EA Play 2016 - Live Stream

EA Play 2016 - Live Stream

As E3 2016 kicks off this week, EA Play 2016 is also getting in on the action.

Watch the EA Press Event live below:


Watch live video from EA on www.twitch.tv

'BATMAN - The Telltale Series' Unveiled

'BATMAN - The Telltale Series' Unveiled

'BATMAN - The Telltale Series' Unveiled in First Look Ahead of Summer 2016 Premiere     Episodic Game Series based on DC's Iconic Character to  Premiere This Summer

SAN RAFAEL, Calif., June. 12th, 2016 -- Leading developer and publisher of digital entertainment, Telltale Games, with Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and DC Entertainment, today unveiled the first look at BATMAN - The Telltale Series ahead of its worldwide debut this summer.   The episodic game series will premiere digitally on home consoles, PC/Mac, and mobile devices, and will be shown to guests attending the annual E3 Gaming Expo this coming week in Los Angeles. The series will also be available on game consoles as a special 'Season Pass Disc' which will be available at retailers across North America, Latin America, and Europe later this summer, granting access to the five episode season as it becomes available for download.   "We've been hard at work at Telltale creating an all-new iteration of the iconic Batman story that puts players in the suit of billionaire Bruce Wayne, just as much as it will put them behind the mask, deciding how to carefully navigate a complex drama, rich with action, crime, corruption, and villainy lurking around every corner of Gotham City," said Kevin Bruner, Co-Founder and CEO of Telltale Games. "The complex life and fractured psyche of Bruce Wayne has lent itself to becoming a bold evolution of the signature 'Telltale' role-playing experience, and we couldn't be more excited as we prepare to debut the series to players across the world this summer."   Rendered to look like a living, breathing comic book, Telltale's vision of Batman will feature an award-winning cast of talent, including Troy Baker in the role of Bruce Wayne, Travis Willingham as Harvey Dent, Erin Yvette as Vicki Vale, Enn Reitelas Alfred Pennyworth, Murphy Guyer as Lieutenant James Gordon, Richard McGonagle as Carmine Falcone, and Laura Bailey as Selina Kyle. Additional cast and characters will be revealed as the season progresses. For more information on Telltale Games, and more news surrounding the series, visit the official website, Facebook, and follow Telltale Games on Twitter@TelltaleGames.

Peanuts: The Charlie Brown Movie: DVD Review

Peanuts: The Charlie Brown Movie: DVD Review

Released by 20th Century Fox Home Ent

There's an old school nostalgia that swathes the heart-warming Peanuts Movie like a cozy blanket.

And while the cynical, brought up on a diet of post-modern ironic CGI animated fare that clocks a wink at its audience, may scoff at its endearing cuteness, the effect of seeing Charles M Schulz's characters writ large and with due reverence on the big screen is nothing short of a nostalgic treat to start the new year off.

It's a simple story - Charlie Brown finds his life upended when the little red-haired girl from the cartoons moves over the road from him; determined to make her acquaintance, Charlie sets out on a life-changing journey. Meanwhile, Snoopy's engaged in yet another fight with the Red Baron....

At its most basic level, The Peanuts Movie is a melange of episodic moments stitched together with the flimsiest of threads, but the messages within are honest and earnest. Charlie Brown remains the blockhead he has always been, but his loveable loser schtick will strike a chord with many youngsters who see elements of themselves within.

Sure the message to be true to thine self and to act with integrity is nothing original, but the lack of preachiness goes a long way to making this spoonful of sugar easily slip down.

Mentions of The Great Pumpkin, the kite-eating tree, that mound where so many humiliations have occurred are lashed together in a web that sees Snoopy taking on the Red Baron once again and Charlie Brown trying to get a win in life.

Flights of fancy come quick and fast in this flick that revels in its old school charm and yesteryear elements. 


There's nothing wrong with the family values it espouses and the animation certainly holds true to the Charlie Brown we've seen on TV - even if this Charlie Brown is likely to resonate more with those who've grown up with the TV specials and the strips. In many ways, this Peanuts Movie is not what you'd expect from films these days - there's no smart nods to the audience, no clever meta-plot and no push for the origin of Charlie and Snoopy's friendship. It's good, old-fashioned Peanuts that works as a shapeless narrative and crucially, feels like a series of episodic panels and sketches thrown together in a 90 minute meshed film.

There's a nice parallel between Snoopy and his endless Red Baron adventures trying to save Fifi, his imaginary love and Charlie Brown's pursuit of the little red-headed girl. While the Snoopy sections may drag on a little, the Charlie Brown quests for recognition and over-coming his own awkwardness to speak to her have volumes of charm and sweet innocence that a younger audience will latch onto.

The 3D works nicely and is more about presenting rounder characters (though ironically, a lot of Charlie Brown's chums are sidelined with little on screen interaction) rather than a bells and whistles showiness. The film-makers are wise to Brown's continual string of losses, a running gag of the panels and a truism of his life, but are smart enough to also realise that he needs a minor win for audiences to follow on the journey with him.

But it's the moments of the past that stand out - when Brown daydreams he does so with black and white panels that Charles M Schulz so lovingly crafted. It's a beautiful touch, an innocent moment which legions of his fans will sigh a relief at rather than let out an exasperated "Good Grief".


