At Darren's World of Entertainment - a movie, DVD and game review blog.
The latest movie and DVD reviews - plus game reviews as well. And cool stuff thrown in when I see it.
Yep, it's that time of year again - the list of the nominees for the Oscars has just been unveiled.
Here are the full list of the Oscars nominations for 2017.
Best picture
Arrival
Fences
Hacksaw Ridge
Hell or High Water
Hidden Figures
La La Land
Lion
Manchester By the Sea
Moonlight
Best cinematography
Arrival
La La Land
Lion
Moonlight
Silence
Best supporting actor
Mahershala Ali (Moonlight)
Jeff Bridges (Hell or High Water)
Lucas Hedges (Manchester By the Sea)
Dev Patel (Lion)
Michael Shannon (Nocturnal Animals)
Best documentary
Fire at Sea
I Am Not Your Negro
Life, Animated
OJ: Made in America
13th
Best foreign language film
Land of Mine
A Man Called Ove
The Salesman
Tanna
Toni Erdmann
Best actor
Casey Affleck (Manchester By the Sea)
Andrew Garfield (Hacksaw Ridge)
Ryan Gosling (La La Land)
Viggo Mortensen (Captain Fantastic)
Denzel Washington (Fences)
Best costume design
Allied
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Florence Foster Jenkins
Jackie
La La Land
Best score
Jackie
La La Land
Lion
Moonlight
Passengers
Best song
Audition (La La Land)
Can’t Stop the Feeling! (Trolls)
City of Stars (La La Land)
The Empty Chair (Jim: The James Foley Story)
How Far I’ll Go (Moana)
Best sound editing
Arrival
Deepwater Horizon
Hacksaw Ridge
La La Land
Sully Best sound mixing
Arrival
Hacksaw Ridge
La La Land
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
13 Hours
Best documentary short
4.1 Miles
Extremis
Joe’s Violin
Watani: My Homeland
The White Helmets
Best production design
Arrival
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Hail, Caesar!
La La Land
Passengers
Best original screenplay
Hell or High Water
La La Land
The Lobster
Manchester By the Sea
20th Century Women
Best adapted screenplay
Arrival
Fences
Hidden Figures
Lion
Moonlight
Best animated feature
Kubo and the Two Strings
Moana
My Life As a Zucchini
The Red Turtle
Zootopia
Best animated short
Blind Vaysha
Borrowed Time
Pear Cider and Cigarettes
Pearl
Piper
Best supporting actress
Viola Davis (Fences)
Naomie Harris (Moonlight)
Nicole Kidman (Lion)
Octavia Spencer (Hidden Figures)
Michelle Williams (Manchester By the Sea)
Best film editing
Arrival
Hacksaw Ridge
Hell or High Water
La La Land
Moonlight
Best live-action short
Ennemis Interieurs
La Femme et le TGV
Silent Nights
Sing
Timecode
Best actress
Isabelle Huppert (Elle)
Ruth Negga (Loving)
Emma Stone (La La Land)
Natalie Portman (Jackie)
Meryl Streep (Florence Foster Jenkins)
Best director
Denis Villeneuve (Arrival)
Mel Gibson (Hacksaw Ridge)
Damien Chazelle (La La Land)
Kenneth Lonergan (Manchester By the Sea)
Barry Jenkins (Moonlight)
Best visual effects
Deepwater Horizon
Doctor Strange
The Jungle Book
Kubo and the Two Strings
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
Best makeup and hairstyling
A Man Called Ove
Star Trek Beyond
Suicide Squad
THE END OF THE WORLD AWAITS IN DARK SOULS™ III: THE RINGED CITY FOR PLAYSTATION®4 SYSTEM, XBOX ONE, AND STEAM
Descend into the World’s End in a Brand New DARK SOULS III DLC Adventure
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA – January 24th, 2017 – Leading interactive entertainment publisher and developer, BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment Europe, announces DARK SOULS™ III: The Ringed City™, the final downloadable content expansion for DARK SOULS III, BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment Europe’s fastest selling title in history. This new adventure has players chasing after the Slave Knight Gael to the literal end of the world as he searches for the Dark Soul of Humanity. DARK SOULS III: The Ringed City will be available for download on the PlayStation®4 computer entertainment system, Xbox One, and PC via STEAM™ on March 28, 2017.
