Joker: Neon Movie Review

Cast: Joaquin Phoenix. Robert de Niro, Zazie Beetz, Marc Maron, Frances Conroy
Director: Todd Phillips

Intense, haunting, disturbing, unsettling, uncomfortable, uncompromising, deeply indebted to Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver and King of Comedy, Hangover director Todd Phillips' take on Joker is nothing without Joaquin Phoenix's Arthur Fleck.

An alienated clown who's trying to get by in a struggling Gotham that's grappling with a descent into garbage strikes and class divides, Fleck is hanging on by the skin of his teeth, scrabbling from day-to-day with a world he's growing ever-more distant from and from humanity on every level.

Fleck's grip on reality is further tested by his relationship with his ailing mother (Conroy) - though there's some light in the form of a neighbour (Deadpool's Beetz) and in local talkshow host Murray Franklin (De Niro riffing on his own Murray Pupkin), both offering Fleck a connection to life and a future.

But as the class war and societal concerns strike, Fleck finds himself at a personal profound crossroads...

Joker is less a comic book film, more an intensely choreographed dance into madness and destruction, that forces you into sympathies for the devil.

Central to the maelstrom is an emaciated Phoenix, his whole frame racked by the condition that forces him to laugh when it's less than ideal, and whose laughs teeter dangerously close to sobs of desperation. Lithe, lissom and genuinely haunting, the incendiary Phoenix owns the screen from the moment the film starts to the time it ends.

While there are nods to the wider universe, Joker is less about the clown prince, more a damning indictment of a man falling apart with parallels to the politically uncertain times we currently live in.

It's here that Phillips and Phoenix team up to make something that's an unravelling in our narcissistic times, a dangerous mirror to edges of our society that may galvanise some more than it should or ought to. There are plenty of scenes of Phoenix's Fleck struggling - be it up endless flights of stairs, or sitting in empty rooms, Phillips doesn't scrimp on the visual imagery.

It's not all perfect - some of the supporting characters feel underused in the extreme slow burn of Phoenix's spotlight; much of the feel of the film is ripped from Scorsese's grimy playbook and there are questions over the mental health portrayal within.

But Joker is visceral and uncomfortable in the way cinema can get under your skin; this character study is one of the year's compelling best, a sickening portrait that's unsettling and unnerving. 

Shirley: Film Review

Cast: Elisabeth Moss, Logan Lerman, Odessa Young, Michael Stuhlbarg

Director: Josephine Decker

Feeling like a woozy Gothic psychological romance rather than a detailed relationship drama, Josephine Decker's Shirley sees The Handmaid's Tale's Elisabeth Moss as writer Shirley Jackson (who went on to pen The Haunting of Hill House).

Unable to find her muse, agoraphobic and constantly in bed, drink or cigarette in hand, Shirley's hit a stumbling block. Into her life, at the behest of her professor partner (Stuhlbarg, in a vaguely monstrous role), comes youngsters Rose and her academic husband Fred (Young and Lerman) to help out around the house and at the college.

But Shirley is reticent to have them around, and Fred becomes frustrated at his lack of progression at the college. However, the more Shirley and Fred dig in, the more Rose awakens from her repression.

Shirley isn't a bad character study by any stretch of the imagination.

Thanks to Moss' wild-eyed approach to Jackson, the film thrives when she's on screen - and it positively sparks when she's paired up with Young as the two crackle against each other and against years of repression and expectation.

Hand-held camerawork, close ups, and a haunting OST along with a mystery of a missing girl all make for an intoxicating mix in Shirley, and Young and Moss deserve kudos for their time on screen.

Moss in particular revels in her character's messiness, and the script doesn't hold back from showing her flaws, but equally, it doesn't criticise her for them either.

A fascinating study of genius and an arthouse approach by Decker give the film the sheen it needs - and offers the audience a different way at looking at tortured authors.

Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout: PS4 Review

Developed by Mediatonic

Published by Devolver Digital

Platform: PS4 (through PSPlus August game giveaways)

The multiplayer genre is one that's already stuffed with entrants.

Generally though, they are shooters of some description. And with the likes of Fortnite and Overwatch still reigning supreme, there's been a hole in the market place for a good solid family-led inclusive multiplayer game.

Enter Mediatonic's Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout, with its cartoony blobby bright colours mash up of fun and silliness.

