Movies Plus - Winter 2020

Winter 2020/2021

Issue 208 • www.Movies.ie

PRINTED WITH A SAFE ANTI-BACTERIAL COATING!

S NRELEEW ASEH RIS

THE RACER

IN I EMAS CIN In Cinemas : Dec 11th Director : Kieron J. Walsh Cast : Louis Talpe, Iain Glen, Tara Lee 'The Racer' is an Irish sports drama, centered around the 1998 Tour de France, which had its opening stages in Ireland.

The film examines the lifethreatening pain and physical punishment world-class athletes will endure to rise to the top.

LET HIM GO

In Cinemas : Dec 18th Director : Thomas Bezucha Cast : Lesley Manville, Diane Lane, Kevin Costner Kevin Costner and Diane Lane play a couple whose lives are shattered after their son dies, leaving behind a grieving wife and a newborn son Jimmy.

A few years later, his widow, Lorna (Kayli Carter), remarries into a dangerous family known as the Weboy family and suddenly disappears with their grandson, leaving them fighting for their family.

FREAKY

In Cinemas : Dec 26th Director : Christopher Landon Cast : Vince Vaughn, Kathryn Newton, Celeste O’Connor The director of ‘Happy Death Day’ returns with a comedy horror that puts a new twist on the bodyswap genre, here a young teenage girl switches bodies with a serialkiller played by Vince Vaughn.

S NRELEEW ASEH RIS

IN I EMAS CIN

CHAOS WALKING In Cinemas : January 2021 Director : Doug Liman Cast : Tom Holland, Daisy Ridley, Mads Mikkelsen

Based on the best selling book ‘The Knife of Never Letting Go’ by Patrick Ness, 'Chaos Walking' is a sci-fi film starring Tom Holland as Todd Hewitt, a man living on a planet where all women have disappeared. Everything changes when Viola (Daisy Ridley) crash lands & Todd realises he needs to help the newly arrived woman survive on this planet of men.

THE FATHER

THE LITTLE THINGS

Based on an award winning stage play, Anthony Hopkins’ is tipped for Oscar glory for his role as an elderly father who slowly begins to lose his grip on reality. Oscar winner Olivia Colman plays the daughter who’s trying to make sure he’s properly cared for.

‘The Little Things’ is a crime thriller that follows Deke (Denzel Washington), a burned-out deputy sheriff with an eye for detail who teams up with a hotshot LA Detective named Baxter (Rami Malek) to reel in a wily serial killer.

In Cinemas : January 2021 Director : Florian Zeller Cast : Olivia Colman, Anthony Hopkins, Mark Gatiss

In Cinemas : January 2021 Director : John Lee Hancock Cast : Denzel Washington, Rami Malek, Jared Leto

IN CINEMAS FRIDAY 11TH DECEMBER #TheRacer

IFCO 12A

IN CINEMAS FROM 4TH DECEMBER

www.crockofgold.film #CrockOfGold

SUPER INTELLIGENCE

In Cinemas : Dec 11th Director : Ben Falcone Cast : Melissa McCarthy, Ben Falcone, James Corden Carol Peters (played by Melissa McCarthy) wakes up to find that all the appliances in her apartment are talking to her. She’s been identified by a super intelligence as the most average person on earth, and is being used as a test case to decide whether or not it should end the human race.

TWO BY TWO OVERBOARD

ABOUT THIS ISSUE

Your copy of Movies Plus magazine is printed using a safe, environmentally friendly, water based varnish that protects from up to 99.99% known bacteria, viruses and germs, including the Corona Virus family.

For more information visit printprotection.ie

READ MORE ONLINE

In Cinemas : Out Now! Director : Sean McCormack Cast : Tara Flynn, Alan Stanford Co-Produced by Moetion Films in Galway, the first ‘Two By Two’ movie has the honour of being the highest grossing Irish film of 2015. This sequel reached #1 at the UK box office earlier in 2020 & now Irish audiences can join in the fun!

