Monday 5 September 2022

SHORT FILM: She's Not Your Type - Starring: Adrianne Armida, Shane Millward, Zoe Panaretos, Efkan Cetin


Written, directed and produced by Matthew C. Vella / Vellamatt Films, comes a short comedy film called She's Not Your Type.

Starring Adrianne Armida, Shane Millward, Zoe Panaretos, Efkan Cetin and a supporting cast including Tyler Busch, Matthew C. Vella, Joshua Vicente and "Whiskers" the Goldfish, She's Not Your Type has won a number of awards, including..

BEST COMEDY - Melbourne Indie Film Festival 2020 (AUS)
BEST EDITOR - Sydney Indie Film Festival 2019 (AUS)
BEST INTERNATIONAL DIRECTOR - Austin Comedy Short Film Festival 2019 (US)
BEST INTERNATIONAL DIRECTOR - Women’s Comedy Film Festival in • Atlanta 2019 (US)
BEST ENSEMBLE CAST - Changing Face International Film Festival 2019 (AUS)
BEST COMEDY SHORT (FEB) - Changing Face International Film Festival 2019 (AUS)
AUDIENCE CHOICE AWARD - Made in the West Film Festival 2018 (AUS)


Synopsis.
Love is blind.

Sweet, innocent, Barry is on a double date to introduce his mates to his new girlfriend, Alex. But there's one problem - she's a mentally unstable, drug-dealing, violent, con-artist scumbag - and he's blind to all of it! Now it's up to his friends Sarah & Anthony to save him on the most craziest & dangerous double date ever.

Watch the film below. Runtime 10 mins, 15 seconds

NEWS: Ayvianna Snow continues to embrace her dark side as she stars in two exciting new releases

Ayvianna Snow (White Colour Black, Black Lake, Barun Rai And The House On The Cliff, Hollow, The Lockdown Hauntings) continues to embrace her dark side with two exciting new film releases. She says, "I have always been drawn to the dark side; Sci-Fi and horror are such versatile genres; there really are no limits".

LOLA, directed by Andrew Legge and also starring Emma Appleton and Stefanie Martini, is a sci-fi film set in 1941. Two sisters create a time machine, allowing them to explore the punk generation before it even existed. But with World War II escalating, they decide to use the machine as a weapon of intelligence, with world-altering consequences. Ayvianna plays the character Rebecca Cavendish who works as a reporter; she says, "I love that LOLA centres the relationship between two women and explores female solidarity in exceptional circumstances. I am thrilled to have worked with such an exciting creative team".

LOLA was shot on location in Kildare and Dublin features songs composed for the film by acclaimed singer/songwriter Neil Hannon of The Divine Comedy. LOLA premiered at the 75th anniversary of the Locarno Festival, followed by Edinburgh Film Festival and FrightFest (London).

Ayvianna also brings her talents to Orchestrator of Storms, narrating a fascinating documentary about the life and work of Eurocult director Jean Rollin. The film recently premiered at Fantasia. From a struggling artist with an unconventional upbringing to the purveyor of New Wave surrealist fantastique via distinctive and unique films such as The Rape of The Vampire, The Iron Rose, Fascination, Lips of Blood and The Living Dead Girl. Sex and nudity, innocence and perversity, stunning visuals and rule-breaking became Rollin trademarks - and you'll find out why in this provocative, moving and enlightening look at his myth and magic -as friends, critics and actors tell all.

Ayvianna says: "As an actress who works mainly in the horror genre, I am thrilled to narrate Orchestrator of Storms, as Jean Rollin is, in many ways, the father of modern horror. His influence on horror has been so far-reaching."

Links
Instagram: www.instagram.com/ayviannasnow/
Spotlight: https://www.spotlight.com/5817-5640-0092
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm6757384/

Ayvianna Snow- New Showreel from Ayvianna Snow on Vimeo.


Sunday 4 September 2022

REVIEW: The Princess (2022) - Starring Joey King, Dominic Cooper, Olga Kurylenko and Ed Stoppard


Review by Jon Donnis

For a moment I thought we had a 2022 remake of The Princess Bride, but alas we must wait longer for that. Instead we have a classic story, a Princess (Joey King) is to be married off, and of course she is not interested.

