Indholdsfortegnelse for October 2023 i Total Film

Another month and still the strikes continue. The fight here is often reduced to rich, greedy actors wanting more money and more time off, but the impact this industrial action has is felt throughout the business. The drivers, the caterers, the PAs, the publicists and yes, Total Film, are hamstrung by the action, with livelihoods threatened and projects collapsing. And in the case of this issue, not being about to talk to Wonka himself, Timothée Chalamet, about playing the chocolate king and getting covered in the sweet stuff. Not to worry, we got your story without Mr C, and I got to hang out in Abbey Road Studios listening to an orchestra create the gorgeous Wonka score in one of the most famous recording spaces in the world. Also had…

I give myself a really hard time about the choices I've made and whether I'm working hard enough,' Hayley Squires once told The Guardian. Averaging two films, a prestige TV series and a West End drama a year – and choosing to work with the likes of Ken Loach, Ben Wheatley, Peter Strickland and Ari Aster – she can probably afford to let herself off the hook. The last 12 months have seen Squires star alongside Claire Danes and Tom Hiddleston in Clio Barnard's adaptation of The Essex Serpent, and with Joaquin Phoenix in Aster's Beau Is Afraid. Then it was off to the Venice Film Festival with British period drama Hoard, with Joseph Quinn, and next up is a starring role in Steve McQueen's World War Two home-front epic,…

IN THE CROSSHAIRS THIS MONTH… DAVID CROSS You talkin' to me? No, I'm not. Sorry, this happens every once in a while, especially on Zoom, but there's a gentleman behind you. It looks like he's trying to get in through the window? Anyway, I'm talking to him. On Zoom it gets weird so I apologise if there was any awkwardness, but no – I'm talking to the gentleman. At least I think it's a guy? It's tough to tell these days. Do you feel lucky, punk? This is going to get me in trouble with my wife but I haven't hung out with Lucky Punk in a long time. And yes, there were occasions when there was a bit too much to drink and I did feel Lucky Punk but…

‘I WOKE UP AT 50 IN STILETTOS AND A THONG… I'VE HAD A GREAT SEXYASS LIFE.' PATRICIA CLARKSON ON HER ‘BIG CHOICE' TO NEVER MARRY OR HAVE KIDS. £1.34BN BARBIE EXCEEDS HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS: PART 2 AS WARNER BROS.' HIGHESTGROSSING MOVIE. ‘I WAS TOO AFRAID TO GO UP TO HIM.' PAUL MESCAL ADMITS TO A FEW NERVES UPON SEEING HIS GLADIATOR 2 CO-STAR PEDRO PASCAL AT LAX AIRPORT. GOOD THING BOOM TIME In the US, Oppenheimer has confounded all expectations to become Christopher Nolan's highest-grossing non-Batman movie. BAD THING GALAXY FAR AWAY Amid the SAG-AFTRA strikes, Dune: Part Two has been pushed back to March. Yep, four more long months until we see Paul ride that sandworm. ‘That shit broke me. That handed me my ass.' DAVID…

TEASERS As a child, London-born Jasmine Jobson was separated from her mum and placed into foster care. She channelled her aggression into acting and earned a BAFTA nomination for her drug dealer Jaq in Top Boy. Jobson has also appeared in Ben Whishaw-starring thriller Surge and can soon be seen as the lead in ITVX thriller Platform 7. She spoke to Teasers in early July while filming Andrea Arnold's new film, Bird. The final season of Top Boy is upon us. Where do we find Jaq? Jaq is at a crossroads. Does she want to be a family person and completely step away from that lifestyle? Or is she going to continue and aim to be a Top Boy? You're the lead character in drama Platform 7. Tell us about…

SALTBURN The festival promises to get off to an absolute flyer with the new film by Oscar winner Emerald Fennell (Promising Young Woman). Starring Barry Keoghan, Jacob Elordi, Rosamund Pike, Richard E. Grant, Archie Madekwe and Carey Mulligan, it's a wickedly sharp tale of privilege and desire. ONE LIFE This year's American Express Gala is James Hawes' One Life, starring Anthony Hopkins, Johnny Flynn and Helena Bonham Carter. It tells the true-life story of Sir Nicholas ‘Nicky' Winton, a London broker who rescued 669 children from the Nazis in the lead up to World War Two. THE KILLER Every new David Fincher movie is an event, but that especially holds true when he's obsessing over his favourite topic – killers. Michael Fassbender plays an ace assassin who has a crisis…

When Total Film last met Pedro Almodóvar, at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival for Pain and Glory, the Spanish maestro was offering up selfies like confetti. Dressed in a bright yellow shirt, he was wearing two watches. Why? One to tell the time and one to track his step count. Today, over Zoom, TF can't resist asking the 73-yearold how that's all going. ‘Madrid, it's more than 40 degrees,' he sighs. His home is a ghost town, the streets empty, making it impossible to get those steps in. ‘Generally when it's not so hot, I reach 4,000 to 5,000, but I don't reach 8,000. This is a failure. I'm sorry!' It's about the only thing Almodóvar has failed at over the decades, in a career that began with 1980's Pepi,…

SCREEN OUT 22 SEPTEMBER CINEMAS Assimilation anxieties abound in Bishal Dutta's classy horror. Indian-American schoolgirl Sam/Samidha (Megan Suri) is just trying to fit in, but something supernatural is killing the local immigrant kids and her friend Tamira (Mohana Krishnan) has it trapped in a jar. Borrowing a few scares from the classics, this isn't quite the finished article. But it's spooky, expertly made and well-acted (Krishnan is especially haunting), plus the powerful subtext means that, even in its most generic moments, the film has something interesting to say.…

OUT 15 SEPTEMBER CINEMAS Very much in the tradition of Jim Jarmusch's monochrome 1980s US indies, this deadpan yet quietly affecting tale from Iranian-born filmmaker Babak Jalali concerns 20-something Afghan refugee Donya (impressive newcomer Anaita Wali Zada). Having fled her hometown of Kabul, where she worked for the US army as a translator, she now lives in Fremont, California, separated from her loved ones and troubled by feelings of survivor's guilt. Artfully shot in the boxy Academy ratio, and featuring several droll supporting characters, Fremont merits its unexpectedly romantic resolution.…

OUT 15 SEPTEMBER CINEMAS At just 67 minutes long, this documentary about textile artist Allan Brown's seven-year project to make a dress from stinging nettles initially appears light on content. But there's a thread weaving throughout that explores Brown's grief at the untimely death of his wife, and the restorative power of nature. Director Dylan Howitt mixes in haunting close-ups of the surrounding woodlands as he captures the diligent craftmanship involved, but Brown's own continual narrative is ultimately quite soothing, practically inviting the viewer to be part of his healing process.…

OUT NOW CINEMAS Unpicking an intricate web of greed and corruption, this documentary tackles the scandal surrounding 1MDB, a sovereign wealth fund set up to benefit the people of Malaysia, which was then exploited by mysterious high-roller Jho Low to fund his own extravagant billionaire lifestyle. With connections to several co-conspirators and complex financial movements, the film is packed with information that can sometimes be hard to follow. But shock developments, including the Malaysian Prime Minister's complicity and Low's connections to Hollywood, help to make for a gripping watch.…

SCREEN OUT NOW NETFLIX Netflix's Mission: Impossible-style spy thriller lights the fuse with a fun pre-credits sequence, only to fizzle out with a formulaic second half. Gal Gadot brings star wattage as Rachel Stone, a tech-savvy operative working for a playing-card-themed spy organisation aided by a superpowered AI. Enter mysterious hacker Keya (Alia Bhatt), who infiltrates a mission to get to the clandestine group. Director Tom Harper injects Heart of Stone with explosive fights and spectacular stunts, making for rollicking genre fare, but you won't need an AI tool to help you predict how the third act is going to play out.…

OUT 22 SEPTEMBER CINEMAS The Oscar Wilde-attributed quote that ‘talent borrows, genius steals' is playfully reconsidered in this contemporary country-house melodrama from screenwriter Alex MacKeith and British director Alice Troughton, making her feature debut. Self-consciously divided into three acts, plus epilogue and prologue, The Lesson follows an aspiring writer (Daryl McCormack) who accepts a live-in tutorial position at the rural mansion of novelist (Richard E. Grant) and his enigmatic wife (Julie Delpy). The result is enjoyably acted and skilfully shot, yet becomes less convincing as it embraces thriller conventions.…

OUT NOW DVD, BD, DIGITAL EXTRAS Featurettes Wild West Wonder Woman? Batman the Barbarian? Something strange is definitely afoot in this latest DC animated feature. While the set-ups are intriguing, the film's lop-sided structure and poor pacing sends things downhill faster than a speeding bullet. Things get even worse in the final act, where an attempt to pull everything into a single climactic narrative results in an awkward shift from an Elseworlds-style anthology to a meandering set-up for next year's Crisis on Infinite Earths animated adaptation.…

All about Eve… OUT 29 SEPTEMBER APPLE TV+ I'll take you down to Dollymount,' sings Eve Hewson's Flora, rewriting her LA-based guitar teacher's love song to her own Irish tune. ‘And we'll fuck behind the dunes.' True to form, writer/director John Carney (Once, Begin Again) brings the right amount of earthy grain to formula uplift in his musical comedy romance, with daughter-of-Bono Hewson's salty lead his trump card. A wild-hearted single mum, Flora has a battered guitar restored as a late birthday gift for her teen tearaway son Max (Orén Kinlan). But when he rejects it, she turns to online tutor Jeff (Joseph Gordon-Levitt). The restorative power of song is Carney's earnest through-line, but he spikes it with lateral details that snag. Kinlan is a natural as the troubled would-be…

OUT 22 SEPTEMBER CINEMAS Despite a starry UK voice cast (Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie both feature), this shrill, wellintentioned animated adap of Oscar Wilde's comic ghost story is more yawn-raising than spine-chilling. Presented in flat, stylised visuals, it suffers from a bland TV look, which combines with the verbose script to give a dated feel. Fry's perky performance as the Elizabethan ghost hell-bent on expelling an American family from his stately home can't salvage a drawn-out slapstick story dotted with ‘wacky' interludes.…

SCREEN 2001 OUT 2 OCTOBER DVD, BD, 4K UHD EXTRAS Documentary, Featurettes, Stills gallery This 4K release offers a welcome chance to revisit Alejandro Amenábar's elegant 2001 chiller. A ghost story for the gore-averse, it's a suspenseful slow-burner in which Nicole Kidman's Grace and her two young children begin to suspect their home is haunted. The kids' apparent sensitivity to light is a contrivance that allows Amenábar to tease at what lies within the mansion's shadowy corners, while the playful score and Fionnula Flanagan's enigmatic housekeeper serve as fine foils to Kidman's convincingly brittle turn.…

1973 OUT 25 SEPTEMBER 4K UHD, STEELBOOK, DIGITAL EXTRAS Commentary, Featurettes, Stills galleries, CD, Booklet, Posters, Postcards What do you get the Wicker Man obsessive who thinks they've seen it all? Try this handsome five-disc boxset, which packages multiple cuts (theatrical, director's, final) in 4K and Blu-ray alongside features old and new, including an exclusive EP, with contemporary artists such as Katy J. Pearson covering music from the timeless pagan-folk soundtrack, and a booklet with new essays including words from veteran Total Film-er Rosie Fletcher. It's a beautiful tribute to one of British cinema's enduring cults.…

1993 OUT 15 SEPTEMBER CINEMAS 2003 OUT NOW CINEMAS 25 SEPTEMBER BD EXTRAS Commentaries, Featurettes, Diaries, Music video If you wanna rock,' says Dewey Finn, ‘you gotta break the rules.' And if there's one thing Richard Linklater knows about, it's bucking convention. In two films made ten years apart, the Texas indie auteur effectively re-authored youth movies, teasing sharp-eyed takes on growing up into genial, music-driven frameworks. Following break-out movie Slacker (1990), Linklater went to school circa 1976 with Dazed and Confused. As seniors brutally initiate freshmen and formative experiences mount, teenage tensions are lightly, lucidly articulated over a day's drinking, smoking and hanging/making out. But this film is sharper than its flyaway hair and flares suggest, tapping into transitional anxieties with lived-in precision. The music rocks too, though School……

SCREEN 1998 OUT 18 SEPTEMBER 4K UHD EXTRAS Commentary, Featurettes, Video essays, Poster, Booklet Hideo Nakata's 1998 chiller kickstarted the J-horror revolution of the early 2000s, and is a masterclass in creeping dread. Released in limited-edition UHD with a bevy of extras, it concerns a journalist (Nanako Matsushima) who investigates an urban legend about a cursed video tape that kills viewers. Infused with millennial fears of technological reliance and the loneliness that can ensue, Ringu remains unmatched in its capacity to get right under your skin, before delivering an ending that, well, just leaps from the screen.…

1964 OUT 18 SEPTEMBER 4K UHD EXTRAS Commentary, Documentary, Visual essay, Featurettes, Alternate opening, Galleries, Booklet, Poster, Postcards A black-gloved killer cuts a bloody swathe through the models at a prestigious fashion house in Mario Bava's influential proto-giallo. Upgrading Arrow's out-of-print 2015 Blu-ray, the label's Dolby Vision-enhanced 4K release brings yet more vibrancy to the coloursaturated photography, while also reframing the film at 1.85:1 (as opposed to the earlier disc's controversial 1.66:1 aspect ratio). Pick of the generous extras is an illuminating chat-track from Bava expert Tim Lucas.…

MATT ZOLLER SEITZ ABRAMS That Anderson has made another film (Asteroid City) in the time it's taken Seitz to publish this elegant tribute to his last one is testament to the meticulous scrutiny it dedicates to the fastidious auteur. Essentially a series of essays on every facet of the comedy's conception and production, its attention to detail even extends to the plaid slippers that greeted Liev Schreiber when he arrived at Angoulême for the shoot.…

THIS MONTH The Color of Money Most months, this column is dedicated to curios and obscurities that you might not have heard of, but boy, do they deserve seeking out. Some months, though, I reserve the right to plump for a more well-known title if I feel it's sorely underrated and deserving of reappraisal. And so I give you Martin Scorsese's masterful road movie set in the diners and motels, bars and pool halls of East Coast America. Sure, Paul Newman won the Best Actor Oscar for reprising his pool shark from The Hustler, ‘Fast' Eddie Felson – but that's usually attributed to the Academy voting sentimentally given his previous six nominations with no return. And while the film sees a young Tom Cruise play pool prodigy Vincent, by turns naïve…

HAVE YOUR SAY TOTALFILM.COM VIDEOS • REVIEWS • TRAILERS • NEWS totalfilm.com twitter.com/totalfilm facebook.comtotalfilm totalfilm@futurenet.com STAR LETTER I know that much of the love we have for moving pictures thrives on the chaos that they generate. But am I alone in wishing for more films and TV shows where nothing ever goes wrong? No issues, just positive engagements all round. It just seems like such a strange notion that we require dilemma and tension to enjoy anything! I like mild peril/retribution/having the rug pulled from under me as much as the next person, but sometimes it would be nice to see things turn out… nice. PETER RENDER, VIA EMAIL Less Fast & Furious, more Slow & Steady? All Stars, no Wars? We're intrigued. Such a sea change would lower blood…

ONLINE ENTERTAINMENT WRITER MOLLY EDWARDS @MOLLYCAROLINE7 Attending a Rebel Moon preview – followed by breakfast with Zack Snyder – was an unforgettable morning. The film looks like a sci-fi epic worth getting excited about. DEPUTY EDITOR MATT MAYTUM @MATTMAYTUM I'm just about to head to Toronto for my first in-person TIFF since pre-COVID-19 times. Hard to tell if I'm more excited about the films or the poutine. CONTRIBUTING EDITOR JAMIE GRAHAM @JAMIE _GRAHAM9 I found Jason Blum in good shape when we talked about The Exorcist: Believer. He dabbed at his hair with a towel, and answered all questions with a post-gym glow. CONTRIBUTING EDITOR JAMES MOTTRAM @JAMESMOTTRAM Huge honour to chat to Pedro Almodóvar about his new work, Strange Way of Life. Even if I spent most of the…

Did you always want to be a reallife Willy Wonka? I'd always been into food and cooking. And actually, when I was younger, I had a Roald Dahl cookery book. I remember one of the recipes was a pencil, and you dip it into some melted candy – and then you can take it to school, and suck on a sweet at the same time as writing, with the teachers never knowing. How did you get involved making chocolates for Wonka? I got contacted by Warner Bros. and I actually thought ‘maybe they want me to cater for a film or something like that'. And then an email mentioned Wonka, and I was like, ‘Yeah, what a job. What an opportunity.' What was the process of making the chocolates? I…

SHAWN LEVY The current strike situation has put everyone on pause. For Shawn Levy, it has meant downing tools on his biggest gig to date, Deadpool 3, and taking an extended break from working with his besties, Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman. He may be itching to get back to it (more of which later) but at least h not having to maintain muscle mass as he waits for a resolution. ‘I feel bad that Hugh and Ryan have to keep eating obscene amounts of protein,' he laughs when we connect in his home base of New York in late August. ‘For me, it's impatience and a certain agita, the waiting. But for them, it's still, you know, boiled chicken 17 times a day…' Still, the time off has given…

OUT 6 OCTOBER CINEMAS Ninety-year-old coffin-dodger honours the glorious dead!' Scoffing at the media furore over his audacious 48-hour care home breakout to attend the 2014 70th anniversary D-Day commemorations in France, Michael Caine's determined Bernie is having none of it. Inspired by a true story, director Oliver Parker's big-hearted film dodges geriatric comic capers in favour of quietly unpacking a tough old veteran's survivor's guilt. As Bernie wangles his way across the Channel, he teams up with John Standing's alcoholic Arthur to seek overdue closure for long-hidden wartime traumas. A small, heartfelt story about the tenacity of love and loss, the result is given heft by Caine's canny, subtly troubled performance. Crisply unsentimental, apart from an encounter with a PTSD-racked young Helmand veteran, the film is also surprisingly moving…

OUT 22 SEPTEMBER CINEMAS Brimming with stars and killer glam riffs, this stirring and affecting doc uses the making of a tribute album as a cue to celebrate Marc Bolan. With Bolan's impish charisma on full display, covers of his songs bang gongs for his writing skills. Beth Orton, U2, Father John Misty and a magisterial Nick Cave – a gorgeous Cosmic Dancer – dig deep into the T.Rex goldmine, while archive chats with David Bowie speak warm volumes about the man who ‘brought glitter to the masses'.…

OUT 22 SEPTEMBER CINEMAS Pedro Almodóvar brings us his second English-language short in three years with this 31-minute queer western. While The Human Voice (2020) was the Spanish master's take on a Jean Cocteau tale, Strange Way of Life is an original, starring Ethan Hawke and man-of-the-hour Pedro Pascal. In Bitter Creek, we find Hawke's sheriff Jake ordering a coffin. Hunting for a murderer, he soon has something else to contend with: the arrival of Silva (Pascal), a cowboy from his past. And after some heavy drinking, Jake and Silva wind up in bed together. ‘It's not every day that someone crosses the desert to see you,' says Silva, who seems keener on this rekindling of old fires than Jake. Further complications ensue when it emerges that Silva's son Joe…

OUT 22 SEPTEMBER CINEMAS It's Christmas time – and there's no need to be afraid. Unless you're eight-year-old Rudi, that is: a small boy from a Transylvanian village who has been mysteriously struck dumb by something he saw while walking in the forest. Director Cristian Mungiu, of 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days fame, keeps what Rudi witnessed a secret for much of this multi-character, multi-lingual drama. Other things, though, come bursting out into the open: among them the racist hostility that greets a trio of migrant Sri Lankans when they're hired by the bread factory that, since the local mine closed down, has become the only business still standing in this economically destitute wasteland. Tensions mount just as Rudi's father Matthias (Marin Grigore) returns from Germany to check…

OUT 6 OCTOBER CINEMAS As they go to pitch their concept of a cell phone that sends emails, Canadian engineering whizz Mike Lazaridis (Jay Baruchel) and goofball partner Doug Fregin (director Matt Johnson) drive past a pony and trap. It is 1996 and, helped by ruthless CEO Jim Balsillie (Glenn Howerton), they're about to change telecommunications forever. The BlackBerry was a must-have accessory and status symbol for a brief moment, but – like that horse and carriage – it was hardwired with obsolescence. The latest drama on a conveyor belt of titles that mythologise the birth pains of game-changing products (Air, Tetris, The Beanie Bubble), Johnson's film is a cautionary tale of underdogs beating the system, only for it to divide and conquer them. The best bits ping in its…

OUT 15 SEPTEMBER CINEMAS With a familiar underdog plot template, this animated racing movie draws on many recognisable influences to tell the story of a plucky slow loris, Zhi (voiced by Jimmy O. Yang), who has to win the four-day Silk Road Rally across China to save his granny's home. Bolstered by frequent silly gags and an impressive voice cast (including J.K. Simmons, Chloe Bennet, Sharon Horgan and John Cleese), the film doesn't quite reach the higher tier of cinematic animated releases, but is diverting enough to keep young kids thoroughly entertained.…

OUT NOW CINEMAS The doghouse is too good for this crude comedy, a ribald riposte to talking-pooch heartstirrers such as A Dog's Purpose that ups the ante relentlessly and tiresomely. Will Forte sets the tone as a horrible serial masturbator who dumps unwanted dog Reggie (Will Ferrell) in the city. Duly, Reggie falls in with a scrappy Boston terrier (Jamie Foxx) and plots revenge. There is something rather admirable in director Josh Greenbaum's go-for-broke approach, but long before Brett Gelman's canine-catcher rolls around in doggie-doo you might be wishing you were Homeward Bound yourself.…

OUT 22 SEPTEMBER CINEMAS Adrift and unhappy, young taxi driver Eileen (Seána Kerslake) unexpectedly finds a kindred spirit in the form of regular fare Shane (Patrick Kielty), the two forging an unlikely connection en route to and from his stand-up comedy classes in Belfast. Spending 90 minutes with this pair of sad sacks might not seem an appealing prospect, but Prasanna Puwanarajah's low-key dramedy balances out the sighs, tears and bickering with a streak of astringent humour. Meanwhile, Kerslake and Kielty, reining in his comic instincts, share a likeable odd-couple chemistry.…

OUT 22 SEPTEMBER CINEMAS I ts title being a mildly derogatory term concerning individual investors, Dumb Money is a true-life comedy-drama in the mould of The Big Short or The Wolf of Wall Street. Only now the subject is what happens when the day traders fight back. The story unfolds in 2020, with internet stock prophet Keith Gill (Paul Dano) – aka Roaring Kitty – putting his savings into GameStop, a videogame retailer haemorrhaging money. Gill believes Wall Street has undervalued the company. His followers on Reddit invest small amounts, among them a Pittsburgh nurse (America Ferrera) and a GameStop employee (Anthony Ramos). And as more pile in, the stock escalates, threatening billionaire hedge funder Gabe Plotkin (Seth Rogen) and others, who had bet on the company's failure. Adapting Ben…

OUT NOW CINEMAS, CURZON HOME CINEMA Driving from Florida to Alaska with a trunk full of stolen pills, screw-up brothers Jacob (director Scott Monahan) and John (writer/ producer Dakota Loesch) get unsurprisingly high on their own supply – and plenty more besides – as they journey through an opioid-ruined America. But what begins as one hell of a (road) trip gradually becomes repetitive, as the two bitch and fight beneath the big lysergic blue skies. Loesch is fantastic, and the film has its own demented rhythm, but ultimately, like Jacob and John, it ends up with nowhere to go.…

1980 OUT NOW BD, DVD EXTRAS Interviews, Booklet Produced by The Who Films Ltd, McVicar stars Roger Daltrey and Adam Faith, and boasts a soundtrack produced by Jeff Wayne. Is it any surprise that music plays a pervasive role in this screen adaptation of former armed-robber-turnedjournalist John McVicar's 1974 autobiography? It's just a shame the filmmakers didn't go full rock opera, which might have transformed a perfectly solid biopic into something exceptional. Extras find Daltrey discussing his transformation into a movie hardman and McVicar reflecting on his relationship with his estranged son.…

1978 OUT NOW 4K UHD EXTRAS Documentary, Deleted scenes, Interviews, Storyboards, Trailers ‘I don't intend to go through that hell again,' states Amity Island police chief Martin Brody in this follow-up to Steven Spielberg's 1975 box-office sensation, seemingly echoing Roy Scheider's own thoughts about returning to the role. We're glad he did, as his presence elevates the material, bringing some compelling human drama to an otherwise slasher-adjacent sequel involving a scarred underwater killer terrifying a group of teenagers. Thanks largely to the lead, it's the one Jaws sequel that doesn't bite.…

SCREEN 2004 OUT 15 SEPTEMBER CINEMAS Returning to cinemas to mark its 20th anniversary, Shane Meadows' dog-eared revenge thriller has touched many pained hearts since its initial release – like Scorsese's Taxi Driver, it's a film that people gravitate to, connecting with its loneliness and anger and (blood)thirst to make things right. Reteaming with his college pal Meadows after A Room for Romeo Brass, Paddy Considine is electric as ex-squaddie Richard, back in his Midlands village to exact righteous revenge on the ragtag gang of pushers who abused and humiliated his vulnerable younger brother, Anthony (Toby Kebbell). It's an archetypal premise, riffing on any number of westerns (Meadows' previous film was Once Upon a Time in the Midlands), but the man from Uttoxeter weaves in social realism, pastoral lyricism, country…

1993 OUT 25 SEPTEMBER 4K UHD EXTRAS Commentaries, Documentary, Featurettes, Deleted scenes, Stills gallery, Booklet, Poster, Art cards Ten years on from the excess-allareas thrills of Scarface, Brian De Palma and Al Pacino joined forces once again for this more wistful crime thriller. Initially overlooked by critics, its reputation has (deservedly) grown with each passing year, enough, it seems, to justify a second 4K release in just two years. Overkill? Nah, that's Scarface's thing. Instead, this new UHD justifies its existence with an expanded suite of extras, including insightful critical analysis and an interview with author Edwin Torres.…

1999 OUT NOW 4K UHD, STEELBOOK EXTRAS Commentary, Featurettes Tim Burton's gorgeous-looking take on Washington Irving's classic story is thick with atmosphere as it gallops along, and now, in 4K, you can luxuriate in every swirl of fog or shiver of an autumnal leaf. Favouring eeriness and eccentricity over emotional investment, it sees Johnny Depp go full-kook as 18th-century New York police inspector Ichabod Crane, sent to the provinces to investigate why the locals are losing their heads. The extras are imported but ace, with Burton talking about Hammer, Disney and fairy tales.…

GEORGE HURRELL'S HOLLYWOOD: GLAMOUR PORTRAITS 1925-1992 Few contributed more to the chimera of Tinseltown glamour than portrait photographer George Hurrell, whose seductive snaps of Joan Crawford, Norma Shearer and other legends saw him become Rembrandt to the stars during Hollywood's golden era. He could be a prickly sod in person though, something the author – Mark A. Vieira – of this glowing but not uncritical tome witnessed first-hand. The glorious imagery speaks for itself, though the text will likely only appeal to scholars and collectors. Sharon Stone, Hurrell's last subject, supplies the affectionate foreword. NEIL SMITH ARNOLD: COLLECTOR'S EDITION This tribute to the life and career of Arnold Schwarzenegger tracks his rise from bodybuilder to actor, politician and activist. The Austrian Oak's achievements have been well-catalogued by artists and photographers…

ROBERT SELLERS THE HISTORY PRESS When it comes to movie releases, argues Sellers, ‘1971 is pretty hard to beat.' That's subjective, but when you have films such as A Clockwork Orange, Duel, Dirty Harry and The French Connection all released in the same 12 months, it's hard to argue against. Sellers gives short, pithy accounts of each film, with non-English-language movies such as A Touch of Zen getting a look-in. But the book lacks the coffee-table feel the subject deserves.…

What is the first thing you do when you arrive on a film set? Check the script and shooting [order]… you hope you've got some scenes which will help you get your feet under the table before you get into the heavy-duty scenes. I remember doing The Choir with Dustin Hoffman. The first scene I had was the farewell scene at the end of the film. That's tough, to emotionally be at the end when you haven't started. Between takes, I like to stay on set, to be inside that space, that time, wherever we are. I know that Daniel Day-Lewis has a holding set built for him where he can still be in the room, even though he's not in the room. I can understand why he'd do that,…

IT'S ALIVE! In the 60s and 70s, the British studio Amicus Productions was famed for ghoulish portmanteau movies. It now returns with In the Grip of Terror. President Lawrie Brewster is looking to re-establish Amicus as ‘a beacon of independent British horror RIP ROBBIE ROBERTSON Musician Robbie Robertson has died at the age of 80. A member of The Band, the guitarist-singer-songwriter enjoyed a long and fruitful collaboration with Martin Scorsese, working on Raging Bull, Casino and the upcoming Killers of the Flower Moon. DE-AGED DENZEL As the dispute over the use of AI continues, the director of the Equalizer movies, Antoine Fuqua, has suggested he'd consider giving us a young Denzel Washington in a prequel. ‘The technology is getting better and better,' he says. THE HORROR, THE HORROR Having…

OUT 6 OCTOBER CINEMAS 13 OCTOBER NETFLIX Chloe Domont's taut, sleek and remorseless adult drama sold for a reported $20 million at this year's Sundance Film Festival. Yet that is chicken feed next to the multi-million-dollar deals its aspiring analysts broker down at One Crest Capital, a dog-eat-dog Wall Street hedge-fund firm that represents plutocracy at its most ruthless and cut-throat. This is no place to find a friend, let alone start a relationship. But Luke (Alden Ehrenreich) and Emily (Phoebe Dynevor) are conducting a clandestine one regardless, a violation of strict company policy that could mean both their asses should it ever come to light. This attractive young pair only have eyes for each other at the beginning of the film, sneaking away from a family wedding to have…

OUT 15 SEPTEMBER CINEMAS 22 SEPTEMBER PRIME VIDEO Gael García Bernal is the kind of actor who elevates his material. Yet even by his standards, Bernal's performance as Saúl Armendáriz is phenomenal. A gay amateur wrestler from El Paso who became a star in the late 80s, Armendáriz broke down barriers around queerness in the sport as his wrestling character Cassandro, aka ‘the Liberace of Lucha Libre'. Having explored gender and sexual fluidity before, in films such as Almodóvar's Bad Education, Bernal conveys that spirit of mischievous defiance and convinces as a bad-ass fighter. The result is a layered character study, ensuring Cassandro fascinates equally whether he's hamming it up for the audience or – in the quieter moments – just living his life as Saúl. Director Roger Ross Williams…

OUT 15 SEPTEMBER CINEMAS Trauma and T.Rex-mania merge tenuously in this awkward feature debut from actor-turneddirector Ian Puleston-Davies. In 1976, a busload of kids taken to a Rex gig in Manchester crashes, leaving the survivors with lingering emotional scars. Timothy Spall and Leanne Best impress solidly as grown-up versions of these kids, haunted in variable yet largely over-written ways. Despite his laudable ambition, Puleston-Davies bites off more than he can chew, cramming in themes of bullying, survivor's guilt, manslaughter and forgiveness on the way to a contrived finale.…

SCREEN OUT 15 SEPTEMBER CINEMAS In an unnamed Japanese coastal town, the lives of a young married couple, Taeko (Fumino Kimura) and Jirô (Kento Nagayama), are upended by an unexpected family bereavement. In the aftermath of the tragedy, disruptive figures from their respective pasts emerge, notably Taeko's first husband, deaf Korean citizen Park (Atom Sunada). Inspired by Akiko Yano's melancholic title song, writer/director Köji Fukada's carefully constructed domestic melodrama is perceptive in its take on how grief can undermine intimate relationships, albeit sometimes overly restrained in its storytelling.…

OUT 25 SEPTEMBER DIGITAL People travel from afar to visit the village of Doolin, County Clare, where residents gather to play old Irish tunes on fiddles and flutes. Director Lila Schmitz's documentary cosies up to the community to learn how music is its ‘therapy and social life', and to weigh up how the area has coped with modernity and tourists, as evidenced by coffee shops and coaches. This warm-hearted doc also looks at the dark side of many artists' existence – alcohol, depression, suicide – but its 74-minute run time leaves you craving more.…

OUT NOW CINEMAS As they go to pitch their concept of a cell phone that sends emails, Canadian engineering whizz Mike Lazaridis (Jay Baruchel) and goofball partner Doug Fregin (director Matt Johnson) drive past a pony and trap. It is 1996 and, helped by ruthless CEO Jim Balsillie (Glenn Howerton), they're about to change telecommunications forever. The BlackBerry was a must-have accessory and status symbol for a brief moment, but – like that horse and carriage – it was hardwired with obsolescence. Director Antoine Fuqua ensures the action is more brutal than before, with a henchman taking a meat cleaver to the face early. However, the all-or-nothing pitch lurches awkwardly from graphic violence to slow-paced scenes, a juxtaposition that can feel overly jarring. McCall is now a different man to…

OUT 15 SEPTEMBER CINEMAS, CURZON HOME CINEMA A dapted from David Chariandy's autobiographical novel, and dedicated to ‘our immigrant mothers', Clement Virgo's potent melodrama tells the stories of two Black JamaicanCanadian brothers growing up in a single-parent household in the working-class inner-city Toronto neighbourhood of Scarborough. The younger sibling Michael (Lamar Johnson) lacks confidence and has an introverted nature, while older brother Francis (Aaron Pierre) is popular, physically imposing and protective towards both Michael and their mother (Marsha Stephanie Blake), who works night-shift cleaning jobs to make ends meet. Can her sons avoid the scourges of gang violence and police brutality that afflict their community? Shot in widescreen, Brother shifts backwards and forwards between three different time periods – 1991, 1981 and 2001. Initially this device feels disorientating, yet gradually…

SCREEN OUT 25 SEPTEMBER DVD, DIGITAL This nuts-and-bolts doc charts the spectacular rise and tragic fall of pioneering motorcycle designer Philip Vincent. The title alludes to both the high production cost of Vincent's record-breaking bikes and the lasting impact of his 80mph crash, both of which ultimately led to the bankruptcy of this once-iconic manufacturer. Director David Lancaster makes a persuasive case for the accomplishments of this troubled visionary to be more widely celebrated, but his doc lacks the invention of its subject, never quite capturing the exhilaration of those record-setting runs.…

OUT 25 SEPTEMBER DIGITAL Malta has less than half a million residents, yet it also contains a population of some 100,000 stray cats. This likeable documentary from Australian filmmaker Sarah Jayne Portelli travels around the sun-drenched Mediterranean island, exploring how individuals and voluntary organisations manage to feed, neuter and provide medical care for these feral felines, who are at serious risk from motor traffic and building works. What emerges is the psychological benefits humans enjoy in looking after cats, who themselves remain quite inscrutable under the camera's gaze.…

OUT NOW CINEMAS Indie helmer Angel Manuel Soto's nimble Latino superhero movie sends a breath of fresh air and exuberance through DC's corridors. Xolo Maridueña plays graduate-turned-pool cleaner Jaime Reyes, who stumbles on an ancient piece of alien biotech that turns him into a flying bug symbiote. Meanwhile, Susan Sarandon's villain wants to create an army of ultra-soldiers with the scarab. The film resembles a curtain-raiser for bigger instalments but comes into its own as Jaime's family join the action, delivering a playful entry in a genre often subsumed by numbing bombast.…

OUT NOW CINEMAS Jason Statham and that great big shark return in this listless and mechanical sequel, this time joined by more toothsome monsters. Missing, alas, is the predecessor's goofy spirit of fun. As Statham's ‘green James Bond' plunges to the ocean floor again, director Ben Wheatley somewhat disappointingly serves up a generic platter of set-pieces that feel grimly filleted of jeopardy and tension. Splitting the action between Chinese star Jing Wu and the Stath results in a disjointed affair, while a joke about Jaws 2 inspires nostalgia for a time when blatant cash-ins had a touch more class.…

1973 OUT 29 SEPTEMBER CINEMAS The 50 years since William Friedkin's diabolical chiller left its first audiences confounded back in 1973 have seen Jason Miller (Father Karras), Max von Sydow (Father Merrin) and William Peter Blatty (screenwriter) all leave us. That Friedkin himself has now gone to join them brings an added poignancy to an anniversary reissue that will grow all the keener when David Gordon Green's sequel makes its October debut. Mercedes McCambridge, who died in 2004 at the same age her director did, isn't the first name that comes to mind when considering The Exorcist's dearly departed. The Oscar-winning radio star is never seen in Friedkin's blood-curdling adaptation of Blatty's 1971 novel and was not initially given a credit: a bone of contention when the film became a…

