Win a copy of Paterson on Blu Ray

Win a copy of Paterson on Blu Ray

Paterson (Adam Driver, STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS, GIRLS, INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS) is a bus driver in the city of Paterson, New Jersey — they share the name.

Every day, Paterson adheres to a simple routine: he drives his daily route, observing the city as it drifts across his windshield and overhearing fragments of conversation swirling around him; he writes poetry into a notebook; he walks his dog; he stops in a bar and drinks exactly one beer; he goes home to his wife, Laura (Golshifteh Farahani, MY SWEET PEPPERLAND, ABOUT ELLY).

By contrast, Laura’s world is ever changing. New dreams come to her almost daily, each a different and inspired project. Paterson loves Laura and she loves him. He supports her newfound ambitions; she champions his gift for poetry.

In this film by acclaimed director Jim Jarmusch, the quiet triumphs and defeats of daily life are observed, along with the poetry that's evident in its smallest details.

Paterson is out now from Madman Home Entertainment and you can net yourself one of two Blu-Ray copies!

To win a copy all you have to do is enter simply email your details to this  address: darrensworldofentertainment@gmail.com or CLICK HERE NOW!

Include your name and address and title your email PATERSON!
Competition closes May 25th

Good luck!

Snatched: Film Review

Snatched: Film Review

Cast: Amy Schumer, Goldie Hawn, Christopher Meloni, Wanda Sykes, Joan Cusack, Ike Barinholtz
Director: Jonathan Levine

Luring Goldie Hawn out of retirement 15 years after her last appearance would appear to be a coup for Amy Schumer's particular brand of comedy.

But Snatched squanders both Hawn and Schumer with a script and story that feels a little too haphazard to bring many laughs to the fore.

Schumer is self-absorbed Emily, who, as the film starts, is dumped by her fella (Randall Park, in an all-too brief cameo) on the eve of a trip to Ecuador. Fleeing home with her tail between her legs, Emily feels a pang of remorse for her once globe-trotting, now stay-at-home catsitter mother Linda (Hawn) after she discovers a photo album filled with people and places she's been.

On the spur of the moment, Emily invites her now cautious mother along in an attempt to re-connect.
However, it all goes to hell in a hand-cart when Emily and her mother are kidnapped and they set about trying to escape.

It's fair to say that Snatched has moments of comic bravura within.

Schumer once again proves adept at nailing the cruder and grosser elements of the female comedy that's been long ignored in mainstream media and comedy. From "Did she really just say that?" one-liners to scenes where she makes herself the butt of the joke in the worst possible way, Schumer's strength lies in the ability to shock.

And it's used to get some good solid laughs early on - particularly when Emily is trying to pull a bloke who's interested in her. Despite her continuing obnoxiousness and vacuously weak personality, Schumer's strength lies in giving the character of Emily the sort of vibe that many of the female audience will feel great empathy with.

Less successful though is the script, which feels piecemeal, under-developed and generally squanders its characters for no real impact.

Hawn is largely wasted, and the potential for a story-line that looked at how the Instagram loving Emily can't connect, whereas Linda used to connect with humanity while abroad and now largely feels sidelined by a digitally obsessed vacuous world goes wanting after tantalisingly being teased early on.

It doesn't help that the script bounces from one sequence to the next, with vague threads trying to pull them together - and while the episodic nature of it all proffers a few guffaws here and there, there's a general nagging feeling that it could have been more.

Christopher Meloni's OTT performance feels like something out of an 80s romance adventure film and wildly out of place, but the script by Ghostbusters' scribe Kate Dippold can't really seem to nail a thread and follow it through, despite the potential dream comedic team on the screen.

Ultimately, while Snatched is a shade over 85 minutes, it feels a lot longer, thanks in large parts due to a script that doesn't bring enough funny and criminally under-uses its leads.
If it had a stronger script and perhaps a bit more depth as well as some more screwball, this could have had great potential. Instead, it feels like a lot of the potential wins it could have traded on have been used to help defeat be snatched from the jaws of victory.

Voyage of Time: Film Review

Voyage of Time: Film Review

Terrence Malick's Voyage of Time is astonishing on the big screen.

It sounds like a trite aphorism to describe this this way, but the big screen only amplifies the jigsaw puzzle that Malick's (Tree of Life) assembled.

Less a coherent narrative, more a free form visual art project, the looping rhythms pull together in simple ways, exacerbating the idea of the universe from beginning to end.

Using a myriad of pre-shot footage and the voiceover of Cate Blanchett intoning over and over again about "mother", the film uses its plentiful visuals to dizzying array and startling effect.

