Table of contents for August 2022 in Empire

WELL, THIS IS a big one. In fact, they don’t get any bigger. In 2009, James Cameron returned from a 12-year hiatus, dropping his latest artistic venture into cinemas worldwide. It was called Avatar, and it made an impact, to put it mildly. People went back, and back, and back. Then went back one more time, just for luck. The sci-fi epic grossed $2.8 billion (still more than any film in history), gave some viewers actual withdrawal symptoms (viperwolves are addictive; don’t look at more than three a day), and brought us — in my opinion — one of the greatest movie villains of all time, in the shape of Stephen Lang’s Colonel Miles Quaritch, a man so tough he probably chews gravel, then shoots it. Now, James Cameron is…

FROM HER FIRST live-action appearance in The Mandalorian Season 2, picking off a band of masked goons one by one with her dual white lightsabers, to her fleeting yet magnetic return in The Book Of Boba Fett, Rosario Dawson’s Ahsoka Tano has clearly been destined for bigger things. And now the former Padawan from Dave Filoni’s animated show Star Wars: Rebels, co-created by Filoni and George Lucas and a solid fan favourite, will get her own spin-off series. “Dave and Jon [Favreau] are continuing Star Wars in a way where it can be standalone but it also makes you hungry for more,” Dawson tells Empire at Star Wars Celebration, teasing revelations that even Rebels die-hards aren’t expecting. “There have been two instances where she’s shown up on a mission, you…

[IN MEMORIAM] I WAS SITTING on a Zoom when a text popped up in the corner of the screen from my friend: “Ray Liotta died.” That’s all it said. I felt an immediate flush of tears flood my eyes and awkwardly excused myself. “Ray Liotta died.” I kept rereading it. Some essential part of me felt like it had been punched loose. This weird vertigo overtook me, then this momentary panic, like I had missed something absolutely vital and there was no getting it back now. This was the man most responsible for my career. This was my go-to guy over four separate films. I lived at his house for weeks on end. He came up north for a screening of NARC on a moment’s notice because we were raising…

THE MIRACLE of birth gets the nightmare treatment in a fresh wave of films and TV seeking to change the narrative on motherhood. From a bloody yet heartfelt monster movie from Finland to a visceral, violent body horror from Mexico, four women are using their art to interrogate how their societies expect women to contribute, and what happens when they don’t. They tell Empire about the powerful and often personal motivations behind their work. HUESERA Mexican writer-director Michelle Garza Cervera makes her feature-length debut with this bone-breaking body horror about an expectant mother, Valeria (Natalia Solien). As her pregnancy progresses, Valeria begins to reflect on the anti-establishment young punk she once was, which drives her to make a difficult choice. It’s a personal story for Garza Cervera. “After my mum…

ON GETTING INTO ACTING Owen: The ecosystem of the business is that you do the [Edinburgh] Fringe, and it’s like a showcase for what you do. From there, to our radio show; it’s been a gradual evolution into doing more screen stuff, which is what we’re focusing on. Ashenden: When we spoke to Colin Trevorrow, he said that he’d seen us in Edinburgh. Little did we know, when we were doing that sketch show one day in a very hot, clammy, Edinburgh room, that the Jurassic World director would be in there. ON PLAYING A BARISTA AND A CONTROL-ROOM TECH IN JURASSIC WORLD DOMINION Ashenden: In the script for my coffee scene, I had one line — something like, “Here’s your coffee, mate.” But Colin said to me that I…

JOHN MICHAEL McDonagh’s films are often packed with dark-natured characters, from Brendan Gleeson’s unorthodox policeman in The Guard to Alexander Skarsgård and Michael Peña’s bent cops in War On Everyone. His latest, an adaptation of Lawrence Osborne’s novel, the psychological thriller The Forgiven, proves no different. The story follows David and Jo Henninger, whose marriage is on the rocks even before they run over and kill a local Moroccan boy while on their way to a grand villa party. From there, David is taken on a journey of atonement through the desert, while Jo enjoys a lavish weekend of partying. Empire spoke to the director about how he brought four of his complex characters to life in the shadow of the Atlas Mountains. DAVID HENNINGER (RALPH FIENNES) “He is one…

JOHN CHO When in your life were you most starstruck? The one that jumps to mind is when I met John Lithgow in a hotel lobby. I think he’s tremendous. This is going to make me sound self-serving, but he paid me a compliment, which is probably why I remember. He said, “Young man, I saw you on television last night and you were very good.” You can dine out on that for decades. And I will. Which film have you seen more than any other? GoodFellas. There’s always something funny, terrible or exciting happening in every single second of that movie, so if you catch it at any point you’re pretty much stuck watching to the end. Breaking news: it’s a really good film. How much is a pint…

★★★ OUT NOW (NETFLIX) / CERT 15 / 117 MINS DIRECTOR Jeremiah Zagar CAST Adam Sandler, Ben Foster, Robert Duvall, Juancho Hernangómez It’s surprising that it’s taken basketball superfan Adam Sandler this long to bleed that passion into his films. Hustle sees him play Philadelphia 76ers scout Stanley Sugerman, who thinks he’s found the next big star in Bo Cruz (real-life NBA player Juancho Hernangómez), a streetball phenom from Spain. All the standard sports-drama tropes are dutifully checked off in Taylor Materne and Will Fetters’ screenplay, but director Jeremiah Zagar executes the familiar game plan well and the many stylistic flourishes add welcome spice. Sandler is also ably supported by Hernangómez, an unsurprisingly huge presence on the court, while also nailing Cruz’s naive vulnerability when the focus switches from basketball…

