Indholdsfortegnelse for September 2023 i Total Film

This month we’re celebrating The Marvels – not only the superhero stars of Disney’s latest but also the actors and writers who’ve brought ideas to celluloid life. The WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes are disrupting our ability to bring you set visits and interviews but not thwarting them. However, it’s important to point out that all the interviews with actors and writers that we have in these pages were conducted before strike action – so no one has been crossing picket lines. Before everyone downed tools, I got to hang out with Zendaya, Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist in London to discuss their tennis love-triangle drama, Challengers (and to talk shit about each other – in a bantering, cute way) as well as sitting down with Greta Gerwig to chinwag about…

In This Is Spinal Tap, Fran Drescher’s publicist Bobbi Flekman pulled no punches about the sexist sleeve for the Smell the Glove album. ‘Money talks and bullshit walks,’ said Flekman, slamming some sense into rock’s biggest dolts. Now, Drescher has amplified that no-bull note of conviction into a bigger cause: the SAG-AFTRA strikes. In July, following her attempts to broker a new contract for actors in a business transformed by streaming, digital and AI, the union president’s speech to the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers lit up the internet. Having initially felt hopeful about discussions, Drescher later saw her optimism as ‘naive’ when, she argued, the AMPTP stonewalled her union’s requests. Duly, her subsequent speech stirred actors and stoked huge sympathy for its clarity and fire. Memes proliferated:…

You talkin’ to me? I did spend a considerable amount of time in my late teens and 20s interviewing myself in front of a mirror. I remember sharing that with some drama students a few years ago, and there was a kind of collective laugh of recognition, particularly among the men. It ranged from imagining one was on Inside the Actors Studio, to something a bit more like daytime TV, you know? They always used to start off quite cordially, and I always used to end up winding myself up. I had to ditch that. Do you have an ‘off’ switch? My main concern is that I don’t always have an ‘on’ switch. I have friends who have a magnificent grasp of their own energy cycles. Mine’s always felt incredibly…

‘WE HAD A FART OPERA… I THOUGHT IT WAS REALLY FUNNY. AND THAT WAS NOT THE CONSENSUS.’ GRETA GERWIG ON CUTTING BARBIE… OR SHOULD THAT BE CUTTING THE CHEESE? ‘People were insanely unkind…’ STAR ZACHARY LEVI FEELS THAT CRITICS TOOK THE MYTH WITH THEIR REVIEWS OF SHAZAM! FURY OF THE GODS. 15 THE MOST POPULAR CATEGORY AWARDED BY THE BBFC IN 2022, GIVEN TO 42% OF ALL SUBMITTED CONTENT. $155M BARBIE’S OPENING WEEKEND US BOX-OFFICE GROSS. ‘WE ARE BEING PUSHED OUT OF THE INDUSTRY… THEY’VE ENLARGED HIS HEAD… WHAT THE HELL HAVE YOU DONE TO HIM?’ ACTOR GEORGE COPPEN ON HUGH GRANT BEING CAST AS AN OOMPA LOOMPA IN WONKA. MONEY TALKS Dwayne Johnson made an ‘historic’ seven-figure donation to the SAG-AFTRA relief fund amid the actors’ strike. GOOD THING…

WIMBLEDON (2004) Paul Bettany and Kirsten Dunst rom-com up centre court in this Richard Curtis-alike with picturepostcard views of London. Features John McEnroe in a cameo and Jon Favreau as a slimy agent. BREAK POINT (2014) A washed-up pro doubles player (Jeremy Sisto) convinces his sad sack brother (David Walton) to be his partner in a shot at a grand slam. Features J.K. Simmons and a peppy 11-year-old called Barry. BORG VS. McENROE (2017) Focused on the match between the baseline player and the net rusher when Björn (Sverrir Gudnason) went up against John (Shia LaBeouf) in 1980. Features mullets and magnificent headbands. BATTLE OF THE SEXES (2017) True story of Billie Jean King (Emma Stone) and her fight for equal pay for female players via a stunt match opposite…

OUT 8 SEPTEMBER CINEMAS Films should be voyeuristic,’ Mike Leigh once opined. ‘What else is a film if you’re not snooping into somebody else’s lives?’ Past Lives’ opening gambit makes the audience party to some unbridled people-watching unfolding in a New York bar. These unseen eavesdroppers are fascinated by the three’s-company dynamic of a trio of drinkers: an Asian woman, an Asian man and a white guy. From across the room they try to unpick the structure of the group. Who knows who? Who, if anyone, is the third wheel? Of all the bars in all the towns in all the world, how did they end up walking into this one? The scene doesn’t outstay its welcome. A title card soon whisks us back to 24 hours earlier. We’ll head…

OUT 25 AUGUST CINEMAS Twelve-year-old Georgie (Lola Campbell) doesn’t take any crap. In Charlotte Regan’s pleasingly light take on a dark theme, she’s contriving to live alone on an Essex council estate after mum Vicky (Olivia Brady) dies, fooling social services with fake phone responses from her ‘Uncle Winston Churchill’. When her feckless young dad Jason (Triangle of Sadness’ Harris Dickinson) appears reluctantly from Ibiza, clumsy and clueless about a prickly child he’s never known, her relentless campaign to oust him reckons without his ingenuity – or her loneliness. Swerving both Ken Loach-style social realism and Aftersun’s heavy emotional heft, writer/ director Regan – making her feature debut – takes a playful, pastel-hued view of Georgie’s plight, as she and Jason circle one another. Dotted with comic flourishes, the film…

