STACK NZ Aug #65

DVD & BD

REVIEWS

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Paradise or prison? WAYWARD PINES

Samba The French team behind the hit The Intouchables – Omar Sy and directors Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano – reunite for another odd couple yarn, this time set around the illegal immigrant community in Paris. Sy is as charismatic as ever as the Senegalese kitchen worker facing expulsion from the country, while Charlotte Gainsbourg enjoys herself in a rare frothy role, playing a volunteer who falls for his charms. OUT: 19/08/15 Set Fire To The Stars One-time Lord Of The Rings star Elijah Wood continues to follow a determinedly indie path and his latest is a striking black-and- white chamber piece based on the visit to the US of hellraising Welsh poet Dylan Thomas (Celyn Jones) in the ’50s. Wood is his hapless minder, a young poetry professor who can’t understand why his alcoholic charge is so intent on self-destruction. Beautifully performed and stylishly directed. OUT: 12/08/15 Dead Rising: Watch Tower More zombie mayhem erupts in this adaptation of the popular Capcom game series. Jesse Metcalfe plays a reporter in the zombie quarantine zone, where a drug called Zombrex is being used to cure the infected – but when it stops working, the walking dead quickly overrun the facility. The tone veers between the horrific and humorous, and lots of POV shots acknowledge the film's video game origins. OUT: 13/08/15 X + Y Loosely based a true story, this feel-good Brit drama centres on a brilliant but autistic maths student (Asa Butterfield) who lands a place on the British team preparing for the International Mathematical Olympiad. Butterfield is excellent as the teenage outcast who has to cope with challenges both personal and intellectual, although Sally Hawkins inevitably steals the show as his long-suffering mother. OUT: 12/03/15 Posthumous When struggling artist Liam Price (Jack Huston) is mistakenly believed to have committed suicide, sales of his work go through the roof. Fearing a scandal, gallery owner Daniel Volpe (Lambert Wilson) convinces him to continue with charade and Liam duly poses as his own brother. However, things get complicated when journalist McKenzie Grain (Brit Marling) starts digging into the story. Frothy fun. OUT: 05/08/15 THE BOY NEXT DOOR Originally due in August, this reboot of the psycho-thriller sub- genre that was popular in the '90s ( Single White Female , Fear , The Crush ) is an unashamedly corny yet guiltily enjoyable blast from the past. Handsome stranger Ryan Guzman enters the life of Jennifer Lopez, whose marriage is on the rocks. But when she rejects his further advances, things turn predictably nasty. OUT: 05/08/15

Release Date: 19/08/15

Format:

Executive produced by M Night Shyamalan, this eerie TV drama is sort of a cross between Twin Peaks and Shyamalan's own The Village . Like David Lynch’s seminal series, Wayward Pines explores a sinister world that lurks beneath the facade of a seemingly ordinary small town, while the idea of closed-off, authoritarian community facing an unknown threat from the outside is reminiscent of his flawed 2004 effort. Here, Matt Dillon heads the cast as a Secret Service agent investigating the disappearance of two of his colleagues, but who soon discovers that it

is impossible to leave the seemingly sleepy hamlet. Although it follows the basic premise of Blake Crouch’s trilogy of books, the show deviates significantly from the source material, so while originally conceived as a single series, the ending leaves the door slightly open for more...

Reheating the Cold War THE GAME

Release Date: 05/08/15

Format:

Toby Whithouse is best known as the creator of the cult TV series Being Human , but has taken a leaf out of John Le Carré's book for his latest BBC project. As with the recent Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy , this six-parter revels in the Cold War paranoia of the early 1970s as M15 race to uncover a devilish Russian conspiracy named Operation Glass. Tom Hughes ( Dancing On The Edge ) heads the cast as Joe Lambe, a young operative haunted by the killing of his girlfriend during a botched operation, while other familiar faces include Brian Cox – who plays the M15 chief known

only as ‘Daddy’ – Shaun Dooley, Steven Mackintosh, Jonathan Aris and Victoria Hamilton. The red herrings and devious plot twists come thick and fast, while the superb retro design perfectly captures the shabby, fading grandeur that was Britain of that era. A must for Le Carré buffs.

AUGUST 2015 JB Hi-Fi www.jbhifi.co.nz

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