Stranger Things: Season 1 Review

Stranger Things: Season 1 Review

Episodes : 8
Released on Netflix

Mixing up Stand By Me, Poltergeist, Spielberg, Stephen King and a dash of horror, the 8 episode series Stranger Things is a nostalgic blast of addictive mystery.

Set in 1983, it's the story of four kids who find one of their number go missing in middle America. As the search begins, a mysterious and relatively mute little girl is found - and a shadowy government agency comes looking...

Nicely paced, this mystery series works well and is cleverly constructed by the Duffer Brothers. Pulling in genres of the time, mixing in some spookier elements and providing a chapter narrative works brilliantly for Stranger Things.

It also works as it's generational; choosing to concentrate on three groups - the young kids, the teens and romances thereof and the grieving mother (played by Winona Ryder) and damaged policeman (David Harbour) - works well and when all three sides intersect, it feels naturalistic and in keeping with what's already passed.

Ultimately, Strange Things is a show that's worthy of a binge and worthy of sticking with. It remains to be seen whether season 2 of Stranger Things will still hold the attention for as long and or whether it'll benefit as an American Horror Story style anthology; but for now, this original Netflix series is up there with the best the small screen has to offer.

Win a double pass to see Nocturnal Animals

Win a double pass to see Nocturnal Animals

Nocturnal Animals In Cinemas November 10

Rating R16

Susan Morrow, a Los Angeles art dealer (portrayed by Ms. Adams), lives an incredibly privileged yet unfulfilled life with her husband Hutton Morrow (Armie Hammer).

One weekend, as Hutton departs on one of his too-frequent business trips, Susan receives an unsolicited package that has been left in her mailbox. It is a novel, Nocturnal Animals, written by her ex-husband Edward Sheffield (Mr. Gyllenhaal), with whom she has had no contact for years. 

Edward’s note accompanying the manuscript encourages Susan to read the work and then to contact him during his visit to the city. Alone at night, in bed, Susan begins reading. 

The novel is dedicated to her…

 …but its content is violent and devastating. While Susan reads, she is deeply moved by Edward’s writing and cannot help but reminisce over the most private moments from her own love story with the author. 

Trying to look within herself and beyond the glossy surface of the life and career that she has made, Susan increasingly interprets the book as a tale of revenge, a tale that forces her to re-evaluate the choices that she has made, and re-awakens a love that she feared was lost – as the story builds to a reckoning that will define both the novel’s hero and her own.  

To enter simply email to this address: darrensworldofentertainment@gmail.com or click here  and in the subject line put NOCTURNAL! 

Hacksaw Ridge: Film Review

Hacksaw Ridge: Film Review

Cast: Andrew Garfield, Hugo Weaving, Vince Vaughn, Sam Worthington, Teresa Palmer, Rachel Griffiths
Director: Mel Gibson

It's perhaps easy to see why Mel Gibson would be drawn to the true story of conscientious objector Desmond Doss, a man whose unconventional ways saw him save 75 of his colleagues during the battle of Okinawa in May 1945.

Once on the outside of Hollywood, director Gibson's had a bit of a comeback, with a recent starring role in B movie Blood Father and now with Oscar talk for a war film about the attack on Hacksaw Ridge during the height of the campaign.

But opting to take more of a cheesy biopic route for Hacksaw Ridge lends the film more to a feeling of Christian Forrest Gump goes to war, rather than a war film destined for the ages.

Garfield plays Doss, an almost simpleton hick of a man whose pacifism and world view was shaped by accidentally nearly bashing his brother to death in a play fight. With a fragile father suffering from PTSD from the Great War (an excellently nuanced turn from Weaving who pitches it perfectly between pathos and faltering abuse), Doss decides he wants to go to war - but to save lives rather than take them.

Despite his father's refusal to endorse this route for either of his sons, and with the army resolutely against Doss' denial of weapons, the fight between values and principles forms the large part of this film, complete with corny dialogue and cliched moments of imposed conflict with fellow trainees.

Facing a court martial, Doss is saved at the last moment unexpectedly from spending the war in prison and ships out to Okinawa to face the Japanese, swarming like locusts from underground and into direct conflict with Doss' ideologies and comrades.

It's perhaps during a ferocious 15 minute fight sequence atop Hacksaw Ridge that Gibson's film comes to life, spinning multiple brutal attacks and displaying the true horrors of war (and comes at a welcome relief from the onslaught of over-wrought and slow-mo shots of burned and battered bodies - subtlety is not Gibson's strong point here).

But in the final third of the film, Gibson's content to over-saturate proceedings with Christian elements, complete with overtly religious iconography (no worse than Doss' messianic final shot as he ascends in a stretcher from atop the Ridge with a Bible clutched in one hand and another hanging over the edge as the score rouses higher and higher) that feels as brutally obvious as some of the earlier elements of this relatively rote war film.

