Indholdsfortegnelse for July 2022 i Total Film

One of the pleasures of this job is getting to meet your childhood/current heroes, and this issue I got a two–fer in with a sit down with Bobbie Waterbury herself, Jenny Agutter (who shares my bemusement of onscreen accents), and also with a filmmaker that if I could create movies, I’d like to imagine up the ones he does: Baz Luhrmann. Both distinguished themselves as interviewees by being honest and open about their feelings – not something we usually hear when famous folk are trotting out their ‘talking–point topics’ in a treadmill junket situation (yes, they really get a list of things they should say). Taika Waititi is similarly unconstrained in his frankness, which is why we’re always stoked when he makes a movie – particularly so when it promises…

“WAXING HAS BEEN AN EDUCATION TO SAY THE LEAST.” SIMU LIU WENT ABOVE AND BEYOND FOR GRETA GERWIG’S BARBIE. “Covid made my cancer look like nothing. I was pretty close to dying.” THE WORLD NEARLY LOST JEFF BRIDGES TO COVID LAST YEAR. 1050 THE NUMBER OF DAYS BETWEEN TOP GUN MAVERICK’S FIRST PROPOSED RELEASE DATE AND THE DAY IT FINALLY HIT CINEMAS. THAT $248M OPENING WEEKEND WAS WORTH THE WAIT. $100M THE BUDGET OF FRANCIS FORDCOPPOLA’S SELF-FINANCEDMEGALOPOLIS, STARRING ADAM DRIVER AND NATHALIE EMMANUEL. “YOU CANNOT QUOTE ME A SINGLE LINE FROM AQUAMAN.” JAMES GRAY MAKES A FAIR POINT ABOUT THE CULTURAL FOOTPRINT OF SUPERHERO CINEMA. “CINEMA IS THE LOVE OF MY LIFE, SECOND TO MY HUSBAND.” JULIA ROBERTS ISN’T FOOLING ANYONE – FILM ALWAYS COMES FIRST. “[CONTENT AND PIPELINE] DESCRIBE OIL, WATER,…

It can’t be easy to make your first feature when your father is one of your country’s most famous filmmakers. “I must say that it took me maybe 10 years, a whole decade, to finally take the plunge, ” admits Panah Panahi over Zoom from his home in Iran. The son of Jafar Panahi, director of acclaimed films The White Balloon, The Circle and Taxi, had made shorts, but nothing more. “I never actually really felt confident enough in what I wrote, in the ideas I had.” After showing some material to a friend of his father’s, it was the outline for Hit The Road that stood out. The story of a family on a road trip, it sees Khorso (Hassan Madjooni) and his wife (Pantea Panahiha) head towards the…

TF’s favourite action scenes on choo-choos… THE GENERAL (1926) Buster Keaton’s Civil War masterpiece sees the stone-faced comic do the locomotive. Keaton performs all his own death-defying stunts as he races his beloved engine through enemy lines. FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE (1963) The clash between Bond and Red Grant on the Orient Express remains one of the great set-pieces in the franchise. Sean Connery and Robert Shaw trained with wrestlers in Istanbul to get fight-ready. MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE (1996) Who can forget the wind-in-your-hair finale of Brian De Palma’s original M:I, set at 200mph inside the Channel Tunnel? A thrilling combination of live action, model work and CGI made it happen. SPIDER-MAN 2 (2004) Spidey scrapping Dr. Octopus in, on and all around a NYC subway train raised the action bar…

MATTHEW LEYLAND Reviews Editor JAWS (1975) The date is etched in my mind, especially now I’ve Googled it: 8 October, 1981. The network TV premiere of Jaws. My nerves had already been battle-hardened by Spielberg’s snake pits, melty Nazis and soul-sucking angels of death. So I knew there was little to fear from one big dumb fish with a snout that had nothing on Mr. Noseybonk’s. Instead, I had a whale of a time with the film: thrilling to all the blood and harpoons; giggling with my parents at the jokes I didn’t understand; and helping them get through the talky bits by tunelessly humming Meco’s ‘Star Wars Theme’ while spinning á la Lynda Carter in front of the TV. And then, in the dead of night, I became utterly…

THE RAILWAY CHILDREN 1970 Who can forget Agutter’s eldest sibling Roberta ‘Bobbie’ Waterbury in Lionel Jeffries’ much-loved adaptation of E. Nesbit’s celebrated novel? “It was a joyous experience, ” she recalls. “The director created a family feeling on set.” WALKABOUT 1971 Made before The Railway Children, Nicolas Roeg’s atmospheric classic stars Agutter as one of two city siblings stranded in the Australian Outback, surviving with the help of an Aboriginal boy. “Agutter’s complex performance radiates intelligence, ” said Time Out. LOGAN’S RUN 1976 Michael York’s title character goes on the lam with Agutter to escape a futuristic society that worships youth. Ironically, the film hasn’t aged well, but it was her big break in Hollywood. “I was lucky, ” she shrugs. AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON 1981 Agutter doesn’t like…

★★★☆☆ OUT 15 JULY PRIME VIDEO John Cho’s charm fills the screen in this indie dramedy about a terminally ill father taking his daughter on a road trip to meet her mother. Teenager Wally (Mia Isaac) is unaware of the reason behind the long trip from California to New Orleans but reluctantly agrees in exchange for driving lessons on the way. Unfortunately, outside of Cho’s unique charisma, the film hits all the well-worn cliché potholes of a coming-of-age road movie. There are endearing lessons learned along the way, but even a final twist isn’t enough to ameliorate a sense of predictability.…

