New Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer flies in

New Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer flies in

There's a brand new Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer which has just dropped featuring an aged Han Solo and Chewie.

Watch the Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer here.

Big Hero 6: Blu Ray Review

Big Hero 6: Blu Ray Review

Stand by for a new animated character to find its way into your hearts.

Following the success of Frozen and Wreck-It Ralph, Disney ventures into the animated world ofMarvel with Big Hero 6, a story about a boy and his robot.

Prodigy and robot wizz Hiro Hamada (voiced by Ryan Potter) is spending his young life in a Robot Wars style arena, clearly talented but wasted. His older brother Tadashi, though, pushes him into using those talents to work in the robotics world like he does.


But one small tragedy later and Hiro has lost all interest.

Until he discovers the robot that his brother built, Baymax - a big hulking white stay puft of a creature that's sole purpose is to cure Hiro. However, Hiro, along with Tadashi's co-workers, adapt Baymax to help track down the evil that's haunting San Fransokyo.

Big Hero 6 is perfect family animated fare for the Christmas holidays.

With gorgeous backgrounds (San Fransokyo mixes San Fran and Tokyo as you'd expect from the name to breathtakingly beautiful effect) and some truly joyous animation, the film is nothing short of fun, hilarity and heart.

For at least the first hour anyway.

Those initial 60 minutes or so concentrate of the mechanics of the burgeoning relationship between Hiro and Baymax and imbue the screen with a gooey warmth and humour that's infectious and reminds you why animation and visual gags can work best when stripped back to their basics. Their bond is beautiful and will touch your heart thanks to a simplicity of emotive moments and strong writing; Hiro with his big Japanese anime style eyes and Baymax with his simple two eyes joined by a line give everything you need to know with a minimum of exposition and with humour that's spot on.

So, it's a shame that the movie becomes a bland middle of the road superhero origin piece as Hiro puts together a team to track down the bad guy who's running amok in San Fransokyo wearing a Japanese kabuki mask with one of Hiro's inventions.

While this section of the movie is perfectly fine and is gorgeously animated, it lacks the emotional feast that's been served up prior to the standard visuals and plot machinations. As it veers away from the fun and unique, Big Hero 6 becomes formulaic (even derivative of the Avengers and its conclusion) and forgettable.  Further examination provides discrepancies in the plot and the villain's raison d'etre and reveal is muddily handled, with a final showdown feeling like something we've seen a million times before in the genre.

At its heart, Big Hero 6 is a movie about loss, dealing with it and moving on - and it's here that it truly triumphs (even with some Stan Lee visual gags). While the formulaic nature of its denouement and origins story may rankle, the first adaptation of this Marvel comic still impresses even if it doesn't feel as fresh as it should.


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Broadchurch Season 2: DVD Review

Broadchurch Season 2: DVD Review

Rating: M
Released by Roadshow Home Ent

How do you follow a success story like Broadchurch Season One?

With a drama that was on everyone's lips and a murder of a child that was consuming TV fans' fervent speculation, it's fair to say that when the title screen came up promising Broadchurch's return, there was a certain amount of shock.

So, with no early clues as to what season 2 would offer in the ongoing story of Danny Latimer and the inhabitants of Broadchurch, there was, it's fair to say, a chance of disappointment.

Season 2 deals with the trial of Joe Miller, the man accused of Danny's murder and the husband of the Olivia Colman's DC Miller -- as well as the re-opening of the Sandbrook case investigated by Hardy prior to his arrival in Broadchurch.

And this is where the story starts to go slightly awry.

It's still wonderfully acted (though a little too many shots of the beach and picture postcard scenery pepper the show) and is full of frustrations rather than edge of the seat moments. The problem is the drama focuses on others than the residents of the town and that was the hook of the first. Equally, Hardy and Miller, the great dynamic that propelled the first are too sidelined.

Broadchurch Season 2 is simply good drama, but when compared to the brilliance of season one, that means it's slightly lacking. Worryingly though, Broadchurch season 3 is coming.... so who knows what that could mean....

The Age of Adaline: Film Review

The Age of Adaline: Film Review

Cast: Blake Lively, Harrison Ford, Michiel Huisman, Ellen Burstyn, Amanda Crew
Director: Lee Toland Krieger

It feels like a Nicholas Sparks mash up with A Curious Case Of Benjamin Button elements thrown in, but yet portions of The Age of Adaline manage to transcend the syrupy conventions of romantic fantasy.

One time Gossip Girl star Blake Lively is Adaline, a woman who was born at the turn of the century and who has not aged a day; she's seen San Francisco come and go, its major landmarks ravaged by time and earthquakes but yet she's weathered them all.

