Concussion: Film Review

Concussion: Film Review

Cast: Will Smith, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Albert Brooks, David Morse, Alec Baldwin
Director: Peter Landesman

Based on the book Game Brain and a "True story", Concussion is a worthy but slightly overblown drama about the after effects of American football.

In Pittsburgh (all drab greys and dour palettes) Smith plays Nigerian pathologist Bennet Omalu who's on duty when Pittsburgh Steelers legend Mike Webster (a bloated David Morse) is brought in after apparently committing suicide.

But as the home-town hero is dissected, Omalu falls foul of the fact he's an outsider and that he doesn't watch or understand football. And when further NFL players end up in the mortuary, Omalu begins to feel he should speak for the dead with his proof that repeated collisions lead to life-altering brain injuries - despite the fact no one wants to listen.

Concussion is more a fumble than a touchdown to be frank.

Smith and fellow performer and love interest Mbatha-Raw are usually stars with immense charisma on screen and whose star-wattage usually brings an energetic level to the screen. Wisely dialled down, Smith is more of a dim bulb burning brightly in a film that's earnest but never quite manages to vault its ambitions of celebrating the American dream and overcoming the odds.

Despite a brilliant turn by Albert Brooks as Dr Cyril Wecht, Omalu's mentor who injects some life and some dry wit into the proceedings, this above the line TV movie never manages to fully get off the sideline. Baldwin also manages to give some life to an-off-the-page whistleblower but never soars.

A domestic storyline for Omalu in the form of his love feels shoe-horned in and is turned to when the drama demands a break rather than out of narrative necessity; equally brief glimpses of the players do little to build character before they end up on the slab where Omalu talks gently to them, leading the audience to feel nothing for their demise.

The true horror of the film is the fact these collisions continue to take place and that the NFL is apparently aware of them but refuse to warn players. It's here the dramatic meat of the story lies and the shock factor should have hit home, despite Concussion being over-stuffed with plot. Had it been streamlined and some of the drama benched, it could have been so much more.

But despite everything Smith does in a just above average performance, Concussion's desire to overly ram home the point with an overt over-use of head-crunching footy footage does nothing to further the cause and may have you leaving the cinema scratching your head before forgetting all that's passed.

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How To Be Single: Film Review

How To Be Single: Film Review

Cast: Dakota Johnson, Rebel Wilson, Leslie Mann, Alison Brie
Director: Christian Ditter

Here we go, another NYC set rom com where a group of single ladies navigate the scene with mixed and apparently hilarious results.

Based on Liz Tuccillo's novel of the same name, How To Be Single follows 50 Shades of Grey star Dakota Johnson's Alice who dumps her college boyfriend of four years so she can see what life as a singleton is like.

Working as a paralegal in a firm, she makes friends with Rebel Wilson's Robin, who parties most of the night and encourages her to play the field. But as she does so, she finds herself falling into more relationships than she desires and dealing with the fallout from them.

How To Be Single is frankly a mess.

Despite its intentions to be different and its desire to present women as needing no men in their lives to get by, the film hits every rom-com cliche and feels so generic that it fails to stand out from the crowd as it plays out.

While Johnson does the best she can with her relatively two dimensional character, she's the only one to fare reasonably by the script, which seems determined to put the women back in relationships, rather than explore their single-ladies-ness.

Rebel Wilson exists only to be the party-hard blow hard (in fact, her introduction in the piece feels like the writers took the club sequence of her sitcom Super Fun Night and re-purposed it) and despite attempts to beef her up at the end with some back-story, she's nothing more than a cypher. Equally Mann's workaholic OB-GYN nurse who decides she wants a baby ends up as nothing more than a kooky crazy unable to express her feelings. Worst of all is Alison Brie, who ends up shoe-horned into proceedings, never appears to gel with the rest of the group and whose OCD to use computers to find the perfect match and explodes when things don't go well would normally see her prescribed some kind of medication, but is here exploited for laughs (cause we all have a crazed friend, right, ladies?).

Occasionally the script makes nods to pop culture (both Sex and the City and Ross' desire to take a break are the best throwaway lines) but How To Be Single aspires to be nothing more than chick kryptonite as it exploits its NYC tourism spots and its protagonists' propensity for kookiness.

While ladies on a night out may get something out of this film, How To Be Single serves only low hanging fruit and offers the pantheon of rom-coms nothing new, preferring to proffer up cliches and patchily painful moments.

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Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders: PS4 Review

Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders: PS4 Review

Platform: PS4

There's something about detectives currently - and classic ones even more.

With the retooling of Sherlock Holmes for the 21st Century and with games like Crime and Punishment on the go, it's clear the obsession with the franchise is a long way from dying.

