Movies Plus - Feb 2017

Feb 2017 • Number 181 • www.Movies.ie

FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM

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P E D R O

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Patriot’s Day Best A Cure For Wellness

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Fifty Shades Darker 20th Century Women Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk Prevenge The Lego Batman Movie

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COMING SOON

Gold Loving Resident Evil : The Final Chapter Rings Toni Erdmann

John Wick : Chapter 2 Fences The Founder The Great Wall Hidden Figures Moonlight

Beauty & The Beast Logan Power Rangers Kong : Skull Island Trespass Against Us Free Fire

FEB 17 JOHN WICK 2

Directed by: Chad Stahelski Starring: Keanu Reeves, Ruby Rose, Ian McShane After he kicked all kinds of bad guy ass in 2014, John Wick (Keanu Reeves) is brought out of retirement once more when a former associate tries to take over a shadowy guild of assassins.

Bound by an oath to help him, Wick finds himself travelling to Rome to kick bag guy ass all over again.

WHAT'S ON IN IRISH CINEMAS

FEB 17 FENCES

Directed by: Denzel Washington Starring: Denzel Washington, Viola Davis Based on August Wilson’s play of the same name, ‘Fences’ tells the story of Troy Maxson (Denzel Washington) a man who, for one reason or another, has been able to realise his dreams. As he struggles to raise his family in 1950s America, Troy struggles to build a fence around his family home, and struggles to bring down the barriers he has constructed between himself and the people he holds dear.

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FEB 23 PATRIOT'S DAY

Directed by: Peter Berg Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Michelle Moynahan Mark Wahlberg’s latest cinematic outing follows the aftermath of the Boston Marathon Bombing in April 2013.

Wahlberg plays Boston PD Sergeant Tommy Saunders who, while the FBI work on indentifying suspects in the attack, Saunders searches for evidence and helps those who have been injured and separated from their loved ones in the chaos after the explosions.

VISIT MOVIES.IE FOR TRAILERS

FEB 16 ADIFF Festival fans rejoice! The Audi Dublin International Film Festival returns this month, with exclusive screenings, workshops and a special strand of the festival dedicated to younger viewers. Films to catch include Ben Wheatley’s ‘Free Fire’, the Golden Globe nominated ‘My Life as a Courgette’, ‘Personal Shopper’, Michael Fassbender and Brendan Gleeson’s ‘Trespass Against Us’. Check out the complete festival programme at diff.ie

I NTER V I E W F O R LO V I N G

Ruth NEGGA Whenever someone from Ireland manages to break Hollywood, you can feel the Irish nation rally behind them in support. The fact that Ruth Negga has managed to break it so quickly, with both an Oscar and a Golden Globe nomination has only made all of Ireland all the prouder. We sat down with the amazingly talented actress to discuss her powerful new movie ‘Loving’.

First of all, we have to congratulate you on your amazing year.

Obviously about ‘Loving’ itself, the award nominations, those big magazine covers and everyone in Ireland fell in love with you after The Late, Late Show. How is all of this new attention on you?

I don’t think I’ve absorbed it yet.

I think it could be overwhelming, if you let it, but I think one has to see that it’s flattering, because it’s a response to what I love, which is performing and a performance. I think you can change your perspective, and if I think if you’re going to be overwhelmed by it, then you need to think about it in another way, because equally as truthfully, it is very flattering and lovely, to be honest.

When it came to the casting process, obviously Jeff Nichols is a bit of genius in casting an Irish-Ethiopian and an Australian in the roles of this Southern couple. Can you tell us how you got to be involved?