Fearing that she's become isolated from all around her and with her chance for a normal life and love fading as every year springs eternal, a meeting with a philanthropist Ellis (Huisman) on the stroke of midnight at a New Year's Eve party sets Adaline on a course she could never have predicted.

The Age Of Adaline is a sumptuous feast for the eyes - but not really for the brain unless you like romantic tosh.

It's thanks in no part to Blake Lively who revels in the chance to tout some beautiful costumes and cut a swathe through period locations.

Revelling in its Nicholas Sparks' style trappings, this romantic fantasy has a portentous voiceover that spouts aphorism and pomposity with ease, leading the film down a holier-than-thou approach and lending the supernatural trappings a self-referential feeling as it struggles through its exposition heavy opening.

The elegaic piece packs a twist halfway through proceedings which will be polarising, as the film of coincidence heads to its final denouement and phrases like "You've lived, but never had a life" peppering the at times corny dialogue.

But it's exquisitely shot, with the ruminations on life beautifully sign-posted throughout.

The film's never better than when it lets Lively take the stage; her radiance shines through and enlivens proceedings, stopping them from becoming a wallowing piece of pulpy romantic trash. Game of Thrones star Huisman barely registers a pulse as the love interest, and even Harrison Ford who crops up midway through seems a little lost in parts as he navigates the conventions of the genre under the guidance of Celeste and Jesse Forever's director Krieger.

Ultimately, despite the romantic trappings and despite a strong pathos filled turn from Lively, The Age of Adaline is a movie of two halves; its divisive twist proves the tipping point into absurdity for me personally, and its final scenes creak with ridicule due to a lack of actual resolution rather than a glow that the sombre piece elicits early on.

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Forza Horizon 2 Presents Fast & Furious: XBox One Review

Forza Horizon 2 Presents Fast & Furious: XBox One Review

Platform: XBox One
Released by Playground Games

Fast and Furious 7 is tearing up the box office globally currently, and it was perhaps no surprise that the best racing game of 2014 would get in on the action.

But the biggest surprise of Forza Horizon 2 Presents Fast & Furious is that this expansion was free.

A 15 GB load of the game and it's yours to own. Which these days is no bad thing.

Though, it has to be said, if you were a player of Forza Horizon 2 already (and if not, why not? It's one of the best racing games I've ever played) then you may feel a little let down by this expansion pack.

Taking its cue from Ludacris' Tej, and Forza Horizon 2's France map, you're thrown into a world of racing that sees you having to acquire cars by winning various jaunts (essentially, a revamp of the races of Forza Horizon 2) across country and so on.

And that really is it - add in a nitrous feature that makes the street racing a little more in line with the movie series and you've got something that's disposably fun to play for a few hours which ties in both universes pretty neatly.

Graphically, the game looks and plays well on the XBox One, with the same dynamics in the Fast and Furious expansion as there was in the Forza Horizon game. The addition of various cars, including Vin Diesel's Toretto trademark gives it a nice edge and a nod to the films it's trying to emulate.

I sense there could be the start of a series here and I'd be happy with that - if you're a Forza player already, there may be little here for you other than a re-introduction to the world. But if you're a non player and given it's free for a limited time, you really have no excuse not to give this set of cars a spin.

Rating:

Autumn Events Q&A with Bill Gosden

Autumn Events Q&A with Bill Gosden

The third annual Autumn Events kicks off this weekend in Auckland at the mighty Civic Theatre before heading around the country.
I caught up with Bill Gosden of the NZIFF to get some insider knowledge on this year's event.
Don't forget to book tickets and get info, head to the Autumn Events website.

What’s the ethos behind the curation of this? How do you approach the films that are selected?
When it comes to selecting the classics, there’s three main considerations: (1) the film has got to be great or at least VERY interesting. (2) It’s got to be crying out for the Giant Screen. Some films really do work just as well on a small one. (3) The restoration has to rate – and that’s more the case than ever with stunning new copies of Pinocchio, The Conformist and Hard Day’s Night. The two Kubrick films come to us in the best studio transfers, but do not represent any major refurbishments.

It’s the third Autumn Events since 2013, what are you learning about audiences as you go on?
Last year our screenings felt really festive, like mid-year NZIFF screenings transplanted into the autumn. That’s just what we’d been hoping for. Putting a World Premiere into the mix will definitely add to the fun this year.

Kubrick’s the big winner this year, with 2 films – what was it about 2001: A Space Odyssey and Spartacus that made them choices for Autumn Events?
It’s been too long since either of them had a giant screen outing, especially Spartacus. It’s easily the most literate of the Hollywood Roman Empire epics, and the most surprisingly down with the underdogs. It has great Red Peril credentials! And the battle scenes show Kubrick’s mastery of grand scale film-making in its startling earliest appearance.

