Filmhounds Magazine February 2021 (Sample) by Filmhounds Magazine

top 20 films of the 90s

Lawrence Michael Levine + Sarah Gadon on black bear

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The Silence of the Lambs AT 30

issue 4 - February 2021

KINGSLEYBEN-ADIR TALKSONENIGHTINMIAMI, REGINAKING,MALCOLM X+MORE

Justin Benson + Aaron Moorhead | 2021 preview

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Welcome

from the editors

elcome to the magazine! This issue we look at Amazon Prime Video’s One Night in Miami with a review and also features an interview with this issue’s cover star, Kingsley BenAdir who stars as Malcolm X.

e thought we were so clever. We thought we had it made when we waved goodbye to 2020 and said a cheerful howdy-do to 2021, as though it was the great bringer of salvation. Nah, the vast majority of cinemas are still closed and major releases continue to be moved further back into 2022. This year will be a fascinating one no doubt as studios and distributors continue to navigate how smaller films are released. We’ll also get to see how filmmakers turn confines and restrictions into creative decisions. Perhaps we’ll see more films made across social media platforms, one-set narratives, two-hander dramas and cinema borne out of necessity rather than access. Whatever the year brings the Filmhounds writing team will be on hand to document this time. Thank you for joining us again.

The team got together (virtually), argued, disagreed, agreed, voted and have now chosen the Top Films of the 90s. Separate from the list we look at a 90s classic; The Silence of The Lambs at 30. Optimistically we have a 2021 preview, which hopefully by the time you have this in your hands haven’t been pushed back any further. We live in hope! We’ve also a lot more interviews, features, columns and reviews. I hope you enjoy it. We have some grea

David Garlick

michael dickinson

@DGfilmhounds

@MD_Shoots

editorial DAVID GARLICK Co-Editor david@filmhounds.co.uk

MICHAEL DICKINSON Co-Editor mike@filmhounds.co.uk

MARIA LÄTTILÄ Features maria@filmhounds.co.uk

SOcial @FILMHOUNDSMAG /FILMHOUNDSMAG @FILMHOUNDS Copyright 2021 Filmhounds Magazine. All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be reproduced without the written consent of FIlmhounds Magazine. Requests for permission should be directed to: info@filmhounds.co.uk

Issue Hightlights

FEBRUARY 2021 FILMHOUNDS 23

2021

FILM PREVIEW

2021

FILM

PREVIEW

t’s safe to say we’re all long overdue a good, old-fashioned trip to the cinema. Taking in the irresistible smell of freshly popped popcorn, deciding whether to just go 2D or splash out on IMAX and maybe even treating yourself to an Ice Blast. 2020 delivered a devastating hit to the entertainment industry and cinemas have suffered incredibly. Now that the end of our year-long grounding is in sight, it’s time we get hyped up for the resurrection of the traditional movie night! After waiting desperately for the release of some of the most anticipated movies to date, we asked the Filmhounds writers which movies they were most looking forward to watching in 2021. Beth Sawdon

current release date

8 October 2021

Daniel Craig’s fifth and final appearance as 007 has been a tumultuous one. Another film affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, Bond fans have been salivating at the mouth to experience a new James Bond film since Spectre in 2015. In Craig’s last appearance, James Bond has left active service and is asked to help to track down a new villain named Safin (Rami Malek) who looks to destroy the world as we know it. Plenty of things to look forward to with No Time to Die. Our first look at a female 007 agent, Oscar Winner Malek playing our villain and the prospect of finding out our new James Bond once this film is released. ian crow

Dune

Leoni Horton

current release date

1 october 2021

Initially scheduled for November 2020, this year promises the release - cross all of your fingers and toes - of Denis Villeneuve’s mammoth studio blockbuster, Dune. Based on Frank Herbert’s world-renowned, science fiction novel, the story follows Paul Atreides, the son of a noble family who are entrusted with the protection of the most valuable substance in the known universe. Film-making visionary David Lynch brought some of the story’s fantastic elements alive in his 1984 adaptation but ultimately failed to capture the immense scope of Herbert’s universe. However, Villeneuve’s Dune promises to succeed where Lynch faltered, teasing colossal sandworms alongside an all-star ensemble cast of Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac and more.

THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS

The Silence of the Lambs AT 30 Words: dave manson

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ONE NIGHT IN MIAMI

KINGSLEY BEN-ADIR ON ONE NIGHT IN MIAMI Words: Maria Lättilä 22 FILMHOUNDS FEBRUARY 2021

Photos: Patti Perret/Amazon Studios

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star wars

HOW STAR WARS IS WINNING BIG BY GOING SMALL WORDS: TOM BEASLEY

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star wars

vividly remember the moment I fell out of love with Star Wars. It was during a midnight screening of The Rise of Skywalker – a room packed to the rafters with fans eager to see the conclusion of the Skywalker Saga, more than 40 years after the franchise began with Mark Hamill gazing at the twin suns of Tatooine. The film had been a chaotic disappointment ever since the opening crawl began with the now infamous words “The dead speak!”, but the straw that broke the camel’s back came when Rey and Kylo Ren – now going by his birth name, Ben Solo – shared a kiss. Even in that room, in front of the most sympathetic possible audience, the response to the

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romantic clinch was a sigh so heavy it could be heard from hyperspace. The moment was a clear sop to the fans who had spent years theorising about a possible “Reylo” relationship, despite the fact there had been very little suggestion in the movies that their bond was anything other than platonic. It was the perfect microcosm for everything J.J. Abrams and screenwriter Chris Terrio got wrong with the movie, which felt calibrated to cater to the worst impulses of fan culture while dismantling the brave, compelling story choices Rian Johnson made in The Last Jedi. As the dust settled after The Rise of Skywalker and the discourse rumbled on, I and many others found ourselves questioning our relationship with the franchise. I

have been a Star Wars fan since watching the original movies as a child. In fact, it was one of the few series of films my non-cinephile parents enjoyed enough to want to show them to my brother and me. However, after the credits rolled on the closing chapter of the Skywalker Saga, I found myself questioning whether I actually even wanted to go back to the galaxy far, far away. Fortunately, Disney has since diversified its Star Wars portfolio in a big way. The new era of Star Wars is vastly different to what has come before, for one key reason. Ever since 1977, the Skywalker Saga has been at the core of everything. Whether you were an avid consumer of Extended Universe books and comics, the video games or the animated series, everything was peripheral to what was happening in multiplexes. Now,

though, there are multiple routes into the action – and they’re equally rewarding.

Meeting Mando Obviously, the project at the epicentre of the new Star Wars pantheon is Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni’s series The Mandalorian. Following the adventures of bounty hunter Din Djarin and the internet-dominating Baby Yoda – or Grogu, as we should theoretically now call him – it’s a Westerninflected adventure story of the most old-fashioned kind. But it’s exhilarating. The first season of The Mandalorian was fun, but it was crucially separate. It was an enjoyable exploration of a very different corner of the Star Wars universe, focusing on characters we had never seen before and a succession of new worlds. While there would be the odd appearance of Tatooine or a nod to the past to make the connective tissue clear, the mission statement of the first season was evidently to establish a different portion of Star Wars. Season two, however, changed that. Having carefully established its own world and its own characters, from the aforementioned Baby Yoda through to the Darksaberwielding baddie Moff Gideon, The Mandalorian was able to slowly tie itself in to the existing chronology of Lucasfilm’s history. Season two managed an expert balancing act between the “quest of the week” stories that made the show popular and nods to the wider Star Wars world, whether it was Boba Fett, animated series icon Ahsoka Tano or the delicious cameo in the final episode, which I still feel it’d be wrong to spoil.

More important, though, than the big names and the interwoven storytelling was the way The Mandalorian made its audience feel. In an era of binge-watching and instant cultural gratification, there was a lot to be said for a show that was genuine appointment viewing every week. Every Friday for the eight weeks in which season two aired, The Mandalorian was at the epicentre of pop culture discourse online. There were memes, threads of furious speculation and many, many exclamations of pure joy. For a Star Wars fan at risk of lapsing into ambivalence, The Mandalorian was something incredible. With its brief, focused blast of half-hour storytelling each week, it managed to make Star Wars exciting again. After spending an entire season encouraging the audience to fall deeply in love with Pedro Pascal’s laconic Mando and his lime-hued ward, season two cranked up the dial on the fan service to create something which was enough to make audiences giddy every week when the title card came up. Nothing the show has done to date has been complex or even particularly sophisticated from a storytelling point of view, but it’s a reflection of the age-old story structures and emotional heft

The Mandalorian made its audience feel

that have powered the franchise since the 1970s. Just as George Lucas drew heavily from Joseph Campbell, Westerns and samurai movies, The Mandalorian is effectively Sergio Leone in space. Simplicity was key. By spinning a simple story with an emotional core, combined with movielevel visuals and top quality performances, The Mandalorian helped Star Wars to locate its heart and its energy again after the bloated nonsense of The Rise of Skywalker.