Doss' story is supposed to inspire and while Garfield gives good hick and earnestness to the man, he's not well served by the screenplay which wrings as much pathos as it can from an over-use and over-reliance on an unsubtle approach. Perhaps the final nail in the coffin is the inclusion of documentary footage and interviews from the real-life Doss to hammer home the point of it all - an unnecessary touch that removes any remaining power from what's already transpired.

Ultimately, Hacksaw Ridge eviscerates the heart of its own story by heading down a cliched route that's well trodden by others before it; its heavy-handed direction cripples its ultimate goal and what should be an inspiring true story depicting the horrors of war and the heroism of some is ham-fisted and hackneyed.

Shots from Big Boys Toys

Shots from Big Boys Toys

Big Boys Toys hit Auckland's ASB Showgrounds this weekend.

Check out some shots from the event here

James White: DVD Review

James White: DVD Review

Rating: M
Released by Madman Home Ent

Financed via Kickstarter and brought to life when writer Josh Mond wanted to explore his feelings over his own mother's death, James White is clearly a labour of love for all involved.

White (played with rawness by Girls star Christopher Abbott) is a New Yorker, whose life is spiralling out of selfishness. But things change when his mother's cancer returns.

Intensely raw, and shot in close ups throughout, Mond manages to bring a claustrophobic intensity to the screen as he explores the story of self-destruction. Both Abbott and Sex and The City star Cynthia Nixon bring a degree of complexity to proceedings as White and his mother respectively.

You can't help but get swept up in proceedings, given the emotional levels mined here, and while the film has a universality that's likely to hit with more resonance for anyone who's ever been touched by cancer, the film's uncompromising and brisk approach to a sparsity of story-telling is to be applauded.

NewsTalk ZB Review - Doctor Strange, Hell Or High Water and Ghostbusters

NewsTalk ZB Review - Doctor Strange, Hell Or High Water and Ghostbusters

This week, we're talking the 14th Marvel film, Doctor Strange, the brilliant Hell or High Water and take a look on Ghostbusters.

Take a listen below

http://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/saturday-morning-with-jack-tame/audio/darren-bevan-doctor-strange-hell-or-high-water/

I, Daniel Blake: Film Review

I, Daniel Blake: Film Review

Cast: Dave Johns, Hayley Squires
Director: Ken Loach

That I Daniel Blake is book-ended with the voice of its titular hero is no shock.

But that its ending and beginning convey such a dichotomy of feelings is equally no surprise.

The Palme D'Or winner from Brit socialist director Ken Loach is riddled with his usual concerns and stylistic touches. This time tackling the failings of society from two singular viewpoints, Loach has once again exacerbated the increasing common human condition in a world where the state is failing those around them, and they in turn are losing their grip on humanity.

Dave Johns is the ordinary everyman widower and Newcastle resident Daniel Blake stuck in a swirling vortex of increasing lunatic bureaucracy, swimming against a tide of pencil pushers and call centre bound helpers who seem determined to break his spirit.

Set against a backdrop of a council estate where grey is the default colour setting, and recovering from a heart attack and facing the prospect of his benefit being stopped, Daniel finds he is out of touch with the world after spending umpteen years working as a carpenter.

Now faced with online forms, the incessant tide of red tape and a lack of human compassion, Blake's trip to a job centre sees him help a just-moved-to Tyneside Londoner Katie ( Hayley Squires) whose facing similar issues with benefits agencies.

A burgeoning friendship grows between the pair, but the forces of the world are conspiring against them - and despite rallying cries to each for support, this is a battle that only the state can appear to win.

Blessed with a quiet determination and a rallying fanfare for the common man and decency all round, I, Daniel Blake is a study of society teetering, albeit one that's peppered with Loach's masterful eye for humour in the absurdity of life.

Much like 2014 NZIFF entry Still Life with the wonderful Eddie Marsan, I, Daniel Blake presents a salutary look to the solitary man, doing the decent thing when the world around him conspires against him.

You'd have to be a complete Loach virgin to not know where the story is going, but its strength lies in its central performance; Johns is very much the man we all aspire to be. A good neighbour, a friend when in need and a thoroughly decent bloke, the gradual beating down of the man is the film's rallying cry and it's all the more tragic for it.

It would be easy to milk I Daniel Blake for easy wins, and Loach never takes that approach; the impending pathos of the situations as they unfold proffer unsettling parallels in the world we all currently find ourselves in. Granted, there's the protestor toward the end who unleashes a mouthful at the incumbent Tory UK government, but Loach's strength at this point is how incredibly restrained this tirade is - and how the audience would be baying for more as it plays out.

But the ultimate victory of I Daniel Blake is the central performances of the duo. Theirs is a relationship that basks in earnestness, that tries to weather the incoming storm and that provides a quiet poignancy as the denouement rumbles around.

Make no mistake though, this is a polemic of the common man through a prism of Loach - a warning and tribute of what a little dignity can achieve and a harkening back to a time when neighbours were to be treated with open arms, not viewed with suspicion and mistrust.