OUT NOW CINEMAS This feature-length spin-off from kids’ TV toon Puffin Rock sees Chris O’Dowd return to narrate a (gently topical) new story about displaced wildlife resettling among the familiar faces of the titular island. With its distinctive sense of place – the Rock is located off the coast of Ireland – this is charming stuff, though considerably lighter than coproducer Cartoon Saloon’s other theatrical fare (The Secret of Kells, Wolfwalkers). Running a mere 80 minutes, it’ll keep toddlers entranced, but older kids and accompanying grownups may find it a little insubstantial.…

OUT NOW NETFLIX Hot on the murderous heels of robot-doll horror M3GAN comes Spencer Brown’s debut feature T.I.M., another thriller that grapples with the potential dangers of AI. Here, prosthetics engineer Abi (Barbarian’s Georgina Campbell) ventures into the remote countryside, joining a sleek tech firm (run by CEO Nathaniel Parker) in the midst of developing a Technologically Integrated Manservant – T.I.M. for short. Played with eerie presence by Eamon Farren (The Witcher), this AI butler is a miraculous piece of kit – he can even impersonate voices… With Abi hoping to repair her relationship with husband Paul (Mark Rowley) it all feels like a fresh start. But, unsurprisingly, her own personal prototype T.I.M. starts to become increasingly obsessed with her. The foreshadowing begins with shots of T.I.M. ominously chopping wood:…

OUT 25 AUGUST CINEMAS Die-hard High School Musical fans and ‘gleeks’ will be exchanging showy high-fives while watching this warm but wobbly improv comedy mockumentary, tailor-made for grown-up theatre kids. When Joan (Amy Sedaris) – the beloved owner of a kids’ summer theatre camp – is left in a coma after a seizure, the near-broke camp is plunged into crisis. Over-zealous instructors and BFFs Amos (a deliciously neurotic Ben Platt) and Rebecca-Diane (Molly Gordon, who co-directed) are left to battle Joan’s theatre-illiterate son Troy (the brotastic Jimmy Tatro), a wannabe Insta-business influencer keen to cash in on the camp’s assets. With foreclosure looming, can Amos and Rebecca-Diane’s earnest bio-musical tribute show, Still, save the day? Full of ‘Let’s put the show on in the barn!’ energy, this sweetnatured satire is…

OUT 1 SEPTEMBER CINEMAS With his deflated demeanour, tendency to shuffle and seen-itall ruefulness, Gérard Depardieu undoubtedly makes a more convincing iteration of Georges Simenon’s legendary detective than Rowan Atkinson did in ITV’s 2010s miniseries. Yet as appealing as it is to watch him wheeze and heave his way around 1950s Paris, the mystery in Patrice Leconte’s (Girl on the Bridge) film – a pedestrian whodunnit involving a society engagement, an unidentified dead girl and a Vertigo-style lookalike whom Maigret recruits to flush out her killers – hardly seems worthy of his time, let alone ours.…

OUT 1 SEPTEMBER CINEMAS One of the highest-grossing Japanese films ever, this basketball anime is an accessible adap of hit manga Slam Dunk, whose creator Takehiko Inoue here makes his directorial debut. But while the sound design and animation impress, the narrative structure irritates. True, promoting supporting character Miyagi (Shugo Nakamura) to lead duties allows for a moving backstory. But it’s all too apparent, even for newcomers, that the central match’s MVP, Sakuragi (Subaru Kimura), is the usual protagonist, creating a distracting disconnect between the flashbacks and present-day action.…

OUT 25 AUGUST CINEMAS Like 2022’s vertigo-inducing Fall, director/co-writer Maximilian Erlenwein’s survival thriller puts two women in dire peril – in this case, sisters May (Louisa Krause) and Drew (Sophie Lowe). During a diving holiday, the former becomes trapped underwater by a rockfall, leaving the less-experienced Drew to return to the surface and devise a way of freeing her sibling before her oxygen runs out. A laudably padding-free remake of 2020 Swedish film Breaking Surface, it’s nail-biting enough in the moment, if a little too simplistic to be truly breathtaking.…

OUT 25 AUGUST CINEMAS An ill-advised robbery spells doom for all concerned in writer/ director Nicholas Maggio’s impressive debut, a Deep South neo-noir with echoes of Taylor Sheridan (Yellowstone, Hell or High Water) and No Country for Old Men. Shiloh Fernandez and Kevin Dillon are small-town crooks without a chance, Stephen Dorff is a philosophically inclined killer and the seen-it-all sheriff is played by John Travolta. The latter is no Tommy Lee Jones and the second half loses momentum, but the generally strong performances and handsome cinematography mark Maggio as one to watch…

OUT 1 SEPTEMBER CINEMAS The power of music comes to the fore in this fly-on-the-wall doc about Bobi Wine, a Ugandan singer who took on Yoweri Museveni, the country’s ruthless leader since 1986. Directed by Moses Bwayo and Christopher Sharp, the film follows Wine as he goes from recording protest songs to finding himself arrested by a dictatorship where kidnappings and torture are the norm. Although hardly groundbreaking, it’s a solid introduction to the Ugandan situation and the courage of those who stand against Museveni.…

OUT 25 AUGUST CINEMAS A fretful widower gets drawn into his jailbird stepfather’s criminal activities in this amiable timepasser, which is less a vehicle for writer/director/star Louis Garrel (Théo in Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Dreamers) than an opportunity to enjoy the grizzled charm of veteran Roschdy Zem. The latter is on sparkling form as an ex-con trying not too hard to go straight, and so are Anouk Grinberg and Tár’s Noémie Merlant as Garrel’s free-spirited mother and wouldbe girlfriend respectively. The result is a fab foursome whose banter and chemistry elevate what is otherwise a fairly formulaic caper.…

OUT NOW DVD, BD, 4K UHD, DIGITAL EXTRAS Featurettes, Music video You may wish it was all done in service of a superior story, but it’s impossible not to be dazzled by the cutting-edge effects and filmmaking wizardry employed in realising James Cameron’s longawaited sequel. Packing more than three hours’ worth of featurettes, the sci-fi blockbuster’s UHD release leaves no Pandoran stone unturned with its exploration of how the epic adventure was brought to the screen. Meanwhile, the breath-snatching visuals result in one of the best-looking 4K discs around.…

OUT NOW CINEMAS 25 SEPT DIGITAL When awkward tween Hedvig (Reilley Ott) accidentally shrinks her dad’s (Jean-Luc Julien, who also directs) super-suit in the wash, he must retire from the hero business and choose a successor: Hedvig or her athletic cousin Adrian (Gustav Bergold). Replete with well-meaning messages about being yourself, this Norwegian kid-flick might deal in themes of fulfilling (or failing) parental expectations, but the plot is slight and lacking in stakes. Despite some handsome animation, the result feels like a less successful spin on supershow Miraculous, one that never quite takes flight.…

1993 OUT 1 SEPTEMBER CINEMAS Thirty years, five sequels and many containment spillages of CGI on from its release, Steven Spielberg’s dino-splash seems to have much to answer for. But, just as Jaws wasn’t to blame for summer cinema’s misfires, so Jurassic Park transcends `– and, cannily, preempts – the fallout from its success. Working from Michael Crichton’s nastier novel, Spielberg posits a key question: when you open Pandora’s box, can you control what emerges? While that query resonates with modern AI anxieties, in 1993 the film’s demons were genetics and CGI. Although twinkly salesman John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) can’t contain his animals, Spielberg attains his CG peaks with discipline. Recalling Crichton’s Westworld, the set-up sees experts Sam Neill, Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum corralled into assessing Hammond’s park. Then…

2001 OUT 25 AUGUST CINEMAS Three outings as Robert McCall under Antoine Fuqua’s direction have turned two-time Oscar winner Denzel Washington into something of a Sequelizer. In 2001, however, they teamed up on a project that had the potential to take both their careers down fresh paths. In Washington’s case, here was an opportunity to show that he could be just as compelling playing an out-and-out villain as he had been portraying paragons of virtue in various biopics and earnest dramas. For Fuqua, meanwhile, this was a chance to gain a bigger big-screen profile after helming music videos and films such as The Replacement Killers (1998). Two decades on, this cinema rerelease (in a new 4K restoration) of the duo’s first collaboration is proof they both succeeded. Tightly written by…

MVP: FRANK GORSHIN AS THE RIDDLER Making his debut in the show’s first episode, Hi Diddle Riddle, Gorshin quickly established himself as a scene-stealer par excellence. Bringing a manic intensity to the role that made him the scariest of the baddies, Gorshin out-cackled even the Joker and ran rings around Batman and Robin. Originally clad in a bright-green onesie, Gorshin came up with the idea of the Riddler’s now-commonplace business suit and bowler hat after tiring of the spandex.…

INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY John Williams turns back the clock with alluring, expansive shows of lush romanticism and frisky grit for Indy’s farewell. Helena’s Theme is gorgeous and fluent, generously flushed with golden-age Hollywood sweep yet brightly adaptable to action duties. Alongside clear character/Dial cues, any sense of wonderment in the film is attributable to Williams’ twinkly scoring. As for old friends, Raiders March/Marion’s Theme are warmly reunited: weathered and wistful but still irresistible. MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE − DEAD RECKONING PART ONE In a busy year (see also D&D: HAT, Luther: The Fallen Sun, Ghosted…), Lorne Balfe isn’t slacking off for Fallout’s follow-up. Jostling with thrusting strings, brassy aggro and ballistic bongos, Reckoning adds spooked electronic atmospherics for The Entity and elsewhere. A few stronger character themes might…

OUT NOW PC PS4/5, SWITCH, XBOX ONE/SERIES A unique kind of cooking game, Venba tells the story of an Indian expat family in Canada, each Tamil dish representing a key moment in their time there. Following recipes from a tattered cookbook, you must work out the missing steps where pages are torn and handwriting is smudged in order to prepare each meal successfully. Venba and her family are likewise learning to adapt – their own struggles movingly depicted in vignettes that show developer Visai Games’ gift for visual storytelling.…

HORROR UNMASKED Brad Weismann’s guidebook plots a century-plus history of horror with fan-ish fervour, making up in enthusiasm for shortfalls of binding argument. Starting with Caligari and Chaney and closing with ‘post-horror’, it’s a sketchy but voracious survey. KEVIN HARLEY OUT THERE: THE SCIENCE BEHIND SCI-FI FILM AND TV Author and NASA adviser Ariel Waldman puts the plausibility of sci-fi tropes to the test in this informative and accessible volume. If the text feels a little too reliant on familiar themes – and film/TV examples – it’s still a lively read for genre geeks of all ages. LINDA MARRIC RESISTING JAMES BOND Environmental injustice? Unthinking urbicide? Daniel Craig’s tenure as Bond was guilty of all that and more according to this stimulating essay collection. It’s not all withering: recent Bonds…

IAN NATHAN WHITE LION ‘This is not a career – it’s a landscape,’ says Nathan, who creditably attempts to traverse Eastwood’s hefty output in 176 pages. Masterpieces The Outlaw Josey Wales, Unforgiven and Million Dollar Baby merit chapters; duds like The 15:17 to Paris barely get a paragraph. But Nathan rigorously distinguishes between ‘Clint’ the star and ‘Eastwood’ the artist as he considers the icon’s place in pop culture.…

February 1995 The second I read the script I said, ‘I gotta do this movie.’ Even in the script I could see that warm, nice story between Mathilda and Leon really shone through all the violence and everything else. I told my parents, ‘I really love the script and I really want this opportunity’ and they had some concerns at the beginning… but they talked to Luc [Besson] about it and he took out two or three scenes that we were uncomfortable with. June 2023 It’s a movie that’s still beloved, and people come up to me about it more than almost anything I’ve ever made, and it gave me my career. But it is definitely, when you watch it now, it definitely has some cringey, to say the least,…

CONTRIBUTOR KIM TAYLOR-FOSTER @K_IMBOT After telling director Nia DaCosta I live on the UK’s south coast, she shared that while prepping The Marvels in London she drove every other weekend to Devon just to hang out. DEPUTY EDITOR MATT MAYTUM @MATTMAYTUM One perk of this job? Three IMAX screenings of Oppenheimer before it opened. Another perk? Chatting to Christopher Nolan and Cillian Murphy on the TF podcast. ACTING NEWS EDITOR JAMIE GRAHAM @JAMIE_GRAHAM9 After talking to David Gordon Green about The Exorcist: Believer, he gave me a Zoom tour of the posters in his study: Argento’s Suspiria, Badlands, Deliverance, Medium Cool… ONLINE ENTERTAINMENT WRITER EMILY MURRAY @EMILYVMURRAY When I talked to Matt Damon and Emily Blunt for Oppenheimer they sang me a song as I walked into the room so…

TURTLE POWER Paramount are shelling out on a sequel to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, plus a two-season series on Paramount+. Ramsey Ann Naito, Nickelodeon/Paramount Animation president, said, ‘We are thrilled to continue expanding the beloved Turtles universe.’ BOOKS OF BLOOD A four-issue comic-book adaptation of American Psycho will hit shelves later this year. It will feature two storylines, one giving readers Patrick Bateman’s killing spree from a fresh perspective, and one focusing on ‘all-new psychopath’ Charlie, a social media-obsessed millennial. BET ON BLACK Black Panther has been voted the greatest superhero film by Rolling Stone. ‘It proved that superhero movies could be about something more than just entertainment — they could reflect, refract and represent the real world around us,’ was the verdict. BEYOND MEASURE Trilogy capper Spider-Man:…

Reluctant hero Robert McCall first arrived on the big screen in 2014’s The Equalizer, an action thriller loosely based on the 1980s TV series of the same name. Helmed by Training Day’s Antoine Fuqua, the film starred Denzel Washington as the Good Samaritan who doles out justice to a crew of Russian gangsters. But Fuqua hadn’t envisioned this as the beginning of a trilogy. ‘I was just doing one film at a time,’ he says to Teasers. ‘After one I didn’t think about two. After two I certainly didn’t think about three.’ Nearly 10 years after that first film dropped, Fuqua and Washington have reunited, relocating to sunnier climes. McCall’s latest outing finds the former commando sunning himself in coastal Italy. Still, neither sun nor sea have done McCall’s mood…

A lot of people think film music has to be big orchestras and big melodies,’ says ace composer Daniel Pemberton. ‘But it can be so many different things.’ From writing themes for Love Island and Peep Show to scoring The Counsellor, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and Michael Mann’s upcoming Ferrari, Pemberton, 45, has proved this time and again. Now that’s music to our ears… You started composing for TV, including the first season of C4’s Peep Show and that popping sound between scenes, right? Here’s an interesting fact: a lot of that was recorded down a well in Majorca! I was on a family holiday. And there was a well in the back of the garden. A big stone well that had a crazy echo. If I find a cool…

When you’re thinking about Marvel music, there are things that you do that fit into the MCU. You need to have a tag. You need to have a theme that’s hummable. You need to have something that’s recognisable in two musical bars. I wanted to experiment with what space might sound like. I worked with vocalists from every conceivable world tradition. I also recorded with Dame Evelyn Glennie, the world’s pre-eminent percussionist. She has a collection of about 3,500 instruments. She’s also profoundly deaf. There’s no sound in space, but there are energy waves and you can feel those waves. Dame Glennie hears differently. She hears with her body, rather than with her ears, and these incredible sounds we created invite you to hear that way. Space data is realised…

‘WHEN YOU’VE NOT COME THROUGH THE EDUCATION SYSTEM OF FILM, YOU HAVE AN IMPOSTER SYNDROME’ Shane Meadows is a talker. He doesn’t talk at you, he talks with you, a down-toearth, ebullient guy who enjoys trading stories, information and viewpoints. And while he loves a bit of banter, he doesn’t hide behind it – a more open and honest man you could not hope to meet. And meet him Total Film does, twice: first, in June, in a West End screening room, and again on Zoom in July, with a cheeky phone call sandwiched in between. There’s a scintillating 27year career to talk through, and eight pages of the Total Film Interview to fill. ‘If you don’t have enough, I’ll send you a picture of my beer belly,’ he grins.…

OUT 28 AUGUST DIGITAL Once a magnificent transatlantic ocean liner, The Queen Mary is now a creaky tourist attraction. When digital marketer Erin (Alice Eve) and her family are brought aboard to revive its fortunes, they discover some spooky, Shining-style secrets. Mixing two timelines, animation, CGI and even a Fred Astaire song-and-dance sequence, writer/ director Gary Shore’s chiller doesn’t lack for ambition. But the narrative is choppy to the point where it’s rarely clear exactly what’s happening. Meanwhile, having a largely British cast pretending to be American gives it all a strange, deepfake quality.…

OUT 5 SEPTEMBER CINEMAS Hailed as ‘Africa’s Tarantino’, Isaac Nabwana is an action director unlike any other. Galvanised by the films of Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris, the former brick-maker began shooting low-budget fight films (notably Who Killed Captain Alex?) with just a camcorder and a ton of creativity at a small studio resourcefully run from his own home in a ghetto in Uganda. Insightful and involving, Cathryne Czubek’s excellent documentary captures the power of cinema not only to inspire, but also to unify communities making movies well beyond the mainstream.…

OUT NOW DIGITAL Making The Great Train Robbery look like stealing penny chews from the corner shop, this documentary charts the cybercrime of the century. In 2016, tech-savvy hackers attempted to swindle $1 billion from the Bangladeshi Central Bank, a job so fiendishly plotted, the hackers had penetrated the computer system a year before striking. Interviewees including McMafia author Misha Glenny bring the expertise, while director Daniel Gordon (Australian Dream) keeps things accessible and informative. Conventionally told, but still an absorbing look at our increasing vulnerability to cyber-crime.…

OUT 28 AUGUST DIGITAL It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’s Charlie Day ditches his raspy voice for some expressive silent clowning in a satire that also marks his writing/directing debut. Day plays a nameless, nonspeaking man who, after being released from a mental-health facility, is hired as an acting stand-in and accidentally rises up the celebrity ranks. There’s plenty of charm and heart alongside the cutting barbs about the Hollywood artifice and absurdity, not to mention a fine cast full of familiar faces (Kate Beckinsale, Ray Liotta, Adrien Brody). It’s ultimately unsatisfying, though, to watch a protagonist being passive in their own story.…

OUT 1 SEPTEMBER CINEMAS Adapted from Bea Roberts’ stage play of the same name, this touching debut feature from director Paul Robinson (who helmed the original) tells the story of the unlikely friendship between Devon farmer Michael and vet Jeff (respectively David Fielder and Nigel Hastings, reprising their stage roles) during the foot-andmouth outbreak of the early noughties. While the film still has vital things to say about modern rural life, the intimacy of the original two-hander has been diluted. The bucolic landscapes are a bonus, but peripheral characters feel needless.…

OUT 28 AUGUST DIGITAL Following a difficult break-up, cam-model Vicky (Ashley Benson) seeks some alone time at a cabin in the woods, but finds herself mercilessly stalked by the masked Crowbar Killer. Meanwhile, Paris Hilton hosts a crappy reality show… Director/co-writer Jimmy Giannopoulos’ (The Birthday Cake) clumsy horror seeks to smoosh together sub-genres (Cam meets Friday the 13th meets Love Island) and rustle up social commentary between the (non-existent) scares, but none of it works. Pamela Anderson pops up as a sheriff and a frankly ludicrous finale ties everything together like it’s the dream of a cheese-eating child.…

OUT 1 SEPTEMBER CINEMAS All those scary things, they’re just in your head,’ says Carol (Lizzy Caplan) to her son Peter (C’mon, C’mon’s Woody Norman), a lonely kid living in the American ’burbs. The moral of this story? Don’t believe everything your parents tell you. First-time feature director Samuel Bodin’s highly effective Halloween-set horror sees Peter come to realise there really is something out there when he hears knocking on the walls and even a soft voice crying his name. Is it anything to do with the young girl that disappeared in the neighbourhood years earlier? Chris Thomas Devlin’s script keeps its secrets locked away until the final, satisfying act, with plenty of misdirection and some fine performances. A dexterous Caplan and Norman lead the way, but there’s strong work…

OUT 1 SEPTEMBER CINEMAS There’s plenty of goofing around in this wacky farce about a group of over-the-hill children’s entertainers obliged to take a cross-Ireland road trip after a solar flare knocks out the power. (‘This is Y2K times 2K!’ says a reporter riding their coattails.) And Natalie Palamides deserves a new tiny bike for her zany scene-stealing as a Pennywise-style harlequin certain to terrify coulrophobics. A pity, then, that the anarchic exuberance George Kane’s (Crashing, Inside No. 9) film initially projects isn’t sustained, leaving us instead with something akin to a slowly deflating balloon animal.…

OUT NOW CINEMAS, APPLE TV+ Continuing the trend for origin stories about iconic 80s/90s brands, this twisty, often hilarious takedown of tantrum-prone tycoon Ty Warner’s (Zach Galifianakis, terrific) Beanie Babies empire takes a different tack from Air or Flamin’ Hot. More cautionary than celebratory, it frames one man’s American dream as three women’s nightmare: co-founder Robbie (a deliciously tough Elizabeth Banks), marketing pioneer Maya (perky Geraldine Viswanathan) and single mum Sheila (an understated Sarah Snook). Also scoring highly as a sly social satire, it’s playful, punchy and clad in popping pastels.…

OUT NOW CINEMAS An ultra-slow but thoughtful filmed stage adaptation of Dutch wartime heroine Corrie ten Boom’s brave stand in hiding multiple Jewish refugees. Focusing strongly on her family’s enduring Christian faith, especially during Ten Boom’s Gestapo interrogation and her ordeal at Ravensbrück concentration camp, it’s an earnest, well-intentioned piece that works hard to capture the risks she ran. Conventionally shot in a Tennessee theatre with stripped-back staging, it’s held up chiefly by a resolutely stoical performance from actor Nan Gurley, who nonetheless emphasises Ten Boom’s consistent compassion.…

2002 OUT NOW BD EXTRAS Commentaries, Featurettes, Book, Art cards Writer/director Lucky McKee has gone on to bigger things (The Woman, Old Man), but is yet to match the aggressive strangeness of this indie slasher, which marked his solo debut. Blending whimsy with grotesque body horror, it follows a socially awkward veterinary assistant (Angela Bettis) who’s obsessed with perfection. A young Anna Faris also shines as the title character’s flirty colleague. Second Sight has given this cult fave quite the makeover – both the regular and limited editions come heaped with extras; the latter includes a 70-page essay book.…

1973 OUT 18 AUGUST CINEMAS Back in cinemas for its 50th anniversary, Sidney Lumet’s tough-as-tarmac true-life drama stars Al Pacino as crusading cop Frank Serpico, who blows the whistle on his corrupt NYPD colleagues. A between-Godfathers Pacino garnered a Best Actor nod for his dextrous, decade-spanning turn as the long-haired law enforcer who refuses to take bribes. But what really linger are the gritty feel and writers Waldo Salt and Norman Wexler’s attention to the details of Frank’s daily life. A masterful meditation on standing up for what you believe in, told with street-level authenticity.…

1998 OUT NOW BD EXTRAS Commentary, Featurettes, Short, Booklet Made for a few thousand pounds and shot guerrilla-style in Soho, London, Christopher Nolan’s feature debut is an ingenious black-and-white noir. Inspired by a burglary in the flat Nolan shared with producer/partner Emma Thomas, it concerns a struggling writer (Jeremy Theobald) who follows random people in the street. One of these is Cobb (Alex Haw), a professional thief who likes to break into people’s houses as much for the power trip as for the profit. Throw in a fatale-ish love interest (Lucy Russell), and you have all the ingredients of a Hollywood thriller, only without any bloat. Several of Nolan’s future preoccupations are here in fledgling form: a fractured narrative, a lost soul who turns his life into a movie plot……

OUT NOW ANDROID, IOS, PC, PS4/5, SWITCH This sequel to Night School Studio’s well-received 2016 mystery struggles to repeat the trick. While the original focused on a group of teens investigating supernatural occurrences on the mist-shrouded Edwards Island, this follows researchers Riley and Jacob as they do the same on nearby Camena. But the pair lack the chemistry of the original gang, while interruptions disrupt the flow of the conversations that were among Oxenfree’s biggest strengths.…

JOHN WALSH TITAN Author and filmmaker Walsh leads a fun and full-bore expedition through the making of the 1982 Schwarzenegger smash. The hardback tome’s sizable dimensions and depth of colour allow plenty of scope for showcasing Conan’s pulpy origins and artist Frank Frazetta’s essential work on the character. Includes set photographs, concept art and interviews with the cast and crew.…

1 NOTTING HILL Dressed only in Y-fronts, Rhys Ifans’ slobby flatmate Spike opens the door to a thong – sorry, throng – of paparazzi. He pulls some poses, then shuts the door and examines himself in the mirror. ‘Not bad… Well-chosen briefs, I’d say. Chicks love grey. Nice firm buttocks.’ 2 A CLOCKWORK ORANGE Superman’s not the only one who sports his pants on the outside, with Malcolm McDowell’s Alex DeLarge wearing his jockstrap loud and proud. It’s actually a cricket codpiece – a mockingly applied sign of gentlemanly privilege, like the droogs’ bowler hats. 3 BRIDGET JONES'S DIARY Men’s undergarments are often played for laughs, while women are sexualised. Hail this scene, then: ‘Now these are very silly little boots, Jones,’ purrs Hugh Grant as Daniel Cleaver. ‘And this is a very…

What is the first thing you do when you arrive on a film set? If it’s everybody’s first day, everybody is nervous. Nothing goes right. You don’t have running water [laughs] – you can’t make a cup of tea. My only requirement is that I can make a cup of tea. Is it less nerve-racking when you’re returning to something, as with Season 2 of The Wheel of Time? Yeah. I had a funny thing: in my trailer, in my bathroom, on the cupboard door underneath the sink, there was one of my contact lenses that had stuck to it during Season 1. Every time I saw it, I thought, ‘Well, I’m not going to remove it, because I’m going to see if there’s any level of cleaning going on…

Fourteen-year-old British actor Woody Norman appeared in Catastrophe, Poldark and the 2019 TV series of The War of the Worlds before starring in acclaimed drama C’mon C’mon with some guy named Joaquin Phoenix (‘I’d seen Brother Bear and that was it’). Now he’s feeling the fear in psychological horror movie Cobweb and Dracula tale The Last Voyage of the Demeter, before going huge in the Russo brothers’ The Electric State… Was it traumatic portraying the child of creepy, abusive parents in Cobweb? Yeah. It’s just such a faraway concept to me. I can’t imagine what people who go through that… you know, what that does to their mind. I always like to only be in character when the camera’s on. Method acting doesn’t work for me. [In C’mon C’mon] Joaquin…

TEASERS In the weeks leading up to Greta Gerwig’s Barbie and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer – both of which hit UK cinemas on 21 July – anticipation reached nuclear levels. Dubbed collectively as ‘Barbenheimer’, the pair set social media ablaze with everything from frantic debates to memes, fan art to commemorative T-shirts. Joyously, that excitement translated to box office, with the films contributing to the UK and Ireland’s biggest seven-day box office on record while also breaking records stateside and right across the world. This success saw Hollywood legend Francis Ford Coppola weigh in during a Q&A on his Instagram story: ‘The fact that people are filling big theaters to see [these films] and that they are neither “sequels” nor “prequels”… is [a] victory for cinema,’ he enthused. ‘SUMMER 2023 HAS…

MAKING OF Sometimes, a filmmaker just knows when a subject is right. For Roger Ross Williams it was the day he first encountered the Mexican wrestler Saúl Armendáriz, better known by his ring name, Cassandro. ‘I fell in love with Cassandro the minute I met him,’ recalls Williams, when Total Film hooks up with him over video chat. At the time, Williams was filming footage for The Man Without a Mask, a 2016 non-fiction short for The New Yorker, inspired by William Finnegan’s portrait of Cassandro that appeared in the magazine two years earlier. ‘Actually, the first day shooting with Cassandro… I went out that night with my crew, we were at a tequila bar. I remember that moment. And I said, “This is going to be my first scripted…

OUT 23 AUGUST CINEMAS I t’s one of the most notorious tropes in slasher cinema: the Black character always dies first. But what happens when all the characters are Black? That’s the killer concept at the heart of this rollicking horror spoof. Director Tim Story (Barbershop, Ride Along, 2005’s Fantastic Four) skewers Hollywood convention and urban stereotypes in a rapid-fire satire that feels scathing yet affectionate. Seven college friends rent a remote cabin (in the woods, naturally) for a weekend reunion and stumble on The Blackening, a board game centred on racist caricatures. Bewildered and bemused, they decide to play, triggering a video recording of a masked figure who puts the group through a series of Saw-like puzzles. Jokes are cracked, the mystery deepens and the strong young cast –…

OUT 11 SEPTEMBER DIGITAL A playful rules-of-dating comedy shifts into a disquieting tale of behavioural grooming in writer/ director Viljar Bøe’s slender Scandi-horror. Katrine Lovise Øpstad Fredrikse plays a selfeffacing student whose moneyed date (Gard Løkke) lives with a man who identifies as a dog. Barking? Perhaps, but Løkke has charm – so who’s to judge? Appealing performances aside, plausibility issues weigh heavily as Good Boy devolves into rote wack-job turf. Even as teasing riffs on ideas to do with BDSM/consent emerge, Bøe’s provocation soon resembles a short-worthy concept given too long a leash.…

OUT 25 AUGUST CINEMAS, CURZON HOME CINEMA Following 2020’s watery Undine, this is the second in writer/ director Christian Petzold’s Elements Trilogy. Afire assembles a quartet of 20-somethings – among them self-absorbed novelist Leon (Thomas Schubert) and PhD literature student Nadja (Paula Beer) – at a summer house in woods off the Baltic coast. Sounds idyllic, but forest fires are drawing ominously close to the cabin. Resisting straightforward categorisation, this well-acted ensembler combines comic misunderstandings, insightful characterisation and climateemergency tragedy to impactful effect.…

OUT 18 AUGUST CINEMAS Returning to his provincial French hometown after a 35-year absence, novelist Stéphane (Guillaume De Tonquédec) encounters young executive Lucas (Victor Belmondo). Turns out Lucas is the son of Thomas (Julien De Saint Jean), with whom Stéphane shared an intense first love when they were both 17. Director Olivier Peyon’s drama is a detective story of sorts, which alternates between the two timelines – the summer of 1984 and the autumnal present. Though handsomely lensed, it leads the viewer on a somewhat familiar journey of healing and reconciliation.…

OUT 8 SEPTEMBER DIGITAL Nicolas delivers a potent blast of Cage rage in this budget thriller, co-starring Joel Kinnaman as his hapless straight man. When Kinnaman – billed as The Driver – is carjacked at gunpoint by The Passenger (Cage, operating at ‘100% sex’), the citizens of Nevada become collateral damage in the deadly game of cat-and-mouse that ensues. Cage knows what is expected and fully delivers, from bizarre monologues to colourful accent. Director Yuval Adler sensibly gives his stars room to do their thing while steering towards an endgame that’s both inevitable and unpredictable.…

OUT 1 SEPTEMBER CINEMAS Marking the feature writing/ directing debut of Brit actor Neil Maskell (Kill List, Apple TV+ series Hijack), this darkly funny drama is part Ben Wheatley, part Harold Pinter. Couple-on-the-run Ewan (Amit Shah) and Silke (Sura Dohnke) are holed up in a remote Belgian cottage, waiting to reveal an Edward Snowden-style secret to a newspaper (the title is Dutch for ‘whistleblower’); Chris (Tom Burke) and Glynn (Roger Evans) are the muscle sent to protect them. With some droll lines and a dissonant score, it’s an anxiously enjoyable watch; there’s no doubting Shah when he says, ‘I’m fucked; we all are.’…

Sachs and the city… OUT 1 SEPTEMBER CINEMAS Three is most definitely a crowd in Ira Sachs’ drama, a lustful tale set in contemporary Paris in which a narcissistic auteur (Germany’s Franz Rogowski) finds it impossible to choose between the man he married (Britain’s Ben Whishaw) and the schoolteacher he seduces (France’s Adèle Exarchopoulos) after completing his latest project. Emotionally raw and sexually fearless, it’s a marked change of pace for an American writer/director whose films to date (Married Life, Love is Strange) have tended to focus on the comfortably bourgeois. Its effectiveness, however, rests totally on Rogowski’s Tomas, a creature of impulse who most viewers will either accept as a Fassbinderish prodigy or dismiss out of hand as an insufferable arse. The latter seems more fitting during an early…

OUT 1 SEPTEMBER CINEMAS OUT 23 SEPTEMBER SKY Documentarians Peter Beard and Bruce Fletcher encourage their friend Otto Baxter, who has Down’s syndrome, to write/direct a short film depicting his life. Otto proves to be a fun character throughout, but there’s poignancy in his decision to make a Victorian horror tale in which he is born a monster. Elsewhere, Beard and Fletcher admirably complicate the otherwise upbeat mood by showing the crew’s discomfort at Otto’s inappropriate flirting on set. In all, it’s a doc with vital things to say about outdated attitudes towards disability.…

OUT NOW CINEMAS Previously adapted in 2003 with Eddie Murphy, the classic Disney ride gets a new lease of life (and death) with this fresh take from director Justin Simien (Dear White People) and scribe Katie Dippold (2016’s Ghostbusters). Single mum Gabbie (Rosario Dawson) and son Travis (Chase W. Dillon) are seeking to start over in a cobwebbed New Orleans mansion. But when things start going bump in the night, a motley crew of eccentric experts is called in to deal with those (un)happy haunts - and one sinister spectre in particular, Jared Leto’s mysterious Hatbox Ghost. A spirited chemistry develops among the starry cast: Danny DeVito (a historian), Owen Wilson (a priest) and Tiffany Haddish (a psychic) bag the LOLs, while Jamie Lee Curtis has an entertaining (if small)…