★★★★ OUT 29 JULY CERT 12A / 94 MINS DIRECTOR Panah Panahi CAST Pantea Panahiha, Hasan Majuni, Rayan Sarlak, Amin Simiar PLOT An Iranian family embarks on a road trip across their country. The reasons for the trip are mysterious. Mother (Panahiha) and father (Majuni) suggest to their younger son (Sarlak) that his older brother (Simiar) is getting married — but there are bigger secrets not being told. EARLY ON IN Hit The Road, the family tries to have a “last-gasp party” in their car, with singing and dancing. The hyperactive younger brother — brilliantly played by tiny newcomer Rayan Sarlak — perceptively picks up on this phrase. “In movies, when they say ‘last-gasp’, something bad happens,” he says. His mother tries to reassure him. But Hit The Road is…

★★★ OUT 15 JULY (PRIME VIDEO) / CERT TBC / 109 MINS DIRECTOR Hannah Marks CAST John Cho, Mia Isaac, Kaya Scodelario When single father Max (John Cho) is diagnosed with a seemingly inoperable cancer, he makes a decision to spend the last year of his life ensuring his teenage daughter Wally (Mia Isaac) has everything she needs for the future — including a reunion with her estranged mother. The pair then embark on a road trip to find her, and it’s filled with touching, relatable moments that are genuinely moving to watch. At the start of the film, Wally (who also narrates) tells us we’re “not going to like the ending”, but we’ll “like the story. As such, the film’s bizarre denouement is a clumsy misstep, souring the tale…

★★★★ OUT 22 JULY / CERT NOT RATED / 127 MINS DIRECTORS Robert B. Weide, Don Argott PARTICIPANTS Kurt Vonnegut, Robert B. Weide Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck In Time is two things at once: both a biography of the zeitgeisty counter-culture author and a portrait of director Robert B. Weide’s 40-year mission to get this documentary made. The first strand paints a colourful, revealing, frequently funny portrait of key moment’s in Vonnegut’s life, from surviving the bombing of Dresden to the death of his sister Ally to becoming the voice of a generation with works like Slaughterhouse 5 and Breakfast Of Champions. The lesser strand, Weide’s relationship with Vonnegut, is sweetly etched, but detracts from a more incisive critical portrait. Still, Vonnegut is great fun, and Unstuck In Time does what…

★★★ OUT 15 JULY / CERT TBC / 103 MINS DIRECTOR Barney Douglas PARTICIPANTS John McEnroe, Billie Jean King, Björn Borg An entertaining if familiar portrait of tennis’ rock god, enlivened by great access to its star, hampered by suspect filmmaking decisions. The first half charts McEnroe’s rise — the temper tantrums, the rivalry with Björn Borg, the partying at Studio 54 — followed by the drug-influenced decline, including a rare look at his failed marriage with Tatum O’Neal. Yet the story is dissipated by director Barney Douglas’ linking device of McEnroe wandering New York at night, randomly answering payphones, and cheap animation designed to put you inside his synapses. The talking heads (Borg, Billie Jean King) reveal little and the film doesn’t really uncover the Superbrat’s demons. Still, McEnroe…

★★ OUT NOW (PARAMOUNT+) EPISODES VIEWED 10 OF 10 SHOWRUNNERS Michael Tolkin, Nikki Toscano CAST Miles Teller, Matthew Goode, Dan Fogler Everyone involved in this ten-part series about the making of The Godfather clearly understands why Francis Ford Coppola’s film is a masterpiece. It’s just a shame, then, that none of that knowledge was applied. Telling the story through the prism of producer Al Ruddy (Miles Teller, charming), it encompasses all the film’s lore: the battles with the Mafia, the fights over casting (Anthony Ippolito’s Pacino is uncanny). The cast, especially Matthew Goode as Paramount head Robert Evans and Juno Temple as Ruddy’s assistant, are game, but whole thing lacks texture and sophistication. You can’t help but feel The Godfather deserves much better. IF…

★★★★ OUT NOW (SKY ATLANTIC/NOW) EPISODES VIEWED 4 OF 6 SHOWRUNNERS David Simon, George Pelecanos CAST Jon Bernthal, Wunmi Mosaku, Jamie Hector, Josh Charles, Dagmara Domińczyk PLOT Sergeant Wayne Jenkins (Bernthal), a cop for the Baltimore Police Department, leads up the corrupt Gun Trace Task Force, his team stealing anything and assaulting anyone they see fit. When investigations from both the Department of Justice and FBI heat up, a reckoning soon comes for the BPD — and the city at large. IN THE WIRE, David Simon’s seminal, superlative early-2000s TV masterpiece, many characters — most memorably Dominic West’s Jimmy McNulty — espouse the theory of “good police”. (Spoken in a Baltimore accent, it’s said more like “good po-lice”.) Like everything in that show, it was a nebulous, ambiguous idea, existing…

ALIENS (1986) Putting his disowned debut Piranha II: The Spawning aside, Cameron’s first brush with the wet stuff comes in this classic scare moment: as Newt (Carrie Henn), chest-high in water, waits to be rescued, a pesky xenomorph slowly rises behind her and takes her down. Cut to a chilling glimpse of a submerged doll’s face. Don’t worry — Newt survives. THE ABYSS (1989) Stuck in a mini-sub taking on water with her husband Bud (Ed Harris), hard-as-nails Dr Lindsey Brigman (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) gives the one working diving suit to Bud and plumps to enter deep hypothermia as the water engulfs her. Bud brings her body back to the surface, and the subsequent lengthy resuscitation scene becomes real heart-in-mouth stuff. TITANIC (1997) In a film full of awesome aqua…

