Chloe Swarbrick documentary launched in Loading Docs

OK CHLÖE was released online today, a film chartering millennial politician Chlöe Swarbrick as she challenges the establishment during the most important year of her political career.
 
Making international headlines in 2019 for her “OK Boomer” response to another politician’s heckle in parliament, Swarbrick in 2017 became the youngest politician to enter New Zealand parliament since 1975. Part of a global movement of younger generations challenging the status quo and seeking to hold those in power to account, Chlöe is uniquely navigating the system from within.

 
The under nine minute documentary is directed by Charlotte Evans and produced by Letisha Tate-Dunning, made with support from multi award-winning short documentary initiative Loading Docs.
 
“Chlöe is a once in a generation individual, fiercely passionate about what she believes and advocates for” said Evans. “To have the opportunity to not only spend time with Chlöe as she navigates her role as politician, but also be granted access to her life behind the scenes, I hope is an insightful watch for any person interested in the people shaping our world today.” 

The Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand Member of Parliament is currently running a high profile campaign in the lead up to the October 17 election, where Swarbrick will contest the highly competitive Auckland Central seat. 

Lowdown Dirty Criminals: Film Review

Cast: James Rolleston, Rebecca Gibney, Robbie Magasiva, Cohen Holloway, Samuel Austin, Scott Wills

Director: Paul Murphy

Wrapping comedy caper with a criminal edge, Lowdown Dirty Criminals is a strong contender for a ramshackle, relatively easy-on-the-eye Kiwi take on a Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels-style story.

Boy's Rolleston is Freddy, a pizza delivery boy who wants more from life, but who in the opening frames, appears to be in a Reservoir Dogs-style standoff with a bunch of low-lives. Using quick cuts and flashy on-screen graphics, Murphy begins to spin his somewhat shallow and scatty but amiable tale.

When Freddy and hapless mate Marvin decide they want to be small time crims, they end up in the thrall of bald-headed baddie and small time mafioso Spiggs, and on his payroll. But after a series of stuff-ups, the duo find themselves with one deadly mission - kill a man or be killed themselves.

Obviously, part of the low-rent charm of Lowdown Dirty Criminals is that this duo is beyond inept, and unable to do what's needed, so the film becomes about how they deal with the confluence of bad luck which surrounds and swirls around them as the deadline approaches.

And while occasionally the film goes for the gross out slapstick and oddly underwritten characters (with one of those bordering dangerously close to racial stereotyping), its short run time, and endless energy and penchant for the puerile, coupled with a very likeable Rolleston rediscovering the form he lost in Pork Pie, make it a sordidly scrappy, yet undeniably entertaining watch.

Coupled with some laugh-out-loud one liners and a playing-against-type Gibney clearly having a ball as kingpin the Upholsterer, the film's vicarious pleasures and goofy charm keep it going into the final strait.

There may be elements of a NZ version of Pineapple Express and every other inept criminal story you've ever seen, but thanks to the use of small locations, a tight script, and injection of energy and charm, this gun-toting screwball caper is a relative cinematic local diamond in among a recent collection of celluloid rough.

Fast and Furious: Crossroads: PS4 Review

Developed by Slightly Mad Studios

Platform:PS4

Released by Bandai Namco

The Fast and Furious genre should be an easy one to adapt for a console generation.

After all, its cartoony approaches to violence and action, coupled with outrageous stunts, makes it prime fodder for some disposable racing-led fun.

Yet, even with its vocal touches from franchise stalwarts Vin Diesel and Michelle Rodriguez, Fast and Furious Crossroads feels like a rushed PS3 game pushed on to a next gen platform.

Thanks to uncanny valley graphics and dialogue that's as flat as pancake, the opening sequence of the action film turned game isn't off to the strongest start. Dom Toretto and Letty are on the case of an informer, who has a tank and a desire to speed away. It all leads to a conspiracy involving an international terrorist group known as the Tadakhul.

Using trademark harpoons, wheel spikes and defying gravity, the franchise's penchant for the ludicrous is there from the get go - but after letting you cycle between Dom and Letty, the game switches to two relatively dour other characters , Vienna and Cam, who have little edge.

Weirdly for a racing sim where you're able to achieve Need for Speed levels of utter carnage on other cars (sometimes at the lowest speed), you yourself can garner barely a scrape, careering as you do off walls, fences, other parts of the road and other drivers. There's little consistent realism here, and in among the less-than-impressive graphics, the cons pile up much more than the pros.