Attempting Re-Entry But The Mandalorian isn’t the only way into Star Wars today, now that it’s free of the juggernaut of the cinematic franchise. 2020 was the first year without a cinematically released Star Wars movie since The Force Awakens reignited things under Disney’s stewardship in 2015. Without the must-see quality of a movie to watch, the year was left free for fans to explore the wider corners of the galaxy far, far away – with streaming opening many of the necessary doors to facilitate that journey. Every episode of Dave Filoni’s animated series The Clone Wars and Rebels – as well as the move prequel for the former – is available via Disney+, providing stories which bridge the gap between some of the live-action films. These series provide the origins of characters who are about to become a big part of the wider continuity, as well as featuring some of the most acclaimed story arcs and action sequences in Star Wars history. Want to know how Ahsoka Tano

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BLACK BEAR

Caged Animals Lawrence Michael Levine and Sarah Gadon on

Black Bear 34 FILMHOUNDS FEBRUARY 2021

Words: Maria Lättilä

“T

here’s the weird time thing where it seems like 1000 years ago, but also just yesterday, because nothing’s happened” director Lawrence Michael Levine says of his film’s Sundance premiere on a December night as we discuss Black Bear over Zoom. The film debuted in Park City in January 2020 where it wowed and surprised unsuspecting audiences in equal measure. Over a year later, the film is finally ready to make its UK debut in the Spring of 2021, after a tumultuous year for the world. “It’s certainly been a lot to take in over the past year, that’s for sure” says Sarah Gadon, one of the film’s stars. The film stars Aubrey Plaza as Allison, a filmmaker looking for her mojo who goes to stay with a couple (Christopher Abbott and Gadon) at their cabin and over one boozy night, the trio’s troublesome dynamic starts to wear on each and every one of them. What follows is one of the year’s most surprising and original films that touches upon a variety of timely subjects, including gaslighting and the creative process. Levine describes his love of film starting in the 80s. “I used to go to the movie theatre religiously with my dad, and I can remember watching E.T. and The Empire Strikes Back and just falling in love with that cinema magic. But I didn’t know that anyone directed movies, they just kind of arrived by magic.” Levine describes his dad showing him Annie Hall when he was 11, which turned out to be a turning point for him personally. “Now, he’s (Woody Allen) controversial, but that doesn’t really affect this epiphany that I had, which is in Annie Hall, Woody Allen is just talking to the camera about his life, seemingly. And that was a moment that it dawned on me that human beings made these things that I was watching. I never knew before that there was actually a human being involved in these films. And as soon as I knew that, I was like ‘Wait, this is something maybe I could do.’ And I started to make films with my friends on VHS cameras and stuff on weekends or holidays, made little movies and that was always what I wanted to do, it wasn’t a late life thing. It was definitely something I wanted to do from the second I knew that it was an opportunity that you can take.” Levine’s career started as an actor and he starred in a few shorts because making his feature debut in Peter and Vandy. Levine is also married to writer-director Sophia Takal, with

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90s

0 2 TOP

S M FIL

E H T OF

S 0 9

amagotchi’s, The Macarena, Gangsta’s Paradise, Street Fighter II that about covers the 1990s… Of course not, the 1990s was a golden time for cinema. Potentially overlooked as a great time for film, perhaps because it still feels like yesterday for so many. Maybe because some of its biggest stars continue to dominate our screens and franchises which continue to this day were born from the 90s that we collectively haven’t taken the time to look back on it with a critical cultural eye. Well, that’s what we asked the team at Filmhounds to do by voting for their favourite films of the 90s. This list has been whittled down from over 80 mentioned, many writers included some of their favourite indie hits or larger films they felt didn’t get enough love (look out for Top Alternative Films of the 1990s list online). There’re some big hitters on the list, some absolutes that no list looking at the best of the decade would be complete without. Some of the choices you may be surprised with where they sit on the list, compiling the list I certainly was taken aback by what came out on top. Personally, I love that Ed Wood made it in to the Top 20, still Burton’s finest sitting alongside those other 90s juggernauts. I could name them but that would take away from the joy of going down the list 20-1. -Michael Dickinson