MOVIES.IE Some release dates may change, keep an eye on Movies.ie website for the latest movie news, trailers, interviews & features.

IN MAS E CIN

C DE6th 2

PHIL LYNOTT SONGS FOR WHILE I'M AWAY Interview with director Emer Reynolds

What was it like building this narrative on such a legend like Phil Lynott?

Well, it was wonderful and a great journey of discovery and also a bit terrifying. I really felt the responsibility of telling that story and telling it well. He's such a legend, such a huge icon for Irish people and this story had never been told on the big screen before so it was exciting.

I've been a Lizzy fan since I was a teen.

What was it that got you into the film?

My sister and I had two boyfriends when we were teenagers

who were big Lizzy fans so that is how I got introduced to them.

I was actually at their final two gigs in Dublin the RDS in 1983.

I remember holding up the lighters and crying the whole way through. I was then approached by one of the producers of the film, Alan Maher around Christmas 2017 just as I was finishing up the publicity of my last film ‘The Farthest’. He had heard I was a fan and he approached me to see if I would be interested as they were looking into making a film about Philip Lynott, so he asked me if I was interested in joining them and I was so excited. I thought it was high time it

This new film from the multi-award winning director Emer Reynolds tells the story of how Philip Lynott, a young black boy from working class 1950's Dublin, became Ireland's greatest Rock Star as front-man for Thin Lizzy. was made. I think it's a film for more than just Thin Lizzy fans, it's a film for anyone who's interested in how a young mixed-race boy from an underprivileged part of Dublin rises out of that life in the 1950s. That's how it came about and I was delighted to join the team.

You said there you were at his final two gigs in Dublin, did you find yourself in any of the archive footage?

We do have footage from that final Thin Lizzy gig in the RDS in March or April, so it is in the film, but no close-ups of me, unfortunately, but I think I know where I was standing in the crowd so I'm pretty sure I can point out my lighter.

The imagery of the film is a dreamlike and trippy aesthetic.

Was that what you were going for when making the film?

We were trying to tell the story through his songs and performances but also we were trying to find a visual language by which I could communicate some of the subtextual elements about the story, about the private man behind the rockstar. Some of the visuals were driven by that desire to deconstruct those ideas of image.

How much did you learn about Phil Lynott that you didn't know already?

I read a lot of the books so some

of it I knew, but his shyness was something new for me that I never knew. I didn't know he was uncomfortable in the limelight early in his career. All of that was new. I learned that he was a big cheese fan.

There is the common belief of don't meet your heroes. Were you afraid going into this your views on Phil might change?

That was always a risk because once you start to explore you head out on this journey with some preconceptions and with the desire to throw them away if they're not useful or they're not proven to be true. So you definitely want to have that inquisitive, that honesty, that authenticity to the journey, so yeah there was a slight concern it was going to tear down some of my previously held beliefs. I didn't find that however, what I found which was the most extraordinary part of the process for me was meeting the people who were close to him, to see the man they were revealing. The esteem at which they held him and yet not shying away from his faults, that they spoke about his difficult side too, but actually seeing the love and the tenderness of which they recalled him and wanted to speak of him and wanted to tell you about his life.

Interview by Cara O'Doherty

OLIVIA COOKE Interview from the set of PIXIE

Filmed in Northern Ireland, PIXIE is a new film staring Olivia Cooke as Pixie, an Irish girl who wants to avenge her mother’s death by masterminding a heist, but her plans go awry & she finds herself on the run, being chased across the countryside by deadly gangster priests.

What can you tell us about the character of Pixie?

She is a very strong willed woman, a survivor who takes no prisoners and is someone who is out for a little bit of revenge but in the cheekiest, naughtiest and almost light hearted way possible. She's really well written. It's a credit to Preston (writer) who is not Irish and, not a woman. (Laughs) He did a really stellar job with all the characters because it feels so fleshed out and almost timeless.

What was it about the script that jumped out at you?