2000 OUT 25 SEPTEMBER BD EXTRAS Chronological cut, Commentary, Featurettes, Booklets, Art cards Released in 2000, Christopher Nolan's second feature announced the arrival of a true cinematic perfectionist. A fiendishly fragmented neo-noir told partly in reverse, it introduces Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce), an insurance investigator hunting his wife's murderer. Because Leonard has retrograde amnesia, he can't make new memories, which means he can't trust anyone – even himself. Instead, he's turned his life into a thriller-without-end of which he is both director and star, scrawling ‘facts' on his body like the loglines of a screenplay and snapping anxious Polaroids as if for continuity. Even Nolan's biggest fans will be surprised at the depth of feeling here, something he attributes to Pearce and the excellent supporting cast. But that's not wholly…

1981 OUT NOW 4K UHD EXTRAS Featurettes, Interviews, Poster, Booklet One of the things the studios didn't like about the film,' recalls Time Bandits helmer Terry Gilliam, ‘they said, “Who is the audience?” and I said, “It's for everybody.” That concept was beyond them at that time – it has to be for a specific market: children, teenagers, adults. And I said, “No. It works on every level.”' The filmmaker was proved right when his Python-esque fantasy – about a young boy whisked off on historical adventures – opened at number one at the US box office, staying there for several weeks. Today, with Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement's TV remake waiting in the wings at Apple, what better time to revisit Gilliam's original? Making its UHD debut with a…

1960-1990 OUT 25 SEPTEMBER 4K UHD EXTRAS Commentaries, Documentaries, Featurettes, Stills galleries, Book, Posters, Art cards You know what I think? I think that we're all in our private traps, clamped in them, and none of us can ever get out,' says mummy's-boy motel owner Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) in Hitchcock's ageless classic (1960), presented here in 4K Ultra HD with a ton of extras. The three interesting sequels just prove his point. Directed by Hitch's protégé Richard Franklin, Psycho II (1983) follows an apparently rehabilitated Norman as he's released back into the community 22 years on – note the word ‘apparently'. With an Oscar-worthy performance from Perkins, a brilliant twist ending and enough slasher tropes to keep 80s horror fans happy, it's excellent. Perkins himself took the directorial reins…

BARBIE: THE ALBUM Curator Mark Ronson makes mixed work of Barbie's ‘Peloton-pop' mix: sometimes perky, sometimes predictable. Besides Lizzo's paint-bynumbers Pink, Dua Lipa's disco frolic, Charli XCX's Hey Mickey sampler and Ava Max's Euro-pop throwaway are flatly rote. Haim and PinkPantheress brighten proceedings, but the Kid LAROI and Khalid's pat entries are party-poopers. At least Ryan Gosling has fun, gamely echoing Frozen II's Lost in the Woods via Jack Black's Peaches for complaint-rocker I'm Just Ken. OPPENHEIMER Ludwig Göransson projects first-person scoring onto a historical canvas for his second Chris Nolan summit meeting. The orchestral-electronic results are so enriched that they perhaps needed the double-album treatment. But what's here is immersive and abundant, with Oppenheimer's six-note theme and the violin's multiple tonalities mapping out extremes from warmth to dread. Ground…

JAY JORGENSEN RUNNING PRESS Glamming up burros and horned toads as a child sowed the seeds for a lifetime in film finery for the influential Edith Head, one that would win her eight Oscars over a distinguished career that spanned seven decades. This elegant, lavishly illustrated survey reveals how she made her name, constructing a persona as a bobcut-sporting, sunglasses-wearing ‘dress doctor'.…

AIR FORCE ONE Harrison Ford plays no-nonsense 'Nam vet James Marshall, taking on the Kazakh terrorists who are attempting to hijack his jet. Skulking around the bowels of the plane, Marshall's solo-actionhero routine recalls Die Hard, but with an aeroplane and a president. MARS ATTACKS! After her president dad (Jack Nicholson) is murdered by alien invaders, young Taffy Dale (Natalie Portman) steps up to usher what remains of humanity into the new world, assisted by Tom Jones and a collection of headacheinducing country records. DEEP IMPACT The Earth may be on a collision course with a seven-mile-wide comet, but who better to deliver the bad news than dulcet-toned Morgan Freeman, who plays President Tom Beck. The prospect of mass extinction has never gone down so well. INDEPENDENCE DAY President Thomas…

It was Poltergeist Girl who changed everything. In September 2020, I published The Book of Horror, a guide to the scariest movies ever made, and something I'd been wanting to write my whole life. As a cinema-obsessed schoolboy, I'd won a book token in the end-of-year prizes and spent it – illicitly – on The Aurum Film Encyclopedia: Horror edited by Phil Hardy. This was a huge red hardback packed with brutal film stills and even more brutal opinions, and I pored over it until I knew them by heart. Fast-forward 30 years, when The Book of Horror was picked up by the same publishing house, and it felt like destiny. This was my shot, and I wasn't going to miss. For research, I spent months watching as many obscure…

KING KONG 1933 Beauty killed the beast? Debatable. No question, though, that he truly lives thanks to Willis O'Brien's expressive animation. A work of towering influence. JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS 1963 Don Chaffey directed, but the architect of this epic's wildest pleasures – undead skeletons et al – was Ray Harryhausen. CORALINE 2009 Stop-motion's capacity to evoke the uncanny is showcased to frightful, delightful effect by Laika's first – and still its best – feature. A true button-pusher. GUILLERMO DEL TORO 'S PINOCCHIO 2022 GDT and Mark Gustafson showed (current) Disney how it's done, breathing new life into the oft-adapted tale.…