★★★★☆ OUT 24 JUNE CINEMAS 27 JUNE DIGITAL Against a background of kooky haircuts and sticky-looking arcade bars, gamer ‘Cannon Arm’ Kim attempts to fulfil his dream – a marathon 100 consecutive hours playing ’80s arcade game Gyruss. This off-kilter, low-stakes documentary follows Kim on his odd quest, assisted by a team of loyal friends and cheerleaders. Director Mads Hedegaard logs a surprisingly affecting tale of obsession and friendship between a group of misfits, attempting to make sense of a noisy and unfair world through the rigid mathematics and structure of arcade gaming.…

★★★★☆ OUT 1 JULY CINEMAS Delivering compelling insights into the impossible pressures that exist behind the scenes of professional sports, this critically acclaimed Swedish drama from director Ronnie Sandahl highlights the mental health struggles that exist within the industry. Erik Enge leads with a stoic but vulnerable performance as the real-life Martin Bengtsson, a football prodigy who, after signing for Inter Milan at just 17 years old, finds that achieving his dream leads to more personal sacrifice and loneliness. The result is a film that feels powerful enough to inspire actual reform.…

★★☆☆☆ OUT 24 JUNE CINEMAS Damien Odoul’s experimental drama follows the off-grid life of a young man with Down’s syndrome (Theo Kermel) and his attempts to reconnect with nature and humanity when his father (Pierre Meunier) suddenly abandons him in the forest where they live. The seriocomic opening act, which depicts the pair’s fractious, eccentric relationship, is appealingly strange. But despite Kermel’s fiercely committed – and mostly naked – performance and some striking imagery, Théo’s subsequent journey of discovery becomes an indulgent, shapeless slog. An unfortunate transformation.…

★★★✰✰ OUT NOW CINEMAS Covering the long career of the landscape-loving Pissarro (the first, but still least-known of the Impressionist big-hitters), this glossy and solidly authoritative portrait sits slightly uneasily between plush gallery guide and classy art doco. Drawing on major exhibitions of his work in Oxford and Basel, it’s a bit plodding and corporate, though richly packed with curatorial insights and sunny rural masterpieces. Some of the prettiest pictures of London ever painted, Pissarro’s gorgeous 1870s views of Upper Norwood, Sydenham and Dulwich make the film worth a look.…

★★★★✰ OUT 1 JULY CINEMAS DIRECTOR Justin Kurzel STARRING Caleb Landry Jones, Judy Davis, Anthony LaPaglia, Essie Davis SCREENPLAY Shaun Grant DISTRIBUTOR Picturehouse Entertainment RUNNING TIME 112 mins Australian director Justin Kurzel’s tough, tenacious fifth feature starts as it means to continue: with questions. A reporter asks a boy how he burnt himself. The answer is easy – fireworks – but the reasons why prove more complex. Focused on the perpetrator of the Port Arthur massacre in Tasmania, 1996, Nitram treads turf well-visited by other films about mass shootings – Elephant, Polytechnique. Yet Kurzel’s interrogative, immersive approach offers a probing portrait of a splintered mindset, taking a scrupulously serious approach to its core query – why? – and presenting its protagonist as a lit firework waiting to explode. His name…

★★★☆☆ OUT NOW SHUDDER Learning that her mother’s grave has been vandalised, Marie (Jocelin Donahue) makes a trip to the isolated island where she’s buried. Suddenly shut off from the mainland, Marie and her tetchy boyfriend (Joe Swanberg) are trapped in a seaside town full of whispering shadows and creepy locals – including a sinister Richard Brake. Writer/director Mickey Keating hides the flimsy story behind layers of billowing fog, noisy jump scares and cranked-up atmospherics. Even if the results are familiar, Keating’s supernatural shocker heaves with rustic dread and intermittently effective shocks.…

★★★★☆ OUT 8 JULY CINEMAS DIRECTOR Jim Archer STARRING David Earl, Chris Hayward, Louise Brealey, Jamie Michie, Nina Sosanya SCREENPLAY David Earl, Chris Hayward DISTRIBUTOR Universal RUNNING TIME 90 mins Sentient robots tend to get a bad rap in serious big-screen cinema. Having experienced the high-tech terror of the time-travelling murder machines of the Terminator franchise and the robot revenge of Ex Machina, we’re definitely overdue for the scrap-welded sweetness of Charles Petrescu, a defiantly homemade robot hungry to experience everything life has to offer. He’s the standout star of this delightfully weird British comedy, as a clunky companion created out of odds and ends (“My tummy is a washing machine!”) by inept inventor Brian (an engagingly awkward David Earl) and brought to Frankenstein- style life, by a stray bolt…

★★★★☆ OUT 15 JULY CINEMAS 26 AUG MUBI Following Mediterranea and A Ciambra, writer/director Jonas Carpignano closes out his immersive trilogy of films set among different ethnic communities in the Calabrian coastal town of Gioia Tauro. The titular Chiara is a 15-year-old schoolgirl (Swamy Rotolo, heading a non-professional cast) whose world is turned upside down when she discovers that her father is a member of the notorious ‘Ndrangheta crime syndicate. The dynamic lensing and avoidance of simplistic moral judgements are major pluses, but the biggest news is first-timer Rotolo’s expressive I lead turn.…