It was just so funny, it was really, really funny, in that Martin McDonagh vein and going on a heist/roadtrip thriller comedy, that really appealed to me

because that’s a genre that I've not really done before.

of you saying "Go on, Go on, Go on" (Laughs)

How are you finding working with an Irish accent?

Really difficult actually. Yeah, I'm not gonna lie It's quite a challenge.

But hopefully it turns out well... and if not there’s always ADR!

Did you watch any Irish TV or movies to get a feel for the accent?

I listened to Brendan Gleeson every day, and Pauline Mclynn as well. I've got a YouTube interview of her talking to RTE, where she's just been asked all these questions and that's what I listen to every morning.

I now have visions

Are you ever tempted to stay in the Irish accent out of character?

No, I don't even use my other accent, my American accent, that I used on 'Bates Motel', the show that was on for so long.

It's too embarrassing.

Which part of the country is Pixie from?

We're going more Tipperary, midlandy just because she moved from traveling, on tour background with a mum who was a musician to Sligo when she was eight. But we want to go full Sligo because that will result in a lot of

IN H S S IRI EMA N CI people saying 'Excuse me', 'what'? (laughs)

Have you enjoyed travelling through the Irish country side?

It's gorgeous, I didn't expect it actually. Maybe I just didn't know much about it. I went on a road trip this weekend to the Giants Causeway, and did the rope-bridge, it was very beautiful, though very touristy which I didn't expect.

Do you get involved in the action and stunts on the film?

I shot a few guns, I ran away in boots with a heel, but this this whole sequence (being filmed today) within the church is as actiony as it gets.

There's been a lot of

car chases but this is the crescendo of the film. But yeah it’s fun to shoot guns, I went firearms training and was really shocked at how well I can shoot.

What do you do with that information? Play Darts? Snooker?

It's like cramming for an exam, with things that you want to do.

Like when you when you get to learn a musical instrument for a film, It's like a different part of your brain, the short term memory part where you just cram, cram, cram and you get really competent at it, then the film ends and you can't do it for the life of you.

W O N

The film has an amazing cast. Alec Baldwin & Colm Meaney to name but two. What have they been like to work alongside?

Really lovely, absolutely lovely teddy bears. It's really fun, because they've been in the biz for so long, and they just know exactly what they want, what they can do, what they can offer the camera, what will help the film & help the scene and it's very mechanical in the way that they work, which is really interesting, where with with myself a lot of it just comes from instincts.

INTERVIEW WITH KRISTEN WIIG Were you a fan of the first Wonder Woman film?

Yes! Hello!! Yes! I was emotional when I watched the movie, and I remember saying to my boyfriend, you have no idea what this means, to see a female superhero like this. It was the moment she comes over the hill into No Man’s Land—the music, her costume, the whole theater went wild. It was just one of those moments, you know, when you’re a kid and you go to the movies, because then you couldn’t watch movies anywhere else, and everyone sort of

feels it together…it’s an epic event. And that movie just stayed with me.

When Patty (director) reached out to you for this new film, how did you feel?

I was shocked! I got a call, my agent said, “Are you sitting down? Patty Jenkins wants to set up a call with you,” and I was thinking, “Could this be the next Wonder Woman? Is she working on something that’s not Wonder Woman?” And I just hoped and prayed it would be, and

then when it was, I mean… I still kind of don’t believe it!

You play Barbara Minerva, who is one character, but she has such an evolution into The Cheetah that it’s almost like playing two characters.

I felt like I was playing 3 characters in the movie, because she really goes through a transformation. I’ve never done anything like that before.

What did you think of the character Cheetah?

WONDER WOMAN 1984

Gal Gadot returns in the title role in the highly anticipated sequel to 2017’s recordbreaking ‘Wonder Woman’. The action fast forwards to the 1980s as Wonder Woman faces not one, but two new foes in businessman Max Lord & The Cheetah.

Actress Kristen Wiig talks about how playing one of Wonder Woman’s best-known nemesis was like a dream.

