Pitch Perfect: Blu Ray Review

Pitch Perfect: Blu Ray Review

Rating: M
Released by Universal Home Entertainment

It's off to the world of acapella singing we go for this latest female ensemble piece.

Anna Kendrick stars as Beca, a newbie to college and a wannabe DJ who'd rather be spinning the tunes than singing them with a slew of other ladies. Cajoled into joining the all girl group The Bellas, whose past was rocked by one of their number vomiting everywhere at the finals, she finds herself in battle with the Treble Makers, the reigning boy band champs.

But Beca's attitude towards the a cappella world and the desire to mix it up using more upto date music puts her on a collision course with those running the Bellas...

Let's get this out of the way - Pitch Perfect is no big screen version of Glee. And for that, we should all be grateful.

In fact, early on during auditions, Christopher Mintz-Plasse makes an awesome cameo telling the auditionees that this is no place to work out social issues, that's high school, clearly cocking a snook at the sing-along antics of Glee.

It's a fairly throw away film though, but one which is packed with heaps of energy and singing obviously and is guaranteed to be a great night in.  Plus it has one major thing going for it - Rebel Wilson. She steals every single scene she is in, with great delivery of great one-liners and put downs. If anything, Pitch Perfect is the breakthrough role she's been looking for for her unique brand of sarcastic awkwardness and the writers have catered excellently to her.

Anna Kendrick remains her perky and likeable self throughout as well; but it's more of a film which caters for the women rather than the other way round - the males of the piece are strapped for screen time and slightly underwritten.

But when you have an ensemble of women, I'm not sure what the push is to have them going for a bit of gross out behaviour - call it the Bridesmaids effect if you will - but once again vomiting plays a big part in this musical mash up piece. Throw in Elizabeth Banks as an aca-judge with some truly funny zingers though and this is clearly the oestrogen generation which is being targeted.

The energy levels dip somewhat towards the end as we near the frantic finale as it concentrates on Beca's love story but overall, even if it is slightly overlong, Pitch Perfect is a fine piece of celluloid fun.

Extras: Deleted scenes, extended scenes, music videos, commentary

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New Hangover 3 trailer drops

New Hangover 3 trailer drops

The Wolfpack is back - in this brand new Hangover Part III trailer which has just launched.



This time, there's no wedding. No bachelor party. What could go wrong, right? But when the Wolfpack hits the road, all bets are off in The Hangover 3.

The Hangover Part III is releasing in New Zealand cinemas on May 23^rd 2013.




We've also got a look at the new poster for The Hangover Part III here too.

Red Dawn: Blu Ray Review

Red Dawn: Blu Ray Review

Rating: M
Released by Roadshow Home Entertainment

A remake of the 1984 film starring Patrick Swayze and C Thomas Howell, this latest Red Dawn brings contemporary fears to life - particularly given what's currently going on in the world.

When North Korea invades America, a group of teenagers escape, holing up in the woods. But it just so happens that US Marine Jed Eckert (Chris Hemsworth) is back on leave and is able to train the teens into some kind of guerilla force to try and save the day as well as stave off the invasion.

Red Dawn is an action film which feels surprisingly tame and with a threat that is, frankly, unfortunately laughable in many ways. A lack of context for the invasion gives it an odd feeling but the bonding between the teens (including the inevitable tensions and conflicts) does little to add to the situation. Throw in one character's drive to get back his girlfriend who's become a prisoner of war and you've got the gamut as the bullets and explosions fly all around.

It does feel like an Americanisation of Tomorrow, When The War Began (particularly with the Aussie actors scattered throughout) and while it's solidly made and the action sequences hang together reasonably well, the overall feeling is somewhat disjointed as the East once again takes on the West, with very few serious casualties.

Rating:

Oblivion: Movie Review

Oblivion: Movie Review

Cast: Tom Cruise, Morgan Freeman, Andrea Riseborough, Olga Kurylenko, Melissa Leo, Zoe Bell and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau
Director: Joseph Kosinski

Tom Cruise returns in this latest from the director of the TRON: Legacy film and those behind Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

He plays Jack Harper, one of the last few drone repairmen stationed on an Earth which has been abandoned for years following decades of war with a group known as the Scavs. Along with Victoria, his wife (played with ice maiden overtones by Andrea Riseborough) they maintain the fleet of drones, protecting the earth from the threat of the Scavs.

Yet, when a series of drones go down, and a spaceship crashes with a beautiful survivor Julia (Olga Kurylenko) onboard, Jack finds his life changed forever as everything he knows (or thinks he knows) is blown apart.