At the close of the Age of Fire, as the world ends and all lands converge upon themselves, a lone adventurer descends into the madness of the earth and uncovers the secrets of the past. As players make their way to the fabled Ringed City they will encounter ancient beasts, a new cast of characters teetering on the edge of insanity, new armor, weapons, magic, and at the bottom of it all, a long lost city filled with new horrors for players to overcome.
DARK SOULS III: The Ringed City will be available for 14€99 digitally on the PlayStation®4 computer entertainment system, Xbox One, and PC via STEAM on March 28, 2017. DARK SOULS™ III: Ashes of Ariandel™ is currently available digitally on the same systems. A season pass for DARK SOULS III, which includes access to Ashes of Ariandel and The Ringed City, is available for purchase digitally.
In addition, BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment Europe also announced that DARK SOULS™ III THE FIRE FADES™ EDITION (Game of the Year Edition) will be available on April 21st for PlayStation®4 computer entertainment system, Xbox One, and PC via STEAM. This very special edition will include DARK SOULS™ III as well as Ashes of Ariandel and The Ringed City. To learn more about BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment Europe’s other products go to: https://www.bandainamcoent.eu or follow us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/BandaiNamcoEU or join the conversation at https://www.twitter.com/BandaiNamcoEU.
SYDNEY, 25th January 2017 – Square Enix Ltd., today launched the Moogle Chocobo Carnival for FINAL FANTASY®XV, a special in-game event taking place in the city of Altissia.
Scheduled to run until 20th February, the Moogle Chocobo Carnival brings a selection of fun carnival games, new side-quests, new outfits for Noctis as well as a spectacular fireworks show and many more festive treats!
All players will have access to the carnival by downloading the recently released Holiday Pack (Free Version). Season Pass owners and those who have the premium Holiday Pack + will also receive even more in-game content, including a festive carnival-themed, mariachi-inspired ensemble, for the main character Noctis to wear both inside and outside of the carnival in exchange for medallions won during the event.
In addition, a free update will be available to all players from today, including an all-new manual photographing feature to allow players to freely take pictures outside of battle. A selection of additional bonus DLC items are also available to purchase from today, including:
Items
·Travel Pack
·Angler Set
·Camera Kit
·Gourmand Set (available for free)
Weapons
·Gae Bolg (From FINAL FANTASY XIV)
·Mage Mashers (From FINAL FANTASY IX)
·Masamune
·Blazefire Sabre (From FINAL FANTASY XIII)
Car Recolour
·Cindymobile
·Gold Chocobo
·16-bit Buddies
·Platinum Leviathan
Outfit
·Royal Raiment
Avatar (Xbox One only)
·FINAL FANTASY XV – Noctis and Carbuncle
FINAL FANTASY XV is available now worldwide for the Xbox One and PlayStation®4 system
Cast: James McAvoy, Anya Taylor-Joy, Haley Lu Richardson, Betty Buckley, Jessica Sula
Director: M Night Shyamalan
Despite being burned by audiences who spurned his ongoing obsessions with twist endings, director M Night Shyamalan returns to his "classic" mode with this reasonably taut psychological thriller that's anchored by two stunning lead turns.
Abducted by James McAvoy's character and imprisoned underground (shades of potboiler thriller 10 Cloverfield Lane in more thematic ways than one), a trio of girls (The Witch star Taylor-Joy, Edge of Seventeen's Richardson and Skins actress Sula) try desperately to escape.
But it turns out that McAvoy's kidnapper is just one of 23 personalities trapped within his body, each acting on the machinations of the other but all serving a greater purpose - the coming of The Beast....
Less about the practicalities of a siege mentality and more about the mysterious journey and subsequent story, Shyamalan's new film is very much a return to form that's greatly enhanced by Taylor-Joy and McAvoy.
While Taylor-Joy's stoically passive and yet determined outsider Casey seizes the intellectual initiative of the situation and tries to bond with her captors, it's McAvoy's turn as the incarcerator that really stands out.