Yes, well, he didn’t conspire to cast non-Americans, it wasn’t anything like that, being a proud American himself. I think what he wanted to do, being a proud American, was cast people he felt would best fit these roles. I believe he cast me first; Francine Maisler, an amazing casting director, called me in to audition for Jeff, and she also sent me on the documentary (HBO’s The Loving Story) and some extra archival footage. So I just studied Mildred – her physicality, her accent, her vocal tones. I literally spent day and night with her two days, and I went in and I really wanted this part, I really wanted to

be part of this film. These parts can be so rare, and I went in to the audition, and I can’t really remember much of the audition right now, because I think I was so terrified, but I didn’t hear anything for a year, and then it was another year before we started the movie. So it was two years between auditioning and shooting. And for Joel Edgarton, he was already working with Joel on Midnight Special, and he was so impressed by Joel’s work ethic and graft and charisma that he thought it was a perfect fit.

ABOUT RUTH Born : January 7th 1982 Raised : Limerick, Ireland Screen Debut : Capital Letters (2004) Previous Roles : Love/Hate, Preacher, SHIELD, Warcraft 2017 Award Nominations : Oscars & Golden Globes Video : Watch the full interview online on Movies.ie

Yourself and Joel are both fantastic in 'Loving', such a perfectly natural couple, there was never a moment where it felt like you were acting hard to make it work, because it always felt so natural.

But there is a lovely parallel in the movie of this couple caught up in the middle of a massive story.

Meanwhile the film itself is reflecting back everything that is going on politically in America, alongside Brexit, and the same sex marriage debates both here & abroad. Has there been a feeling of how important this movie is beyond just being an Oscar worthy film, in that it is a very important story to tell?

Oh yeah, absolutely! I think that awards are so lovely, because they give you a platform to speak to so many more people than a few who

would be coming to a Jeff Nichols film anyway because they’re such big fans, and that’s very important.

I think what would be important is if there are some people who may not have been thinking in line with the Lovings, and they might come out of this movie and realise that there was nothing wrong with [their relationship], and you know that really, essentially, what people really resented was that they existed at all, and that’s quite a terrifying concept, and I think what our film shows is that you cannot deny their existence, and you cannot deny their love. I challenge anyone to see this film and to think that it’s okay to legislate on love, but also even to have any kind of opinion on who someone loves.

Words - Rory Cashin

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“MICHAEL KEATON IS TERRIFIC” Total Film

“AN INCREDIBLE STORY WITH GREAT PERFORMANCES” Little White Lies

★★★★

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The Guardian

Radio Times

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MICHAEL KEATON

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Interview with

DIRECTOR CHRI S MCKAY It should come as no surprise that Chris McKay, director of ‘The LEGO Batman Movie’ is a giant Batman fan – he even has a tattoo of Catwoman on his arm! Movies Plus magazine caught up with the director to find out more about the film, who he considers to be “his” Batman, and just how much pressure he felt to keep the LEGO franchise rolling.

Did you feel a lot of pressure taking on this spin-off to ‘The LEGO Movie’?

Yeah it sucks being the guy whose movie comes out after the first one does so well and is a critical success! A lot of pressure, but it was a fun movie to make, it was a fun team to work with. I got to work with a lot of my favourite people, and work with Will [Arnett] a lot more and then bring on these other actors, and do a movie that meant something to me, as far as being

able to go at Batman’s central problem in a way that no other movie can really do. The other movies are never going to solve Batman’s problem! The idea that we could do that kind of thing and make it emotional, I had to put some of the fears and the expectations aside and just try to make a good movie.

There is such a longevity to Batman as a character, what do you attribute this to?

He’s got a great backstory. That sense of loss, that sense of revenge, that sense of trying to take the moral high ground by not killing, but also trying to stop crime.

I think there’s that, I think the fact that he’s a human being, that he’s a detective; he’s James Bond and Sherlock Holmes all mixed into one thing. There’s a glamour aspect to it. He’s a very human character, so he’s very relatable and I think that’s why he’s stood the test of

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time, and that’s why you can interpret him as absurd as Adam West or as grounded as a Christopher Nolan movie or somewhere in the middle. You can make it about Frank Miller’s Reagan era stuff, you can make a complete flight of fancy and just have it be bright and pop-y and silly. Batman stood the test of time because people relate to him.

People are as passionate about “their” Batman – the Batman they consider to be their favourite or the best – as they are about “their” Doctor from ‘Doctor Who’. Who is ”your” Batman?