Essentially an online version of 70s UK TV staple, It's A Knockout and elements of WipeOut USA, the extremely colourful and amusing Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout is aimed squarely at fun, and delivers in more than spades.

While its first weekend has been plagued by server issues due to a surge demand (global lockdowns and a desire to play online will do that), Mediatonic's done more than enough to get the game back up and running to cover the 59 players needed to take you on.

Over five rounds of what appear simple games, it's up to you to come first and take the win. Progress through each round without being eliminated to make it through to the final game where you can be crowned winner.

Sounds simple, but in practice, Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout is anything but - though annoyingly, it's highly addictive and charming enough to keep sucking you back in.

Using physics as well as a bit of old fashioned luck, you'll need to scoot around various challenges to try and win.

From an obstacle course where you have to jump over seesaws, to a Rocket League inspired football match, the games are simple and easy to dive into. That's part of the real charm of Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout, it's so frustratingly simple that when you get knocked out by a wrong move or a simple issue of gravity, you immediately want to dive back in.

As a solo game, it's solid and entertaining - with 59 strangers all out for the same thing, it can get competitive. But it's a bit harder on the so-called team games where you're expected to work together - especially if you are without headphones as collaboration goes out the window.

A lack of a local multiplayer game that's offline sets a worrying alarm bell off for the game's future - who knows what's ahead in 6 months' time. But Mediatonic is teasing that this is only season one - however, long term freemium games do face the faddish desires of the players who desert the servers like magpies once the newest shiniest thing comes along or the old fave they dived into launches a new season amid hype.

Ultimately, Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout is disposable family fun, that's worth diving into whatever your age - and these days for multiplayer, you can rarely recommend that.  Hopefully, it'll keep people entertained for many seasons to come, thanks to an ease of play, a simplicity of design and a rocksolid foundation of execution.

Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout was played on PlayStation Plus via a code provided for the service by PlayStation New Zealand

 Skully is Available Now!

 

Restore Peace in Charming Platforming Adventure, Skully!

Now Available on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One

 

Join a Headstrong Hero for a Roll through a Gorgeous but Troubled Paradise

 

 

Indie publisher Modus Games and developer Finish Line Games today released Skully, a reanimated skull’s delightful platforming adventure across a magical island, on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.

 

Skully’s accompanying launch trailer is packed with gameplay which perfectly demonstrates our cranium-sized star’s agility and knack for wielding clay-boosted powers. Pools of magical clay can be found while hopping through this colourful land, lending strength in battles and opening new routes through Skully’s beautiful world.

 

Get a sense of what Skully can do by watching the full launch trailer here: 

 

 

FAST & FURIOUS CROSSROADS VIDEO GAME AVAILABLE NOW

FAST & FURIOUS CROSSROADS VIDEO GAME AVAILABLE NOW  
 

Fast & Furious Crossroads, a team-based, vehicular-heist action game set in the adrenaline-fueled Fast & Furious universe, developed by Slightly Mad Studios and published by BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment Europe in collaboration with Universal Games and Digital Platforms, is now available for  PlayStation® 4, Xbox One and PC.

The Fast & Furious Crossroads story mode expands the Fast & Furious universe—with Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez and Tyrese Gibson reprising their roles as Dom Toretto, Letty Ortiz, and Roman Pearce in an action-packed adventure set across stunning global locations, including Athens, Barcelona, Morocco and New Orleans. Joining the cast are Sonequa Martin-Green (Star Trek: Discovery, The Walking Dead), Asia Kate Dillon (Billions, John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum) and Peter Stormare (Fargo, Prison Break).

Players who purchase the game before September 7, 2020 will receive the Launch Pack,* which includes the inimitable Mitsubishi Eclipse, along with three unique wraps. This content will add to the novel 3 vs 3 vs 3 multiplayer mode that features three-faction, team-based, vehicular action in a variety of high-stakes missions.

Packed with gadgets, high-octane heists and iconic vehicles, Fast & Furious Crossroads puts players in the driver’s seat of the non-stop cinematic-style action of the Fast & Furious saga and is available now for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC Digital.