Easily flipping between the many personalities with the subtlest of touches and slightest nuancing of facial expressions, McAvoy's ferocious and fluid acting out of multiple personalities shifts Split away from feeling like a film that stigmatises mental illness and scoffs at its subject for cheap laughs.
From a slight re-arranging of his reactions or an altering of facial features to the use of accents makes his characters seem both distinct and unnerving as the claustrophobic atmosphere plays out.
Make no mistake, Split is McAvoy's film from start to finish.
Though he's well-supported by the impassive Taylor-Joy who conveys as much with a simple look as she managed during The VVitch.
Perhaps less successful are some of the other elements of the narrative.
At times, Shyamalan seems to lose focus on juggling the puzzle pieces in the air and more focussed on heading toward the end game. Certainly, a back story feels extraneous and using a therapist to convey medical exposition slows Split in the middle part.
And at times, some of the dialogue feels forced and unnatural. Equally, a final hurdle run into full horror territory removes Split of some of its relative freshness and more macabre edges, sullying the work done to get to this point.
Granted, it's not a Shyamalan film without an audacious final narrative gamble and there'll be plenty of debate once the curtain goes up, but to say more is to rob you of the experience.
Ultimately, Split avoids cliches and a large degree of risibility thanks to its superb two leads, imbuing what transpires with an emotional edge that's as tense and compelling as it is uncomfortable and suspenseful, and ensuring once again that Shyamalan has returned to a character piece and form that's not been witnessed since the denouement of The Sixth Sense.
Fear comes home in the latest much anticipated iteration of the Resident Evil series.
And it's clear that developers want this game to feel both as intimate as it can be and as terrifying as any horror game should be.
Both the Beginning Hour and Kitchen demos gave clues as to what to expect in biohazard, but to be honest, going in with a clean slate is perhaps one of the best ways to experience the latest Resident Evil game.
Set 4 years after the events of Resident Evil 6 (in 2017 believe it or not), you play civilian Ethan, whose entrance into the Resident Evil canon is precipitated by the disappearance of his wife Mia. Three years after she's gone AWOL, Ethan's contacted by her and sets out to discover what's happened.
His road trip leads him to a plantation farm in the middle of nowhere (unsurprisingly) and into a meeting with the Baker family, a twisted bunch that make the mutants of The X-Files' banned episode episode Home look relatively normal by comparison.
Inadvertently trapped in the house by the family, Ethan has to escape....
And really, that's all that deserves to be said about the plot, because to be frank, Resident Evil 7 - biohazard is best experienced with a cleansed gaming palette. Granted, its first person perspective and some of the design of the inside of the house may invite comparisons to Konami's cancelled nightmare P.T, but this game is truly its own beast.
Welcome home... Resident Evil 7 - Biohazard
And beastly it is - as well as fiendish, devilish and occasionally heart-stopping.
Employing jump scares and an immersive first player POV adds many levels to biohazard, giving it the feeling that every moment's been lifted from what makes a truly great horror movie work. Within the opening sequence alone, there's one moment that plays to the best part of a horror experience - the suggestion of what you may have seen out of the corner of your eye. When put within the context of the game, these are the moments which work best, because you have all the elements of a horror genre within - house in the woods, creepy goings on, long corridors with long pauses as you wait for something to happen, someone on your tail - it all adds up to an at times, tensely claustrophobic feeling.
However, there are ways that the game stops you feeling fully immersed - and to be honest, these barriers were never easily going to be overcome. It also has to be said, these jump scares are never cheap and thrown in for simple thrills or "We got you" moments - they're there to heighten the sense of terror that gnaws away at you as you play.
The fixed reliance on what objects you can interact with and which can be used frustrates. A truly open and immersive game would allow any object to be used in the quest to escape, but much like The Order did before it, only certain ones can be utilised, leading to a lack of logic and a nagging sense of irritation (and desperation when someone - or something - is on your tail).
Again, it leads to the perception that to a large degree, the path is chosen for you and how you get there is largely mapped out by the mechanics of the new RE Engine (hence why the statement, these barriers were always going to be difficult to overcome). There were also moments where arms would be trapped in closing doors leading to the feeling of a graphics patch needing to be deployed.
