Portrait of a Lady on Fire: DVD Review

Portrait of a Lady on Fire: DVD Review

A male-free zone, the luxurious Portrait of a Lady on Fire from Girlhood's Celine Sciamma is in no hurry to get where it's going.

It's the 1700s, and Merlant is Marianne, a painter brought in for a commission of Adele Haenel's fresh-out-of-the-convent Heloise, who's about to be married off to a man she's never met. Heloise has already registered rebellion for this portrait destined for her husband-to-be, refusing to sit for her likeness to be captured.

So Marianne decides to be Heloise's companion by day and to paint her likeness by night.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire is a film that luxuriates in the slow burn, and frames itself on fanning the flames of nascent desire.

Back and forths, stolen glimpses and caught looks add much to the burgeoning relationship between the two, and Sciamma lingers when needed and pulls back when expected.

It helps that Merlant and Haenel take their characters on a journey they need, and prove to be such bedfellows for a story. A side story involving the house maid and a situation proves to be a diversion, detracting from what really matters here.

The camera flirts between capturing Marianne's furtive glances, destined to capture details for her pictures and with Heloise's acknowledgement and potential misinterpretation of these glimpses, never once deciding to vocalise either way which is which. It all boils over to a head for obvious reasons, but the simmering before the bubble over is enjoyable to watch.

It may be a little heavy handed in some of its imagery and narrative at times (a long section on Eurydice overplays the looking/ being caught looking metaphor too much) and it may meander on its two hour journey, but Portrait of a Lady on Fire lends much to the story of desire and intimate voyeurs - even if it does so via stiffly starched formal presentation.

Farming: DVD Review

Farming: DVD Review

Cast: Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Kate Beckinsale, Gug Mbatha-Raw, Damson Idris, John Dagleish
Director: Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje

Bleak it may be, but equally sickening and compelling, former Lost and Oz actor Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje lays out a coming-of-age drama that grips as much as it occasionally frustrates.

Based on the true story of Nigerian Enitan (Idris) who was placed in the care of a British family by his parents, "farmed out" for the hope of finding a better start to life in a UK divided by Enoch Powell's Rivers of Blood speeches. But thrust into the home run by Kate Beckinsale's Ingrid (one note, and relatively stereotyped and underdeveloped), Eni begins to feel alienated and is broken by the lack of love and care afforded him.

Pushed to the edge, and into a pit of self-loathing, Eni falls into rejecting his culture, his heritage and his identity, and falls in with a group of skinheads, the Tilbury Skins, headed by Dagleish's Levi (easily one of the best villains of the year, dead-eyed, ominous and terrifying).

Rote in parts, with some awful Lahndon accents, as well as jumping back and forth to Eni's mother,

Farming's sociopathic edges take time to show through.

But when they do, and the skinheads arrive and our totally broken lead falls apart, Farming genuinely shocks in the same way American History X did..

Akinnuoye-Agbaje doesn't scrimp from the details of the horror, or allow you an easy escape in terms of viewing, filling the screen with 80s UK nihilism, a mirror to a society tearing itself apart with hate and violence.

It's here that Farming makes its viewing as compelling as it is sickening, as in other parts of the movie, the generic tropes and hollow descent into eventual redemption don't quite measure up to what's proffered at the end - a rushed reality check.

Characters such as Beckinsale's mother and Mbatha-Raw's teacher feel less than real, ripped from the pages of a book, giving Farming a feel of stereotyped TV movie fare. It's no This Is England, or the TV spinoff, but it does have moments of pure dread and evil seeping in.

Thankfully, the stunning pairing of Dagleish and Idris as the tormentor and the victim gives Farming a sharpness of focus that is worth hanging onto, a thread that spins a tightly sickening web around the viewer, and makes the emotional beats land as they truly should.

It is not to detract from the story Akinnuoye-Agbaje is looking to tell, but if parts had been beefed up this would have been a searing drama, a white knuckle ride to hell and back. But a lack of some character depth robs the insights and horror of some of the heft they should carry. It's not to say they don't, because when they land, the moments are utterly repugnant and disgusting, as they should be.

Ultimately Farming is unrelenting, its redemption feels too briefly mentioned, and the rawness of the central actors a little too numbing to fully embrace and only endure.

