The Bride: Blu Ray Review

Cast: Jessie Buckley, Christian Bale, Peter Sarsgaard, Annette Bening, Penelope Cruz, Jake Gyllenhaal
Director: Maggie Gyllenhaal

Jessie Buckley's star continues to rise in The Bride.

The Bride! takes some big swings under the helmship of Maggie Gyllenhaal - and it largely pays dividends, delivering an audacious film that feels like nothing else out there. Until its final third when it falls drastically off the rails.

Buckley is Ida, who's murdered at the start of the film by a mobster boss, who believes her loose tongue will cause them problems. Unceremoniously dumped, she's recovered by Christian Bale's Frankenstein and Dr Euphonious (a toothy Bening) after the monster decides he needs companionship.

However, when the Bride comes back to life, her memory is shattered and she embarks on a quest to rediscover and reclaim her identity, sweeping up those around her in an ongoing crusade.

There's much to love about the Bride! as it swirls around the idea of a monster-led Bonnie and Clyde (though its use of the Monster Mash at the end seems trite and cheesy). A feminist romp that's about women fighting back will have many complaining about its woke edges, but Gyllenhaal's crafted a story that, while all the loose ends don't tie up, is for the most part, completely engaging and chaotically bonkers at the same time.

Less Gothic, more gangster, it feels like a spiritual partner to Joker: Folie A Deux, with less of the maudlin touches to go on. Central to all of this is Buckley, a dual edged performance that is filled with energy, surprise, sadness, tragedy and compassion in equal measures. It's a tour de force and a full commitment from Buckley pays dividends in what's likely to be a polarising performance.

Bale's turn is soulful, one that tunes into the loneliness of the monster and who aches for connection, before erupting into extreme violence. But he's lesser than the sum of his parts here, a not quite equal to Buckley's brilliance - despite an out-there dance number for Putting On The Ritz.

Perhaps less successful are Sarsgaard and Cruz's detectives who come into the story to investigate the spree and who feel like they're barely in enough to warrant much of an arc - even if Cruz's character forms part of the feminist allegory that plays out.

Ultimately, The Bride! is a film which bursts onto the screen with such chutzpah and steam that it's inevitably going to falter - which it sadly does toward the end - but for large swathes of the 2 hour journey, Gyllenhaal's inventive and gender-swapped take on the Bride of Frankenstein is one that has a unique voice, that deserves to be applauded.

Marvel's Wolverine takes State of Play centre stage

State of Play returns Wednesday June 3 with more than 60 minutes of updates, announcements, and gameplay reveals from top studios around the world. 

To kick things off, you’ll get a closer look at Marvel’s Wolverine. Insomniac Games will share more from its upcoming third-person action-adventure game showing off Logan’s brutal and relentless combat along with some new details. This all-new take on the comic book legend launches on PS5 September 15. 

 Watch the State of Play broadcast live on YouTube on Wednesday, June 3 at 9am.

What's on Prime Video in July

Here's everything that's streaming on July on Prime Video

Elle (July 1)

Season One of Elle follows Elle Woods before she was a fish-out-of-water at Harvard. We meet her in 1995 as a fish in the tumultuous waters of high school where she encounters tricky friendships, forbidden romance, and questionable fashion choices. Through it all, Elle uses her family as a touchstone, and forms an even tighter bond to her mother, proving that they can get through anything life throws their way as long as they have each other. With each challenge she faces, Elle grows closer to the Elle Woods we know and love today.

 

Created by Laura Kittrell (High School, Insecure), Elle is co-showrun and executive produced by Kittrell and Caroline Dries. Reese Witherspoon, Lauren Neustadter, Amanda Brown and Marc Platt also serve as executive producers. Jason Moore (Pitch Perfect) directed the first two episodes of Season One, and also serves as an executive producer. Bryan J. Raber and Asmita Paranjape serve as producers. Josie Craven and Jen Regan serve as supervising producers.

 

The Season One cast includes Lexi Minetree as Elle Woods, June Diane Raphael as Elle’s mother Eva, and Tom Everett Scott as her father Wyatt, alongside Jacob Moskovitz, Gabrielle Policano, Chandler Kinney, Zac Looker, and Amy Pietz. Recurring cast members include Jessica Belkin, Danielle Chand, Matt Oberg, Chloe Wepper, Logan Shroyer, Sharon Taylor, David Burtka, Brad Harder, Kayla Maisonet, Lisa Yamada, and James Van Der Beek.