As a trip down memory lane and with Schulz's good intentions, this family film may provoke a few moments of apathy for the older members of the audience and perhaps a younger end brought up on savvier fare, but its faithful nostalgia and simpler yet reverent greatest hits story-telling is a welcome breath of fresh cinematic air. 

Rating:

Newstalk ZB Review - The Conjuring 2, Now You See Me 2 and Room

Newstalk ZB Review - The Conjuring 2, Now You See Me 2 and Room

Today on Jack Tame, it was scares and magicians as well as a Josef Fritzl-esque story.

Click the link below to listen to The Conjuring 2 review, Now You See Me 2 Review and Room on DVD.

http://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/saturday-morning-with-jack-tame/audio/darren-bevan-the-conjuring-2-now-you-see-me-2/

How To Be Single: Blu Ray Review

How To Be Single

Rating: M
Released by Roadshow Home Ent

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.

Rating:

Sing Street: Film Review

Sing Street: Film Review

Cast: Ferdia Walsh-Peelo, Lucy Boynton, Jack Reynor, Aiden Gillen, Maria Doyle Kennedy
Director: John Carney

There’s plenty to love in John Carney’s cloyingly generic yet somehow winning uplifting coming of age tale, Sing Street, even if it does skirt with a story you’ve heard many times before and tackles any kind of cynicism head on.

Carney’s musical trilogy and the meaning of music began with the romance of the duo of Once, before taking a circuitous route with Keira Knightley and Mark Ruffalo in Begin Again.

It’s come full circle with 80s Dublin set tale Dublin about Conor (newcomer Ferdia Walsh-Peelo, channeling elements of Moone Boy Padraig’s charming simplicity) and his uprooting to a state school, because of financial family issues.

Initially bullied at the new school (so far, so stereotypical) Conor decides on a whim to impress Lucy Boynton’s Raphina whom he sees hanging about the school. Believing her claim she's a model and needing to be cool, he tells her he’s in a band and they need for a shoot.

The only problem – the band’s non-existent and the clock is ticking for Conor to pull together a ragtag crew of musical misfits to win over the day - and potentially, the girl.

As previously alluded to, the musical comedy Sing Street isn’t exactly original, but by goodness, it’s certainly heart-warming fare that proves hard to resist, thanks to a heady mix of pop nostalgia and some solid performances from a largely unknown cast as well as a comic script that is laugh out loud funny in places and bitterly recognisable in others.

But it also helps that Carney once again demonstrates his immense directorial nous for bringing music to life.

As with Once’s 2007 pairing of Glen and Marketa’s live performance inside a studio and 2013’s Begin Again bringing dormant musical instruments together to show how a song is constructed by those who understand music, Carney’s exuberance is evident in his musical execution.

From the faux New Romantic Be Kind Rewind style video of Conor’s first song (the annoyingly catchy earworm The Riddle of The Model) to a tautly executed shot from within a solo rehearsal in a front room that swirls and turns into a full on front room band performance, Carney’s aptitude for breathing life into music and demonstrating why so many are so passionate about it is immensely and satisfyingly contagious.

There’s an earnestness to Sing Street that is undeniable too, even if it does wear its heart on its sleeve and bellows its occasionally bittersweet, happy/ sad narrative universality to many.

The whole story actually pivots on the fraternal relationship between Conor and the terrific Jack Reynor’s Brendon, a college drop-out and stoner whose guidance of Conor’s musical education becomes more formative than he could have realised.

While the other fripperies of the coming-of-age genre are skirted with (hints of abusive priests at school, the bully at school, the potentially unattainable girl) and the characters of the band fall away in the wash, underdeveloped despite initial flirtations and amusements, this one relationship between brothers is central to proceedings and is as crucial to the proceedings as Conor’s musical journey.

There’s no denying that the rite-of-passage Sing Street is wish-fulfilment film-making in extremis and feel-good fare that could clog the arteries , but it’s difficult not to fall hard for this toe-tapping flick given the immense charm and spirited optimistic energy that springs from the screen.

New HITMAN Elusive Target Live Now

New HITMAN Elusive Target Live Now  

New HITMAN Elusive Target Live Now

SYDNEY, 9^TH June 2016 - The third Elusive Target, The Prince is now live in Sapienza across all platforms. A briefing video is available online and in-game to help players determine the approximate location of the target.

Players will need to own HITMAN Episode 2: Sapienza in order to access this content.

*This Elusive Target is available for 72 hours

Elusive Targets are part of the live content being published for HITMAN in-between episodes and represent a new game mode debuting for players. They are not going to be easy but if you can prove yourself, you’ll earn in-game rewards for completing multiple Elusive Target contracts, such as signature suits from previous Hitman games. You will receive the first reward for successfully completing 5 Elusive Target contracts.

The Elusive Targets are specially crafted, unique targets, which come with particular rules:

• An Elusive Target is a once in a lifetime experience
• They are available for a limited time only in game
• Intel on the target will be limited
• They will not appear in instinct mode, or the mini map and their locations will not be revealed to you – you’ll have to go and find them
• Plan accordingly before you engage your target
• Your target can only die once
• If you die during the mission, that’s it
• When the time runs out, they are gone for good
• If you fail, there are no second chances

Don’t miss.

Start time: Live Now

End time:  Saturday June 11