New OUTRIDERS Gameplay Revealed

New OUTRIDERS Gameplay Revealed

NEW OUTRIDERS GAMEPLAY REVEALED

Debut Outriders Broadcast Showcases New Powers, Environments and Features

SQUARE ENIX® debuted new gameplay footage from OUTRIDERS™, the highly anticipated upcoming RPG-Shooter from People Can Fly, the developers of Gears of War: Judgment and BULLETSTORM, and Square Enix External Studios, the minds behind SLEEPING DOGS® and JUST CAUSE®.

Seen through the lens of drop-in co-op, the First City gameplay reveals never-before-seen Pyromancer powers, brand-new, hyper-evolved creatures, information on the OUTRIDERS World Tier system, a look at an immersive new environment and more.

Set in an all-new, dark sci-fi world, OUTRIDERS is a true genre hybrid that combines the depth and story of an RPG and the intensity of third-person shooter combat with awe-inspiring powers. Deep character progression and itemization allow for a wide variety of creative class builds, and evolve People Can Fly’s trademark over-the-top, skill-based gameplay to create a brutal RPG-shooter experience.

“We are making the game we always wanted to play. The team at PCF are all gamers and we love shooters. Shooters are in our DNA and we have been making them for decades. At the same time, we also love RPG’s,” said Bartek Kmita, Creative Director of OUTRIDERS at People Can Fly. “We always wanted to play a deep RPG, with an epic story and the flexibility to create lots of interesting character builds, but we also wanted a skill-based, challenging and intense real-time combat system in our RPG. When the opportunity to create it ourselves came along, it was like a dream come true.”

The OUTRIDERS First City gameplay video is just one of the segments in the OUTRIDERS Broadcast, a new monthly show that will dive deep into the various features of the dark and desperate world of OUTRIDERS. Discover all-new gameplay, environments, character class deep dives, and updates from the team.

OUTRIDERS will release on PlayStation 5®, PlayStation 4®, Xbox Series X, the Xbox One family of devices, and PC in Holiday 2020.

OUTRIDERS official Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/outridersgame
Follow OUTRIDERS on Twitter: https://twitter.com/outriders
Follow OUTRIDERS on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/outridersgame
Subscribe to OUTRIDERS on YouTube: www.youtube.com/outriders

Join the OUTRIDERS Discord: discord.gg/outriders  
Learn more about SQUARE ENIX® here: http://www.square-enix.com
Learn more about People Can Fly: https://peoplecanfly.com 

Emma: Blu Ray Review

Emma: Blu Ray Review

Cast: Anya Taylor-Joy, Johnny Flynn, Miranda Hart, Bill Nighy, Mia Goth
Director: Autumn de Wilde

The latest take on Jane Austen's Emma is an admittedly starched and almost military execution of the overly familiar tale.

The VVitch star Anya Taylor-Joy delivers an initially icy take on Emma Woodhouse, the meddling socialite who dabbles in others' lives before realising she's hopelessly out of her own depth.

Guiding Mia Goth's Harriet Smith, Emma tries her best to matchmake for a local vicar. But she fails to notice the attentions of a neighbour (Flynn) until it's too late.

The overly-mannered Emma, delivered by Kiwi Eleanor Catton, is a prissy and primped affair, that teeters dangerously close to boredom levels early on.

Despite some truly sumptuous costuming and some vividly executed moments  such as red-caped women recalling The Handmaid's Tale (it's clear director de Wilde comes from a promo background), the film's warmth is severely lacking early on, despite the comedy of Woodhouse Sr (the ever-wonderful Bill Nighy).

It unfortunately leads to a detachment early in proceedings, which nearly proves fatal when the moments of heart are due to overtake matters, and Catton's writing really does make it difficult to sympathise for the precocious Emma when she realises she's gone too far. (The interaction with Miranda Hart proving to be the only breath-taking moment and deeply upsetting one of the entire film.)

While it skirts around social mores and hints at class divides, there's an aloofness to this Emma that robs it of its charm (Alicia Silverstone's Clueless still remains a market leader in terms of spiky adaptations) and deprives it of an enduring appeal.

Sure, this version of Emma has some stunning visuals, and despite Taylor-Joy coming to life toward the end of the film, it's a hard journey to go on - and one that sadly offers limited rewards when considered among the pantheon of other adaptations of Austen's work.

