Newstalk ZB Review - 10 Cloverfield Lane, Grimsby and Spectre

Newstalk ZB Review - 10 Cloverfield Lane, Grimsby and Spectre

This week on the Jack Tame show, I dropped in to review 10 Cloverfield Lane, Grimsby and Spectre.

Take a listen below

http://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/saturday-mornings-with-jack-tame/audio/darren-bevan-at-the-movies/

NZFF Autumn Events line up revealed

NZFF Autumn Events line up revealed

It's very exciting to announce the full list of the NZIFF Autumn Events and the dates it will run!

NZIFF Autumn Events Dates:

Auckland, The Civic Theatre 13 – 17 April

Auckland, Academy Cinema 23 April – 3 May

Wellington, Paramount cinema 16 April – 3 May

Wellington, Embassy Theatre 22 April, 7–22 May

Dunedin, Regent Theatre 5–8 May

Christchurch, Hoyts Riccarton, 29 April – 22 May

The NZIFF Autumn Events Classics are:

Fargo

Murderous goons meet their match in a downhome Minnesota cop, the inimitable Frances McDormand as Detective Marge Gunderson, chirpy, relentless and seven months pregnant. Landmark ‘true crime’ comedy from the Coens.

The Iron Giant: Signature Edition

In Brad Bird’s beautifully animated adaptation of Ted Hughes’ anti-Cold War children's book, young Hogarth Hughes befriends a gigantic robot from outer space, and hides him from wily government agents.

The King and I

Deborah Kerr and Yul Brynner are the definitive Anna and the King of Siam in the dazzling movie of the evergreen Rogers and Hammerstein musical, spectacularly transferred to digital for its 60th anniversary.

The Philadelphia Story

Katharine Hepburn spoofs her blue blood image as the spoiled bride-to-be in the definitive high society romcom. Sardonic ex-husband Cary Grant and scandal-mongering journo Jimmy Stewart vie to divert her from the altar.

Ran

“Kurosawa’s late-period masterpiece, transposing King Lear to period Japan, is one of the most exquisite spectacles ever made, a color-coordinated epic tragedy of carnage and betrayal – passionate, somber, and profound.” — New York Magazine

Stop Making Sense

Jonathan Demme’s celebrated concert movie remains a conceptual and audiovisual triumph, capturing David Byrne and Talking Heads in infectious peak form.

The NZIFF Autumn Events Premieres are:

Bolshoi Babylon (A+W only)

Russia’s world-famous Bolshoi Ballet weathers the fallout from the notorious 2013 acid attack on its artistic director. Brit filmmakers Nick Read and Mark Franchetti gain remarkable access.

Ingrid Bergman in her Own Words (A+W only)

Actress Ingrid Bergman shines in this compendium of her letters, movie clips, visits with family members, and – best of all – lots of beautiful home movies, mostly shot by the star herself.

Janis: Little Girl Blue

An admiring, perceptive, richly researched and performance-studded celebration of 60s icon and white soul singer supreme, Janis Joplin, beautifully crafted by Amy Berg (West of Memphis).

Putuparri and the Rainmakers (A+W only)

(with filmmaker in attendance at Auckland and Wellington screenings)

An emotional journey to meet the traditional rainmakers of Australia's Great Sandy Desert. The film spans 20 years in the life of Tom "Putuparri" Lawford as he navigates the chasm between his Western upbringing and the need to keep his traditional culture alive.

Where to Invade Next

In his sunniest most upbeat film yet, the activist/director of Fahrenheit 911 and Bowling for Columbine mounts a comic assault on the good citizens of several of the world’s most liberal social welfare states.

The Witch

Puritan terrors of devilry and damnation come screaming to life in this impeccably crafted and thrillingly scary debut. “The Witch is one of the most genuinely unnerving horror films in recent memory.” — David Ehrlich, Time Out 

And the big New Zealand premiere on Wednesday 13th April at 7pm will be TICKLED.

When pop-culture journalist David Farrier came across a website seeking young men to travel to Los Angeles to participate in endurance tickling competitions, he sensed a good story for TV3’s Newsworthy. He didn’t know he’d just bought himself a fight with a clutch of “bullies with too much money.” That fight and the investigation it provoked make for gripping viewing in his remarkably deft debut feature film, co-directed with Dylan Reeve. 