ACOP AND A THIEF SIT DOWN FOR A CUP of coffee at a local deli. They’ve been circling each other, professionally speaking, ever since the cop saw the thief just walk away from a complex score he had been setting up because he felt something was off (he was correct). They exchange chit-chit, small talk, wary of each other yet still keen to gain the psychological upper hand. They know that this is only going to end one way: with one of them dead by the other’s hand. Yet there remains a lingering feeling: perhaps, in another life, they could have been best friends, brothers, soulmates, even. In another life. Shortly thereafter, the thief lies dead at the hands of the cop. The year is 1963. The place is Chicago.…

FOR ORSON WELLES, The Magnificent Ambersons is the original Difficult Second Album. His first film was admittedly hardly a walk in the park — aturbulent and protracted release, it was a box-office disappointment, and ended up almost empty-handed on Oscar night — but it was still Citizen Kane. You try following up Citizen Kane, see how easy it is. The pressure was truly on for his next act. Still just 26 years old, Welles had to prove he was not simply a one-trick pony — that he could live up to the barbed “boy genius” label given to him in the Hollywood press, who mocked his East Coast intellectualism and the unprecedented creative freedom he enjoyed on Kane. Hungry and ambitious, Welles had similar designs for Ambersons as he had…

PICK OF THE MONTH THE OUTFIT OUT 1 AUGUST / CERT 15 / 106 MINS DVD BR 4K Incredibly, The Outfit marks the first project for Graham Moore since he won a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for The Imitation Game back in 2014. It’s perhaps no coincidence that this excellent thriller, which marks Moore’s directorial debut, is about the benefits of fastidiousness and patience. Mark Rylance is an English tailor who has relocated to post-war Chicago and found himself running a shop that one night doubles as a place for wounded gangster Dylan O’Brien to hide from the cops. Beautifully written and performed, it only threatens to go off the rails with a bizarre showdown that feels from another movie. Otherwise, it’s as meticulously assembled as one of Rylance’s suits.…

BABU MEETS GROGU? Babu Frik and Grogu could share screentime in the ultimate weird-but-cute showdown. Both became immediate online obsessions, and bringing them together would be the Star Wars galaxy’s greatest break-the-internet moment. If they fight over a small blue space-frog or a delicious macaron? Even better. THE SEQUELS SHINE THROUGH One of The Mandalorian’s greatest strengths is the way it combines all eras of Star Wars’ extensive canon, reatures from the Original A nzellans is a sign of more though it skews more towards planets and and Prequel trilogies. But the arrival of sequel-era creations breaking through. PRACTICAL PUPPETEERING REIGNS Nothing says ‘Star Wars magic’ more than practical creature effects, and Babu Frik was one of Rise Of Skywalker‘s greatest mini-marvels, with on-set engineers manipulating his freaky little form.…

UGLY SONIC CHIP ’N DALE: RESCUE RANGERS ‘Ugly Sonic’ in all his rejected glory is a highlight of this meta reboot. How was an outcast Sega character cleared for a Disney movie? We believe a pact with the Devil must have been involved. RACCACOONIE EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE Pixar’s culinary genius rat is swapped for a raccoon in the Daniels’ box office smash. This live-action furry fellow even gets his own storyline, involving a high-action rescue mission. WINNIE THE POOH WINNIE THE POOH: BLOOD AND HONEY This upcoming slasher turns a beloved teddy bear into a violent killer. The film follows a feral Pooh and his hunt for human prey. This rumbly tumbly won’t settle for honey alone, it seems.…

IF YOU LOVED... THE STAIRCASE THE STAIRCASE (NETFLIX) Yes, before the drama mini-series The Staircase, there was the 13-part documentary The Staircase. Or to be more accurate, first there was a 2004 series, made by director Jean-Xavier de Lestrade, covering the case of whether writer Michael Peterson killed his wife Kathleen. De Lestrade returned to the story in 2012 and made further episodes, this time for Netflix, who aired all 13 eps in 2018. Intriguingly, de Lestrade is a “character” in the HBO mini-series, played by Vincent Vermignon. But if you haven’t yet caught up with this original “factual” telling of this remarkable saga, you really must. THE SINNER: SEASON 1 (NETFLIX) Antonio Campos, the showrunner of the Staircase limited series, proved his crime-drama directing skills when he made the…

TOTORO IS AN icon. Studio Ghibli’s 1988 seminal animated masterpiece My Neighbour Totoro told the story of two young girls who, while worrying about their ill mother, wander into a forest and encounter a cuddly woodland spirit they christen Totoro — plus a magical bus shaped like a cat. Totoro has since become the unofficial mascot of Studio Ghibli, beloved by several generations of children and adults alike. He’s also bloody massive. How on Earth do you translate all that into a live-action puppet stage production? “It’s still in process,” says Phelim McDermott, the veteran theatre director tasked with adapting the classic film into an ambitious stage show that plays at London’s Barbican Theatre from October. It’s a process that has been in the works for over four years, with…