Bait: Film Review

Bait: Film Review

Director: Mark Jenkin

Experimental in form and conventional in narrative, Bait is a film that impresses once you succumb to its rhythms.

Written and directed by Jenkin, the English film looks at the simmering tensions in the south west of England, a tourist mecca inflamed by outside visitors moving in.

Martin Ward is a fisherman in a Cornish village, who struggles to make ends meet, while his brother uses their father's ship to ferry tourists around and make money.

Tensions are further enraged when Ward continually parks outside a holiday home owned by out-of-towners...

There's little in the way of plot of this 16mm monochromatic film but using inventive touches and flashes of directorial genius, Jenkin's Bait emerges as something truly original and challenging.

Expertly capturing how the powderkeg is lit with simmering intensity in seaside towns, Bait's clever bait-and-switch approach to the narrative, offering flash forwards here and there that seem out of place, proves an arresting take on a thin story.

Sure, some may feel the film has the touches of an experiment from an art student, but its approach is to be praised, and its meticulous touches commended. Gruff and emotional, Bait is a film that will hook you in, but perhaps in ways you'd never expected.

PlayStation 5: 38 games unveiled

PlayStation 5: 38 games unveiled

There may be no planned PlayStation 5 gaming reveal this Friday due to events in America surrounding the death of George Floyd, but Official PlayStation Magazine in the UK has unveiled 38 games for the PlayStation 5.

The issue went to print before issues arose in the US, and PlayStation cancelled its proposed stream for Thursday from the US.

However, the details of the games unveiled in Official PlayStation Magazine are as follows:

1) A Rat's Quest: The Way Back Home - ETA 2021
2) Assassin's Creed Valhalla - ETA 2020 (possible launch title)
3) Battlefield 6 - ETA 2021
4) Chorus - ETA 2021
5) Cygni: All Guns Blazing - ETA TBC
6) Dauntless - ETA TBC
7) Dirt 5 - ETA 2020 (possible launch title)
8) Dragon Age 4 - ETA TBC
9) Dying Light 2 - ETA TBC
10) FIFA 21 - ETA TBC (possible launch title)
11) Godfall - ETA TBC (possible launch title)
12) Gods and Monsters - ETA TBC
13) Gothic Remake - ETA TBC
14) Madden 21 - ETA 2020 (possible launch title)
15) Microman - ETA TBC
16) Moonray - ETA Summer 2021
17) NHL 21 - ETA 2020 (possible launch title)
18) Nth^0 Infinity Reborn - ETA Feb 2021
19) Observer: System Redux - ETA 2020 (possible launch title)
20) Outriders - ETA 2020 (possible launch title)
21) Path of Exile 2 - ETA 2020
22) PsyHotel - ETA TBC
23) Quantum Error - ETA 2020 (possible launch title)
24) Rainbow Six Quarantine - ETA TBC
25) Rainbow Six Siege - ETA TBC (possible launch title)
26) Redo! Enhanced Edition - ETA 2020 (possible launch title)
27) Scarlet Nexus - ETA TBC
28) Sniper Elite 5 - ETA TBC
29) Soulborn - ETA Late 2021
30) Starfield - ETA TBC
31) The Elder Scrolls 6 - ETA TBC
32) The Lord Of The Rings: Gollum - ETA 2021
33) The Sims 5 - ETA TBC
34) Ultimate Fishing Simulator 2 ETA 2020 (possible launch title)
35) Vampire: the Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 - ETA TBC
36) Warframe - ETA TBC (possible launch title)
37) Watch Dogs Legion - ETA TBC
38) WRC 9 - ETA 2020 (possible launch title)

Win a copy of Bombshell

Win a copy of Bombshell

To celebrate the release of Bombshell on DVD and Blu Ray, you can win a copy thanks to Sony Home Entertainment.

About Bombshell

A group of women take on Fox News head Roger Ailes and the toxic atmosphere he presided over at the network.

Bombshell is a revealing look inside the most powerful and controversial media empire of all time; and the explosive story of the women who brought down the infamous man who created it.

All you have to do is email your details and the word BOMBSHELL!

Email now to  darrensworldofentertainment@gmail.com 
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