Moss & Freud: Movie Review

Cast: Ellie Bamber, Derek Jacobi, Jasmine Blackborow
Director: James Lucas

The story of Kate Moss' notorious 2002 nude painting is brought to light and life in a film executive produced by the hedonistic fashion model herself.

Set over a nine-month period that Kate sat for acclaimed painter Lucian Freud (Derek Jacobi, occasionally spiky, but mostly avuncular), this movie from British-New Zealand filmmaker James Lucas tries to get to the heart of what attracted the pair and what led to an unlikely friendship.

Beginning with scenes of Moss seemingly about to crash while driving wildly down a country road during the middle of a night, it depicts the notoriously guarded fashion model at a crossroads in life. Approached by Bella Freud (Blackborow) with an offer of a painting, Moss gradually decides to give in to the idea, even if it requires months of commitment.

Lucas' film is the kind of gentle, genial take on a mentor/subject relationship and it's less interested in real depth of the characters, preferring instead to paint them in broad strokes.

From montages of Moss at fashion shows and parties to moments which capture the hedonism of a Britain engulfed in Britpop and a wave of cultural jingoism, the film does well to set the scene. And to be fair to Bamber, who was heavily mentored by Moss prior to filming to help capture the character, she turns in a very solid performance as the lost-at-sea model who's looking for her own sense of self.

But Moss & Freud, while offering a distraction for some 90 minutes, never really feels like it's interested in doing anything other than gifting its subject a redemption arc. With comments from Freud about how she never settles down, it depicts the relationship as one which sees her guided through some big life changes, while gifting her moments to declare her hard-work ethos.

The final result seems to neuter both of the spiky characters and ironically flattens them to portraits, rather than the fully fleshed passionate individuals they clearly were.

House of the Dragon official season 3 trailer

Ahead of the launch of HBO Max in New Zealand on June 16, the official third season trailer for House of the Dragon has been released.

HBO has released the official trailer for the third season of the original drama series House of the Dragon, debuting Monday, 22 June, only on HBO Max. 

The eight-episode season will air new episodes weekly, leading up to the season finale on 10 August. Based on George R.R. Martin’s Fire & Blood, the series, set 200 years before the events of Game of Thrones, tells the story of House Targaryen. 

Season three cast includes Matt Smith, Emma D’Arcy, Olivia Cooke, Steve Toussaint, Rhys Ifans, Fabien Frankel, Ewan Mitchell, Tom Glynn-Carney, Sonoya Mizuno, Harry Collett, Bethany Antonia, Phoebe Campbell, Phia Saban, Jefferson Hall, Matthew Needham, James Norton, Tom Bennett, Kieran Bew, Kurt Egyiawan, Freddie Fox, Clinton Liberty, Gayle Rankin, Abubakar Salim, Tom Cullen, Tommy Flanagan, Dan Fogler, Joplin Sibtain and Barry Sloane. 

 Co-Creator/Showrunner/Executive Producer, Ryan Condal; Co-Creator/Executive Producer, George R.R. Martin; Executive Producers Sara Hess, Melissa Bernstein, Kevin de la Noy, Vince Gerardis, David Hancock, Philippa Goslett. Based on George R.R. Martin’s Fire & Blood.

Tuner: Movie Review

Cast: Leo Woodall, Dustin Hoffman, Havana Rose Liu, Lior Raz, Tovah Feldshuh, Jean Reno

Director: Daniel Roher

A movie about a safe-cracker who gets in way above his head may not sound like the most exciting of premises.

But Navalny director Daniel Roher, making his debut as a feature director after cutting his teeth in documentaries, does much work up front to ensure that there are few cliches and plenty of genial surprises in this overly familiar tale.

The puppy-faced Woodall (One Day, The White Lotus) plays Niki, a genius piano tuner whose hearing condition of hyperacusis, an over-sensitivity to sounds around him, makes him a genius on the piano tuning front. Wearing earplugs all day to prevent noise from jarring him and over-the-ear headphones when in public, Niki works with Dustin Hoffman's Harry Horowitz, who's worked as a tuner for over 30 years, but is battling hearing loss and potential dementia.

When Harry's dementia stops him getting into a safe where he's stashed medical aid, Niki discovers his sensitive ears help to unlock the safe. And when on a routine job, Niki meets Uri (Raz), the owner of a security firm which caters to rich clients and impresses him by opening another locked safe. However, Uri's not 100% on the level, telling Niki he could use his talents to help him out.