And certainly that edge is no more apparent than with Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders which captures some of the artwork stylings of a Telltale Games release and paints it into a Poirot shaped curio that's fun to play.

The point and click mystery that's based on one of Agatha Christie's famed tales is certainly a different gaming experience that sees you taking on the role of Hercule Poirot, the funny little man whose puzzle solving prowess is renowned.

With the central impetus being the need to solve three murders over the course of a few hours, the game's pacing is certainly not in question. And the character of Poirot is spot on too, with your responses helping the man to gather either ego points or being dismissed by others, it's fair to say that your style of game play will influence the outcome somewhat.

While the MO is relatively simple (go to an area, explore, examine and talk to some people) its art execution is nothing short of brightly entertaining. The sheer cartooniness of the proceedings and the almost caricature like renderings of the heroes involved make Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders like no other point and play game that's been encountered.

The game's relatively short too, but its playability (even with some occasionally flawed vocal capture) make it something completely different for the console world currently. Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders may not be everyone's bag, but its police procedural stylings, mixed with its arty tendencies give it a USP that's undeniable.

Black Mass: Blu Ray Review

Black Mass: Blu Ray Review

Rating: M
Released by Roadshow Home Ent

From the acting ashes, rises Johnny Depp.

Ever the buffoon on screen, Depp rediscovers his acting roots in a return to form that'll make you forgive and forego his outings as Mortdecai, Jack Sparrow and that vampire from Dark Shadows.

In this grimy gangster flick, Depp is Jimmy Whitey Bulger, the notorious Boston criminal who made his way into the headlines in the way the likes of Henry Hill and Tony Soprano rose through the ranks. But it turns out that Bulger was playing the FBI in the shape of former street buddy, John Connolly (Joel Edgerton, all highly coiffed hair and braggadacio) and getting the FBI to do his work for him, taking out other crime-lords and leaving the streets open to his taking.

Out Of the Furnace director Cooper is well versed in the likes of the grime, having shepherded Christian Bale through a role of misery in a drab setting - and here, he once again drains the palette of all colour and the story of all forms of life. Horrendous 70s beige, browns and moustaches bedeck the  admittedly all-star (but under-utilised) cast and surroundings as the story unfolds.

And in the centre of all the dour and drab story is Depp's Bulger, a gangster villain that's gone the way via an undead creature, Blow, Donnie Brasco, liver spots, One Hour Photo and a pastiche of every criminal with a seething edge we've seen before.

A scene early on sees him issuing parenting advice under the umbrella of "It's not what you do, it's when and how you do it" that serve as a tone for his conduct within the turf wars and tantalisingly hints at what could have been given the film's joyful insistence on refusing to glorify the way of the gangs and those caught in their thrall.

Equally, a one-on-one sequence with Connolly's wife, who's become so appalled by the circles her husband's running in, crackles with unease and monstrous uncertainty. Depp's almost inhuman Bulger is perhaps the best part of Black Mass and solely the reason to watch. It's a film that ironically never really reaches critical mass due to an ineptly paced script that misses all the emotional beats. Key moments and characters in Bulger's life (such as his wife and son) simply disappear at wildly inappropriate moments, as they fall by the narrative wayside.

It's not a film that builds an ascent and plots a rapid descent for any of its protagonists, a route which many like Goodfellas and Casino have gone before - and unfortunately while to be commended for doing something different, it never quite negotiates its own route as it jumps between Connolly, Bulger and those around them. Some of the problem is that the script dictates time jumps and leap frogs emotional moments in the script that would go more to creating a portrait of Bulger and a reason for his rallying paranoia - the same goes for Connolly whose seduction into Bulger's world is all too easy. Equally, falling back on using interviews as exposition becomes lazy and a get-out clause for Cooper's story - and replaces anything transpiring on screen and serving to build character and elicit empathy or sympathy for anyone involved.

Ultimately, when the comeuppance for all arises, the consequences of this mass of errors and dour maudlin preceding is that there's a palpable lack of any kind of catharsis or joy; and a post film coda lacks any kind of resonance and frustratingly hints at where a better film would lie;Black Mass skirts around the character of Bulger and as a result, doesn't serve either him, the supporting players or the audience in the way that perhaps a great gangster film should have done.

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NZ's Show Me Shorts Film Festival announces second Oscar-qualifying award

NZ's Show Me Shorts Film Festival announces second Oscar-qualifying award

New Zealand’s Show Me Shorts Film Festival brings winning an Oscar® closer to short film makers across the world

Show Me Shorts Film Festival is proud to announce that they have been granted Oscar®-qualifying status for their Best International Film Award, in addition to their Lightbox Best Film Award.

For the last four years, Show Me Shorts has been the only film festival in New Zealand qualified to provide a pathway to the Academy Awards® for their top award winner - Lightbox Best Film Award. This coveted relationship with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is something granted to a small number of prestigious film festivals around the globe.

