South Park The Fractured But Whole will literally fart in your face

South Park The Fractured But Whole will literally fart in your face

South Park: The Fracture But Whole will literally fart in your face

New Release Date for FINAL FANTASY XV

New Release Date for FINAL FANTASY XV

NEW RELEASE DATE SET FOR FINAL FANTASY XV

To deliver the iconic FINAL FANTASY experience to audiences around the world, SQUARE ENIX® today announced that the global release date for FINAL FANTASY® XV will be November 29, 2016.

This release date will allow the development teams time to further polish and conduct quality testing so that the reality of the game can match the expectations of both the fans and the creative teams.

“From the moment we joined this project, our vision was to create a level of freedom and realism previously unseen in the series. Regrettably, we need a little bit more time to deliver on this vision and are confident that this new release date will help us achieve this,” said Hajime Tabata the game director. “As the director and lead of this project, I wish to personally apologize for the additional wait. As a team, we want FINAL FANTASY XV to achieve a level of perfection that our fans deserve. We kindly ask for your understanding.”

Full comments from Tabata are available here

We’ll notify whether the release dates for the disc version of both KINGSGLAIVE: FINAL FANTASY XV™ and BROTHERHOOD FINAL FANTASY XV™ will be changed or unchanged at a later time.

Win 45 Years on DVD

Win 45 Years on DVD

Kate Mercer is planning a party to celebrate her 45th wedding anniversary. 

One week before the celebration a letter arrives for her husband, Geoff, containing news that the body of his first love has been discovered, frozen and preserved in the icy glaciers of the Swiss Alps. 

Kate continues to prepare for the party, but she becomes increasingly concerned by Geoff’s preoccupation with the letter and the startling revelations about his former life. 

As their anniversary gets closer, and they delve further into the past, their future is left in question. 

Anchored by sensational performances from Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay, 45 YEARS is an intimate, moving and beautiful portrait of a marriage shaken to its core by things left unspoken. Winning Best Actor and Best Actress awards at the 2015 Berlinale Film Festival, 45 YEARS is British filmmaking at its very best.

Thanks to Madman Home Ent, you can win a copy of 45 Years!

To enter simply email to this address: darrensworldofentertainment@gmail.com  OR simply CLICK HERE 

In the subject line put 45 YEARS!

Please include your name and address and good luck!

Kubo and The Two Strings: Film Review

Kubo and The Two Strings: Film Review

Cast: Art Parkinson, Charlize Theron, Matthew McConaughey, Rooney Mara, Ralph Fiennes
Director: Travis Knight

The library of Laika's contribution to the animated cinematic world is scattered with greatness.

From the button eyes of Coraline through to the madcap world of The Boxtrolls, via ParaNorman, each of the studio's stop motion films have stood out visually from the CGI generated fare from the likes of Pixar and other contenders.

But Kubo and The Two Strings may be their greatest success yet, a story that is visually dazzling.

Game of Thrones star Art Parkinson lends his vocal talents to Kubo, a one-eyed young boy who tends to his ailing mother by night, and visits the local town's market by day to earn money by telling stories. Wowing the crowds with his tales of a samurai (brought to life by the magic of paper and music), and keeping a wooden monkey protective charm close at his mother's urging, Kubo is not allowed to stay out at night.

Because Kubo's family is steeped in tragedy, with his mother having fled to escape her vengeful sisters... however, Kubo inadvertently disobeys his mother and sets in motion a chain of events that manifests itself in a quest against evil involving a monkey (voiced by Theron), a beetle (McConaughey) and Kubo....

Suffusing the familial with the fantastical and blending in a great deal of emotion, Kubo and The Two Strings is a great success, even if its desire to explain and expound its themes ties it up a little in its own intricate web toward the end.

Wrapping the mystical trappings of Japanese culture, this samurai quest tale is both a celebration of the art of story-telling, rendered popular by oral histories from the likes of Homer, and a complete story of its own, with Kurosawa elements fused inexorably into its DNA. While parts of the narrative take a nightmarish turn, there are questions as to whether this fable is more aimed to adults rather than children - and its desire to remind us about relatives gone and ancestors past is a noble and worthy cause that leads to a emotionally powerful conclusion.

And yet, despite its perfection in stop-motion execution, there are moments within Kubo and The Two Strings which feel flawed narratively. A confused outpouring of the story initially fuses the film with muddled moments and leave the epic quest slightly floundering as you try to work out some of the darker story elements and familial conflict. And the arrival of Matthew McConaughey's Beetle sees the film flounder into more comedy than perhaps is welcome given the darker tones of what has progressed (Though perhaps that's cos it's aiming toward the kiddies).

Despite that, Laika's eye for stop-motion and the seamless crafting of the Eastern elements more than make up for any short-comings that are present in this wondrous tale. (And don't even stop to consider that once again Laika has an obsession with eyes in this latest).

The originality of the mix of the Japanese fables and mythology, along with an Asian influenced OST,  are what carries this film and the visual execution of these elements see Laika soar - and despite the feeling that honing some of the narrative elements for more clarity, Kubo and The Two Strings is easily a contender for one of the films of the year.