Win a double pass to My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2

Win a double pass to My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2

To celebrate the release of the sequel, My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2, which comes out March 24 2016, we're giving you the chance to win a double pass to head to the movies and see the film

Gold Circle Entertainment and HBO present a Playtone production of My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2, the long-awaited follow-up to the highest-grossing romantic comedy of all time.  Written by Academy Award^® nominee Nia Vardalos, who stars alongside the entire returning cast of favorites, the film reveals a Portokalos family secret that will bring the beloved characters back together for an even bigger and Greeker wedding. 

Kirk Jones (Nanny McPhee, Waking Ned Devine) directs the next chapter of the film that will be once again produced by Rita Wilson and Playtone partners Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman.  Paul Brooks and Steve Shareshian return to executive produce alongside Vardalos and Scott Niemeyer.  

To enter simply email to this address: darrensworldofentertainment@gmail.com  and in the subject line put GREEK

Please include your name and address! 

45 Years: Film Review

45 Years: Film Review

Cast: Charlotte Rampling, Tom Courtenay, Geraldine James
Director: Andrew Haigh

With an Oscar nomination in tow for Charlotte Rampling's performance, 45 Years arrives with a certain amount of expectation surrounding it.

Essentially a two-hander, it's the acutely observed story of Kate and Geoff (Rampling and Courtenay respectively) in the week before they hit their 45th wedding anniversary. Geoff's world is changed (and subsequently Kate's) when he receives a letter from abroad telling him authorities have found the perfectly preserved body of his former girlfriend Katye in the ice after she fell into a crevasse.

This simple piece of news sends more than just ripples through their marriage and suddenly, the past threatens their future...

There's no denying the subtlety and the presence of these two powerhouse actors in this film, and there's a suggested history between the pair that's more often than not hinted at rather than explicitly explored (such as Geoff's heart bypass glimpsed in fleeting undressed shots, music choices pointing out the irony of what's ahead). It's in moments like these that 45 Years transcends and delivers something poignant without ever crossing the line.

The shocks that come within are smaller-scale but nevertheless devastating in their domestic destruction.

Kate's foundations are shaken by a withdrawing of Geoff who retreats into his memories and as the mistrust inevitably begins to permeate their very DNA, Haigh manages to keep each moment realistically shot and restrain his camera from invading and exploiting every scene.

From the opening shots which begin each day of the apparent calm of the English countryside where the pair lives (never has the country seemed so menacing, as if something rotten lies within its idyll) to the re-staging of their first dance, the cinematography remains a classy affair. Conversations are never glimpsed fully on and make the viewer complicit but never accountable in events as they transpire.

And yet, despite all of that, and the power of performances (why Courtenay has not been mentioned in the same award breath as Rampling is nothing short of a tragedy), there's an aloofness and an unanswered edge to the film that proves as much of a frustration to the viewer. It's never explained why the reveal is so devastating to Kate and why her reaction to the news and the regrets of the past are so likely to shake the foundations after some 40 plus years; sure, the past is the past, but it seems odd that the prism of the present is so dwarfed in what is happening.

Sure, Rampling delivers a turn that hinges on the quiver of an eye or a lip and in one scene alone a whimper conveys more than dialogue ever could, but sympathy for her's and Geoff's plight is remarkably short on materializing.

There's a muted atmosphere that is so entrenched in 45 Years and while it's no bad thing that everything's gleaned rather than outright discussed, when viewed under the microscope of awards talk, this subtle film comes up ever so slightly short.

Rating:

Hitman 360 experience unveiled

Hitman 360 experience unveiled

Tour the World of Assassination in interactive 360-degree format

& The Real Life HITMAN Experience

SYDNEY, 10^TH March 2016 - Io-Interactive today released a unique 360-degree video welcoming viewers into a world of killer fashion. Set in Paris, the Sanguine Fall Fashion Show is thered carpet event of the year and you are invited to join in this interactive video experience. Shot in 4K resolution, it shows off the Paris location from the first episode of the upcoming HITMAN game in stunning visual fidelity, allowing viewers to enter the fashion show itself and even inviting them backstage for a peak behind the curtains of mystery that surround this event.

