STACK NZ Jul #64

DVD & BD

REVIEWS

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The human side to the walking dead MAGGIE

The sins of fathers and sons RUN ALL NIGHT

Release Date: 15/07/15

Release Date: 22/07/15

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Schwarzenegger in a zombie movie – it's about time! But before you get too excited at the prospect of big Arnie terminating the living dead, it should be noted that Maggie has more common with TV's In the Flesh than The Walking Dead, focusing on the intermediate stage of a zombie virus, before a bitten victim is fully transformed. That's what's happening to Arnold's teenaged daughter (the terrific Abigail Breslin), who is being held in a quarantine facility awaiting execution. Determined that she spend her final days as a human in his care, Arnie convinces the

For their third collaboration, Liam Neeson and director Jaume Collet-Serra have wisely dumped the high concept conceits of Unknown and Non-Stop and have instead a fashioned a gritty thriller that owes more to the crime classics of the ‘70s than the sleek actioners the Irishman has become known for. Once a feared hitman for New York Irish mobster Ed Harris, Neeson’s drunken antics have made him a figure of fun for the newer gang members. However, when his estranged son (Joel Kinnaman, Robocop ) witnesses Harris’s oldest boy kills some Albanian

doctors to release her, and struggles to come to terms with the inevitable action he has to take. It's a twist on both the zombie film and terminal illness drama, and a chance to see Arnie cast against type in a rare dramatic role.

drug dealers, he has to call on all his lethal abilites to keep him safe from both the police and his former best friend. Although the star’s action man heroics still stretch credibility, the quality cast and the redemptive themes of the story mark this out as one of his best late career thrillers.

THE HOMESMAN

TOP FIVE

BIG DRIVER

Citizenfour

Release Date: 09/07/15 Format:

Release Date: 29/07/15 Format:

Release Date: 22/07/15 Format:

Release Date: 09/07/15 Format:

Tommy Lee Jones' second directorial outing confirms that Clint Eastwood now has some serious competition in the western sakes. Beautifully played and shot, it tells the story of a determined spinster (Hilary Swank) who has to take three women back east after they are driven mad by the harsh realities of pioneer life; Jones plays a drunken drifter who agrees to help her. The austere, elegaic visuals recall both the Coens’ recent remake of True Grit and Eastwood’s classic Unforgiven , but oddly enough it’s also faintly reminiscent of the Humphrey Bogart/Katharine Hepburn classic The African Queen , even if it is much darker in tone.

It’s almost obligatory for comedy stars to bemoan the fact they are not taken seriously, but Chris Rock brings enough mocking self- humour to the subject to ensure that his latest film – he also writes and directs – avoids most of the usual clichés. Rock plays Andre Allen, a standup comic who has found Hollywood fame playing a cop in bear suit, but has just made his first serious drama about a Haitian slave uprising. Rosario Dawson is equally good as the journalist he reluctantly agrees to spend a day with to promote the film, while cameos from the likes of Jerry Seinfeld, Cedric The Entertainer, Tracy Morgan and Adam Sandler add to the fun.

Adapted from a Stephen King novella, Big Driver is basically King's take on the rape-and- revenge theme. But since it was made for TV, don't expect the harrowing horror of I Spit on Your Grave . Maria Bello plays a mystery writer who is violated and left for dead by a hulking, brutish trucker after taking a backroad shortcut home following a speaking gig. Using her skills as a crime writer, she manages to track him down for some serious payback. It's familiar territory, but King and screenwriter Richard Christian Matheson provide a couple of unexpected twists, and Bello delivers a gutsy performance.

How Edward Snowdon came to blow the whistle on the American intelligence services’ unprecedented global snooping activities is the subject of this utterly absorbing documentary. It’s not particularly cinematic, mainly because much of the action is restricted to the Hong Kong hotel room he holed up in while completing his groundbreaking information dump with journalists from The Guardian and filmmaker Laura Poitras. But that’s also why it’s so compelling: the claustrophobic surrounding just heighten the edge of paranoia as the US authorities close in on the whistleblower and turn up the heat on his allies.

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

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