With its swashbuckling tone and George Lucas-penned story, Ron Howard’s 1988 movie Willow was always on the family-friendly end of the fantasy scale — aquaint adventure in which Warwick Davis’ burgeoning wizard has to save a magical baby from an evil queen’s wrath. Now, 34 years later, Davis is back in Disney+’s Willow sequel series, set to bring the saga to a whole new generation. Fittingly, the show is a family affair — Willow’s daughter in the series is played by Annabelle Davis, Warwick’s own real-life child. “Since she’s been old enough, Annabelle’s been forging her own career as an actress,” he tells Empire. “To get her on to Willow and have her play my daughter was really wonderful. We had some great scenes together, and Jon [Kasdan, who co-developed…

★★★★★ EXCELLENT ★★★★ GOOD ★★★ OKAY ★★ POOR ★ AWFUL [ EDITED BY JOHN NUGENT] ★★★ OUT NOW CERT PG / 107 MINS DIRECTOR Angus MacLane CAST (VOICES) Chris Evans, Keke Palmer, Taika Waititi, Dale Soules, Peter Sohn, Uzo Aduba PLOT Exploring a new planet goes very wrong when cocky astronaut Buzz Lightyear (Evans) and fellow space commander Alisha Hawthorne (Aduba) crash their ship, marooning them and hundreds of others. Plagued by guilt, Buzz sets about trying to find a way to get the crew home and finish the mission. LIGHTYEAR, AND ITS connection to the world of Toy Story, sparked confusion the moment it was announced. Is it a spin-off, completely separate from the 1995 film? Is it based on a real-life astronaut in the Toy Story universe,…

★★★ OUT NOW CERT U / 87 MINS DIRECTOR Kyle Balda CAST (VOICES) Steve Carell, Pierre Coffin, Taraji P. Henson, Michelle Yeoh, Jean-Claude Van Damme PLOT Young Gru (Carell) wants to be a supervillain and doesn’t want to wait until he’s an adult. After unsuccessfully trying to join his favourite super-villain team, the Vicious 6, Gru decides to show them just how bad he can be, putting himself, his Minions and the entire world in danger. NOW THAT WE’RE five instalments into what we must only apologetically call The Cinematic Gruniverse, a simple formula has been established for any films involving Gru/the Minions. A powerful doohickie will be stolen. At least one Minion or child will go missing. There will be several montages. There will eventually be a battle with…

★★★ OUT 15 JULY / CERT PG / 98 MINS DIRECTOR Morgan Matthews CAST Sheridan Smith, Jenny Agutter, Tom Courtenay, Beau Gadson, Kenneth Aikens 1970’s The Railway Children is ‘Tea & Crumpets: The Movie’. The presence of OG Railway Child Jenny Agutter reprising her role in this tougher but still kid-friendly re-spin suggests this is a legacy sequel, but while the movie embraces ideas and motifs from the first film, it mostly does its own thing. The film’s smartest decision is to locate the action around the evacuation of children from major cities during World War II. The first half-hour is a likeable set of hi-jinx; things get more dramatic when the gang discovers injured African-American GI, Abe (Kenneth Aikens). Some of it is too on the nose, and it’s perhaps…

★★★★ OUT 22 JULY / CERT 15 / 96 MINS DIRECTOR Charlotte Colbert CAST Alice Krige, Kota Eberhardt, Rupert Everett After a double mastectomy, demanding diva Veronica Ghent (Alice Krige) travels with her nurse (Kota Eberhardt) to a Gothic retreat in the Scottish Highlands. As Veronica tries to avoid the other residents, including Rupert Everett’s flamboyant artist, Charlotte Colbert’s darkly witty horror layers the premise with ideas around female ageing, witchcraft lore and child abuse, all in service of a #MeToo vengeance parable. It shares DNA with other recent flicks (Amulet, Saint Maud) and often feels like a litany of horror-film tropes (telekinesis, levitation). Still, Colbert creates unsettling imagery (malevolent mud!) and stetches of intense mood (amplified by a great Clint Mansell score), all anchored by strong performances from Krige…

★★★★ OUT 27 JULY / CERT 15 / 114 MINS DIRECTORS Masashi Ando, Masayuki Miyaji CAST (VOICES) Shinichi Tsutsumi, Ryoma Takeuchi, Hisui Kimura Sprawling in its scope but intimate at its core, The Deer King is a lush animation that builds a rich fantasy out of simple details, rewarding viewers with an emotional story and intricately constructed world. Directed by former Ghibli staff Masashi Ando and Masayuki Miyaji, it follows gruff warrior Van (Shinichi Tsutsumi), raising an orphan in the wild in the wake of a destructive virus. The film balances the thrill of exploring its world — filled with fascinating spirituality, cursed viral infections and quite dull bureaucracy — with keeping focus on the parental relationship at its heart. Consistently glimmering in sunlight, this animation illuminates the powerful rhythms…

★★★★ OUT 15 JULY / CERT TBC / 75 MINS DIRECTOR Jay Bedwani PARTICIPANTS Donna Personna, Gloria Villareal Jay Bedwani’s documentary about Donna Personna, a woman who does a lipsyncing act in San Francisco, sets a gold standard for trans* representation. The film nimbly paints a contemporary portrait of Donna, now in her seventies, as she writes a play about the 1966 Compton’s Cafeteria riot. It also covers the history of her family life, culminating in a reunion with her estranged sister, Gloria. Bedwani moves between these narrative strands with precision, always deeply respectful of his subject. Raised a Baptist in San Jose, Donna repressed her female identity until her sixties, when the queer community offered her a new lease of life. As such, Donna is truly a celebration of…

