Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2016 i Empire Australasia

JK ROWLING’S FANTASTIC Beasts world offers the same sort of thrill as the Harry Potter books and films: the idea that there’s a magical world, more wonderful and amazing than our own, just a hair’s breadth away. And after Doctor Strange last month, it’s our second magical cover in a row. But it got me thinking about what those two types of magic reflect about the two different countries where they were born. In the thoroughly British tradition of JK Rowling, magic is something you inherit — a Muggle (or no-maj, in the Fantastic Beasts lingo) has no more chance of becoming a wizard or witch than they do of becoming king or queen of the UK: you’re either born into it, or you’re not. Whereas in the American…

BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S (1961) Holly Golightly (Audrey Hepburn) is unorthodox over storage: besides stashing her ballet slippers in the fridge, she keeps her telephone in a natty vellum suitcase. At least she doesn’t put Cat in the sink. TRUE ROMANCE (1993) Tarantino used a briefcase as a MacGuffin in Pulp Fiction; for this he threw in, as Dick (Michael Rapaport) puts it, “a whole fucking suitcase full of cocaine!” Alas, it ends up riddled with bullets. Poor suitcase. OLDBOY (2003) It’s a nightmare to lose a suitcase, but worse to wake up inside one, as Oh Dae-su (Choi Min-sik) learns in Park Chan-wook’s revenge chiller. So iconic is the moment, the Josh Brolin remake put it on the poster. THE DARJEELING LIMITED (2007) Perhaps cinema’s most coveted carry-ons, this safari-printed…

Dangling a honey dripper over his cup of coffee, Michael Keaton is telling Empire how an owl kept him awake last night. “I turn on the light because I can hear what sounds like calling,” he says, ferrying his drink to our table in a bustling Livingston, Montana café. “I keep a door open by my bed to let air in at night, so I look over and he’s there, just watching.” Those arched eyebrows go up and the head turns, mimicking a haughty winged intruder. “I’m like, ‘Dude, come on.’ And then suddenly he flew away. But he didn’t go too far. He just sat in the yard, called to another owl and kept me up.” If the Birdman star sees any extra significance in the fact that it…

00:02:25 HAIR OF THE DOG __ The film opens with Tom Hiddleston’s Dr. Robert Laing chowing down on some prize pooch. After the dog/knitting needle interface in Sightseers, does Wheatley have anything against man’s best friend? “No, it features heavily in the book!” he laughs. “There’s an equal amount of dog and cat death in the book, but Jeremy Thomas, the producer, is a cat lover and told me not to kill any cats in this movie.” 00:04:43 THE GIF THAT KEEPS ON GIFFING __ The scene that launched a thousand GIFs, as Sienna Miller’s Charlotte spies on a sunbathing Laing, and we almost — almost — catch a glimpse of Tom’s Hiddlestones. “It’s in the book, so it’s not gratuitous,” insists Wheatley with a smile. The tome Laing uses…

FROM NOW / RATED M WITH THE SAPPHIRES, Aussie Wayne Blair showed himself to be a director of some flair. Now, dipping his toe into the Hollywood system for the first time, that pizazz has all but dissipated. An adaptation of Daliar Sofer’s 2007 novel, Septembers Of Shiraz stars Adrien Brody and Salma Hayek as an affluent Jewish power couple living in Tehran during the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Before you can say overacting torture scenes, he’s kidnapped, but where tension should have been cranked, shoulders barely shrug. This Eastern European shot DTV actioner carbon copy — no surprise as the film was shot in Bulgaria — squanders every suspenseful opportunity. A Shiraz — excuse the wine pun — should be big and bold; Blair’s lacklustre drama is a rough bottle…

