Fifty Shades of Grey cast unveiled

Fifty Shades of Grey cast unveiled

After much speculation and discussion, the actors to play Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele have been unveiled in the Fifty Shades of Grey film.

They are Charlie Hunnam and Dakota Johnson.

Here are the releases:

Charlie Hunnam will star as Christian Grey, the lead male character in Universal Pictures and Focus Features’ highly anticipated film adaptation of “Fifty Shades of Grey,” it was announced today.  He joins Dakota Johnson, who will star opposite him as Anastasia Steele.  The film, which will be released by Focus Features on August 1, 2014 in North America, is being directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson and produced by Michael De Luca and Dana Brunetti alongside E L James, the author of the #1 bestselling book on which the film is based.  The screenplay is by Kelly Marcel.  The announcement about Mr. Hunnam’s casting in Fifty Shades of Grey was made today by Ms. James. 

Mr. Hunnam currently stars as a regular on the critically acclaimed FX series Sons of Anarchy.  His feature film credits include Pacific Rim, Children of Men, Cold Mountain, and Nicholas Nickleby.

Dakota Johnson will star as Anastasia Steele, the lead female character in Universal Pictures and Focus Features’ highly anticipated film adaptation of “Fifty Shades of Grey,” it was announced today.  The film, which will be released by Focus Features on August 1, 2014 in North America, is being directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson and produced by Michael De Luca and Dana Brunetti alongside E L James, the author of the #1 bestselling book on which the film is based.  The screenplay is by Kelly Marcel.  The announcement about Ms. Johnson’s casting in Fifty Shades of Grey was made today by Ms. James. 

Ms. Johnson’s first notable screen role was in the multi-Academy Award-winning 2010 feature The Social Network, on which Mr. De Luca and Mr. Brunetti were producers.  Her subsequent movies include the upcoming feature Need for Speed, 21 Jump Street, and Universal Pictures’ The Five-Year Engagement.  She also starred as Kate in the Fox Network comedy series Ben and Kate, which aired during the 2012-2013 season.  Ms. Johnson is currently shooting the feature film Cymbeline.

“Fifty Shades of Grey” has become a global phenomenon and the trilogy has been translated in 50 languages worldwide since its release.  To date, the “Fifty Shades” trilogy has sold over 70 million copies worldwide in e-book and print, making it one of the fastest-selling book series ever.

Universal and Focus acquired the rights to the three books in the “Fifty Shades of Grey” trilogy in March 2012.  Focus Features will market and distribute the first film in partnership with Universal.

“Fifty Shades of Grey” follows the relationship of 27-year-old billionaire Christian Grey and college student Anastasia Steele.  Subsequent novels in the series, “Fifty Shades Darker” and “Fifty Shades Freed,” explore the couple’s deepening relationship.  For more information please see the official Fifty Shades of Grey Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/fiftyshadesofgreymovie. 

Saints Row IV: PS3 Review

Saints Row IV: PS3 Review

Platform: PS3
Released by Volition

The Saints are coming.

Well, they're coming to New Zealand a lot quicker than Australia, where the game was banned and a side mission had to be removed for release, but let's not lord it over our Tassie neighbours, eh?

In this latest outing, you begin on a mission to take down a STAG leader who's gone bonkers; after your success at this (by riding a nuclear missile to Aerosmith's I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing and disarming it), your popularity soars and you get elected US president.

Surging a wave of adoration comes naturally to the Saints as they overtake the Presidency - but despite getting settled in, it all goes a bit wrong when aliens begin invading the White House, spearheaded by leader Zinyak, who captures you, the Boss and imprisons you in a Matrix style 1950s replication of Steelport (from Saints Row The Third), where there's no violence and life is perfect.

However, thanks to the Saints' techno wizard, Kinzie, you get a chance to break out of the simulation and try and save the day - Saints' style.

Saints Row IV is a tremendous, free-wheeling thrill of a game, that leaves you intoxicated, stupefied and dizzy with fun.

It's craziness computerized as it plays out - recalling earlier Grand Theft Auto games, mashing it with Tron and DC Comics superhero style superpowers, it's just a great way to waste time and have a blast.

From soaring above skyscrapers thanks to flying powers, leaping up buildings because of another ability and throwing things through telekenesis, this is not a game that takes itself seriously at all - and due to that, it's totally admirable. Steelport is packed with side missions, from causing utter chaos due to all manner of weapons and abilities, it offers you plenty of escape without sacrificing any of the gameplay.

Sure, there's a story thread running through this as you try to escape Zinyak's simulation - but it's the barest of threads that's woven into a narrative and isn't really what the game is fully about. Granted, some may criticise it for that, but it's a real added bonus that you can freewheel, waste time however you want, and still come back to upgrading your powers and weapons through XP, cache cash in and generally surviving the game.