Set in medieval times in a realm run by a King (Ed Stoppard) and Queen (Alex Reid), it becomes apparent that they have no male heir to the throne. Just two daughters. The film starts with one of those daughters chained up in a bed at the top of the tower. The King had planned for her to wed Julius (Dominic Cooper) the evil son of a diplomat, but after she left him at the altar Julius and his whip wielding henchwoman Moira (Olga Kurylenko) take the castle by force, and ultimately force the Princess to marry him, so he can have an undeniable claim to the throne.

The Princess quickly escapes her bonds, and starts to fight her way through the castle, floor by floor. She clearly knows Kung Fu which we are told she learnt as a child from Linh, the neice of one of The King's advisors. How lucky for her.

The film is a story as old as time, but without your classic "man comes to save the day", instead this is all about kick ass women, especially the Princess and Linh.

The film is quite lighthearted but also pretty violent, so not for kids. There are plenty of fun moments, and some pretty decent fight scenes. It may lack the intelligence of The Princess Bride, but does share some of the humour of the cult classic, without ever quite going as full on parody as that film.

The Good

Excellent fight scenes, a likeable Princess and an equally dislikeable Julius. Also special mention has to go out to the awesome Olga Kurylenko as henchwoman Moira. Perhaps my favourite character in the whole film.

The Bad

The plot is paper thin, and I would have liked to have seen them go full comedy as opposed to just the odd funny moment here and there.

Overall

An enjoyable film, perfect early evening watching.

Out now on Hulu


Friday 2 September 2022

Win a copy of Star Trek: The Motion Picture - The Director’s Edition 4K + Blu-ray

© 2022 Paramount Pictures.

Set a course for the final frontier as the newly restored Star Trek: The Motion Picture—The Director’s Edition 4K Ultra HD™ and Blu-ray™ arrives! Available from September 5, this 3-disc set includes the Director's Cut on 4K Ultra-HD and Blu-ray and also includes a bonus Blu-ray™ disc filled with new and legacy special features. 

© 2022 Paramount Pictures.

And to celebrate we have a great competition, read on and enter now for a chance to win!


4K Ultra HD™ Disc bonus features:
⦁ Audio Commentary with David C. Fein, Mike Matessino, and Daren R. Dochterman—NEW!
⦁ Audio Commentary by Robert Wise, Douglas Trumbull, John Dykstra, Jerry Goldsmith, and Stephen Collins​
⦁ Text Commentary by Michael and Denise Okuda​


Blu-ray™ Disc™ bonus features:
⦁ The Human Adventure—An all-new 8-part documentary detailing how the Director’s Edition came to life—NEW!
⦁ Preparing the Future – How the remastering began
⦁ A Wise Choice – The storied history of Robert Wise
⦁ Refitting the Enterprise – How the Enterprise design shaped future federation starships
⦁ Sounding Off – Exploring new dimensions of sound in Dolby Atmos
⦁ V’ger - The conception and restoration of an iconic alien antagonist
⦁ Return to Tomorrow – Reaching an already high bar with new CGI effects
⦁ A Grand Theme – Behind the iconic, influential music score that shaped the franchise’s future
⦁ The Grand Vision – The legacy and evolving reputation of this classic movie
⦁ Deleted Scenes—NEW!
⦁ Effects Tests—NEW!
⦁ Costume Tests—NEW!
⦁ Computer Display Graphics—NEW!
⦁ Additional legacy bonus content


© 2022 Paramount Pictures.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture - The Director’s Edition 4K + Blu-ray available from September 5
Order from Amazon at https://amzn.to/3ACY2No

For your chance to win just answer the question below.

COMPETITION CLOSED

Star Trek: The Motion Picture – Director’s Edition available on 4K UHD + Blu-ray from 5th September

STAR TREK and related marks and logos are trademarks of CBS Studios Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Quick Terms and conditions - For full T&C click here
1. Closing date 19-09-22
2. No alternative prize is available
3. When the competition ends as indicated on this page, any and all entries received after this point will not count and emails blacklisted due to not checking this page first.
4. Winners will be chosen randomly and will be informed via email.
5. Entries that come directly from other websites will not be accepted.

Wednesday 31 August 2022

REVIEW: Nope (2022) - Starring Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer and Steven Yeun

Review by Jon Donnis
This review will contain spoilers, so do not read on unless you want to know what happens.