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Ed Wood (1994)

‘The Worst Director in the World’ is how eccentric filmmaker Ed Wood has often been described, a man who made films of poor quality but who possessed an unquestionable thirst for movie making. A unique director whose story deserved a unique vision. Enter Tim Burton, who with the help of his Edward Scissorhands star Johnny Depp, brought Wood’s journey to vibrant, vital life in 1994. The movie, filmed in black and white, is a love letter not just to Wood, but to the Golden Age of Hollywood, where movies were made by people who loved them, regardless of their actual talent behind the camera. It showcases the only Oscarwinning performance in a Burton film, with Martin Landau taking home the statue for his remarkable transformation into Bela Lugosi, whose enthusiasm for filmmaking and dwindling reputation within the industry are both gloriously restored by Wood, who sees the ageing old man as the same dynamic star he was in his heyday. At the centre of the film is Depp, in one of his greatest performances, playing Wood not as a mad outsider, but as a deeply committed and passionate man, someone who sees movies as the great art form they should be and someone who doesn’t let low budgets, dissenting voices and technical problems ruin his eternal optimism. This is arguably Burton’s most personal and thoughtful film, second only to Sweeney Todd as the finest showcase of his very singular talents. It wasn’t a box-office success, but Ed Wood is now rightly seen as the wonderful film it is- it’s a brilliant tribute to an off-kilter genius, directed by the only man who could have done him justice and starring an actor who would have fit right in with one of Wood’s own movies.

Callum Barrington

The Green Mile (1999)

Though often thought of as controversial for it’s portrait of the often criticised “magical negro” trope, Frank Darabont’s 1999 follow up to universally beloved The Shawshank Redemption, adapts the much more sombre epic novel also from Stephen King. Darabont takes the time to set out the long drawn out nature of living on death row, and the cast of characters we’re to spend the epic three hour run time with. Wisely Darabont casts Tom Hanks as good natured Paul Edgecombe so that when the more supernatural elements of the plot come to the fore we buy into this totally. The film’s ensemble fleshes out the melancholic nature of the story but the film belongs entirely to Michael Clarke Duncan’s Academy Award nominated turn as prisoner John Coffey. The gentle giant is a wonder of performance and Clarke Duncan imbues him with a tragedy it’s hard not to be moved by. That said, Darabont is above moments of horror like an execution on an electric chair gone wrong that reminds us both he and King have backgrounds in horror, but this is a film primarily about the compassion we should have for other people and the nature of forgiveness and virtue. Thomas Newman’s suitably moving score underlines Coffey’s pain as a true miracle of the world and Hanks delivers one of his finest screen performances. It remains a reminder that Michael Clarke Duncan is a talent we all sorely miss.

Paul Klein

Schindler’s List (1994)

Dave Manson

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Photo: Allstar/Cinetext/Universal

Steven Spielberg’s 1993 historical epic drama remains one of the most important pieces of popular culture in recent years. Global rises in alt-right neo-Nazi factions, with their despicable takes on the Holocaust and emerging slogan ‘6MWE’ (6 Million wasn’t enough), suggest Schindler’s List is of enduring importance and significance in both remembering past atrocities, and also in preventing new ones. Liam Neeson plays Oskar Schindler, a real German industrialist who saved thousands of Jews during the Holocaust. Schindler’s List was almost entirely shot in black and white as cinematographer Janusz Kaminski wanted to establish a feeling of timelessness; a sense of antiquity which makes it even more difficult to believe these events occurred less than 80 years ago. The film focusses largely on the dichotomy between the virtuous Schindler and the barbaric SS officer Amon Goth (Ralph Fiennes). Spielberg simplifies the entire holocaust by exposing the parties involved - the brain-washed war criminals and those whose moral compass has persisted. Miniature versions consistent with this division can be observed worldwide today, and it’s imperative that we all follow Schindler’s lead. In what can be considered the most thematically dense motion picture ever constructed, Spielberg does not pull any punches. Those involved knew what was happening - ‘it was as obvious as a little girl wearing a red coat.’ John Williams’ bleak score accompanies these harrowing visuals, serving to amplify the baseness of human character. Schindler’s List is required yet extremely difficult viewing; a sinister reminder of what occurs when dictators go unopposed.

SYNCHRONIC

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Words: Maria Lättilä

One Hell Of A Trip

Directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead discuss their new film

Synchronic

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