Venus and Mars
When an attack on a Palmerston North fraud detective made headlines in October 1996, the New Zealand public followed the media reports with fascination. They read like a plot of a Hollywood film or detective novel. Poison pen letters, satanic worship, a police hate crime, and a mysterious and violent pyromaniac. But little did the public know that as the truth emerged, the story was going to get far more bizarre, and the police would turn the focus of their investigation on one of their own.
John Banas
John Laing
Casts & Crew
Craig Hall
Ande Cunningham
Sara Wiseman
Joel Tobeck
Holly Shanahan
Also Directed by John Banas
Emma: Queen of the South Seas is a 1988 mini series based on the life of Emma Forsayth. The budget was $5.5 million.
Also Directed by John Laing
When their yacht capsizes during a storm; four men face almost certain death.
Safe House is the story of a struggle for survival in an unfamiliar and threatening world, based on the true life experience of a woman in the early days of the witness protection programme in New Zealand. TV Movie
A caustically funny account of addict monomania.
When office temp Jane discovers that Rose, the PA she is replacing, died under mysterious circumstances, she joins forces with Rose's best friend Linda to get justice for Rose. Along the way, they find others who need their help, victims of fraud, theft and injustice, and soon Jane, Linda - and a team of unlikely co-workers - are taking on the corporate bullies, fighting for justice and using their unique powers for good.
In 1942 Wellington, Daisy Edwards, 16 and pregnant, relies totally on her just-wed husband, Ed, who is little older than she. Ed is suddenly drafted into the army and is to be sent overseas to battle while Daisy is sent to her father in Auckland. When Ed's leave is cancelled at the last minute he takes the dangerous decision to go absent without leave to be with Daisy on her journey home. As a deserter, Ed is hunted, captured and imprisoned. Life inside is bad enought without the worry of what is going on outside. The film is based upon a true story.
Three orphaned boys - O'Malley, Rossi and Moir - become blood brothers. When they grow up, they plot revenge on the crooks who got away with shooting O'Malley's father. The crooks are doing very nicely importing heroin and laundering money. The boys begin by killing one of the crooks, stealing his indentification and cleaning out the guy's Swiss bank account. But their revenge does not stop here... And the American end of the operation is getting very curious.
Anthropologist Max Scarry mysteriously disappears while doing excavation/research of a lost New Zealand tribe on a remote island. His wife and his twin brother Edward are clueless as to what could have happened, a situation complicated by their city's police suspecting that one of the brothers murdered a local prostitute who was found with a strange tribal charm on her body matching one found in Max's abandoned hut. What most certainly isn't helping matters is the strange behavior of Max's daughter as she seems to have visions beyond possibility, warnings of a supernatural threat and her uncle's fate - and she's the film's narrator, to boot. Edward decides to go to the island to find out exactly what happened, but the deeper he goes into the mystery the more perilous and unknowable his world becomes, leading towards a shocking fate that raises more questions than it answers. (cont. http://view-from-the-paperhouse.blogspot.de/2014/10/the-threat-of-ancient-echoes-lost-tribe.html)
Every Ranger knows you should never trust an evil space Ninja, but Choobo scores with a scheme that changes the balance of power in the universe! Hunter and Blake are warped into thinking the Wind Rangers are their enemies. The resulting Megazord battles and Toxipod tangles land all the Rangers on a sinking island to sort things out by battling each other! There's a cold wind blowing toward a knock-down, drag-out fight when Choobo takes the Scroll of Empowerment in hand. Only the combined force of a super Thunderstorm Megazord could defeat this twisted evil
Families are dying and reporter Trish (Kelly McGillis) finds herself reporting on a serial killing spree. After her daughter Lisa's (Kate Elliott) best friends are killed, she fears that her family may be on the killers list. Sheriff Webster (Barry Corbin) is not listening to her concerns, which leads Trish to wonder is he or his deputy might be involved. Then Lisa, her boyfriend Ben and her sister Amy receive threats.
It is the story of an average, popular American teenager named Wendy Wu who discovers that in order to win the coveted crown she must first learn the way of the warrior. Wendy Wu has a one track mind, and that track leads directly to the title of homecoming queen -- no unscheduled stops, and no unnecessary detours. When a mysterious Chinese monk named Shen arrives to mold Wendy into a fearless kung fu warrior, however, her royal aspirations suddenly jump the track as she desperately attempts to juggle her boyfriend, her homework, and of course, the fierce competition to become homecoming queen. Now, as Wendy begins to train her mind, body, and spirit in the ancient tradition of the martial arts and her inner warrior gradually begins to emerge, the girl who once obsessed over popularity finally begins to put that popularity into perspective as she gradually realizes what truly matters in life.