★★★☆☆ OUT NOW CINEMAS DIRECTOR Colin Trevorrow STARRING Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Sam Neill, B.D. Wong, Campbell Scott, Isabella Sermon SCREENPLAY Emily Carmichael, Colin Trevorrow DISTRIBUTOR Universal RUNNING TIME 147 mins You never get used to it!” sighs Laura Dern as her returning palaeobotanist Ellie Sattler finds herself once again in the vicinity of some miraculously revivified dinos. Seven years on from Jurassic World, and almost three decades after Jurassic Park, the makers of the latest entry in the Michael Crichton-inspired franchise will be trusting audiences retain the same residual affection for a series that has still to equal the exhilarating highs of Steven Spielberg’s gamechanging original. Bringing back Dern, Sam Neill’s Alan Grant and Jeff Goldblum’s Ian Malcolm is virtually an admission of such…

1989 ★★★☆☆ OUT NOW BD EXTRAS ★★★☆☆ Commentary, Featurettes, Booklet Set in Victorian London, but shot in Budapest, Gérard Kikoïne’s horror combines Jekyll and Hyde with Jack the Ripper to kinky effect. While working on an addictive new anaesthetic, Dr. Jekyll (Anthony Perkins) discovers his dark side – and finds he likes it. Kikoïne shoots the ensuing Euro naughtiness like a giallo, with wild lighting, bad dubbing and questionable sexual politics. But the main draw is Perkins, who has a look of dead-eyed lechery that chills the blood. Decent extras, plus new sleeve art by horrorposter king Graham Humphreys.…

1970 ★★★☆☆ OUT NOW BD EXTRAS ★★★☆☆ Featurettes, Short films, Stills, Booklet Bette Davis and Michael Redgrave are on particularly fine form as two lost and lonely souls who find some measure of friendship and solace with each other while living in a dingy London boarding house. Though writer/director Franklin Gollings’ adaptation of Marion Hart’s play The Cellist never quite manages to shake its stage-bound roots, the main story remains incredibly touching. It’s just a pity the film gets distracted so easily by the (far less interesting) antics of the womanising songwriter (Alexis Kanner) who lives downstairs.…

1965/6 ★★★☆☆ OUT 8 JULY CINEMAS 20 JUNE/18 JULY 4K UHD, DIGITAL EXTRAS ★★★★☆ Commentaries, Documentaries, Featurettes, Stills, Collectibles As the Doctor’s regeneration looms, Amicus’ mid-’60s movie spin-offs/cash-ins showcase the creative wriggle room the Tardis offers. After William Hartnell’s spiky TV Doc, Peter Cushing presents a humanised embodiment in...And The Daleks. Despite crude plotting, 1966’s Daleks Invasion Earth 2150 AD serves nifty images of tinpot terror, well pitched between earthy/alien extremes. Both pop with colour too, especially when the Tardis doors fly open on an alien forest, capturing that true–Who spirit of ever–open possibility.…

‘SUSPICIOUS MINDS’/’CAN’T HELP FALLING IN LOVE’, BLADE RUNNER 2049 2017 Elvis lives – but he’s glitching. Denis Villeneuve boots up a white-suited, Vegas-era Presley hologram, cutting between his marital-paranoia showstopper and much-covered Blue Hawaii ballad. “I like this song,” says Deckard. Who doesn’t? ‘BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC’, KICK-ASS 2010 “Glory, glory!” If you’re ascending by jetpack to destroy half a skyscraper, you need music to match. Drawn from Presley’s titanic take on Mickey Newbury’s patriotic medley ‘An American Trilogy’, ‘Battle Hymn’ brings the bombast. ‘SHAKE, RATTLE & ROLL’, NOWHERE BOY 2009 No Elvis, no Beatles. Played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson (see also Kick-Ass/Godzilla for six-degrees-of-Presley fun), John Lennon’s life and hairstyle transform as he sees Elvis tearing up Jesse Stone’s rock’n’roll belter on film. ‘A LITTLE LESS CONVERSATION’, AMERICAN ANIMALS…

★★★★☆ OUT NOW PC, PS4/5, SWITCH, XBOX ONE/SERIES Capturing the frenetic pace of Sam Raimi’s horror trilogy, this asymmetric multiplayer game goes straight for the jugular, plunging Ash Williams (Bruce Campbell) into a gory fight for survival against the Kandarian Demon. Together with three other human characters taken from the films and TV series Ash Vs Evil Dead, he must piece together a map to locate lost pages of the Necronomicon and a dagger to banish the dark forces. The demon, meanwhile, must find a way to stop them – whether by sending in swarms of Deadites, possessing trees or bewitching survivors. Even when equipped with bats and boomsticks, survivors are made to feel vulnerable. Groups of Deadites can quickly overwhelm unwitting players as they lurch suddenly from the mist;…

WHAT? Grindelwald gets his minions together for a spooky graveyard battle at the Lestrange family tomb in Paris at the end of Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes Of Grindelwald. WHERE? Highgate Cemetery, London GO? Victorian Highgate Cemetery is worth a visit for Gothic vibes and famous dead folk, but to find this scene’s location you need to head to the West Cemetery and the so-called Circle Of Lebanon. Entrance is timed and tickets are £10. Want us to investigate if a movie scenario is bollocks or snapped yourself at a film location? Contact us at totalfilm@futurenet.com…

FOR SALE Jane Butterfield Real Estate is pleased to offer this white clapboard victorian to market with no onward chain due to tragic circumstances of previous owners. Features a sweeping drive to desirable hilltop position and vertical aesthetic complete with imposing tower. Though classic on the exterior, the modern interior by interior designer Otho needs to be seen to be fully appreciated. Statement granite dining room, glass fridge and blue kitchen just a few of the unique design features. Perfect for an unhappy family seeking spiritual solace. HINDSIGHT CORNER ALEX KURTZMAN ON THE MUMMY June 2017 “I’m a lifelong fan of the Universal monsters, and I was very excited about the prospect of taking this film and bringing it into the modern day and trying to do something new and…