The open world is well realised, and I guess you can get away with some of the odd glitches in gameplay due to the fact you're in a simulation (but only just) and while the thrill of using the superpowers never gets old, it does detract a little from the world which has been created as you'll use super-speed or super-flying to navigate the city rather than exploring the wondrous world within.

There's anarchy aplenty in this big dumb game, but it never takes itself too seriously, nor loses sight of the fact that it's all about having a good, over-the-top time. Side missions don't take too long to complete, meaning they're not a drag and not a drain by having you complete multiple parts - from hacking control of stores to taking on waves of Terminator style mech robots to save someone, there's variety aplenty and with different levels to achieve, there's plenty of reason to re-play.

Packed in with humour and a tongue firmly in its cheek, Saints Row IV is a hellishly guilty pleasure - its gameplay is great fun and its raison d'etre is to the core of the Saints themselves. We ain't after nothing but a good time - and Saints Row IV serves that up in style and with great cheeky gusto.

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Disney Infinity: PS3 Review

Disney Infinity: PS3 Review

Platform: PS3
Released by Disney

It's a curious thing, the hardware game.

Get it right, and you have a formula for success for a few years - get it wrong, and it's straight to the annals of history for your outdated tech and failed efforts.

Thankfully, Disney Infinity falls into the get it right category, without a shadow of a doubt.

The latest device sees you given an Infinity base with which to place various Disney statuettes and access plenty of content within. Once these statues are placed on this little base, they magically come alive on your screen and give you the chance to play various games, arcade actioners and open world building. Using characters from the Disney catalogue and the wealth within, it's fair to say there's plenty to mess about with - and more than enough to keep the kids very, very content (and the big kids) for hours on end.

There are two modes to the Infinity - a Play Set or a Toy Box. The Play Set is story led and gives you the chance to take on your fave Disney character (in this set it's Sulley, Mr Incredible) and play various games as said character. Sulley's a fun creature to knock about with and the games within are fun, lightweight and yet remarkably playable. Toy Box lets you create the worlds for the characters to dwell in and while it takes a bit of time to master, it's really got the whole Disney imagination ethos behind it, because that's all that's holding you back.

There's a simplicity to plugging this in and getting going - and these days with this kind of hardware, that's really all you need for it to grow and thrive. With masses of extensions and sets on their way in every conceivable franchise, this really does have limitless possibilities for entertainment at all levels.

Disney Infinity is a fun gadget, an invention which allows you to take control and build your own world or simply set it up for the kids to play contentedly on it for hours. It does actually take it to Infinity - and Beyond.

And the DL content's already begun with 5 free sets available for download: The five free toy boxes are:

·         Cave of Wonders Race – Race through the Cave of Wonders and Aladdin’s Agrabah Castle. Compete against Cars characters or other players! (View video here)
·         Super Sidescroll – Trigger the side scrolling camera to start. Then jump and bash through a classic game level. (View video here)
·         ESPN Speedway – Rev those engines! Race friends around the stadium loop, brake for a pit stop and celebrate with a victory lap. (View video here)
·         Hot Lava – Rope bridges are the only thing between players and flowing lava in this treacherous Toy Box. (View video here)
·         Wrestling Arena – Want to become the Disney Infinity combat champ? Battle friends in two tricked out wrestling rings. (View video here)

(Players can download the new Toy Boxes by selecting "Toy Box" from the Disney Infinity Main Menu and then select "Toy Box Share" and "Disney's Toy Boxes." Once there they will see a list of all the featured Toy Boxes and can choose one to download. They will be able to come back every week for new Toy Boxes. Players should also let us know what they want to see because Disney Infinity developers will soon begin creating content based on player suggestions.)

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Blue Jasmine: Movie Review

Blue Jasmine: Movie Review

Cast: Cate Blanchett, Alec Baldwin, Sally Hawkins, Peter Sarsgaard, Bobby Cannavale, Andrew Dice Clay
Director: Woody Allen

Woody Allen returns to the big screen after the recent relative creative disasters of You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger and To Rome With Love.

In this latest, Cate Blanchett plays Jasmine, a former New York socialite forced to live with her working class sister, Ginger (Hawkins) in San Francisco after her husband Hal (Baldwin) is indicted for fraud and takes his own life. But Ginger's not seen Jasmine since she and her now divorced husband Augie (Dice Clay) were caught up in the fraud and lost everything.

But the ghastly Jasmine lives in a daze, and is unaccepting of what has happened and recovering after a nervous breakdown, meaning that her relationship with her sister becomes ever more fractious as time wears on. However, it looks like things may be on the turn for Jasmine after she meets Peter Sarsgaard's suave Dwight, who's her social equal and potential future....

Blue Jasmine is a fine return to form for Woody Allen, whose last couple of outings have been self-indulgent guff filled with trademark self-absorption.

