Quiz: TV Review

Quiz: TV Review

Here's your starter for 10.

Is the drama Quiz
A) a 3 part expose of the TV scandal that rocked the UK
B) likely to floor you with Michael Sheen's turn as Chris Tarrant
C) an entertaining watch to a story that's never really had a definitive conclusion
D) All of the above.

(The answer's D, for those not paying attention.)

For some the Coughing Major may be an unfamiliar name, but that seems unlikely.

The 2001 scandal involving Major Charles Ingram (Spooks star Matthew MacFadyen) rocked the TV quiz world when it was alleged the major who scooped the 1 million pound jackpot had been aided by someone in the audience, coughing away at the correct answers.

The subsequent trial in 2003 saw the major, his wife (played by Fleabag's Sian Clifford) and audience member Tecwen Wittockall thrust into the spotlight, and vilified by the press and the public who believed they'd cheated their way to the top prize.

Yet, Stephen Frears' 3 part drama is less interested in the controversy and covering the matter in glory. Instead of florid details and embellishments, Frears uses Matthew MacFadyen's relative everyman look to tell a story that's both compelling and entertaining.

Detailing how the Who Wants To Be a Millionaire quiz show came to life as UK broadcaster ITV struggled in competition with its BBC counterpart, the drama paints a no-nonsense portrait of how appointment TV was a centrepiece in a world before streaming and Netflix.

Rather than being a stuffy industry piece, the three-parter knows the drama is in the show and its quizzing major who was apparently clueless to the basic questions and somehow wanted us to believe he'd fumbled his way to the top.

As a result, what director Frears and his top-notch cast bring to the table is a look inside a scandal that thrilled a nation. It's a fascinating watch that never once decides which side it's on, and simply presents the facts with an eye for the same kind of tension that an episode of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? used to generate.

While the third episode flounders a little as the focus shifts to a trial and talk of public persecution, MacFadyen and Clifford prove to be an eminently watchable duo, and one whose machinations are never quite clear if you believe what transpires in the final part.

There are insinuations that the wife was a driving force and Ingram was just a willing but clueless participant in this particularly British heist.

But what emerges from Quiz's 3 hour long episodes is a miniseries that's as thrilling as the drama of the quiz show itself - you may think you know the answers, but the show's uncertainties mean a definitive answer is never forthcoming, but is completely hellbent on having you flip back and forth between truth and the fiction.

#Quiz. WOW.

The cast, the story, the scenes, simply brilliant. Terrifyingly accurate and oh yes, horribly cringeworthy. Floored by the pure talent on show tonight.

Well done too to @ITV. Gutsy.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️#StayHomeSaveLives

— Charles Ingram (@di4charles) April 13, 2020

Just don't expect any final answers.

Quiz airs on Soho over 3 weeks from Thursday June 25th, and then on Lightbox.

Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time announced

Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time announced

There's a brand new Crash Bandicoot game on the way.

Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time has been announced.

Watch the first Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time gameplay trailer.

Crash Bandicoot 4 is out October 2, 2020.

Win a copy of Guns Akimbo

Win a copy of Guns Akimbo

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

About Guns Akimbo

Miles (DANIEL RADCLIFFE) is stuck in a dead-end job, still in love with his ex-girlfriend Nova.

Unbeknownst to him, a gang called Skizm is running a deadly competition within his city in which complete strangers fight to the death for the entertainment of an online audience of millions. 

Miles soon finds himself caught up in the game and forced to fight in a battle to the death. 

Initially, Miles' lifetime of running from his problems pays off as he manages to elude his first opponent but when Nova is kidnapped, he must finally stop running and overcome his fears to fight for the girl he loves.

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

Email now to  darrensworldofentertainment@gmail.com
 Or CLICK HERE NOW  

A Guide to Second Date Sex: DVD Review

A Guide to Second Date Sex: DVD Review

Cast: George MacKay, Alexandra Roach, Michael Socha
Director: Rachel Hirons

From writer / director Rachel Hirons comes a comedy that feels very much in execution and in scripting like a three act play mixed with a UK sex screwball comedy.

Roach and MacKay play Laura and Ryan respectively, a pair whose dabbling in relationships has been less than successful. After meeting in a club, the pair stumble into a second date, and the expectations that come with it....

