Tabla de contenidos para May 2021 en Empire

AS I WROTE this letter, it was just days since Boris Johnson stood in front of the country (for the love of God, run a comb through it!) and gave us a date for cinemas reopening. Well, a date we’re aiming for, anyway: 17 May. A potentially monumental day when, after a year of closures — save for screens bursting into life briefly between lockdowns — their doors will open again. I personally was last in the cinema in December, the night before they’d been mandated to close once more. I saw Batman Returns and knew this would be the last encounter between the screen and myself for a while. I’ve spent much of the months inbetween missing it, even mourning it, but while we might not have had big…

CATHERINE O’HARA Picture this: Paddington versus an Evil Moira Rose, dishing out verbose, thesaurus-swallowing monologues in her signature sing-song delivery (maybe even with actual singing). Oh, and make sure she brings the wall of wigs. BEN TRAVIS DEV PATEL And he’s normally such a charmer. Patel plays a down-on-his-luck bookseller determined to break into Buckingham Palace and steal the Queen’s jewels after a State banquet. But he needs a bearskin hat to pass for a member of the guard — bringing him into Paddington’s orbit. HELEN O’HARA COLIN FIRTH There can be only one candidate to terrorise Paddington this time round: Colin Firth, the man who was originally cast as the bear’s voice. He could play an evil surgeon who wishes to steal Paddington’s voice and become filthy rich. For…

THE PLAN First Cow originated as a 2004 novel, The Half-Life, by Jonathan Raymond, a sprawling story about 19th-century fur-trappers, and two modern-day teenagers who find their remains. Director Kelly Reichardt, known for artful slow-cinema masterpieces such as Meek’s Cutoff and Certain Women, read the book and quickly suggested making it into a film. But the novel, which spans continents and centuries, needed a careful adaptation. “It was evident that it was bigger than she had the resources to really think about,” says Raymond, who co-wrote the screenplay with Reichardt. The pair decided to narrow their focus to Oregon in the 1820s, then a bustling melting pot driven by the fur trade. “The [communities residing on the] banks of the Columbia River at that point were probably some of the…

1 IT HAS HUGH GRANT BACK ON VILLAIN DUTIES Grant has rarely been more entertaining than in cad mode (Paddington 2, Bridget Jones’s Diary). His character hasn’t been revealed, but whether he’s a nefarious necromancer, a ruthless warlord or simply a Dungeon Master rolling loaded dice, his presence could not be more welcome. 2 THE REST OF THE CAST ARE EXCITING, TOO As each cast name has been announced, the sense grows that they’re thinking smartly (and diversely). Chris Pine will bring his cocky charm and Bridgerton’s Regé-Jean Page his smouldering suaveness, with Sophia Lillis, Michelle Rodriguez and Justice Smith rounding out a quality ensemble. 3 IT HAS THE RIGHT DIRECTING PEDIGREE John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein’s Game Night (2018) was far sharper than any of us expected. Factor…

IF NOTHING ELSE, I am lucky. I got to work with Christopher Plummer twice. We didn’t become besties or anything dreamy like that. But I did find him to be fascinating, generous and hilarious. When I was 11, I lied about having appendicitis. It was removed. This story is so embarrassing. However, the upshot was I stayed home from school for two weeks and watched The Sound Of Music over and over and over again, on our new Beta video-player. Captain von Trapp was the dad who woke up from his own pain and grief only to fall in love with his children again via Maria (the full-of-life nun and nanny) and the power of song. I still find ‘Edelweiss’ incredibly moving. It’s so warm, light, pure and patriotic. It’s…

★★★ OUT 29 MARCH (DIGITAL)/CERT 15/85 MINS DIRECTORS Keith Fulton, Louis Pepe PARTICIPANTS Terry Gilliam, Jonathan Pryce, Nicola Pecorini A follow-up to 2002’s Lost In La Mancha, Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe’s film follows the final leg of Terry Gilliam’s three-decade obsession to realise his Don Quixote dream. It’s a problem for the documentarians that the making of The Man Who Killed Don Quixote is largely drama-free, meaning they lean heavily on previously seen disasters to bring the sizzle – the footage is fascinating but familiar. But Gilliam is a quote machine (“I want this fucker out of my life”) and the film has the melancholy wistfulness of a man reconciling his ambitions with his budget. His ennui underlined by references to Fellini’s 8½, Gilliam constantly questions, “Is the film…