Many won’t have experienced some of 2001’s trippiest sequences on the big screen; an HD presentation of it surely will blow some minds?
Let’s hope. The tag lines the first time round weren’t shy about implying that the film was a drug experience. The Ultimate Trip, no less.

There’s Pinocchio as well; Disney’s undergone a revival with the Cinderella live action remake, are you hoping that families will embrace this in its 75th year – what makes it so timeless?
‘When You Wish Upon a Star’ had its first airing in this movie – and that’s not an anthem that’s ever waned in popularity. But in many ways Pinocchio is very much of its time – and gloriously so. There was never another Disney film that was so elaborately gorgeously crafted.  When I was a student working at the Century Theatre in Dunedin I had to watch this film four times a day for a fortnight (to ensure the kids never set fire to the theatre). Every screening was a pleasure, revealing new details I’d never spotted before.

The Beatles are currently in residence in Auckland’s Civic theatre with Let It Be – and then a Hard Day’s Night comes in for the Autumn Events; is this some kind of celestial alignment or just fortuitous programming? What’s the appeal of Hard Day’s Night?
They changed the world – and you can still feel it happening as you watch this film. They’ve set off a terrifying storm of adulation. They are still astounded and excited by it, but they are already masters of evasion. Their insolence is fresh and charming. And the songs aren’t bad either.

The best thing about the Autumn Events is a chance to appreciate something unscreened in its glory; in my case, it’s Bertolucci’s The Conformist – why should I ensure I head to this one?
It is an orgy of art deco style and rhapsodic camerawork. The tension between such visual extravagance and its uptight, murderous protagonist is electrifying.

You’re also premiering some Australasian firsts; first up, That Sugar Film – this year’s Supersize Me. I understand the film-makers were really keen for this to be screened as soon as possible and will be in attendance?
Correct. Sandra saw the film at the Amsterdam documentary festival late last year, and we immediately invited it for July. But the film was already on a roll in Australia and Damon was keen to get in front of New Zealand audiences sooner rather than later. He’ll be here to take questions at the Auckland and Wellington screenings.

And our obsessions with rugby are explored in The Ground We Won, a look at provincial rugby – surely that’s destined for greatness given the country’s love of the sport?
It’s a beautifully made film, absolutely fit for classic status. The amazing thing is that the guys in it seem to have forgotten there was a filmmaker present, and a citified female filmmaker at that. It’s frank and funny and I think an extremely truthful picture of their deeply homo-social and mutually fortifying environment. I suspect the audience who is going to get the most out of the film is made up of rugby outsiders. I was amused to see
the rugby widow quoted in Chris and Miriam’s publicity: “Thank you. You have shown me what my husband could never explain.”

Finally, I always ask, Sydney Film Festival’s made its first announcements for their annual film festival; ours is lurking excitedly around the corner. With plenty of tantalising fare out at the festival circuit, what’s our own NZIFF looking like? Any early confirmations or teases you can give us?

You know I don’t do that in April!

Farming Simulator is nearly here

Farming Simulator is nearly here

 Farming Simulator 15 releases in a month on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360! For the first time on consoles, players will be able to live the full "Farming experience", the same one that has already seduced over one million players on PC with its latest version: all its content, its activities, its vehicles and, on PS4 and Xbox One, the online cooperative multiplayer mode, a first for Farming Simulator on consoles! 

On May 19, players on consoles will finally discover the new generation of Farming Simulator. While waiting for this upcoming release, discover the first video of Farming Simulator 15 on consoles, revealing part of the huge content the game has to offer: 

With a brand new graphics and physics engine, Farming Simulator 15 offers an immense open world filled with details and visual effects! In solo, but also for the first time online on consoles with the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One, manage and develop your own farm: harvesting, animal husbandry (cows, chicken and sheep), sales of fresh products, investment in new and more powerful vehicles or tools… Discover also the new activity in Farming Simulator 15:woodcutting, and its selection of entirely dedicated vehicles and tools! 

Across hundreds of acres of land offered by the new Nordic environment, and a renovated North American environment, use and drive over 140 authentic vehicles and farming tools, including new vehicles exclusive to consoles, from over 40 most famous manufacturers: New Holland, Ponsse, Case IH, Deutz-Fahr, MAN, Liebherr... 

With Farming Simulator 15, Farming Simulator is also for the first time playable in multiplayer on consoles, with the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One! Invite other players in your game: increase your productivity by sharing tasks or cooperating on bigger tasks, and develop your farm faster thanks to your help! 

Grab your controllers, because Farming Simulator 15 is scheduled for release on PlayStation®4, Xbox One®, PlayStation®3 and Xbox 360® on May 19!