A Guide to Second Date Sex is a serviceable slice of awkwardness, that incorporates as much cringeworthy actions as it does recognisable insights into everyone's teenage years.

Roach and MacKay make affable enough bedfellows, and despite McKay's awful chin hair, the pair has enough universal quirks to make them relatable and to allow the situations to feel natural, and not forced. (Although a final act twist pushes the film a little too far as the histrionics are wound as tightly as they can.)

Side characters aren't as fleshed out as they could be, and the script's reliance on their quirks rather than a bit more depth gives the comedy an OTT edge that's not quite acceptable enough given the decent amount of groundwork that's already gone.

But with some moments of laugh-out-loud comedy, some moments where the awkwardness pushes it to excruciating, A Guide to Second Date Sex does just enough to transcend its play roots and feel like its own living breathing mirror onto all our failed fumblings and burgeoning relationships. 

Downhill: DVD Review

Downhill: DVD Review

Ruben Östlund's 2014 movie Force Majeure was beloved by many.

A film that excoriated a marriage, threw up questions of male ego and dialled up the discomfort, the near 3 hour movie was lauded as a masterpiece.

It seems unlikely Downhill, which is inspired by the film, and follows many of the beats but in half the time, will be mentioned in the same breath.

Ferrell and Louis-Dreyfus are Pete and Billie, parents of two, all together on a skiing holiday. However, there are already frustrations inherent among them, with Billie's generally uptight nature clashing with Pete's insistence on being in the moment above all else.

When a controlled avalanche nearly overwhelms the family at a restaurant, Billie is left with the fall-out of the fact Pete grabs his phone and runs off, leaving her and the kids to ostensibly die. As the chasm grows, the family will never be the same again.

Downhill has a tonal mismatch which doesn't help matters.

While Force Majeure dabbled in subtlety (although admittedly took a long time going anywhere), Downhill's halved run time and desire to inject broad bawdy elements within its story means it adds up to feeling like a mix between cringe-worthy comedy and flat moments that simply don't add up.

And yet with Louis-Dreyfus turning in a performance that's somehow excellent beyond the material, Downhill's watchable enough fare - albeit muddled. Icy, muted laughs come as the cordial atmosphere dries up immediately, and the excruciating irritations boil over. Ferrell's downbeat, but his restrained performance doesn't match up to the needs of the film, and he feels at times, out of place.

It's the Euro-stereotypes that flunder the film, with Otto's amusing-to-watch laissez-faire hotel owner ramping it up to 11 and a ski instructor hunk feeling ripped from the pages of another movie. It's these moments that give Downhill a level of inconsistency that's hard to match.

Ultimately, feeling muddled and muddying the waters, Downhill does offer some good moments of comedy if you know where to look. But were it not for Julia Louis-Dreyfus' performance, this film would be more of a downhill experience that its name suggests.

The Call of the Wild: DVD Review

The Call of the Wild: DVD review

Chris "How To Train Your Dragon" Sanders dials up the beauty of the Yukon for this relatively tried and tested formula story on owning a dog.

Based on the 1903 Jack London novel, The Call of The Wild follows the rambunctious pooch Buck, as he finds himself dognapped and sold into the Yukon wilds to the highest bidder. Initially falling in with Omar Sy's mail courier, and falling foul of the pecking order of the sledding pack, Buck's world appears to be a harsh one as he tries to find his place in the world.

But when he is taken under the wing of Harrison Ford's grieving prospector John Thornton, he finds a different life as he tries to help Thornton come to terms with what life has dealt him.

Essentially The Littlest Hobo mixed in with a very familiar wilderness story and poured through a prism of old time sentimentalities, The Call of the Wild has heart under an uncanny valley CGI dog.

Initially fine, Buck's transmission to the screen soon becomes a little too hyper real (a WWE move on another dog being the defining moment) - but when the film settles, it uses simplicity to convey its heartfelt message of finding your place in the world.

Episodic by nature (Buck's kidnapped, Buck's new owners, Buck's perils among the Snow Dogs) the film lags in its final third, even as it tries to find legs for the true nugget of the tale - Buck's discovery of his wilder side, and how humanity is not for him.

That's a big theme to rest on the film's shoulders, and it doesn't always quite pull it off.