★★★ OUT 26 MARCH/CERT 15/97 MINS DIRECTOR Christopher Smith CAST Jessica Brown Findlay, John Lynch, Sean Harris Director Christopher Smith’s return to horror for the first time since 2010’s Black Death is a haunted-house movie that is so slow-burn that the flame is in danger of going out. However, just when it all threatens to become too sedate to scare, Smith dips back into the bag of tricks that he used with the dazzling, hallucinatory Triangle, and lurches into off-kilter, surreal territory. The main story, in which the excellent Jessica Brown Findlay moves into an old house with her repressed reverend husband and potentially creepy daughter, feels fairly familiar, but the pre-World War II setting allows for wild detours about conspiracy theories and Nazis, and the delightful sight of Sean…

OUR BRAINS AND emotions turn to absolute mush at 35,000 feet, and it’s such a well-known side effect that in 2017, Virgin Atlantic introduced ‘emotional health warnings’ on their in-flight entertainment. A survey commissioned by Gatwick Airport the same year revealed that 15 per cent of men and six per cent of women were more likely to cry while watching a film on a flight than on the ground. We asked Dr Jochen Hinkelbein, vice president of the German Society of Aerospace Medicine and assistant medical director for emergency medicine at the University of Cologne, why we lose our minds in the stratosphere. YOU’RE UNDER PRESSURE “Brain function depends a lot on altitude, and lack of oxygen to the brain is called hypoxia,” explains Hinkelbein. “If you fly, allowing for…

“Big mistake! Big! Huge!” Pretty Woman (1990) Pretty Woman serves up not only Julia Roberts’ finest 30 seconds, it also contains one of cinema’s greatest depictions of comeuppance. Heading for Rodeo Drive with client Edward’s (Richard Gere) credit card in hand, sex worker Vivian (Roberts) is humiliated in an upscale boutique by a haughty shop assistant (Dey Young) for being dressed in a crop top, short skirt and thigh-length boots (“I don’t think we have anything for you. You are obviously in the wrong place. Please leave”). To the strains of Roy Orbison’s ‘Pretty Woman’, Vivian later returns to the scene of the crime, now dressed in fashionable finery, a wide-brimmed hat and white gloves. She marches straight up to the saleswoman and says, “You work on commission, right?” Lifting…

Illustration: Neil Edwards. Alamy IMAGINE SLEUTH MASHED up with Ghost Stories and you get writer-director-star Josh Ruben’s Scare Me. Two writers – struggling-to-get-started-on-a-screenplay Fred (Ruben) and best-selling Fanny (Aya Cash) – pass an evening in an isolated, snowbound cabin trying to scare each other with stories, which makes for a darkly witty, wildly theatrical performers’ showcase. Fred and Fanny one-up each other in tales that encompass comedy, horror and serious thought about gender politics, angry white guys, wokeness and the ethics of drawing inspiration from life to create horror fiction. A pizza guy (Chris Redd) shows up at the mid-point and is roped in for a particularly strange, coked-out stretch which even extends to a musical number, but it’s mostly a two-hander. Ruben and Cash don’t take easy outs as…

1 THE TERMINATOR Illustration: Jacey Chris: “James Cameron’s stripped-down sci-fi thriller still packs a punch. Never mind the paradox, its blend of relentless action and genuinely affecting love story renders it timeless. And Arnie gives great bad guy.” 2 GHOSTBUSTERS Nick: “How can a movie that feels so improvised be so damn funny? A mystery to rival the Library Ghost.” 3 GREMLINS Helen: “Anarchic, unpredictable and surprisingly warm-hearted, these little monsters charm as well as scare.” 4 THIS IS SPINAL TAP Dan: “Hugely influential, perennially funny and endlessly quotable. I really think this should be number one.” 5 TOP SECRET! Helen: “You’ll never see a funnier film about a Beach Boy-singing Elvis- alike taking down Commie Nazis.” 6 AMADEUS Helen: “This exploration of genius and jealousy is far more entertaining…