Oblivion is an incredible piece of visual sci-fi, which reeks of epic scale up on the big screen.

From its sleek, wonderfully realised world of day-after-tomorrow style technology to some brutally intense fight sequences (Attack of the Drones anyone?), it's one of those films which screams to be watched on the biggest screen possible. On an IMAX screen, it's visually awe-inducing as Harper heads out across the radiated and ravaged remnants of the world on various bits of tech. Director Kosinski, who cut his teeth on TRON: Legacy has done an incredible job of harnessing the power of VFX - from the robot drones which hover in the sky to the ship which Cruise pilots, it's certainly up there with some of the best.

And yet, that's where Oblivion starts to falter a little. It all feels a little too familiar in places, particularly if you're well versed in various sci-fi tropes. It feels very reminiscent of many others from the genre and while it mashes a lot of those influences together, you can't help but feel towards the end, that new movie Oblivion has offered little to the genre and is ever so slightly derivative. It's very much a case of style over substance in terms of story, rather than spectacle which is a real shame for the genuine concept behind the Oblivion movie.

Based on a graphic novel, there's very much the feel of a video game in this as well; mend the drones, rescue the girl, save the planet etc as each sequence segues into the next; complete with an at times OTT OST with blasting synth and drums at key moments, you can't help but feel this is occasionally console entertainment, stepped up for the big screen.

And certainly, there's an issue with some of the pacing of the film; with a lack of real story to progress, characters who aren't greatly written and even the twisty plot playing itself out, there are moments when it really starts to sag and you really start to notice the number of influences present. Usually, around those times, is when Kosinski brings the fight from the drones to distract you. In terms of the human presence, Cruise is in dialled down, restrained mode as Harper and brings a resilience to the role; Freeman channels Laurence Fishburne in the Matrix, Kurylenko veers between hysterical and silent and never really brings great amounts of emotion to her part; and Riseborough is quietly impressive in the role which becomes the "other woman" once Julia is found.

Overall, the Oblivion movie isn't a disaster by any stretch of the imagination; as the mystery initially plays out, you do find yourself drawn in, but as the pieces begin to slot together, you can't help but feel you've seen it all before - and given the concept those involved put together, it's a real shame.

Rating:

Autumn Events Q and A with Bill Gosden

Autumn Events Q&A with Bill Gosden

The nights are now drawing in - and usually around this time of the year, we'd be gearing up for the World Cinema Showcase.

But no, in a new move aimed at going in a new direction, those wonderful chaps at the New Zealand International Film Festival are launching a series of Autumn Events, starting on April 18th in Auckland and Wellington.

Director Bill Gosden very kindly gave up some of his time from avoiding questions about the film festival (which starts in Auckland in July) to answer some of my questions about the upcoming Autumn Events series.

You can find all the details of the Autumn Events at the New Zealand International Film Festival site.

Where did this idea come from? Is it the definitive end for the World Cinema Showcase?
Never say never, but there’s been such a proliferation of very specific festivals since we began the more generalist Showcase 15 years ago, that it seemed a good idea to step out of the crowd and concentrate on a few clearly articulated programmes.

 The Embassy in Wellington and the Civic Theatre in Auckland seem like the perfect venues for such a programme?
That’s truer than ever at the Civic now that they have one of the country’s few 4K projection systems. It’s truly one of the world’s great 21^st-century picture palaces. And the new 4K digitisation of Lawrence of Arabia will be its perfect showpiece. 

The nights are of course growing darker, which means the desire to see sumptuous films on the big screen which are events is clearly high on the agenda….Was this due to feedback from the public?
We received a lot of enquiries about the Showcase. When is it? Where is it? And yes, we were counting on the weather to pack up – because we know we can’t count on a New Zealand audience to ever tire of the great outdoors as long as the sun keeps shining.

What are your hopes for this mini festival?

That people will not think of what we’re doing as a festival, but rather as a series of events or self-sufficient programmes. That is a little blurred perhaps in the current line-up which does carry over some great films originally taken on for a 2013 Showcase.

Does it ever surprise you that there’s a desire for the classics like Guys and Dolls and Lawrence of Arabia on a big screen?

No. These were filmmakers who really knew how to fill a giant screen. (Now it’s the soundtracks that are huge.)

 And premieres too – a Cronenberg, but not as we’d expect it?

It’s Cronenberg Jr., not a dead ringer exactly, but clearly not afraid to be compared to his old dad.

 Plus the Kon-Tiki film too…what more can you say about that?
The ocean sequences – which, as in Life of Pi, take up the greater part of the film – are spectacular, making the chance to premiere it at The Civic irresistible.