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – DEAD RECKONING PART ONE 01 Henry Czerny’s IMF director Kittridge suspected Cruise’s agent Ethan Hunt of being a mole in the first Mission. Why he’s back is a mystery, but the tension’s still there as he tells Hunt to “pick a side.” 02 Also back, after the last two Missions, is Rebecca Ferguson’s Brit superspy Ilsa Faust. Are she and Hunt now lovers as this snuggle suggests? But then we see her fighting him while rocking an eyepatch… 03 …Is it a flashback? A double–cross? More clear is that Pom Klementieff is on villain duties, perhaps working for the big bad, played by Esai Morales, or Vanessa Kirby’s returning White Widow. 04 Hunt’s ridden every plane, train and automobile, and now he’s on horseback! In a sandstorm! Can we please see…

Rob Reiner knows what you’re thinking about the recently announced sequel to his comedy classic This Is Spinal Tap: how can it possibly live up to a film that many consider to be the funniest ever made? It is, of course, a thought that has crossed his mind countless times. “It’s a high bar!” the gregarious Reiner tells Teasers during a beach-side chat during the Cannes Film Festival, where he’s presenting This Is Spinal Tap in the Cinéma de la Plage sidebar. As well as making his feature debut as a director with the 1984 film, Reiner also starred as Tap mockumentarian Marty DiBergi. “Nobody told us to do anything [on the first film]. And that’s the thing that I’m worried about this next one. We hired this Marty DiBergi…

When Israeli director Ari Folman (Waltz With Bashir, The Congress) was approached by the Anne Frank Foundation about making an animated film, he was “totally resistant” to the idea. “I didn’t think I would have anything new to say, ” he says of the diary-writing Dutch girl who hid with her family from the Nazis in their home for two years during World War 2. “I thought it’s a mistake even doing it.” Then he re-read Frank’s famous chronicle and spoke to his own mother. “She’s a Holocaust survivor. And she told me, ‘Yeah, do whatever you want. But if you don’t do it, I will die tomorrow.’ So I took it.” While Frank’s wartime account has been adapted before, for George Stevens’ 1959 Oscar–winner The Diary Of Anne Frank,…

The galaxy far, far away is changing. Where Star Wars was once a bastion of the big screen, George Lucas’ creation now primarily lives on the streaming service Disney+. In fact, onstage at Star Wars Celebration, taking place in Anaheim’s convention centre, there wasn’t a single mention of the franchise’s cinematic history, and only hints regarding its big-screen future. “As we leave the [Skywalker] Saga, we have all this great, exciting work happening on the television side that informs so much about where we’re going, ” says President of Lucasfilm, Kathleen Kennedy. Just moments before, Kennedy had presented a colossal panel featuring Mando, Andor, Ahsoka, and John Williams playing the Indiana Jones theme, but not a single nod to the movies. Total Film meets Kennedy in a quiet press room,…

★★★★☆ OUT 24 JUNE CINEMAS DIRECTOR Baz Luhrmann STARRING Austin Butler, Tom Hanks, Olivia DeJonge, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Luke Bracey SCREENPLAY Baz Luhrmann, Sam Bromell, Craig Pearce, Jeremy Doner DISTRIBUTOR Warner Bros RUNNING TIME 160 mins A cultural force like no other, Elvis Presley is still considered the best-selling solo music artist of all time. Duly, the question relating to any big-screen biopic isn’t “why make it?” but “why has it taken this long?” Spanning 30 years of his life, from formative early encounters with gospel and rhythm & blues to his death at the age of 42, Baz Luhrmann’s trad but entertaining biopic has swagger to spare, and a star-making performance from Austin Butler as the king of rock’n’roll. Much like Luhrmann’s last feature, 2013’s The Great Gatsby, the story…

★★★★☆ OUT 15 JULY CINEMAS, DIGITAL Trans activist and lip-sync performer Donna Personna is the humble subject of this intimate documentary from filmmaker Jay Bedwani. Now in her seventies, Donna is reinvigorated by an opportunity to co-write a meaningful play about an important event in local LGBTQ+ history and is then encouraged to reconnect with her estranged sister. With Donna’s self-reflections acting as a gateway into San Francisco’s trans community at large, Bedwani is able to craft a film that feels both universal and singularly focused on one fascinating individual.…

★★★☆☆ OUT NOW CINEMAS DIRECTOR Scott Derrickson STARRING Mason Thames, Ethan Hawke, Jeremy Davies, Madeleine McGraw, James Ransone SCREENPLAY Scott Derrickson, C. Robert Cargill DISTRIBUTOR Universal RUNNING TIME 102 mins TBC Working from a short story by Joe Hill, director Scott Derrickson reunites with horror kings Blumhouse and his Sinister star Ethan Hawke for this creepy ride. The year is 1978, and a series of children have gone missing in a quiet North Denver suburb. Soon to be next is Finney (Mason Thames), a young schoolboy who is a target for bullies and hasn’t yet learnt to stand up for himself. Fighting in his corner are his sister Gwen (Madeleine McGraw) and a kid from his school named Robin (Miguel Cazarez Mora), who knows how to scrap and loves The…