While parts feel like nature docos strewn asunder and stripped to their basics, there's a general feeling of awe in this. It's unlikely the sumptuous visuals (flowing lava, creatures under the sea, firing synapses springing into life) won't leave you at any point feeling a degree of existential crisis and potential insignificance in some small way.

Waxing lyrical, the film's one continual bum note is the trite and cursory come back that love is all that matters; and there are definitely moments that make you feel Malick via Blanchett's flat vocals, really should just be quiet and let the imagery do the talking. This is perhaps Voyage of Time's weakest element, its desire to pull together a narrative and a line in existential questioning that leaves it to fall short.

It's this point that may prove the film's so divisive, and which may be something that's an anathema to the audience, but for those willing to appreciate the assembly of elements that others have shot and to allow the ebb and flow of it all, Voyage of Time is something spectacular.

Because when Voyage of Time really knocks it out of the park is in its eye-popping visuals, bursting from the screen with Joie de Vivre and Arthouse inclinations.

Ultimately, this is cinema in its purest form and as it should be - awe-inspiring and a reminder of the power of the visual medium.

Live By Night: DVD Review

Live By Night: DVD Review

For Ben Affleck's latest directorial outing after Gone Baby Gone, The Town and Argo, he heads to Boston and gangster land for an adaptation of a 2012 Dennis Lehane novel.

Affleck is small time two-bit robber Joe Coughlin, who finds himself in the middle of a mob war between the Irish and the Italians after the end of World War I. Having survived the Somme, Coughlin's got no desire to become another soldier in another fight, but finds himself slap bang in the middle of a war when he attracts the wrong sort of attention of Irish mob boss Albert White (Glenister, in an almost unrecognisable role.)

Escaping barely with his life, Coughlin relocates to Florida and allies himself with the Italian mob with the aim of getting back at White. Sent to the hotter climes and to run the rum business as well as advance the Italian mob's desires, Coughlin finds himself in the middle of another fight when the KKK comes calling and Prohibition continues to bite.
Despite all the elements being in place for a reasonably strong crime caper, Affleck's Live By Night fails to find any hint of life or energy to keep you engaged.
It's a problem from the muted start; and despite the attention to the period detail and some truly effective crime scenes, Affleck fails to hit any of the emotional highs that are necessary.

With a strong cast (Messina particularly impresses as Coughlin's Florida right hand man and Cooper's stoic work as the conflicted yet practical Sheriff) and the hint of a good story, nothing quite gels as it should. It's a shame as the premise is there - when was the last time you saw a gangster film in the Florida coast? But Affleck's character lacks any of the bite of a gangster or a man out for revenge - most of the film his expressionless and emotionless face merely spouts words and phrases; there's no heart and no fire in a moment of it, and the malaise is contagious.

It doesn't really help that Coughlin's so inherently a good guy (as witnessed by his continual wearing of white suits) when a bad guy's touch would have added more to the film.

Under-sketched characters don't add much either- Saldana's presented as a matriarch of the Rum industry in Florida and fades when her presence comes into Coughlin's shadow; and Miller's one-note turn at the start gives little edge either.

To be fair, it can't all be laid at Affleck's door; his eye brings a sutiably taut (if murky) final shoot-out and there are some truly wonderful vistas caught on camera.

But without the fire in the cinematic and narrative belly, Live By Night is left to flounder and wither on the vine. And that's a rum deal for all of us. 

Win a DISNEY'S PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES prize pack

To celebrate the return of Captain Jack Sparrow in DISNEY'S PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES, I've teamed up with Walt Disney NZ to bring some truly awesome Pirates swag!

You can win one of five prize packs me hearties, in which are included the following treasures:

5 x adult t shirts

5 x bandanas

5 x skull glasses

5 x badges

5 x double in-season passes

About DISNEY'S PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES

Johnny Depp returns to the big screen as the iconic, swashbuckling anti-hero Jack Sparrow in the all-new “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales,” a rip-roaring adventure that finds down-on-his-luck Captain Jack feeling the winds of ill-fortune blowing strongly his way when deadly ghost sailors, led by the terrifying Captain Salazar, escape from the Devil's Triangle bent on killing every pirate at sea—notably Jack.

DISNEY’S PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN : DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES

Starring Johnny Depp, Javier Bardem, Geoffrey Rush

In Cinemas May 25

Cert : TBC

To win a one of these packs all you have to do is enter simply email your details to this  address: darrensworldofentertainment@gmail.com or CLICK HERE NOW!

Include your name and address and title your email YARRRRRRR!
Competition closes May 25th

Good luck!

