Savage Honeymoon

2000

Johnny's comments;

New Zealand Classics

It's New Zealand's turn to get a 90s update with a couple of late 90s movies starring Sophia Hawthorne.

Savage Honeymoon is a 1999 comedy where the Savage family are going through a rough patch. Mickey (Nicholas Eadie) has had his motorcycle stolen and he's too busy with his schemes to pay attention to his wife Louise (Perry Piercy), who's becoming more frustrated with him. Their son Dean (Craig Hall) is back home and depressed because after a motorcycle accident his girlfriend left him and today is day she is getting married to someone else. Well, Mickey gets the motorcycle back with his incredibly dodgy mate Bryan (Stephen Hall) who was probably involved with stealing it in the first place. This is good news for daughter Leesa (Sophia Hawthorne), who is desperate to ride a motorcycle and as soon as it gets home, she take Dean and rides off to his ex's wedding to cause a little trouble. Mickey decides to cheer everyone up by having a party which goes well for everyone except their neighbours until Leesa screams home on the motorcycle with the cops on her tail and they manage to stall the cops long enough for Mickey to hide the stolen goods and motorcycle in the caravan and then go on an impromptu second honeymoon with Louise and they bring Dean along to cheer him up. They go to their old caravan spot which is now a gentrified nightmare run by a tinpot dictator (Ian Mune) who they just wholly ignore. Oh and Leesa and Mickey's mother Maisy (Elizabeth Hawthorne) have sneakily joined them for the honeymoon. Mickey looks to relive old times with Louise but he is constantly distracted so she takes off with old friend Rhys (Bruce Hopkins), who's always had a thing for her. Can Mickey save his marriage? Not bad and fairly fun movie that is basically a forerunner to the New Zealand TV show Outrageous Fortune, so much so it was probably the blueprint for the show. The movie is almost exactly one double episode of show and the director played a big hand in the show although I'm not sure he created it. Plays out a lot like a sitcom and it plays out in a convenient matter but there's a few laughs along the way and the mood is mostly good silly fun. Worth a look if you liked Outrageous Fortune, which I did.

Sophia Hawthorne film clip (collages below)

Perry Piercy film clip (sample below) 

When Love Comes Along

1998

Johnny's comments:

When Love Comes is a 1998 drama about Fig (Nancy Brunning) who loves and is in a fledgling band with Sally (Sophia Hawthorne), who has taken in songwriting wunderkind and complete mess Mark (Dean O'Gorman), who Fig and Sally don't really like but his songs are way to good to kick him out and he writes best when he's a mess, so they try to keep him in that state. This is helped by Mark being in love with music producer Stephen (Simon Prast), who doesn't like him messed up particularly as he is looking after former singing star Katie (Rena Owen), who has come home to New Zealand to find herself before filming her big comeback showcase, leaving her on-off 'married' lover Eddie (Simon Westaway) in Los Angeles. Stephen wants Mark to write a new song for Katie but they have a fight after Mark comes over in a drugged up state and things get tense between the two. Fig and Sally meet Katie and concoct a plan to get her to sing backing vocal during their studio session that they managed to finagle, which she agrees to. Katie is struggling to find her voice so Stephen, Mark and her go to a beach house to get away for a little while. Eddie arrives in New Zealand looking for Katie but finds Sally and Fig and they end up taking him to the beach house and joining in. Mark starts doubting himself and his relationship with Stephen and decides to leave. Can Katie find her voice and can Mark and Stephen get together? OK drama, very 90s indie feel where a small group of people become interconnected but very talky and the movie doesn't really resolve much. Fig and Sally tell the story but they don't have much to do in the movie and end up just being 'there' for the most part. Mark, Stephen and Katie are the ones with issues and even then they are not overcoming insurmountable odds. But it's a fairly watchable movie as the characters do have a fair bit of depth and Fig and Sally are fairly fun to watch when they're together.

Sophia Hawthorne film clip (collage below)