★★★☆☆ OUT 24 JUNE CINEMAS A promising debut from Greek writer-director Jacqueline Lentzou, this tale of an estranged daughter and her ailing father comes from the heart. Returning to Athens after years away, only child Artemis (Sofia Kokkali) must shoulder the burden of looking after her emotionally distant papa (Lazaros Georgakopoulos), who is suffering from a debilitating disease. Gradually, as family secrets emerge, Lentzou offers a sensitive portrayal of reconciliation. As the title suggests, there are more questions than answers, but a frustrating opacity aside, this is a subtle, striking work.…

★★★✰✰ OUT NOW DIGITAL Based on the comic book Generous Bosom, this low-budget sci-fi tracks the fallout after a tryst between a young man (Mad Men’s Vincent Kartheiser) and the married woman (Chelsea Lopez) he sleeps with when his car breaks down outside her home. In the first of many twists, hubby is into it, too. Director Rob Schroeder radically flips the plot (and main character) after this point, in an unpredictable descent into madness, and the unconventional medical treatments which follow. Visually unappealing and slow to engage, but its psychological chills are solid.…

★★★☆☆ OUT NOW CINEMAS, DVD, BD, DIGITAL “I don’t think I’ve ever been daunted in my life, ” says John Toshack. Nor, it seems, has director Peter Jones, who doesn’t allow the absence of archive footage to discourage him from documenting the Liverpool legend’s remarkable stint as Swansea player/manager in the late ’70s and early ’80s, a period that saw the club promoted three times in four seasons. The anecdotes that emerge from this improbable rise are just about strong enough to compensate, though Jones conveniently ignores the club’s subsequent financial struggles: a result of Toshack’s lavish spending.…

★★★☆☆ OUT 8 JULY CINEMAS “We asked groups of young people how they imagined their future, ” explains the opening narrative of this Italian documentary. Futura does exactly that for the next 105 minutes, as filmmakers Pietro Marcello, Francesco Munzi and Alice Rohrwacher travel across the country talking to earnest adolescent minds. The result is an interesting array of personal dreams set alongside national and global interests; in talking about their hopes for the future, these youths reveal much about their current lives. However, the repetitive interview format wears thin all too soon.…

1987 ★★★☆☆ OUT NOW BD EXTRAS ★★★★☆ Commentary, Featurettes, Isolated score, Art cards Adapted from an extravagantly dense story by Apocalypse Now writer John Milius, Walter Hill’s film swaps out the source work’s complexities for a macho western soaked in sweat and testosterone. As Nick Nolte’s glowering Texas Ranger heads for a confrontation with old friend turned drug baron Powers Boothe – complicated by Michael Ironside’s special forces group – the plot plays second fiddle to the pleasure of watching a string of great character actors (including Rip Torn and Clancy Brown) take turns munching the scenery.…

1973 ★★★★☆ OUT NOW BD EXTRAS ★★★☆☆ Commentary, Featurettes, Booklets As the ’60s gave way to the ’70s in popular Italian cinema, spaghetti westerns were replaced by violent, hybrid crime thrillers called poliziotteschi. Writer/director Sergio Sollima’s robust Revolver is a prime example. Digitally restored for its UK Blu premiere, it stars Oliver Reed as a Milanese prison warden, attempting to track down his wife’s kidnappers in the company of Fabio Testi’s escaped convict. Accompanied by a fine Ennio Morricone score, it mixes familiar genre elements with a critique of corruption at the highest echelons of society. Critic-led extras.…

1971 ★★★★☆ OUT NOW BD EXTRAS ★★★★☆ Featurettes, Booklet Two hippies set out on a psychedelic odyssey in this forgotten film by artist and mystic Steven Arnold, now unearthed and given a 2K polish by Second Run. Guided by artist Ruth Weiss and drag troupe The Cockettes, the hippies experience a phantasmagorical journey involving body (i.e. orgies) and mind (i.e. drugs). A celebration of ’60s counterculture, this mind-bender (Arnold’s only work as a director) is a joyous carnival of gender fluidity and sexuality, wrapped up in a slick package including multiple featurettes and essays.…

1985-89 AVAILABLE ON DVD We want something like Hart To Hart. We’ll get a girl, a blonde, and we’ll find a guy who looks good in a tux. That’s the show you’re gonna do. We don’t care what you do with it, that’s what you’re gonna do...” That, according to Moonlighting creator Glenn Gordon Caron, is the order that came down from ABC executives for the last of his three, so far unsuccessful, pilot pitches. While the idea of doing another boy-girl detective show held no interest to the former Remington Steele co-producer, something the network said did catch his attention: “All I heard was, ‘We don’t care what you do with it.’” Centred on chalk-and-cheese private detectives – Cybill Shepherd’s classy former model Maddie Hayes and Bruce Willis’ wisecracking…

★★★★★ Readers are hardly starved of books on the history of horror cinema, so it takes something special to merit space on cinephiles’ bookshelves. Well, make room for The Art Of Horror Movies: An Illustrated History. This lavish volume explores the genre not through analysis of the films, but through the artwork created to publicise them. Arranged chronologically by decade (from ‘The Sinister Silents’ up to ‘The 2000s Maniacs’), with introductory essays from genre experts including Sir Christopher Frayling, Anne Billson and Ramsey Campbell, it’s an eye-popping compendium of imagery from a century of horror cinema. Boasting an additional 64 pages of art and analysis, this new Expanded Edition offers readers an even deeper gaze into the abyss. As well as allowing editor Stephen Jones to bring the content up…