Well, there are a few different versions of her, and there are so many different stories in the comics of how she becomes Cheetah, and her relationship with Diana is different in different iterations. So I wasn’t really sure how it was going to be tackled.

So then the script gave you your roadmap?

I talked to Patty first and she told me the story of the whole movie, and specifically my character’s evolution and who she is at the beginning and how she saw her changing, why it’s so important to have her be a certain way in the

beginning to get to the end. I had never done a movie like this before, and I’d never had this sort of acting opportunity, to go from being one person to being someone else entirely. And then you add in all the physical stuff and wirework and it was just like an experience that I’ll never forget.

What can you tell us about Barbara, and how she fits into the story? Everybody knows a Barbara somewhere in their life.

Yeah, I think we all have a little Barbara in us. It’s important to know that Diana’s character is feeling very alienated—and I love how that ties into her being in the 1980s, because humanity is in a weird place, and Patty really leaned into the excess and the greed of the time, and I think all of those things are very foreign to Diana.

So, she finds herself being very alone and detached when she meets Barbara, who in her own way feels alone and detached because she’s a little socially

IN MAS E CIN

C E D 6th 1

awkward, she’s not one of the cool girls, she’s very overlooked, she’s socially invisible. When they meet each other it’s sort of like seeing this thing in the other person that you wish you had. She looks up to Diana, who is strong, nice, and sympathetic— she’s talking to her and she’s beautiful and she’s confident. And Diana sees someone who lives in this world and she’s a little awkward but she’s open and lighthearted and she laughs. I think their connection is really important to show where they are at the beginning of the film.

This is a big action film with a lot of stunt work and fight choreography. What kind of training did you do to prepare?

A lot of training!

(LAUGHS) I mean, the first couple of months was me working out and then coming home and taking a bath in Epsom salts and then sleeping! It was intense. It was also really gratifying, and I felt amazing, and it has reminded me how great it feels to be strong and just to wake up and, even if you don’t want to exercise, just do it anyway, and sweat and do things you don’t think you can do. I had an amazing trainer, Jenny Pacey, and there was also choreography and stunts and wirework and fights and even Cheetah movement class. It was unlike anything I had ever really done. And

even if you weren’t shooting, or if you had a short day of shooting, you still trained. So yes, it was physically challenging but very rewarding.

What do you want audiences to experience when they see this movie?

Well, they’re gonna have a really good time. Visually it’s stunning. Gal is amazing. I’m so excited for them to see Chris again, and I can’t wait for people to see Pedro do this character. The music’s incredible. The costumes. It’s funny.

The action is, to me, unlike anything I’ve seen.

CROCK OF GOLD A Few Rounds with Shane MacGowan Interview With Director Julian Temple

IN MAS E CIN

!

W O

N

This new film deep dives into the life of tortured Irish vocalist Shane MacGowan. Featuring unseen footage from The Pogues & MacGowan’s family.

Julien Temple’s rollicking love letter spotlights the iconic frontman & celebrates his legacy.

Why did you want to tell Shane's story?

Shane is an important figure in many ways, particularly in the context that I've been working in which is using music to look at the person and social history. I hate talking head documentaries. I hate talking head wrinkly old rock stars sitting in armchairs. Shane is just the same, and he is a fantastic figure, but he comes with a warning on the label. He's not the easiest guy to work with. I was conflicted, but then Johnny Depp got involved. I felt that there would be someone else to help the boat from capsizing if it was going to happen. It was a difficult film to make at times, but it was certainly worth it. The guy is deservedly a legend.

We know Shane can be

prickly, how did you navigate that?

It was about persuading myself not to give up on it and walk away from it and to take the abuse in a good-natured way.

He doesn't always mean it. The wonderful thing about the man is he's an incredibly multifaceted character. I want to show all these different versions of Shane, it's not to canonize him or demonize him, not to whitewash him. I think his fans would hate that. I wanted to show many sides of him and then let people make their own minds up.

