Loading Docs: One Year On

One Year On 

A year after the Christchurch Mosque terror attack, a voice for the Muslim & refugee community asks himself what more he can do.

Approaching the memorial of the 51 victims, Guled Mire prepares to step back into the spotlight. 

When the one year anniversary is overshadowed by a national health crisis, frustration starts to grow at the lack of change. 

Struggling to get his perspective heard and at a personal crossroads, Guled worries that the opportunity to confront racism and islamophobia has passed. Can he stand up once more to make a difference?

Director: Francesca Mackenzie

Producers: Nicola Bailey & Adorate Mizero

The Current War: DVD Review

Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Michael Shannon, Nicholas Hoult, Tom Holland, Katherine Waterston
Director: Alfonso Gomez-Rejon

Languishing in release hell post the collapse of The Weinstein Company, The Current War's sat around since being finished in 2017. Now with a director's cut rearing its head, the "Inspired by True Events" film is the tale of Thomas Edison (Cumberbatch) and his passive aggressive war with
Michael Shannon's Westinghouse as the pair try to use current to light up America's towns.

With Edison pushing for the DC approach and Westinghouse tackling the more productive AC approach, the stakes are raised as Matthew MacFadyen's banker JP Morgan looks at who's best to bankroll - and who eventually will win the day.

The Current War occasionally proffers an argument for a better way to tell a stuffy historical period piece and a fairly traditional story.

But along with choppy editing, swirling cameras and a frenetic jumping narrative, the film is less interested in developing the depth that would be more necessary to engage an audience.

Throwing in three alternating storylines, the flow feels fractious at best, and pacy at worst. Visually the film offers new touches for traditional fare, signalling the change of the era and its usual style of biographical filmmaking. Throw in a non-traditional score that mixes electric and strings, and The Current War has a kind of visual electricity that's sorely needed throughout.

Essentially charting the fall of Thomas Edison, Cumberbatch is rarely challenged and goes from contempt to crook with ease; Hoult barely registers any wattage as Tesla, the script denying him much of a presence. Shannon hardly fares better, a shame given his more human Westinghouse offers a man trying to do the right thing but thwarted at every level. It's a dialled down performance from Shannon, but one that rises in the final mix.

The Current War may offer some visual shocks in its tale of electricity, but given the overall feel of the film, it teeters close to boredom as it charts a period covering 15 years. It's a shame given the conflict is one worthy of exploration - it's just obvious that this doesn't shine as brightly as it could, and settles more for flawed and interesting rather than compelling.

Loading Docs: Siouxsie & the Virus

A science superhero with pink hair wages war on COVID-19 to convince an entire nation to lockdown.

With time running out to fight the oncoming pandemic, an unconventional expert delivers vital information to a panicked public. 

Go behind-the-scenes as Dr Siouxsie Wiles faces a growing media storm from the confines of her family home. 

Siouxsie & the Virus is a unique insight into one woman’s countdown to a defining moment in New Zealand history.

Director: Gwen Isaac | Producer: Phillida Perry

 

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.