ONE FRANCHISE TO RULE THEM ALL Your articles on Lord Of The Rings really ring true with me and my friends. During the pandemic, the films have given us opportunities to socialise remotely and over-analyse the films. Whether debating how the Middle-earth patriarchy would adapt to a woke society, arguing whether we are more elf or dwarf, or deciding which characters we would snog, marry or avoid, each re-watching feels fresh and exciting. To put it simply, Lord Of The Rings is very precious to us. RICK HAMILTON, SWINDON Thanks for your letter, Rick. We’re not going to ask who wanted to snog Gimli. Instead we’ll just give you a Picturehouse membership. Picture house Empire’s star letter wins a Picturehouse Membership, plus one for a friend! Valid for one year…

FRESH FROM THE success of Nomadland, filmmaker Chloé Zhao is set to sink her teeth into another badlands character study: a futuristic sci-fi Western spin on Dracula. “I’ve always been fascinated by vampires and the concept of the Other they embody,” Zhao said in a statement. Surprising news, perhaps — but not unprecedented. The Count has graced a few saloons in his time; in fact, Bram Stoker’s boy is both an opposite and a curious kind of kindred spirit to the traditional Western hero. Vampires are no strangers to jangling spurs, appearing in everything from 1959’s classical Curse Of The Undead to 2014’s postmodern A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night. And Dracula himself faced off against the West’s most infamous outlaw in the 1966 flick Billy The Kid Vs.…

Eyevine, Getty Images, Marco Vittur How have you found lockdown? It’s been fine. There are a lot of people that have had a fucking heinous time. I’m not one of them. I’m trying not to read the news too much because I found that it was just sending me into a total spin. I’m just very excited to go back to work, whenever that may be. Have you been doing much lockdown binge-watching? I think I’ve watched, like, everything there is. I binge-watched It’s A Sin this weekend. I had to watch Graham Norton afterwards to lighten my mood. A lot of people are using this time to catch up on stuff they’ve been meaning to watch for a while. The stuff that’s come out is so good. I watched…

LAST YEAR, DOMINIQUE Thorne had a phone call which changed her life. “I was at home in Delaware,” she remembers, “and I got a call asking if I would like to play this role. It was the best phone call I could have ever received.” The role in question: Riri Williams, aka Ironheart, the Marvel superhero created in 2015 by Brian Michael Bendis and Mike Deodato, now set to be adapted into a major Disney+ show. Thorne, who has only two screen credits to her name, was floored. “I was so shocked, in fact, that there was a considerable lag in the conversation!” she laughs. “I was waiting for them to say, like, ‘Oh, we’ll send you the sides,’ or, ‘Get your tape over to us.’ But there was none…

CHIWETEL EJIOFOR When were you most starstruck? I was probably most starstruck when I was living in New York, maybe 16 years ago. On Spring Street and Lafayette, there’s a magazine shop. It’s not there anymore. I went in, looking at some magazines — and David Bowie walked in. Stood right next to me. I remember being very starstruck, but I actually ended up with this internal dialogue where I thought: “Put back the magazine and walk out. Don’t mess it up.” So that’s what I did! I knew the memory would be mortifying if it went wrong. But fabulous if nothing happened. It was better that nothing happened than to mess it up somehow. Which movie have you seen the most? I would say probably Aliens. When I was…