1961 / FROM NOW / RATED M THE WORDS ‘HAMMER Horror’ may conjure up visions of bloodsucking counts, patchwork monsters and heaving cleavage, but in the early ’60s the studio also produced a fine line in low-budget Hitchcockian thrillers. Scream Of Fear, with more than a hint of Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Les Diaboliques, was the first cab of the rank. Directed by Seth Holt, who went on to helm The Nanny and Blood From A Mummy’s Tomb for the studio, this twisting psychological drama stars Susan Strasberg as Penny, a young woman in a wheelchair who begins to have visions of her father’s corpse. The twisting narrative, tautly constructed by regular Hammer scribe Jimmy Sangster, crackles; the performances, including a bit part for Christopher Lee, are excellent and Douglas Slocombe’s monochrome…

ALAIDA RITCHIE — 6 THE WIZARD OF OZ What did you think of The Wizard Of Oz? It was amazing. What did you like best? Dorothy. I liked her because she had a very positive reason for wanting to go to see the Wizard Of Oz. Which of her friends did you like best? I liked the... what was the metal one called again? The Tin Man. The Tin Man. I liked him because he had a heart for Dorothy. What did you think of the Wizard himself? At first he was a bit mean, because he told them to “come back tomorrow”. But in the end he was really nice, because he gave them all medals and stuff. That meant “good work”. Why do you think Glinda the Good…

FROM NOW / RATED M A COMIC BOOK take on Robert Louis Stevenson’s original one-man Odd Couple. Robert Jekyll (Tom Bateman), grandson of the original Dr Jekyll, has inherited the family curse of changing into Hyde under stress: cue super-human strength and resistance to injury, but also being a super-human asshole. But he’s just one of many monsters that secretly threaten 1930s London. As Jekyll the Younger attempts to unravel the mystery of his family affliction, others seek to control or exploit it. The stunts and fight scenes are great fun, but the acting and dialogue are as broad as can be — they must have raided pantomimes across the country to assemble such a crack team of over-actors — and there’s a distinct tang of cheese to proceedings: imagine…

CHALLENGING MYSELF TO WATCH AND BLOG ABOUT @EMPIREAUST TOP 300 MOVIES OF ALL TIME (FROM AUGUST 2015) FEEL FREE TO JOIN IN!@SHANNON1FORD VHS, YOU WILL BE MISSED It is with sadness I read ‘Rewind For The Last Time’ (Empire #186). RIP VHS. I still have a working VHS player and I went through my catalogue of movies (now mostly DVDs) to see what VHS tapes I still had — most I had to throw away because they went mouldy. I’ve kept a few for nostalgia reasons though — the first three Star Wars films, the original Planet Of The Apes series and a few others. When VHS players were on the way out, Kmart started to sell their video cleaners cheaper and I managed to buy a few to keep…

OUT NOVEMBER 17 / RATED M / 91 MINS DIRECTOR Luke Scott CAST Kate Mara, Anya Taylor-Joy, Toby Jones, Rose Leslie, Paul Giamatti LEE WEATHERS (MARA), a risk management consultant, is sent to investigate a new synthetic life form, Morgan (Taylor-Joy), after a violent incident at the research facility where she lives. Unfortunately, the story never finds a focus, shifting from Morgan to Lee to the research team and back, sketching an interesting group of characters before ignoring most of them completely. Debutant director Luke Scott, son of Ridley, initially suggests a Blade Runner-esque debate: who’s the more inhuman, the killer robot or the ruthless human sent to stop them? But the story he tells turns out far less successfully. It’s beautifully shot and the performances are fine as far…

OUT 1 DECEMBER / RATED M / 134 MINS DIRECTOR Matthew Holmes CAST Jack Martin, Jamie Coffa, William Lee IT’S BEEN A while since the last bushranger movie — maybe John Hillcoat’s The Proposition? — and we’re all for a return of the Australian western. But The Legend Of Ben Hall is unlikely to be the film that rekindles it. Based on the last months of the dashing New South Wales highwayman before he was controversially gunned down by police, the film (which started life as a crowd-funded short film before growing into a full-size, perhaps over-sized, feature) looks great: the sets and costuming are all class, and writer-director Matthew Holmes is more than competent, if less than inspired, at the helm. It’s the acting and the screenplay that…

