers. If you’d like to be on the mailing list – you can check the “keep me informed” box on your profile or when you add a comment – or you can email us.
Workers of New Zealand unite!
While you’re relaxing this long weekend, take some time out to reflect on the reason you’re enjoying a holiday and check out NZ On Screen’s collection of Labour Day related titles.
Labour Day commemorates the struggle for an eight-hour working day. In 1840, carpenter Samuel Parnell won a world-leading eight-hour day for workers in the Wellington settlement: “It must be on these terms or none at all!”
The Labour Day collection brings together 11 titles that relate to Kiwi working life, from economic revolutions and industrial disputes to Gliding On. It includes several award-winning titles and some distinguished political documentaries.
The collection includes the John Bates documentary 1951 (about the 1951 waterside workers strike), which won Best Documentary and Best Director at the 2002 NZ Television Awards.
1997 TV Awards winner Revolution is also included. Produced by Marcia Russell, this four part series about the sweeping economic and social changes of the 1980s is available in full.
Campaigning filmmaker Alister Barry’s two highly-acclaimed political documentaries Someone Else’s Country (The Dominion: “alarmingly enlightening”) and In a Land of Plenty offer critical perspectives on the same era.
In the famous 1970 Gallery episode Brian Edwards resolves a long-running Post Office industrial dispute live on air.
The collection also shows classic National Film Unit titles – To Live in the City (1967), Railway Worker (1948), The Coaster (1950) and Coal From Westland (1943). To Live in the City follows four young Māori – Ripeka, Moana, Grace and Phillip – as they transition from school, whānau and rural life to the city.
Railway Worker covers 24 hours of work on the railways and was made by New Zealand’s first female director, Margaret Thomson. The Coaster was written by the poet Denis Glover and narrated by Selwyn Toogood and became famous as the film which led to Cecil Holmes losing his job, after its content riled unionist Fintan Patrick Walsh.
At the lighter end of the spectrum, the Labour Day Collection includes an episode of the 1981 comedy Gliding On (set in the classic public service workplace of the time), an episode from the 1987 drama series The Marching Girls (which features an industrial dispute), and cult 80s glitter soap Gloss – which was set in and around the office of a glossy magazine (definitely not a West Coast coal mine).
The Greenstone Pictures documentary “Charlotte: A Life Without Limbs” is due to screen tomorrow night (Wed Oct 21) at 9.30 on TV3. The documentary is an update on the story of now five-year-old Charlotte Cleverley-Bisman, who created national headlines when she was just a few months old and had all four of her limbs amputated due to meningitis.
Herald on Sunday TV reviewer Deborah Hill Cone gave the doco a very good review at the weekend, but warned that it is a real tear-jerker. Greenstone are very good at making these heart-warming types of docos, and Charlotte herself is an amazing child, who seems to cope with her difficulties with extraordinary grace and charm.
So support Greenstone and TV3 by tuning in and checking it out, and if you want something of a preview, check out this excerpt from a previous Greenstone documentary on Baby Charlotte on NZ On Screen.