My Batman is Michael Keaton because that was the first cinematic version of Batman that I saw, and I was also old enough… I knew who Michael Keaton was before Batman. I knew him as a comic actor and I liked him; ‘Night Shift’ is one of my favourite movies, and in fact we use a song from ‘Night Shift’ – Al Jarreau “Girls Know How” – for the Tuxedo Dress Up Party. I knew Michael Keaton as an actor, but I was also aware enough that the controversy when they cast him… “Wait a minute, they are going to cast this comedian?” and the best thing they could say for him was that he sort of has the chin enough for Batman. Michael Keaton is [Batman] for me in that first Tim Burton [movie], and I love ‘Batman Returns’, It was because of Michelle Pfeiffer’s performance that I love Catwoman.

Will Arnett was in place since he played the role of Batman in ‘The LEGO movie’, but how did you go about assembling – sorry! – the rest of the cast?

It’s tough because there are only so many people who can do what Will Arnett can do, somebody who can be kind of a jerk but also charming. That’s not something that every actor can do some people straight up come off like a jerk; there’s no charm to them and you don’t want to follow their story and the best written version of that thing, the voice or the performance just doesn’t do it. It’s a high wire act that Will Arnett does. Wanting to find somebody who could be super positive, somebody who’s also a comedian and also has a voice that sounds young but probably isn’t a kid, and somebody who isn’t over exposed in every animated movie, that’s a very small list of people. Obviously Michael Cera is one of those people. I think our biggest concern was that he wouldn’t want to do a movie like this because he does do more indie movies, and he is very picky and choosy about the stuff that he does. Fortunately he saw the value in what we were trying to do and that there was a heart to the story, and an emotional centre that was a reason for all of the jokes.

In this film you play with the canon creation of several established characters, particularly Barbara Gordon, in the Batman universe, and don’t necessarily follow the rules.

Was taking the opportunity to make up your own stories, the way a kid would play with LEGO, something you relished?

The fact that there have been some interesting and good versions of Barbara Gordon, but I don’t think that anyone has nailed it so well that it’s definitive, that

it’s canon and written in stone, so we had some licence. I wanted it to be diverse, I wanted a female character that could be an equal with Batman, and that could challenge Batman and be someone that comes in with a critique of Gotham City and of Batman.

That’s why I wanted her to be the Commissioner; it made sense that she would be able to go head to head with Batman and challenge him. Casting Rosario [Dawson], who herself is kind of an activist in her own life made a lot of sense for a lot of reasons.

‘The LEGO Movie’ was a surprise in that as many grown-ups are fans of the film. How did you find the balance between appealing to grown-ups and kids alike?

We have a rapid-fire approach to jokes. We want to turn jokes fast, like the ‘Airplane’ movies, where it’s like “If you didn’t like that last joke, there’s another joke coming around the corner that you’ll probably like”. We tried to make it as much of a joke-fest as possible, so in that sense we can try out jokes and a lot of it is trial and error; what works for our story, what can keep the story momentum going, what doesn’t make you feel too exhausted because a lot of the stuff is physical as well as word play jokes. A lot of it is just trial and error, what makes us laugh. I love to try to make the crew laugh.

Words - Brogen Hayes

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'The Great Wall' is set in ancient China, as mercenary William Garin (Matt Damon) leads five battle-scarred warriors on the run from warring desert factions—who hunger for wealth, power and glory.

There are 3 different kinds of Tao Tei in the movie (The Drone foot soldiers,

THE GREAT WALL

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Collectively, the cast and crew of 'The Great Wall' celebrate 25 Academy Awards® with 43 additional nominations.

1600 years in the making...

'The Great Wall' is at Irish cinemas from February 17th

2 MOVIES

‘The Great Wall’ teams up Andy Lau & Matt Damon for the first time.

Previously they played the same character in two different movies.

Lau as the corrupt police inspector in the 2002 Hong Kong crime thriller ‘Infernal Affairs’, and Damon as the same devious undercover cop in ‘The Departed’, the 2006 English-language adaptation.