Things come further to a head when Harry's hospitalised and Niki needs money to keep the company afloat and the medical bills paid. Suddenly he finds the pull of Uri's desire to rob his rich clients of valuable items too much to resist - but before he knows it, he's in over his head. 

There's much to enjoy in Tuner, an unfussy, unforced heist movie that does a lot of the solid lifting early on - plenty of which helps it through any familiar plot contrivances.

Along with a jazzy soundtrack, there's fizzy banter back and forth between the avuncular Harry and his charge Niki. Plenty of quick cuts, easy and warm dialogue between the pair and a running gag that their high-end clients see them only as odd job men able to turn their skills to other more menial needs when desired. Coupled with Niki's gently burgeoning relationship with concert pianist Ruthie (Liu), the film builds a solid emotive base from which to threaten the foundations. 

And while Woodall's almost-dialled back performance anchors the whole thing, the moral clash he faces with Uri's desire to play Robin Hood and rob his clients of a few items here and there which he claims they won't notice is a solidly executed one. There's one moment when Uri's psychological manipulation of Niki works exceptionally well, with the language barrier subsequently revealing to the truth of the matter to his Israeli comrades.

With touches of Rain Man, Good Will Hunting and Robin Hood, as well as a plethora of 90s movie thrillers, Tuner benefits from solid character work and its work in escalating the tension and paying off one narrative thread late in the day to devastating effect.

Plus, an incredible soundscape from Oscar-winning sound designer Johnnie Best does much to let us into the aural terror of Niki's world - never has an air horn been such a devastating threat before.

Pitch perfect in parts and hitting the right note, this finely tuned thriller has the capacity to surprise when it needs to - and does so in disarmingly clever and original ways.

Fallout: Season 2: Blu Ray Review

The weight of responsibility hangs heavy over each of the main protagonists in this second season of Fallout, with every single one of them grappling with the enormity of decisions either facing them or in their past.

For vault-dweller and eternal optimist Lucy McLean (Yellowjackets' Ella Purnell), it's the question of bringing her father Hank (Kyle McLachlan) to justice; for the Ghoul (Walton Goggins, The White Lotus), it's the enormity of what part his wife played in the blasts that wiped out the world and for Brotherhood member Maximus (Aaron Moten), it's about the responsibility to keep the Knights in order as they teeter on Civil War.

But not everything's as clear-cut as they'd hope, thanks to the arrival (in the past) of the mysterious tech entrepreneur Robert House (an enigmatic Justin Theroux) and his RobCo Industries robotics company.

Fallout fans will know what that arrival signifies, but the second season is more interested in building up the intrigue, rather than simply getting to New Vegas.

It means that the early half spends an inordinate amount of time handling seemingly disparate stories, which gives it a generally disjointed and episodic feel.

That's not to say that it's not enjoyable. From the odd couple pairing of the perky Lucy with the world-weary Ghoul to the Fallout Shelter-styling of Woody's world back in the vaults, there's a lot of small parts being moved around and flitting back and forth.

It's a stylistic point that makes this latest feel lesser than the first, even if it's not the intention. Production-wise, Fallout still looks incredible.

From its retro-future mix to its flashback sequences, to the wastelands and beyond, the show stands out visually.

In terms of atmosphere and storytelling though, the early parts of this feel too staccato to welcome newcomers and conversely, growth may be difficult to achieve initially. 

But as the show goes on, its structure eases and as a result, it feels like a show that's intriguing enough to latch onto. Certainly, latter episodes where motives become muddied and moral questions arise, there is a feeling that thematically, plots are paying off.

The banter between the odd couple of Lucy's optimism and the Ghoul's more cynical character is great and both Goggins and Purnell work well as a team. So much so that a spinoff with their adventures in the wasteland would be very welcome. Maximus' storyline is a tougher one to sell, the loss of innocence and the falling away of the scales from the eyes is a tough path to follow, but Moten works the doubt angle well. There's much more going on under the surface with him, making his Maximus character one of the more interesting parts of dealing with doctrine, facing fears and taking the right path if that's what the moral code pushes you to do so.

Ultimately, Fallout could really have fallen back on its laurels and repeated the success of the first season, but by taking a creative gamble, it proves that it's one of the more interesting propositions in episodic TV - diversions or otherwise.