Vice: DVD Review

Vice: DVD Review

Employing some of the same irreverent touches as The Big Short did in its quest to explain the financial meltdown, Vice's Golden Globe nominated biopic purports to look at the rise to power of Dick Cheney.

"Or as true as it can be," as a title card shows early on.

Cutting back and forth early on, McKay chooses to start Cheney's life off as he's arrested for a DUI on a dirt road, before moving quickly to underground in the White House as the 9/11 terror attacks take place.

It's here that Cheney's rise to power as the silent man becomes clear - he knows when to take an opportunity when it's presented.

McKay constructs a biopic which loops back and forth through Cheney's life with a vim and vigour that's initially compulsive, but ultimately settles into a degree of whiplash that keeps you engaged, but follows the non-linear approach to the story.

Bale goes method as Cheney, and ultimately settles somewhere in between his usual drawl and a Batman style growl for Cheney; but while much of his performance will be commented on because of the physicality, there's a lot going on in the eyes which gives plenty of insight into Cheney.

It has to be said McKay may let some bias against Cheney show, and there are definitely parallels drawn between worries over constitutional changes made then and potential for the current incumbent to do much the same, but Vice never loses some of the fire and outrage it's got bubbling away.

A completely irreverent credits scene 50 minutes in shows how McKay is determined to unsettle audiences, before further damning Cheney and his career choices.

Carell is impressive as Donald Rumsfeld early on, but fades into insignificance once the narrative settles on a tone. Adams impresses as Cheney's wife, proving the adage behind every man to be true, but she also brings some welcome subtlety to proceedings which ultimately end up outraging more as the film progresses.

There's a seething anger in Vice, a sign of contempt for those who ride roughshod over US politics and abuse the system to their own advantage - it's a story whose themes have been told time and time again, but McKay definitely brings his own agenda to proceedings; that's not to minimise the outrage, but when there are more restrained touches, Vice soars, even if it is aiming for awards. 

Blood and Truth: PSVR Review

Blood and Truth: PSVR Review

Developed by London Studio
Platform: PSVR

If Blood and Truth were a Hollywood blockbuster, it'd be laughed out of the building for hitting every genre cliche it employs.

However, in the VR world, what Blood and Truth does is second to none, redefining what's expected of a first party product, and making the VR world an action movie arena. It's in the transplanting of the tropes and seeing how the VR's moulded to the genre that makes it so thrilling.

It may sound like hyperbole, and granted, some of its Move capabilities are limited, but the scope and ambition of Blood And Truth makes it a VR game for the ages, a disposably fun and frenetic take on the Lock, Stock and 2 Smoking Move controllers ideology.

You are Ryan Marks, who's called back from Iraq when his father's killed. Thrust back into the London underground world, with a takeover threatening the family business, it's up to Ryan to spring into action and reclaim what his family is owed.

The plot's fairly incidental, a love letter to both gang warfare films and an extension of the London Heist which kicked off the first VR craze.

But what Blood and Truth does is create a FPS experience that's as adrenaline-filled as it is addictive.
It may occasionally struggle with some VR components (tracking goes a bit wild, and climbing ladders and scaling through ducts is trickier with controllers) but largely, Blood And Truth's commitment to putting you in the environment is where it succeeds.

Movement's limited, in that you move from one allocated spot to another, but while it's a direct path in some ways, its idea of being a shooting gallery seems to build on the success of Until Dawn: Rush of Blood.

But by placing you in the right environments and giving you a gun, as well as tools to get about, it's akin to the old school arcade shooters where you'd inhabit a game for a few hours, until the machine robbed you of all your cash.

Sometimes, the cliche is a bit too much to bear in Blood And Truth - some voicework is repetitive, villains are cardboard cutouts and shooting occasionally misses the mark.

However, those moments are met by moments which allow you to jump slow-mo out of a window during a mission, giving you the chance to look around as you leap; and moments like carrying on a shoot out while mixing DJ tracks from a sounddesk.

There's a lot to love in Blood and Truth, and while the game's cliches are what begins to wear it down as the experience continues, Blood and Truth's action movie moves and knowing winks to the genre are what will keep you coming back for more.

Rage 2: PS4 Review

Rage 2: PS4 Review

Developed by Avalanche Studios
Released by Bethesda
Platform: PS4

Imagine a first person shooter mashed up with the likes of Doom's hyperviolence, Borderlands' cartoony visuals and Mad Max's post-apocalyptic world.