OUT 8 SEPTEMBER CINEMAS The extraordinary tale of filmmaking farmer Charles Carson is told in this engaging doc from first-time director Oscar Harding. It all begins with the discovery of a VHS tape containing home videos of Carson’s life on a Somerset farm. The found footage is peppered with moments that are by turns odd, creepy and unintentionally hilarious; perhaps the most striking moment is when Carson records his own brother’s funeral with the enthusiasm of a teenage cineaste. Less fascinating, however, are Harding’s attempts to contextualise the footage with some superfluous talking-head interviews.…

SCREEN OUT 4 SEPTEMBER DIGITAL The familiar ‘cabin in the woods’ set-up gets the folk-horror treatment in this Finnish drama from first-time filmmakers Joonas Pajunen and Max Seeck. Three adult siblings return to their childhood home to settle the family estate and, in the process, confront their abusive past and the violent circumstances of their parents’ death. The glacial unravelling of dark secrets makes for tense, compelling viewing as revelations surface and the full picture gradually emerges. A pity, then, that the second half succumbs to more well-worn paranormal activity.…

OUT 8 SEPTEMBER CINEMAS Pogoing into the politico-punk mosh pit, Luke J. Baker’s solidly stirring doc celebrates the socialist power trio whose story sprawls from Thatcher to Brexit. Main man Steve Drewett details how a Harlow upbringing, the Ramones and the miners’ strike stoked the Neurotics’ righteous fervour, heard on songs such as When the Oil Runs Out. Band bonds are explored between reflections on DIY principles, while Billy Bragg and Steve Lamacq recall close-knit band/fans connections: ‘It felt,’ says the ageless Lammo, ‘like a bit of a gang.’…

OUT NOW SKY CINEMA, NOW Despite being entirely confined to the titular post-apocalyptic shelter, this lo-fi, sci-fi twohander boldly goes where no bromance has gone before. But even as the big twists and heavy themes (survivalism, evolution, gender identity) stack up, first-time director/co-writer Mel Eslyn maintains a lightness of touch, aided by the easy chemistry between last men standing Sterling K. Brown and Mark Duplass (who co-scripted). Shame, though, that efforts to tickle the funny bone and – in the final stretch – yank the heartstrings are too uneven to really round things out.…

1953 OUT 1 SEPTEMBER CINEMAS A high-ranker in best-ever-films lists, Yasujiro Ozu’s classic carries its greatness lightly. The plot upholds simplicity’s virtues: elderly spouses visit Tokyo to see their children, only to find their offspring too busy for them. Refusing to judge, Ozu invests his spare narrative and minimalist compositions with cumulative emotional power, percolating in the spaces between stoicism and sorrow. As a profound portrait of disappointment takes slow, soft shape, Setsuko Hara’s daughterin-law Noriko impeccably embodies Ozu’s cushioning currents of kindness and empathy.…

1985 OUT 21 AUGUST 4K UHD EXTRAS Alternate cuts, Documentary, Featurettes, Galleries, Poster Written and directed by John Hughes and available for the first time in ultra-high-def, this sci-fi sex comedy has not aged well. Horny high-schoolers Anthony Michael Hall and Ilan MitchellSmith create the perfect woman in the form of Kelly LeBrock, ushering in all manner of problematic anarchy. A good cast (including Robert Downey Jr. and Bill Paxton) can’t save proceedings from being creepy, sexist and – in a scene where the boys get drunk at a Black bar – staggeringly racist. Disc includes extended and editedfor-TV versions.…

OUT NOW PC, PS5 Two-dimensional photos magically gain an extra dimension in this ingenious puzzler. Place a Polaroid and it carves out a piece of the existing level, replacing the current geometry with the scenery in the frame. Using fixed cameras, you can snap steps to reach higher ground or floors to bridge gaps, while photocopiers help duplicate objects. There’s perspective trickery besides, before Viewfinder builds even more spatial conundrums around the possibilities of a portable camera. Only a flimsy afterthought of a story holds it back from a fifth star.…

ROTO FORCE OUT NOW PS4/5, SWITCH The stage moves when you do in this frenzied indie shoot-’em-up, whose claustrophobic levels quickly fill up with enemies and projectiles. Although you play as a slug, you’re anything but sluggish… but you can slow down the action by taking aim at a far wall, propelling yourself through hails of bullets. Intense and thrilling. SLUDGE LIFE 2 OUT NOW PC Rapper Big Mud has gone missing, and it’s up to graffiti artist Ghost to find him. But there’s no rush: you’re encouraged to idle in this grubby open world as you smoke, tag buildings, meet drug-addled weirdos and even take a mushroom trip of your own. A compact sandbox of the appealingly indolent kind.…

MAUREEN RYAN HARPER COLLINS Subtitled Power, Complicity and a Call for Change in Hollywood, this is a searing exposé from veteran entertainment journalist Ryan. Gathering frank interviews with those who were in the rooms where it all happened, the Vanity Fair writer drops a series of bombshells regarding, among other things, the Lost writers’ room and the SNL studio, calling out the abusers and enablers as she goes. Where the first half of the book kicks the doors down, the second offers solutions. Urgent and revealing.…

THIS MONTH INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY Q In Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Dr Jones discovers a time machine invented by Ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes. McGuffin or real artefact? The Dial is based on the real artefact, the Antikythera mechanism, an Ancient Greek gadget discovered in 1901 in a shipwreck off the coast of the Greek island of Antikythera. It has been described by scholars as the oldest known example of an analogue computer. The hand-powered machine charted astronomical movement and could predict eclipses decades in advance. It is kept at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens and over the years a number of studies and X-rays have unveiled a series of bronze gears and inscriptions. But was Archimedes the architect? In 2008, continuing research…