Did you realize going into this how much of Shane’s life was influenced by

Irish history?

I was aware that he was connected to the Irish literary tradition. He talks a lot about that in his songs, songs like ‘Streams of Whiskey’. He references Brendan Behan. There's a deep interweaving of his creativity with the tradition in that literary sense that he comes from equally musically.

I knew about the connection, but the thing that surprised me was learning that Shane was on a mission to bring Irish culture into a new light, to expose it to a whole new generation and also give a voice to the London Irish. That was a big Irish population that hadn't

had a focal outlet for their feelings or their experience. I was astonished by how deep his knowledge of Irish history and the struggle for independence over the centuries was. It has informed pretty much everything he's done. In England, it's an interesting thing to use a film about Shane to help English kids and young people who really know nothing about it, to understand a little more from the Irish point of view. Shane, being a Londoner as well as an Irishman, is a perfect way to explain that.

You film Shane in conversation rather than using talking heads, one of those conversations is with Gerry

Adams, how did that come about?

Shane refused to do any interviews in the traditional sense. I think the fact that he is difficult has made this a more interesting film in a way. If it had been built around him in an armchair just talking to a camera, it wouldn't have the same ability to show different versions of who he is. He's one person with Johnny Depp; he is a drinking buddy. He's another person with Gerry Adams, he seems to look up to Gerry and then he is a very different person with Bobby Gillespie who gets the raw end of the stick in a way.

Gerry was someone they suggested that Shane would like to talk to so went with that. You see interesting things come out of that conversation, you know.

Has Shane watched the film?

He saw it with Gerry Adams in Dublin.

He was apparently in tears at the end, I don't know what it means really, but I hope he liked it.

I've tried to make it honest. I hope he connects with some of that. I hope it tells it his story with respect; he deserves that.

Interview by Cara O'Doherty

SAINT MAUD Interview with director Rose Glass

'Saint Maud' is an electrifying psychological new horror film from debut writer/director Rose Glass. Maud, played by rising star Morfydd Clark, is a live-in nurse, tormented by a violent secret from her past and by ecstatic messages she believes are directly from God. This is your first feature film.

You've directed short films. How big of a jump was it?

Pretty big mostly because of the amount of time. It was basically the better part of 5 years of my life. I started working on it when I graduated from my MA at National Film & Television School which was 2014 then a couple of years to even get it into development with Film4 and then develop the script for a couple years and you're making it for a year and a half so the stakes feel a lot higher. Plus I feel like I've wanted to make a film since I was 12 or 13 so I wanted to make a feature film by this point in my life. So the stress levels you put on yourself can get more intimidating. Although by the time we got to the shooting I'd gotten a lot of my freaking out out of the way.

IN MAS E CIN

!

W O

N

So in some senses you are a lot better supported, we had a good budget and a fantastic crew and really great producers and Film4 and the BFI were fantastic so I felt supported which is great. Compare this to a short and everyone is doing a bit of everything and you end up directing and writing but you're also having to sort out all this logistical stuff as well and book vans and work out where the food is coming from and where the toilets are whereas on this film I think this was the first time I'd done something where I was pretty much just directing.

Watching the film I saw the house as another character.

There's a gothic feel to it. How difficult was it to find a house that was the perfect setting?

would see her going into this dangerous area but really she's the danger comes more from her and I wanted it to have a sensual energy to it as well as I'm inspired by a lot of films that come from the 60s.

At first we looked at a much larger, grander house that felt like a haunted house which was a bit more over the top. We were lucky actually the house in the film is situated in London so it was an easy commute. Everyone could cycle or get the tube. It was a fairly empty shell when we got there so my production designer Paulina Rzeszowska did this amazing job. Pretty much everything you see in the house apart from the wood panelling and the crazy church window up the stairs had to be put into the house. So we had a lot of control to make it look how we wanted it to.