That, in a nutshell, is what you can expect with the ultimately disposable Rage2, which offers fun for a time, but feels like a pick-up-put-down kind of gaming experience for those with ADHD.

In the shooter, you play a ranger, called Walker, who's the last of their kind, forced on a quest for revenge when a very bad thing happens. In a post-power vacuum, a group called the Authority has emerged to take the lead, and reigns supreme. As usual, it's up to you to take on the shackles of the Authority and smash them down.

It's not that Rage 2 is a bad game, in fact, it's kind of the opposite - simply dumb, easy to get involved with in short bursts thanks to its punkish dayglo aesthetics and its absurdities and one that's a time-suck of fun.

But it's a hollow and repetitive experience that proffers little else than standard shooter fare.

Carnage is crazy, shooting is fluid, and gunplay is deft as you weave your way through bandit houses, blowing or bashing them out of the way. The mutants in the wasteland look like they've come straight from a Keith Flint cosplay meeting via Mad Max. Their AI isn't particularly well-adjusted either making killing easy unless you're overwhelmed with numbers.

The wasteland's fairly empty as well, with a lack of much life out there; and while you do head quickly from destination to destination, its wide barren world does show (even if it's after an apocalypse).

Rage 2 doesn't induce much player Rage in many ways; it's accessible and disposable enough to get you through some gaming afternoons - just don't look to it to do anything more than that.

The Front Runner: DVD Review

The Front Runner: DVD Review

It's perhaps pertinent that Reitman's film about Senator Gary Hart (Jackman, dialling down his usual dazzling charisma) deals a lot with the so-called intrusion of the press rather than the actual scandal which subsumed the man.

Jackman is Hart, who after a failed campaign in 1984, comes back to try again. Entering the Democratic Presidential Nomination race as the clear front runner, Hart looks like he could be the change that's needed.

But backstage, in the journalism world, accusations begin to swirl ever more strongly of the possibility he's having an affair - and emboldened by a tip off to a local paper, the desire to hold him to account begins to grow stronger as the debate over to whether to ask him divides newsrooms.

It's an interesting discussion about where scrutiny ends and where intrusion begins, and certainly drawing from the source material that covers such a debate, Reitman's film feels more weighted to ethics than the actual drama of what's transpired.

But in some ways, it's also emboldened by a dawdling journey that takes it away from the norm.

Questions over Hart are never clearly answered, even though they're defined, and Jackman's downplaying of the senator certainly helps to create a murkiness and uncertainty over who's right or what actually happened. Reitman's smart enough to only hint at what transpired - and certainly with Paxton's turn as the mistress thrown to the lions, there's always a feeling that the scales are tipped against Hart. But it doesn't quite lend the film to the concept of must-see drama; more overly long set up piece.

However, Jackman plays it well; snapping with intensity as the degrees of arrogance within unfurl - and thanks to an unfussy direction from Reitman, the film's strength lies in its relationships, not its extra-marital ones.

Ethics certainly provoke interest, and while the film's less dramatic than you'd expect, it's still a slow-burning engager at times. JK Simmons delivers strength in a part that becomes less and less as the film plays out - the weariness of his face tells more than a blustering soliloquy could.

There are moments when characters and events feel side-lined but the aforementioned unfussy approach to the story lend it a thoughtful credence and quality of debate over intrusion that plays on the mind after it's finished.

THE 2019 DOC EDGE AWARD WINNERS JUST ANNOUNCED

THE 2019 DOC EDGE AWARD WINNERS JUST ANNOUNCED

Film: Call Me Intern

The 14^th annual Documentary Edge International Film Festival (Doc Edge) officially opened last night with Assholes: A Theory at Q Theatre. The festival runs in Auckland until 9^th June, before heading to Wellington (13^th – 23^rd June) with a fantastic selection of inspiring and poignant documentaries. This evening at The Civic’s stunning Wintergarden, Doc Edge celebrated documentary excellence alongside local and international filmmakers as they announced the 2019 award winners.

Doc Edge is an Oscar-qualifying film festival and the winner of the Best NZ Short, NZ Feature, International Short and International Feature all qualify for consideration for the 2020 Academy Awards.
 