Clockwise from main: Iman Vellani as Kamala Khan/Ms. Marvel; With Matthew Lintz as pal Bruno; Help for (super) heroes; Meet the parents. ★★★★ OUT NOW (DISNEY+) EPISODES VIEWED 3 OF 6 CREATOR Bisha K. Ali CAST Iman Vellani, Matt Lintz, Yasmeen Fletcher, Zenobia Shroff, Mohan Kapur PLOT High-schooler Kamala Khan’s (Vellani) life is simple — playing video games, passing her driving test, obsessing over superheroes and crushing on cute boys. But her ordinary teenage existence is changed by a mysterious bangle which unlocks her own set of superpowers. IN THE FIRST few minutes of Ms. Marvel, as unique animated scribbles flood the screen, imaginatively conveying the inner thoughts and feelings of Kamala Khan (an immediately charming Iman Vellani), you’ll realise something: this has all the trappings of early- 2000s-era teen…

★★★ OUT NOW (PARAMOUNT +) EPISODES VIEWED 3 OF 10 SHOWRUNNERS Akiva Goldsman, Alex Kurtzman, Jenny Lumet CAST Anson Mount, Ethan Peck, Jess Bush, Christina Chong, Celia Rose Gooding, Rebecca Romijn PLOT Captain Pike (Mount) is brought out of his reclusion and back to the Enterprise. Along with officer Number One (Romijn) and Spock (Ethan Peck), his five-year mission to seek out new life and new civilisations continues. FROM THE outset, the agenda is clear: Anson Mount intoning the famous “five-year mission” speech over Alexander Courage’s classic Star Trek fanfare, followed by Jeff Russo’s devoted homage to the original theme. Where Discovery disappeared hundreds of years into the future for its third season, and Picard went dystopian, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is ‘Nostalgia Trek’: colourful, fun, and boldly going…

THE NA’VI WORD FOR IDIOT IS SKXAWNG. Pronounced “scowned”, it was an expression used regularly on the Avatar: The Way Of Water set when an actor or crew member messed up. And it’s a derogatory term that James Cameron might well unleash about anyone who decries that the sequel is currently clocking in at three hours. “I don’t want anybody whining about length when they sit and binge-watch [television] for eight hours,” he says on a Sunday evening from New Zealand, where he’s in the midst of post-production. “I can almost write this part of the review. ‘The agonisingly long three-hour movie…’ It’s like, give me a fucking break. I’ve watched my kids sit and do five one-hour episodes in a row. Here’s the big social paradigm shift that has…

For almost a year, that one-word title — Nope — was all we knew about Jordan Peele’s new one. Yet that was enough. Because with just two movies behind him, a new Jordan Peele outing is already an event. That’s been the case since his 2017 debut, the instant classic Get Out — about a Black guy’s (Daniel Kaluuya) terrifying encounter with his white girlfriend’s (Allison Williams) family — grossed $255 million on a $4.5 million budget, and got white liberal America reflecting on the reality of racism. And with the 2019 release of his Lupita Nyong ’ostarring doppelgänger dread-fest Us, Peele became a bona fide horror auteur. In Nope, Kaluuya and Keke Palmer co-star as siblings running a California ranch, supplying horses to movie sets. One day, they spot…

IN 1990, Neil Gaiman strode into a meeting with Warner Bros. and instructed them not to adapt his comic. “Please don’t make a Sandman movie right now. Just… don’t,” he asked. He was 29. Lisa Henson, vice president of production, was stunned. “Nobody’s ever come into my office before and asked me not to make a movie,” she told him. But he wouldn’t budge. The Portsmouth-born comic-book author explained that he was so embroiled in his long-form creative vision (the series, co-created with artists Sam Kieth and Mike Dringenberg, would run to 75 issues), a movie would be an unwelcome distraction. His publisher, DC Comics, had sent him to meet Henson, but, he thought, this was the wrong time for an adaptation. A terrible idea. “Just let me do my…

“GET CARTER WAS made 50 years ago,” laughs Mike Hodges, as Empire gets down to the nitty-gritty of interviewing the director of one of the greatest British movies of all time. “I’ve answered every question!” That’s not entirely true. Get Carter may have entered its second half-century, true, but Hodges’ startling debut film — now remastered in glorious 4K, giving its epic bleakness a new coat of paint — is fresh as a daisy, and with each rewatch throws up new angles; new points of interest. That’s something Hodges himself finds whenever he catches the movie, in which an ice-cold, reptilian Michael Caine plays a London gangster who finds himself going back to his old stomping ground of Newcastle to investigate his brother’s murder. Over the years the film has…

NO FILM DIRECTOR HAS BEEN PORTRAYED ON SCREEN MORE THAN ORSON WELLES. HERE ARE SOME OF THE BEST ORSONS VINCENT D’ONOFRIO (ED WOOD) At his lowest ebb in Tim Burton’s biopic, Ed Wood (Johnny Depp) ducks into a bar and happens upon his great idol, Orson Welles. A pep talk ensues, during which Wood is told, “Visions are worth fighting for. Why spend your life making someone else’s dreams?” D’Onofrio is a dead ringer for Welles visually, but not vocally — the voice here is overdubbed, slightly clumsily (perhaps deliberately, given the film’s subject) by voice actor Maurice LaMarche. D’Onofrio got his crack at Welles later, starring in and directing a half-hour short called Five Minutes, Mr. Welles. (He’s not as good as LaMarche.) ANGUS MACFADYEN (THE CRADLE WILL ROCK)…