1 THE EXORCIST Not Regan spider-walking down the carpeted stairs in William Friedkin’s Director’s Cut. We mean the stone steps that rush up to meet Father Karras’ plunge from the window. Located in Georgetown, Washington, DC, they draw horror fans from all over the world. 2 HARRY POTTER Harry lives under the stairs at 4 Privet Drive, and there are 142 staircases at Hogwarts. But most iconic of all is the school’s Grand Staircase, designed by Rowena Ravenclaw to move around as students clamber upon it. Now that’s magic. 3 ROCKY The most famous steps in cinema. Go to the Philadelphia Museum of Art and you’re sure to find someone running up them ready to shadowbox and punch the sky. And you just know that Bill Conti’s triumphant score is…

PAUL TANTER @PAULTANTER It’s understandable why the Devil is such a popular character for screenwriters. It’s the ultimate antagonist, hellbent on wreaking havoc and corrupting any protagonist in their way. Plus: instant brand recognition and zero pesky copyright issues. But which lowly mortals dare fill the smouldering shoes of Old Nick? Amid a sea of misfires, a few show promise: Jack Nicholson (The Witches Of Eastwick), Peter Stormare (Constantine) and Viggo Mortensen (The Prophecy) have all held their own in the role. But only one actor’s bombastic style for a period of his career was the perfect marriage of man and Beast. The Devil’s Advocate’s (1997) highflying, charming, hedonistic John Milton fits ’90s Al Pacino like a glove. He’s charming with a sly smile and twinkling eyes that bore into…

All great protagonists need a worthy foe. John McClane matches wits with Hans Gruber, Ripley battles the Xenomorph and the Ghostbusters go head-to-head with Zuul. But while these big bads provide the satisfying climactic confrontation, there’s a separate smaller antagonist we love to see our heroes vanquish: the movie douchebag. Also known as the jerk or the sleazeball, this jobsworth in a suit is the petty bureaucrat of the story who’s a legend in their own mind, and they found their heyday in the ’80s and ’90s. The character usually occupies a middle manager or administrative role that allows them to wield the slightest amount of power in a zealous way, boosting their own fragile ego. The role is a minor, often comedic, obstacle, a character oblivious to the true…

FIRST FRIGHTS Founded in 1912 by Carl Laemmle, the Universal Film Manufacturing Company’s affinity for macabre movies first reared its head in the 1920s with the success of its lavish silent productions of The Hunchback Of Notre Dame (1923) and The Phantom Of The Opera (1925). Both films starred Lon Chaney in the title role and made a major feature of the groundbreaking and grotesque make-up effects he created for each character. CHILDREN OF THE NIGHT Cementing the studio’s place as Hollywood’s premier house of horror, the release of Dracula (1931) began a run of fright films that would stretch well into the 1950s. In the process, Universal introduced cinemagoers to a menagerie of menacing, if often unexpectedly sympathetic, monsters – including Frankenstein’s Monster (and his Bride), the Invisible Man,…

ARMAGEDDON TIME Hot on the heels of Belfast and Apollo 11½, James Gray is the latest filmmaker to put his childhood on screen with cine–memoir, Armageddon Time. A richly textured, well–performed Reagan–era period piece, it stars Banks Repeta as Gray in all–but name, the youngest son in a Jewish family who learns tough lessons about who gets ahead in America. It’s just as transportive, in its own gently absorbing way, as The Lost City Of Z or Ad Astra, and in Anthony Hopkins has a great movie grandpa, but forced political parallels with the Trump presidency are far from subtle, nor particularly thoughtfully explored. CLOSE In provincial Belgium, a pair of 13-year-old boys find their childhood bond put to the test when a new school year starts. Sensitive, graceful and…

For The Sandman, patience is about to be rewarded. Netflix’s incoming TV adaptation sees the personification of Dream – aka Morpheus (Tom Sturridge) – waiting a century to regain his kingdom after he’s captured by overreaching occultists. Offscreen, writer Neil Gaiman (Good Omens, American Gods) has waited 30–plus years for his revered comic–book epic to reach screens, holding tight to his patient faith in one absolute. “I didn’t have faith that we’d always get here, ” says Gaiman, “but I had faith that the important thing was to stop bad versions being made. Once a bad version is made, you never quite come back from that. It may sound silly, but when I was 14 or 15, my favourite comic was Howard The Duck. Steve Gerber, Gene Colan, Frank Brunner,…

With Under The Shadow and Wounds, British-Iranian filmmaker Babak Anvari announced himself as a bracingly fresh voice in the supernatural horror genre. But there’s more than one string to Anvari’s fearsome bow, as evidenced by I Came By, a “Hitchcockian neo–noir crime thriller” that also proves the British film industry doesn’t make them like it used to. “I find it interesting that we’ve lost touch with the whole Hitchcockian genre in Britain, ” Anvari tells Teasers just a week after delivering a film five years in the making. “So it’s really exciting for me to take inspiration from the master and try to do something in that vein, in modern times.” Set in contemporary inner–city London, the film stars George MacKay as Toby and Percelle Ascott as Jay, graffiti artists…

From Dante’s Peak to Werner Herzog’s Into The Inferno, volcanoes have long exercised a pull on filmmakers. Director Sara Dosa reframes that magnetism on multiple fronts in Fire Of Love, a documentary brimming with elemental force, feeling and spectacle. Love story and scientific study, mythical meditation and existential investigation, Fire Of Love focuses on husband–and–wife volcanologists Katia and Maurice Krafft. While directing magical–realist documentary The Seer And The Unseen (2019), Dosa needed footage to portray Iceland’s volcanic origins. Her research touched on the Kraffts, who adored volcanoes and amassed swathes of footage before they died in a pyroclastic surge from Japan’s Mount Unzen in 1991. “The more we learned about them, ” says Dosa, “the more we fell in love with them.” The theme of love lit the film’s spark,…