There are 3 different kinds of Tao Tei in the movie (The Drone foot soldiers, The Paladin imperial guards and The Queen, who controls the Tao Tee army).

The beastly antagonists were not just a creation for the film, but are actually part of Chinese mythology.

150m Costing US$150 million to make, 'The Great Wall' boasts the title of "The biggest movie ever made in China". Director Zhang Yimou said “For me personally it’s not the biggest challenge... as a director what you really need to concentrate on is: make sure the story is good, make sure the characters are interesting and unique, and find something special to say in the movie.”

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OLYMPIC 2008 GAMES >>>>

Director Zhang Yimou’s big-screen triumphs include ‘House of Flying Daggers’ & ‘Hero’, which remains the highest grossing film in Chinese cinema history. But it was the 2008 Olympics that won him praise from a global audience. Yimou is responsible for staging the opening and closing ceremonies of the now iconic Beijing Olympic Games.

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Behind The Scenes Of

DENIAL W ITH D I RECTO R M I CK J AC KS O N ‘Denial’ tells the remarkable true story of American historian Deborah Lipstadt – played by Rachel Weisz – who finds herself in the strange situation of having to prove that the Holocaust actually happened, when she is sued for libel in a London court by Holocaust denier David Irving (Timothy Spall). We caught up with director Mick Jackson to talk alternative facts.

How did you get involved with ‘Denial’?

I have always wanted to work with David Hare, he is one of my heroes, so that was one reason for just turning his script from the title page, to see what it was about.

I have tried, in my career, to do a variety of things, both entertainment movies – comedies or rom-coms or whatever – and movies that have some sort of social

content, being about something; subjects as diverse as nuclear war, child abuse or journalists in Iraq, and this seemed to be, from the first page, about something that seemed to be a movie worth doing. Whether people want to see it or not, it was worth actually putting on film and having there in the record.

People, at the time I started sitting down with David, were questioning all kinds of scientific things like climate change and evolution, vaccination and political things like questioning whether Obama had American citizenship, demanding to see his birth certificate, was he a Muslim? Even though the subject matter was very important and worth doing, I thought the resonances were great, and have been growing ever since; we have been growing towards a greater topicality than we knew.

Did the real Deborah Lipstadt have involvement in the film?

[Rachel Weisz] wanted to meet the real Deborah, and to see what the person was like, and they got on like the proverbial house on fire [laughs] and mind melded over the course of production and the first part of the shooting. Obviously there was an accent to master, so we had a dialect coach, but I think the dialect was the least part of it, the fellow feeling of someone, of empowered women – which is what they both are – was what powered the performance. Half way through Rachel said, “OK, it’s nice having you on set, and I have enjoyed being able to go over into a corner with you and ask you [things like] this scene we are about to shoot, how

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did you feel when you walked through the door? But now I have got you inside me, I have managed to make the transfer, I feel I am you in these scenes, so you don’t need to come by the set any more” [laughs] “because otherwise there would be two of you in me!” That was wonderful and done in very good humour.

David Irving is obviously quite litigious, seeing as ‘Denial’ is about him suing Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin Books.

Were you ever afraid of being sued?

Oh absolutely! That’s why everything in the courtroom scenes is verbatim; it’s taken from the transcripts. Absolutely!

Edited a little, because it went on for 32 days, but David Hare is a marvellous editor... Everything that he says in the film are words that he actually spoke or wrote. They are taken from interviews and speeches, and magazine articles and books that he’s written. He can’t claim that we have misrepresented him; indeed we left out things that would have been highly unflattering to him. He wrote on his website constantly when we were shooting and, I think, revelled in the fact that we had a beautiful Hollywood actress to play Deborah Lipstadt, and said “My casting choice would have been Ernest Borgnine to play her”. He’s an equal opportunities offender.

Mark Gatiss, who plays Professor Robert Jan van der Pelt in ‘Denial’, recently tweeted “Very proud to be a part of #Denial. Even more timely in this terrifying age of ‘alternative facts’.”

