PLAY: The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt

It's time to bring this thing back from the dead. It's been a long bout of meditation and upon my return I have found in my lap CD Projekt Red's The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt. A rekindled love affair as I had played this once already, but with the arrival of new DLC via the Expansion Pass, it warranted a second playthrough.

A whole slew of free downloadable content has kept players tethered to the vast fielded and mountainous lands of Temeria where, playing as the titular protaganist, Geralt of Rivia is on the search for his adoptive daughter Ciri under orders of the Emperor Emyhr var Emreis while battling off the Wild Hunt who require Ciri for their own ends. It's a long and winding epic, the final in a trilogy based on the Polish book series by Andrzej Sapkowski. The series has been praised massively for sticking, like glue, to the source material and realising it in astonishing detail.

WATCH: World War Z [2013]

Difficult is the task of ridding yourself of previous knowledge of a printed novel before venturing into its screen adaptation. Not as taxing, however, with Marc Forster's adaptation of the best-selling Max Brooks novel of the same name. Stranger Than Fiction [2006] is one of my favourite films of the past ten years and I was interested to see how this zombie horror would translate onto the big screen. I had a lot of unrealised faith in Forster before I had started, having thoroughly enjoyed Finding Neverland [2004] and Quantum Of Solace [2008] - a Bond flick that I found emotionally taxing on our spy hero compared to most reviewers' opinions on it being a weak entry in the series.

After a harrowing look at the current nihilistic state of the world interspersed with ravenous animals in the opening credits we are invited to the home of the Lanes (Brad Pitt and Mireille Enos). Brad Pitt takes the lead role of Gerry Lane, a former UN employee - his exact job description never revealed but hinted at as being in the field in some manner - who is now a stay-at-home father to watch his children grow up. The casting here distracted me from paying attention to the story, Brad Pitt just doesn't look like he has aged. Maybe a little tired around the eyes, but Mireille's casting makes him look a lot younger than he is depicted. That's not a negative remark on Mireille's age whatsoever, but Pitt does look somewhat of a toyboy.

WATCH: The Mist [2007]

Frank Darabont and Stephen King have a definite rapport with onscreen pairings, similar to Danny Boyle and Alex Garland, they just work well. So much so that King, who is said to be difficult to please when it comes to film adaptations of his work, thoroughly enjoyed the devastatingly bleak ending that The Mist delivers. Darabont's interpretation, while the CGI looks comparatively dated, hits all the right notes when it comes to human struggle, survival and desperation. Touching on familiar tones like xenophobia, religious extremism and suicide in a world that has lost control without any explanation as to how or why before the body count starts racking up.

Using familiar faces to those who have seen the Darabont-produced The Walking Dead, and an excellent star-making turn with Thomas Jane, the delivery of this tale of survival in enclosed spaces is perilous and harrowing to endure. But that's what makes it a powerful watch. David Drayton (Thomas Jane) is a successful graphic artist who lives with his wife and son in familiar King-territory Maine. A violent thunderstorm uproots a large tree in the garden and the boathouse. Drayton, who is on previously unfriendly terms with his neighbour, Brent (Andre Braugher), set aside their differences as a means to help each other out by taking a trip to the local store now that Brent's car is completely destroyed.