And a New Zealand premiere for a horror fest piece The ABCS of Death….how did Ant manage that?

Only one man can answer that question.....

What’s your personal favourite and why?

And I am the one man who can never answer this one.  Pierrot le fou – another fabulous digital restoration - is a Pop Art masterpiece and I wish I had the commercial confidence to programme that at the Civic and Embassy too. I love what Where the Condors Fly reveals about the moral compass of a brilliant and obsessive filmmaker. It should be shown in every film course – alongside Vivan las antipodas!, the making of which it details. I think the Fahardi films from Iran – especially About Elly and Fireworks Wednesday - confirm that A Separation was no flash in the pan. He is one of the last decade’s great filmmakers.

We can’t let you out of here without asking about the NZ International Film Festival; you’re known for being enigmatic about titles, but just this once, give us a hint or tell us a film we will see….

I’m glad to hear I am enigmatic. It’s better than appearing cagey which is how I feel when so many key films have yet to be signed on the dotted line.  We already have a great harvest of documentaries from IDFA and Sundance, and Sandra came away from Berlin with more recommendations than ever. It won’t be long now…

Click here for the Auckland programme for the Autumn Events season.

Click here for the Wellington programme for the Autumn Events season.

You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger: Movie Review

You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger: Movie Review

Cast: Josh Brolin, Naomi Watts, Freida Pinto, Antonio Banderas, Anthony Hopkins, Gemma Jones, Lucy Punch, Pauline Collins
Director: Woody Allen

Woody Allen's latest is set once again in London.

Hopkins and Jones play Alfie and Helena, who are at the later stages of their life. When Alfie has an impeding old age crisis and splits from his wife Helena of many years, she starts seeing a psychic (Pauline Collins). Meanwhile, Alfie and Helena's daughter Sally (Watts) is just starting a new job at an art gallery with boss Antonio Banderas as her husband Roy (Brolin) is waiting to hear about his latest book and if it will be published. But Roy's obsessed with the pretty woman in a neighbouring tower block (Pinto) and Alfie announces plans to marry a much younger woman, Charmaine (Punch) - it's all a tale of intersecting lives and desires in this portmanteau piece.

Basically, You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger is not one of Allen's finest.

It's a great ensemble cast, but there's no real punch to the piece in any shape or form, with hardly any of the characters worthy of you latching onto and supporting in one way or another. While director Allen makes London look truly beautiful and does a brilliant job coralling his actors together, it's the script which lets him down, providing hardly any humour or sophistication as the tale plays out.

Sure, the voiceover claims it's all about insignificance but the whole thing is so slight, it never does more than irritate you at the end after you've invested time in these characters.

You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger suffers having a lack of real identity; and while the cast is impressive, you can't help but feel they didn't have enough to work with in this. A shame, then, that a psychic couldn't have told Allen how to improve it.

Rating:

Performance: Movie Review

Performance: Movie Review

Cast: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Christopher Walken, Catherine Keener, Imogen Poots, Mark Ivanir
Director: Yaron Zilberman

Movies are sometimes like buses - you wait ages for one of its ilk, then suddenly two of a kind show up.

So it is with Performance, aka A Late Quartet - and December's Quartet from Dustin Hoffman. Both films centre on a quartet with issues and both have a Hoffman involved.

In the latest, it's a Seymour Hoffman as Philip who plays Robert, one quarter of the aforementioned quartet. They've been together 25 years and when founding member Peter (Walken in a sombre role) announces to the group he has Parkinson's Disease and must retire, it throws the cat among the pigeons for the remaining members.

Not only is there the grief of what lies ahead, but also simmering tensions between Robert, wife Juliette (Keener) and Daniel (Lerner) come boiling to the surface. Throw in the fact that Robert and Juliette's daughter Alexandra (Poots) is tempestuous to say the least, and it's a potent mix of relationships, resentments and Beethoven.

Performance is a reflective character piece, which borders on the maudlin at times. However, it's very solidly and convincingly acted by the cast who are totally committed to what director Zilberman brings to the table. The music and stunning scenery plays second fiddle to the issues blighting the group and despite the refined settings of the film, there's a certain classiness to what the actors bring to the screen.

But there's also a distance and aloofness which proves difficult to the engagement despite the actors. Walken provides a haunting face to the stricken Peter, Hoffman is a powerful figure whose underplaying of the role is fast becoming a trademark of everything he does. Keener adds a dignity to the conflicted emotions she feels and Poots is all arrogance as the young daughter.

Occasionally melodramatic and self centred, there's a vulnerability to Performance which may strike more of a chord with some than I confess it did with me.

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