Racing between points A and B and using some quick time events, and button-mashing, Fast and Furious Crossroads is less a Fast and Furious experience, and more a drive-by massacre, with issues accentuated by the brevity of its total gameplay.

The game lacks the necessary campaign to pull it through, and while there are hints of what it could be thanks to the range of talent involved, what's committed to the console screens is more a car crash than a pole position playing experience.

Skully: PS4 Review

Developed by Modus Games, Finish Line Games

Platform: PS4

For those gamers of a certain age, the words Marble Madness will strike fear into hearts and cause basic RSI flashbacks.

Having to roll a ball around a series of vertiginous alleyways and being prone to gravity, the arcade game was a massively frustrating and thrilling experience from the 1980s.

The moment Skully begins, there are echoes of Marble Madness 

Mixed bizarrely with the golem properties of Knack, Skully is a curious platformer that's crippled by its camera, but soars when the rolling gameplay comes together.

On a mysterious remote island, a skull washes up on shore and is reawakened by an enigmatic deity. 

Dubbed Skully, the newly reanimated being has been summoned to intervene in a war between the deity's three siblings, whose quarrel jeopardizes the island they call home.

It's a simple enough story, and Skully delivers it quite well in terms of the basics, as you roll through rather linear levels.

However, as the camera occasionally impedes your view, the rolling can be limited to where you can barely see where you're going to go next. And given some respawn points are quite few and far in 

between, the frustration levels are likely to rise substantially if death comes and it's not your fault.

But the whirling camera can be used to your advantage.

As you roll your skull around curved areas, the camera can be whirled around so you never once lose your line of sight - it's dizzying stuff when it works.

Equally, the idea of turning Skully into a golem monster via clay pits is nicely done too - the fluid gameplay of the clay creatures means that any gamers of any level can pick up and play.

However, given some of the leaping around is extremely hard to do, precision timing is needed and the gameplay is from time to time punishing, it's possible younger minds may not have the staying power to see the game through. But the response time of the controls is impressive and rolling feels fluid enough.

Which presents somewhat of a quandary for Skully - older players may feel the game's somewhat archaic mechanics aren't enough for what they need.

All in all Skully's a fairly pleasant way to pass a few afternoons - long term, the seeds of something brilliant are here, but they've yet to fully germinate. But there's enough of a premise and a twist to keep even the most jaded of gamers engaged.

 Ad Astra: Neon Movie Review

More a Freudian rumination on masculinity that's set in space, James Gray's Ad Astra takes on the vast reaches of the great beyond and delivers a stunning piece of world-building as ever there's been on a universal scale.

A restrained and almost muted Pitt is Roy McBride, the son of an accomplished astronaut Cliff McBride (Lee Jones). Constantly living in his shadow, Roy is sent to find the missing McBride senior who's presumed lost in space somewhere near Neptune, after a series of electrical surges threatens to wipe life from the solar system.

But there's ambiguity over whether McBride senior is to blame for the surges or is trying to stop them...All of which puts the father and son on a collision course both have clearly been trying to avoid their entire lives.

Gray and Pitt conjure up a world in the near future that's as believable as anything seen in the likes of Gravity and 2001: A Space Odyssey.

With vertiginous shots early on giving way to more intimate and internal moments, Gray's film ponders on what it's like to be man, how to deal with an estranged father and how to connect to others. (There's a delicious irony the space mission is about finding life outside of Earth when it's more ground-bound matters that anchor the movie.)

Pitt's muted throughout, prone to his inner monologue rather than espousing reams of dialogue; and when the break comes somewhere in the film, Pitt delivers an emotional range that's as devastating to his character as it needs to be to the audience.

Gray's space world is fascinating - and while there are moments of action set on the moon and thanks to the unease of an unexpected mayday call, the slow calculated script and delivery thereof lead to plenty of payoffs.

It's not perfect though - while the mundanities of commercial space travel are recreated with ease (fast food companies and their neon signs sit along the likes of Virgin on the Moon), some of the script fails its women. Tyler gets a thankless role as a faceless wife (though this is perhaps the point given how Pitt's character can't connect with others in his life) and Ruth Negga shines all too briefly as the conspiracy elements of the mystery are ratcheted up on Mars.

The film delivers much subtlety on male relationships, but it's also content to dispatch some rote lines such as the double-edged "We are all we've got" to satiate those less inclined to the more thoughtful leanings of what's on screen.