★★★★ OUT 2 APRIL / CERT 15 / 98 MINS DIRECTOR Mona Fastvold CAST Katherine Waterston, Vanessa Kirby, Christopher Abbott, Casey Affleck Somewhere on the American frontier in the 19th century, Abigail (a delicate, mournful Katherine Waterston) endures a practical marriage to Dyer (Casey Affleck). Her world cracks open on meeting Tallie (Vanessa Kirby), the wife of newly arrived farmer Finney (Christopher Abbott). The setting may be icy, but there is warmth in Tallie’s body language and Abigail’s relief at finally being able to let love in. If Portrait Of A Lady On Fire works by eschewing men altogether, Mona Fastvold’s film finds dramatic mileage by including husbands, Abbott and Affleck upping the complexity and claustrophobia. Poetic dialogue, empathetic direction and a swooning clarinet score create a beguiling portrait of…

★★★ OUT NOW (PRIME VIDEO) CERT PG / 110 MINS DIRECTOR Craig Brewer CAST Eddie Murphy, Arsenio Hall, Jermaine Fowler, Leslie Jones PLOT The discovery of a long-lost son forces Prince Akeem (Murphy) to swap his African homeland Zamunda for New York in search of his estranged heir, Lavelle (Fowler). But will the kid from Queens make the grade as a royal and see off a threat to the monarchy? TIME HAS BEEN kind to Coming To America. From a commercially popular but critically divisive hit in 1988, the Eddie Murphy vehicle, bearing a ground-breaking all-Black cast, has developed a second wind, becoming a cultural touchstone in everything from hip hop lyrics – crowd-pleasing line, “The royal penis is clean, your highness,” features in Nas’ remix of Snoop Dogg’s ‘That’s…

★★★ OUT 19 MARCH (CURZON HOME CINEMA)/CERT TBC/95 MINS DIRECTOR Lili Horvat CAST Natasa Stork, Viktor Bodó With a title tailor-made for the pandemic, Preparations To Be Together… delivers a triple whammy of arthouse concerns (love, identity, perception) wrapped in a ‘90s-thriller high concept. Neurosurgeon Marta (Natasa Stork, compelling) returns to Budapest to join new love Janos (Viktor Bodó). After he fails to turn up for a rendezvous, Marta confronts him at the hospital where they both work, only for him to claim he doesn’t have any idea who she is. Writer-director Lili Horvát initially keeps the mystery engaging as Marta questions whether Janos is lying or she is delusional, the ambiguity amped up by the director’s almost noir style. It’s just a shame, then, that when the conclusion comes,…

★★★★ OUT 2 APRIL/CERT 12A/91 MINS DIRECTOR Christian Petzold CAST Paula Beer, Franz Rogowski Undine is a romance forged in exploding fish tanks, scuba diving, the history of Berlin’s infrastructure, actual catfishing, and a mythical elemental being. Like Ali Abbasi’s 2018 oddball curiosity Border, it takes an archetypal fairy tale and gives it an artful, social-realist spin – in this case, a water nymph, reimagined as a millennial historian in modern-day Germany. After a couple of gritty war films, filmmaker Christian Petzold is in a more earnest mood here, and much of the film seems happy to revel in the honeymoon period of a passionate relationship, beautifully played by actors Paula Beer and Franz Rogowski. Its understated oddness will be too oblique for some, but Undine feels so deeply original…

★★★ OUT 29 MARCH (DIGITAL)/CERT TBC/98 MINS DIRECTOR John Sheedy CAST Daisy Axon, Wesley Patten, Miriam Margolyes A quirky, Australian coming-of-age drama, H Is For Happiness centres on Candice Phee (Daisy Axon), a superbright 12-year-old whose parents (Emma Booth, Richard Roxburgh) are dealing with bereavement, financial worries and family tensions. She finds solace in a friendship with weird new kid ‘Douglas Benson From Another Dimension’ (Wesley Patten) – he believes he is working his way through multiverses – and is inspired by him to try to raise her family’s spirits. With its eccentric leads and sunny palette, John Sheedy’s film is in the ballpark of Wes Anderson and Taika Waititi’s tales of childhood; while not as sharp as either, it wins out thanks to a generous spirit and a bright…