Chris: I think we all grew up with Planet Of The Apes. In a way, we all knew the ending, even if you hadn’t necessarily seen the movie. Sam: I think this is one of those films that The Simpsons has either ruined or enhanced. I knew the twist because I’d seen The Simpsons. Dan: Without a doubt it is, I would argue, the greatest movie ending of all time. Chris: It’s so influential. The ending of my favourite movie, Evil Dead II, could not be more Planet Of The Apes if it tried. Sam: On rewatching, I was reminded of how good the first one is. It’s ahead of its time as a complex sci-fi film. It’s jarring, unnerving… The script is wonderful. If you can accept the effects,…

ERIC BANA: “Mad Max 1 and 2 are two of my favourite films of all time. It would have to be a beaten-down Mel Gibson, about halfway through Mad Max 2, when he whistles and everyone turns and he says, ‘Two days ago I saw a rig big enough to haul that tanker. You want to get out of here? You talk to me.’ That is the fucking coolest character moment for me. I don’t know how much it’s informed my work, but it’s given me pleasure.” Max Rockatansky (Mel Gibson) is sitting on a pile of junk. In the distance, we hear the besieged Settlers argue about their next course of action after receiving an ultimatum from the Lord Humungus and his Marauders, but we can’t make out what…

SPOILER ALERT: THEY all die at the end. For a film whose final word spoken is “hope”, Rogue One might be Star Wars’ darkest adventure — one in which all of its heroes, including Felicity Jones’ Jyn Erso and Diego Luna’s Cassian Andor, give their lives to smuggle the Death Star plans to the Rebels. Now, the film positioned as an immediate predecessor to A New Hope is begetting its own immediate predecessor — Disney+ series Andor, telling the story of Luna’s conflicted warrior set amid the rising tide of the Empire, as galactic citizens begin fighting back, which creator Tony Gilroy said, at Star Wars Celebration, will “walk you into Rogue [One].” The story of rebellion is far from over. If Cassian Andor’s character isn’t fully fleshed out yet,…

SKELETON CREW IS ASSEMBLING Previously known only under codename ‘Grammar Rodeo’ (a deep-cut Simpsons reference), the new live-action series from Christopher Ford and MCU Spider-Man trilogy director Jon Watts is officially titled Star Wars: Skeleton Crew. It’s primarily about a group of kids lost in the galaxy, but the big casting news was that Jude Law will star in it (presumably not de-aged as a youngling). “It stars four kids, but it is not a kids’ show,” Watts said at Star Wars Celebration, confirming that it takes place in the Mandalorian era of the timeline, a few years after Return Of The Jedi. MANDO’S GOING TO MANDALORE Finally. In Season 3 of The Mandalorian, our hero will go to Mandalore. Plus, he’ll be reunited with pals including Greef Karga, aka…

IF YOU’VE EVER had a song from West Side Story stuck in your head, or heard the infectious melodies of Stanley Donen’s sailors-on-leave musical On The Town, you probably have Leonard Bernstein to thank. The ingenious composer, pianist and orchestra-conductor worked prolifically during the mid-20th century, collaborating with the writers and lyricists of both of those classic Hollywood films. It’s no wonder, then, that Bradley Cooper, director-star of the most recent adaptation of A Star Is Born, is to make Bernstein the focus of his second filmmaking effort. Cooper clearly has an affinity for musical subject matter and a strong singing voice to boot, so his next project, currently being shot in New York, seems like a logical choice. Bernstein’s contributions to cinema were staggering, but only account for a…

TAKE AWAY THE green, six-foot-plus superhero at the heart of She-Hulk: Attorney At Law and you’re essentially left with a modern-day Ally McBeal. As Jennifer Walters, Tatiana Maslany plays a sharp but struggling lawyer whose courtroom shenanigans by day transition into a colourful dating life at night. When a near-fatal accident leads to a blood transfusion from her uncle — who, being Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), has his own set of problems — Jennifer becomes ultra-strong and, reluctantly, the centre of attention. Speaking to Empire, Maslany breaks down the process of going green in Marvel’s superhero workplace caper. SCHOOLING UP Ruffalo, who has played Hulk for over a decade and fills the role of Jennifer’s mentor in the show, was a reliable source of inspiration. “We were so goofy, like…

SUPERSTITIOUS PEOPLE may call the production of Wendell & Wild cursed. For the feature follow-up to Henry Selick’s 2009 stopmotion masterpiece Coraline, the pandemic — which halted the film’s hand-operated animation — was just one of its problems. There was a forest fire that got so close to the film’s studio in Portland that the crew had to evacuate all the puppets. “We had to wrap them in blankets, throw them in vehicles and drive away,” Selick tell Empire. Then there was the cold snap: “It plunged so cold, the faces on the puppets started to crack.” Yet Wendell & Wild defied the elements. who enlist a 13-year-old girl to help them escape the underworld — is a collaboration between Selick, Jordan Peele and Keegan-Michael Key, who both co-wrote and…

WHAT WOULD MEAN Girls look like if it was crossed with Scream and directed by John Cassavetes? Well, probably something like Bodies Bodies Bodies, a satirical, part-improvised and fiercely kinetic slasher about a gang of ‘extremely online’ female pals pitted against each other during a ferocious storm. “This group of friends is very seductive to me. They’re very cool, but they’re also very insecure and narcissistic,” explains director Halina Reijn, who readily describes herself as the girl “who wasn’t picked in gym class”. The film’s concept — agame of Body Body (which tasks participants with identifying a hypothetical killer in the group) turns into a real murder-mystery — was dreamed up by Kristen Roupenian, whose short story Cat Person seized the internet in 2017. Surprisingly, Reijn is not a horror…