Ultimately, Ad Astra works best in its first two thirds - its delivery of some answers and some leaps of logic in the latter stages cause the foundations to flounder.

However, in terms of a rumination on the folly of man, it's second to none - and one of the most arrestingly visual, thoughtful and immersive well-executed experiences that cinema has had to offer. 

 Hustlers: Neon Movie Review

Based on a New York magazine article, Hustlers' tale of empowerment of ladies and taking back what's theirs should in theory, be a home run.

Set against a backdrop of a group of strippers headed up by matriarch Ramona (JLo, in no nonsense taking mood) Constance Wu stars as Destiny, a new-to-town stripper, who's taken under Ramona's wing.

When the financial crisis of 2008 hits the strip clubs and stops the ladies from earning the coin as the businessmen stay away, Ramona and Destiny hit upon a new scam to make money when times get tough....

Hustlers is a fine film in parts (specifically its aesthetics), but one that fails to fully seize on what makes a story like this soar.

While it could be seen as a female POV counterpoint piece to Martin Scorsese's Wolf of Wall Street, Hustlers' prime failure is in fully setting up the friendships and family elements early on which would inform the emotional bond you feel to the characters when times get tough.

It's a relatively fatal flaw, in among the incessant gyrations and tasteful nudity that never once falls into male gaze territory (thankfully).

The shallow skin-deep approach informs much of the aesthetics of the club, as well as the approach to the characters - motivations are about as fleshed-out as the fully-covered ladies and Scafaria's failure to demonise anyone makes for an intriguing lack of moral compass as the movie plays out.

It's particularly noticeable and pertinent in the final third of the film, which meanders and drifts into duller territory as the narrative framing devices push the story into a she said, she said approach necessary for the magazine interview format to play out.

Wu is fairly solid in this, but talk of Lopez for Oscar glory for her role as Ramona is misplaced at best - her Ramona is a variation of any strong women role she's had before, but unfortunately, there's not enough dramatic meat in the Hustlers' bones to really justify it.

When the end comes, you may be surprised how hollow it feels and how emotionally lacking it is - if anything, this is the ultimate scam perpetrated by Hustlers, a film so wrapped up in all its own take on capitalism and family that it falls apart under any kind of prolonged scrutiny.

Last Christmas: Neon Movie Review

A contrived and loose retelling of a Christmas Carol, Last Christmas draws inspiration from the Wham! song of the same name.

A game Clarke pratfalls and perks her way through the story as Kate, a mess of a girl, dressed permanently as an Elf and awash in one night stands, homelessness and booze, following recovery from an illness.

Down on her luck in London, Kate spies the suave Tom (Crazy Rich Asians' Golding, who gets to be charming and pointlessly pirouetting around London for no real reason) and the pair strike up an unlikely friendship.

She the cynic, he the optimist, encouraging her to look up at the sky - even though her first doing of this results in pigeon poo in the eye - much like the film for the audience, to be frank.

You can see where Last Christmas is going a mile off - it's the kind of candy covered schmaltz soaked affair that would work well in the festive season, when you're stranded with family, boozed up and don't want to talk to them.

Throwing in Brexit jabs via way of London patriotism, mocking the homeless for being quirky, and plastering the film with shots of London streets in the winter, it's a shock there's no Hugh Grant cameo or Love Actually crossover in among the syrupy sentiment.

And yet, were it not for a duly game Emilia Clarke, Last Christmas would be a real festive turkey.

(It's hard to credit Golding with anything other than being smooth or suave as that's what the script demands of him, and he delivers with warmth and ease, giving Tom and Kate's bond a nice glow.)

Clarke however is called on to shoulder the burden of a cloying script that continues to one-up itself for weak gags, goofy edges and generally being underwritten. And she delivers her hot mess with warmth, chutzpah, and the kind of commitment that's needed to sell the sentiment and holes. (Of which a lot emerge in the final act).

It's the latest film to be fashioned around music, from Blinded by the Light to Yesterday, and while they all suffer from the necessity of shoehorning the music in, Last Christmas does a little the same, but can be forgiven on some level, because of the time of year it's aiming for.

There's a cheesy cornball edge to Last Christmas, but it's sadly not enough one way or another to push this into so-bad-it's-good-territory. Instead, it just is, and were it not for Clarke, the film would have crumbled into a bad Christmas hangover.