Le Roi et L'Oiseau : NZIFF Autumn Events Review

Le Roi et L'Oiseau : NZIFF Autumn Events Review

The King and the Mockingbird

With its sweeping angular vistas and its geometric city scapes as well as its story of a king from a picture chasing a chimney sweep and his lover, The King and the Mockingbird is wrapped in surreal edges.

Based on a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale and finished some 30 years after it was started, this fable comes in high regard.
Cited by Miyakai and Takahata as influences, the English version has been absent for years and is now playing at the Autumn Events.

The story centres on a king who becomes obsessed with a shepherdess in a picture. He rules his kingdom of Takicardia with a veneer of cruelty and a heart of stone. From his pursed ruby red lips to his dismissive tone, this king is surrounded by toadying helpers who feed his delusion through fear.
It's probably not helped by the fact the king has a trap door down which he dispatches those who annoy him. But the king falls for a painting of a shepherdess, and when a portrait of his is commissioned, the king springs to life from within and begins a pursuit of the shepherdess and her lover.

Guided by a mockingbird the duo try to escape the king's clutches as they race through Takicardia.

The King and The Mockingbird is a gorgeous curiosity.

Elements of early Disney characterisations pepper the animation; from an adorably eyed puppy to pot-bellied policemen, this all ages animation is a surreal treat that feels like it embraces all walks of animation.
The king struts at times like a peacock among the absurdist trappings; and the shepherdess' purity and clarity of execution make her feel like something from a Disney princess early on.

However, it's the bits around the edges of Le Roi et L'Oiseau that allow it to stand out and mark it as something spectacularly different.

A trip to the world under Takicardia via way of musicians feels like a Beatles-acid trip soaked influence; the Metropolis style leanings of the buildings, the Iron Giant-style robot that attacks; there are many wide and varied elements all thrown at the wall of this animation from France, and they're truly bizarre to behold.

But it's the creativity which shines in Le Roi et L'Oiseau and the ambition that helps its vault higher than expected. Not everything in it is as successful as you'd hope, but large swathes of the film are a testament to creative vision.

Blending chase aesthetics with a simple love story within prove to be fertile ground for this - and the big screen journey is well worth taking.

Viceroy's House: Film Review

Viceroy's House: Film Review

Cast: Hugh Bonneville, Gillian Anderson, Michael Gambon, Om Puri, Huma Qureshi, Manish Dayal
Director: Gurinder Chadha

Meshing Indian Summers with Upstairs Downstairs and lathering the whole thing up in a soapy vibe, Bend It Like Beckham's Gurinder Chadha chooses to recount the tale of India's partition with which she shares a very personal connection.

Set in 1947, and with British colonial rule in India coming to an end, Lord Mountbatten (the ever genial Hugh Bonneville) moves into the Viceroy's House in Delhi. With the responsibility of being both the last Viceroy and ensuring a successful transition, Mountbatten's got more than a little on his plate to deal with - and that doesn't even factor in the resentment harboured within India over what Britain did for years.

Added into this already politically potent mix is the inter-religious burgeoning relationship between new Hindu servant Jeet (Dayal) and Muslim Aalia (Qureshi). Threatened by arranged marriage and religious ideological clashes, the pair have to negotiate the traditions of the past and the uncertainty of the future.

Viceroy's House is a curious beast, and with its romance, a not entirely successfully executed one.

By casting the dramatic net far and wide to incorporate the political turmoil, Chadha loses sight of the romance elements that would have played more potently to audiences. And ironically, the more powerful political story is intriguing, but feels sidelined by an overlay of themes.

Long scenes of discussions about India's future certainly do a lot to set the scene and impart the reality of the fractious nature of negotiations, but add little to the film other than a sense of historical importance and really fail to add the spice you'd expect.

Equally and disappointingly unsuccessful is the romance which seems to suffer from a choppy editing technique that forces the pair together and apart quicker than gives you chance to root for them. It's a mistake to have an unfocussed approach to all the elements of the story, particularly as the tensions escalate and the audience is asked to have an emotional stake to what plays out.

Far more successful is Chadha's setting of the social scene and the aftermath of the Partition, and it's perhaps here that the film would have carried more heft and drama in the unfolding climate of chaos and recrimination, as the downstairs dissent grows. Complete with some excellent recreations of pomp and ceremony of the time and hints of Lady Mountbatten's desire (a wonderfully clipped and precise turn from an on-form Anderson) to overturn some of what Britain did wrong, there are elements within that could have helped Viceroy's House soar as a scathing condemnation of events and an incisive slice of political history.

Instead what Viceroy's House offers is a tonal mish-mash of shoehorned culture clash, doomed romance, redemption and a predictable turn of events that falls flat and frustratingly fails to ignite any real passions within.