TONY STARK (ROBERT DOWNEY JR) & JAMES RHODES (DON CHEADLE) The original BFFs of the MCU are Tony Stark and James Rhodes. They have a bond so strong that Tony made Rhodey an armoured suit long before he built one for his wife. SCOTT LANG (PAUL RUDD) & LUIS (MICHAEL PEÑA) Scott Lang’s got a lot on his plate, what with being Ant-Man, but Luis, his old prison cellmate, won’t ever let things get on top of him. This is a guy so optimistic that he sees the positives in his dad getting deported. STEPHEN STRANGE (BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH) & WONG (BENEDICT WONG) In the comics, Wong was Stephen Strange’s manservant. But in the MCU, the two are peers, protecting the world as two of the last living members of the…

GROUNDHOG DAY (1993) Day looped: 2 February. Reason for loop: It’s never revealed why Phil Connors (Bill Murray) gets trapped. Number of loops shown: 36. Good day: A perfect date with colleague Rita. Bad day: Phil drives off a cliff. Frustrated quote: “What would you do if you were stuck in one place and every day was exactly the same, and nothing that you did mattered?” EDGE OF TOMORROW (2014) Day looped: Unknown, but it’s in 2020. Reason for loop: Cowardly soldier William Cage (Tom Cruise) swallows alien blood. Number of loops shown: 26. Good day: He finally makes it across the hardcore training ground in one piece. Bad day: He’s crushed by a truck on Loop 3. Frustrated quote: “You’re all doomed! You’re doomed!” HAPPY DEATH DAY (2017) Day…

RAGING BULL WAS FAR FROM AN EASY SELL. Back in the late 1970s, the real-life tale of boxer Jake LaMotta, a violent, inarticulate thug, was rightly viewed by producers and studio executives as risky material. For Martin Scorsese, it was an unappealing prospect for different reasons: the New York director disliked sports of any kind, and was going through a major health crisis, having landed up in hospital on the Labor Day weekend of 1978, bleeding from the nose, mouth and eyes. But Scorsese’s friend and collaborator, Robert De Niro, was consumed by the idea of turning LaMotta’s memoir into a movie, and believed only Scorsese could do it justice. So once the filmmaker was discharged from hospital, De Niro and Scorsese decided to head to a resort in the…

AIRPLANE! (1980) Surely (don’t call me Shirley) one of the most quotable movies of all time, and one of the most relentlessly funny comedies ever made. This is safe enough to watch at 35,000 feet due to the fact that it is only a parody of the disaster movies of the early ‘70s, with enough zippy dialogue to help you quickly skim over all the food poisoning and impending doom. UP (2009) Recently widowed Carl Fredricksen takes the trip of a lifetime to the deceptively utopian Paradise Falls, accidentally bringing Junior Wilderness Explorer Russell along for the bumpy ride. With one of the most heart-breaking opening montages in cinema history, Pixar’s finest outing makes it onto this list on the strength of the impressive balloon-based aviation engineering. CATCH ME IF…

DARKMAN Roberts was set to star opposite ex-boyfriend Liam Neeson in Sam Raimi’s movie, but stepped away after winning the lead in Pretty Woman. Frances McDormand took the role. SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE Perhaps because it was so squarely in her comfort zone, Roberts turned down the role of Annie Reed in Nora Ephron’s romcom. The finished film anointed Meg Ryan alongside Roberts as a go-to romantic lead. CHICAGO Catherine Zeta-Jones in fact took on two roles earlier earmarked for Roberts; the murderous Velma Kelly in Chicago, and predatory Marylin Rexroth in Intolerable Cruelty. THE BLIND SIDE Roberts was up for Sandra Bullock’s roles in While You Were Sleeping and Harper Lee flick Infamous, but The Blind Side is the one that she must rue. Bullock went on to win an…