It's a sure sign this studio Laika is achieving greatness and is only about to unleash more on the world - and that is no bad thing whatsoever. The film starts by uttering the words "If you must blink, do it now". You'd be wise to heed that warning, because once it begins, you won't be able to tear your eyes away from a second of it.

The Shallows: Film Review

The Shallows: Film Review

Cast: Blake Lively, A shark, A seagull, the ocean
Director: Jaume Collet Serra

Ever since Jaws terrified the world, there's always been an inherent and undeniable phobia of open water and sharks.

And cinema's been trying to recapture that lightning in a bottle effect again - in some forms of success, with the likes of the darkness of Open Water to the ongoing schlockiness of the Sharknado series.

So the latest contender is a trim 85 minute thriller starring former Gossip Girl star Blake Lively as Nancy, a former med student who's dealing with the death of her mother and dropping out of college by way of coping. Heading to a hidden beach in Mexico that her mother surfed at the day she found out she was pregnant, Nancy's determined to catch some waves and reconnect spiritually to her.

But when a shark attacks, her journey soon shifts away from the spiritual to a desperate fight to ensure she survives the night stranded on a reef, and can work out what to do when high tide comes in....

The Shallows largely dramatically paints itself into a corner.

However, for the most part of the film, Collet-Serra (known for Liam Neeson thrillers Unknown and Non-Stop) and Lively manage to convince of the isolation and creeping fear.

It helps that Collet-Serra's cinematographer, Flavio Labiano has done an excellent job, with some truly stunningly lit underwater sequences (a jellyfish minefield stands out) and sweeping shots of the beauty of the beach around Nancy. In parts, The Shallows feels like a surfer's piece of wave porn then mixed with the National Geographic shark porn elements as the CGI beast circles around. With others caught in the shark's sights, the blues and azures turn into a blood-soaked red water that fill the screen; an early shadowy shot of the shark in a wave tube that's being surfed - visually, it's hard to fault the work this film does.

Some directorial flourishes mark out the film's B-movie pretensions and there are one too many shots of Lively's svelte figure slipping into a wet suit or through the waves to hang 10, but in its early stages, The Shallows largely achieves what it's aspiring to do.

It helps that Lively's subtle facials and the short running time sell the basic concept of survival, even if the narrative conveniences threaten to put all out to sea (a med student who's seriously injured just being one of the more obvious and helpful when she's chomped on and needs to use her own jewellery as a sewing kit). Her bonding with an injured seagull on the coral is as much akin to Wilson in Castaway as you're likely to get and could be someone else if you're looking deep into this, but not once when in the water, does Lively lose sight of what makes Nancy human and fallible in this battle against nature.

An over-reliance on clunky exposition at the start, via a clever use of smartphones on screen or Nancy's American tourist babbling to her definitely-not-interested guide seem to be trying to inject some character that's not really there, weird time jumps and a terribly pointless saccharine coda are just a couple of the problems of The Shallows.

Ultimately though, the film lapses into silliness and growing ludicrous touches which is what a schlockbuster audience want but which betrays what the film has spent a lot of time aspiring to, with its more spiritual edges and its fight for resilience and survival giving some of the suspense early on.

Losing sight of the fact that shark films work best when they're hardly seen, Collet-Serra's conclusion to the film is dangerously silly and works against it.

In the final wash, The Shallows has parts that betray its own title, but an insistence on going for the hoorah shark porn moments on the screen sink the film back into more than adequate B-movie territory and ultimately leave you feeling you've been treading cinematic water.

Win The Belier Family on DVD

Win The Belier Family on DVD

A captivating new star is born in THE BÉLIER FAMILY, Eric Lartigau’s fabulous, heart-felt comedy hit about a young girl whose close bond to her hearing-impaired family is challenged by the discovery of an extraordinary talent for music. 

In the Bélier family, everyone is deaf, except dutiful sixteen-year-old Paula (beautiful newcomer Louane Emera). She acts as an indispensible interpreter for her parents and younger brother, especially in the running of the family dairy farm. 

Though her salt-of-the-earth father (François Damiens) has decided to run for mayor – spurred on by her vivacious but over-involved mother (indelibly portrayed by Karin Viard) – Paula’s attentions are very much elsewhere. She’s witnessed the handsome new boy at school sign up for the choir, and impulsively joined too. It’s not long before her music teacher (Éric Elmosnino) discovers her considerable talent, however his encouragement only exacerbates the matter of Paula’s independence. 

Building to a heart-soaring and emotional finale, THE BÉLIER FAMILY is a feel-great triumph. Emera, making her screen debut after being discovered on the French edition of The Voice, is a genuine revelation – she lends both sincerity and joy to this deeply moving film that has become a word-of-mouth phenomenon.

To enter simply email to this address: darrensworldofentertainment@gmail.com  OR simply CLICK HERE 

In the subject line put BELIER!

Please include your name and address and good luck!

45 Years: DVD Review

45 Years: DVD Review

Released by Madman Home Ent

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: