Table of contents for September 2020 in Empire

LET’S BE HONEST - the lockdown experience we’ve all been going through has had several downsides. Being stuck in the same house for months on end has made my perception of time go wonkier than the end of Interstellar. I’m now on speaking terms with several of the birds in my garden. And, to be completely honest, I’ve forgotten how to use socks. That said, there have been some upsides too. Like the sheer amount of time we’ve all had to dive into the endless ocean that is cinema’s past. Wherever you are in the world, chances are this year you’ve discovered movie gems, or gone back to hallowed favourites. Among the many movies that have helped keep me sane (ish) of late: The Red Shoes, Scott Pilgrim Vs. The…

JAMIE FOXX FINDING MIKE Foxx was hardly skinny before, but a recent Instagram post revealed preparations to play boxer Mike Tyson made him look more like Jamie Ox. The big question, though: will the biopic recreate Tyson’s cameo in The Hangover? KUMAIL NANJIANI THE ETERNALS The internet’s jaw dropped when Kumail Nanjiani, a comedian and actor once self-described as “doughy”, unveiled a new look to play Marvel superhero Kingo. It’s a six-pack that could have your eye out if you’re not careful. BILL & TED BILL & TED FACE THE MUSIC There may be some naysayers who claim that Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter, as seen in the recent Bill & Ted trailer, are wearing muscle suits in order to portray their tough-guy future selves. And those people, frankly, are…

WELL, IT FINALLY happened. After years of false starts, Hollywood managed to find the right creative team to reboot Fletch, with Superbad’s Greg Mottola directing and Mad Men star Jon Hamm slipping into the role which nearly provided Chevy Chase with his very own Beverly Hills Cop-style franchise back in the mid-’80s (a much-derided sequel, 1989’s Fletch Lives, brought that plan to a screeching and unfortunate halt). With the right touch, this 21st-century Fletch has the chance to be not just nostalgia porn, but the dry-witted hero we need and deserve. As captured in both Gregory McDonald’s successful series of novels and Michael Ritchie’s 1985 film, Irwin M. ‘Fletch’ Fletcher is an investigative reporter whose nose for trouble and dedication to the common man frequently lead him to the juiciest…

“I FEEL LIKE I’ve always been aware of his work, as long as I’ve been aware of films, going back to the early ‘60s. I was interested in Italian cinema – Fellini, [Italian film score composer] Nino Rota. And so, of course, Morricone. He was the most innovative composer for film. Anybody that was interested in music or film was well aware of his great work. His unique approach to using sounds: using the recording studio, using orchestras, and odd instrumentation. He was an inspiration to many composers, all over the world, as well as listeners. “One of his biggest influences [on me] was the fact that he orchestrated all his scores himself. He did everything by his own hand. In pencil. And I took that up. The scores for…

EXCELLENT GOOD OKAY POOR AWFUL OUT NOW / APPLE TV+ CERT 12 / 91 MINS DIRECTIOR Aaron Schneider CAST Tom Hanks, Stephen Graham, Rob Morgan PLOT 1942. US Naval commander Ernest Krause (Hanks) takes charge of his first assignment on board the USS Keeling - codename: Greyhound. His mission is to lead an international convoy of 37 Allied ships across the treacherous North Atlantic to Liverpool, all the while evading the “wolfpack” of German U-boats. TOM HANKS HAS made a career out of playing ordinary, decent men placed in situations of extraordinary duress, be it in space (Apollo 13) Normandy (Saving Private Ryan), Somalian waters (Captain Phillips) or Al’s Toy Barn (Toy Story 2) This time round he is World War II US naval commander Ernest Krause, leading a 37-ship…

OUT 7 AUGUST / DIGITAL / CERT 15 / 83 MINS DIRECTOR Eva Riley CAST Frankie Box, Alfie Deegan Both filmmaker Eva Riley and young talent Frankie Box make bold debuts with this astutely observed story about a neglected teenager cast adrift in a small Brighton community. Following the death of her mother and with a largely absent father, 15-year-old gymnast Leigh (Box) is starved of human connection until she’s introduced to her cocky half-brother Joe (Alfie Deegan). Serving as a balm for her loneliness, Joe draws a willing Leigh into his world of small-time theft, despite placing them both at risk. Both Box and Deegan deliver brittle yet vulnerable performances and maintain a mesmerising rapport, and Riley delivers a tender character study that pokes deep into the corners of…

OUT NOW / DIGITAL CERT 15 / 108 MINS DIRECTOR Gavin O’Connor CAST Ben Affleck, Al Madrigal, Janina Gavankar, Jeremy Radin PLOT Construction worker Jack Cunningham (Affleck) lives a solitary life, dulling the pain of a tragic event with booze. Out of the blue, his old high school offers him a chance to coach the student basketball team. Can former hotshot player Jack turn their flagging fortunes around? THE DOWN-AND-out man (it’s always a man) who finds redemption in coaching a rag-tag team to glory is a staple in the feel-good sports-movie locker. Finding The Way Back embraces many of the sub-genre’s well-worn plays, yet has enough diversions from type to make it worth your while. It also has an MVP in Ben Affleck, who is as engaged and committed…

OUT NOW / BFI PLAYER / CERT TBC / 71 MINS DIRECTOR Jóhann Jóhannsson CAST (VOICE) Tilda Swinton The first and sadly only film from the late Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson (known for his work with Denis Villeneuve) is a strange, foreboding dissection of the idea of utopia. Adapted from Olaf Stapledon’s book of the same name, Jóhannsson takes a peculiar, abstract approach to turning prose into image. He shoots only barren landscapes and slow-moving, black-and-white imagery of brutalist monuments in former Yugoslavia, as the history of this future Earth is told by the disembodied voice of Tilda Swinton. It’s an unconventional first work of a career that would have been fascinating to watch unfold, and while it may test the patience, it is mostly mesmeric and even moving, as…

OUT 24 AUGUST / DIGITAL / CERT 15 / 82 MINS DIRECTOR Gavin Wiesen CAST Emile Hirsch, J.K. Simmons, Analeigh Tipton A strained, lacklustre, generation-gap buddy-comedy , All Nighter sees timid bluegrass musician Martin (Emile Hirsch) enlisted by his intimidating ex’s father Frank (J.K. Simmons) to help find his estranged daughter, Ginnie (Analeigh Tipton), who has gone AWOL. For half an hour or so, it’s a bad police procedural as the mismatched pair search LA cafés, yoga gyms and nightclubs looking for clues, with the writing struggling to raise laughs from the clash of personalities. As the hunt goes on, the set-pieces involving stoners, gun-shaped dildos, vomit and Simmons in a skimpy pink T-shirt get bigger but not noticeably funnier. Hirsch is likeable and Simmons being gruff is always watchable…

OUT NOW / CINEMAS / CERT 15 / 89 MINS DIRECTOR Keith Thomas CAST Dave Davis, Lynn Cohen, Malky Goldman Religious theology and iconography have long been fertile fodder for genre filmmakers, but stories have largely been rooted in Christianity, Catholicism or Paganism. Here, debut writer/ director Keith Thomas draws on his Jewish heritage for this genuinely creepy chiller which makes the most of its set-up. Dave Davis is excellent as Yakov, a young man who has left his strict Hasidic community but is persuaded to act as a shomer – someone who sits in vigil over a corpse to help the soul find peace. Already dealing with his own demons, Yakov soon discovers that an ancient evil lurks within the dead man’s home. Balanced direction, prowling cinematography and a…

OUT 7 AUGUST / DIGITAL / CERT 15 / 106 MINS DIRECTOR Drake Doremus CAST Shailene Woodley, Jamie Dornan, Sebastian Stan Newly single Daphne (Shailene Woodley) meets Frank (Sebastian Stan, cropped beard) and Jack (Jamie Dornan, bushier beard) at the same New Year’s Eve party. She begins seeing them both — Frank is passionate but flaky; Jack is sensitive and attentive but bad in bed — a situation that becomes complicated when it’s revealed the two men are friends. Drake Doremus makes a successful return to his indie relationship wheelhouse (Like Crazy, Newness) here. It’s full of all his trademarks — unforced storytelling, dreamy visuals, montages to miserable pop music — and if the love triangle doesn’t entirely grip, it works better as a portrait of a woman trying to…

1 SELECTED BY DIRECTOR Christopher McQuarrie ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN (1976) The crowning achievement of Alan Pakula and Gordon Willis’ ‘paranoia trilogy’ (the others being Klute and The Parallax View). It’s also a great detective movie with no real detectives in it after the first five minutes (and one of those detectives is an undercover F. Murray Abraham). DOG DAY AFTERNOON (1975) Based on a true story, and in many ways more ahead of its time now than when it was made, the less you know about it going in, the better. I envy anyone watching it for the first time. THE ASPHALT JUNGLE (1950) Everyone’s taken a page from Kubrick’s The Killing, which takes more than a page from this one (along with quintessential noirrior — a word I just…

SELECTED BY DIRECTOR Mark Jenkin A PORTRAIT OF GA (1952) MARGARET TAIT Despite being only four minutes long, this is a constant reminder that simplicity can be truly transcendent. THE GARDEN (1990) DEREK JARMAN This made me first consider the significance of the person behind the camera. BIG WEDNESDAY (1978) JOHN MILIUS Essential viewing for someone growing up on the North Cornish coast in the ‘90s with ‘60s/’70s California feeling strangely familiar. DON’T LOOK NOW (1973) NICOLAS ROEG The fractured time, zoom lenses and disorientating montage make it a constant inspiration. Roeg was a true one-off. DAGUERRÉOTYPES (1976) AGNES VARDA A perfectly composed view of the world through a crack in the door and the eyes of a genius. L’ARGENT (1983) ROBERT BRESSON Bresson’s last is also his best. His…

1 SELECTED BY DIRECTOR Nicole Holofcener CONRACK (1974) One of many movies about racism that broke my heart. Saw it as a teenager so it affected me a great deal. The young girl who starred in it was outside the theatre when I came out and I sobbed to her. MIDNIGHT COWBOY (1969) So brilliantly directed and acted. I never fail to weep and it usually takes me a couple of days to get over it. WAVES Exquisite and moving. MOONLIGHT (2016) Exquisite and moving. SOPHIE’S CHOICE (1982) Pretty devastating. When she has to make the ‘choice’, it’s unbearable. I know someone who worked on the movie and was there for that scene. Spoiler alert - every time they took that little girl away (take after take), she screamed and cried…

SELECTED BY DIRECTOR Richard Kelly WHEN EMPIRE ASKED me to come up with a list of mind-bending films, I immediately thought of the most healthy thing one can do to a mind: break it in half. Our minds are muscles, and when we cannot go to the gym and exercise due to a global pandemic, we need to stay at home and watch all of the movies that have helped break our (once muscular) brains in all of the different ways possible. God, I miss going to the gym… Here is a chronological list of some of my essential remedies. METROPOLIS (1927) This science-fiction epic from Fritz Lang bent many minds when it was released 93 years ago. Maligned for its Communist themes, and then eventually rediscovered and restored over many…

SELECTED BY SHOWRUNNERS The Duffer Brothers DUMBO (1941) The first movie we ever saw. It made us laugh, it made us cry, it taught us the power of the moving image. THE GREAT ESCAPE (1963) As movie-obsessed kids, we subsisted on a cinematic diet almost exclusively from the ‘80s and ‘90s - that is, until we saw The Great Escape. Before long we were sifting through a treasure trove of classics, but our history lesson began right here, in a World War II POW camp with Steve McQueen, the coolest movie star of all time. THE GOONIES (1985) We vividly remember watching The Goonies for the first time on VHS with our friends, slumped on bean bags during a summer afternoon in the room over our garage. As soon as…

22/6/62 THE DAY HE WAS BORN (HE’S 58) 430 SPACE SHUTTLE A KIDS’ TV SHOW HE PRESENTED 11 THE NUMBER OF HONG KONG FILM AWARDS NOMINATIONS HE’S RECEIVED, WINNING ONE (IN 2001) $553,810,228 THE AMOUNT GROSSED WORLDWIDE BY HIS BIGGEST FILM, THE MERMAID (2016) 10 NUMBER OF MOVIES HE’S DIRECTED (AN 11TH, THE MONKEY KING, IS IN POST-PRODUCTION) 1981 HIS FIRST FILM 198 1 APPEARANCE, AS ASSISTANT TO LILIAN TURNER, IN THE TV SERIES NUI WOR HANG DONG 1-0 THE FULL-TIME SCORE IN THE CHINA SUPERCUP FINAL BETWEEN TEAM SHAOLIN AND TEAM EVIL, IN SHAOLIN SOCCER…

1 THE ECSTASY OF GOLD (THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY, 1966) Ian: “Morricone’s masterpiece starts slow and small on piano and clarinets, and builds to a euphoric, shattering crescendo. A worthy winner.” 2 ARMONICA (ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST, 1968) Chris: “Brooding, magnificent - enter Chuck Bronson, playing his own theme.” 3 GABRIEL’S OBOE (THE MISSION, 1986) Helen: “Hauntingly lovely, this demonstrates that Morricone could embrace baroque if he wanted.” LOVE THEME (CINEMA PARADISO, 1988) Ian: “A heart-melting ode to love, friendship, the power of movies and nostalgia itself. Sublime.” 5 THE STRENGTH OF THE RIGHTEOUS (THE UNTOUCHABLES, 1987) Helen: “Pure, nerve-jangling tension and a racing heartbeat. MAIN THEME (THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY, 1966) Amon: “Surely among the most iconic opening 25 seconds…

TWO NEW RELEASES address the perils of leasing suspiciously affordable apartments in Los Angeles, and furthermore target the Californian culture of cults, gurus and self-actualisation through submission to crackpottery. Vivieno Caldinelli’s Seven Stages To Achieve Eternal Bliss By Passing Through The Gateway Chosen By The Holy Storsh - an aspirant successor to Can Heironymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe And Find True Happiness? in the trying-too-hard title business - is a slight but intermittently funny satire. Claire (Kate Micucci) and Paul (Sam Huntington) are just settling into their new home when a crazed man bursts in and cuts his throat in their bathroom. As a weary cop explains, the late visionary Reginald Storsh (Taika Waititi) decreed that the path to a happy afterlife includes self-slaughter in this specific spot, and…

X HITS THE SPOT Reading your article on The Omen brought back memories for me. When I was a fresh-faced 15-year-old boy, I went to my local three-screen Odeon to watch Hitchcock’s Family Plot. I realised very quickly I was in the wrong screen and was watching The Omen, which of course was an ‘X’ certificate (I was tall for my age!). Loved it. I later boasted to all my friends of my exploits. PHIL SCHRODER, LONDON Thanks for that, er, heartwarming story, Phil. Have a Picturehouse membership on us - hopefully you can find the right screen this time. (Or not, as the case may be.) Picture house Empire’s star letter wins a Picturehouse Membership, plus one for a friend! Valid for one year at 23 Picturehouse Cinemas across…

ANIMAL CROSSING: NEW HORIZONS Nintendo’s lockdown-phenomenon game seems ripe for the Easter-egg treatment: look out for ticker-tape turnip prices, or an entire commercial zone dominated by the malevolent raccoon entrepreneur, Tom Nook. BABY YODA The Mandalorian’s tiny mascot is surely guaranteed a cameo. Perhaps getting ID’d in an Oasis bar, or intently playing the Pokémon trading-card game with Babu Frik. Alamy, Photofest, Shutterstock RICK AND MORTY An ideal in-joke reference for one of Ready Player Two’s puzzle-quest challenges would take place inside a fake vat of acid, as seen in Rick And Morty’s Season 4 classic titled, um, ‘The Vat Of Acid Episode’. READY PLAYER TWO BY ERNEST CLINE IS PUBLISHED ON 24 NOVEMBER…

IN THE SUMMER of 2017, Henry Golding did the Hollywood ‘water-bottle tour’: meeting casting directors sipping Evian, explaining he’d just wrapped debut feature Crazy Rich Asians. “Is that a web-series thing?” asked one. “Weird title you got there.” That “weird title” made $239 million worldwide from a $30 million budget and moved the British- Malaysian TV presenter onto the A-list. Now he has G.I. Joe actioner Snake Eyes in the can, two Crazy Rich sequels on the way, persistent Bond rumours - and more immediately, Monsoon: an intimate drama from Lilting director Hong Khaou, in which he plays a British-Vietnamese man wrestling with grief. Monsoon is so specific and yet so universal - it makes you want to phone your parents, doesn’t it? Yeah. Before it’s too late. Sometimes having…

NATALIE PORTMAN- BEDTIME BOOK: Lost-llama odyssey Is Your Mama A Llama?.?. DELIVERY STYLE: Gentle and considered when faced with an increasingly complex menagerie of animals. Sound effects include some enthusiastic mooing. STANDOUT LINE: “‘Is your mama a llama?’ I asked my friend Dave. ‘No, she is not, is the answer Dave gave.’” REESE WITHERSPOON BEDTIME BOOK: Girl-meets-magical-pony bestseller Uni The Unicorn. DELIVERY STYLE: Nursery-school teacher after a near-lethal sherbet overdose. Intense, wide-eyed and so aggressively sweet, your gums fall out. STANDOUT LINE: “See? They’re sliding down rainbows together! HOLY COW, THAT LOOKS SO FUN!” DREW BARRYMORE BEDTIME BOOK: Yoga-flavoured take on the classic fairy tale Goldie & The Three Bears. DELIVERY STYLE: Total commitment. Inserts her face into the story using Facebook’s Portal, then acts out the book in her…

OUT NOW / IN CINEMAS CERT 15 / 93 MINS DIRECTOR Derrick Borte CAST Caren Pistorius, Russell Crowe PLOT Rachel (Pistorius), a young mother, is having a bad morning. She’s late, she’s undergoing a difficult divorce, and she’s stuck in traffic when she gets into a road-rage incident with the wrong man (Crowe). In this case, the wrong man turns out to be a violent psychopath hellbent on retribution. THE OPENING SLUICE of blood and lighter fluid in Unhinged makes for an excellent entrée into this single-minded thriller. In the wee hours of a rainy suburban night, a troubled-looking man (Russell Crowe) sits in his car, glimpsed through agonised close-ups; his brow seemingly furrowed in anguish, or giving the audience a pointed look at the wedding band on his finger…

OUT 14 AUGUST / DIGITAL / CERT TBC 114 MINS DIRECTOR Egor Abramenko CAST Oksana Akinshina, Pyotr Fyodorov, Fedor Bondarchuk Sputnik sees cosmonaut Konstantin Veshnyakov (Pyotr Fyodorov) crash back to Earth with a dead co-pilot and amnesia, only to be confined to a secure military facility. Disgraced psychiatrist Tatyana (Oksana Akinshina) is tasked with finding out what happened and soon discovers that Veshnyakov didn’t come home alone — he is playing host to a murderous alien parasite. This is the first surprise in a blunt but effective thriller that makes up for with fun creature design and good gore what it lacks in three-dimensional characters and subtlety. Its attempt to add an emotional core doesn’t really land but, built around the no-nonsense Akinshina, it delivers enjoyable genre business.…

OUT 14 AUGUST / CINEMAS CERT 15 / 118 MINS DIRECTOR Shannon Murphy CAST Eliza Scanlen, Ben Mendelsohn, Essie Davis, Toby Wallace PLOT Australia. Fifteen-year-old Milla (Scanlen) is the music-loving, free-spirited daughter of two bourgeois parents, a trained pianist mother (Davis) and a psychologist father (Mendelsohn). When she falls for a local boy (Wallace) who’s a runaway and a drug addict, her parents are inclined to stop her in her tracks. But Milla has terminal cancer, and they want her to be happy. AS FAR AS the ‘lovestruck teen with a terminal illness’ subgenre goes, there’s usually more mawkishness than insight, and more predictability than lived-in feeling. Not so for Shannon Murphy’s directorial debut Babyteeth, a lovely and vitality-infused story of an Australian teenager whose cancer diagnosis and doctor’s visits…

OUT 17 AUGUST / DIGITAL / CERT TBC / 91 MINS DIRECTOR Corey Pearson CAST Paul O’Brien, Aji Santosa, Verdi Solaiman Indonesian action cinema became world-famous with the release of Gareth Evans’ The Raid in 2011. Message Man is, technically, an Indonesian action film, but the similarities stop there. Instead, it’s a kind of pound-shop John Wick, following a high-skillset former assassin forced back into One Last Job by baddies who don’t realise what they’re up against. Home And Away star Paul O’Brien plays a mysterious Aussie hunk who retires to a remote Indonesian archipelago to fish with a bow and arrow and spend more time with his smoulder, only for the past to catch up with him. The story is sluggish, derivative and conspicuously white saviour-ist, and its B-movie…

OUT 28 AUGUST / CINEMAS / CERT U / 75 MINS DIRECTOR Gints Zilbalodis Conceptualised, animated and scored in its entirety over three years by Latvian animator Gints Zilbalodis, Away’s evocative visuals are more than enough to forgive its occasionally rough movement. A hypnotically simple, wordless survival story following a young boy parachuted into a strange environment, it’s hard to fault Away for any rudimentary animation, already impressive for its DIY construction but even more so for its genuine beauty, brought about by its strong visual storytelling and an excellent score. The scenery is perhaps stronger than the character animation, the barren vistas and expansive landscapes feeling a lot more emotive than the occasionally inexpressive main character, but more detail isn’t needed, as what he’s thinking is always clear. One…

OUT NOW / DIGITAL / CERT PG / 94 MINS DIRECTOR Tony Cervone CAST (VOICES) Will Forte, Mark Wahlberg, Jason Isaacs, Gina Rodriguez, Zac Efron Scoob! is the latest big-budget attempt to repackage cartoon canine Scooby-Doo for a new generation. The result is 90 minutes of strained jokes, serviceable action and cynical attempts to seed a Hanna-Barbera Cinematic Universe, as the Mystery Inc gang get a misjudged millennial makeover. When Velma (Gina Rodriguez) announces that the paranormal crime-busters should be taking on “bigger cases, scarier villains and creepier mysteries”, it feels like studio execs are speaking through her; Scoob! is a film hell-bent on taking a character best-served in snack-sized portions, and serving him up on a full plate of Marvel-esque, fate-of-the-universe spectacle. What’s left is, sadly, a dog’s dinner.…