At Marvel Studios, there’s a tradition for a film’s opening day. President Kevin Feige and the film’s key creative team head out to a public screening at a cinema, watch the film play with a crowd, and go out for dinner afterwards. “And at that dinner on [Thor: Ragnarok’s] opening night, Chris and Taika and I and much of the team sat around, and Taika and Chris immediately started spitballing ideas for the next one, ” Feige tells Total Film. “Many of those ideas that came up on that first discussion, on that opening-night dinner of Ragnarok, are in this movie.” If writer/director Taika Waititi and star Chris Hemsworth were buzzing with the possibilities, that’s understandable. Ragnarok was the third solo film for the Asgardian God of Thunder, completely revitalising…

Brad Pitt’s in a reflective mood as his car races up the west coast of America. It’s not what Total Film expected given he’s on the blower to chat about action-thriller Bullet Train, in which five rival assassins chase after a MacGuffin briefcase on a Japanese Shinkansen travelling at 300kph. The train tracks run straight and true but the plot twists and turns at breakneck speed. What Total Film expected from the jovial, down-to-earth star (“Hey man, ” he cries when he calls 10 minutes late due to signal issues, “Thanks for bearing with me; I appreciate you hanging in there”) were the standard discussions about getting in shape for action scenes (“I love my Shake Shack in between movies, and then I get a little more serious, and eat…

★★★☆☆ OUT NOW CINEMAS DIRECTOR Angus MacLane STARRING Chris Evans, Keke Palmer, Dale Soules, Taika Waititi, Peter Sohn, James Brolin SCREENPLAY Jason Headley, Angus MacLane DISTRIBUTOR Disney RUNNING TIME 96 mins The mega meta idea behind this Pixar animation is that what we’re watching was the favourite movie of Toy Story’s Andy back in 1995, when, of course, we first caught up with Andy and his playthings – and when Pixar changed animation forever. Lightyear is a space saga in the vein of those made in the late ’70s and early ’80s (director Angus MacLane has explained that Andy would have caught it on VHS). The opening text informs us that the movie launched a toy range, and thus allowed for Space Ranger Buzz Lightyear, in the form of a…

★★★☆☆ OUT 15 JULY CINEMAS A newly redundant Mancunian bachelor (Timothy Spall) heads to out-of-season Benidorm to visit his brother, only to discover he has disappeared without even telling his business partner, glamorous night-club manager Alex (Sarita Choudhury). Written and directed by Catalan filmmaker Isabel Coixet, this slow-burning tale is less interested in its thriller aspects than in exploring romantic midlife reinvention. While overplaying the meteorological metaphors, the film does capture the strange beauty of Benidorm’s brutalist architecture, and there are emotionally credible performances from Spall and Choudhury.…

★★★★☆ OUT NOW SHUDDER Filmed over 30 years, this experimental stop-motion animation fuses David Lynch with John Milton to stir up demented fever dreams of its own. What plot there is to speak of sees a masked assassin descend into hell to explore a steampunk city of horrific monsters and gnashing demons. Legendary VFX artist Phil Tippett draws from a lifetime of experience working on classic films (RoboCop, Jurassic Park), painstakingly crafting a labyrinthine hellscape of upsetting, unsettling nightmares, drenched in extreme gore and unrelenting misery. Aardman this is not.…

★★★✰✰ OUT NOW CINEMAS Following a recent BFI Southbank season dedicated to Britain’s often overlooked women documentarymakers, this touring compilation presents new restorations of five vintage shorts from pioneering female directors. Running from Marion (sister of ‘father of British documentary’ John) Grierson’s witty Beside The Seaside (1935) to Sarah Erulkar’s trippy food porn Something Nice To Eat (1967), the subjects documented don’t always stir strong feelings – although Kay Mander’s Homes For The People (1945) remains a heartbreaking call to arms – but the creative talent on show definitely does.…

★★★★✰ OUT 1 JULY CINEMAS A tender documentary portrait of British landscape painter Eric Ravilious, who died aged 39 during a WW2 aerial reconnaissance mission over Iceland while he was serving as an official war artist. Director Margy Kinmonth carefully weaves together dramatic reenactments, archival photos and narrated extracts from correspondence between Ravilious and his wife Tirzah. Meanwhile, talking heads include surviving relatives and admirers such as Alan Bennett, Grayson Perry and Ai Weiwei. Charting Ravilious’ critical rehabilitation over recent decades, it’s a fine tribute to an exceptional talent.…

★★★★☆ OUT NOW CINEMAS The early ’60s were a boom time for the Italian economy, perfectly symbolised by the construction of Milan’s imposing Pirelli Tower. But while others in the country reached for the sky, a team of young speleologists (cave enthusiasts) in the rural South went the other way, exploring the depths of the unmapped Bifurto Abyss cave system. Director Michelangelo Frammartino’s Il Buco (‘The Hole’) uses a languorous, dialogue-free recreation of that journey, paralleled with the final days of a local shepherd, to deliver an entrancing meditation on time and nature. Beautifully immersive.…

★★★★☆ OUT 11 JULY DIGITAL Having fun with the infamous 18½-minute gap in the Watergate recordings, this smart comedy-thriller is part conspiracy drama and part farce, woven together with economical storytelling and deft dialogue. Willa Fitzgerald (Scream: The TV Series) plays White House transcriber Connie, who acquires the missing recording and covertly meets with reporter Paul (First Cow’s John Magaro) to leak it. Circumstance, distrust and a support cast of interesting characters create obstacles for the pair simply trying to play the tape: clever surprises ensue, all packed with good humour and fierce intelligence.…