Granted, Cate Blanchett's bankrupt Jasmine is as self-obsessed as they come, but thanks to a multi-faceted and resonant turn from a brilliant Blanchett as she spirals down and a tight script which sparkles rather than flounders, the film is a soar-away success. Wrapped in swathes of designer gear, popping pills, swilling copious martinis and blissfully ignorant ( in the way that someone who's living in denial only can) Blanchett delivers a powerhouse performance that's layered and complex as she spins through life unaware. She's a nasty creature, horrified when her sister visits in her former life and scornful and resentful of the time she steals away from her other more trivial plans. She's ghastly in the extreme and steals every moment the camera gives to her.

But other players sparkle too - specifically Hawkins' turn as the sister, who's initially reticent to help her after she's been burned by Hal is an impressive one, embodying the awkwardness of someone holding back, then embracing her sister's ideals and finally realising that it's not all it's cracked up to be. Alec Baldwin similarly impresses, while Sarsgaard and Louis CK don't quite get enough time on screen.

Allen's also to be commended for throwing together a fully rounded script for the first time in a while (even though it draws on a similar story to Streetcar Named Desire, where one down-at-luck sister moves in with the other. It's one which tackles life post recession and failed finance companies. It's a straight forward piece that doesn't rely on portmanteau or intersecting lives for its twists and turns, and simply uses the narrative as it should be used.

Blue Jasmine is to be frank, Allen's best for a long time. A return perhaps to former form and ideas, this tragedy soars - predominantly thanks to a mightily impressive turn from Blanchett. I'd be surprised if she doesn't receive an Oscar nomination for this.

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Rush: Movie Review

Rush: Movie Review

Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Daniel Bruhl, Olivia Wilde, Natalie Dormer
Director: Ron Howard

Motor racing films have not really been well served over the years.

Sure, there's been Days of Thunder, Talladega Nights, The Fast and Furious series - but it's really only ever been the documentary genre that's really got under the skin and thrill of the sport. TT3D: Close to the Edge was astounding and Senna was heartbreakingly good - but they both fully explored the reasons for people doing what they do rather than serving the racing up as a sidebar to the drama.

This latest drama, from director Ron Howard, takes a look at the prolonged rivalry between British Formula One driver James Hunt (a blonde mopped Chris Hemsworth) and Austrian driver Niki Lauda (stunningly played by actor Daniel Bruhl) which ran from 1971 to 1976.

Howard chooses to tell the story as a battle between two rivals who are cut from the same cloth but are diametrically opposed in outlooks on life and attitudes.

Hunt is a playboy, who's as interested in notching up marks on his bedpost as he is in winning races. He works his way up the Formula 3 tracks to win and gradually ends up in the big league. Lauda, in contrast, uses precision and calculating psychology to achieve his goals - and some money to buy his way into the Formula One world. Their rivalry is formed in their formative years on a formula 3 track and culminates in a disastrous race in 1976 at the Nurburgring track.

Ron Howard's crafted a racing film that's as much about the drama off the track as it is on. By choosing to keep the racing shots to a minimum until the final crucial race, he's ensured you're fully invested in the characters as the inevitable happens. Perfect attention to period detail throughout and some tautly put together racing ensures the feel of the Rush movie is epic and yet still intimate.

While it's Hemsworth's larrikin Hunt, with his laddish bed-hopping ways and his braggadacio, whose face beams out from the film poster, this is actually more Daniel Bruhl's film and Lauda's story. Hemsworth's clipped English accent occasionally fades into Aussie drawl, but Bruhl's precision and the way he's captured Lauda's precision, apparent social ineptitude and veneer is second to none. In fact, Bruhl excels in this, using understated characterisation to bring the so called rat to life; whereas Hemsworth's handed a role which is the complete opposite - he takes the spoils of a posh boy ladette in a world looking for a racing hero - both are perfect examples of why F1 drivers are held in such high rockstar esteem and what drives them to risk their lives during every race.

But Howard's also had a hand in this, subtly building up the relationship over various encounters and stretched throughout the years; minor comments here and there craft together a relationship and rivalry which is relatable and utterly engrossing. Using archive footage here and there, he's also managed to capture the atmosphere of the races.

And talking of the races, Howard's recreation of the key moments is every petrol head's dream. From the sound of the engines revving to the pump of the pistons, by using sweeping camera shots and occasional driver point-of-view shots, he's captured the thrill of the race, the adrenalin rush and the reason the drivers do it. I'm not a Formula One fan by any stretch of the imagination, but what he's created on screen is utterly addictive.

Some other elements of the film, unfortunately, don't work quite as well.