SELECTED BY COSTUME DESIGNER Sandy Powell THE PHILADELPHIA STORY (1940) KATHARINE HEPBURN’S WHITE SATIN GOWN There’s this white satin gown [by designer Adrian] with long sleeves and a geometric decoration with sequins and beads on the front. I used it as inspiration for one of the dresses I designed for Cate Blanchett [who played Hepburn] in The Aviator. It’s a chartreuse mustard colour, but it has the flavour I love. It epitomises Hollywood glamour of that period. DEATH IN VENICE (1971) DIRK BOGARDE’S WHITE SUIT ON THE BEACH Death In Venice was one of the films I saw as a teenager that made me want to do costume design. It’s difficult to pick one. But [I’ll choose] at the end, when Dirk Bogarde wears the white suit, fedora, a red…

SELECTED BY ACTOR Samantha Morton HERE IS A list of the ten favourite films of my childhood. Ten is hard. It could be a hundred at least. This is the list today and it may be different if I were asked tomorrow or in a week. It represents films that had the biggest impression on me before the age of about 16. Whilst some of these choices may seem wildly inappropriate, this is what my childhood was like. I remember vividly seeing The Witch, aka Superstition (1982), when I was far too young. I must have been about seven and I was terrified. My stepdad had a dodgy ‘video shop’ operated from his front room. There was zero monitoring of what I had access to. The videos were in false…

SELECTED BY ACTOR Delroy Lindo MALCOLM X (1992) A grand, epically scaled period film, spanning multiple decades. Obviously, it therefore necessitated different styles of costumes, automobiles and physical landscapes etc, which ordinarily, the budget of such a film would ‘accommodate. Not so, Malcolm X. The film was made on a ‘fixed’ budget, NOT AT ALL commensurate with any other period film of similar magnitude and scale. Despite this, I feel it’s a beautifully realised film; especially in the context of my (inside) knowledge of the various obstacles that existed, in getting the film made at all. The filmmaker, Spike Lee, and his colleagues worked in profoundly ingenious and creative ways to overcome the significant obstacle of being significantly under budgeted, yet still completed the film successfully. It’s a testament, not…

SELECTED BY ACTOR Henry Golding AND DIRECTOR Paul Feig So, you two made your own British movie, Last Christmas. Henry Golding: Paul’s the biggest Anglophile you’ll find ever. Paul Feig: I was in absolute heaven when I made that movie. I love London so much. I actually just got a five-year visa. So sorry, London, you’re gonna be stuck with me. What are special British films for you? Golding: I grew up in the suburbs and we idolised a lot of films, definitely a handful from Guy Ritchie, who I had the pleasure to work with in The Gentlemen. Lock, Stock, and then Snatch, was just a totally different take on what I remembered British cinema to be. He jolted the needle, as such, and put it on a completely…

SELECTED BY DIRECTOR David Lowery McCABE & MRS. MILLER (1971) Robert Altman’s love of his characters and cynicism towards the country they live in was never more beautifully realised. Achingly sweet and sad. 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968) Let me use this space to recommend Space Odyssey, Michael Benson’s exhaustive account of the making of the film, which will both deepen and complicate your appreciation of Kubrick. JEANNE DIELMAN, 23 COMMERCE QUAY, 1080 BRUSSELS (1975) Chantal Akerman’s greatest film, and one of the most radical uses of time in all of cinema. This film may seem daunting, and it is, but Akerman was after something specific and she nailed it. MAD MAX: FURY ROAD (2015) We’re five years out from the declaration that this is an all-timer; a lot has changed…

SELECTED BY VISUAL EFFECTS WIZARD Dennis Muren METROPOLIS (1927) Everything. KING KONG (1933) Everything. THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939) The tornado. THE THIEF OF BAGDAD (1940) Everything. THE WAR OF THE WORLDS (1953) War machines reveal and attack. THE BRIDGES AT TOKO-Ri (1954) Bridges attacks. THE 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD (1958) Cyclops on the beach and the sword-fighting skeleton. DARBY O’GILL AND THE LITTLE PEOPLE (1959) Darby meets King Brian. THE BIRDS (1963) Schoolhouse and town attack. 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968) Everything. TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY (1991) Everything. THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS (2002) Gollum talks with Sméagol. THE REVENANT (2015) Bear attack. MY FAVOURITE MOVIE… is Whistle Down The Wind from 1961, made with no effects, but all heart.…

SELECTED BY ACTOR Kathy Burke PARASITE (2019) My new obsession. One of the greatest films ever made. A superb take on the haves and have-nots. Saw it twice at the cinema last year and streamed it twice again during lockdown. It’s quite simply magnificent. GET OUT (2017) I’m not really a horror fan. I watched it because of Daniel Kaluuya and was blown away. Such a smart, funny script, which is also terrifying and heartbreaking. Creeped me right out. KES (1969) It’s been in my top ten since before I knew there was such a thing. It was my inspiration and motivation. Best child performance ever from David Bradley and a glorious cameo from Brian Glover. A hard but beautiful film. THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER (1940) My favourite James…

65 YEARS FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM (2016) Set in 1926, Fantastic Beasts is unique among prequels for being based on an old textbook used by characters in the original story. Of course, the events of the film aren’t quite so tangential, setting up big baddie wizard and Deathly Hallow owner Grindelwald. 100 YEARS TREMORS 4: THE LEGEND BEGINS (2004) Turns out gun-toting survivalist Burt (Michael Gross) – of Tremors 1 to 3 ‘fame’ – wasn’t the first member of the Gummer clan to encounter the deadly Graboids in this cult monster series. That would be his great-grandpappy Hiram (also Gross), forced to take them on when they assault his silver mine in rootin-tootin’ 1889. 185 YEARS GINGER SNAPS BACK: THE BEGINNING (2004) Is there such a thing…

DAVID BOWIE The late pop icon portrayed the Lord Royal Highness of Atlantis, a dolphin-like character whose brain exists in a glass dome atop his head, in an episode that first aired in 2007. “Art is what happens when you learn to dream!” Aladdin Sane himself tells SpongeBob and Squidward. Sadly there was no tie-in track called ‘Sponge Oddity’. JOHNNY DEPP At the peak of his nautical powers (he’d just shot two back-to-back Pirates Of The Caribbean sequels), Depp cameoed as Jack Kahuna Laguna, a golden-skinned, bongo-playing surf guru who teaches SpongeBob the way of the waves – in a 2009 episode that also featured Davy Jones. JON HAMM There was always something a little fishy about the advertising world sleaze Hamm played in AMC drama Mad Men. In Season…

ON INSTAGRAM A FEW MONTHS AGO, GAL GADOT posted a black-and-white picture of Austrian actress Hedy Lamarr, her caption betraying the excitement of a complete fangirl. “The most unique and multifaceted person I’d love to meet,” she wrote of Lamarr, whose heyday was in the 1940s. “Maybe in another lifetime.” Since then, it’s been confirmed that Gadot will embody her in an eight-episode Apple TV+ miniseries, which she’ll also executive-produce. Hold tight: the Lamarr legend comprises a landmark in on-screen sex and nudity, six husbands, and the magic that makes your mobile phone work. Hollywood publicists called her the “most beautiful woman in the world”, yet between posing for the cameras she invented a military technology that has now become central to modern communications. Although Lamarr was rich, beautiful and…

1 The great Stan Lee appears many, many times in the movie. There’s his official cameo as a costume-shop owner, but he’s also glimpsed in the background throughout. 2 Look at the contacts on Miles’ phone, and you’ll see an S. Ditko - Steve Ditko, the late co-creator of Spider-Man - and B. Bendis, a reference to Miles Morales’ creator, Brian Michael Bendis. 3 Forty-two, the number that recurs throughout the movie, was chosen by Brian Michael Bendis as a tribute to the great baseball player, Jackie Robinson. 4 In the Spider-Man comic books we see Miles reading throughout the movie, Peter Parker isn’t Spidey’s secret identity. Instead, it’s Billy Barker.…

Gangs Of London: Episode 5 Co-creator/director Gareth Evans on the year’s most explosive piece of action drama. THE JOURNEY If Episode 5 of Gangs Of London were 25 minutes longer, it would be the best action movie of the year. As it is, it’s one of the finest pieces of action choreography ever seen on the small screen, as Evans focuses on the desperate attempt of traveller gang boss Kinney (Mark Lewis Jones) to save his son Darren (Aled ap Steffan), a patsy whose unwitting hit on über-criminal Finn Wallace kick-started the show’s cycle of violence, from a murderous Danish hit squad. The episode will explode into sustained mayhem halfway through, but first Evans documents the injured Kinney’s journey, including stealing a car - at gunpoint - from a local…

Alamy, Getty Images, Shutterstock NOT MANY PEOPLE burst onto the scene in the manner of Rosamund Pike, catching the eye with a devilishly devious turn as a Bond-ally-turned- villain in Die Another Day in 2002. Since then, Pike has shown remarkable versatility and range over the years, turning in a number of eye-catching performances in everything from sci-fi comedies to period dramas. As her latest, Radioactive, is released on disc and digital, we asked her to talk us through several of the best… MIRANDA FROST DIE ANOTHER DAY (2002) An MI6 agent, and paramour of 007, who turns out to have been a wrong’un all along, culminating in a swordfight with Halle Berry’s Jinx. “I’ve never lost touch with how it felt, and how daunting it was. People of my…

This summer the Criterion Collection is releasing the highly acclaimed Marriage Story on DVD and Blu-ray. Noah Baumbach’s sharply observed and deeply compassionate film stars Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson – aka Kylo Ren and Black Widow, what a pairing – and is a masterclass in acting. We’re giving away a copy of the film on Blu-ray – plus all the July and August Criterion releases – and a 4K TV to watch them on! To be in with a chance of winning, crack the crossword, solve the anagram and text your answer to the number below. MARRIAGE STORY IS OUT ON CRITERION COLLECTIONBLU-RAY AND DVD FROM 24 AUGUST THE CRITERION COLLECTION…

1920s As a Jewish boy raised in the Bronx, New York, Reiner’s comedy career started early: he pretended to read prayers at synagogue, in what he called “double-talk Hebrew” – essentially, gibberish. “I was then, and still am, a Hebrew illiterate,” he wrote in the 2013 memoir I Remember Me. 1930s As a young actor embarking on the abundant agonies of auditioning, Reiner botched one such effort by boldly delivering the stage directions as if they were dialogue (at least, according to Reiner’s autobiographical-ish 1958 novel, Enter Laughing). 1940s During World War II, Reiner talked his way into the Special Services at a production of Hamlet and toured revues in the South Pacific; as he later recounted on the Conan O’Brien show, troops would throw papayas if they didn’t like…

ON LANDING HER FIRST MOVIE ROLE “My gymnastics coach saw a casting call on Facebook and put me forward. I’m quite a confident person and had done some drama at school, so went to Brighton to meet Eva [Riley, the film’s director] and then got through to a second audition. My mum told me I’d got the part in the car.” ON WORKING WITH A RARE STOMACH DISEASE “I have gastroparesis, which basically means that my stomach doesn’t work. So we made sure that I didn’t do any gymnastics after eating food, and if we were doing night shoots we brought dinnertime forward. I was used to the pain so it didn’t bother me too much.” ON GOING TO THE PREMIERE OF PERFECT 10 “I got a minibus up from…

MEMOIRS AND MISINFORMATION JIM CARREY (AND DANA VACHON) MOST SELF-LOATHING REFERENCE “Tell me I’m safe again,” said Carrey. “And loved.” “You are safe. And loved.” In his novel, Carrey gives himself such a crippling need for validation that even his house has to be programmed to tell him how much everyone loves him. MOST SURPRISING CELEBRITY CAMEO “Taylor Swift felt her big toe catch in the earth… It was trapped, she saw, looking down, in the eye socket of a human skull.” Nashville’s finest stumbles into a mass grave dating back to Mao’s Great Leap Forward. HARSHEST BURN “Katie Holmes attended with her then husband, a colossal action star whose real name, for legal reasons, cannot be given here. Hence, we shall call him Laser Jack Lightning.” Carrey pokes fun…

John Nugent (News Editor): Well, anyone who thinks that Seth Rogen is in too many movies won’t like this film. There’s twice as much Seth Rogen as usual. Joanna Moran (Photography Director): [Reading from Wikipedia] “The premise is that an Eastern European labourer emigrates to America in the early 20th century, falls into a vat of pickles, and is brined for a hundred years, where he meets his great-grandson in modern-day Brooklyn.” And they’re both played by Seth Rogen. This is where we need to get one of those science people involved. How was he holding his breath for 100 years? Alex Godfrey (Acting Features Editor): I think you might be overthinking it. John: Nobody seems to notice that he falls in a vat of pickles. And continue to not…

ILLUSTRATION ARNO What character were you in your firstever school play? I was one of Fagin’s boys in a production of Oliver Twist. It wasn’t actually a school play, because we didn’t do plays at school. It was community theatre. I enjoyed it very much but it remains the only stage play I’ve ever been in. It was a one-and-done deal. Do you have a nickname? When I was growing up, people used to call me ‘Bean’. Like, “Beans, beans, the musical fruit, the more you eat the more you toot.” It wasn’t because of that rhyme, to be clear. I think it was just because it rhymed with the end of Shailene. Do you have a signature dish? I love to cook, so it depends on who’s coming over.…

OUT 7 AUGUST / PRIME VIDEO CERT TBC / 87 MINS DIRECTOR Ninian Doff CAST Rian Gordon, Lewis Gribben, Viraj Juneja, Samuel Bottomley PLOT After blowing up a school toilet, Scottish pupils Dean (Gordon), Duncan (Gribben) and DJ Beatroot (Juneja) are forced to take part in the Duke Of Edinburgh scheme. Meeting up with nerd Ian (Bottomley), the quartet reluctantly make their way across the countryside, where they become the targets of a pair of gun-crazy poshos. DESPITE PUNNING ON the title of a 29-year-old film, there is something fresh about Boyz In The Wood. Video director Ninian Doff (Kasabian, Miike Snow, Chemical Brothers) has taken an oft-told tale of survival in the wild and imbued it with nutty energy, laughs, invention and a surprisingly emotional undertow. It doesn’t all…

OUT NOW / DIGITAL / CERT TBC / 96 MINS DIRECTORS Elyse Steinberg, Joshua Kriegman, Eli B. Despres PARTICIPANTS Lee Gelernt, Chase Strangio, Dale Ho On the 100th anniversary of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the makers of the BAFTA-nominated Weiner follow the progress of four high-profile cases brought against the Trump administration. Told through the eyes of the lawyers and those affected by their life-changing victories and heart-breaking defeats, it’s a worthy attempt to document the organisation’s seemingly endless struggle against this administration’s manifold constitutional violations. It’s also clear-eyed when it comes to addressing the ACLU’s more controversial stances, such as its approval of the white supremacists’ march in Charlottesville, Virginia, leading to the death of Heather Heyer.…

OUT 14 AUGUST / CINEMAS / CERT TBC / 96 MINS DIRECTOR Oeke Hoogendijk CAST Jan Six, Ernst van de Wetering, Duke of Buccleuch, Thomas S. Kaplan What makes a masterpiece? Can money buy taste? Is expertise merely educated guesswork? These are just some of the questions posed by Oeke Hoogendijk in this twisting and disquieting insight into the class envy, intellectual snobbery and petty jingoism that underpin the art world. At the heart of the story is Jan Six, the aristocratic Dutch dealer who claims to have discovered two unknown Rembrandts. But sidebars involving Scottish dukes, American millionaires and the ramifications of a French tax bill touch on why governments, galleries and the super-rich compete for portraits that were commissioned as 17th-century status symbols. It’s not always an edifying…

OUT NOW / DIGITAL / CERT 15 / 104 MINS DIRECTOR André Øvredal CAST Nat Wolff, Priyanka Bose, Iben Akerlie After his foray into horror with Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark in 2019, Troll Hunter director André Øvredal returns to his Scandanavian roots for Mortal, a cut-price riff on Thor.Here, it’s Eric (Nat Wolff) who starts exhibiting hard-to-control God-like powers, eventually teaming up with Christine (Iben Akerlie), a local psychologist, to help discover the truth of his origins. It’s a spirited effort to reclaim the Norse mythology that American pop-culture has hijacked, and whether it’s sweeping shots of Norway or the lightning-heavy special effects, the movie is often impressive to look at. But Eric cuts a tormented figure who is hard to root for, and the choice to…

SELECTED BY DIRECTOR Corin Hardy THE GODFATHER TRILOGY (1972/1974/1990) The first two really haven’t aged in the slightest and provide such a detailed and emotional world of the trials and tribulations of living in a Mafia family. Coppola’s genius is evident. Young Pacino is sharp and lethal. HEAT (1995) So alive with character and detail, deftly taking you deep into the modern world of real-life cops and robbers. The thing that washes over me when the credits roll is being consumed by the weight of emotions, having been rooting for both sides. SEVEN (1995) Things don’t get any more modern ‘noir’ than Seven. An unfolding detective-investigation- come-rainswept-nightmare that looks and feels as exquisitely dark and broodingly atmospheric as the violent puzzle detectives Mills (Brad Pitt) and Somerset (Morgan Freeman) must…

SELECTED BY DIRECTOR Drew Pearce TO BE CLEAR, I’ve avoided musicians playing musicians because that’s a whole other list and it felt like cheating. Warning: I suspect I break that rule throughout the list. ART GARFUNKEL IN CARNAL KNOWLEDGE (1971) Art is epically sleazy in this brilliant movie, and it’s a big swing piece of non-actor casting that just underlines what a genius Mike Nichols was. DEBBIE HARRY IN VIDEODROME (1983) One of those perfectly cast cameos. The aesthetic and her tone are just perfectly Cronenbergian. TOM WAITS IN THE FISHER KING (1991) I picked this because a) it’s Tom Waits, he’s always incredible; b) I love the moral traffic light bit; and c) like John Lurie in Down By Law, I didn’t know much about Waits when I saw…

SELECTED BY ACTOR Ethan Hawke PAUL NEWMAN — ALWAYS ahead of the curve. With so many white male idiots making us all look like turkeys with their head in the sand, I started thinking about Paul Newman. I remember the first time I saw The Hustler. It stands revisiting. “I mean, that ever happened to you? When all of a sudden y’feel like you can’t miss…?” The cockiness, the wit, the humanity… Piper Laurie’s limp. Some people love James Dean, some people love Brando, but Newman was real. Emotion didn’t come easy. It cost something. He didn’t manipulate. He just told the truth even if the truth is ugly and hard. Then I saw Cool Hand Luke. It was my first experience with a ‘cops suck, the system is screwed, to…

SELECTED BY ACTOR Jack Reynor THE LUNCHBOX (2013) A bittersweet tale of love, loneliness, and loss, starring the late Irrfan Khan. SYMPATHY FOR MR VENGEANCE (2002) The first of Park Chan-wook’s Vengeance trilogy is humorous, heartfelt, shocking and violent. THE LAST WALTZ (1978) Every person on the stage is on top form here. But Levon Helm is the heart of this concert movie. An intimate insight into The Band’s 16 years on the road together. WILD AT HEART (1990) David Lynch’s dark, delicious trip down the yellow-brick road is a coming-of-age tale like no other. THE BLACK POWER MIXTAPE 1967-1975 (2011) An informative glimpse at the rise of the Black Power movement featuring interviews with prominent figures. Essential viewing. PHAROS OF CHAOS (1983) Sterling Hayden painfully bears his tortured soul…

SELECTED BY DIRECTOR Shane Black THE EXORCIST (1973) Let’s start with my favourite movie. Noir? Yup. From the compromised ex-boxer priest to the plodding, sardonic detective, the budding evil gives purpose to their wearying lives of quiet desperation. Also, it’s got banter. As in wisecracks. Yes, The Exorcist. DIRTY HARRY (1971) Simple premise, yet a tour de force of cinematic set-pieces. You can pluck any of a half-dozen sequences and teach them in film class. Workaday heroes, check. Great banter, check. NIGHT MOVES (1975) If The Big Sleep was the quintessential evocation of Raymond Chandler, this ‘70s thriller is surely birthed from his successor, Ross Macdonald. Sad, wrenching, poignant. A hero who knows not what he does - or rather: WHY. NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (2007) Crime as literature,…

SELECTED BY ACTOR/DIRECTOR Noel Clarke AMÉLIE (2001) Beautiful, magical, quirky, kooky in every way, shape and form. And Audrey Tautou was like a cartoon character. I’ve forever got a crush on that woman because of that film. If I could go back like that film Yesterday where he writes The Beatles’ tracks, I would definitely Snatch that as one of mine and make it scene for scene. LA HAINE (1995) This encapsulated everything that I was feeling when I was young. It was instrumental, along with Larry Clark’s Kids, in inspiring Kidulthood. BATTLE ROYALE (2000) (2001) What a concept. It opened my eyes, as someone who was leaving college and deciding to be a filmmaker. Y TU MAMÁ TAMBIÉN (2001) Alfonso, mate. Alfonso. Come on. IRRÉVERSIBLE (2002) Just a trip. Seeing a film told…

MARY HARRON CALLS it “a monster movie”. The terrifying creature at American Psycho’s core, though, doesn’t have trailing tentacles, bloodshot eyes or reptilian skin. Instead of sharp teeth, it wears a sharp suit: Valentino pinstripe, perfectly pressed, designed to draw green-eyed glances from his fellow Wall Street sleazes. This monster owns a gleaming Rolex, lives in an elegant condo and smiles politely through slap-up dinners at his city’s finest restaurants. But that is just one side of Patrick Bateman. The fictional ‘80s investment banker also stalks the streets of New York at night, maiming sex workers, murdering the homeless and committing unimaginable atrocities to a deplorable soundtrack of Phil Collins music. “He really was a black hole, this chiselled chasm of nothingness,” says Harron, the acclaimed satirical thriller’s director/co-writer, speaking…

THIS MONTH RUFUS JONES, HOME WRITER AND STAR, FILLS IN A MISSING CINEMATIC BLANK: DR. STRANGELOVE OR: HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB “HELLO, DIMITRI.” PETER Sellerses. “Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here, this is the War Room.” Nazi-arm. Bomb-rider. I have survived 40 years on Earth and half of that in comedy knowing precisely this much about Dr. Strangelove. For no good reason whatsoever, you decide that it’s too late to catch up and enter into a clandestine conspiracy of fucking ignorance with yourself: “I would watch Dr. Strangelove, but Cocktail’s on ITV2 again and I really should get under the bonnet of that Cruise-Bryan Brown dynamic.” If anything had put me off Dr. Strangelove, it was its reputation as a satire. As we know, satire…