STACK New Zealand May 2016 Issue

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A throwback to the classic road movies of the ‘70s,
Mississippi Grind tells the story of Gerry (Ben
Mendelsohn), a loser who is sure the next big score
is right around the corner, and Curtis (Ryan Reynolds), a slick
gambling pro who convinces him to join him for a crack at high
stakes game.
Mendelsohn says he played a considerable amount of poker
to prepare for the role – at some personal expense.
“We played many thousands of dollars worth of cards to
get ready," he admits. “We played in a proper casino for proper
money almost every night as we got ready, and a lot of nights
during the shoot. I met some fascinating people-real-life, serious
lose-all-the-money gamblers. I was doing really well at first, but I
ended up taking a bath. And then I stopped.”
One of the perks of the job was visiting the little-known
towns along the river, in parts of the US that the Australian
actor had only heard or read about. “She's so big, America,” he
marvels. “I haven't scratched the surface yet. I wish I'd gotten to
stay a bit longer.”
As well as Mississippi Grind, Mendelsohn stars in the TV
series Bloodline, which is also out on DVD this month.
visit EXTRAS NEWS
06 MAY 2016
EXTRAS
n many ways, the development cycle
of Homefront: The Revolution mirrors
the tumultuous events of the game
itself: there’s no doubt that Dambuster
Studios have truly weathered a storm getting the
game to market.
“The road has been a little bumpy," admits
narrative designer Stephen Rhodes. "But it feels
really good to finally have completed it and to
soon get it out there for everyone to play and
enjoy. That’s what any developer really wants; to
see their hard work being enjoyed by gamers. It’s
why we do what we do.”
H:TR is billed as a reboot rather than a
successor to Homefront, a game released back
in 2011 and lambasted for its short campaign.
Recognising an opportunity to impress its own
vision on the game, the team at Dambuster
rewrote the backstory in its entirety.
“We knew that everyone was really into
the concept of an occupied America and the
alternate history angle of the narrative. These
are themes that few games have explored; some
have, like the Resistance series, but it’s still
quite an unexplored space,” Rhodes explains.
“Despite these two core themes being popular,
the context and execution given in the first
Homefront didn’t go down so well.
“What we did for H:TR was go right back
to these core ideas and rebuild from there.
It doesn’t share characters or timelines, we
ditched everything and rewrote the backstory
and took our time creating a world stage where
the USA being occupied by a Korean military
force was plausible. The only real similarity
that H:TR shares with the
first game is that one core
concept.”
Paul Jones
Homefront: The
Revolution is out on PS4,
Xbox One and PC on May 20.
Visit for
the full feature.
TALKING ‘BOUT
A REVOLUTION
Homefront: The Revolution is
an open world reboot with a
whole new back story.
A s one of the pioneers of folktronica, Beth Orton is
no stranger to the world of electronics.
But for her latest album Kidsticks, she was
keen to return to return to more dance-oriented roots of her
first recordings with producers such as William Orbit and
Andrew Weatherall.
Orton tells STACK she enjoyed going back to
experimenting with electronic loops in the studio.
“When Andy [Hung, co-producer] and I got in the studio I
had no preconceived ideas of what would happen in there,”
she says. “I played the synth and as I did so Andy would be
on Massive going through presets. As he went through the
sounds we would egg each other on. Sometimes my husband
would pop by and he’d hear these insane, loud sounds
coming from the garage we were working in, and then on
entering he’d find us giggling like kids whilst being all British
and polite to each other at the same time: ‘I quite like that’
and so on.
Kicksticks is also informed in part by the wide-open
spaces of her new home in Los Angeles. “I was driven by the
energy of the music and the energy of changing counties.
Moving to LA had a propulsion and
an excitement, and I needed to shake
things up. I didn’t start the record with
that expectation but looking back I
needed to shift energy in my life and in
my body.” Zo ë Radas
Kicksticks by Beth Orton is out on May 27; check out
for the full interview
BLOCK ROCKIN' BEATS?
Beth Orton on exploring a more rhythmic vibe on her album LP Kidsticks.
Preparing for his role in Mississippi Grind
Ben Mendelsohn had about as much luck
at gambling as his character.
ROLL THE DICE!
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