From moment you move through the flashy entrance of Palais de Walewska to the second you see the outside fireworks setting off in the evening sky, the video gives you an immersive experience inside the secret World of Assassination unlike anything you’ve seen before in a Hitman game.

The HITMAN Sanguine Fall Fashion Show 360 video can be experienced here on YouTube. For a fully immersive experience, we recommend mobile as the preferred viewing platform.

Io-Interactive and Realm Pictures also recently invited a select group of people to become Agent 47’s handler as he goes on a mission to eliminate a Serbian arms dealer in a real life Hitman experience unlike anything created before. Among the participants were YouTubers AliA, NukemDukem, SUP3R KONAR and Pietsmiet as well as Jane Perry, the voice actress behind Agent 47’s handler Diana Burnwood. The full video experience is available here and you can go behind the scenes with Realm Pictures here to learn much more about the elaborate setup required to pull this off.

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, and early on March 12^thfor Windows PC (ANZ).

Spectre: Blu Ray Review

Spectre: Blu Ray Review

Rating: M
Released by Universal Home Ent

That the latest Bond outing starts off in Mexico with the Day of the Dead festival seems too pertinent - it's an apt observation, given how much of the film is haunted by ghosts from its own past.

A more introspective piece set against a backdrop of an ongoing discussion about intelligence sharing, mergers and the place of archaic spies, the 24th Bond sees James Bond engaging in a more personal quest and forgetting about global concerns to mixed results. Setting out in Mexico on a rogue mission to track a man called Sciarra, Bond's globe-trotting finally leads him into the world of shadowy organisation Spectre - and a discovery that shakes his very core.

The new Bond film is steeped in the tentacles of its past and really struggles to garner a new identity for itself, with shades of deja vu a la Star Trek Into Darkness spilling in for reasons that verge on spoiler territory.

Half the problem of the film is that throughout, the sense of threat and urgency is rather misplaced within the long drawn-out pacing.

The film's opening in Mexico is breath-taking, with a gorgeous tracking shot that weaves between the crowds of The Day Of The Dead festival and along the rooftops as Bond precisely tracks his prey. Sharply suited throughout like some kind of walking GQ shoot and clad in Tom Ford (just one of many sponsors), Craig cuts an arrogantly icy figure as the Bond who's more aloof spy in the cold this time around; but the pre-credits teaser lacks some of the spectacle you'd expect even if some of the helicopter based stunt work borders on impressive and solid, rather than edge of your seat.

There's the obligatory globe-trotting too to Tangiers, Rome and Austria but as the story plays out the Snowden-esque elements of the global conspiracy end up being confined to the sidelines after propelling the narrative forward. Equally, Andrew Scott's C, who's the driver for the merger ends up being sidelined and part of a too obvious twist - even if he does play nicely off Ralph Fiennes' expanded M, with Fiennes delivering a quip that sounds like it could have come from the Roger Moore era (something which Craig also revels in to wry effect).

Confining to the fringes is a charge which could be laid against Christoph Waltz's villain too. His mellifluous tones light up the start of the film but then is damned to the back 30 minutes as the machinations and revelations come quickly. And however hard Waltz may try, he ends up feeling the victim of an extended set-up, as well as Austin Powersstyle parallels - even if foundations are laid for the future kind of character. (There are no spoilers here, but plenty of speculation on the character is already out there - and if you're a Bond afficionado, the film's title offers delicious hints of where exactly it could be going).

To be frank, the film very much teeters on reminding you why the series needed rebooting in the first place - it lacks the edge and gritty urgency of Casino Royale and sorely misses an emotional punch a la Skyfall as the potential finality of Daniel Craig's tenure as Bond plays out.

Revelling in its past (an original Aston Martin, an Odd Job type nemesis for Bond in the form of Dave Bautista and the other films from Craig's time as 007), Spectre never really finds a moment to definitively call its own. The stakes never feel high enough and the action sequences border on perfunctorily thrilling rather than edge of your seat gripping.
It also dangerously edges back towards underwritten female protagonists too that simply fall under Bond's thrall. Belucci is completely wasted and is simply there to be bedded and Seydoux who brings a hardened edge starts off strong and feisty before falling into cliched Bond girl in peril territory.