But a grizzled and silent Ford (he's acted with a furry companion to reasonably famous effect before) brings out the film's gentler and more contemplative edge - even if that's partially ruined by Downton Abbey's Dan Stevens hamming it up as the big bad.

There may be stock standard elements of a family film here, and there may be no surprises as the sentiment's piled high enough for mush in this Yukon Tail, but The Call of the Wild may find you feeling more stirred than you would like.

Whānau Mārama: New Zealand International Film Festival - first films announced

Whānau Mārama: New Zealand International Film Festival - first films announced

Four New Zealand Feature Films And A Web Series To Have World Premieres at Festival

Four New Zealand feature films will receive their World Premiere screenings as part of Whānau Mārama: New Zealand International Film Festival 2020 At Home – Online, and at selected cinema screenings across the country.

And, for the first time ever the Festival will screen a Web Series in its entirety. This year’s homegrown selection includes four documentaries and one episodic drama.

Festival Director Marten Rabarts said programming New Zealand films for the 2020 Festival has been challenging due to the impact of COVID-19 restrictions which brought shooting and post-production on a number of films to a halt or caused significant delay.

“We’re very proud to present this programme of films from Aotearoa for this year’s Festival. We’ve worked closely with all the filmmakers to ensure these films can be part of the Festival.”

Rabarts adds that as well as screening online as part of NZIFF At Home – Online, all five Aotearoa films will also be screened in cinemas.

“As COVID-19 restrictions began lifting in New Zealand, we have been exploring options to present a selection of films in many of our favourite cinemas and venues, and this includes the five Aotearoa films. We expect to reach agreement in the coming days as to which cinemas will be welcoming us for the 2020 hybrid edition.”

Details of screenings in cinemas and venues will be announced on Thursday 25 June alongside the announcement of the full festival programme.

The confirmed New Zealand films for 2020 are:

Before Everest

Director/Producer/Screenplay/Photography/Editor: Richard Riddiford
“I’d never share a rope with him” is about as damning a comment as anyone can make about a fellow mountaineer. Sir Edmund Hillary’s words about Earle Riddiford in his last autobiography set the uneasy tone of this nuanced documentary by Earle’s son Richard Riddiford.
“In his final autobiography, Hillary wrote some fairly damning remarks about my father... Why had Hillary been so ungracious? ... He was as close to a god as a mortal could be in our country, but it had been my father who had helped get him there.” — director Richard Riddiford

LOIMATA, The Sweetest Tears

Director: Anna Marbrook
Director Anna Marbrook honours the last voyage of the great waka maker, sailor and mentor Ema Siope in this chronicle of journeys – journeys of migration, spirituality, voyaging, healing and coming home.
“A stirring and visually gripping documentary… honouring the life and times of great woman whose wake will be felt for years to come.” — Michael Andrew, Asia Pacific Report

Rūrangi

Director: Max Currie
Premiering their forthcoming web series as a special festival presentation, director Max Currie (Everything We Loved, NZIFF14) and writer Cole Meyers’ queer and trans-positive drama swells with character, heart and filmic sophistication in ways rarely seen in the web series form. Rūrangi was previously selected for the prestigious Frameline – San Francisco LGBTQ+ Film Festival (June 2020) which was cancelled due to COVID-19.  Rūrangi is fully worthy of its Film Festival world premiere and we’re proud to be part of its journey into the world.

The Girl on the Bridge

Director: Leanne Pooley
In the increasing public discourse on mental health, Leanne Pooley’s inspiring and fearless documentary tracks an extraordinary young woman’s journey from suicide survivor to advocate for those struggling. The fact it leaves you hopeful and with tangible advice makes it vital viewing.

Tupaia’s Endeavour – The Director’s Cut

Director/Producer/Editor: Lala Rolls
Re-edited from both the Māori Television series and with new material, Lala Rolls’ fascinating quest to examine what happens to a Tahitian high priest and navigator when he travels across the Pacific – and further on towards England as a translator and guest (or is it as a living trophy?) – aboard Captain James Cook’s HMS Endeavour.

Whānau Mārama: New Zealand International Film Festival is run by a charitable trust to enhance local appreciation of, and engagement with, global art and culture by providing access to a diverse range of high-quality film.

The full 2020 Film Festival programme will be announced on Thursday 25 June and the festival will run from 24 July – 2 August.