OUT 1 DECEMBER / RATED M / 98 MINS. DIRECTOR Laurent Tirad CAST Jean Duardin, Virginie Efira Kicking off with a “meet cute” that’s almost too cute, Up For Love is a French offering that sees Diane receive a call from an incredibly charming man who’s found her missing phone. Though their conversation is brief, sparks almost fly right off the screen. They meet and he’s perfect… well, except for one small problem: Alexandre is only 4’5”. Diane falls easily in love with the dashing millionaire but struggles with how others will accept their relationship, as she’s a leggy blonde and he can barely see over the steering wheel of his car. The casting of the incredibly charismatic Jean Duardin from The Artist is both this film’s greatest triumph and…

"These kids today are all just squares. No band gets up to anything. Bunch of pussies." FOR ONE OF its central characters, the events of documentary Oasis: Supersonic don’t feel two decades old. “It feels like it was yesterday,” says Liam Gallagher. “I’ve not found God. I’ve not got into fucking Swahili music. I am still the exact same person that’s on that screen. So, for me, there’s been no big dramatic change.” Given that he is today resplendent in a cagoule, sunglasses (indoors) and Knebworth-length hair, it’s not difficult to believe him. But there has been one big dramatic change in the years since Liam and his older songwriting brother, Noel Gallagher, defined a generation: their band Oasis ceased to exist as of August 2009, as did relations between…

OUR DANCING DAUGHTERS (1928) Crawford’s breakthrough role saw her play an outwardly outrageous flapper with a secretly demure heart. Her true love marries her apparently saintly best friend, but soon discovers his new wife has a genuinely scandalous side while Crawford is true of heart. The film was shocking on the surface but secretly soppy, testing the Hays Code but delighting audiences. THE GORGEOUS HUSSY (1936) Crawford plays early women’s rights advocate Margaret O’Neill in this historical biopic, opposite Lionel Barrymore as President Andrew Jackson and with male admirers including Melvyn Douglas, Robert Taylor and Franchot Tone (Crawford’s soon-to-be husband). It’s no Lincoln, but O’Neill is a fascinating figure even in this sexed-up version of her story. SUSAN AND GOD (1940) From a script by Anita ‘Gentlemen Prefer Blondes’ Loos,…

FROM NOW / RATED R18+ WE’RE ALL JUST apes anyway, right? Sightseers star turned director Steve Oram has taken that time-honoured stoner maxim and made a movie of it, in which human language hasn’t evolved beyond a series of grunts, squawks and other caveman gibberish — despite existing in a world identical to our own. Julian Barratt, first seen howling and masturbating into a tree, keeps his trademark straight face as an alpha male descending to wreak domestic havoc on a working class family. Some brilliant gags aside — a TV chicken sure to haunt your dreams; Noel Fielding’s yucky cameo — the central conceit quickly wears pretty thin, but there’s something admirable about the cheerful commitment of everyone involved. Suffice to say your mileage may vary according to your…

FROM NOW / RATED R18+ ROB ZOMBIE MAKES an artform of ’70s-set grindhouse slashers so sadistic they triple dare you to watch, and 31 doesn’t slay far from Zombie’s corpse ridden home territory. The central characters are degenerate carnival workers in a ritualistic game of survival; orchestrated by Malcolm McDowell (in Caligula mode) and his Grand Guignol sickos. Zombie unleashes his most depraved fetishes — psycho clowns, Nazi dwarves, S&M slaughterers. Brave the stomach-churning brutality and 31 is a perverse experience for horror lovers; well directed and acted (Richard Brakes’s Doomhead is scarily compelling), with juicy dialogue and claustrophobic, skewed camera angles. Just don’t chow down on Friday night McDonald’s, unless you want your Happy Meal to turn into a McUpchuck. EXTRAS Photo gallery, trailer.…

What was your inspiration behind the Purge series? I grew up in Brooklyn, New York where there’s a lot of Mob activity. I was never a violent person but it was around me growing up so I had a little obsession with violence. Then my wife said something to me that has stuck with me for years. We were in a road rage incident in Brooklyn. I was almost killed by a drunk driver. I almost got in a fight with the guy, the cops came in. It got really nasty, he was a real sonofabitch. Then my wife said to me, “I wish we got one free one a year!” It stayed with me, this notion of one free murder. It evolved from there, combined…

1999 / FROM NOW / RATED PG SET IN 1957, The Iron Giant is your classic ‘boy and his dog’ story as small-town kid Hogarth (Eli Marienthal) befriends a giant alien robot (Vin Diesel) that he keeps hidden from his mother (Jennifer Aniston) and a bolshy government agent (Christopher McDonald), with a little help from a local beatnik (Harry Connick, Jr.). Criminally underseen at the cinema upon release despite glowing reviews, director Brad Bird gave audiences a preview of the bountiful humour and heart that would colour his 2004 Pixar flick The Incredibles in this, his directorial debut. Coming in an original cut and a remastered ‘Signature Edition’ with new scenes, the gorgeously animated film (mostly hand-drawn, but with occasional CGI) has lost none of its retro charm or power…

OUT NOW / FORMATS PC, XBOX ONE / DIRECTOR ROD FERGUSSON / CAST LIAM MCINTYRE, JIMMY SMITS, LAURA BAILEY MICROSOFT’S COUNTER TO Sony’s VR assault comes in the form of Gears Of War 4, the latest instalment in the lauded cover-based shooter franchise. Charting events 25 years after the Locust were defeated in Gears Of War 3, with you cast as Marcus Fenix’s son, it has a much more imaginative single-player story than its predecessors, with all-new enemies The Swarm and a welcome ebb and flow to battles. Meanwhile, its multiplayer side is packed, beautifully structured and accommodates all levels of talent. The addictive Horde mode, retitled Horde 3.0, has a great new twist — it now lets you manufacture your own defences. Slick, great-looking and satisfyingly meaty.…

1968 / RATED M / DIRECTOR TERENCE FISHER / CAST CHRISTOPHER LEE, CHARLES GRAY THE CURRENT TAKE on Hammer Horror tends to be ‘once shocking, now cosy’. The films the studio made between The Curse Of Frankenstein (1957) and To The Devil A Daughter (1976) are held in enormous (and justified) affection for quality acting (from Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee), bosomy starlets, swashbuckling dash and full-blooded embrace of gothic melodrama. Amid the celebrations, it’s easy to forget a simple fact: Hammer films could be terrifying. The obsessive theme is good against evil — wracked with contradictions that mean it’s not as easy to take sides as you might think. Watching a Hammer film is like flirting with evil all evening then going home with good at the end of…

AFTER SEEING GODS Of Egypt, I was sure I’d seen my least favourite movie of the year. Then came Alice Through The Looking Glass. Now after seeing your story on Monster Trucks (issue #187), I think a new contender is shaping up. What the hell are they thinking about making a movie about utes filled with giant space octopi. What a year for crap films. DAN HAGEN, REDFERN, NSW Have we told you about our film idea, Egyptian Glass Trucks? You’re gonna love it! EVERY letter printed this month scores a Blu-ray of Bridget Jones’s Baby, starring Renée Zellweger. And, presumably, a baby.…

YES JAMES JENNINGS REVIEWS EDITOR STRAIGHT OFF THE bat, let me say this: I’m not staunchly anti-remake (just, y’know, mostly anti-remake). While there are certainly several notable remakes over the decades that have improved on the original — John Carpenter’s 1982 The Thing vs 1951’s The Thing From Another World; David Croneneberg’s 1986 The Fly vs the 1958 original; Martin Scorsese’s 2006 The Departed vs the 2002 Hong Kong version Infernal Affairs — by and large, cinematic history is littered with ill-conceived and completely unnecessary remakes (this year’s The Magnificent Seven; 2014’s RoboCop, 2012’s Total Recall, 2015’s Point Break, Spike Lee’s 2013 Oldboy, 2013’s Evil Dead… the list is endless). When surveying the films listed, it’s easy to see a pattern form: successful remakes often come from film’s that…