 

For more information, or to keep up with the latest news, please visit: 

 

Website: www.fastandfuriouscrossroads.com 
Facebook: http://facebook.com/FastandFuriousCrossroads 
Instagram: http://instagram.com/FastandFuriousCrossroads 
Twitter: https://twitter.com/FastFuriousCR

The Legend of Baron To'a: DVD review

The Legend of Baron To'a: DVD review

Ambition on a budget meets a degree of heart and family legacy in director Kiel McNaughton's debut.

It's the story of Latukefu's Fritz, an Aussie-based businessman who needs to sell the old family home in New Zealand to finance a deal back home. Landing in his old cul-de-sac, he finds some things have changed since the days when his wrestling father, Baron To'a, ruled the roost.

But when a local gang makes off with his dad's prize wrestling belt, Fritz's uncle refuses to sell the home until it's returned - sending Fritz on a collision course with his own personal and troubled history.

The Legend of Baron To'a starts with two of the actors (Latukefu and Tui) apologising to the Tongan King for what they're about to see, but exalting him that they wanted to show a true to life story.

In truth, the cul-de-sac where the story takes place could be anywhere where bad apples have set in and the rot's begun, and where family and community have been torn apart by crime and deliquency.

On that front, McNaughton and his writing team have seized on a vein of veracity that's got plenty to be mined for dramatic effect.

Yet in parts, The Legend of Baron To'a lacks some of the dramatic KO that it's clearly going for - largely in part due to the writing of Latukefu's Fritz. Prone to going all Beautiful Mind and writing on windows, Fritz is a hard character to really care about, despite the Robbie Magasiva-like Latukefu's best acting intentions. And certainly when the chips are down, there's more a sense that he was entitled to what was coming, rather than favouring this underdog.

A cartoon-like element underpins some of the brutal beatdowns, with not one ounce of blood spilled throughout, despite some of the violence on show - it's moments like this that take the film out of the reality and grittiness it aspires to.

And yet, in its flaws, this genial pic packs in heart when it needs to - particularly with moments of Tui's To'a, a legend in his own cul-de-sac. Glimpsed in flashbacks and in old videos of wrestling, it's clear there's a legacy here, and Tui makes the absolute most of the limited screentime.

Equally, Laga'aia's subtle and simple portrait of the long-time dweller offering advice to the newcomer is a stellar performance, one doused in subtlety. Laga'aia lifts some of The Legend of Baron To'a's shortcomings when it truly counts. Billed as a comedy, the laughs are, to be frank, in short shrift, and The Legend of Baron To'a is more a family dramedy than anything else.

With fight scenes that resemble UK's World of Sport Wrestling TV series, McNaughton makes great fist of the small spaces to bring the action alive, clearly channeling Tongan Ninja and Kung Fu Hustle.

Overall, while The Legend of Baron To'a may lack a few killer KO moves throughout and would have benefited from a tighter script, it does proffer a solid night out for NZ cinemagoers.

Vivarium: Blu Ray Review

Irish director Lorcan Finnegan's Vivarium has been compared to Black Mirror, because of look and tone.

Though this tale of two would-be surbanites (Jesse Eisenberg, Imogen Poots) finding themselves stranded in a housing estate after a visit to an oddball estate agent's, has more in common with a darker Tales of The Unexpected or Inside No 9 via Escher.

Gemma (Poots, digging deep when needed and yielding great rewards) and Tom (Eisenberg, increasingly detached and desperate) are wannabe homeowners, given the chance to visit a new housing estate called "Yonder".

When their creepy estate agent disappears while they're looking around the house which is "near enough and yet far enough away", the pair find themselves stuck when they can't escape Yonder....

Finnegan creates an atmosphere of unease early on in the piece, after a cutesy opening showcases both Gemma and Tom's relationship and their approach to life.

But with some digital trickery and some genuinely unsettling moments (it's wise to go into this unspoiled, and with a blank mind approach), what Finnegan crafts is something that haunts you after you've seen it.

Colour palettes add to the cinema of unease, and the sense of suspense as the rug threatens to be pulled out from under you at any moment. Parts of the film occasionally feel like the idea's been stretched as far as it can with its essentially two-hander cast, but just when the film seems to be out of breath, an audacious third act moment visually jolts you back into it.

There's a satire in Vivarium here both of suburban expectations and family expectations - albeit poured through a prism of genuine discomfort.

It's heady, thrilling, exciting, frustrating and audacious - Vivarium truly messes with you - but its ride is well worth hopping on.