Gina Stock THIS MONTH NOVELIST MORGAN MATSON TACKLES ANTHONY MINGHELLA’S THE ENGLISH PATIENT FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME I HAVE NEVER seen The English Patient. And it is entirely Elaine Benes’ fault. Back in 1996, when the movie came out to great acclaim and a truckload (lorry-load? Sound the American-writing-for-British-publication klaxon) of Oscars, I was 15 and not super in the habit of watching three-hour romantic melodramas. But I was in the habit of watching Seinfeld every Thursday night, and the episode ‘The English Patient’ sealed it for me. In it, everyone around Elaine is obsessed with The English Patient, and can’t understand why she just wants to watch Sack Lunch. (But truly, how did they get into the sack? Will we ever know?!) When she finally watches The English…

In an era dominated by franchises, the Skyline series has built from humble beginnings. Skyline (2010), directed by the Brothers Strause (of dreadful AVP sequel Requiem), depicted an alien attack that saw ordinary folk literally transformed by sudden catastrophe. It did better business than bigger-budget films (no trilogies for you, Battle: Los Angeles and Battleship). Original writer Liam O’Donnell has directed two follow-ups which escalate the saga to global (Beyond Skyline) and galactic (Skylin3s) scale, expanding the universe with a sophisticated, generational saga of human-alien hybrids and wild martial-arts action. Beyond Skyline teams gruff Frank Grillo, from the Purge/Captain America sequels, with half the cast of The Raid against the aliens. Skylin3s takes off for the stars as Lindsey Morgan, introduced in the last film, commands a fleet on a…

1 Butch and Sundance’s real names were Robert LeRoy Parker and Harry Alonzo Longabaugh. Christopher McQuarrie borrowed those surnames for his two cops in 2000’s The Way Of The Gun. 2 Steve McQueen, Warren Beatty and even Jack Lemmon were considered for the Sundance Kid. 3 Butch’s gang in the movie is called The Hole-In-The-Wall Gang. In real life, they were The Wild Bunch — changed due to Sam Peckinpah’s film of the same name and year. 4 In 1979, Richard Lester directed prequel of sorts Butch And Sundance: The Early Years, starring Tom Berenger and William Katt.…

TA-NEHISI COATES WRITING A SUPERMAN MOVIE IS GREAT NEWS FOR THE MAN OF STEEL WITH EVERYTHING GOING on in the world right now, we could really use a great Superman movie. There’s something powerful about an immigrant from the stars becoming America’s most iconic hero and inspiring others to be better. So the news that author Ta-Nehisi Coates has signed on to write a Superman reboot has me more excited about the Man Of Steel’s big-screen future than I’ve been in a long while. That’s in large part because Coates is an award-winning author who has written on race, identity and politics in books The Beautiful Struggle and Between The World And Me. Fans of Marvel comics will probably be familiar with his work too: he’s penned several issues of…

AUBREY PLAZA LITERALLY throws herself into her latest role. Written for her by director Lawrence Michael Levine, Black Bear is a twisted, tense piece of work that explores filmmaking, feminism and gaslighting directors. It’s a bravura performance from the actor who made her name in US sitcom Parks And Recreation, but is now just as well known for oddball films like 2017’s gnarly Ingrid Goes West and 2018’s absurd An Evening With Beverly Luff Linn. Here, she talks (from the set of Guy Ritchie’s spy thriller Five Eyes) darkness, catharsis — and Miss Piggy. Allison was written to some extent as a version of you. Did any of it hit a nerve? Yeah. It’s almost a deconstruction of the persona that people have projected onto me. People associate me with…

John Nugent (News Editor: Who’s looking forward to Cruella? James Dyer (Digital Editor-In-Chief): Well, I do like Maleficent. This has a similar principle behind it — the rehabilitation of a Disney villain. I’m waiting for the Thanos rehabilitation! Joanna Moran (Photography Director): Is this rehabilitating her or is it just a prequel? James: I feel like they’re trying to justify her crimes. Ben Travis (Online Staff Writer): They have to make her a nice enough lead that this is still a family film — but she literally murders puppies. It doesn’t get much more evil than that. John: Her name is basically ‘cruel devil’! She was never exactly a subtle baddie. Chris Lupton (Creative Director): Liberty in Soho! What an amazing building. James: There’s a Spaghetti House just out of…

ONWARD It may look like a heap of old junk, but in Pixar’s road-trip fantasy, Guinevere is the “mighty steed” belonging to Barley (Chris Pratt), which takes him and his brother Ian (Tom Holland) on a poignant journey to bring back their dead father. It even earns a hero’s death into Valhalla. NOMADLAND In Chloé Zhao’s awards-hoovering drama, Frances McDormand plays Fern, a van-dweller roaming the harsh highways of America after losing her job and her husband. Van life for Fern is tough, and occasionally challenging — don’t expect #vanlife Insta selfies here. SUPERNOVA Camper vans don’t get more emotional than the one driven by Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci in this moving romantic drama. The pair play a couple on one last cramped trip to the Lake District —…

★★★ OUT NOW (SKY CINEMA/NOW TV) / CERT 15 / 125 MINS DIRECTOR Lee Daniels CAST Andra Day, Trevante Rhodes, Leslie Jordan, Rob Morgan, Natasha Lyonne There’s real power in the story of ‘Strange Fruit’, a song so incendiary that the US government saw it as a threat that had to be stopped. But while that’s part of this biopic, it’s often lost in a scatter-shot portrait of the singer’s life. The film hops around – from Holiday’s heroin addiction to her possibly romantic relationships with Tallulah Bankhead (Natasha Lyonne) and undercover Fed Jimmy Fletcher (Trevante Rhodes) – without getting to the heart of Holiday herself. Still, Andra Day captivates with an arresting performance, captured beautifully by Andrew Dunn’s gorgeous cinematography. If only the rest of the film was as…

BELMONT FILMHOUSE Head of Cinema Operations Colin Farquhar waxes lyrical about Aberdeen’s historic three-screener BELMONTFILMHOUSE.COM What’s your cinema’s history? It was a trade hall converted to a cinema in the 1910s. It was closed in the ‘50s, then was refurbished with Lottery money in the late ‘90s. We’re now part of a wee indie chain that operates the Edinburgh Filmhouse, and runs the Edinburgh International Film Festival. What’s special about your cinema? The foyer is a quiet, calming blue space; it’s very friendly. We also show stuff you can’t see in the rest of the city’s multiplexes. We’ve got a regular, hardcore audience who are part of the furnishings, who we know and love. Share a memorable moment… Meeting Barry Norman was cool. He did a Q&A to a sold-out…

★★★★ OUT 28 MARCH (SKY DOCUMENTARIES/NOW TV) / CERT TBC / 118 MINS DIRECTORS Dan Lindsay, T.J. Martin PARTICIPANTS Tina Turner, Angela Bassett, Oprah Winfrey Tina Turner’s life and career come off the screen with hip-shaking, volcanic energy in Tina, an HBO doc made with completist, loving care by directors Dan Lindsay and T.J. Martin. Making extensive use of a wealth of archival footage and new interviews, the film is as much about the singer’s triumphs as her difficulties, celebrating the resilience and remarkable talent of a woman who was never afraid of reinvention. Tina, which avoids sensationalising her story, is slightly hampered by such admiration for its subject, veering into an overlong running time. But it also contains moments of real insight and poignance, making it compelling for both…

★★ OUT 22 MARCH/CERT 15/112 MINS DIRECTOR Tiller Russell CAST Nick Robinson, Jason Clarke, Jimmi Simpson, Alexandra Shipp, Katie Aselton Tiller Russell has had recent success with documentaries Night Stalker and The Last Narc, but he’s on less sure footing with this fictionalised account of the rise and fall of Ross Ulbricht, the youngster brought down for creating online black market the Silk Road. The story’s fascinating details, as explored by Alex Winter in his 2015 doc Deep Web, have been shorn away, replaced by a generic cop-versus-criminal procedural, with Nick Robinson’s bland Ulbricht hunted by Jason Clarke’s dogged cop. While Clarke brings impressive intensity and the plot rattles along, the dialogue is moth-eaten, the female cast-members squandered, and attempts at style (bleepy score, random freeze-frames) make you wish you…

★★★ OUT NOW (APPLE TV+)/CERT 15/140 MINS DIRECTOR R.J. Cutler PARTICIPANTS Billie Eilish, Maggie Baird, Patrick O’Connell, In the spotlight at 13 and stratospheric by 17, Billie Eilish is a singular global superstar. Her music, combining ethereal vocals and dark, goth-pop, revitalised the industry and put her on the map – and landed her the gig writing the new James Bond theme for No Time To Die. It makes sense, then, to give the world a glimpse of her exceptional life. R.J. Cutler’s fly-on-the-wall doc charts Eilish’s meteoric rise through home videos, tour footage and candid conversations. He doesn’t conduct probing interviews – the intimacy comes from our apparent proximity to Eilish, never camera-shy. The film is as beguiling as she is – although it’s hardly revelatory. A good primer,…

WHEN LINE OF DUTY BEGAN, THERE WAS, IT’S FAIR TO SAY, LITTLE FANFARE. Season 1 appeared on BBC Two in 2012, and with its edgy, frequently brutal, exploration of police corruption, it built a decent audience of almost four milliion. Nine years later, on the eve of the sixth series airing, Line Of Duty is the BBC’s most popular returning drama, with 12.69 million gripped by the 2019 Series 5 finale. It’s hard to know which of the show’s key ingredients is the main reason for this phenomenal, unprecedented rise. There’s the unique structure, in which each series is built round the investigation of a different antagonist, played by guest leads ranging from Lennie James in Series 1 to Series 6’s Kelly Macdonald, while an over-arching conspiracy narrative involving balaclava-wearing…

This month: The audacious regent of romcoms JULIA ROBERTS In 2004, archaeologists — the real kind, not the whip/fedora variety — digging in Bulgaria uncovered a 9,000-year-old female skeleton with a perfect arrangement of teeth. Dr Georgi Ganetsovski, the leader of the dig, observed, “She would have had a perfect smile — it really is a puzzle. She is a stone-age Julia Roberts.” That Roberts’ smile is mentioned in dispatches by cine-literate Bulgarian excavators points to one of the most popular ways her appeal has been conceptualised: ‘The Megawatt Smile’. Other equally reductive nomenclatures include ‘The Girl Next Door’, ‘America’s Sweetheart’, ‘The Romcom Queen’ etc. Yet — running archaeology metaphor ahoy — if you dig a little deeper, such epithets don’t do justice to Roberts’ talent and ambition. Throughout a…

THIS MONTH THE BEST OF ENNIO MORRICONE 1. THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY A true ‘landscape’ of a soundtrack – definitive Morricone. 2. EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC The worst film ever made, but the music is brilliantly bonkers. 3. THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE Classic Argento; classic Morricone. 4. CINEMA PARADISO This felt even more emotional during lockdown. 5. THE THING So good he recycled it for The Hateful Eight. 6. THE MISSION One of Scala’s most requested soundtracks. 7. ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST A listener described the finale as “heartbreaking and triumphant”. 8. BARBABLÙ (BLUEBEARD) Another fine example of ‘great score, shame about the movie’. 9. RAMPAGE A memorably haunting accompaniment to Friedkin’s forgotten thriller. 10. QUEIMADA (BURN!) Well worth checking out, especially…

We’ve got two pieces of swanky kit to give away to one winner this month. First up is a pair of ultra-light Jaybird VISTA fully wireless earphones (RRP £159.99), with 16 hours of battery life; also water-proof, they’re perfect for long days on the beach - when we’re allowed again... And secondly, a portable Bluetooth speaker, the BOOM 3 (RRP £129). With 360-degree sound and excellent bass, it’s perfect for outdoor parties - or your indoor home cinema. To enter, crack the crossword, solve the anagram and text your answer to the number below. JAYBIRD VISTA EARPHONES AND THE BOOM 3 SPEAKER ARE AVAILABLE NOW ON AMAZON.CO.UK…