HE DIDN’T KNOW it at the time, but Dan Trachtenberg was already developing his Predator movie back in 1987, before he’d even watched the original. “I was dying to see it, but I was not allowed,” says the director, who was six when Predator was released. “In third grade, I was on the way to a karate tournament with these [older kids] who had seen it, and over the entire trip they described the whole movie. I vividly remember them saying there was this character, Billy [Sonny Landham], a Native American scout who fights the Predator on the bridge over a waterfall.” When Trachtenberg eventually saw the movie, that fight was nowhere to be seen (Billy dies off-screen). “I just thought, ’What?!’ But that image captured my imagination.” The thought…

AS TOP GUN: MAVERICK CONTINUES TO SOAR AT THE BOX OFFICE, WE DREAM UP A FEW OPTIONS FOR THE STAR’S NEXT LEGACY SEQUEL LEGEND II Many moons after rescuing the land from Darkness, forest boy Jack O’Greene (Cruise) has become king of the fairy realm. But when some goblins steal his favourite hippogriff, he fears Darkness is back and quests off to finally destroy the horny devil by retrieving the Everglisten from the peak of Mount Wonderspire. Or something. COCKTAIL 2: ANOTHER POUR More than three decades after launching his bar franchise and settling down with love-of-his-life Jordan (Elisabeth Shue), Cruise’s Brian Flanagan is ready to retire. But now he has to decide which of his twin offspring — cocky son Doug or steely daughter Vodka — should inherit the…

★★★ OUT 15 JULY / CERT TBC / 120 MINS DIRECTOR Fernando León de Aranoa CAST Javier Bardem, Manolo Solo, Almudena Amor A small Spanish factory becomes a microcosm for the modern scourge of greed and corruption in Fernando León de Aranoa’s darkly humorous satire. That the factory in question manufactures weighing scales is a metaphor wrung dry by the screenplay, which is concerned with the delicate balances of power — class, race, gender — on which the company (and society) is built. Much of the film hinges on Javier Bardem’s exceptional performance as factory boss Blanco, a character who is willing to do anything to preserve his reputation. And even if the camera, and the film as a whole, sidelines its less privileged characters ‘in favour of Bardem’s snakelike…

★★★★ OUT 14 JULY / CERT TBC / 113 MINS DIRECTOR Matthew Dyas PARTICIPANTS Ranulph Fiennes, Anton Bowring Matthew Dyas’ film about World’s Greatest Explorer™ Ranulph Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes has the madness of a non-fiction Fitzcarraldo. Mostly employing archive footage and disembodied voices, no talking heads, Dyas charts Fiennes’ extraordinary exploits in broad strokes, but this isn’t the stuff that sticks with you. Instead, it’s the ‘smaller’ stories — his 48-year relationship with childhood sweetheart Ginny (“the only topic that makes me emotional”) or driving to personal appearances in a scratched-up car to make a living — that resonate. There’s little in the way of probing analysis (someone mentions “White privilege folly”), but it emerges as a moving, entertaining portrait of a true eccentric. IF…

★★★ OUT 8 JULY / CERT TBC / 115 MINS DIRECTOR Ben Lawrence PARTICIPANTS John Shipton, Stella Moris, John Pilger This near-two-hour documentary fills in the gaps since Julian Assange’s 2019 incarceration at Belmarsh Prison, with the help of the people closest to him. Writer-director Ben Lawrence follows the efforts of the Wikileaks founder’s once-estranged father, John Shipton, and his fiancée and lawyer, Stella Moris, over two years as they travel the world to garner support from politicians, diplomats, journalists and activists to prevent his extradition to the US, and stage a campaign for his freedom. It doesn’t offer a complete portrait of Assange, but provides a grounded, humanising perspective on a controversial figure, press freedom and mental health, with Brian Eno’s score offering a hint of cinematic flair in…

★★ OUT NOW / CERT 12A / 106 MINS DIRECTOR Ed Perkins PARTICIPANTS Princess Diana, Prince Charles, Queen Elizabeth II Lady Diana Spencer was the most photographed woman in the world — the team behind The Princess attempt to embrace this and turn it into a positive, for this woman whose life was controlled and ultimately ruined by the media. But the result of this archival film — starting in the early days of courting Prince Charles through to the end of Diana’s life — is queasy and hypocritical: by stressing just how much the world looked at her, so often without her permission, it’s simply a rehash of the tragic journey that led to her untimely death. Despite the impressive feat of editing, there is no revelation here, just the…

★★★ OUT NOW (NETFLIX) CERT 15 / 107 MINS DIRECTOR Joseph Kosinski CAST Chris Hemsworth, Miles Teller, Jurnee Smollett, Charles Parnell PLOT In a remote location, a prison houses convicts who have committed terrible crimes. But it’s also a futuristic research laboratory where inmates, including Jeff (Teller), are experimented on by the resident scientific genius, Abnesti (Hemsworth). THE PECULIARLY TITLED Spiderhead arrives on Netflix with about as little fanfare as a film starring an Avenger, written by the duo behind Deadpool, and directed by the man behind the summer’s most beloved blockbuster could possibly garner. This seems even more surprising upon watching the opening minutes, in which Joseph Kosinski draws on his Top Gun: Maverick box of tricks to deploy striking shots of a Cessna voyaging through azure skies (co-lead…

