STACK NZ June 2016 Issue 74

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I s it really June already? Yes it is, and
for gamers that can only mean one
thing: it’s time for E3. What can we
expect this year? Well, Nintendo have already
dashed any hopes that its enigmatic NX will
appear, announcing that it will reveal the
console later this year. Will the rumoured PS4.5
or modular Microsoft console make an
appearance?
E3 will indeed be different in 2016 with EA
pulling out from its traditional presence, instead
opting to reveal its upcoming slate at a press
conference on the Sunday before the show.
And Activision, too, will ditch the booth, instead
opting solely for behind-closed-doors sessions.
Elsewhere it’s business as usual, with
Bethesda, Microsoft, Ubisoft and Sony all
conducting press briefings. VR will again feature
heavily with more on Sony’s PSVR and its
purported slew of titles. Just what Microsoft
intends to do with its augmented reality headset
remains to be seen, but we’ll undoubtedly view
some jaw-dropping game demos featuring the
tech.
And what about the games? As expected
there’s a quality line-up, and we could fill the
page here with our most wanted lists but we’ll
save that for post-show analysis. Despite EA
and Activision removing their booth presences,
E3 still is the highlight of the gaming show
calendar, exhibiting the very best we can expect
to be playing in the lead-up to Christmas and
beyond. Paul Jones
Keep an eye on and our social
media channels for all the up to date coverage from E3
visit EXTRAS NEWS
06 JUNE 2016
EXTRAS
THE MAN WITH
A PLAN FOR
LADY IN VAN
Nicholas Hytner on his latest
Alan Bennett collaboration
The Lady In The Van.
R euniting with Ice Cube for buddy
movie sequel Ride Along 2, we see
Kevin Hart graduate from security
guard to rookie cop.
However, he shudders when STACK asks if
he researched with any real cops.
“No. I know some, but I don’t go out
of my way to spend time with cops,“ he
laughs, having recently completed three
years probation after being arrested on DUI
charges in 2013. “I don’t want to be in the
back seat of a cop car ever again in my life.
I’ve had moments where I had to be because
of mistakes I made, and that’s not a place of
fun for me.”
In Ride Along 2 , Detective James Payton
(Ice Cube) takes his soon-to-be brother-in-law,
the bumbling Ben Barber (Hart), to Miami to
track down a drug dealer who’s supplying the
dealers of Atlanta with product. James wants
to show that Ben is not capable to being a
cop, but of course things don’t go exactly
according to plan.
Although Hart doesn't quite enjoy the same
high profile in this part of the world, in the US
his stand-up specials and comedies like Think
Like a Man , The Wedding Ringer and Get
Hard have made him a household name.
He found his first audience in his mum,
Nancy, raising him alone while his cocaine-
addicted father spent most of his childhood
in and out of jail. “My mom was able to see
a glimpse of greatness before she passed
away," Hart says. "She was very religious, so
she didn’t like to go places where there was
alcohol, smoking or swearing, but she totally
supported me on every level. She was my
rock and the reason why I am who I am today.
She raised me with a strong will to succeed.”
Gill Pringle
Ride Along 2 is out on June 22
Counting down to the world's biggest video game convention in Los Angeles.
E3: LET THE GAMES BEGIN!
ONE FROM THE HART
Ride Along 2 star Kevin Hart talks cops and why his mum was his biggest fan.
L oosely based on a true story,
The Lady In The Van charts the
unlikely relationship that
develops between writer Alan Bennett
(played in the movie by Alex Jennings)
and a homeless woman (Maggie Smith),
who ends up taking residence in a van
outside his home in one of London’s
poshest streets, Gloucester Avenue in
Camden.
It's the third screen collaboration
between director Nicholas Hytner and
Bennett, and as with The Madness Of
King George and The History Boys, it’s
based on one of the latter’s plays he
had previously directed on stage.
For Hytner (pictured below right with
Jennings), one of the attractions of the
project was the opportunity to shoot
where the story actually took place.
“They were very accommodating,”
Hytner says of the locals. “Although
I think they had mixed feelings when
they saw the van reappear. The two
vans we used – actually, there were
four vans, in total – were exactly the
models that she had. So when the van
reappeared... I think that was pretty
horrifying for the many neighbors who
remembered her!”
In fact, Hytner has his own memories
of the van parked in Bennett’s driveway.
“Well, I knew Alan Bennett lived in the
house and I knew him very vaguely,
but not well enough to ask him what
was going on. I occasionally wondered,
‘Does he keep his mother in a van?’
And then, when I first went to visit him
[in 1989], it didn’t occur to me to ask,
‘Who was that?’ I later discovered that
people – even when they visited him
during her life – never asked him, either.
The English are so polite...” Adam Colby
The Lady In The Van is out now