But there are moments when Spectre hits its straps; chiefly, while it falls down on pushing the wonderfully energetic Harris and Fiennes to the outer edges of the action, bringing Ben Whishaw's Q into the field delivers the flick some much needed points of difference and a sense of unpredictability - future outings could benefit from more of Whishaw's clipped precise tones and fish-out-of-water vibes as Q.And while the action is tightly pulled together, its choreography almost strangles it of any danger, any life and any edge - almost as if Mendes and his team have story-boarded it to death.

Consequently the final verdict on Spectre is it's not exactly a Bond at its best but neither is at its worst; even though Craig makes the role definitively his own, the extended glut of the film, the resolution of past threads you didn't even know were loose and the lack of any urgency and threat make it more a ho-hum entry into the canon. It's easy to target Bond, but as the rebooted franchise has shown, it can play successfully with expectations while still delivering a spectacle that's rich in emotional resonance as it is flying bullets.

The credits promise that James Bond will return, but to really radically overhaul this film series again, it needs to shake off the ghosts of its own past, its own feeling of rote tropes and ensure that business as usual for this spy is nothing short of constantly thrilling - even if it is a more slightly traditional road to follow.

Rating:

10 Cloverfield Lane: Film Review

10 Cloverfield Lane: Film Review

Cast: John Goodman, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, John Gallagher Jr
Director: Dan Trachtenberg

"People are strange creatures - you can't always convince them safety is in their best interests".

It's this line from John Goodman's character that really sets the tone for the mystery that is 10 Cloverfield Lane, a film described as a blood relative to 2008's Cloverfield by JJ Abrams, rather than a direct sequel to the handy shaky-cam, found footage monster flick.

If anything this subterranean set film is best described as a taut chamber piece that you're better off knowing little about before viewing.

Loosely, Winstead is Michelle, who at the start of the film, is desperately scrabbling around, packing a bag and leaving her other half, for reasons unknown. Fleeing in her car, Michelle's involved in a car accident and wakes to find herself in a dingy room, her leg shackled to the wall, and with no idea where she is or how she got there. So far, so Saw (or so Room).

Enter into proceedings, Goodman's twitchy doomsday prepper Howard whose reasons for dragging Michelle down to the bunker appear to her to be less than clear. Also in this bunker is John Gallager Jr's Emmet, who's injured and appears to be captive too....

10 Cloverfield Lane is a masterful execution in suspense and a masterclass of Hitchcockian nail-biting drama in a three-hander setting.

Taut and lean, its strengths really are in the way it plays out, as well as the performances of both Goodman and Winstead. As Michelle does, the audience is drip fed potential reasons for her predicament and as a result, the ensuing paranoia is built as we gain empathy for her plight and her mistrust. There's a duality of trust at play here and no one knows who is telling the truth, even though at various stages, we swing the pendulum of doubt either way.

But smartly, Goodman's Hector is not just a one dimensional nutbar whose underground plans and murky reasonings make a kind of unnerving sense to the audience. The way the needle keeps flipping back and forth between believing him and distrusting him is sparingly but effectively used and is redolent of the lean story-telling on hand.

Thanks to Goodman's relative underplaying of the role (essentially a psychological bully who may or may not be blessed with a dose of veracity) coupled with his implied menace and Winstead's rounded pluck as she goes through her arc of vulnerability to strength, 10 Cloverfield Lane emerges as a thriller filled with dread that rewards as the onion peels back its layers. Hell is very much other people as they say, and in this Fallout Shelter-esque claustrophobic flick, that's evident from the nail-biting beginning.

It helps that the Twilight Zone-esque post Cold War vibe is severely amped up by a mood-ratcheting score from The Walking Dead's Bear McCreary, leading to an atmosphere of unease, mistrust and even in its most domestic scenes, distinctly unsettling overtones.

If the final act hints at more and sees the expected route taken for a Cloverfield film, then the tense and nervy journey there is nothing short of compelling as the mystery box is opened wide.

Unsettling, unease and uncertainty are redolent throughout and Trachtenberg manipulates these well throughout the lean run time (even if there are some mysteries which are never fully resolved). It's dramatic and rare to see a film these days surprise, but thanks to grounding 10 Cloverfield Lane in a relatable humanity and spinning the dial of doubt while simultaneously dredging every last drop of tension, it's one of the best genre films of the year.

Rating: