Stuff Sampler: A girl heist without the fripperies of Ocean's 8

Widows is scheduled to open in New Zealand cinemas on November 22.

OPINION: Widows is one of the dramas of 2018.

Director Steve McQueen's film is an update of a UK TV series about a group of women desperately trying to escape the hand their now-deceased criminal husbands dealt them.

Viola Davis excels in slow-burning heist movie, Widows
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Viola Davis excels in slow-burning heist movie, Widows

Anchored by a commanding performance from Viola Davis as Veronica, a woman who enjoys the lifestyle her husband afforded her but who's obtuse about where the money comes from, Widows becomes a gripping, but atypical, heist movie.

Yet it's the antithesis to the fripperies of Ocean's 8 from earlier this year, where smoke-and-mirrors confused the heist and meant the film was lauded solely for being female-led.

Widows is much more than that. It balances depth and desperation for a ride that's as emotional as it is compelling.

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12 Years A Slave's McQueen's directorial eye for the flashy isn't lost either, with some tropes of the genre given a new spin in their execution.

Elizabeth Debicki rises up in new drama, Widows.
Unknown
Elizabeth Debicki rises up in new drama, Widows.

Widows is not a new story in many ways, but it is one for 2018 where women rising up has become a theme; it's a familiar one of male mistakes, of taking ownership, tackling corruption and of women trying to cast off their shackles, but it's given an empowering edge from a riveting Davis and a breakthrough performance from The Night Manager's Elizabeth Debicki.

Her Alice has been abused by her mother, by her now-dead criminal husband, and she's not going to take it anymore. She's also given a delicious scene where she buys guns for the heist, so there's levity in amongst the darkness to grasp onto.

The subtleties of the drama are where cinema release Widows excels; it doesn't pander to audiences, and is much richer for it.

Widows is based on the 1980s British TV mini-series by Lynda La Plante.

Ultimately, Widows ends up being a salute to feminist power in a world that's muddied by male mistakes - it's a breathtakingly suspenseful one too.

I'll confess I'm late to the Killing Eve (TVNZ Ondemand) party. The cat-and-mouse tale of Sandra Oh's Eve hunting assassin Villanelle (a show-stealing Jodie Comer) may feel a little extended at times, and be better suited to six episodes than eight, but the juxtaposing of humour and murder is a smart and sassy move.

And if I told you one of the best games of the year has arrived in the form of an update of Tetris, you'd probably think someone had dropped a block on my head. But, the Tetris Effect (PlayStation and VR) simply recaptures the game's glory, while modernising it. Warning - It's addictive as hell. - DARREN BEVAN

FOOD FIGHT SEASON

The advent of long summer nights means food trucks, street food and late night noodle markets, with queues of foodies descending and intent on getting their fix.

But spare a thought for all the chefs under pressure in the face of the hungry masses.

The Muppets certainly have and there's a lovely little five minute take on food trucks, night markets and the Swedish Chef on YouTube called Food Fight! 

Throwing Gordon Ramsay into the mix and a cook-off showdown to end them all, it's the best episode of street MasterChef we've never had that culminates with Waldorf and Statler hurling insults at the chefs.

A reminder of why the Muppets are as superlative as they've ever been. - DARREN BEVAN

WHAT TO WATCH

Joaquin Phoenix stars in You Were Never Really Here.
Joaquin Phoenix stars in You Were Never Really Here.

She might have only made four feature films in nearly two decades, but each of Lynne Ramsay's efforts can only be described as memorable.

Starting with 1999's Ratcatcher, the Scottish director has crafted a series of challenging movies about fractured lives and tortured souls that also don't follow a typical narrative path. However, they are tales that stay with you a long time after you've finished watching them. Anyone who has seen either 2002's Morvern Callar or 2011's We Need to Talk About Kevin will know exactly what I'm talking about.

Like those two, her latest drama, You Were Never Really Here (R16, currently screening in select cinemas, after proving to be one of the most talked-about titles at this year's New Zealand International Film Festival) is based on a book. Jonathan Ames' 2013 novella of the same name focuses on Joe (Joaquin Phoenix), a traumatised former FBI Agent and marine.

A broken man teetering on the edge of total collapse, the only things keeping him going are his mother and his "work". That's rescuing young women who have been kidnapped and forced into the sex trade. But when his latest contract for a corrupt US senator twists in an unexpected direction, Joe finds all those still dear to him under threat and retaliatory action required. At the same time, he forms an unlikely bond with the senator's daughter Nina (Ekaterina Samsonov).

Amazon Studios
You Were Never Really Here is now screening in select cinemas.

If you're thinking this has shades of Man of Fire, The Professional, John Wick or most of the movies featuring Liam Neeson in the past decade, then think again. This is a drama that opens with Phoenix's head in a plastic bag, features a haunting dissonant soundtrack by Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood and boasts a decent dose of visceral and disturbing imagery (and that's not including Phoenix singing along to Charlene's I've Never Been to Me).

Likewise, there are no pithy comebacks and witty sendoffs. Phoenix spends most of the movie being miserable and contemplating ways to end that torment (think a darker version of Mel Gibson's Riggs in the original Lethal Weapon) and yet it's a performance you can't look away form.

Beside him, Samsonov (Wonderstruck) marks herself out as a young performer to watch, her character evoking memories of Natalie Portman's star-making turn in the aforementioned Professional. - JAMES CROOT

THE CINEMA OF UNEASE (AND WEIRD LAUGHS)

I don't want to toot our own horn, but Stuff Pix - Stuff's boutique streaming service - is a bloody corker. Not because you can get the latest blockbuster for a reasonable price (there are plenty of places that you can do that), but because they've added the makings of a really solid Kiwi film collection.

Classics like the original Good Bye Pork Pie (Blonnnn-DINI!), Sleeping Dogs (crucial viewing in the current political climate), Scarfies (for a very young Taika Waititi) and Perfect Strangers (Sam Neill at his creepy best) are all available here.

Modern classics like Mahana, Whale Rider, My Father's Den, Shopping and Hunt for the Wilderpeople are also available. Waru, an anthology film by eight directors who are Māori women, will land on the service soon.

Not keen on the Cinema of Unease? Try the Cinema of Weird Laughs, another Kiwi speciality.

Check out Deathgasm (Metal, demons and comedy splatter gore? What more could you need?), How to Meet Girls From A Distance (Because stalking can be funny!), Two Little Boys (Bogans! Penguins! A Dolphin! Bret McKenzie!), doco/incidental comedy creepfest Tickled and doco/incidental comedy heartwarmer Pecking Order.

Stuff Pix isn't the only place to tuck into quality home-grown content, of course. You can watch a good chunk of Sam Neill's excellent deep dive into Kiwi cinema, The Cinema Of Unease, over at NZ On Screen for free.

While you're there, check out Out of The Mist, another, even deeper dive into the movies of Aotearoa that opens with a clip from a 1950s Cinerama film shot in New Zealand that was narrated by, of all people, legendary US director Orson Welles. His reo Māori pronunciation on Aorangi is not too bad.

While you're there, NZ On Screen has an astounding array of excerpts, trailers interviews and docos about Kiwi movies from some of the earliest to this year's comedy hit The Breaker Upperers. Dig in. - KYLIE KLEIN NIXON

BE MY GUEST

Some of my favourite podcasts involve a simple interview with the best guests.

The latest celebrity guest offering to hit the pod world is Conan O'Brien Needs A Friend and the Saturday Night Live host's preview guest list hits hard: there's Wanda Sykes, Kristen Bell, Dax Shepherd and Marc Maron.

The premise of the podcast is Conan's quest to expand his friendship circle away from fake talk show conversations and co-workers. The first episode launched this week with guest Will Ferrell, and in true comedy style, there's lots of awkward moments around friendship, but it's also pretty intimate and hilarious.

Joe Rogan's podcast The Joe Rogan Experience is consistently in iTunes' weekly top 10. The format is a simple: Rogan - a comedian and martial arts fanatic - interviews someone "of the moment" for each episode. It's long form, a bit macho and pretty free range in terms of conversation topics, but he gets some great guests. There's more than 1200 episodes so it can be a bit overwhelming to start Rogan, but there's a huge guest list for you to search through.

Last up is WTF with Marc Maron, the master of the intimate interview. There's something about the audio space Maron uses (the American stand-up comedian hosts his interviews in his garage) that elicits honest, personal conversation. His biggest mainstream get was Barack Obama while he was in office in in 2015 but Maron is so skilled in the art of conversation that even someone you've never heard of will deliver something special. Back catalogue includes Robin Williams, Keith Richards and more recently Joan Jett and Michael Douglas.- KATY ATKIN

HAVANA WE GO AGAIN

Luis Miguel is a godfather of rich, Latin music.
Supplied
Luis Miguel is a godfather of rich, Latin music.

Latin music having its biggest moment since the "Latin pop explosion" of 1999.

The genre has the biggest audience across streaming platforms, and in 2017, Nielsen recorded a 29.9 percent increase in consumption (versus a 12.5 percent growth across the industry as a whole).

Legends of the genre Shakira, Marc Anthony and Enrique Iglesias have always had strong international platforms, but they needed hits in English to get there. Today, an English hit in the Hot 100 isn't the golden ticket in. Now, a viral single - in Spanish or Portuguese - will do the trick.

In the wake of last week's Latin Grammy Awards, here are four artists worth adding to your weekly rotation.

Album of the Year winner Luis Miguel makes an excellent starting point. 

He's suave like Bublé, his love songs are grand gestures and his rich arrangements radiate warmth. 

He's sold more than 100 million records worldwide, and remains a pioneer of the Latin music industry.

Those who lean a little more R&B will find great joy in Best New Artist Karol G.

Her production mirrors that which is popular among mainstream rappers of the moment, and the half a million views she boasts on Mi Cama speak for themselves.

If you love being ahead of the curve, start listening to Rosalía right this second.

The pop star picked up two major awards, and is moments from blowing up internationally.

Her sophomore album El mal querer topped the US Latin Pop Chart, and she counts Pharrell, Justin Timberlake and Dua Lipa as fans.

If heartbreakingly sad, easy listening music is more your thing (à la Boyzone, Sam Smith or James Arthur), Pablo Alborán is your man.

He didn't win a Grammy, but he should have.

His pop production is slick, and his 2017 album Prometo is a ballad-filled extravaganza if there ever was one.- KATE ROBERTSON

WHAT TO READ

Milkman by Anna Burns, Faber, $32.99

This is not exactly Belfast. The "renouncers" here aren't exactly the IRA, the "defenders" aren't exactly the Army. Yes, it's the 70s, and we're in a "hair-trigger society" of bomb scares, hijackings, talk of "our community" and "their community", electrified signals "of murals, of traditions, of newspapers, of anthems", right up to the spectre of "the soldiery, the paramilitary" - but nothing must be named.

In Milkman, the darkly comic novel by Anna Burns that won this year's $94,000 Man Booker Prize, names are black magic, and silence is better. You might call this place a region, or a province, or six counties, or the North of something else - but whatever you say, you'll brand yourself. Not even our narrator has a name. We find out she's 18, female, a middle sister, even that her community is among those "renouncers" - "the only time you'd call the police in my area would be if you were going to shoot them" - but it's a mystery how she was baptised. Her dog can have a name (Lassie), as can her classmates at night school in town, but her "maybe-boyfriend" cannot. The world of Milkman is one where communal bonds are truer than those of the heart.

And yet, for all her self-censored narration, "middle sister" is thought to have unreliably starry eyes. But this is a place where no one has time for kooks. Milkman is a "renouncer", and a ranking one at that. He causes a plot to emerge in the narrator's life, by stalking her - she doesn't know why, and does nothing to lead him on - which, in turn, triggers a wave of gossip and innuendo. Soon enough, she's suspected of being "the little Frenchwoman, the arriviste, the hussy", of entering "paramilitary groupiedom". Six actual groupies collar her in the club lavatories, and rhapsodise chummily about the glamour of it, the buzz.

The pace of Milkman is leisurely at best, because its narrator experiences the plot as an entirely unwelcome event. When she's not avoiding Milkman - joining her on her run, pulling up to offer her a lift - she's bumbling about, trying to ignore everyone's sour looks. All the better for us; Burns has time to paint a colourful social scene, full of "beyond-the-pales" into whose ranks our heroine is tossed.

The standout character is the narrator's mother, instantly recognisable on both sides of the border this novel won't name. She's a blend of principle, neurosis, and raging love, so implacably opposed to her daughter's affair with Milkman that she can't believe it doesn't exist. Then again, maybe that's not the issue.

"If I really felt I had to cleave to a renouncer," it's suggested, "could I not officially have gotten myself married to him?" Or maybe that's no better, the mother frets: "Look at yer woman round the corner. You could say she loved all her saturnine husbands, but where are they now? Where are most of those women's brooding, single-minded, potently implacable husbands? Again, six feet under in the freedom fighters' plot of the usual place." He's not just a paramilitary, but worse - a married man.

Milkman is viciously funny. Its jokes come out askew, as does its plot. We know that Milkman himself will die from the very first page, just as we know that McSomebody will assault the narrator in the ladies' room. But one is the plot, and one is a passing thing; Burns likes the peculiarities of the latter. Eventually we reach Milkman's shooting, and it's barely worth a shrug. But when McSomebody gets dragged away and kicked half to death by supportive women - now that, by contrast, is a lovely surprise. - CAL REVELY-CALDER (The Daily Telegraph)

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