★★★★☆ OUT NOW BD EXTRAS ★★★★☆ Commentary, Visual essay, Short film, Galleries, Booklet Enter The Void director Gaspar Noé has made a career out of brutalising audiences, but this experimental 51-minute short takes things to a new extreme with an extended stroboscopic finale. While the climax takes inspiration from notorious 1966 short The Flicker (included here as an extra), the remainder sees Noé using the semi-improvised set-up of a troubled movie shoot to comment on the industry’s treatment of women. As Béatrice Dalle tells Charlotte Gainsbourg, “Either you’ve been a beauty queen or burned at the stake.”…

★★★☆☆ OUT 27 JUNE DIGITAL When four estranged friends try to spice up their reunion, they unwittingly unleash sentient board game Gatlopp – part sassy Jumanji, part Q from Star Trek. The pals are forced to compete until someone wins – lest they be condemned to play for eternity. The raucous comedy is more successful than clumsy attempts at pathos, as Gatlopp’s inventive setup and wacky violence give way to convoluted flashbacks, irritating bickering and an anticlimactic ending. The results are charming at first, but as with most gimmicky party games, the novelty quickly wears off.…

1977 ★★☆☆☆ OUT NOW DVD, BD EXTRAS ★☆☆☆☆ Stills Alan Arkin directs and costars in this slapdash comedy about two brothers (Arkin and a hyperventilating Rob Reiner) trying to modernise their domineering father’s (Vincent Gardenia) department store, unaware that he plans to burn it down and collect the insurance money. Throw in a subplot about Arkin’s character adopting a Black teenager in an attempt to turn around the terrible high-school basketball team he coaches and the result is 90 minutes of largely laugh-free bellowing, wheezing and problematic racial content. Great cast, shame about the film.…

1995 ★★★★★ OUT NOW BD EXTRAS ★★★★☆ Commentary, Featurettes, Deleted scenes, Stills, Essays Jim Jarmusch’s monochrome ‘acid western’ masterpiece cleans up gorgeously in Criterion 4K, from the pin-sharp visuals to Neil Young’s famously improvised soundtrack. The west never looked wilder, as a darkly comic bounty hunt propels Johnny Depp’s bewildered townie through frontier-town death-dealing and a mystic journey with Gary Farmer’s cheerful spirit guide. Depp, in his ’90s pomp, is first-rate, dishing out Jarmusch’s poetic justice with a ready revolver. Delicious starry cameos (Robert Mitchum, Iggy Pop and Billy Bob Thornton) give everything an extra bite.…

VARIOUS MS. MARVEL MERCHANDISE OUT NOW This month you can keep Khan and carry on, thanks to the Ms. Marvel Special Edition Doll, a fully poseable take on the character in her classic cossie measuring 7 x 26 x 4.5cm. And a big hand please for the limited-edition pin... which would make a great accessory for the Loungefly backpack, a stylish red/blue/gold number set off by Kamala’s signature swoosh. Embiggen your collection at shopdisney.co.uk. PRINTS THUNDERBIRDS POP ART OUT NOW Thunderbirds arc... gone? Not yet – but you’ve only got until 30 July to snap up the pop-art prints originally launched in 2016 (marking 50 years since the end of the telly series). An official collaboration with ITV Studios Global Entertainment, the collection comprises 22 designs in a variety of…

THIS MONTH RAPA NUI’S ICEBERG Q Early residents of Easter Island spot an iceberg during this flop period drama. Is it possible for a berg to make it that far across the ocean from Antarctica? Or is it an all-at-sea theory? A Meric Srokosz, Professor of Physical Oceanography at the National Oceanography Centre Where icebergs end up depends on the ocean currents, and in principle, depending on where the iceberg calved, the ocean currents could carry it as far as Easter Island. However, the iceberg will be melting and breaking up as it travels, so how far it gets will depend on its initial size and rate of melting. Current research shows that icebergs from Antarctica generally will not make it further north than around 40°S – Easter Island is…

One day, some of the kids from the neighbourhood carried my mother’s groceries all the way home, ” says Ray Liotta’s Irish-Italian mobster Henry Hill in Martin Scorsese’s GoodFellas (1990). “You know why? It was out of respect.” It was a role that afforded Liotta great respect also, his foot soldier for the Lucchese crime family proving the then-34-year-old actor could be every bit as magnetic and commanding on screen as Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci alongside him. “I had to show jealousy, rage, happiness, anger, ” said Liotta of the mood-swinging, decades-spanning role that would define him. “One day I’m sweet; the next I’m coked out of my mind.” Born in Newark, New Jersey, he was adopted at six months of age by Mary and Alfred Liotta, who…

I actually have the Misery game, ” said host Billy Crystal in his opening monologue of the 1991 Academy Awards. “It’s a home hobbling kit.” Yes, that scene in Rob Reiner’s adap of Stephen King’s bestseller made an instant impact – much like Annie Wilkes’ swinging sledgehammer on Paul Sheldon’s ankles, you might say – and the mere thought of it still induces sharp intakes of breath more than 30 years later. And yet in the novel it was so much worse, with Annie cutting Paul’s left foot clean off before cauterising the stump with a propane torch. Screenwriter William Goldman loved what he was reading, saying, “I never dreamt such a thing was possible, and I knew I had to write the movie” (you wouldn’t credit that he’d previously…