Who’s the most famous person in your phonebook? My father [Stellan Skarsgård]. What’s your favourite word in the English language? Hippopotamus. In Swedish it’s “svin”, which means hog. It just feels good to say it. What’s the worst thing you’ve put into your mouth? Probably a goat’s-brain stew in a restaurant in South Africa. I consider myself quite adventurous and when I travel I like to try the local specialties, but this wasn’t delicious. It was a grey slop. I’ve tried worms, ants and crickets, which I quite enjoyed, but goat’s brains weren’t for me. Who was your first movie crush? Jessica Lange in Tootsie, and I was very, very young. It was not only my first movie crush, it was my first crush. I remember it vividly. I felt…

EXCELLENT GOOD OKAY POOR AWFUL OUT NOW RATED M / 116 MINS DIRECTOR Denis Villeneuve CAST Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker, Michael Stuhlbarg PLOT Planet Earth is thrown into chaos when 12 mysterious, extra-terrestrial craft appear around the world. Their inhabitants want to talk, so it’s up to linguistics professor Dr Louise Banks (Adams) to try to decipher their mindbending language before global panic turns into inter-species war. IF YOU NEED a deeply thoughtful and impressive new take on a familiar old genre (and in this era of identikit sequels, we clearly do), then Denis Villeneuve is your man. The French-Canadian director gave the drug-war thriller a violent shake-up with last year’s morally murky Sicario, and before that he turned the kidnap drama on its head with Prisoners. Now…

OUT DECEMBER 1 / RATED G / 92 MINS DIRECTORS Mike Mitchell, Walt Dohrn CAST Anna Kendrick, Justin Timberlake, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Zooey Deschanel FUZZY-HEADED RESIDENTS of many a ’90s school desk, Thomas Dam’s ugly little Good Luck Trolls don’t have much backstory to bring to the screen. But while The LEGO Movie showed that lack of in-built narrative can be an opportunity to let your imagination run wild, this aims lower. A creative team that has worked on various Shreks and Kung Fu Pandas has put together a straightforward plot about the happy trolls trying to avoid being eaten by bigger, uglier monsters. The voice cast (Kendrick, Timberlake) is peppy; the songs are recycled pop hits; it’s funny enough to induce smiles if not laughs. Cute and likeable, if not…

OUT NOW / RATED M / 121 MINS DIRECTOR Ron Howard CAST Tom Hanks, Felicity Jones, Omar Sy, AFTER THE PROFITABLE but little-praised The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons, this third Ron Howard adaptation of a Dan Brown book sees the filmmakers once again elevating weak material. Sadly, with lines like, “He has the Faraday pointer!” even their best efforts can’t quite make this gripping. We’ve seen James Bond save the world from bioweapons multiple times already, and replacing a remote-controlled BMW with a Botticelli isn’t a significant upgrade, cinematically speaking. The revelations in this tale are much too easy to spot coming, and after setting up an interesting ethical dilemma — the real risks from overpopulation — it ignores it for the usual bad-guy posturing. For a…

OUT NOW / RATED PG / 92 MINS DIRECTOR Te Arepa Kahi CAST Patea Maori Club, Maaka Pohatu, Dalvanius Prime, Taika Waititi, Stan Walker AN UNDERDOG STORY with a huge heart, Te Arepa Kahi’s winning documentary about Poi E, the unofficial national anthem of New Zealand, is a joyous celebration of Kiwi culture that will leave funny bones tickled and feet well and truly tapped. The story of their song is, in fact, the story of the Patea Maori Club and one man in particular, the awesomely named Dalvanius Prime. Patea is a small town on the North Island. In the early ’80s the townsfolk relied on the freezing plant for work; when that closed they needed something to regain their pride. That inspiration came in the form of songwriter…