Obviously you could not have known how the political climate was going to change when you got involved with the film, but do you feel that this is something audiences will identify with in the film?

IN CINEMAS - NOW I hope so. Many people did in the States when the film ran there, they saw David Irving in the film, and they saw a would-be demagogue who could raise crowds of people to emotional responses, who was a misogynist, a racist, an Anti-Semite, a person who is very careless with facts – or a liar, as we say in technical terms – and that they might have seen some similarity between him and some political figures. Some did and some didn’t, it’s interesting. it’s a big sharper now that Mr Trump is elected and his councillor is using terms such as “alternative facts”.

This is not only very pertinent to our movie, but it sounds like something George Orwell might have written.

It’s chilling.

Words - Brogen Hayes

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TH I N OW K O T UT ABO TH E FOUNDE R

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MC WHO?

“The Founder” tells the true story of how Ray Kroc, a salesman from Illinois, who met Mac and Dick McDonald in 1950 and was so impressed by their speedy system of making food at their San Bernardino hamburger stand, he maneuvered himself into a position to pull the company from the brothers and create a billion-dollar empire. And thus McDonald’s was born.

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MC FAMILY

Jason French, the grandson of Dick McDonald said he’d been waiting 50 years for someone to call and tell the McDonald family story. He was surprised that until ‘The Founder’ no reporter, journalist, or movie producer, had ever reached out to the McDonald’s family.

“This is unbelievable for our family to have this story being told and bringing to light how everything came about and how McDonald’s was formed,” said the McDonald’s relative.

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HOT DOGS

Prior to their career as restaurateurs, the McDonald brothers worked as truck drivers in Hollywood for Columbia Pictures during the Depression. But when they discovered the profit potential by being their own boss in the food service industry, they left and opened a hot dog stand in Arcadia before turning their hand to their self named McDonald hamburgers.

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DIRE STRAITS

The film was inspired by a song written by Dire Strait’s singer Mark Knopfler. “Boom Like That” details how Ray Kroc first visited the McDonald brothers & pitched them the idea of franchising their restaurant.

Curious about the man at the center of the song, film producer Don Handfield remembers thinking, ‘Who was this guy?’, ‘What is this about?’ Like everyone, Handfield was familiar with the ubiquitous fast-food restaurant, but he wanted to know more about the man behind the song.

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TITLE

The film’s title, “The Founder,” refers to Ray Kroc as the founder of McDonald’s, but for the filmmakers it was infused with irony as Ray wasn’t the actual founder of McDonald’s.

Screenwriter Don Handfield reveals that as soon as Ray acquired the company “he went about slowly rewriting the history of the company with him as the founder, and wrote the McDonald brothers out of their own story.”

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HAPPY MEAL

Lead actor Michael Keaton was previously depicted as a McDonalds promotional toy. His likeness was used in 1992 to create ‘Batman’ Happy Meal Toys.

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HANKS A LOT

Tom Hanks turned down the role of Ray Kroc in ‘The Founder’ & Michael Keaton took the part. The opposite happened in 1993’s ‘Philadelphia’ when Keaton turned down the role of Andrew Beckett and Hanks took the part, eventually winning the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance.

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HAMBURGER MUSEUM

Many of the McDonald's restaurants depicted in the film were built from scratch in car parks, as the crew was unable to locate suitable existing restaurants in locations which matched the desired look of the film. The original McDonalds, as depicted in the film, is actually located at San Bernardino, California and is restored as a hamburger museum.

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AVENGERS TO THE RESCUE

Avengers star Jeremy Renner took a production role on the movie and assisted Michael Keaton with previously unpublished video footage and interviews of the real Ray Kroc.

Keaton used this reference footage to perfect Ray Kroc's voice, speech and mannerisms.

NIMBLE FINGERS

Michael Keaton took up piano lessons in preparation for the movie after discovering the real Ray Kroc liked to play piano. His ivory tinkling skills can be seen on screen in the movie.

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BAFTA

NOMINATION

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