Call Me Intern, by filmmakers Leo David Hyde and Nathalie Berger took out Best NZ Feature and Best NZ Editing. The documentary gives a voice to the growing movement for intern rights across the globe. Another kiwi film, Camino Skies by filmmakers Fergus Grady and Noel Smyth also received two awards, for Best NZ Director and Best NZ Emerging Filmmaker, with their inspiring documentary following six strangers from NZ and Australia as they hope to overcome personal and physical trauma by taking on the Camino de Santiago walk.

Taking out the award for Best International Feature is Midnight Traveler, with the judges calling it “an unwaveringly brave and intensely urgent film”. The director Hassan Fazili was both filmmaker and protagonist, sharing an intimate insight into the treacherous journey of his refugee family fleeing Afghanistan, capturing moments of familial love, tension and humour amidst the hardship.

Yang Sun and S. Leo Chiang won the Best International Director award for their film Our Time Machine. The documentary tells the story of a father and son as they confront their mortality through a visually stunning and haunting time-travel adventure.

Full list of Doc Edge Awards 2019 Winners: 
Images for winning documentaries available here.

New Zealand Competition – Feature Documentary
Best New Zealand Feature: Call Me Intern – Cash prize of $8,000 from NZ On Air
Special Mention: Marks of Mana
Best New Zealand Director: Fergus Grady & Noel Smyth – Camino Skies
Best New Zealand Emerging Filmmaker:  Fergus Grady & Noel Smyth – Camino Skies - Cash prize of $1,000 from Department of Post
Best New Zealand Editing: Call Me Intern
Best New Zealand Cinematography: Marks of Mana

New Zealand Competition – Short Documentary
Best New Zealand Short: Humans - Cash prize of $2,000 from NZ On Air
Special Mention: The Breath Connection

International Competition – Feature Documentary
Best International Feature: Midnight Traveler  - Cash prize of $3,500 from Panasonic
Special Mention: On Her Shoulders
Special Mention: Ghost Fleet
Best International Director: S. Leo Chiang & Yang Sun – Our Time Machine

International Competition – Short Documentary
Best Short: Beneath the Ink - Cash prize of $1,500 from Panasonic
Special Mention: Again/Noch Einmal

Doc Edge Superhero: Heddy Honigmann

Festival Category Winners 
All In The Family: Our Time Machine
Around the World in 8 Films: American Factory
Art Attack: Megalodemocrat: The Public Art of Rafael Lozano-Hemmer
Best of Fest: Midnight Traveler
Crime & Conspiracy: Sea of Shadows
Fearless: On Her Shoulders
Future Watch: Trust Machine: The Story of Blockchain
 

Rambo Last Blood teaser trailer

Rambo Last Blood teaser trailer

About RAMBO: LAST BLOOD:

Almost four decades after he drew first blood, Sylvester Stallone is back as one of the greatest action heroes of all time, John Rambo. Now, Rambo must confront his past and unearth his ruthless combat skills to exact revenge in a final mission. A deadly journey of vengeance, RAMBO: LAST BLOOD marks the last chapter of the legendary series.

RAMBO: LAST BLOOD is directed by Adrian Grunberg and stars Sylvester Stallone, Paz Vega, Sergio Peris-Mencheta, Adrianna Barraza, Yvette Monreal, Genie Kim aka Yenah Han, Joaquin Cosio, and Oscar Jaenada.

RAMBO: LAST BLOOD releases in New Zealand in theatres on September 19, 2019.

The Kitchen trailer

The Kitchen trailer

About THE KITCHEN:

The gritty, female-driven mob drama “The Kitchen,” from New Line Cinema and BRON Creative, was written and directed by Andrea Berloff, who was nominated for an Oscar for the original screenplay for “Straight Outta Compton.”

“The Kitchen” stars Oscar nominee Melissa McCarthy, Tiffany Haddish, and Elisabeth Moss as three 1978 Hell’s Kitchen housewives whose mobster husbands are sent to prison by the FBI. Left with little but a sharp axe to grind, the ladies take the Irish mafia’s matters into their own hands—proving unexpectedly adept at everything from running the rackets to taking out the competition…literally.

THE KITCHEN also stars Domhnall Gleeson, James Badge Dale, Brian d’Arcy James, with Margo Martindale, Oscar winner Common, and Bill Camp; as well as Jeremy Bobb, E.J. Bonilla, Wayne Duvall, Annabella Sciorra, and Myk Watford.

THE KITCHEN releases in New Zealand cinemas on August 29, 2019.