Alicia Spinnet Chaser on Gryffindor’s Quidditch team. Not to be confused with a spinet: a small upright piano. Cornelius Fudge Pompous, pipe-smoking, Death-Eater-appeasing. The Neville Chamberlain of the magical world. Daphne Greengrass Slytherin schoolgirl with blonde hair and a perma-sneer. No relation to Paul Greengrass. Errol the Owl Resembles a moulting feather duster. Delivers post erratically. Petunia Dursley Harry Potter’s purse-lipped guardian. Neat and tidy, but otherwise entirely awful. King’s Cross Station Guard In the dark as to Platform 9 ¾, but can point you towards West Cornwall Pasty Co. Pansy Parkinson Magic-wielding mean girl who rules Slytherin. Played by three actresses throughout the series. Poppy Pomfrey Hogwarts school nurse. Nifty with a magical Band-Aid. Albus Potter Harry’s second son, named in memory of Albus Dumbledore. You can call him…

This is Anna Kendrick’s opening gambit as she sits down for tea with Empire in London’s Savoy hotel. It’s a typically wry opening for the actor, who rarely gives a boring interview — although not because she’s habitually hopped up on jetlag remedies. Kendrick is one of those stars who’s as funny off-screen as on, deadpan and self-deprecating almost to a fault. The Maine-born Kendrick originally got her start on Broadway, with a Tony nomination at the age of 12 for her role as Dinah Lord in High Society. Her first movie, the musical Camp, came five years later, but the real break was 2007 indie movie Rocket Science, which put her on the radar of every credible filmmaker in Hollywood. Kendrick spent the following years nimbly stealing scenes in…

FROM 23 NOVEMBER / RATED MA15+ / DIRECTOR Ben Wheatley / CAST Tom Hiddleston, Jeremy Irons, Sienna Miller, Luke Evans, Elisabeth Moss WORKING WITH HIS biggest budget, and starriest cast, to date, Ben Wheatley’s phantasmagorical adaptation of J.G. Ballard’s brutal dystopian dissection of ’70s British class warfare, is a provocative and daring satire. Ballard’s books have been notoriously difficult to adapt. David Cronenberg’s symphorophilia shocker Crash caused consternation aplenty and Steven Spielberg’s Empire Of The Sun introduced the world to Christian Bale, but much of the author’s output remains untouched by Hollywood. Now, with Wheatley’s askew view, Ballard’s words have found a perfect visual accompaniment to their caustic wit. Retaining the novel’s ’70s setting, an excellent Tom Hiddleston plays Robert Laing, a doctor trying to escape his life — after…

FROM NOW / RATED MA15+ CHRISTOPHER LLOYD HAS played his share of nutters in his over 40-year career, but his latest takes the cake. In a mid-western town, the very serial-killer-sounding teenager John Wayne Cleaver (Max Records) struggles to rein in his homicidal tendencies, redirecting his macabre thoughts working at the family morgue and amateur sleuthing the rapidly rising body count of butchered townsfolk (think an abstinent Dexter). Turns out John’s seemingly innocuous neighbour Mr Crowley (Lloyd) is the one getting stabby, and what’s more, he may not be of this world. Potential killer hunts seasoned killer. Director/co-writer Billy O’Brien’s little indie that could, based on Dan Wells’s novel, is a twisted psycho-horror-comedy with an effectively unsettling slow-burn atmosphere not unlike It Follows. It’s creepy, blackly funny and surprising. EXTRAS…

FROM NOV 30 / RATED PG / DIRECTOR RICK MORALES / CAST ADAM WEST, BURT WARD, JULIE NEWMAR, JEFF BERGMAN, WILLIAM SALYERS, JIM WARD JUST WHEN IT seems like every iteration of Batman aims to get grimmer than the one before (Affleck’s stand-alone is on track to feature Bruce Wayne just kicking puppies for 120 minutes), suddenly — KER-POW! — we’re hit with the funniest, warmest Batman movie in years. In a way, Caped Crusaders is one long in-joke about the 1960s TV series, complete with Batsignal scene transitions and “bash!”-“smak!”- “kerpow!” sound effect bubbles during fights; but it also has some interesting parallels to Batman’s evolution from hero to anti-hero to borderline villain over the past few decades. All the characters look like the actors who played them in…