Jordan Peele is back with his latest film, yet again he desperately wants to be seen as the new M. Night Shyamalan, but instead he proves that he just doesn't have that magic that Shyamalan had, especially in his early films.

Now if you have seen the trailer to this film, or heard basic chatter, then you might be expecting some kind of alien invasion film, along the lines of M. Night Shyamalan's excellent film Signs. But if you expect that you will be sorely disappointed. NOPE, this is not an alien invasion film.


Some quick question and answers before we go on.

Are their any proper little aliens in this film? NOPE
Does this film have a clever twist? NOPE
Will I care about any of the human characters in this film? NOPE

I said human characters above on purpose, as there is a subplot in this film regarding a Chimpanzee, which is way more interesting than the rest of the film, sadly this subplot is only there to introduce another character.

The film itself starts off promising enough, we start in 1998, and on a film set for a sitcom "Gordy's Home, Gordy is a chimpanzee, as they film an anniversary episode special, a balloon pops on set, and the chimp goes mental, Gordy attacks and kills all of his human co stars. Later in the film we get another flash back that shows child actor Ricky "Jupe" Park, (who is later played by Steven Yeun as an adult), hiding under a table as the chimp is attacking people, he is unharmed, and after the Chimp calms down he comes over to Jupe and extends his "hand?" for a fist bump before being shot by police.

These two flashback scenes when put together are the highlight of the film, and I wish that this was a film about that, instead of what it ends up being about.

Fast forward to the present day and we have  two cowboys Otis Haywood Sr. (Keith David) and his son, Otis "OJ" Haywood Jr. (Daniel Kaluuya) who run a ranch handling horses, which in turn are used for film productions. One day out of nowhere a coin falls from the sky and hits Otis Sr through the eye killing him. OJ and his sister Emerald (Keke Palmer) inherit the ranch.


OJ is doing his best to keep the business going while Emerald wants fame and fortune in Hollywood.

6 months later when filming a commercial, one of the horses reacts badly when a crew member startles it and it kicks out. The Haywoods are fired from the project.

With the business falling apart, OJ is forced to sell his horses to the now adult Jupe, (the boy from the Chimp attack incident), he operates a small Western themed theme park nearby. He offers to buy the ranch from them.

Later that night, the Haywoods notice their horse reacting angryily to an unknown presence. They see something of a donut shaped UFO sucking up the horses, and spitting items out. He wonders if that is how his dad was killed.

Now at this point the film becomes about them trying to film and photograph the UFO.

SPOILERS AHEAD!
I don't usually spoil films, in fact I try to avoid it, but this one time I am going to spoil it because I was so disappointed in the outcome.

The film is just over 2 hours, and there are long periods where not a lot happens, boring dialog between the Haywood siblings that will send you to sleep.
In fact you could watch the first 5 minutes, then fast forward 55 minutes and you would lose nothing from the film.

So the whole film kinda sets up what you would think would be a cool alien invasion film. A UFO that hides in a cloud, sucking up horses and so on, Peele even fakes out a scene with kids dressed up to make you think aliens are walking about, now this would be fine if you then delivered actual aliens, but instead we dont get any.

The UFO itself is not actually a UFO, it is in fact a big floaty alien shape shifting jellyfish thing, which they killed by making it eat a huge balloon that pops inside it. Yes that is the big finale! It is as bad as it sounds. 

The Jupe character has been "feeding" this creature Horses to keep it happy, I guess the metaphore in all of this is that an animal is always an animal however well you think you treat it, think the Chimp, the Horse, and the Alien.

Sometimes you can forgive long build ups, you can forgive the fake outs, as long as the film delivers, I don't mine a swerve, giving you something you didn't expect, but this film just lies to you, makes you think it is one thing, and then gives you something that is much worse.

The hook with the Chimp was great, I was interested in that, yet in the end it is just used as a metaphor.


The Good
The chimp attacking people on set while filming a sitcom, that is a great horror film that could be made right there.

The Bad
Everything else, the characters are bland and you wont care for any of them. The big finale is laughably bad. There are no proper aliens, just a weird kite like jelly fish creature.

Overall
Such a disappointment, but since Jordan Peele is Hollywood's golden boy, as he ticks all the boxes, the film will do well as everyone will tell you how great it is, in the hope you will somehow believe them. 

Should you watch this film? NOPE

I score NOPE a 3/10 (The 3 is just for the Chimp scenes)

At cinemas now.