Festival Director of Show Me Shorts, Gina Dellabarca, says, “It’s big news for filmmakers as it means the reality of winning an Oscar® is potentially within reach.

“Winning one of these awards at Show Me Shorts removes the need for a standard theatrical run in a US cinema – something most short films are unable to achieve. Winning an Oscar®-qualifying festival is the main way that short films can become eligible for consideration for the Oscars®. We are thrilled with this development, which is likely to result in an increase in the number and quality of our submissions. Great news for local audiences as well as local and international filmmakers.”

One of the most popular shorts from the international selection of Show Me Shorts 2015, Stutterer by Benjamin Cleary, is nominated for the Best Live Action Short Film award at the Oscars® this year. Members of the Show Me Shorts community of festival-goers will be cheering on this film come Monday 29 February when the awards are announced.

The 2015 Lightbox Best Film Award at Show Me Shorts was won by Alyx Duncan for The Tide Keeper. Her film is now eligible to enter the 2017 Oscars®.

The Best Live Action Short Film award at the 2015 Oscars® was won by another film that had previously featured in Show Me Shorts, The Phone Call. “This demonstrates the calibre of short films in our programme,” Dellabarca says.

The 11^th annual Show Me Shorts Film Festival in 2016 will share their top local and international short films with thousands of New Zealanders from Dargaville to Stewart Island, who take part as audience members, attend professional development events, and by voting for their favourite films.

Show Me Shorts is now calling for entries from local and international short film makers. Short films can be from New Zealand or anywhere in the world, but must be between 2-20 minutes long and made within the last two years. New Zealand music videos can also qualify for selection if they are between 1-10 minutes long. Entry deadlines and fees for 2016 are:

·         Earlybird Deadline: 15 April 2016 (shorts US$25 / music videos US$10)

·         Regular Deadline: 15 May 2016 (shorts US$30 / music videos US$15)

·         Late Deadline: 15 June 2016 (shorts US$35 / music videos US$20)

·         Extended Deadline: 1 July 2016 (shorts US$40 / music videos US$25)

Full submission details for Show Me Shorts are available at www.showmeshorts.co.nz

Dark Souls III True Colours of Darkness

Dark Souls III True Colours of Darkness

DARK SOULS III – TRUE COLOURS OF DARKNESS TRAILER RELEASED!

Discover the True Colors of Darkness in our new Dark Souls 3 trailer! Are you ready to fight for your life in the Kingdom of Lothric?

With a release set for April 12^th, 2016, DARK SOULS III will take the fans through an apocalyptic and dark ride to unfold the last secrets of the unique universe create by Hidetaka Miyazaki, From Software and BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment!

Hitman BETA returns

Hitman BETA returns

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NEW ‘LEGACY OPENING CINEMATIC’ 

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BETA OPEN TO PLAYSTATION PLUS MEMBERS ON MARCH 4^th 

SYDNEY, 25^TH February 2016 - Io-Interactive today releases a new trailer, the ‘Legacy Opening Cinematic’ bridges the twenty year gap in the new HITMAN game between the end of the Prologue and the Sanguine Fashion Show in Paris. The trailer takes viewers all the way back to the thermal baths of the Hotel Gallard in Budapest as seen in the original Codename: 47 and to the Chilean Delgado vineyard from Blood Money, as it charts a journey through some iconic Hitman moments.

To watch the HITMAN Legacy Opening Cinematic, please visit: https://youtu.be/01bYEelwwHc  

Plus, after a successful beta on PS4, Io-Interactive now invites all PlayStation Plus members to try out the HITMAN beta on March 4^th.

“Our initial beta was an extremely helpful moment for our new HITMAN game, as it gave us great insight into how the server game mechanics function under pressure. A lot of those pressure points are currently being strengthened for release,” said Hannes Seifert, Studio Head at Io-Interactive. “Now Sony have given us the opportunity to go even bigger to validate some of the initial things we saw. Therefore we are inviting everyone who is a PlayStation Plus member to try the same beta and you don’t have to pre-order the game. This will allow us to really stress test our server setup, which is a crucial element for us to get just right.”

Labelled “The Prologue”, the Beta takes place twenty years before the Paris Showstopper mission. Set in a secret ICA training facility, the Prologue features a pivotal moment in Agent 47’s life - his introduction to the ICA and very first meeting with his future handler Diana Burnwood. The Prologue features two free-form training hits, which will introduce players to the features and mechanics of the upcoming HITMAN game. The Prologue will also be available as part of the first episode of HITMAN.

HITMAN will launch on March 11^th for the PlayStation®4 computer entertainment system & Xbox One, the all-in-one games and entertainment system from Microsoft. The Windows PC version launch March 12^th (ANZ).