LOCATION I believe Islay in the Hebrides of Scotland is the most beautiful place on Earth. I shot an episode of Parks And Recreation there, when Ron Swanson goes on a treasure hunt. It was so gorgeous I openly wept. But it was a wide shot so you couldn’t see. Also from Parks And Rec . North of LA there’s a place called Antelope Valley, where they have ranches. It was not the location, but the heat. We were pretending it was Christmas at the height of summer. I was wearing a sweater. Unpleasant with the amount of body hair I boast. COSTUME I just made a movie called The Little Hours, which is set in the Middle Ages. I’m a lord and…

1983 / FROM NOW / RATED M GET TO THE chopper! With a high-flying cast featuring Roy Scheider, Malcolm McDowell, Warren Oates (in one of his last roles) and a young Daniel Stern, John Badham’s airborne actioner remains a hugely enjoyable, if predictable, ride. Spawning a TV show of the same name, Blue Thunder pushes many of the hot topic buttons of the day as cop pilot Murphy (the always likeable Scheider) takes control of a heavily armed, super stealthy military helicopter called Blue Thunder. Plagued by ’Nam flashbacks and a super camp McDowell in full-on villain mode, Murphy discovers the truth about a high-profile murder case while testing out Blue Thunder’s snooping capabilities. Before you can scream “government conspiracy”, all roads, or sky, leads to a final gravity-defying confrontation…

FROM NOVEMBER 16 / RATED MA15+ FILMED IN JAKARTA for HBO Asia, this eight-part series promises a modernised look at Indonesian mythology — specifically creatures known as “Demits” (“demons” in Javanese) — as they battle over a long-prophesied event known as “The Gift”. Aside from inhuman glimpses in the animated intros that provide backstory, the monsters here are super-powered humans with cool tattoos; those expecting a Hellboy-style creature-fest will be (slightly) disappointed. Otherwise this is enjoyably pulpy, as street artist Sarah (Decorte) becomes increasingly drawn into the Demit world when the creatures realise that somehow she and The Gift are linked. The half-hour length keeps things pacey, though the plotting is a little too stop-start early on; for all the talk of earth-shaking events, this is the kind of small-scale…

OUT NOW / FORMAT PSVR / DIRECTOR JASON KINGSLEY / CAST KASUMI ABBEY-WYNDHAM VIRTUAL REALITY MAY exist at the bleeding edge of technological advancement, but thanks to The Lawnmower Man and Tron there’s still a sense that it’s a retro invention. Battlezone VR plays on the feeling, with a return to the vector tanks of Atari’s 1980 classic. You tear around a series of neon wastelands in the glittering, humming cockpit of your tank, taking on a variety of assignments, from shoot-and-kill to escorts to base capturing. Your vehicle, which can be upgraded after each successful mission, is intuitive to control, and the sense of scale, with gun-tower emplacements looming above you, is convincing. The gameplay is basic but comes into its own when teaming up with others in squad-based…

WIN! JASON BOURNE ON BLU-RAY MATT DAMON IS back doing what he does best: kicking ass and crunching numbers (and talking to people on the phone — he does like to keep in touch). Enter now and 10 lucky winners will bag Paul Greengrass’s latest high-octane actioner on Blu-ray. TO ENTER, TELL US WHAT YOUR FAVOURITE ACTION THRILLER IS, AND WHY. WIN! FREE STATE OF JONES ON DVD WHO WANTS AN American history lesson with Matthew McConaughey? He’s got a beard and he can even do an accent — especially when playing dress-up as Newton Knight during the American Civil War. Win one of 10 DVDs to see how authentic he gets. TO ENTER, TELL US WHAT YOUR FAVOURITE AMERICAN WAR MOVIE IS, AND WHY. WIN! GAME OF THRONES: S6…