★★★★ OUT NOW (DISNEY+) EPISODES VIEWED 6 OF 6 SHOWRUNNER Joby Harold CAST Ewan McGregor, Hayden Christensen, Moses Ingram, Joel Edgerton, Bonnie Piesse, Rupert Friend PLOT Ten years after Revenge Of The Sith, Obi-Wan Kenobi (McGregor) is hiding in the Tatooine desert when Bail Organa (Jimmy Smits) calls on him to help young Leia (Vivien Lyra Blair). Can the former Jedi master help without revealing his presence to the Empire? ONE OF THE disappointments of the Star Wars prequel trilogy was how little stylistic connective tissue it shared with the original films, given all those shiny surfaces and CG creatures. This show links the two sagas in style as well as substance, giving us an effective halfway point between Revenge Of The Sith and Luke Skywalker’s rise to prominence, and…

★★★ OUT NOW (PARAMOUNT+) EPISODES VIEWED 3 OF 10 SHOWRUNNERS Alex Kurtzman, Jenny Lumet CAST Chiwetel Ejiofor, Naomie Harris, Bill Nighy, Clarke Peters This sequel to Nicolas Roeg’s 1976 classic of the same name offers intriguing if occasionally unfocused sci-fi. Chiwetel Ejiofor is on fine form as Faraday, the extraterrestrial on a mission to find scientist Justin Falls (Naomie Harris). The show combines fish-out-of-water antics — Faraday’s human assimilation involves liberal F-bomb usage and, er, hosepipe deepthroating — with more involving immigration allegory, leading to some jarring tonal shifts early doors. But if you bear with it, which the ace ensemble and beautiful cinematography makes much easier, this space oddity becomes a compelling exploration of humanity. JK…

NETEYAM (JAMIE FLATTERS) “It’s nice to know that I wasn’t just delusional and it wasn’t all a three-year fever dream,” says Jamie Flatters about finally watching the first The Way Of Water trailer. The 21-year-old plays Neteyam, the Sully kid who is “trying to be the hero of the story and obviously failing”. A lo-fi filmmaker himself, Flatters found himself in the high-tech arena of performance capture: “The tech guys would be on high stools with their computers like a weird, 21st-century Colosseum.” Starting shooting aged 17, Flatters describes his Pandora tour as a “life-shaping experience. I will talk about Avatar the way my parents talk about university.” Minus the cheap bar and daytime television. LO’AK (BRITAIN DALTON) Lo’ak, another of the Sully kids, is at the heart of one…

TAIKA WAITITI HAS A LOW BOREDOM THRESHOLD. Ask anyone. Ask Chris Hemsworth: “Taika is someone, like me, who can get distracted easily or bored easily and needs more stimulation and entertainment to keep him focused.” Or ask Natalie Portman. “Taika is so brilliant, I just don’t know how he’s that generative of ideas,” she says. “If you shoot something and you do the same thing twice, you see his heart fall, in a way.” Hell, ask Waititi himself: “You watch these films over and over and over again, and then eventually you just become numb to it,” he says. “You get bored of an idea and get rid of it and then replace it with something better.” It’s a feature, not a bug. It’s why the New Zealand director’s filmography…

In 1985, Quentin Tarantino, a fizzy-brained film-geek in his early twenties who loved to stalk the aisles of video stores hunting for something he hadn’t seen, met a clerk of one of those stores named Roger Avary. They hit it off. And so began a magical period in both their lives. Later, Avary would write and direct the likes of Killing Zoe and The Rules Of Attraction; Tarantino, nine revered classics; together, they dreamed up the screenplay for Pulp Fiction. They found kinship, though, at Video Archives, where they both ended up working, and where spirited tussles over movie minutiae could break out at the smallest provocation. The two fell out of contact for a while, but have reignited their friendship, to the extent that they’re starting a podcast named…

TOM GORMICAN (WRITES, directs) and Kevin Etten (writes) are the architects of one of the year’s wildest swings: a buddy-comedy-cum-metatreatise-on-action-movies that sees Nicolas ‘Nic’ Cage star as Nicolas ‘Nick’ Cage, a fading film star who rediscovers himself after forging a friendship with a suspected arms dealer. Here, the filmmakers talk us through its key moments. CAGE AIR The movie opens with Nicolas Cage, of course. But not Gormican/Etten’s Cage. Instead, we see Cage in all his pomp, as a bored young girl (Katrin Vankova) watches Con Air on TV, only to be rudely interrupted by a team that kidnaps her. “We had flirted with both Face/Off and Con Air,” says Gormican. “It ended up being much funnier in the end to do the heroic, ridiculous Cameron Poe character.” The sequence…

THRONE OF BLOOD doesn’t acknowledge its source material, Macbeth, in its credits. This has nothing to do with ‘Scottish Play’ superstition. Instead, it’s reflective of how Akira Kurosawa’s 1957 masterpiece uses William Shakespeare’s work as a mere jumping-off point for its own stunning vision. Nowhere is this more evident than in the film’s finale, when beleaguered warlord Taketoki Washizu (Toshiro Mifune) is attacked by his own troops for killing their previous master (Takamaru Sasaki), arrows raining down on him as he struts along a watchtower. Mifune dreaded shooting the scene. “He said he had recurring dreams about the 21 arrows shooting towards him,” recalled set decorator and prop master Koichi Hamamura. “So, every morning he’d ask me, ‘Are we doing it today?’ And when I said, ‘Yeah, it seems so,’…