Despite these very minor niggles, Resident Evil 7 - biohazard is a punishing game, and an abjectly terrifying experience that preys on your feeling of suspense and revels in the suffocating tension it creates.
Unlike previous Resident Evils, there's no reliance on blasting your way through mutants and simply shooting to survive. The adoption of the tenets of the survival horror genre though are truly welcome. Much like The Last Of Us, supplies are to be savoured and not wasted and the game doesn't reward you with an excess of materials to make your life easier, for which it duly deserves plenty of praise as it adds to a heightened sense of reality.
Equally, the sense of detail which has gone into the Bakers' home is visually incredible. The game's HD creaks with nuances and comes alive in the most visceral of ways. You can almost feel the dust on your face as you head through the house's hidden areas; there's certainly something deeply atmospheric about Resident Evil - Biohazard and it works brilliantly well. Like any true house in the woods, the sense of isolation is palpable and as a result, the game's desire to suck you in is evident from the start.
And praise should go to the execution of the family and other human characters within - they look creepy as hell and there's a veritable stench of decay that leaps out of the screen at you as you play.
What works best about Resident Evil - biohazard is its tone. From its freaky atmospherics to its mystery and the terror with which it plays out, this is a horror game that gets it truly right. While some may protest the adoption of the POV player, this is a genius stroke from the developers that really gets to the heart of what makes the game the success. It throws you directly into the world of Ethan and gives you a simple yet very human reason to survive - to find your missing wife and escape. It's an embracing of the primal fears that lie within and the playing on this very basic of human tenets that helps it to achieve greatness.
One of 2017's essential gaming purchases is here.
To scare the living daylights out of you - and it's a great experience to kick off the new gaming year with and simply put, you're best off playing this in the dark. Both figuratively and literally.
NB -Resident Evil VII - Biohazard also has a VR component too for the entire game, which will be reviewed at a later stage.
Disney continues its predilection for bringing live action versions of its cartoon back catalogue with this New Zealand shot version of 1977 cute fable, Pete's Dragon.
This time around, Oakes Fegley stars as Pete, the little kid who's orphaned this time around when a car crash in the woods kills his parents. As he's about to be set on by wolves, a kindly dragon scares them off...
Moving forward six years, and the town of Millhaven's grown up with tales of a dragon in the woods. Chief among the tall-tale-teller is Robert Redford's Meacham who claims to have seen the beast, but his daughter Grace (a pleasant Bryce Dallas Howard) who works as a park ranger. refutes his claims.
But one day, when she finds the feral Pete, a chain of events is set in motion that will change all their lives forever.
Perfectly pleasant but ultimately pedestrian, Pete's Dragon is a curious update.
With its furry dragon now resembling more a hybrid between snaggle-toothed dog, Scooby Doo and dragon, it's clear the CGI is the star of the film with plenty of earlier proceedings devoted to showcasing the beast soaring through the skies and in one bravura CGI piece that reeks of simplicity of complex execution, splashing through water.
Refreshingly old school in its execution and teetering closely on potentially being a little bland for current cinema tastes, Pete's Dragon takes about 70 minutes of its 100 minutes for anything seriously substantial to happen, relying on magic, darker moments and old school feels to get it through.
It's genial to be sure, but its veiled story about a damaged child and subsequent reintegration into society is the only thread that keeps things on the straight and narrow - even though a sideline about deforestation bubbles away in the background, never to be preached or discussed as the film progresses.
3D for the film proves pointless with the only moments that it works best being when the dragon disappears from sight on screen as its cloaking device kicks in - but otherwise, the 3D muddies and darkens proceedings more than it needs, denying the movie the lighter edges it so clearly embraces.As the scrambling feral Pete, there's a distinctly Mowgli vibe about Oakes Fegley's scraggy kid and the sweetness of those around him makes proceedings saccharine enough but never boiling over into grating territory.
And while Redford and Dallas Howard are perfectly affable, Karl Urban's turn as a troublemaker feels a little stunted and comes up wanting in the final wash. It's an unfortunate touch given the whole family friendly proceedings need a degree of villainy to give it an edge.
Ultimately, Pete's Dragon is winningly old school with its simplicity of execution, but it takes a little too long for anything significant to happen - and whether impatient audiences will embrace that lax pace remains to be seen.
