TIFF22 REVIEW: Muru [2022]

He’s chasing taniwha. New Zealand’s Tūhoe people have faced more than a century of aggression for daring to keep their culture alive. As relayed at the start of Tearepa Kahi‘s thriller Muru (a Māori word for their process of redressing transgressions), the facts are undeniable. In 1916, the police staged a raid to arrest Tūhoe prophet Rua Kenana on charges of sedition (he would later be acquitted and instead charged with resisting). A half-hour gunfight ensued leaving two dead and six wounded. Then the police staged another in 2007 to…

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REVIEW: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey [2012]

“Home is now behind you” It’s hard to return to Middle Earth without thinking about Randal Graves from Clerks II and his defense of Star Wars possessing as its cornerstone the fact Peter Jackson‘s film version of J.R.R. Tolkien‘s Lord of the Rings trilogy was all a bunch of people walking. He’s not wrong. What the generalization misses, however, is just how integral the gorgeous landscapes of New Zealand play in creating this fantastical world. We accept the long treks across mountains and through trees because it breathes life into…

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