I like playing with the usual horror tropes, innocent young woman sees the haunted house on the hill and I hoped audiences

We learn very little about Maud throughout the course of the film. Much is alluded to and left to the imagination.

Did you have her background mapped out?

I didn't go to the same level of detail as Morfydd, for example, this happened when you were a child although we did have chats about what we wondered did happen to Maud. There is a specific moment in the film that was inspired by a nurse I spoke to once that happened to her. It involved a patient having had chest surgery and her performing CPR and her hands went through. It was a push and pull scenario about what to reveal and what not to reveal. It was all about working out what kind of person she is and what kind of life she lead as someone who maybe didn't have anyone to fall back on, or any real friends to depend on. It was a perfect storm of stress and alienation.

Rose, as this is your story and it's left open to interpretation for the audience would you say there is a definitive answer as to what is going on?

Yeah, I deliberately wanted it to be a film that could work either way. I always felt though that the way the film ends there is no longer any ambiguity.

Interview by Graham Day

WOLFWALKERS

Behind the scenes with Irish studio Cartoon Saloon

Kilkenny based animation studio Cartoon Saloon has quite justifiably built up a reputation as a creative force to be reckoned with. Their latest film 'Wolfwalkers' has been winning rave reviews across the globe & is tipped for an Oscar nomination. We went behind the scenes on the film with directors Tom Moore & Ross Stewart.

What was the original spark that eventually became Wolfwalkers?

Tomm: We had a list of things that we wanted to explore in terms of themes. We got some advice from friends that a good way to develop a story is to think of all the things you love, all the things you hate and try to combine them and that will create

a lot of passion and conflict and drama comes from conflict so we wanted to talk about the species extinction and the polarisation that is happening around the world because people can't meet in the middle or have any kind of connection because they are so locked into their ideologies, so we liked the idea of exploring this time period where a world view was coming in. You had the English Christian views clashing with the ancient Irish pagan views and what would happen if kids from those two completely different backgrounds made friends.

What went into designing the worlds of the film?

Tomm: We had an amazing team of artists and they really got all the tricks and the visual language that we developed in the previous movies to another level. And we had a team who

allowed in (to the office) so there have been a few dogs present, running around and playing with toys. From big to small, there is one little guy, Dilbert who has the personality of a tiger. Another of the dogs, Hobbes is a beautiful dog who has a lot of wolf characteristics in just their mannerisms. So those were the consultants, we would look to them for their behaviour.

IN MAS E CIN

!

W O

N

were very focused on the forest and then another team focusing on the town, people who were more interesting in printmaking and woodblock prints which are related to the town. There were also people interested in watercolours and rough pencil drawings for the forest.

It was great because a lot of them got to go out around Kilkenny and research around Kilkenny and get some inspiration from the environment. What I thought was nice was there was a workshop atmosphere to it. Having grown up in Kilkenny you get a bit blasĂŠ about the beautiful medieval streets. Whenever artists from all over the world come in and bring their enthusiasm and their inspiration to the table it gets us fired up again.

I noticed in the credits there were wolf consultants on the film?

Ross: We're lucky that dogs are

What do you hope audiences get out of 'Wolfwalkers' because as you said it is a timely tale?

Ross: Well there is a strong environmental theme and hopefully when younger audiences watch it, they will realise the importance of preserving wild areas just for the sake of being wild areas not to see a monetary benefit in it.

What do you think of the strong reviews coming from people lucky enough to have seen ‘Wolfwalkers’ already?

Tomm: It has been wonderful to see all these positive reactions.

It is really encouraging because so many artists worked on this movie. We were lucky actually, before the lockdown came in we were able to show Wolfwalkers to 1000 people, fifty people at a time and that was really worth its weight in gold because the cinema experience can't be replaced.

Ross: I think if people get the chance to see it at the cinema they should definitely do so.

Interview by Graham Day

IN CINEMAS DECEMBER 16 www.wonderwoman1984.ie

IFCO PG

IN CINEMAS NOW www.wolfwalkers.movie

#Wolfwalkers