A few characters here and there appear, seem to form part of the story and then simply disappear, leaving a narrative unfulfilled (Natalie Dormer's character being the chief culprit); he uses way too many voiceovers to service the film's exposition - and while it's clear he's trying to capture some of the psychology and inner thoughts, the over-use makes it feel tired and grating in places; the film feels a little overlong as well - it could have easily lost 20 minutes and still been as riveting - and it feels as if it doesn't quite know how to end with a post script to the crowning of the World Champion feeling unnecessary and unwarranted. I'm hoping that the story of the rivalry will be a more universal one as well as it'd be a shame for non-sports fans to pass this one by.

All in all, Rush is a compelling and captivating piece of cinema - it's gripping, riveting and a superb insight into sporting rivalry both on and off the track.

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Jobs: Movie Review

Jobs: Movie Review

Cast: Ashton Kutcher, Dermot Mulroney, Josh Gad, Matthew Modine, JK Simmons, Lukas Haas
Director: Joshua Michael Stern

So, the first Steve Jobs cab off the rank is this biopic, which will no doubt be forgotten once West Wing writer Aaron Sorkin's version hits the cinema.

Kutcher plays Jobs in this film which starts with the unveiling of the iPod in 2001 and scoots back to the college years and Jobs' first foray into the world of computers, before his eventual getting chucked from Apple and re-instating as the messiah of the electronics world.

And that's really all that happens in this piece, which proffers up little insight into what inspired or drove the man, both on a professional and personal level. Prone to outbursts which seem rude and abrasive when it came to his colleagues, I'm guessing it was his vision, passion and drive which led him to these explosions. I say guessing because there's little evidence on screen or hints over what fuelled this fire at all.

In fact, there's scant passion in any of this formulaic and dull biopic, which fails to come even close to revealing Jobs' motivation. You're more likely to learn about the inner workings of the Apple company, the fight between Apple and IBM, the boardroom politics and corporate manoeuvring  than anything else in this sketchy piece. It also skates over his appalling treatment of his daughter and completely ignores his health issues and subsequent death, which you could argue were vital to the man.

Kutcher initially appears to personify Jobs and has his physicality down to a tee, but that's about all. There's nothing inherently wrong with the performance, (even if it does simply lapse into wistful lip pursing and staring) but it just fails to be engaging at all thanks to lacklustre source material. Even Jobs' colleagues, and long term collaborator Steve Wozniak have little insight into their relationships which appear to have lasted years.

Stern prefers to save his direction for copious over-use of musical montages and swirling camera shots which start to really grate as the two hours drag on.

Formulaic and forgettable, this first Jobs biopic barely scratches the surface of the man and it certainly doesn't inspire on any level. It's nowhere near a definitive piece or peek at the man and feels like a slightly dull volume one of a novel.

Here's hoping Sorkin's effort fares a little better.

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Olympus Has Fallen: Blu Ray Review

Olympus Has Fallen: Blu Ray Review

Rating: M
Released by Roadshow Home Ent

"When our flag falls our nation will rise"

Well, one man specifically.

Olympus Has Fallen is the first of two similar films being released this year, with essentially the same plot. White House Down with Channing Tatum follows later in the year, but for now the first cab off the rank stars Gerard Butler as Mike Banning, a secret serviceman assigned to look after the president. As the film begins, it's Christmas and it's clear he's close to POTUS (Eckhart) and the First Lady (Ashley Judd), as well as their moppet son. But when an accident causes Mike to make a terrible choice between saving the First Lady and the President, he leaves the secret service, punishing himself for, in his eyes, allowing the First Lady to die.

Roll on 18 months later, and Mike's working a desk job for the treasury, when all hell breaks loose as terrorists take down the White House. Feeling the strong patriotic call of duty, Mike leaps in to try and rescue the president from the bad guys and save the day....Olympus Has Fallen is a throwback to the action films of yore, of East vs West, of cold war paranoia before scripts got smarter and sophisticated and in a time before action heroes dispatched the baddies with many a witty quip.

And yet, this latest from Training Day's acclaimed director Antoine Fuqua, strikes a chord and hits the right notes a lot of the time.

High octane, very violent and yet remarkably restrained in places (no temptation to go completely OTT), with shades of contemporary politics and tensions (North Korea and South Korea feature prominently) and a performance from Butler which impresses, Olympus Has Fallen benefits from Fuqua's tight directing and some action sequences which deliver the goods, while copying The Raid: Redemption and TV show 24 in places. (Even down to the hero's questionable use of torture to get what he needs).

But despite some of the cheesiness and predictability, it's actually a watchable piece of blockbuster goodness; with Butler giving an at times, haunted and paunchy turn which shows the everyman can save the day (John McClane, anyone?), as well as taking down quite a few bad guys, while the rest of the elite of the secret service are slaughtered around him. All in all, though, Olympus Has Fallen rises on its action sequences with Fuqua throwing everything at them, despite the evident silliness and very high body count. It won't win any awards for originality but it may actually provide you with some mindless entertainment and food for thought that Butler has more to offer than you first believed.


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