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What’s your favourite movie boat? Tell us @totalﬁlm #TFboat

GROUP EDITOR-IN-CHIEF JANE CROWTHER (JC) jane.crowther@futurenet.com

WELCOME TO

@totalﬁlm_jane One-Eyed Willy’s Inferno (The Goonies).

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@mamaytum The Moonstone (Dunkirk) – because I’ve been on it. REVIEWS EDITOR MATTHEW LEYLAND (ML) mahew.leyland@futurenet.com @totalﬁlm_mal The Batboat (’66 version). NEWS EDITOR JORDAN FARLEY (JF) jordan.farley@futurenet.com @jordanfarley The Orca from Jaws. PRODUCTION EDITOR ERLINGUR EINARSSON (EE) erlingur.einarsson@futurenet.com @ErlingurEinars Pi’s lifeboat. ART EDITOR MIKE BRENNAN mike.brennan@futurenet.com @mike_brennan01 USS Missouri (Under Siege). FILM GROUP

Editor (SFX) Darren Sco Art Editor Jonathan Coates Deputy Editor Ian Berriman Production EditorEd Rickes

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his month it’s all about adventure and we sent our intrepid Mr. Mottram to far-flung climes for a set visit on Jungle Cruise many moons ago. It’s now heading for big screens as well as small, so we can watch it in the format we prefer. It’s not the only adventure yarn we’re celebrating with our countdown of the greatest intrepid duos (Jack Carlton and Joan Wilder will always be my GOATs) as voted by you. And while James was dousing himself in bug repellent, I was chatting to Ryan Reynolds and Jodie Comer about another bit of welcome escapism in Free Guy. We also chatted with David Oyelowo about his move to directing with his Amblin-esque The Water Man, celebrated sharks in movies and got the inside track on this year’s weirdest, must-see movie about a jacket. I now need a suede, fringed number for my return to the TF offices this month…

ENJOY THE ISSUE!

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JAMES MOTTRAM

JAMIE GRAHAM

JANE CROWTHER

While I was on the set of Jungle Cruise, Jack Whitehall told me he dislocated a rib while in the gym, on an exercise bike – while watching 50 First Dates!

I had a great Zoom chat with Edgar Wright He’d had his second jab and was feeling a little groggy, but still talked a mile-a-minute for the best part of an hour

While waiting to talk to Ryan Reynolds and Jodie Comer about Free Guy I learnt how spot-on Reynolds’ impression of Peter Griffin is as he riffed between interviews

CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

EDITOR-AT-LARGE

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Chief Executive Zillah Byng-Maddick Non-executive Chairman Richard Huntingford Chief Financial Ofﬁcer Rachel Addison Tel +44 (0)1225 442 244

JULY 2021 | TOTAL FILM

Contents #313

THIS ISSUE

TEASERS

38 JUNGLE CRUISE We set sail for Hawaii to visit the set of Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt’s epic adventure. It’s a tough job, etc, etc… 50 ADVENTURE MOVIE COUPLES Jungle Cruise had us thinking about the sparkiest duos in action cinema, and you voted for the best. 58 FREE GUY Jodie Comer interviews Ryan Reynolds while we put our feet up and relax. 64 SNAKE EYES Not your average G.I. Joe… On the set of Henry Golding’s franchise reboot. 68 DEERSKIN Don’t you step on Jean Dujardin’s brown suede jacket. It’ll cost you deerly. 72 THE SPARKS BROTHERS Let Edgar Wright spark your interest in the best band you might not know. 78 SHARK TALES Why is there some ﬁn irresistible about a great white on screen?

9 STILLWATER Ma Damon teams with Spotlight’s Tom McCarthy. 12 AARON TAYLORJOHNSON Why the Brit star has a Kraven to play a villain… 14 SHANG-CHI Simu Liu’s Marvel hero gets an origin story. Fight! 24 SPACE JAM: A NEW LEGACY Bugs Bunny is back on the court with LeBron James. 29 IT SHOULDN’T HAPPEN TO A FILM JOURNALIST Our Jamie takes his VHS collection to the dump. 32 THE GREEN KNIGHT Dev Patel leads David Lowery’s Arthurian epic. 34 FELICITY JONES What the Rogue One star gets up to between takes. 37 TEMUERA MORRISON We open the book of Boba Fe with the Kiwi actor.

EVERY ISSUE

120 IS IT BOLLOCKS? Abseiling while sailing: should you take a stab at it? 121 10 OF THE BEST Gates! Beer luck when it’s top 10 soware kings, Bill. 122 FLOP CULTURE Why Jonah was Hex-ed. 130 60-SECOND SCREENPLAY Razing Army Of The Dead.

3 EDITOR’S LETTER What we’ve been up to. 6 DIALOGUE Your missives. Our snarky responses. 84 TOTAL FILM INTERVIEW David Oyelowo on his journey to directing.

JULY 2021

TOTAL FILM BUFF

JUNGLE FEVER Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt get their old-school adventure on in Jungle Cruise.

SUBSCRIBE AT WWW.TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS

64 SCREEN

58 72

‘HERE IS JUST A PHENOMENAL OPPORTUNITY TO REALLY DIG INTO ROMANCE’ GAMESRADAR.COM/TOTALFILM

94 FAST & FURIOUS 9 Contains violence and emotionally intense Cena. 96 LAST MAN STANDING Nick Broomﬁeld dices with Death Row Records. 97 LUCA Just how see-worthy is Pixar’s Riviera fantasia? 103 CRUELLA Stone, Thompson… sounds awesome, Emma right? 104 IN THE HEIGHTS The lowdown on the adap of the Miranda musical (Lin-Manuel, not Hart), 106 DUEL Fiy years on, that truck’s still a massive tanker. 107 LAKE MUNGO Scariest Oz horror since Crocodile Dundee In LA. 108 MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE: REVELATION Kevin Smith shares Eternia truths about his new show. It’s not a Stinkor, apaz. 110 SCHMIGADOON! Keegan-Michael Key on the magical town that likes to get down, 24/7. 111 NEVER HAVE I EVER S2 Maitreyi Ramakrishnan talks Mindy, major twists and John McEnroe. 112 MONSTERS AT WORK Why the new Disney+ show is a laughing maer. 113 WAR OF THE WORLDS S2 Assessing the alien threat with Gabriel Byrne and co. 116 SOUNDTRACKS Listeners, it’s Drive time! JULY 2021 | TOTAL FILM

Dia ue Mail, rants,theoriesetc.

EMAIL totalfilm@futurenet.com WRITE Total Film, 1-10 Praed Mews, London W2 1QY (postal addresses will be used for the sole purpose of sending out prizes) gamesradar.com/totalfilm twier.com/totalfilm facebook.com/totalfilm Drop us a line totalfilm@futurenet.com

TF’S CINEMATIC AGONY UNCLE HAS YOUR BACK. 06

DEAR WINGMAN

In an age where all movies are going digital and everything’s coming out in mega HD, why do I have the urge to dig out some old VHS tapes? Maybe it’s nostalgia, but I’m thinking of rebuilding the collection I got rid of years ago. I remember watching The Blair Witch Project on an old CRT TV and it gave me a sense of dread I just don’t get from today’s ultra-clear movies. Sometimes a bit of blur can be good. Am I the only one thinking this? TOM ROYLE, WHITLEY BAY

WINGMAN SAYS...

TOTAL FILM | JULY 2021

★

I’m absolutely buzzing after my first return to the cinema! I chose Godzilla Vs. Kong. I’d missed the loudness and sheer spectacle of watching something so ridiculous yet so entertaining. What better way to celebrate cinemas reopening than watching two titans beating the living shit out of each other?!? Next up, time to watch someone’s tongue get ripped out of their face! Yeah! RUSS TRIBE, FAREHAM OK, but after you’ve done that, how about another trip to the cinema? Yes, it’s a joy to be back in front of the big screen; how have others found the experience? Share your views here and not on the phone to your entire contacts book, like the man in our screening of Peter Rabbit 2 (even if parts of that film were as torturous as the latest Saw). Russ and everyone with a letter printed here will receive a copy of Line Of Duty S6, available now on Blu-ray,

DVD and digital via Acorn Media International; the S1-6 boxset is also out now on DVD. Didn’t send an address? Email it, for mother of God’s sake!

GOING PIER SHAPED

TITANIC CLASH What film have you chosen to be your first cinema showing after lockdown?

’ve read TF since 1997 but have never been brave enough to write, as I’m a rather boring individual with nothing interesting to say. But reading issue 312’s 10 Of The Best… Piers, I noticed that next to Requiem For A Dream there was a still from the excellent and criminally underrated Dark City! Please can I win a Blu-ray for spotting this deliberate mistake?! I’m never normally ‘that guy’ who points out others’ mistakes but I really want to get printed! GLENN PELL, NORFOLK

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THRILLED ENTERTAINED FLIPPIN’ ECK! BAD TIMES… 0 WEEK

Our Simba plushie is missing!

Still no sign of Simba, case you’re wondering BACK TO THE Daring to dream CINEMA!!! of big-screen Paw Patrol in mere weeks

DEADLINE

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TNUOMARAP ,SORB RENRAW ,ETAGSNOIL ,NROCA

Better a bit of blur than the dreaded motion smoothing, in Wingy’s opinion; that’d make the ﬁnal scene in Blair Witch look as menacing as an episode of Grand Designs. Mind you, some things are best left unblurred: when it came to last month’s VHS feature, we luckily ditched the idea of starting it in the middle, with increasing lines of static between each fuzzy paragraph that eventually gave way to an entirely different feature from 2004.

STAR LETTER

OFFICE SPACED

Chatter ‘gems’ overheard in the Total Film office this month…

y, I’m never taking * “Serisoberouslbeauty the of the BBFC certificate for granted ever again” “Or the mobilephone*ads. Each one seems like a lost Kubrick.”

Deliberate? Um, yeah, let’s go with that… no, alas, we got our JenniferConnelly-standing-on-a-pier movies mixed up. Though to be fair, she has done a boxset’s worth (see also House Of Sand And Fog). Here’s a pic (fingers crossed) from the actual Requiem pier scene. And yes, you win this month’s Blu-ray, which we promise not to confuse with Duty Free.

subscribe to a zillion different places either. Two years ago I looked around for another DVD rental service and found Cinema Paradiso, where I can find obscure ’80s films, world-cinema gems and the latest releases. True, some films these days won’t bless a physical format, but at least we can make our own unpopular choices and ignore what’s trending/avoid consumer algorithms. Dust off your DVD players and bring back free will (or at least the illusion of such). ALAN EDWARD ROBERTS, BIDEFORD

intelligently, allowing viewers to fill in the gaps having seen the theme (over) played so many times previously (Apes, Walking Dead, 28 Days/Weeks Later). Bravo, I say, for accepting ‘people go bad’ as a given and getting on with the story. PHILIP LAWRENCE, STEVENAGE

We respect your point; but couldn’t we also have a story where the trend’s reversed and people fall victim to their nicest impulses? As the zom-baboon apocalypse goes nuclear, folks flee across the country… to • VIDEOS • REVIEWS We received several letters return lost property, offer • TRAILERS • NEWS recommending this service; everyone they meet a either you’re all on commission, second biscuit and stuff the or this is something we need to check nation’s library books with inspirational Post-Its. our wonderful nostalgia trip down out. ‘Obscure ’80s films’ is possibly VHS memory lane [TF312] brought our favourite genre; if it’s an E.T. knock-off with Button Moon-level FX, back an amusing childhood story. The stars Yahoo Serious or is a completely day after our family viewing of 1981 wan McGregor says that the unrelated sequel to No Retreat, No classic Clash Of The Titans, I asked Dad prequels are “not Shakespeare”. Surrender, it’s going on our watch list. I beg to differ. Who can forget Anakin’s if he’d returned the tape to the video shop. “Yes, but it took ages to rewind turmoil (“2D or not 2D… R2, that is the it.” Rather than stopping/rewinding, question”)? Then there’s the balcony he’d pressed the ‘reverse search’ ust wanted to point out a damned if scene (“What light through Yoda’s function. Yes, after watching Clash Of The you do/don’t issue with your review window breaks”) and of course the desperate battle cry: “The Force, the Titans, Mum and Dad promptly watched of A Quiet Place Part II: “...the theme of the whole film again, backwards… Force, my kingdom for the Force!” survivors turned bad is a little underdeveloped”. Surely if the story had EDDIE MCINTYRE, WIRRAL JACK H, ADDINGHAM leaned more into this, we would’ve got Brilliant – the Kraken de-unleashed; every post-apocalyptic/disaster trope Verily. And let’s not forget some of going? I think the film dealt with things the errors of comedy along the way… Medusa growing her head back; that alarming bit where mother and baby are slung in a sea chest having a nicer, more al fresco outcome. Did your folks do the same with other tapes? Imagine a new spin on Chariots Of Fire, as plucky Brits moonwalk over the starting line. * Brilliant value – 3 issues for only £3! * Exclusive subscriber covers and content * Stay in the know on all things film n response to last month’s letter * Delivered to your door lamenting the loss of LoveFilm, I’d Visit www.magazinesdirect.co.uk/JOIN21 like to add that I don’t like having to

A GOOD PLACE Wouldn’t it be nice if people were just… nice?

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COMING ATTRACTIONS A Sundance record breaker p13 Meet the MCU’s lord of the rings p14

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EXCLUSIVE

American Dad

STILLWATER I Matt Damon teams up with Oscar-winning filmmaker TomMcCarthyfor an unpredictable genre-bender

McCarthy started work on Stillwater a decade ago but abandoned the project when it began to underwhelm him. Seven years and one gleaming Oscar later, McCarthy approached French writers Noé Debré and Thomas Bidegain to see if they could breathe utilised and it contains scenes with new life into it, particularly in a very such suspenseful intensity that it is only when they end that you remember different political climate. “Trump was just elected and suddenly I had a prism to breathe. But this is no simple with which I wanted to see the movie thriller. There is romance, comedy and talk about this fading American and politics along with difficult vision,” he explains. While America questions about the burden of felt more divided than ever, McCarthy parenthood. McCarthy is in total agreement, telling Teasers, “It’s without sought to understand the mindset behind far-right populism. “I tried question my most complicated film.”

tillwater is writer/director Tom McCarthy’s return to drama following his critically adored 2015 film Spotlight that bagged him a Best Picture Oscar. It tells the story of Matt Damon’s Bill, a working-class man from Stillwater, Oklahoma whose daughter Allison (Abigail Breslin) has been convicted of murdering her lover Lena while studying in Marseille.

ENOE

On a trip to visit her in prison, Bill comes to believes he can find the evidence to exonerate her. With the help of his new friend Virginie (Camille Cottin), a French actress with a delightful daughter Maya (Lilou Siauvaud), Bill tries to track down Lena’s real killer. There are thrills to be had: Damon’s Bourne-honed skills as a fighter are

GAMESRADAR.COM/TOTALFILM

STREET SMARTS Matt Damon plays Bill, a father fighting to free his daughter from prison.

JULY 2021 | TOTAL FILM

to understand how these people were feeling left behind and the shame, guilt and anger that was bubbling up in America.” There are obvious parallels between Allison and Amanda Knox, who was convicted and subsequently exonerated of the murder of Meredith Kercher in 2007. For Abigail Breslin, the toxicity of the media became pivotal to Allison’s story. “She’s not a perfect human, but anytime that media gets involved in a trial like this, it can convolute things to the point where a person is guilty until proven innocent.” True crime has boomed in popularity in the past decade, and Breslin counts herself as a “true-crime fan beyond belief”, confessing “I go to bed watching Dateline!” But over the years Stillwater got further away from its reality roots. While Amanda Knox was “certainly there” in McCarthy’s first version of this story, by the time he returned to the script with Debré and Bidegain they “barely referenced it.” McCarthy knew there were very few actors capable of bringing a complicated character like Bill to life. “Matt was very central to the idea,” he says. “We talked about introverting the American hero and that worked with what Matt brings to the role as a person and as an actor.” Bill’s relationship with Allison is, to put it mildly, strained and their inability to connect makes their scenes, confined within a tiny prison visitation room, uncomfortable viewing. For Breslin this disconnection is one of the film’s greatest heartbreaks. “He wasn’t a very present father and I think what’s so tragic about their relationship is that they’ve both been through so much pain and it hasn’t brought them together,” she explains. Bill seems to sincerely try with Allison but her walls remain up to him, as Breslin sees it: “He is her only lifeline, but not the lifeline that she really wants to have.” The dysfunction of their relationship is contrasted with the warm and loving bond Bill forms with Maya, a little girl who he meets in the corridor of his

hotel when her mother Virginie is late home from work. It is Bill’s relationship with Maya that McCarthy says is “the heart of the film,” and “the real love story”. Bill then forms a bond with Virginie, with her friends joking that he is her next “project”, but actress Camille Cottin sees something much deeper. “She’s a single mum and Bill is a father who want to be responsible and to be the father he should have been. That’s something that really moves her.” Maya represents a new start for Bill and a chance to be the father he never was to Allison. “I wouldn’t call this a redemption story,” McCarthy says carefully. “Perhaps it’s a bit more of a liberation story. In Maya, he finds the liberation to be a better version of himself.” McCarthy was keen for Stillwater to avoid the fish-out-of-water clichés (“I don’t like that term”). Part of that came down to having French collaborators and part was down to his own intimate knowledge of the city. “By the time we finished the draft with the French writers I had been to Marseille a lot more than they had!” McCarthy laughs. “I started going 10 years ago and fell in love with it. They understand what Marseille is culturally in a way that I don’t, but I probably know the city better.” The whole production felt very French to Cottin. “Half of the team was French and most importantly the canteen was French!” she jokes, but beyond that Cottin felt that McCarthy’s affinity for Marseille made its portrayal on screen all the better. “Sometimes people write for actors but I feel like Tom wrote for Marseille,” she nods. Even to the discerning French eye he taps into the exact character of the city. “I was discussing with a French friend, and he said that even with a Japanese-American DP [Masanobu Takayanagi], and an American director the South of France has never been so well exposed!” LL

‘HE IS HER ONLY LIFELINE, BUT NOT THE LIFELINE THAT SHE REALLY WANTS TO HAVE’ ABIGAIL BRESLIN

TOTAL FILM | JULY 2021

ETA| 6 AUGUST/ STILLWATER OPENS IN CINEMAS IN TWO MONTHS.

FAMILY VALUES Bill forms strong bonds with single mum Virginie (Camille Cottin) and her daughter Maya (Lilou Siauvaud).

LOCKED UP Daughter Allison (Abigail Breslin) is in jail for the murder of her partner, Lena (above). STREETS AHEAD Writer/director Tom McCarthy’s affinity for Marseille is clear throughout the film.

GAMESRADAR.COM/TOTALFILM

JULY 2021 | TOTAL FILM

HOT RIGHT NOW

Aaron Taylor-Johnson HAS THE SONY MARVEL-VERSE IN HIS SIGHTS…

aron Taylor-Johnson already boasts two comic-book credits to his name. He played dork knight Dave Lizewski in 2010’s Kick-Ass, then later graduated to a less DIY role as Pietro Maximoff, the Quicksilver who isn’t Evan Peters, for Avengers: Age Of Ultron. Soon, he will add another trophy to the comic-book shelf in the muscular and leonine shape of Sergei Kravinoff, better known as Kraven The Hunter.

TOTAL FILM | JULY 2021

many peaks. Ever since breakthrough roles ranging from Shanghai Knights’ young Charlie Chaplin to Angus, Thongs And Perfect Snogging’s “sex god”, he’s proved a capable and committed shape-shifter, ever-ready to stamp his imprint on mainstream, indie and prestige roles for a widespread haul of top-prize directors. He was suitably boyish as John Lennon in Nowhere Boy and altogether more groomed as Anna Karenina’s Count Vronsky. He’s proved good value in action too, adding close-cropped military types in Godzilla and The Wall to his MCU appointment. A key role in

ETA| 13 JANUARY 2023 / KRAVEN THE HUNTER COMES OUT IN TWOYEARS, THE KING’SMAN WILL BE RELEASED IN DECEMBER 2021. BULLET TRAIN IS CURRENTLY TBC.

E VA R G R A H NI T S U A/TSUGUA

Joining Venom and Morbius in Sony’s expanded universe of villainous spin-offs, Kraven is a big-game hunter made super-strong, age-resistant and animalistic by the ingestion of a serum. A good threat for Spider-Man, in short, should the Sony and Marvel Studios Spidey-verses cross webs down the line. In any case, the dailies from Taylor-Johnson’s performance in David Leitch’s incoming Brad Pitt hitman film Bullet Train impressed studio execs enough to give him the mane role. For Taylor-Johnson, the supermenace, originally spawned in 1964, is a natural evolution in a career of

Kingsman prequel The King’s Man also awaits. Meanwhile, his work for a brace of storied directors includes an arrestingly scuzzy role in Tom Ford’s awards-grade neo-noir Nocturnal Animals and another battle-ready military man in Christopher Nolan’s Tenet. After Bullet Train hurtles into cinemas, Taylor-Johnson will add J.C. Chandor (Triple Frontier) to that list for Kraven The Hunter, which, if Tom Hardy’s Venom is any indication, should give him the chance to act up a storm and knock audiences for (Sinister) six. “It’s nice to play unpredictable,” he’s said. Good plan: after all, you catch the bigger game that way. KH

EXCLUSIVE

Good sign CODA I Siân Heder’s record-breakingSundance

winner explores Deaf culture…

hope this is the start of a movement,” says Siân Heder (Tallulah), writerdirector of this year’s Sundance mega-hit CODA. Meaning ‘Child of Deaf Adults’, it tells the story of Ruby, who is able to hear but grew up in a Deaf family. Hot on the heels of Sound Of Metal and A Quiet Place Part II, which also feature Deaf characters, CODA is another elegant example of inclusivity. “I hope that this starts a real hunger to see more of these stories,” Heder adds.

+VT ELPPA

Adapted from the 2014 French movie La Famille Bélier, Heder relocates the story to the coastal town of Gloucester, Massachusetts, where the Rossi family run a fishing boat. Ruby (Emilia Jones) manages schoolwork in between assisting her parents (Troy Kotsur, Marlee Matlin) and brother (Daniel Durant) in the business. But as the only one able to hear in the family, the pressure is heaped on her shoulders. “CODAs, in a way, grow up more culturally Deaf in their childhoods than a lot of deaf people, because they’re learning ASL [American Sign Language] as their first language,” explains Heder. “They’re being raised by Deaf parents in Deaf culture. And [according to] the CODAs I’ve spoken to, it’s really the entering the hearing

GAMESRADAR.COM/TOTALFILM

world that’s very traumatic – feeling like you’re part of both worlds but also a part of neither.” With Ruby also desperate to pursue her passion for singing, it meant an incredible task for Heder, to find an actress capable of so much. “There were so many things she had to do: she had to sign, she had to sing incredibly

SIGN US UP Emilia Jones plays the daughter (and sister) of Deaf adults in the award-winning CODA (above); Siân Heder directs Eugenio Derbez (below).

well, and she had to go out on those fishing boats and be able to gut a fish without gagging. I remember my casting directors saying, ‘We’re looking for a unicorn here.’” Heder eventually found her star, daughter to famed ‘Walking In The Air’ warbler Aled Jones, though despite singing being “in her blood”, the 19-year-old British actress found it tough. “I do think she worked really hard at that.” It was obviously worth the effort, with CODA winning an unprecedented four awards at Sundance 2021: a Special Jury Ensemble Cast Award, the US Grand Jury Prize, the US Dramatic Audience Award and Best Director for Heder. “I now have four Sundance awards sitting next to my desk because I don’t know where to put them,” laughs Heder. “It seems obscene to put them on a shelf where anyone can see them.” That wasn’t the only reason to celebrate, with Apple TV+ paying a festival-record $25 million for the film after an intense bidding war. With the tech company determined to raise awareness, even developing apps to aid the Deaf community, it’s the perfect fit for CODA. “So it’s not just a movie [any more], it’s part of something bigger.” JM ETA| 13 AUGUST /CODA STREAMS ON APPLE TV+ IN TWO MONTHS. JULY 2021 | TOTAL FILM

EXCLUSIVE

Ring Cycle SHANG-CHI AND THE LEGEND OF THE TEN RINGS I Kevin Feige on the MCU’s new hero.

TOTAL FILM | JULY 2021

big bad played previously by Ben Kingsley as a comical decoy in Iron Man 3). “That goes back to the Ten Rings organisation that we hint at, and see in Iron Man [2008],” says Feige. “That’s been great fun, to see that personal story of legacy and destiny played out among a cast that is 99 per cent of Asian descent, in a way that I think calling it a martial-arts movie or kung-fu movie is too reductive – because it is a big Marvel movie.” Shang-Chi may have been trained up as a badass in his formative years,

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n the first Marvel Cinematic Universe origin story since Captain Marvel, we’re going to meet master martial artist Shang-Chi, appearing on film for the first time, despite his comic-book legacy dating back to the 1970s.

“It’s very much a character-oriented story,” says Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige, “an origin story of a Marvel hero who happens to be of Chinese descent, and who happens to have a father that was one of the most notorious figures in world history, in the MCU.” Yes, as glimpsed in the trailer, Shang-Chi was trained as assassin when he was a young boy. The notorious D.A.D. enforcing that training? Tony Leung’s Wenwu, aka the Mandarin (the real version of the

THE LIU KID ON THE BLOCK Simu Liu’s Shang-Chi is ready to grab viewers’ attention.

but in the present he’s left that past behind to work as a valet by day and do drunken karoake by night. That is, until his previous life catches up with him. Simu Liu (TV’s Kim’s Convenience) is the titular hero, having seemingly manifested his own destiny by tweeting Marvel as far back as 2014, pitching an Asian-American hero (he tweeted again in 2018 asking, “Are we gonna talk or what #ShangChi”). Not that the casting actually happened by magic, and once again Feige invokes the original Iron Man.

“[Casting director] Sarah Finn and our director, Destin [Daniel Cretton, Short Term 12], and my fellow producer Jonathan Schwartz, looked and read and auditioned literally hundreds of people,” says Feige of the process. “There were a lot of great actors out there. But looking for somebody that, as we say, could play against the other characters someday, the bar is high when it comes to casting, going all the way back to [Robert] Downey.” What put Liu in pole position was a chemistry read he did with the

already-cast Awkwafina, who plays Shang-Chi’s friend Katy. “That really is what put him over the top,” explains Feige of the casting process. “He’s got all the physicality, but he’s also an incredibly charming, touching human being that, like all the best of our heroes, you want to root for.” Another Marvel hero who’s as likeable as they are kick-ass? Sounds destined to be awesome. MM ETA| 3 SEPTEMBER / SHANG-CHI OPENS IN CINEMAS LATER THIS YEAR. JULY 2021 | TOTAL FILM

Film quotes pose as questions. Film stars tryto cope.

IN THE CROSSHAIRS THIS MONTH RICHARD ARMITAGE Are you talkin’ to me? I am talking to you. If I’m perfectly honest, I’d rather be face to face, because I’m sick of Zoom. I went back to work on the show that I’m on at the moment, for Netflix. The first day on set, I could barely get any work done, because I was just talking and talking and talking. They kept offering me a chair, and I said, “No, I don’t need to sit down. I’ve been sat on my arse for a year!”

Do you like what you do for a living, these things you see? Often I question, “Why on earth did I pick this career?” Because I’m so not the kind of person that should be an actor. I’m a recluse. I’m an introvert. I don’t like being looked at. [laughs] But I get to see the world through other people’s eyes, and that’s where the fascination lies.

‘I’M NOT THE KIND OF PERSON THAT SHOULD BE AN ACTOR. I’M A RECLUSE. I’M AN INTROVERT’ Life is easy when you’re a kid. That’s one of the things about being an actor – you get to relinquish that responsibility, and still pretend you’re a kid, because you live in that imaginative world all the time. I quite like it. I find it hard to grow up.

What’s normal, anyways? Literally nothing any more. Everything – every single thing – is abnormal. Gosh, I crave normality, but I don’t know what that is now. What is normal...? A cheese sandwich.

We all go a little mad sometimes. Haven’t you? Yeah. I think I’m a little mad. I’ve often played characters that are dabbling with trauma or post-traumatic stress or a little bit of insanity. I can start hallucinating, and seeing people in very strange ways, especially when I haven’t eaten. And I just think, “Oh, gosh, that’s a bit strange, isn’t it? I better get that cheese sandwich.”

Is life always this hard, or is it just when you’re a kid?

You talk the talk, do you walk the walk? It’s taken me years to find what I define as

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Will you follow me, one last time? Yeah, what’s your Twitter handle? [laughs] I was having a chat with Jimmy Nesbitt about this. I feel like there was a ‘me’ before [the Hobbittrilogy], and a ‘me’ after, in terms of my career, and life experience. We were not prepared for it. I thought I was going to be fired. And it turned out to be the most incredible adventure. I’ll go to my grave with the most intense memories of New Zealand. JF ETA | 12 JUNE / UNCLE VANYA IS OUT NOW ON DVD AND BLU-RAY.

Armitage with Toby Jones in Uncle Vanya.

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Do you have a mixtape coming out? No, I haven’t recorded an album. But I do make a little mixtape for every character I play. It’s the best part of the job, really. You sit there for a couple of days, just going through endless albums on Spotify. For [Francis Dolarhyde on] Hannibal, I used some really freaky music, which helped.

Have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight? Every night! There is a naughty, dark side to me. I am quite strongly affected by the moon. So if there’s a full moon I’ll go a little bit crazy. You ever have that feeling where you’re not sure if you’re awake or still dreaming? All the time. That’s one of the things I tap into a lot, because I’m quite active through my sleep. I can wake up fully dressed, on the other side of the room. I will be convinced I’ve met somebody, or been somewhere, that has actually been a dream. It’s very useful for writing and for dreaming up ideas for a character.

Do you feel lucky, punk? I’ve been incredibly lucky. I’ve dabbled with having my celestial chart looked at every couple of years, just for a little tune-up. Every time, the guy sighs, and goes, “What can I say? You’ve just got that little sprinkle of luck.” And I say, “That’s good, because I don’t have the talent, so I really need the luck!” So what are you afraid of? I’m very afraid of deep water. I’m afraid of drowning. Any job I’ve had where there’s been water involved, there’s usually been some kind of incident. It’s a prophecy waiting to be told. And I’m afraid of failure. I often think, “Why did I pick a profession where failure is at your door every second of the day?” I’m quite tough on myself, so I fail more than I win.

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YOU TALKIN’ TO ME?

authenticity, because I think that’s what that question is about. I think I’m authentic. I do the work, not because anyone’s looking over my shoulder. I do it for me. And I do it because I love it. So I think that’s walking the walk.

EXCLUSIVE

Infernal Affairs DEMONIC I Neill Blomkamp returns with an

unholy creature feature.

ans of Neill Blomkamp’s knack for sci-fi will be glad to hear that his first horror feature Demonic is not a complete departure from the genre. There are plenty of high concepts, shady government organisations and sinister technologies that wouldn’t be amiss in District 9, Elysium or Chappie to be found here.

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Horror isn’t an entirely new genre for Blomkamp, having made shorts Rakka, Zygote and the deeply unsettling Cooking With Bill under the Oats Studios banner. So, when the pandemic hit he seized on the opportunity to make a horror feature that tapped into the unease of the time. “I wanted this feeling of dread to run through the film and this feeling of tension,” Blomkamp tells Teasers. “It was sort of zeitgeisty with what everyone was feeling in 2020.” While the rest of us were baking sourdough and binge-watching Tiger King, Blomkamp worked on Demonic, writing and directing it himself and casting Carly Pope (who worked with him on Cooking With Bill) as the lead. The result is part Black Mirror, part The Conjuring as Pope’s character is called by the authorities to speak to her comatose mother via VR. Only she hasn’t spoken

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to her mother since she committed an unforgivable act. So far so sci-fi, but throw in demonic creatures, sacred weapons from the Vatican and possibly the worst drinks with a friend imaginable and Demonic goes full-blown horror. Ever the embracer of new filmmaking technology, Blomkamp turned to volumetric capture to create the virtual world. “I’m not sure if any film has used

FAMILY REUNION Carly Pope plays a woman asked to communicate with her unconscious mother.

it this way yet, which is hilarious for a low-budget horror film. It’s essentially three-dimensional video, it’s extremely new and I think it’ll become more common as the resolution increases. There were 240 cameras running in a dome that you later extrapolate the scene out of.” Scenes where Pope confronts her on-screen mother contain the uncanny eeriness Blomkamp deemed “essential.” But it isn’t a horror film without scares and Demonic has plenty. The demon’s design is as horrifying as it is impressive. Partly inspired by plague masks of the Middle Ages, it was one of the first elements Blomkamp settled on, working with artist and frequent collaborator Eve Ventrue. “I sent her these different elements like black crows and exposed rib cages. She did one illustration that was a complete home run!” he grins. “I love the demon!” As well as jump scares Blomkamp wanted a prevailing sense of unease, even though the film is set on the beautiful Canadian coastline he calls home. “It’s sunny in this region, so how do you create a sense of foreboding? What can you do with sound design and the writing to create a sense of dread? People will have to tell me whether I succeeded or not.” LL ETA| 20 AUGUST / DEMONIC OPENS IN TWO MONTHS. JULY 2021 | TOTAL FILM

SOUNDBYTES Quotable dialogue fromthis month’s movies – and theirstars

“Someone needs to make a freakin’ decision and it’s going to be me. Salt ’n Vinegar is BLUE, and Cheese and Onion is GREEN. OK? Enough with this foolishness.” Thandiwe Newton

36 The average

number of films

each UK adult watched in lockdown last year. Seems a bit low to us…

£3. 8 1 MILLION

is putting her foot down.

“WE’RE GETTING BORING STUFF AND NOT EVEN EXPERIMENTAL MISTAKES BECAUSE PEOPLE ARE AFRAID OF GETTING CANCELLED.”

“I WAS NOT EXCITED ABOUT THE OPPORTUNITY. IT’S JUST NOT WHO I AM. I WAS FULL OF FEAR.” Joaquin Phoenix didn’t relish his moment on the Oscar stage for Joker.

ALL AT SEA Eighteen years on from Peter Weir’s nautical masterpiece, Master And Commander, a prequel based on the first book in the series is being scripted by Patrick Ness.

GOOD THING BAD THING

“The irony was, the guy I was out the night before getting pissed with was Daniel Craig.” Mark Strong blames the outgoing 007 for a catastrophic Bond villain audition during the Brosnan years.

CHARLES GRODIN RIP Midnight Run, The Heartbreak Kid and King Kong (’76) star Charles Grodin has died at the age of 86. See you in the next life.

Donald Glover blames ‘cancel culture’ for artists playing it safe.

Peter Rabbit 2’s opening box office weekend in the UK – the biggest of the pandemic era.

“MAYBE I SHOULD NOT MAKE ANOTHER MOVIE BECAUSE I COULD BE REALLY HAPPY WITH DROPPING THE MIC.” Quentin Tarantino contemplating

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retirement following Once Upon…’s success. JULY 2021 | TOTAL FILM

EXCLUSIVE

Lost in translation PEOPLE JUST DO NOTHING: BIG IN JAPAN I

The Kurupt FM crew bring Brentford to Tokyo…

ou start out in Brentford, just fucking around in a bedroom with some decks, so I guess Japan’s the logical next step!” Director Jack Clough is only half-joking. Taking People Just Do Nothing from an online short to a BBC Three series that ran for five years and won a Bafta, the cast and crew have done Comic Relief skits with Ed Sheeran, made a single with Craig David and played Glastonbury. So why not take on Tokyo?

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one of Kurupt FM’s tracks gets picked up by an obscure Japanese game show, the crew get back together to try their luck at the international scene. “Sometimes when a TV show becomes a film, it loses so much of its heart and soul,” says Clough. “We wanted to make sure it was a cinema-worthy experience, but used the same core crew from the show so we could keep it grounded and step things up in the right way.” So is this the end of People Just Do Nothing (again), or the start of something bigger? “I mean, back in Brentford, I’d have never guessed Japan,” laughs Clough. “Maybe we’ll go to Mars next!” PB ETA| 18 AUGUST /PEOPLE JUST DO NOTHING: BIG IN JAPAN OPENS IN TWO MONTHS.

ASIM CHAUDHRY

What did Tokyo make of Kurupt FM? The Japanese have seen everything before. You’ll be walking down the street and you’ll see a guy dressed up as a Disney princess and a woman pretending to be Sonic the Hedgehog, so you can just be who you want to be in Japan. At the same time, we were definitely getting some looks… Was it easy stepping back into character after a few years off? I basically have a bag in my house and whenever I need to become Chabuddy, I just get the leopard-print shirt, get my furry chest out, and then I’m him. I’m kind of like a shit Primark Clark Kent. Or an Aldi Clark Kent... I’m like if you ordered Superman off Wish.com. Why do you love Chabuddy so much? I think if you play any character with love, then, you know, people will see that. We once spent one whole day arguing about the wording of one joke. But also, I think Brits just love a trier. Chabuddy is morally bankrupt. His intentions are never good. But he’s also harmless. He’s a bullshitter, but he fails at everything he does. All the best comedy characters are loveable losers! PB UBSCRIBE AT WWW.TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS

YMALA ,LASREVINU

“We basically just rented an Airbnb for a week and hashed out loads of ideas for a movie,” says Clough, taking on his first film after directing every episode of the cult series. “We wanted to do it for all the right reasons. And the more we chatted about Japan, the more it just felt right. We basically just wanted to watch this film, so we sort of had to make it…” If you haven’t seen People Just Do Nothing, think The Office with more drum & bass (or Only Fools And Horses with more swearing) – a mockumentary about pirate radio station Kurupt FM, and the four stoners who run it genuinely thinking an audience is listening. MC Grindah (Allan Mustafa) left Brentford at the end of the last series leaving behind his best friend DJ Beats (Hugo Chegwin), local dodgy dealer Chabuddy G (Asim Chaudhry) and idiot/dealer Steves (Steve Stamp). When

WORLD TOUR The hapless Kurupt FM crew go to Japan for their big-screen debut.

THE NEXT BIG THING

Kathryn Newton IS GETTING HER FREAK ON

love going to horror films, but I’m the biggest scaredy cat,” says American actress Kathryn Newton. This may be surprising – after all, Newton starred in Paranormal Activity 4 aged just 14 and next month plays body-hopping slasher killer The Butcher in long-delayed horror comedy Freaky. Next up: Newton makes her MCU debut as Cassie Lang in Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania. The opportunity to play a serial killer who swaps bodies with Vince Vaughn – that isn’t a call you get every day... It was definitely a call that I was wishing for! Christopher [Landon] was talking to me about the character, and I thought, “You’re crazy.” But I really wanted to do it. I didn’t even think twice about it. To be so young, and get to play a serial killer? Every day was a blast. Who was more fun to play – Millie or The Butcher? The Butcher was so much more fun. I was just like Millie in high school – trying to survive; not knowing who you are; not really believing in yourself yet. Sometimes it takes looking at yourself in a different perspective to see how powerful you really are. And I think that’s what the movie is about. In 2017 you starred in Lady Bird, Three Billboards… and Big Little Lies. What did you take away from those experiences? Being a part of those projects that year was such a whirlwind, because they all were received so well. I was such a small part, but it made me realise that every part of making a movie matters. To be a part of something great, it makes everything worth it.

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You’re playing Cassie Lang in Ant-Man 3. How has your MCU experience been so far? It’s definitely a dream come true. I’ve always loved the Marvel Universe. I’ve seen every movie multiple times. I grew up going to those movies with my dad. I’m so honoured and grateful. It’s a dream for me. It’s such a great role, too. JF ETA | 2 JULY / FREAKY OPENS IN CINEMAS NEXT MONTH. JULY 2021 | TOTAL FILM

CAN WE TALK ABOUT...?

AMAZON BUYING MGM

What the blockbuster deal means for Bond and beyond.

hen Amazon snapped up MGM Studios for an extraordinary $8.45bn last month, eyebrows were justifiably raised around Hollywood. This was, by some distance, a Silicon Valley giant’s biggest move into the film industry to date, with Amazon acquiring a library of some 4,000 films, including beloved characters such as Rocky, RoboCop and of course, Bond.

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007 stewards Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson were quick to calm those feeling shaken by the possibility of Bond’s straight-to-streaming future, saying: “We are committed to continuing to make James Bond films for the worldwide theatrical audience” in a swiftly released statement. Under Eon Productions, Broccoli and Wilson jointly own Bond with MGM, and crucially have final say on all 007-related matters. Unless the pair have a change of heart, Bond’s big-screen future is secure (for now). Beyond MI5’s finest, there are reasons to be concerned. At a shareholders’ meeting, Bond-villainalike Jeff Bezos (corporate monopoly, own space travel company) claimed the acquisition of a studio as iconic as MGM was driven by the desire to “reimagine and develop [their] IP for the 21st century”. It’s a dispiriting statement on two fronts: both the coldly corporate re-framing of some of the most culturally significant works of art of our lifetime as ‘intellectual property’, and the way it ignores the duty Amazon now has to preserve almost 100 years of film history. There are unanswered questions in this regard: will the likes of The Graduate, or the The Wizard Of Oz ever make their way to physical media again? Will repertory cinemas be permitted to play such movies? And for those films without IP-mining possibilities, how motivated will Amazon be to make them easily accessible on Prime Video, or otherwise? There are potential wins for audiences. Bond films aren’t cheap to make, but with Amazon bankrolling future entries, money will surely be no object. Dormant franchises such as The Pink Panther and Stargate are ripe for a return to screens if handled properly. And the streamer, to its credit, has largely supported cinemas with exclusive theatrical runs for its original movies. However things shake out, for Amazon it’s a Prime time to be in the film business. JF

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EXCLUSIVE

Björn Again THE MOST BEAUTIFUL BOY IN THE WORLD

I Death In Venice’s teen star re-emerges.

n 1970 director Luchino Visconti held auditions throughout Europe for a boy to play a key role in his lush adaptation of Thomas Mann’s Death In Venice, and found him in shy Swedish 15-year-old newcomer Björn Andrésen. Playing ‘the most beautiful boy in the world’ made Andrésen an international star, but also became a nucleus for emotional anguish and a decades-long healing process.

FOOWGOD

Co-directors Kristina Lindström and Kristian Petri decided to make an intimate documentary portrait of him after Petri worked with Andrésen on other projects and Lindström realised that the actor had a fascinating family life and had also lived through abject objectification. The duo began to earn his trust and filmed him over a five-year period, unearthing parental failure, mental health issues and uncomfortable footage of Andrésen’s exploitative audition. “His life is so incredible and rich and strong – strong stories since he was newly born,” says Lindström via Zoom from Stockholm. “We didn’t know about all this material, of course. It was discovered during this process. When we heard the things that Visconti said, it was like a treasure to see it before your own eyes.”

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It’s not only Visconti’s nowquestionable treatment of his young star that is a revelation, but the fact that Andrésen was – and still is – emotionally and mentally fragile thanks to a complicated childhood, including an aunt who would tape telephone conversations, and the death of a key

BEACH BEAUTY Björn Andrésen during the filming of Death In Venice.

family member shrouded in mystery. The result is a film that explores trauma, the responsibility of filmmakers to safeguard their cast and society’s damaging preoccupation with youth and beauty. “It’s like we start with Björn, and then we move to different chambers and rooms in the big, big house that is his life, with different doors opening.” Some of those doors prove extremely painful but also cathartic for Andrésen, now living almost reclusively and with hoarding issues. Lindström and Petri were aware they were treading a fine line between exploration and exploitation themselves in making the doc. “Continuously, you’re in a process where you have to stop and ask yourself,” admits Lindström. “Even now, when the film is released, we think about it. We’ve shown the film to him during the process, and we had his closest family see it, and every week, still now, we chat with him about things.” The film also raises the question of whether we should look at Death In Venice differently when we understand the toll it took on a child actor. “It was what the film did with him, and how he was picked up afterwards… I can even see it in the film now,” says Lindström. “But you have to see everything in its context, and with your eyes wide open.” JC ETA | 30 JULY / THE MOST BEAUTIFUL BOY IN THE WORLD OPENS NEXT MONTH. JULY 2021 | TOTAL FILM

EXCLUSIVE

ready player lebron SPACE JAM: A NEW LEGACY I King James

rules the courtin an expansive sequel…

fter cinema’s recent absence from our lives, our love for big-screen favourites has grown. So, anyone fancy a film that crams a multiverse of movie homages into one, with the happy hooks of family fun, charismatic sports stars and brimming nostalgia at its Easter-eggy core? If that prospect bounces your ball, the sequel to 1996 pop-culture powerhouse Space Jam will soon await you on court. Replacing Michael Jordan as the sort-of-himself lead, basketball titan LeBron ‘King’ James plays a father whose son, Dom (Cedric Joe), gets sucked into a digital server-space

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by Don Cheadle’s rogue AI. When James leaps to the rescue, he finds himself forced to locate the Looney Tunes line-up in order to defeat digital basketball champs The Goon

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Squad. Duly, Tunes tussle with Goons on court as a Lego Batman Movie-style galaxy of Warner 3000 characters mills around them. Not surprisingly, that gathering took time to assemble. James, who showed comedy form in 2015’s Trainwreck and brought strong voice game to Smallfoot (spot the cameo…), turned down a Jam sequel 15 years ago. Elsewhere, mooted sequels involving Jackie Chan and Justin Lin never took off. When Black Panther star Michael B. Jordan introduced co-producer Ryan Coogler to LeBron’s business manager Maverick Carter, things finally started to move. A later entrant was storied comedy director Malcolm D. Lee (Girls Trip), who Carter reckons slam-dunks the film’s

HAPPY BUNNIES Zendaya and Jeff Bergman voice Lola and Bugs (above); LeBron James joins the Tune Squad (left).

multi-level tones. “Lee is a director who really gets comedy and levity in a way that makes him one of the best comedic directors out there. But he also really understands family and that’s what is at the centre of this movie.” Non-family-friendly Warner movie homages range from Khal Drogo to the droogs and beyond. Scooby-Doo, The Iron Giant, The Wizard Of Oz, King Kong and The Goonies number among the many nods to titles kids might know, yet Lee promises Legacy’s father-son themes will dive as deep as the references stretch wide. “Everybody has family, and everybody has differences with their family, but at the end of the day there’s love, there’s care, there’s acceptance.”

Along with a reserves squad of basketball stars rumoured to appear, there’s also Star Trek: Discovery’s Sonequa Martin-Green on hand, as James’ wife. And, of course, there’s the Looney livewires to have fun with. Even though YouTube-reared kids might need primers on the ’toon squad, everyone from Yosemite Sam to Lola Bunny (voiced by Zendaya) will feature. “The physical comedy that the Looney Tunes characters provide is classic. It always works,” affirms Lee. Assuming Pennywise (spotted) doesn’t eviscerate Bugs, this could be the summer Jam families have been waiting for. KH ETA | 16 JULY 2021/SPACE JAM: A NEW LEGACY OPENS NEXT MONTH. JULY 2021 | TOTAL FILM

BENEDETTA

From his early Dutch provocations like Soldier Of Orange and Spetters to violent, satirical Hollywood sci-fi actioners RoboCop and Starship Troopers to saucy noir Basic Instinct to excess-all-areas Vegas drama Showgirls to his corrosive study of unconventional desire in Elle, Paul Verhoeven sure knows how to rattle a cage. At 82 years of age, Verhoeven has made his most controversial film yet – a biographical tale of 17th-century nun Benedetta Carlini (Virginie Efira) embracing erotic visions and lesbian urges. “Benedetta walks the line between the sacred and the profane,” says Arianna Bocco, president of fearless distributors IFC Films.

FESTIVAL PREVIEW

Cannes Goods

CANNES FILM FESTIVAL | Five films to make you go ‘Oh là là’…

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Talk about a match made in heaven: French provoc-auteur Leos Carax (Holy Motors) directing a musical that was written by Ron and Russell Mael aka Sparks, the crazed, innovative and influential pop duo who are the subject of Edgar Wright’s upcoming doc The Sparks Brothers (see p72). It stars Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard as a comedian and opera singer, respectively, whose two-year-old daughter has a surprising gift, and it promises to be absolutely bonkers. Sparks almost made a manga musical with Tim Burton in the ’80s; this should make up for that falling apart, having been selected to open this year’s festival.

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BERGMAN ISLAND

There are only four female directors in competition this year, but their work is among the most exciting films contending for the Palme d’Or. Perhaps pick of the bunch is the new drama by French writer/director Mia Hansen-Løve (Eden, Things To Come), about an American filmmaking couple (Tim Roth and Phantom Thread’s Vicky Krieps) who hole up on Farö island, the long-time home of Swedish legend Ingmar Bergman, to write a script. The summer advances, their screenplay progresses, and reality and fiction begin to blur… Bergman Island marks HansenLøve’s English-language debut and also stars Mia Wasikowska.

THE FRENCH DISPATCH

The inclusion of Wes Anderson’s latest cinematic confectionary in competition was always likely – it lends some much-needed fun and Hollywood star-wattage to the festival (Covid restrictions permitting). Set in a fictional French city, Anderson’s eighth live-action movie brings to life a collection of stories published in the titular magazine. The editor of said mag is played by Anderson regular Bill Murray, and is inspired by Harold Ross, co-founder of The New Yorker. The French Dispatch, described as “a love letter to journalism”, also stars Frances McDormand, Timothée Chalamet, Saoirse Ronan and many more.

RED ROCKET

Sean Baker’s last movie, The Florida Project, played in the Directors’ Fortnight section of Cannes 2017. His new film, Red Rocket, has graduated to the main comp. It tells the bittersweet tale of Mikey Saber (Simon Rex), a spent porn star who returns to his hometown in Texas. Baker has a great eye for a compelling lead – he discovered Florida Project’s Bria Vinaite on social media, and here casts Rex, who rose to fame as an MTV VJ and popped up in three Scary Movie films but began his career filming solo masturbation scenes in gay porn under the alias ‘Sebastian’. JG ETA | 6-17 JULY /THE CANNES FILM FESTIVAL TAKES PLACE NEXT MONTH. JULY 2021 | TOTAL FILM

EXCLUSIVE

MAX MADS RIDERS OF JUSTICE I Mikkelsen re-teams with

his gang for an unpredictable genre-defier.

he latest film from writer-director Anders Thomas Jensen, Riders Of Justice begins with a bike being stolen, and from there events ripple out, impacting the family of Markus (Mads Mikkelsen), a soldier away on a tour of duty. Returning to Denmark, Markus is contacted by a couple of oddballs who suggest that his wife’s death might not have been totally accidental.

TOTAL FILM | JULY 2021

up in elevator-pitch fashion. “It’s a film about… You can’t be sure of anything. It’s a film about love. It’s a comedyaction-drama. I don’t know. It is a really hard film to pitch and sell. You end up in one of the storylines, and you think, ‘That’s not it.’” Riders Of Justice is Jensen’s fifth feature as director, and the fifth to star

Mikkelsen (Jensen has also scripted more Mikkelsen projects). “I would never do something without him if he’s available,” says the Men & Chicken director. “There’s a lot of people who are like, ‘Ugh, it’s always the same actors.’ But actually, I think we’re building on something. I also like to see films where the old actors pop up. I love to see De Niro in a Scorsese film – I’m not making any comparison at all!” Taciturn Markus doesn’t have the warmest relationships with his grieving daughter Mathilde (Andrea Heick Gadeberg) and the co-conspirators who become his live-in therapists (sort of). “If I had not had Mads, I don’t think I would have dared make him so closed,” says Jensen. “He’s an asshole. But Mads somehow has this [likeability], even though he does horrible things. Some of the really great actors can do that. There’s still something in their eyes that you think, ‘I’m going to stick around.’” Having worked together for 25 years so far, Jensen and Mikkelsen’s partnership shows no signs of waning, despite Mads’ Hollywood popularity. “Right now, he’s doing Indiana Jones, which I was such a huge fan of when I was a kid,” laughs Jensen. “He’s living my dream!” MM ETA | 23 JULY/RIDERS OF JUSTICE OPENS NEXT MONTH. SUBSCRIBE AT WWW.TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS

OGITREV

That kickstarts a rampage of revenge against fearsome biker gang Riders of Justice, but the film takes several hard left turns, ambitiously juggling genre and tone. “I love to watch movies that are a genre mix, because I think sometimes genres do tend to make films predictable,” Jensen tells Teasers. “I understand why they’re there. It’s so that people know exactly what they’re getting. But it’s like, ‘Are we having Italian tonight or sushi?’ It’s also boring. Sometimes it’s nice with a buffet, so you can be surprised.” Mixing humour of the dark and laugh-out-loud varieties with toughedged violence, male bonding and meditations on therapy, Riders Of Justice is a real grab-bag of tones, by turns brutal, absurd and touching. Even Jensen has a hard time summing it

FAMILY TIES Mads Mikkelsen’s Markus with Andrea Heick Gadeberg’s daughter Mathilde.

hen I was 15 years old, I bought my first video: Stand By Me. I’d been taping movies off TV for years, forever schlepping to Woolworths to stock up on Scotch cassettes (“Re-record, not fade away… re-re-rerecord, not fade away”), but being afforded the opportunity to own a finished film was a new thing. Thirty pounds was a lot of money to a teen in the late ’80s (hell, it’s a lot of money to a humble film journalist in 2021), but it seemed like a snip to own my favourite film. I was bitten by the bug. Suddenly, owning my fave film wasn’t enough. I needed to own my Top 10. So I landed a Saturday job in the Fresh n Fruity section of my local Spar. I had, and still have, a phobia of apples (long story), but happily I traumatised myself stocking the shelves with Granny Smiths so I might purchase Rocky IV. In the Christmas hols, I worked nights in a cheese factory, placing circles of roule in the top right-hand corner of selection trays as they trundled past on a conveyor belt. It bought me Carrie, Dawn Of The Dead, First Blood, The Terminator, Christine, Hellraiser, The Lost Boys and, er, Fried Green Tomatoes At The Whistle Stop Café. My Top 10, on a bedroom shelf.

It Shouldn’t Happen To A Film Journalist

Editor-at-Large JAMIE GRAHAM lifts the lid on filmjournalism THIS MONTH DUMPING MY VIDEO COLLECTION.

It’s no longer “party on” for Wayne, Garth and their VHS friends.

10 didn’t quite quench the thirst – and it broke my heart to see them lying there in the trash. These films had gone to university with me. They’d survived six different moves when I rented pokey rooms in London during the first 10 years of my career. They’d made it to the house I bought with my wife when we got married, albeit sitting in the loft, replaced on shelves downstairs by DVD and Why bring this up now? Because Blu-ray copies. From time to l’ve just taken my entire video collection down to the local dump time, when I needed to go up into the loft to fetch down the and poured it into a skip. There must have been close to 300 videos Christmas decorations, perhaps, – it turned out that owning my Top or to store an item of furniture,

BAD TIP

‘PEOPLE STOPPED TOSSING STUFF AND STARED AT THE CASCADING VIDEOS IN HORROR’ GAMESRADAR.COM/TOTALFILM

I’d sift through my collection. It would immediately take me back to my teens and my twenties, conjuring precious memories. But now I’m moving again and just don’t have room. No charity shop would take them. My offers on Facebook and Twitter met with resounding silence. So I poured them into the skip, and my guts with them.

BE KIND, REWIND

I thought the pain would pass. It hasn’t, and not just because I tweeted a picture and someone responded that my copy of RoboCop would’ve fetched good money on eBay. I honestly feel like I’ve committed a crime – to cinema, to my younger self – and at the risk of sounding melodramatic and/or tasteless, I can’t stop thinking about the burning of books in Nazi Germany. If I could rewind time by a couple of weeks, I wouldn’t take them to the dump. I’d take them to the new house and bury them in a waterproofed hole in the garden, if need be – anything to keep that piece of me. The trip to the skip has scarred me, though it was kind of lovely when three or four people stopped tossing their own stuff and stared at the cascading videos in horror and mournful respect. They then shuffled closer, offering consolatory words and talking fondly about certain titles they could see. Ah, the unifying power of cinema! And I did keep back my copy of Stand By Me. I own it several times over on DVD and Blu, in various international editions, but that VHS is going nowhere. Until, that is – and I say this in all seriousness – it’s tucked beside me in my coffin and lowered into my grave. Jamie will return next issue… For more misadventures, follow: @jamie_graham9 on Twitter.

JULY 2021 | TOTAL FILM

EXCLUSIVE

Gripping Yarn NIGHT OF THE KINGS I Fact and fantasy

collide in aprison movie like no other.

t was like a kingdom, with kings, with queens. It was a sort of fantastical place,” says Philippe Lacôte, the West African writer-director of Night Of The Kings. He’s recalling an early trip to the Ivory Coast’s notorious La MACA jail, where his mother served time as a political prisoner. “La MACA is an open prison,” Lacôte explains. “There’s a lot of public places where you can mix with prisoners. As a child, it was very strange for me. It was a real treasure of imagination.”

TOTAL FILM | JULY 2021

that he will be killed if he finishes his story before morning, Roman embellishes Zama’s tale with a fantastical backstory involving warring kingdoms and shapeshifting sorcerers. Much like Roman’s yarn, the film is “a hard mix between reality and fiction” according to Lacôte, combining

real footage of the 2010-11 Ivorian Crisis with West African folklore. The exterior of the real La MACA features in the film’s opening moments, but it wasn’t practical to shoot inside a working facility, so an intricate set was constructed, working from images of the real prison. Adding further to the authenticity, 25 per cent of the extras cast were former La MACA inmates themselves, lending the film a chaotic energy as they make their feelings about Roman’s story heard loud and clear. “I didn’t want to have a group who would react very politely,” Lacôte smiles. On the contrary, the inmates enthusiastically convey delight or dissatisfaction at every twist and turn in the tale, even acting out moments in real-time. “In the Ivory Coast, young people have a lot of energy. This way, we created a very alive prison.” The film has already been released in Lacôte’s home country, where it packed out cinemas for three weeks straight, and has been enthusiastically received on the festival circuit. But it’s the imminent global release that has Lacôte excited. “African cinema is not only for small festivals, for a few people,” the filmmaker nods. “It could have a big audience.” JF ETA | 23 JULY/NIGHT OF THE KINGS OPENS IN CINEMAS NEXT MONTH. SUBSCRIBE AT WWW.TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS

EDUTITLA

The memory never left Lacôte, but it was a chance encounter with a childhood friend, who also served time in La MACA, that sparked the idea for a feature film. “He told me a real story. He said that in La MACA, there is a ritual to take a prisoner who becomes ‘Roman’ – the guy who would tell stories.” In La MACA, the inmates run the asylum. Under rule of the Dangôro (Inmate King), one of the ways that order is maintained is through storytelling. Deathly ill, the outgoing Dangôro Blackbeard (Steve Tientcheu) names a brand-new prisoner (Bakary Koné) Roman to give his criminal subjects a night to remember. Roman reluctantly regales them with a true story about the death of renowned outlaw Zama King. But after learning

LIFE STORY A prison’s new Roman has to elevate the story of Zama King to new heights – and lengths – if he is to survive.

EXCLUSIVE

FRIGHT KNIGHT THE GREEN KNIGHT I David Lowery

on his thrilling and weird Arthurianepic.

f Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, Pete’s Dragon and The Old Man And The Gun all feel wildly different, it’s news to director David Lowery. “People are like, ‘You’re making a medieval film? What a crazy left turn.’ I was like, ‘No! Of course that’s what I would make next! What else could I possibly make other than a medieval fantasy film?’”

A fan of Arthurian lore since he was a kid, Lowery first read the epic poem that the film’s based on in his freshman English class, alongside The Iliad and The Odyssey. “We ended the semester with Sir Gawain And The Green Knight,” he says. “I loved it then, and I really loved how strange it was.” The story concerns Dev Patel’s Sir Gawain, a knight of the Round Table (and Arthur’s nephew). The headstrong young man accepts a challenge to take on the titular brute (Ralph Ineson) in a contest that will come back to haunt him one year hence… Despite the macabre tone and avant-garde visuals the film boasts, Lowery was inspired by mainstream genre classics. “At some point, in 2018, I just had a wild inkling that it’d be fun to make a fantasy movie,” he reflects. “I love The Lord Of The Rings. I’m a huge fan of Ron Howard’s Willow. I unpacked some action figures I had as a child, and I just thought to myself, ‘It’d be really fun to make an epic quest movie, a fantasy film.’ I just started to think about potential source material, and Sir Gawain And The Green Knight flashed through my brain. And I just decided to start writing.” Other varied touchstones were Scorsese’s Silence, Tarkovsky’s Andrei

Rublev, Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon and Burton’s Sleepy Hollow. “It’s medieval in a sense,” says Lowery, “but it’s also completely fantastical, and there is no specific time period that it’s set in that corresponds to our own human history.” The enviable supporting cast includes Sean Harris, Kate Dickie, Alicia Vikander, Joel Edgerton and Barry Keoghan, but of casting Patel in the lead, Lowery explains that “the Gawain I wrote was a rather unsavoury fellow. So I knew I needed an actor who was charismatic, who the audience would side with no matter what. I knew that he would be able to get the character where he needed to be in the darkest of moments, and, at the same time, be so enduringly likeable that the audience would root for him no matter what.” Much in the same way, it seems, that we would follow Lowery no matter which genre he’s working in. “I like being unpredictable,” he smiles. “As much as I feel that all these movies are cut from the same cloth, I’m really happy that they consistently surprise people. I hope that I never bore anybody.” MM

LIGHT AND DARK Dev Patel stars opposite Alicia Vikander (right). TRUE GRIT Patel brings his likeability to an unsavoury protagonist (below). A WORLD AWAY The landscapes may look familiar, but The Green Knight takes place in a wholly imagined land (below right).

‘I HAD A WILD INKLING THAT IT’D BE FUN TO MAKE A FANTASY MOVIE’ DAVID LOWERY

TNEMNIATRETNE

TOTAL FILM | JULY 2021

ETA| 6 AUGUST /THE GREEN KNIGHT OPENS IN CINEMAS THIS SUMMER. .TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS

GREEN LIGHT Director David Lowery on location (left). EPIC TALE Patel’s Gawain hits the road on his horse (below left).

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JULY 2021 | TOTAL FILM

BETWEEN TAKES

FELICITY JONES

The Last Letter From Your Lover star talks puddings and Rogue One boots.

writing process. I think that experience bred this idea of falling off the tightrope – that you’ve got to, at some point, fall off in order to achieve something really interesting and embrace the unknown.

What is the first thing you do when you get on a set? I always like to have a little mooch around my trailer, and make friends with it – light a candle. I often have a lot of images connected to the character I’m playing so I’ll put those up around the trailer. On The Last Letter From Your Lover, I had spoken with Hadley Freeman to get an understanding of a contemporary journalist [for my character]. So without sounding too stalkery, I had lots of images of Hadley Freeman! I will also make sure I drink a coffee, then I do a warm-up, which comes from doing theatre – that’s quite embarrassing if anyone comes in when I’m making these bizarre and weird actory sounds. What do you take on-set? I like to have the script with me at all times, and I always have a yoga mat. Sometimes when you’re waiting, it’s good to limber up. I never take my phone directly onto set. I find it just throws you out of the world that you’re in. [The Aeronauts director] Tom Harper doesn’t like to have phones on set, which I can really understand. If you’re constantly checking your Sainsbury’s app, then you’re bouncing out of that world. Do you have any on-set superstitions? I guess I just like to keep it playful and alive. Often you’re repeating things over and over again. I think the key is to keep a bit of chaos; it’s this idea of not being a good girl on camera [laughs]. Do you eat a hot or a cold lunch? I’m definitely a hot lunch person. I get ravenously hungry when I’m shooting. Often you have the most traditional English puddings on set, which you would never probably eat in normal life. I always think that a little bit of everything is the key to happiness…

TOTAL FILM | JULY 2021

‘I HAD THESE ARMY BOOTS THEY ATTACHED VELCRO STRAPS TO, TO MAKE THEM MORE STAR WARS’ Jones with Nabhaan Rizwan in The Last Letter From Your Lover.

Have you ever stolen anything from a film set? I kept my boots from Rogue One. I had these heavy army boots they attached velcro straps to, to make them more Star Wars. When I was in the gym I’d be running in the boots because I knew I had to do all these running sequences in them, and I didn’t want to be sprawling all over the place. So I became very attached to that pair of boots and I was given them. I did wear them a few times after, I just took the velcro off. No one knew they had been through a galaxy. Do you hang out with other cast members? It was a very familial atmosphere on The Last Letter, and that came from [director] Augustine [Frizzell]. Everyone got together at the flat she was staying in, and we all had a game of Werewolf, which was quite a good bonding exercise. Do you go to wrap parties? Yes! I definitely used to love a wrap party, particularly when I was about 18. On one particular wrap party, I had to be carried out! I still go when I can; I think they’re a really lovely tradition, a ritual of closing what is a very intimate experience. I’ve worked in Germany, and they have a launch party, a midway party, and a wrap party! JC ETA|6AUGUST/THE LAST LETTER FROM YOUR LOVER OPENS IN CINEMAS THIS SUMMER. SUBSCRIBE AT WWW.TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS

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What’s your best on-set experience? Probably doing Like Crazywhere I had such freedom to improvise, and I absolutely loved being involved in the

What’s your worst on-set experience? Any time I’ve had tonsillitis. The film industry is such that unless you’re dead, you don’t get a day off. So on a couple of occasions I’ve had to go on set and do the best I can with my throat completely swollen and blocked, and just coming out with a low growl, to get through the day.

EXCLUSIVE

BLOODY MAMA WILDLAND I Danish crime yarn makes you an

offer you can’trefuse…

rom a country well known for its Scandi noir, Danish drama Wildland offers something a little different. Jeanette Nordahl’s directorial debut deals with a low-level criminal family. “It’s not The Sopranos,” she says, “We don’t have a huge mansion.” Nevertheless, the claustrophobic confines of the domicile where Bodil (Sidse Babett Knudsen) and her thuggish offspring reside is where a lot of this slow-burn story plays out.

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“I think it was all about trying to say, ‘Can we create tension in taking all the danger inside the house?” says Nordahl. “I was trying to turn everything upside down – all the normal violence you have, let’s just put that in the periphery. I mean, the characters are not really fighting against outside enemies. They’re fighting against themselves.” Set in the Danish countryside near Odense, the dynamic shifts when Bodil’s niece Ida (Sandra Guldberg Kampp) comes to stay and witnesses first-hand the way her aunt rules the roost. The drama is dominated by Knudsen, following in the well-heeled footsteps of Shelley Winters (Bloody Mama), Jacki Weaver (Animal Kingdom) and Lesley Manville (Let Him Go) as the most ruthless of movie matriarchs. Nordahl, who co-wrote the script with Ingeborg Topsøe, knew Knudsen

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from her time as an assistant director on Borgen, the political drama that made the Danish actress a global star. When it came to building the vampish Bodil, they worked from the outside in. “We shook hands and said, ‘How crazy can we go with her?’ We got the hair, we got the nails, we got the boobs, we got the highest heels, the tightest pants.” Only after that did they dial back her look. As Nordahl puts it, Wildland was never about making a political statement with its female characters. “That was not what mattered to me,” she says. It was more about allowing women to take the role of the antihero. “Basically, let’s give them a lot of blind spots. And see what happens. That was something we wanted to try out.” JM ETA| 6 AUGUST/ WILDLAND OPENS IN TWO MONTHS.

FAMILY VALUES Sidse Babett Knudsen and Sandra Guldberg Kampp star as a criminal matriarch and her young niece.

SIDSE BABETT KNUDSEN

What drew you to Wildland? I really liked the script. It was quite special. It had a personal voice. It was very impressive. You could just read it, and [the writers] knew what they were doing. And the characters are very detailed. Everything was just a little bit different. I’ve got a feeling that they were quite brave. Of course, it’s a dark piece. But you could feel the playfulness.

What does Bodil’s appearance, with the manicure and gold rings, say about her? She is the mother, the mother who would do everything for her family. And normally if you see that, you see somebody who’s very self-effacing. And I love that the family is most important. So it takes all her focus, but [she’s] super vain. Big ego. I can hug you but I can scratch you… there’s something spiky there! Do you watch many mafia movies? I do. I do. And I think there’s something very appealing about any sort of community. Seeing people being loyal to each other, because of something greater… e want to see that. I even love The West Wing because of the politics, but also because they were backing the president. We’ll sacrifice ourselves for something bigger! JM JULY 2021 | TOTAL FILM

EXCLUSIVE

ISLAND LIVING LIMBO I Ben Sharrock’s deadpan tale brilliantly

reframes the refugee crisis…

t’s been very strange, very bittersweet,” admits Scottish filmmaker Ben Sharrock, whose acclaimed movie Limbo was selected for Cannes 2020 – and numerous other festivals – but Covid-inspired cancellations and travel restrictions meant he’s not been able to bask in the glory. “The film has done everything and more than we wanted it to do,” he adds, “but at the same time, we kind of experienced it all being stuck in our flat.”

TOTAL FILM | JULY 2021

a global casting call. “Initially, my intention was to cast a Syrian,” he says. “And we just didn’t find anyone that quite worked.” He then saw British actor Amir El-Masry (Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker). “I immediately thought ‘That’s Omar!’ I went to bed that night, and I just dreamt of him in the role.” Filmed in treacherous conditions on The Uists in the Outer Hebrides (“It was almost impossible,” Sharrock grimaces), Limbo manages that fine balance between entertainment and enlightenment. A wry meditation on family, home and cultural identity, it will inevitably raise questions about the British government’s refugee policies too. As Sharrock notes, “I absolutely think the UK can do more.” The discourse starts here. JM ETA | 30 JULY/ LIMBO OPENS NEXT MONTH.

AMIR EL-MASRY

How did you prep for Limbo? I had done a series before called The State with Peter Kosminsky. So I had already done some research around the region itself, in Syria. But in Ben’s script, it was less about the refugee crisis and more about detailing someone’s journey through life… and so I drew from my own personal experiences. How did you find the film’s comedic tone? Ben and I had a core connection on set where we would just know what either of us wanted from the scene. And I knew tonally what level he wanted. With just one word, which was ‘Buster.’ Go Buster! So when he would say ‘Give me nothing’, then I would say, ‘So you want Buster Keaton?’ ‘OK, yeah!’ What were the conditions like shooting in the Outer Hebrides? It was very, very difficult, but I think all those elements were very useful. As sadistic as that sounds. Just even a small percentage of what real refugees went through. The weather was so fucking tough. We had gale-force winds of up to 55 or 60 miles per hour. And I was just wearing a thin blue jacket with a light jumper underneath throughout most of the shoot. JM SUBSCRIBE AT WWW.TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS

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Still, this tale of Omar (Amir ElMasry), a Syrian asylum seeker stuck on a fictional Scottish island has caught the eye, even gaining two Bafta nods. After studying in Syria in 2009, the Edinburgh-raised Sharrock gradually moved towards directing. But it was the civil war in Syria and the ensuing refugee crisis that led to writing Limbo. He sat down armed with “a big list of things” he wanted to avoid, notably using a western character as a vehicle to tell the story. “I was very clear from the beginning that I wanted to put the refugees front and centre of the film, and for it to be about their story.” Sharrock’s intention was also to use “a kind of absurdist, deadpan humour”, already seen in his 2015 debut Pikadero. Finding an actor capable of this was tricky, with Sharrock and his wife/ producer Irune Gurtubai initiating

SEEKING ASYLUM Amir El-Masry (left) with Vikash Bhai, Ola Orebiyi and Kwabena Ansah in Limbo.

Look out for Morrison in Occupation Rainfall.

remind me of my husband.” I felt sorry for her, because we could go home at the end of the day and wipe the tattoos off. Some of our folk out there are still fighting with demons. So the film still resonates. You shared the screen with Marlon Brando in The Island Of Dr. Moreau – what’s your war story? Everyone went crazy! But for me, it was just wonderful to stand next to [Brando]. I said, “Whatever I do, I’m Marlon’s right-hand dog.” Because I played a dog man. I’d pass him water, never leave his side. Doing that, I was able to listen to him practise his lines. The best thing I heard him say was to the second director John Frankenheimer. “We don’t need that in the movie. Put the camera on this guy!” [Points to himself] You weren’t a big Star Wars fan when you were cast in Attack Of The Clones. What did it mean to play Jango Fett? Back in 1977 I’d just left high school, and there were other things going on. So I missed all of that. The funny thing was, I was doing a TV show in Sydney at the time. I wanted my hair to be different. So every time I see Jango Fett, I get annoyed!

THE HERO

Temuera Morrison The Kiwi character actor on his bountiful career

You must have been thrilled to get the call to play Boba Fett in The Mandalorian? I was surprised that they even bothered! I don’t know the words to express it, but I was grateful. It was a big buzz for me. Sometimes things just line up. This was definitely one of those. It was an honour and a pleasure to be a part of the renaissance of the bounty hunter.

still want to play with the big boys,” says Temuera Morrison, the New Zealand-born actor who exploded onto the scene with Once Were Warriors, played Aquaman’s dad in the DCEU and went under the hood as two generations of bounty-hunting Fetts in Attack Of The Clones and The Mandalorian S2. Coming up he has Antipodean sci-fi sequel Occupation Rainfall, and the first chapter of The Book Of Boba Fett...

Y T T EG ,Y E N S ID , M L I F T NEMNIAT R E T N E ,T NEMNIAT R E T N E ERU T A N G I S

Occupation was a hit on streaming. What excited you about returning for Occupation Rainfall? I just thought that these young people had tenacity. They had limited budget and experience. The thing is, they go out there and make their film. But the big reason was to try and get sharp, and get back in front of the camera. I knew there was a lot of action, and I’m getting a little bit more mature now, so I wanted to keep up the fitness side of things. Is it true that The Piano inspired you to become an actor? I was working on the radio at the time, and Jane Campion was looking for Maori extras. I put the call out, and about 200 Maori turned up for the auditions. I worked as a go-between between the

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Maori cast and Jane. And then I got the part on Shortland Street, our first New Zealand soap, but a Shortland Street doctor wasn’t quite the same as working on a great film with a great director! Once Were Warriors was a breakthrough role. Was it tough to play a character as explosive as Jake? That’s the thing I had to work on – the spontaneity. I’m a pretty laidback dude. I don’t even get angry. The biggest compliment [I got] was from a woman who used to be abused. She said, “You

CLONE WARS (top to bottom) As the abusive Jake in Once Were Warriors; playing Jango Fett in Star Wars: Episode II – Attack Of The Clones; in upcoming release Occupation Rainfall.

‘I MIGHT HAVE PUSHED THE PARAMETERS A LITTLE FAR, BUT THEY LIKED THE ENERGY!’

You brought your warrior heritage to Boba… I was brought up with a taiaha. [Boba] uses a gaffi stick, it’s a Fijian war weapon. I was also brought up with the haka. A number of takes, I might have pushed the parameters a little bit far, but Robert and Jon liked the energy! What can you say about The Book Of Boba Fett? It’s coming in December! We’ve got Robert Rodriguez putting it all together now, with Jon Favreau. They know what they’re doing. I’ve just been blessed that, at the moment, we’re on good terms, and everything’s clicking. JF

ETA | 9 JULY / OCCUPATION RAINFALL OPENS IN CINEMAS AND RELEASES ON DIGITAL NEXT MONTH. JULY 2021 | TOTAL FILM

crumby-looking passenger boat, La Quila, bobs up and down by the side of a wooden dock that has seen better days. Passengers, dressed in early-20thcentury finery, are making their way off this less-than-seaworthy vessel, given instructions by the rather familiar figure of Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson. “We have a dock on the left and dock on the right,” he cries. “It’s confusing – that’s why we call it a paradox.” Ahem. Roll up, roll up ladies and gentlemen… and welcome to Jungle Cruise. It’s June 2018 (yes, that long ago) and Total Film has relocated to Kauai, the verdant Hawaiian island famed for hosting numerous Jurassic Park movies. Today, the land around a giant reservoir is doubling for Brazil, circa 1916. A twofloor wooden tavern, bedecked with oil lamps, a chandelier and grand piano, stands close by the dock. On the opposite side of the river is a marketplace, filled with birdcages, plants and baskets of vegetables, and a bar, with wicker chairs, an old brass coffee machine and a blue-and-white tea set. Johnson, sporting a waistcoat, natty red neckerchief and a cap that gives him the look of Humphrey Bogart in The African Queen, is realising what can only be described as a lifelong dream. Or at least one that stretches back to 2003, when he was kicking back in his local multiplex. “The first Pirates Of The Caribbean trailer came out and I was blown away,” he explains later, joining TF in the tavern between scenes. “And it created this feeling inside me that I’ll never forget… I remember thinking I would love to have that opportunity to make a movie based off an iconic ride.” One of the original Disneyland attractions, ‘Jungle Cruise’ was designed as a river cruise adventure, as passengers were spirited on a 1930s steamboat along some of the world’s major waterways. Walt Disney himself was the first skipper when the park opened in 1955. Live animals were even initially planned to be used, an idea later dropped, but it was the captain’s TOTAL FILM | JULY 2021

DOCK ‘N’ ROLL Dwayne Johnson stars as steamer captain Frank Wolff.

JUNGLECRUISE

COVER STORY THE BILLIONS STAR ON HIS ITALIAN JOB. What was your initial interest in Jungle Cruise? There’s a lot of things about the script… not even stuff that I do in it. But I just thought it was a really way more interesting script than I thought it was going to be. It goes [in] really unexpected, interesting directions. So I was very impressed that they took this ride and turned it into the thing that they’re making.

Your character Nilo is the boss of the town. Were you inspired by anyone you’d met? There were lots of things that were in my head. I’m Italian, the character’s Italian, there’s people in my life that I’ve known that were sort of like this. I’m sort of a bad guy. But I’m not like a really menacing bad guy. I’m a bit of a goofball bad guy. Is he larger than life? Yes. And a particular kind of Italian man. There’s a word in Italian and Neapolitan, which is ‘guapo’, which is not such a nice word. But it means a kind of slick dude and I know somebody in my life that was like that, growing up, so there was a bit of that. He’s no longer around. So I’m free to do whatever I want to him! Your character has a (real) cockatoo. Does it scratch you? No, no, no. It’s a nice bird. But I had to work with the bird a little bit to get the bird comfortable with me, because they’re very sensitive. I’ve worked with other birds, but not a bird like this ever before. They don’t need a whole lot of handling. The birds I’d worked with before needed more handling. So I had to figure that out. But I didn’t have to do so much with this bird. She’s really sweet. JM TOTAL FILM | JULY 2021

spiel, characterised by some groanworthy puns (“There are a couple of toucans, if we had another we would have a six pack!”), that was truly memorable. As rides go, it’s apple-pie wholesome. “It has this vintage quality from 1955 to today,” remarks Johnson, who first experienced its gentle pleasures on his honeymoon to former wife Dany Garcia in his mid-twenties. “You could bring a baby, you could bring your grandparents, everybody could enjoy it together,” adds Jaume Collet-Serra, the Spanish director entrusted with adapting it for the big screen. “It was

While the story fluctuated as it fell into the hands of screenwriter Michael Green (Logan, Blade Runner 2049), Johnson’s role as Frank Wolff remained carved in stone. Running his ‘Jungle Navigation Company’ out of Porto Velho, Wolff ferries tourists along the Amazon on his ramshackle tramp steamer, fending off the slick Italian businessman Nilo who is aiming for a monopoly on all the port’s boats. Wolff gets his chance to clear his debts when he picks up Dr. Lily Houghton and her brother McGregor, taking them on a lifechanging journey.

so beloved. It was clear that we wanted to make a movie that was like that.” Before Pirates Of The Caribbean, adapting a theme park ride into a movie was never high on the list of most studio agendas. But when The Curse Of The Black Pearl grossed $654m (ultimately spawning four sequels), Hollywood took notice. In 2004, the idea of adapting the Jungle Cruise ride was first floated; seven years after that Tim Allen and Tom Hanks were mooted as potential stars. Then, in 2015, Disney announced that a script by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa (Bad Santa) was being developed for Johnson, much to his glee.

Blending archaeology, actionadventure and a splash of supernatural fantasy, Jungle Cruise wears its influences on its sleeve – notably Romancing The Stone, the 1984 adventure classic starring Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner, and the Indiana Jones series. “Dwayne’s such a huge fan of cinema,” says producer Hiram Garcia, “and he has these visions of things he wants to be able to achieve, especially looking up to the Harrison Fords and those movies like that. There was a kind of character and a kind of space he wanted to play in.” Although Johnson once mooted Wonder Woman’s Patty Jenkins as a

‘I THOUGHT IMMEDIATELY… HERE IS A PHENOMENAL OPPORTUNITY TO REAL Y DIG INTO ROMANCE’

BIRD IN THE HAND Paul Giamatti is Nilo, Frank’s arch-enemy trying to take down his business (above). TO BE BLUNT… Jack Whitehall and Emily Blunt play siblings McGregor and Lily Houghton (opposite, middle). JUNGLE BOOGIE Director Jaume Collet-Serra with Johnson (opposite).

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JUNGLECRUISE

says. “If you want to have the tone of Romancing The Stone, let’s include the romantic aspect.” Intriguingly, Johnson has never had a romantic role in his career. “Oftentimes, the characters I was playing in the past, if there was a family element, there was a little bit of fracturing that I had to overcome,” he says. At one point, adds Flynn, there was talk of creating a fizz between Johnson and Naomie Harris’ scientist in Rampage, but “kissing while saving the world” was a no-go. “You have to be careful in terms of forcing a love story into screenplays. So here’s a chance for it to be really organic and earned.” When Johnson had that meeting with Collet-Serra, he realised this was his chance to show his softer side. “It was almost like the heavens opened up,” he says. “And I thought immediately… here is just a phenomenal opportunity to really dig into romance. Something that I’ve been wanting to do for a long time, but I certainly never wanted to force it. It all happened so… serendipitously.” He grins. “I think that’s the word.” McGregor was refashioned as the In the original script the romance brother and romance was born, between Frank and Lily was barely although at that point, there was no hinted at, says Collet-Serra, with Lily female lead attached. “So it was a bit arriving to the Amazon with her boyfriend. “So it made Frank the third of a bold move on my part,” laughs wheel.” The director wanted to lean in Collet-Serra. Fortunately, Johnson had the opposite direction, not least because a strong idea. “I told Sean Bailey who’s the president of Disney… I said that major influence Romancing The Stone there’s one woman who we have to go was powered by a potent love story get. And it was Emily Blunt.” The studio between the Douglas and Turner had just worked with her on Mary characters. “Let’s not be afraid,” he potential candidate to direct, ColletSerra was always in the mix following a trio of Liam Neeson thrillers (Unknown, Non-Stop, Run All Night) and hit shark actioner The Shallows. “He was on the cusp. There were big movies going after him,” notes Garcia, referring to the sequel to Suicide Squad which was also rivalling for his attentions. Collet-Serra was ready to make the step up. “As a director, you want to play in that sandbox and see what it’s like.” The Spaniard first met Johnson, Garcia and producing partner Beau Flynn in Atlanta, when they were shooting 2018’s ape thriller Rampage. At the end of the meeting, Johnson fired one more question in his direction. “I said, ‘What do you think the movie is about?’ He didn’t even think about it, he didn’t hang on it. He just said, ‘The movie is about love, two people falling in love.’ It was really beautiful when he said that. And when he said it, I saw it. And that’s what you’ll find in a lot of this.”

FAIRGROUND ATTRACTION

JULY 2021 | TOTAL FILM

COVER STORY

Poppins Returns, which immediately gave them an ‘in’ with the British star. Before Blunt read the script, she wasn’t convinced. “It sounded like maybe it would be the girlfriend part or something,” she chuckles. “I just imagined… I’m like the damsel tied to a tree.” Then she read Lily’s introductory scene, as she sneaks around a private library in Piccadilly Circus, looking for some vital clues to lead her to the Amazon and the so-called “legend of the tears of the moon”, where she hopes to find the Tree of Life, said to have the potential to cure all ailments. It quickly became apparent that Dr. Lily Houghton is anything but a damsel in distress. “She’s really free-spirited and tenacious and funny and heedless,” says Blunt. “She’s the worst person possible for the rather cynical, jaded Frank.” Calling her “recklessly brave”, she adds, “She’s the kind of character who thinks she knows everything.” Wearing rust-coloured slacks, brown boots and a mint-green blouse, Blunt’s blonde hair is piled under headwear that immediately screams ‘Indiana Jones’. “Why do you think I picked this hat?!” she smirks. From vine swinging to ziplining and running over rooftops, there’s been

TOTAL FILM | JULY 2021

plenty of action for Blunt, though this morning she’s been shooting a more leisurely hop onto Frank’s boat from the jetty with the help of her brother McGregor – played by British actor/ comedian Jack Whitehall. Dressed in a cream three-piece suit and tie, the Fresh Meat star looks deliciously out-of-place. “He’s absolutely hilarious,” Blunt remarks (it was she who chemistry-read in New York with all of her potential ‘siblings’ before clicking with Whitehall). “We all find

[Jon Favreau’s 2019 live action/CG remake of] The Lion King, which I’m kind of devastated about. But this will definitely make up for that.” Undoubtedly, McGregor’s comic stylings – as the slightly cowardly, slightly pompous Englishman abroad – seems perfectly suited to Whitehall. “I kind of like playing characters that are in this ballpark,” he admits. “It’s a kind of British comic tradition of playing… these types of men that are very highly strung and always on the edge. You’re putting

ourselves rather too funny on this film. We’ll see if everyone else does!” When Whitehall saunters over for a chat, it’s clear he’s having the time of his life. A Lion King super-fan (“it is Shakespeare with fur, sister!” he rants in one of his stand-up routines), Whitehall says, “I’m sort of obsessed with Disney. And I think Disney are aware of how obsessed I am with them. Someone certainly showed someone quite high up at Disney my ode to The Lion King, which didn’t get me a part in

him into a world that is so alien, and the stakes are so high, and it feels so real.”

‘WE ALL FIND OURSELVES RATHER TOO FUNNY ON THIS FILM. WE’LL SEE IF EVERYONE ELSE DOES!’

BATTLE ROYALE Jesse Plemons is the submarine-piloting Prince Joachim (bottom).

UP THE CREEK

‘Real’ is exactly what Jungle Cruise has been aiming for. Construction on the sets by Jean-Vincent Puzos, the production designer who brought James Gray’s Amazonian adventure The Lost City Of Z to life, began six months earlier in January. Workers had to endure torrential rains, though thankfully the

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JUNGLECRUISE builds withstood the flooding. “They set a record for rainfall, 50 inches in one day here,” notes Flynn. “A lot of the island was wiped out.” The production helped with Hawaiian flood relief, donating portions of the set to the non-profit Habitat for Humanity. Despite the expense and weather issues of shooting in Hawaii, ColletSerra felt it vital they build as many sets as possible rather than use green screen. “Especially in the first 30 minutes of the movie, to kind of really immerse the audience into the world. And then, as the journey starts, and other visual effects take over, at least it feels like the movie’s more grounded.” Blunt – despite sloshing her way through the mud and rain this morning – agrees. “I think that really kicked us off in the right way. We really knew what film we were trying to make.” The verisimilitude extends to Frank’s boat, which will bring Frank and Lily closer together as they journey along the Amazon. “The boat is a relic and how it’s put together… it’s very similar to Han Solo’s Millennium Falcon,” smiles Johnson. This “hunk of junk” is as big a character as anything else in the film. “She’s sort of cobbled together from pieces of wood or iron… and she looks kind of like a Frankenstein boat,” says Blunt, noting that Bogart’s own vessel in The African Queen was an inspiration. “It’s Frank’s baby. The boat is his family.” As the film’s trailer reveals, Frank has been looking for the Tree of Life for years and doesn’t believe it exists. But he would seem to be in the minority, with Lily and her brother in a race against time with Prince Joachim (played by Jesse Plemons, complete with Teutonic accent and his own submarine). Collet-Serra calls him “a delicious character that is not your traditional villain”, with Plemons bringing this larger-than-life figure to screen. “He had to out-stage the visual effects of the movie, and he did that wonderfully.” There are further mysteries in Jungle Cruise, not least involving a Conquistador played by Édgar Ramírez (who worked with Blunt on The Girl On The Train) who has seemingly been trapped in the Amazon for centuries. Drawn to the idea of working in the VFX realm, Ramirez got to visit famed visual effects house Industrial Light & Magic. “It was like entering the Stranger Things facility,” he marvels. “You know, it’s like I saw the real E.T. and I took a picture next to it. I was like a kid. I mean, E.T. was

CLASSIC MOVIES, COOL RIDES… THE FILMS THATWENT THE OTHER WAY…

JURASSIC PARK: THE RIDE

Inspired by a scene from Michael Crichton’s book that never made Spielberg’s movie, as Dr. Alan Grant and the kids float along the river, participants got the chance to tour Isla Nublar. The crescendo, a huge T-Rex encounter followed by an 80-foot water flume drop, was so scary even Spielberg refused to test it.

BACK TO THE FUTURE: THE RIDE

There was 1.21 gigawatts of fun to be had with this one, as ‘volunteers’ slip into the DeLorean and are taken through time, even back to the Ice Age and the Cretaceous period, in a chase after Biff Tannen. It was so popular, a former employee taped the whole thing and sold bootleg VHS copies for years.

SAW: THE RIDE

Whoever thought the Saw franchise would make a family-friendly rollercoaster at Thorpe Park must need their heads testing. Those brave enough to try it out are confronted with rotating blades and spiked floors before a 100-foot vertical drop. So fiendish, you’d think Jigsaw had dreamt it up.

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY – MISSION BREAKOUT!

Join Rocket Raccoon on an adventure to free the other Guardians from The Collector, who has got them all trapped in display cases. The ride itself is a pant-wetting drop tower, accompanied by some choice rock tunes from Star-Lord’s mix tape, including ‘Born To Be Wild’.

BACKDRAFT

The first attraction at Universal Studios based on an R-rated movie, this pyrotechnic display was a great way to see how Ron Howard’s firefighter drama was put together as observers head to a platform to watch a fire engulf the warehouse below. Luckily, Donald Sutherland’s pyromaniac is not the tour guide. JM

JULY 2021 | TOTAL FILM

COVER STORY

the first movie I ever saw. I wanted to experience that magic as well.” The complex VFX work led by visual effects supervisor Jim Berney (Aquaman) includes a ferocious-looking jaguar named Proxima that Frank is forced to tackle. Yet real animals were very much a part of the shoot too, adding to the film’s sense of adventure. On set, a cockatoo sits on the shoulder of Paul Giamatti, the Billions actor cast as Frank’s garrulous nemesis Nilo. The feathery squawker was all Giamatti’s idea. “I like when actors come in and they bring ideas like this, because it really makes the movie that much richer,” says Collet-Serra. The director wasn’t even bothered about working with a real bird on set. “On The Shallows… I had a fantastic experience with a seagull,” he laughs. “So I was not afraid of birds at all.” He immediately took the idea to the Disney Imagineers, the brains behind the theme parks. “[They] reminded me that there was a bird called Rosita in the mythology of Jungle Cruise. So that made it perfect, because it ties in

What did Collet-Serra make of all this? “First, people should see the movie before commenting,” he replies, testily. “Second, as a director, by law, I cannot ask if an actor is gay or not. So how am I even supposed to cast somebody and ask, ‘Are you gay?’ You know?” He points out that the character changed “two or three times” during development. “We were trying different things.” So is McGregor gay? “People should watch the movie and then comment. There is no point in me saying something that should be revealed by the movie.” Of course, even the plans for release were soon to be left in tatters. By March 2020, TF was enjoying another sit down with Blunt and her co-star in Atlanta’s Tyler Perry Studios, where Johnson was filming forthcoming thriller Red Notice. Shooting had wrapped on Jungle Cruise 18 months earlier, in September 2018, only for Disney to delay the release from its original October 2019 berth to a more blockbuster-friendly July 2020. Little did they – or anyone else – realise that a pandemic was about to turn Hollywood upside down.

with some of the Easter eggs that they wanted to have in the movie.” The cockatoo wasn’t the only live animal that came in handy. Once the production moved to Atlanta to complete work over the summer, a herd of goats were brought in to prep a sequence shot at the Old Atlanta Prison Farm, a huge 300-acre site in the Georgia countryside where some of the Amazonian jungle was recreated. For two weeks, these hungry goats were used to clear the thick brush – the star of the show being Larry, a creature capable of walking on its hind legs and clearing up higher-up, hard-to-remove plants. It was around this time, in August 2018, that stories began to appear in the tabloids that Whitehall’s character was “hugely effete, very camp and very funny” – and would be, at the time, the first major gay character in a Disney movie (since eclipsed by John McCrea’s fashionista Artie in Cruella). Immediately, some quarters of social media began bemoaning the fact that a straight actor was playing a gay role and pointing to the fact that Scarlett Johansson had pulled out of playing a transgender male in the never-made Rub & Tug.

Prior to this, the atmosphere in the room is jubilant, with Flynn and Garcia filming their stars on mini camcorders. It’s the first time TF has had a chance to see Johnson and Blunt chat together. She’s in a floaty blouse, white trousers and heels; he’s wearing a brown shirt, gold chain and light denim jeans. Batting zingers back and forth, their off-screen chemistry is a delight – like Bogart and Hepburn reborn. Take the moment when TF asks Johnson if Frank is his take on Bogart’s crotchety Charlie Allnutt from The African Queen. “He’s exactly that!” says Johnson, looking a little bemused. “Crotchety means grumpy,” chips in Blunt, acting as the perfect transatlantic translator. “It doesn’t mean crotch heavy!” “That’s what I thought!” he fires back. “I was like, ‘What? Crutchy?!’” “When you said ‘Crotchety’, I was like, ‘He doesn’t know what that means!’” It’s these playful bants that are set to make Jungle Cruise a hugely enjoyable summer romp. “One of the special things about the movie is that relationship, and I wish I could take credit for it, but this is one of the things

‘THE CHEMISTRY IS THE MOVIE… WE ARE WATCHING THEM AND TH IR RELATIONSHIP’

that just happened when you put two very talented people [together],” says Collet-Serra, who points out that with so much action on the boat, the spotlight is frequently on these two mismatched adventurers. “So the chemistry is the movie… we are watching them and their relationship.” Within days of this second encounter, the COVID-19 pandemic saw cinemas shut and blockbusters scatter like nine pins. The lockdown didn’t affect the postproduction (“We were one week off from being done,” informs ColletSerra), but a film that was tied so closely to the Disney theme park attractions (which were also closed) had no choice but to be postponed. Even now, the film SUBSCRIBE AT WWW.TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS

YENSID

TOTAL FILM | JULY 2021

WILD RIDE Disney hopes to replicate the success of the Pirates Of The Caribbean films; Johnson’s look is inspired by Humphrey Bogart in The African Queen (opposite).

is being given a hybrid release in July, in cinemas and on the Premier Access strand of Disney+, following the likes of Cruella and Black Widow. Despite all the difficulties, Johnson and Collet-Serra are clearly tight, with the pair reuniting on the delayed (and now finally shooting) DC Comics tale Black Adam. “He is the perfect director for Black Adam,” notes Johnson, “being a genre director with his past and everything that he’s delivered to audiences.” Collet-Serra, who has finally landed his comic-book tale after turning down the Suicide Squad sequel, is raring to go. “We’re trying to do something very, very special with it. I think fans are gonna like it.”

While he’ll be hard-at-work world-building this Shazam! spin-off, he’s hoping audiences will engage with Jungle Cruise on the biggest screens possible. “I think this is a perfect movie for the summer – if things are a little bit safer and people are going to the theatres.” It might even be exactly the tonic we all need; our very own Tree of Life. “[It’s] a light movie that will help people relieve mentally of some of the pressures of the last few month,” he says. “I think it’s definitely going to be a good antidote to what’s going on.” JUNGLE CRUISE IS IN CINEMAS AND ON DISNEY+ WITH PREMIER ACCESS ON 30 JULY. JULY 2021 | TOTAL FILM

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10PIRATESElizabeth Swann & Will Turner OF THE CARIBBEAN: THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL (2003) Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) is a blacksmith’s apprentice with a gift for making swords – and fighting with them too. Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley) is a governor’s daughter. Together they become embroiled in a hearty adventure involving Aztec gold, a curse and drunken pirate Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp)… and become star-crossed lovers along the way. While Bloom here added to the success of his Legolas in the Lord Of The Rings trilogy, Knightley made a huge leap after turning heads in Bend It Like Beckham. Her Elizabeth is spirited and intelligent, and proves herself a natural at sea(wo)manship, leadership and battle strategy as the franchise progresses. Will and Elizabeth marry and have a son in At World’s End. JG MEET-CUTE As 11-year-old kids, with Elizabeth recovering a shipwrecked Will and taking his gold medallion for herself.

BEST BANTZ

Elizabeth: “Will, how many times must I ask you to call me Elizabeth?” Will: “At least once more, Miss Swann, as always.” FURTHER ADVENTURES Reprising their roles for sequels Dead Man’s Chest (2006), At World’s End (2007) and Salazar’s Revenge (2017).

s k c o R On The

*AND OTHER DANGEROUS TERRAIN

IN THE SPIRIT OF JUNGLE CRUISE, TOTAL FILM SETS SAIL WITH

dventure Couples The GrLLeatTIME,estTHEADYNAMIC DUOS FOR WHOM NO SURVIVAL SITUATION IS TOO EXTREME FOR A BIT OF FLIRTING. WELL, THE ASSAULT COURSE OF TRUE LOVE NEVER DID RUN SMOOTH. HERE ARE OUR FAVOURITES, AS VOTED FOR BY YOU… WORDSJAMIE GRAHAM, MATTMAYTUM, JAMES MOTTRAM, NEIL SMITH

TOTAL FILM | JULY 2021

9JURASSICAlanPARKGrant & Ellie Sattler (1993)

We all love Sam Neill and Laura Dern as palaeontologist Dr. Alan Grant and palaeobotanist Dr. Ellie Sattler, partners who are invited to Jurassic Park by John Hammond (Richard Attenborough). But William Hurt and Harrison Ford first turned down Spielberg, as did Robin Wright. Their loss turned out to be our gain, for Neill and Dern are as responsible for making the action believable as Stan Winston’s animatronics and ILM’s dazzling VFX. Grant and Sattler returned for Jurassic Park III, though they were no longer a couple – Ellie is married with children. They’ll be back again in Colin Trevorrow’s Jurassic World: Dominion. JG MEET-CUTE They’re a couple before the film begins, but let’s say the bit where Grant turns Sattler’s head away from the Vermiform plant to see the Brachiosaurus.

BEST BANTZ

John Hammond: “There’s no doubt our attractions will drive kids out of their minds.” Alan: “And what are those?” Ellie: “Small versions of adults, honey.” FURTHER ADVENTURES Jurassic Park III (2001), and reuniting with Jeff Goldblum for Jurassic World: Dominion (2022): will sparks fly again?

8THE AFRICAN CharlieQUEENAllnut & Rose Sayer (1951)

You could hardly find a more mismatched couple: a hard-drinking steamboat captain and a prim spinster missionary. Over the course of John Huston’s exhilarating World War 1 adventure, though, these polar opposites learn to see past their differences and find a common cause – the sinking of a German gunboat. Humphrey Bogart’s Charlie and Katharine Hepburn’s Rose find something else too: hidden reserves of courage, surprising strength of character and, of course, a love Kate was certain would endure. “Did they stay in Africa? I always thought they must have,” she writes in her 1987 book about the film. NS MEET-CUTE At a church service Charlie disrupts with a cigar toss.

BEST BANTZ

Charlie: “A man takes a drop too much… it’s only human nature.” Rose: “Nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we are put in this world to rise above.” FURTHER ADVENTURES Sadly not. We would have liked to see what settling down together looked like… SUBSCRIBE AT WWW.TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS

ADVENTURE COUPLES

7THERobin Hood & Maid Marian ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD (1938) Lady Marian (Olivia de Havilland) is less than impressed with Sir Robin of Locksley (Errol Flynn), rebuffing his genial pleasantries during their first chilly encounter. (“I hope my lady had a pleasant journey from London?” “What you hope can hardly be important!”) It is only a matter of time though before she warms to his charms, and soon she is joining forces with his Merrie Men to free him from prison. In reality, de Havilland was just as enamoured of her leading man, although both insisted their romance was never consummated. “We did fall in love, and I believe this was evident in the screen

chemistry between us,” the legendary leading lady would later reveal. “But his circumstances at the time prevented the relationship from going further. Cantankerous fate kept us together in films and apart in real life.” NS MEET-CUTE Over a table after Robin crashes a fancy royal banquet.

BEST BANTZ

Marian: “Why, you speak treason!” Robin: “Fluently!” FURTHER ADVENTURES Flynn and de Havilland made another seven films together.

6WONDERDiana Prince & Steve Trevor WOMAN (2017) Gal Gadot and Chris Pine’s sparky chemistry elevated Wonder Woman above its comic-book stablemates. Natural, funny, sparkling, their pairing brought life to Patty Jenkins’ blending of superhero, WW1 and fantasy tropes into a refreshing yet old-school confection. It helps that both get the chance to be fish out of water in each other’s stomping grounds, but there’s no formula for great, simpatico casting. Eschewing pre-casting screen testing, Jenkins knew Pine was right for Steve. “I knew that Chris has exactly the energy,” Jenkins told TF at the time. “He’s plenty confident. He’s plenty handsome. He’s plenty ‘leading man’ on his own, but he’s got a great sense of humour and he loves women and he respects women. GAMESRADAR.COM/TOTALFILM

So I knew he had exactly the right kind of vibe from the moment that I met him.” MM MEET-CUTE His plane crashes in the sea outside the all-female Themyscira, and she rescues him. “You’re a man…”

BEST BANTZ

Diana: “I had no father. My mother sculpted me from clay and I was brought to life by Zeus.” Steve: “Well, that’s neat. Where I come from, babies are made differently.” FURTHER ADVENTURES Reuniting (in a body-swap capacity) as a wish-fulfilment fantasy for Diana in Wonder Woman 1984. JULY 2021 | TOTAL FILM

t a e i r r u M o ’ r r o Z ‘ o r Alejand & Elena Montero THE MASK OF ZORRO (1998)

since Rodriguez was involved, the sparks flew. “They worked well together. They liked each other. And it just sort of happened,” shrugs When The Mask of Zorro hit Campbell. “We got lucky.” cinemas, it was out on its own. While the story sees Banderas’ thief The swashbuckling character made famous by Douglas Fairbanks Jr. in a 1920 silent Alejandro tutored by Elena’s father, Anthony Hopkins’ Don Diego de la Vega – the original movie had long fallen out of favour, with the Zorro – the real juice comes from the coupling last portrayal by George Hamilton in the 1981 pastiche Zorro, The Gay Blade. So when Antonio between the two leads. From dancing and flirting in public to sparring in a saucy Banderas, then hot off Desperado, swung into swordfight that sees them duel, kiss and even action, he cut a very dashing figure. Still, every hero needs a heroine, and Elena, shed garments, they steamed and sizzled their way to becoming one of the great screen elegantly played by Catherine Zeta-Jones, is more than a match for the masked swordsman. couples of the ’90s. “They were terrific, I have “It’s the old story of the rough diamond meets to say,” adds Campbell. “They worked it.” Never more so than in that swordfight, upper-class aristocracy,” says director Martin Campbell, who arrived on the project – his first which bristles with PG-rated foreplay – not least when Banderas’ Zorro swishes his rapier movie since 1995’s GoldenEye – after Robert and entirely cuts Elena’s blouse off, leaving her Rodriguez ducked out. very red-faced. “That kind of sense of humour, Zeta-Jones was then known for British that kind of personality, played so much into comedy-drama The Darling Buds Of May, but it was Zorro’s executive producer Steven Spielberg their parts,” says Campbell, who delighted in watching Zeta-Jones blossom. “She’s ballsy who saw her in the mini-series Titanic and as hell! Jesus! If you know Catherine, nothing urged Campbell to cast her. After she screenfazes her. She took it all very seriously.” tested with Banderas, who’d been attached

TOTAL FILM | JULY 2021

Grossing $250m worldwide, Zorro became a touchstone film for both actors, cementing Banderas as a Hollywood heartthrob and Zeta-Jones as the versatile leading lady. “It made Catherine’s career, which was terrific, and Antonio’s in America, so that was pleasing,” says Campbell. “And to be honest, I think it probably turned out much better than people – certainly at the studio – expected.” Ironically, it even led to real love. With the film playing at the Deauville Film Festival in France in August 1998, it was here where Zeta-Jones first encountered her future husband Michael Douglas. “That was a romance that’s lasted a long time,” smiles Campbell. If it hadn’t been for Zorro, one of Hollywood’s great love stories may never have been told. JM MEET-CUTE At the stables: she’s on horseback, he’s behind the mask.

BEST BANTZ

Elena: “I may scream.” Zorro: “I understand – sometimes I have that effect.” FURTHER ADVENTURES They came back in 2005’s The Legend Of Zorro for more sexy swordplay.

ADVENTURE COUPLES

Jack T. Colton & Joan Wilder

ROMANCING THE STONE (1984)

He’s a gruff-but-hunky bird-smuggler who has been living in the wilds of Colombia. She’s an romance novelist on an insane jaunt to find her kidnapped sister. This mismatched pair – expertly played by Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner – make for the most beguiling screen couple this side of Indy and Marion. Following her sizzling turn in Body Heat, Turner still had a job to convince everyone she could play Joan. “It’s like, ‘Yeah, okay, she’s sexy and she’s funny, but can she be insecure and demure?’ So, then you go in with cut-offs, baggy clothes and no make-up and prove to them that you can be.” Yet she and Douglas nailed it. While it’s a boys-own adventure, characterised by mudslides, alligators, treasure maps and the titular precious emerald, the ‘romancing’ is never far away. From the fireworks-kiss to the sailboat-on-the-street ending, it’s a glorious love story that comes to the boil at just the right moment. JM MEET-CUTE On a Colombian dirt road, as a bus crashes into Jack’s Land Rover.

BEST BANTZ

Joan: [as Jack cuts the heels of her shoes] “These were Italian!” Jack: “Now they’re practical!” FURTHER ADVENTURES See 1985 sequel The Jewel In The Nile – when the going got tough, they got going. Also The War Of The Roses and The Kominsky Method.

Buttercup & Westley

THE PRINCESS BRIDE (1987)

As you wish! With those famous words, farmhand Westley (Cary Elwes) obeys the beautiful Buttercup (Robin Wright) – and, in true fairytale style, will do anything for his beloved. Likewise, when he’s supposedly killed by pirates, she vows never to love another man. Yet while it’s a film about the perils of undying love, The Princess Bride is never sappy. “It was adventure and romance, but it was also funny and satirical,” remarks Rob Reiner, who read William Goldman’s 1973 novel after his father gifted it to him. Although Elwes was cast swiftly, it took an age to find their Buttercup. A week before shooting, the shy Wright turned up at the door – looking resplendent and sun-dappled. “I loved that it was about true love and that she would never give up and nor would Westley,” she says. “You always dream about it as a little girl, but I never stopped dreaming about that.” Aww… JM MEET-CUTE Down on the farm, in the kingdom of Florin.

BEST BANTZ

Westley: “Why didn’t you wait for me?” Buttercup: “Well, you were dead!” FURTHER ADVENTURES Well, they reunited for a special announcement to say The Princess Bride is now on Disney+. JULY 2021 | TOTAL FILM

ly n ve E & l el o n n ’C k O Ric THE MUMMY (1999)

“After I’d written the script, my editor [Bob Ducsay] said, ‘You know what? This character, it has to be somebody that’s big and strong, and can throw a punch, and can take a punch, but has a good sense of humour,’” says Stephen Sommers. The writer-director is sitting on the porch of a lake house in Minnesota, drinking his morning coffee with his dog at his feet. But his mind is poking around Hollywood in 1998, recalling why he cast the unlikely duo of Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz as the even more unlikely duo of Rick and Evelyn in his boisterous action-adventure The Mummy. “At the time, Brendan had only done a couple of movies. But he did the… uh… when he played Tarzan…” George Of The Jungle. “Yeah, he played George of the Jungle. He was built like a brick shithouse. And I saw he has a great sense of humour.” And Weisz? “The script, it’s really about Evelyn,” Sommers notes. “She starts off prim and proper, a British librarian, and by the end of the movie, she’s an adventuress. I don’t want to badmouth the studio, but they gave me a list of all these American actresses. I decided that it had to be an American guy and a British woman playing these characters. No one knew who Rachel Weisz was. She came in [to audition] two or three times. She was lovely. And thank God I’m such a genius – I cast Rachel Weisz. She’d be over-dressed on a smelly camel, in 115-degree heat, and she never complained.” There are several reasons why Sommers’ Mummy reinvention worked, a big one being that it was so unexpected – to take a slow, insidiously creepy horror-melodrama starring a bandaged Boris Karloff and fashion it into a rollicking romp swathed in CGI. But perhaps the main reason was its stars’ chemistry. “I don’t really think about chemistry,” says Sommers. “The audience has to tell you that. But what I could tell was that they got along great. When people genuinely like each other, TOTAL FILM | JULY 2021

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C arnah an

and enjoy working with each other… I thought, ‘Oh, this is going to be fun.’” Universal Studios had been developing The Mummy for nine years when Sommers signed on. They’d burned through numerous writers and directors (including Clive Barker, Joe Dante and George Romero) and were still seeking the right pitch, with a mind to making the action contemporary. Sommers insisted it should be set in the 1920s, with an archaeological dig in the ancient city of Hamunaptra unleashing the titular High Priest Imhotep (Arnold Vosloo) and a veritable (sand)storm of cutting-edge special effects. He envisaged an Errol Flynn movie in the age of Industrial Light & Magic. “When we came out of the meeting [with Universal], Jim Jacks [producer] was like, ‘I don’t know what you were thinking,’” says Sommers. “He was all pissed off, like: ‘I don’t know what you just pitched in there, but the studio’s trying to do this movie for $15 million. We’re probably going up to $17 million.’ And I go, ‘Hell, I’m going to need $17 million just for visual effects.’” Sommers laughs. “Jim went storming off. And by the time I got home, my agent called and said, ‘You’ve got the gig.’ The studio said, ‘Oh, that’s the kind of Mummy movie we should be making.’” The budget was set at $80m, $15m of which was dedicated to VFX. Released on 7 May, 1999, The Mummy was a hit beyond anyone’s expectations. The studio was hoping for a $18m opening weekend, while Sommers dared to dream of $20m. Ron Meyer, President and COO of Universal Studios, called Sommers at 5.45am on Monday to break the news it had taken almost $44m. Naturally, more adventures for Rick and Evelyn in The Mummy Returns were requested that day. But did Sommers ever think we’d be here 22 years on, with The Mummy still afforded so much affection? He’s clearly touched by the love he sees on social media. “At the time, I was obviously hoping that it would do well. I loved making it. I was very proud of it. But it has become ‘beloved’. If a movie is beloved, you can watch it for the rest of your life. It’s your comfort food.” JG MEET-CUTE Evelyn visits a bedraggled Rick in Cairo prison to ask for the location of Hamunaptra. “You wanna know?” he says, telling her to come closer. She leans in and he plants a smacker on her lips through the bars. “Then get me the hell out of here!”

BEST BANTZ

Rick: “Can you swim?” Evelyn: “Well, of course I can swim, if the occasion calls for it.” Rick: [throwing her overboard] “Trust me, it calls for it.” FURTHER ADVENTURES The Mummy Returns (2001). THE MUMMY TRILOGY IS AVAILABLE ON DVD, BLU-RAY, 4K UHD AND DOWNLOAD AND KEEP FROM AMAZON. GAMESRADAR.COM/TOTALFILM

JULY 2021 | TOTAL FILM

TF LIST

s e n o J a n a i d In arion Rave nwood &M RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981)

Indy and Marion already have history by the time they hook up in Raiders, the pair having had a fling 10 years earlier when he was her father’s student. Small wonder there is some tension as they swap Nepal for Cairo, with Indy only softening after she is apparently killed in a fiery truck explosion. Marion isn’t dead, of course – and she’s mightily pissed at him when they are reunited again in a snake-infested Well of Souls. But nobody can stay mad at Indy for long, and a romantic recoupling beckons after they find themselves sharing a cabin on a tramp steamer bound for Europe. Well, it would, were not Indy so exhausted that he promptly falls asleep. “We never seem to get a break, do we?” sighs Marion, unaware that more adventures await them before they can finally have a breather back in Washington DC. (Their final scene only came about after somebody realised there was no resolution for their relationship, requiring a new scene to be written and filmed at San Francisco’s City Hall.) “The first time we were together, we didn’t know each other,” said Karen Allen of Harrison Ford in 2017. “It took time to find our rhythm, but I had an awfully good time working with him.” (Her co-star might have more painful memories, having been clipped more than once while shooting the scene where Marion slugs him.) “It was one of those great relationships, where they are just kind of driving each other crazy,” the actress went on. Yet it could have been very different, Allen having shot her screen-test with Tim Matheson and Tom Selleck coming within an inch of being cast alongside Sean Young. NS MEET-CUTE Of all the bars in all the world, he walks into hers.

BEST BANTZ

Marion: “You’re not the man I knew 10 years ago.” Indy: “It’s not the years, honey, it’s the mileage.” FURTHER ADVENTURES Indy and Marion reunite (and get married) 21 years later. TOTAL FILM | JULY 2021

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ADVENTURE COUPLES SURVIVAL CONSULTANT, EXPEDITIONLEADER AND PRODUCER MEGAN HINE ON WHETHER TWO HEADS ARE BETTER THAN ONE IN AN EXTREME SITUATION… AS TOLD TO MATT MAYTUM We always glamorise survival in the TV shows that I make and often in these Hollywood movies. We make it look romantic. But the reality is, when you’re in a survival scenario, you’re going to do whatever it takes to survive. If you’re put in a pair – male, female – if you’re thinking about it in that way, if there’s an imbalance, if you’re the weaker member, or it’s potentially forming or creating some sort of sexual dynamic between you, or If you’re stranded with somebody who isn’t going to pull their weight or gives up – emotions it keeps the other person looking after you, or can be quite contagious. If you’re with somebody it keeps you together… that does happen. who’s super-negative, it’s really hard. We know Each environment has its own challenges. In a that from everyday life, so you wouldn’t really cold environment, having somebody else particularly want to be in a survival situation there where you can share body heat, is a real with somebody like that. bonus. In environments like jungles, there may be predators. It’s good to have a second person In theory, it boosts your chance of survival actually having someone else there, because there. You can keep watch and stop at nights. you help to keep each other going. It’s a morale The most annoying film cliché is the obvious booster. It helps bolster your decision-making: one: how the woman is often portrayed as the it’s always easier when there’s somebody else weaker member of the team. I’ve been very to bounce your ideas off. With Romancing The Stone and Indiana Jones, I guess there was fortunate to be able to put people into these quite real survival situations, and it’s actually that romantic side as well where they maybe women that often do much better than men. If distracted each other from the situation. So you look at how our ancestors would have lived, that’s a positive. and if you look at a lot of native people, the men I also find that helping someone else gives you really hunt for game. They’re typically – not all tribes, but typically – they were then the warriors purpose, and it distracts me from my own suffering as well. I know I’m going to be hungry. as well. So they were conserving energy for those I know I’m going to be tired. I know I’m going to kind of high-energy output activities. Whereas the women were going around, foraging, and be aching. But having somebody else there to hunting for smaller game, and patching up the focus on, and to be able to look after, actually distracts me from my own feelings. It allows me shelters, and raising the children. And that’s where this whole multitasking thing comes from. to focus much more. It totally depends on who you’re stranded with, for a start. There’s a whole different mix of things. It totally depends on who that person is, and what their skills are like, and what their psychological state is like. Because in theory, we’re social animals. We function better with other people. It’s how we’re programmed.

It’s very easy in those situations to become quite co-dependent. Once you start becoming co-dependent, there’s often an imbalance, and kind of a push/pull between two people. And in a survival situation, that can put a huge amount more stress and pressure [on], as it does in everyday life as well. In any survival situation, what you’re trying to do is stay out of the lizard brain – that fight-flight-freeze response – and stay in the much more rational and human part of the brain where logic and decision-making can happen. So anything to be able to do that is really important. GAMESRADAR.COM/TOTALFILM

It’s all down to the mental side of things. A lot of it is psychological. Having survival or bushcraft knowledge obviously gives you an edge, but if your mindset isn’t there, it doesn’t matter, because potentially you’re just going to give up. It’s a fascinating topic because it’s so complex, and it all comes down to the psychology of it all, which is rarely touched upon in these films. FOR MORE FROM MEGAN HINE, CHECK OUT HER BOOK MIND OF A SURVIVOR, VISIT MEGANHINE.COM OR FIND HER ON INSTAGRAM @MEGAN_HINE JULY 2021 | TOTAL FILM

TOTAL FILM | JULY 2021

Ryan Reynolds and Jodie Comer have all the bantz as gaming avatars in comedy actioner Free Guy – so we asked them to use that chemistry to interview each other about the experience of working together on a ﬁlm they promise is a ‘fastball of joy’. Here’s Deadpool and Villanelle doing Total Film’s job for us…

WORDS JANE CROWTHER

JULY 2021 | TOTAL FILM

IN CONVERSATION

yan Reynolds and Jodie Comer are staring down the lens of a Zoom call from New York, peering at the cover of Total Film from May 2020. “Wow. The salad days of yesteryear…” deadpans Reynolds in his inimitable cadence, recalling the last time we all sat down together to discuss Free Guy; a poppy actioner that sees Reynolds as a NPC in an open-world videogame who decides to wrestle control of his life. Then destined for a July 2020 release, before it was shifted to Christmas, then again to May 2021 and finally, finally coming out late summer, Free Guy’s themes of community, personal responsibility and the feeling of being stuck in a weird alt-reality will likely take on more resonance in a world just emerging from Covid. But to Reynolds and his co-star, Killing Eve’s Jodie Comer (playing avatar Molotov Girl in the matrix and game designer Milly in the real world), Free Guy is more about fun, escapism and the popcorn giddiness of a big movie on a Friday night. As can-do actors playing characters determined to shape their own destinies, we thought it only right that they should conduct their own interview. “How kind,” says Comer. “Very 2021 of you,” nods Reynolds. So what happened when TF put our feet up and let them grill each other on auditions, stunts and getting the giggles?

YENSID ,HCORA YUG

You must have loads of projects that come across your desk, Ryan… I don’t have a desk. No, that’s true. But you must see loads of projects and scripts. You have your finger in all the pies. Right? These are pie-fingers. It’s what I do. [laughs] Why did you think Free Guy was a good idea? How did that come to you? Shawn [Levy, director of Free Guy] and I had been looking for a film to do together for years. I just, on a whim, sent this script to him. I sent him an email. It was the email to convince Shawn to do the movie, where – he doesn’t know this – where I convinced myself to do the movie. Like, have you ever tried to convince someone of something that you didn’t totally believe in or know? And then I realised, ‘Wait, holy shit, I have to do this movie.’ It was mostly because I felt like the movie was just a fastball of joy. I wanted to feel something like I felt when I watched Back ToThe Future as a kid. And it felt like it had those Amblin tones infused into it, which I was weaned on. Indiana Jones and Back ToThe Future and E.T. and all these kind of films were the ones that really made me want to do what I do. I felt like this touched on something optimistic. It was funny and fun, and didn’t leave me feeling cynical in any way. You actually forget how good it feels when you just go and watch a film, and come out feeling so happy… Yeah. I wanted that! I wanted that again. I always think that the best owners of companies are people that really put themselves in the position of a consumer. I was really thinking in the same way. I wanted to make a movie that I wanted to see.

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I tend to look at these things like any other theatregoer would who has to fork over their hard-earned cash to go see a movie. It’s got to be something spectacular. It has to have something that’s going to really move me in a way that I’m not going to get just sitting at home. So, I am interested… Why did you bring me in the room for Molotov Girl? What did you think…? Strap on your awkward pants… Well, Jodie Comer… What was Molotov about me? It was one of those things where… My head’s going to explode. It should, actually. You know what an enormous fan I am of you. I was a big fan of Killing Eve, as was Shawn. We were looking for someone who was incredibly dynamic, incredibly comfortable in their skin. And I was also just looking for somebody who could make me better. You’re always looking for a co-star who can carry their bag of rocks with you. Starring in a movie is not easy. You really have to stay incredibly focused and detail-oriented… It’s teamwork as well. It’s completely teamwork. Yeah. You came in and read some of the scenes, but the first line out of your mouth – I remember, I looked straight at Shawn, who was sitting across the room, and he knew right away. We

COVER STARS Ryan Reynolds and Jodie Comer appear in the much-delayed Free Guy (above). SAY CHEESE! Joe Keery, Ryan Reynolds, Jodie Comer, Taika Waititi, Shawn Levy and Utkarsh Ambudkar pose for a selfie (right).

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FREE GUY were like, [whispering excitedly] “This is Molotov Girl. This is Milly. This is everything we could ever hope for and ask for. And it’s somebody who hasn’t been in eight million movies.” You know, you’re going to be in eight million movies, and have already done, I think, 65 movies since we shot this. But it feels amazing to be working with somebody who’s at the beginning of immense possibility. We loved every second of it. And I just loved having somebody I could count on every day. I have a co-star that I know is going to hit the ball back twice as hard and with topspin. I love that. I don’t take that for granted for a second. What scene did you read for, Jodie? And did it make it into the film? Ooh, there were about five scenes. They made me work! It wasn’t necessary, actually. You could have just read the first line. [laughs] There was one scene where they meet for the first time, and there was a later scene where she gives him this huge news which completely turns his world upside-down. Auditions sometimes can be really intimidating. You would think that people would understand that if they make you feel supercomfortable and super-relaxed, then you’re going to do your best work. But that isn’t always the case. So for me, when I flew to New York, and I did my read with Ryan and Shawn, it was so relaxed, and it was so fun, and it felt like a workshop. And I felt like they were rooting for me. And I think that that enabled me 61

to try some things out, and feel comfortable. So I feel that’s also down to them. It’s teamwork. You can’t do it without anyone else. My turn with a question… So Jodie, what’s wrong with you? [laughs] How long have you got? [adopting therapist voice] How long has it been like this? OK, OK. What did you do for this role, training-wise, preparationwise? I always feel like every actor is like, [comic deep voice] “I put on 88lb for this movie.” [comic deep voice] “It was really hard.” [comic deep voice] “I transformed…” Grrrrr. [makes weird gym noise] I didn’t have one ab, so… [laughs] I was on location in Boston three weeks before we started shooting and there was an incredible stunt crew who I worked with – like, three hours a day initially. Because stunts are almost like a dance, you know? There’s so much that goes into them. You’re having to fake an impact, but also keep someone safe. So it was really educational for me, and I was really glad that I had that opportunity, because that was the first experience where I’d work so closely with the stunt team. I tried to do as much as I possibly could. But the really cool stuff, I couldn’t do. But nobody can… stuntpeople like Hayley Wright [who doubled for Comer] and Dan Stevens [who doubled for Reynolds] – they’re made of different stuff than normal human beings! But GAMESRADAR.COM/TOTALFILM

JULY 2021 | TOTAL FILM

you did a lot of stuff, though. You still did a lot of the fight stuff. I really wanted to. I don’t know how you feel about this, but if I’m doing a scene, and I’m doing a stunt, it often gets chopped up into tiny pieces. You’re having to pick up a moment that is really high intensity, and coming in at that level that you might not have done for half an hour. So I find that if I can do it all the way through, it helps. And the physicality was a big thing for Molotov. What was the hardest or the most challenging part? Would you say it’s the physicality, or was it the emotional heavy lifting? I would say that the hardest part was acting amongst the green screen. Often you’re with another actor which is amazing, because that’s where you’re feeding from, and you’re taking everything that they’re giving you, and that’s how it works. But then when you’re put in a green box, and it’s like, “OK, here’s a big building. There’s going to be an explosion over here. This is going on behind you.” And you can’t actually visualise it. And then you have to do that with conviction and make it feel real [laughs]. That was probably what I struggled with the most. But then it was also the most exciting aspect – when I watch the film and see it in all its glory. You can feel like you’re maybe doing too much when you can’t see it. But then TOTAL FILM | JULY 2021

JUST PRETEND Director Shawn Levy with Taika Waititi and Jodie Comer in front of the dreaded green screen (opposite, top). THINK PINK In a computer-game world, no outfit is too stupid (opposite, bottom).

when you see the enormity of everything, you’re like, “Oh, OK.” Everything kind of falls into place then. I’m pretty comfortable with it now – I’ve done quite a bit of it. But we actually made a huge effort to stay as practical as possible on this movie. And shooting in Boston, Massachusetts, in the summertime, we had a lot of daylight hours to shoot. So you can really control the exterior, outside world in ways that you typically avoid and just go to green screen. And Shawn and I both produced the movie together, so we both had that same edict going in. As much as we can do practical is what we’d like. Is Ryan a nice boss, Jodie? I’m not your boss! He’s not my boss. I’m the boss! I’m the boss around here! I’m the boss of this! [gestures to his body] That’s it! For me, this was my first movie and I was incredibly intimidated by the thought of it. But it was the most nurturing experience I could have ever had. I feel so lucky to have worked with Ryan and Shawn so early on. I couldn’t speak more highly of them. And I learned so much, even down to doing an American accent. Also, he’s a comedy genius. His improvisation skills are off the chain. So just to be around that, and watch how Ryan works, was… I mean, it was a dream. Let’s just end this interview now. My God… SUBSCRIBE AT WWW.TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS

FREE GUY him, that would be so funny. And I hope we actually do that. We do have a reel of him that we’re going to release at some point. It’s absurd. He’s so talented. [laughs] Oh my God. I went to set one day. I remember having a costume fitting, and they were filming. It was Taika’s scene, and I just sat on a chair, and I watched him. [He improvised] for 10 solid minutes, it was just non-stop. You could just hear Shawn screaming and laughing. His shoulders just twitching up and down because he was laughing so hard. It was amazing people we got to work with. I’m quite bad [at corpsing]. If I get the giggles, it’s game over. And then it gets to a point where it’s like, “No, we actually really need to shoot this now.” And then it gets 10 times funnier, because it’s getting really serious. But on set, if there were those moments, it was kind of celebrated. I feel it only added energy to the scenes. When people crack up, it’s… The best. What kind of curmudgeon is going to go, “Stop it!”? I love it when people break character and start laughing. I do it too. You get a little hint of the giggles, and you just can’t stop. And you’re punching yourself, and pinching yourself, and doing actual self-harm, because you’re trying to find ways to get this under control. I just watched the Superbad bloopers. Bloopers are my favourite. 63

YENSID ,HCORA YUG

[laughs] Mic drop. Speaking of improv, there’s a lot of funny people in this film – Taika Waititi, Lil Rel Howery, Utkarsh Ambudkar… what’s the process in finding the funny? The absolute best gag? How do you know it’s funny? Shawn and I share a sensibility with this – we don’t know anything. You don’t know anything until you’re sitting in that edit room. It’s the last stage of the writing process. You try to get as much as you possibly can. When you work with young directors, oftentimes they’re looking for a specific thing. Sometimes you’ll end up with 10 takes of the same thing. And when you’re sitting in the edit room, you’re going, “Fucking hell! If we just got one thing different…” And those lessons, to me, were burned in pretty early. I was lucky enough to have that. So both Shawn and I understood: get as much as you can. And also, we were rewriting as we went, because I think it’s really important to listen to your movie. We’d pivot where it didn’t cost millions of dollars to change something. But it was generally character. Even though this movie is a giant summer movie, it’s a character movie masquerading as a huge action comedy. But guys like Taika… He could have his own movie from this. We could actually cut an entire movie that would just centre

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I love bloopers. We have a huge blooper reel… So, this movie was supposed to come out last year. Was it May? This was supposed to come out last summer, and then it got moved to December, and then it got moved to August… Obviously we’re holding out for a theatre release. Why do you think that’s important, to wait for that? I would agree, by the way… I know how different a movie is when you watch it on a big screen with 100 other people, or 200, or 300, or 400, or 500 other people. It’s like nothing else. That communal experience is so important to people. And I know coming out of this crazy 2020 and certainly part of 2021 – I, for one, am craving that communal experience again. Did it feel like a gamble to wait? Yeah. But every single movie out there, big and small, was shifting in some way, or pivoting in some way. Yeah, certainly, I worried about that. But also, at a certain point, you’re like, “I just want people to see the movie.” The movie makes you feel so good. I want people to experience that, because it’s been a crazy fucking half-decade. Let’s have some fun. Let’s enjoy ourselves! [laughs]. Just have a laugh. Yeah!

FREE GUY OPENS IN CINEMAS ON 13 AUGUST. JULY 2021 | TOTAL FILM

TOTAL FILM HEADS TO JAPAN TO VISIT THE SET OF SNAKE EYES, THE EXPLOSIVE NINJA ORIGIN STORY STARRING HENRY GOLDING, WHICH IS SET TO SHAKE UP THE G.I. JOE TOYBOX FOR A WHOLE NEW TAKE ON THE FRANCHISE. WORDS PAUL BRADSHAW TOTAL FILM | JULY 2021

ON SET

TOTAL FILM | JULY 2021

“I cried,” h e says, dea “I remem the first feber going homedalyt serious. much… hw weeks and I wa night during sa ere was a m thought, T‘W om ching so This is insa hat the fuck ament where I choreog ne’.” Led by le I doing? trained inratepher Kenji Taniggaendary fight general nsively in katan ki, Golding a artial arts, gunplay m as w work and “Have yoaund motorcycle steull as learning done?!” seen the stuff nt riding. at Kenji ha Rurouni Khene laughs. “His lath s katana wo shin, has the most film, rk st what he w I’ve ever seen, insane anted to in a he’s an am ject into nthd that’s is. B videos of mazing mentor. W e’ve ut e tr on day 45aining on day one gaot and it’s su ch a starknd difference . A ls o th e footage that we’re now is jugstetting out of this unre For Snakea’sl.” friend/arch best enemy, TNUOMARAP

atching a three-way samurai army battle in the middle of a burning village is about as exciting as it sounds. But throw in a few speeding motorbikes, dualwielded machine guns, flying ninjas and exploding bridges and you’ve got yourself a proper set-piece. Total Film is hiding behind a pile of swords in the middle of a freezing February night somewhere outside of Tokyo, smoke swirling and flashpots cracking as an army of stunt performers leap over rooftops, dangle off cranes, ride through walls and face off in the street for a film set to reboot the entire G.I.-Joe-verse. “We’ve got your typical high-speed car/motorcycle/kung-fu/sword/gun thing going on,” laughs producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura, stamping his feet to keep warm. “It’s planned chaos!” It’s been 12 years since G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra first brought a live-action Joe to the screen, and eight years since 2013’s Retaliation failed to keep the momentum going. And now, at Japan’s Warp Station Edo backlot in Ibaraki, it’s time to hit the reset switch on the action-figure franchise that grew into a whole universe via comics, books, TV and games. Now planned as the first entry in a whole new series that puts the coolest side-character front-and-centre, Snake Eyes wants to be the film that finally gets it right. Crowded around portable heaters, hands stuffed into puffer jacket pockets over gun-belts and sword sheaths, the cast and crew are happy to talk about pretty much anything except the last two G.I. Joe movies. “Yeah, I didn’t really like the first two… I don’t know if I can say that?” says new Storm Shadow Andrew Koji. “I’m the eldest of three sisters so I grew up in a very girly household...” stammers Úrsula Corberó, The Baroness, being a bit more diplomatic. It doesn’t help that di Bonaventura is sitting in the same room – the guy who produced both original movies before hiring director Robert Schwentke (Red) to help him start again – but even he doesn’t disagree. “Well, I’d make a G.I. Joe movie every year if they’d let me!” he laughs. “But

one of the problems we had in making the first two was that the Paramount executives at the time fundamentally didn’t understand them. And they fundamentally didn’t like them. So they were a struggle. The lesson I’ve learned several times in my career, sometimes by mistake, is if you try to handle too many characters, nobody stands out. I think we tried too hard to give the fans all of the characters.” Which brings us to just one. Famously masked and silent, Snake Eyes has always been the most mysterious character in the world of G.I. Joe – a ninja commando with a sketchy past and an unspoken feud with his blood brother, Storm Shadow. A revenge-driven katana expert with a particular set of martial-arts assassination skills, he’s a fan favourite with more than one backstory already, making him ripe for reinvention and perfect for leading a complete shake-up of the G.I. Joe universe. “He’s the most iconic character of the whole mythology,” says di Bonaventura, laying out the roots of a new origin story that sees Snake joining the infamous Arashikage clan just as it starts tearing itself apart – putting him at odds with Storm. “This whole movie is about these two young men trying to find their position in life; starting as friends and ending as rivals. This is before Snake has joined the Joes so we’re seeing him join the clan, but we’re also seeing him without his mask, and hearing him talk, as a real character. Henry Golding stood out for us because he can do the physical stuff but he also has such charisma.” “But… Snake Eyes is a white guy!” laughs Golding, dressed in Snake’s iconic black padded battlesuit, fresh from fending off the Yakuza goons in the street and already gearing up to fight the internet trolls who expect him to look exactly like the character in the ’80s comics. “For this film, we’re celebrating the Japanese culture in a way that really imbues it with a sense of ageless beauty,” he adds. “But we’re putting Asian heroes at the forefront. Marvel’s working on their shit, they’ve got Shang-Chi, but I think we’ll beat them to it. This is going to be huge for everyone…”. Admitting that he had more than a few reservations about taking on “G.I. Joe’s greatestever character”, Golding signed on back in 2019 before starting a rigorous six-month training schedule that very nearly broke him.

SNAKE EYES says Koji. “So for them to become such production design, di Bon tura strong enemies, this Yin and g, insisted that the film shootaven you have to really believe the Yan location frien dsh ip in Japan, using real exteriorson so that feeling of betrayal is more at Himeji of Castle and several ancient Osa a rollercoaster.” ka temples. Moving to the ready-m “The key to the movie building ade Edo-era village at Warp Station an emotional dynamic betwwas for the Henry bigger action scenes (“because you and Andrew that sparks botheen ’re intense not allowed to blow stuff up in a Wor loyalty and potential conflict,”ad ld ds Heritage site…”), even the back di Bonaventura. And, as for The lot was chosen for its heritage. “Kurosawa Uwais, di Bonaventura says, “theRaid’s shot here. You can’t recreate this surprise with Iko is how much fun les di and Bonaventura, waving his han,”d smi sly humour he brought to a char a vast, r beautiful set now lit with paperatlant called the Hard Master. Yes he’s acte erns tough and flaming torches as a crow but he’s fun as hell to watch.” d of ninjas que ue up for the coffee mac . “In Re-built as an ensembl from the Hollywood, Japan has alwayshine ground up, the cast also incle ude sort s Har uka of forbidden ground, because been Abe as new Arashikage recruit Akik of cost o, and the difficulty. But to have thethekind Samara Weaving as future G.I. Joe member Scarlett, Peter Men asteam of authenticity we wanted we knew we just had to come here. It’s perfect.” Cobra’s side-swapping ninjasah yguard, And then… 2020 happened. One Blind Master, and Úrsula Corbbod eró as week after Total Film visited the Snake’s first big bad, The Baroness set, Snake . “I Eyes wra d production. Two wee think it’s so exciting because wha ks t we’re after thatppe creating here is a complete rebo , the Japa nese government ot,” says declared a stat e of emergency and the

‘WE’RE CELEBRATING JAPANESE CULTURE IN A WAY THAT REALLY IMBUES IT WITH A SENSE OF AGELESS BEAUTY’ HENRY GOLDING

e – with a bit less intens as w ng and ni ar ai st tr e Fu th aolin Kung professionalanShAndrew Koji cast as Storurma ex-stunt m r impressing di Bonavent Shadow aftearrior. in HBO’s W Shadow, or ‘Tommy’, is oned “Storm a,” says Koji, also butt a e basically a niasnjhikage colours to look liken up in his Ar ion of Kylo Ren. “He’s be so meaner vers e very early on in his life,was training sinckids were out playing he while other rough all the tough clan r. being put thcome the greatest warrio rituals to ben is to become the future His ambitio he believes that he is leader, and ke it into the future.” the one to taake ends up saving When Sn invites him to join his life, Storttming off a chain of the clan, se first puts the pair events that ith current leader in conflict wr (Iko Uwais), Hard Masteith each other. and then w ood “They’re bl brothers,”

Spanish star Corberó. “There are so film’s post-production was put on many stories that can be told hold. about these More than 15 mon characters and about the worlds ths later, the film is that fina lly gett ing ready to be ng the we’re creating. This has all super first big blockbusters backamo intense, but I’ve absolutely been in cinemas. loved it.” “Po st-p rodu ction was very tricky As the cast is called back to set, beca use the creative process was Schwentke lines up a hero shot stro lling challenged by being una – slow-mo, cool AF – through ble to collabora wre ckag e. in a room together, thus it took us longerte Think part superhero chic and all clas sic to get to the result we were hoping for,” samurai western. di Bonaventura tells TF in June “The whole movie is an attempt to “I think everyone is worried 202t 1. make a fusion between an Americ an releasing their film, how manabou movie and a Japanese movie,” y theatres explains will be open? Will everyone wan di Bonaventura, describin earl t to come y back? Yeah, we spend sleeples visual reference of a Geishag an s nights ing an worrying about that.” Uzi. “Everything we’re doinghold While nothing’s confirmed, the cast to make that marriage happenis: trying are enthused about Snake Eye’ thematically, visually, the crew s spin-off , the storytelling, everything. I donthe cast, potential. “We’ve got such an amazing ’t wan t cast and such uniq to get carried away with the deeper ue characters that each one can have their own spin-off,” meaning, but we’re says Gold ing. “But Snake Eyes is really dealing with more the foun dati on. This is the substantial ideas than ework of where to take G.I. Joe nextfram you would normally find in and it’s som ethi ng that hasn’t been most action pictures, certainly on the big screen. This film is doingseen more than in something like things that The hav en’t been done before big action Fast And The Furious. This has movies. I think we’re flyinin gravity, and at the same time we g under the rada r a bit – and I think audiences have, like, 150 Yakuza running are going to be really surprised.” with swords to fight one guy!” Going for “heightened SNAKE EYES OPENS IN CINEMAS ON realism” in the film’s 18 AUGUST.

JULY 2021 | TOTAL FILM

TOTAL FILM | JULY 2021

A DIVORCEE WHO WILL STOP AT NOTHING TO ENSURE HIS JACKET IS THE ONLY ONE IN THE WORLD, DEERSKIN IS UNDOUBTEDLY THE YEAR’S COOLEST – AND WEIRDEST – CULT MOVIE. TOTAL FILM HANGS OUT WITH STAR JEAN DUJARDIN AND WRITER-DIRECTOR QUENTIN DUPIEUX TO GET SOME LESSONS IN SARTORIAL ELEGANCE. WORDS: JAMES MOTTRAM

JULY 2021 | TOTAL FILM

MAKING OF

uentin Dupieux is sitting at a beachside restaurant in Cannes. It’s the day after his latest film Deerskin has just opened the Director’s Fortnight strand of the 2019 film festival, leaving everyone in great spirits. It’s hardly a surprise, though. Last time he was on the Croisette with his genre-bending 2010 horror Rubber – the story of a homicidal tyre – he was the talk of Cannes. Typical of his off-kilter humour, the production company even gave out free promotional condoms – rubbers, geddit? – to announce the film’s arrival. There are no novelty gifts this time around. “The movie’s so good, it doesn’t need bullshit like this,” he says, bullishly. His ebullient mood is understandable. Yesterday, he was in the company of The Thing director John Carpenter, who was at the premiere. “I was so happy,” he cries. “Two guys were like my main masters when I was a kid, Carpenter and the other one was [Suspiria director Dario] Argento. I used to watch their movies so many times.” One of French’s cinema’s most provocative talents – in some circles, he’s better known as electronic musician Mr. Oizo, famed for 1999 track ‘Flat Beat’, featuring headbanging yellow puppet Flat Eric in the video – Dupieux is on typically bizarre form with Deerskin. This year’s oddest movie, like a Gallic Greasy Strangler, it’s the story of Georges, a newly-divorced loner on a sartorial mission. After buying a 100 per cent pure deerskin jacket, he decides to rid the world of all other jackets. Like Highlander, there can be only one. So where on earth did this idea come from? “The initial seed? I wanted to make a stupid movie,” laughs Dupieux. He originally wrote the script in English for actor Eric Wareheim (Master Of None), who had appeared in his 2014 movie Reality. “He’s a really cool actor. I want to make a movie with that guy, and I wanted to exploit [his physicality]. He’s funny. You watch him – he’s funny already. Without doing anything. I wanted to do something around him and that’s how I started to write this thing about the jacket. At first – it was just supposed to be ridiculous. This big guy with a small jacket. And that was it.”

his was no whim, with the director even going to Los Angeles for inspiration. “I was like, ‘I’m bored in France, I need to go to the US to find the beautiful LA light.’ I was just trying to be inspired… I was not trying to make it in Hollywood. I was just trying to find cool stuff to shoot.” He even took trips to the Californian desert, Joshua Tree country, but – in the words of Bono – still couldn’t find what he was looking for. The script stayed on Dupieux’s computer without him ever taking it further, until he decided to rewrite it in French. Rather than relocate it to a typical French locales – Paris, Marseille or Nice – Dupieux chose Georges’ hideaway as a small TOTAL FILM | JULY 2021

PRIZE POSSESSION Georges (Jean Dujardin) sets out on a quest to rid the world of jackets that aren't his (above).

mountain town in the Pyrenees. “It’s a no-man’s land,” he says. “The atmosphere is weird. It’s not scary. Actually, it’s pretty beautiful. You have these huge fields with animals, and it feels like nobody is there. Some people are still there. But it’s very wild. I loved it.” It was his first time in the region. “When we first went there to find some locations… I was really amazed.” Given the bizarre nature of the story, it was no easy sell. “With my producers, when they got the script they said, ‘We love it, but it’s going to be tough.’ They said, ‘I think we should do it for a really low budget.’” Fortunately, they got lucky, hooking in Jean Dujardin, the Oscar-winning star of The Artist. “Twenty-four hours [after he read it] he said, ‘Yes, I want to do it,’” says Dupieux. “The process became easier. Not only because he has a big name. But if a guy like this likes it, it’s probably because there’s something good in it.” Dujardin was immediately intrigued when Dupieux first spoke to him about playing Georges. “It sounded fun,” he says, sunning himself on Cannes’ beach a few yards away from his director, “and that was confirmed as such when we started doing the film.” But the offbeat nature of the story – even one that ultimately plays at a very compact 77 minutes – felt very unusual. “I would say that it’s more weird than utterly funny. When I read it, it was very interesting. There was this lack of rhythm and also this incongruity in the whole idea.” The suave-looking Dujardin may have leapt to global fame playing the silent movie star in The Artist, but oddballs like Georges are his bread-and-butter. “I have to say that I have some sort of habit with these kinds of characters.” In 2005’s Brice De Nice, he played a surfer dude who worships Point Break. “I’m interested in those loonies!” he laughs. “You can find them in life. Sometimes you’re at SUBSCRIBE AT WWW.TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS

DEERSKIN a dinner table, and at the end of the table, there is somebody saying something absolutely ludicrous… somebody who is very enthralling.” Georges is not the only “loony” in Deerskin (and we’re not even talking about the weirdo, played by Julie Delpy’s father Albert, who sells him the jacket for the princely sum of €8,000). He manages to convince local bartender Denise (Portrait Of A Lady On Fire’s Adèle Haenel) that he’s making a film, albeit with the rest of the crew stranded in Siberia. A wannabe editor, Denise confesses she once re-cut Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction in chronological order (“It sucked!”). It’s the sort of pointless filmic exercise you’ll find on YouTube, says Dupieux. “I’m sure a geek did it somewhere.” It gets even weirder when Georges begins to hand her camcorder footage to edit, documenting his increasingly violent actions as his obsession turns psychotic. Initially, “the way I wrote it, it was more a mystery,” says Dupieux. “Maybe she knows the murders are real, but she wants to make movies so bad that she doesn’t want to know. She just wants to cut scenes and become an editor.” It was Haenel who began to question her character’s motivations. “Adèle wanted more substance – like, ‘No, she has to be crazy.’ Fine! She’s the crazy one and he’s just the dumb one.” Whatever the truth, Deerskin becomes a warped take on cracked masculinity, aided by Dujardin’s deadpan delivery. “I played it more in a rather normal, casual way than something funny,” he says, noting how he had to downplay every line. Georges may be making bizarre snuff movies, effectively, but the actor didn’t want to go over-the-top and

start hacking down doors with axes, like Stephen King’s creation Jack Torrance in The Shining. “I don’t think we should go there after Jack Nicholson.” According to Dupieux, he and his leading man were on the same page throughout. “He’s just the best. He’s just so easy. So smart. He’s 100 per cent available for the movie. He’s not here to show he’s someone. He’s just here to find the right tone with you. We had so much fun but not just stupid fun. The fun was to be connected to the same goal. We wanted the movie to sound the same. We had the same vision.” With costumes provided by Isabelle Pannetier (who worked on French mega-hit The Intouchables), Georges’ beloved jacket comes complete with tasteless tassels making it look like a 1970s country-and-western uniform. “We tried, like, seven jackets on Jean,” says Dupieux, “but we knew this one was a good one.” Needless to say, it was not really made of deerskin. “No! I think you can’t find 100 per cent deerskin. They’re a protected species, no?” says the director, looking mildly affronted by the idea. “This is goat, I guess!”

FASHION VICTIM Denise (Adèle Haenel) is drawn into Georges' obsession as he films his crimes (below).

'THE MASCULINE DESIRE OF FLEEING, THE DESIRE TO FORGET ONESELF SOMEWHERE ELSE, THE INSANITY THAT CREEPS UP ON ALL OF US'

JEAN DUJARDIN

ujardin didn’t quite get Georges’ fetish for all things deerskin (Georges later starts collecting other apparel, cut from the same cloth). He’s not hardwired that way. “I’m not very much a boy in this sense – I’m not attached to cars, to watches, to clothes. I have my wedding ring, to which I’m quite attached. I like it. But I’d rather be attached to humans than objects.” Ironically, his appearance in French TV comedy Call My Agent!, playing an exaggerated Method-y version of himself, saw him similarly obsessed by clothing. “I was pissed – because they shot it after my movie!” cries Dupieux. Certainly, it’s clear that for Dujardin, Georges is a role that burrowed under his (deer)skin. There were many reasons: “The whole masculine fantasy of fleeing, the desire to forget oneself somewhere else, the insanity that creeps up on all of us.” He tries to explain himself. When he was young, he befriended homeless people, he says. “I was both very attracted by their loneliness, but it also frightened me… I still have within myself this fear to become a tramp. This idea of falling down, becoming marginal. I think when you’re on your own entirely… then neuroses are very close. Madness is very close.” Beneath all the black comedy, Deerskin might just be a beguiling study of just how close any of us are to falling through those cracks. Either way, it’s a film that marks Dupieux out as the high-prankster of French cinema, and it’s finally coming to the UK after pandemic-related delays to its release date. (And if you think this is weird, his follow-up film, 2020’s Mandibules, about two idiots that befriend a giant insect, is even stranger.) Just don’t expect to find Dupieux on Netflix any time soon. His ideas are built for the big screen. “I’m not interested in TV,” he says. “I love seeing the room going dark. I love to see a crowd reacting to a movie.” He smiles. “I’m very old-fashioned.”

DEERSKIN OPENS IN CINEMAS ON 16 JULY. JULY 2021 | TOTAL FILM

TOTAL FILM | JULY 2021

EDGAR WRIGHT’S SMASH-HIT DOCUMENTARY IS THE PERFECT MATCH OF FILMMAKER AND SUBJECT – FIZZY AND FUNNY. TOTAL FILM MEETS WITH THE DIRECTOR AND THE BROTHERS TO LEARN ALL ABOUT THE GREATEST BAND YOU’VE MAYBE NEVER HEARD OF… WORDS JAMIE GRAHAM

JULY 2021 | TOTAL FILM

MAKING OF Spider-Verse, was the first to reply: “You should do it.” If Wright was taken aback, it was only for a moment. “I was like, ‘Oh, yeah. I will.’ And then, that night, me and Phil went to say hi to them backstage, and I said, ‘Hey, I’ve got an idea of something I want to talk to you about.’ And as soon as I said it out loud, without any idea of who would finance this movie” – he chuckles – “basically it was a vocal contract to them. That was four years ago.”

LIGHTING THE FUSE

The documentary that was promised and is now being delivered into cinemas after winning rave reviews at the Edgar Wright was five years old when Sundance Film Festival and South by Sparks first blipped on his radar. “Top Of Southwest is The Sparks Brothers. It’s two hours and 20 minutes long, but zips by The Pops and Doctor Who were the two in the blink of an eye, providing a shows I watched a lot,” he grins on whistle-stop tour through Sparks’ 25 Zoom, not needing a Tardis to travel back in time to the living room of his albums (to date) over a 54-year career family home in Somerset, in 1979. “I that has seen them constantly rejig, remember the image of [brothers] Ron reinvent and rejuvenate, trying their hands at glam rock, prog rock, New and Russell [Mael] on Top Of The Pops because they had three singles out that Wave, proto-punk, electro, disco and techno. Chances are you’ve never heard year, so they probably did four or five appearances. That was at the point of them, but that’s OK: there will be where they stripped down to being just songs you recognise (‘This Town Ain’t Ron on synths and Russell singing, and Big Enough For The Both Of Us’, ‘Girl From Germany’) and bands you love maybe sometimes with a drummer on who are deeply influenced by them. stage. It essentially became the Sparks are often dubbed as the template for so many ’80s acts – Soft Cell, Pet Shop Boys, Yazoo. I remember ‘musicians’ musicians’, and the likes the image very, very well. And then of Franz Ferdinand, Duran Duran, separately from that, I’d occasionally New Order, Erasure and Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers are among the get these chart-compilation albums. I remember, one came free with a pair of 80 or so talking heads that pop up to jeans. It had Sparks’ ‘Beat The Clock’ on wax lyrical in Wright’s dazzling doc, it. I really, really liked it.” along with leftfield uber-fans such Wright’s Tardis-like mind is now as Mike Myers, Mark Gatiss and Neil spinning him forward to 1994. “‘When Gaiman. “I felt that more people needed Do I Get To Sing My Way’ was their sort to know who they were,” says Wright, and this doc will no doubt result in of comeback single,” he says. “The video was on everywhere. And I’m tens of thousands stampeding to watching it at home, thinking, “Wait Spotify and iTunes. – Sparks? ‘Beat The Clock’ Sparks? Watching The Sparks Brothers’ hyperkinetic mix of archival footage, Where have they been for 15 years? interviews, recreations and 2D and What’s going on?’” stop-motion animation, it is There’s no stopping this tumbling journey down memory lane. Now it’s immediately apparent that Wright is the 2017… “Eventually, at a Sparks gig in perfect director to corral the story of this LA, after I’d finished doing the Baby particular band. His films, like Sparks’ Driver tour, I said to Phil Lord, who also music, blend genres and embrace loves Sparks: ‘The only thing stopping humour. The brothers agree. “We had been hesitating when asked Sparks being as big as they could be is that somebody’s got to make a about doing a documentary, because you documentary about them.’” It wasn’t feel that if it’s in the wrong hands, it can be like writing the obituary of a the first time Wright had voiced this thought – he’d been saying it for a few band as opposed to celebrating what the years by then. But Lord, the bright mind band has been, and also what the band behind The Lego Movie, the Jump Street is now doing,” starts Russell. At 72 years movies and Spider-Man: Into The of age, he radiates infectious energy on TOTAL FILM | JULY 2021

GOING ON TOUR Edgar Wright followed the band around on their latest tour (above). THE MAEL MEN Wright has been a fan of Sparks since childhood (right).

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THE SPARKS BROTHERS Zoom. “We thought that if anybody was going to do a good job of this thing, then Edgar could do it. There seemed to be a similar sensibility to his films and our music.” Ron, 75, nods. He looks imposingly serious, sitting stock still in his Zoom frame while his younger brother chats. But when he talks, the corners of his lips curl up on either side of the narrow moustache that’s earned him comparisons to Chaplin and Hitler throughout his career. His smile is effervescent. “Also, there’s a highenergy, kinetic nature to his films,” he says. “He was able to impose that energy on the documentary. That was something that we were really hoping for. We didn’t want this to be an outlier. But it obviously has his stamp all over it.” For Wright, you might have thought it would be a challenge making his first documentary, perhaps even a headache. For while it sure is fun following one of your favourite bands around the world to capture concerts performed in London, Japan, Mexico City and Los Angeles, how do you even

made on Sparks. For while we learn that the brothers are from California (they’re often mistaken as English) and are not the sons of Doris Day (a rogue rumour that’s persisted for years), The Sparks Brothers chooses to preserve much of the mystique that is very much part of the band’s brand. There’s even a segment where Ron and Russell look straight to camera and share 20 little-known facts about themselves – all of them outrageous and obviously made up. “The only thing off the table was that they didn’t really want to talk about relationships,” says Wright. “In the film, there are a couple of times it comes up organically, when they can’t help but talk about the situation with ex-girlfriends. But for the most part, that was something that they asked for. And I totally understand it. Sparks have existed for a long time with a sort of curious enigma about them. It’s one of the reasons that people still love the band. So then it becomes a balancing act. How can you tell the whole Sparks story, and yet let them retain a bit of mystique?”

‘THERE’S NO POSSIBLE WAY WE WOULD HAVE BEEN ABLE TO DO 25 ALBUMS WITHOUT BEING BROTHERS ’ RON MAEL

begin to sift through 50 years’ worth of archive footage? “The archive stuff is a gift, really,” he insists. “Ron and Russell are really good at archiving their own stuff, just in their house. And we sourced stuff from the fans. We put the word out on social media, and got a massive influx of photos and footage from gigs. It’s more about trying to fashion the story. They don’t have a ‘rise and fall and rise’ structure. It’s like this all the way through.” His index finger draws a jagged line of countless peaks and troughs in the air, like some crazy ECG reading. “As Ron and Russell point out, most music documentaries have some kind of end-of-act-two tragedy – like, somebody dies, or there’s an accident, or there’s drug addiction. The thing with Ron and Russell is that it’s more like watching the tortoise and the hare. What I want people to feel by the end of the documentary is that you’re totally on the journey with them. It’s these two guys who’ve scratching this itch for 50 years.” There is, perhaps, a different documentary that could have been GAMESRADAR.COM/TOTALFILM

The brothers are not about to spill any secrets now. “Well, I mean, the important thing is that we have a really good relationship creatively,” starts Ron when TF enquires if they ever fall out when the cameras are off. “There’s no possible way that we would have been able to do 25 albums in a continuous fashion without being brothers, I think. It obviously works as a hindrance to [some] other brother bands, but in our case, it’s one of the keys to the longevity of the band, and also the sustenance of a certain level of quality. It isn’t that we need to get along, and go, ‘Hey, let’s go out for brunch’ or something.” Wright points out the lack of personal drama that has allowed the brothers to keep plugging away through the fallow years. They saved for the rainy days – or rather years – if you will. “They would say, ‘Are we too boring in our private lives to have a documentary about us?’ I was like, ‘No, I find that part the most inspiring part, that you keep your overheads low…’ You know, not having a big coke habit, or blowing their advance on expensive cars. It’s the JULY 2021 | TOTAL FILM

MAKING OF

TOPEdgarOFpicksTHE POPS his five fave Sparks albums…

Kimono My House 1974

This is their breakthrough album. It really is all killer. There’s not a bad track on it. I constantly come back to it as a favourite album. It opens with ‘This Town Ain’t Big Enough For The Both Of Us’, but that’s not the peak! It keeps operating at that level, which is really unusual.

No. 1 In Heaven 1979

This album is pretty revolutionary. There weren’t really any other existing bands that had ditched their guitars for an all-electronic format. Anybody listening to that album can see the seeds of so many other acts of the next 30 years. And even though it’s 1979 synth technology, it still sounds fucking great.

Angst In My Pants 1982

This album didn’t really do anything in the UK, but it’s their most famous album in the States. It’s their New Wave album. Again, it just doesn’t put a foot wrong – it’s thrilling and funny and funky all the way through. It’s the album that has the infamous cover of Ron and Russell getting married.

Lil’ Beethoven 2002

Lil’ Beethoven is another complete reinvention of the band, where they go into this neoclassical vein of Ron’s orchestrations and Russell’s vocals, and build around this idea of making little social observations into massive operas. This album is bold and ambitious, sharp and funny. You can never count these guys out.

Hippopotamus 2017

Hippopotamus was their return to a pop-song format, after doing some more expansive work like The Seduction Of Ingmar Bergman, or even the operatic stuff on Lil’ Beethoven. Hippopotamus is inspired by their time with Franz Ferdinand. It was their first album since 1975 to get into the top 10 in the UK. JG TOTAL FILM | JULY 2021

thing that’s afforded them the opportunity to almost be gymnastic in their pursuit of Sparks.” “When we see each other, we’re almost always in a working situation,” continues Ron. “At this point, so much can be non-verbal, because we know what each other is about. Also, we know musically what we want to do, without having to have these big board meetings. Both of us have a passion for pop music. We think that pop music [has] an amazing set of rules, in a way, and we want to see how far we can work within those fixtures but kind of get away with a lot of things.”

READY FOR THEIR CLOSEUP

The Sparks Brothers makes it abundantly clear that Ron and Russell will never stop pushing. Whereas bands like The Rolling Stones and The Who are content to play their greatest hits to packed-out stadiums, the Sparks, on tour in 2008, played a different album in its entirety night after night after night, meaning they had to master 300 songs. Throughout their career, whenever their tastes have fleetingly aligned with the general public’s to produce a hit, they’ve executed a breakneck change of direction, daring fans to keep up. In 2015, they released an album with Franz Ferdinand after forming supergroup FFS. And never mind they are now septuagenarians – they have a new album lined up and a tour to follow early next year. Who knows, perhaps they have another 25 albums in them. “With advances in medical science,” says Ron, stone-faced, on the doc. They also have musical-drama Annette scheduled to open this year’s Cannes Film Festival, should it go ahead. It is the tale of a stand-up comedian (Adam Driver), his operasinger wife (Marion Cotillard) and their two-year-old daughter with a surprising gift, and it is directed by French auteur Leos Carax (Holy Motors, Pola X). Ron and Russell wrote the screenplay and the music, and their joy – not to mention relief – is palpable, for they are cinephiles who once almost made a Monsieur Hulot film with Jacques Tati, and an anime musical with Tim Burton. “We could never have imagined not only having a really great documentary, but also a feature film we had initiated and written entirely ourselves,” says Russell, whose favourite filmmakers are Welles, Bergman, Ozu, Mizoguchi and the French New Wave directors of the ’50s and ’60s. Naturally, Ron agrees

A CLOSER LOOK The ﬁlm opens a window into Ron and Russell’s lives (above) TALKING HEADS The documentary is stacked with famous fans of the Sparks brothers (inset right)

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THE SPARKS BROTHERS with all of his choices, and his lips again curl up to frame his ’tache as he talks fondly of Annette. “It is beyond what we expected,” he says. “I think this project is really special, both from our point of view, but within film musicals as well. We’re really excited for people to see the film. We’re film buffs in an intense way. The Cannes Film Festival is the Holy Land for us. And so for the film to be the opening film there, it’s just unbelievable.” Given Sparks’ raison d’être is to reinvent and stay fresh, they must be excited that Annette and Wright’s documentary will introduce a lot more people to their work. Especially a younger audience. “We really hope so,” says Russell, and Ron nods along. “From the few film festivals where The Sparks Brothers has been at so far, the reaction already has been amazing. And even when the trailer was released, there was tonnes of really positive feedback – obviously from hardcore Sparks fans, but also from new people. We’ve found there’s people going, ‘I know so much about music. Why have I never heard of Sparks?’ And they have taken the next step and said, ‘I’ve gone and listened to your catalogue. It’s astounding. I can’t believe I didn’t know about you.’” As for Wright, one of the rewards of working with Sparks is to draw inspiration from their bottomless well of creativity. “Look at someone like George Miller doing Fury Road,” he says. “A man who’s 71, he comes back, and makes a movie that wipes the floor with every other director living. That’s extraordinary. With things like Fury Road or Sparks’ career, it’s just an example that you should never count anybody out because of their age. Sparks have been smart. They almost have this wilful obtuseness of switching it up. It’s admirable. You shouldn’t give in to what you think you ought to do, or what people want to see. That’s why I’ve never caved to a Shaun Of The Dead sequel or a Hot Fuzz sequel. It’s like, ‘I know you think you want it, but unless we’ve got a really good idea, I don’t think you need it.’” You might say The Sparks Brothers is just the opposite – the film you didn’t know you needed, but really do.

LASREVINU

THE SPARKS BROTHERS IS IN CINEMAS FROM 30 JULY, WITH A SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL: LONDON SCREENING AND LIVE SATELLITE Q&A WITH EDGAR WRIGHT IN CINEMAS ON 29 JULY. GAMESRADAR.COM/TOTALFILM

JULY 2021 | TOTAL FILM

SHARKS

From Bruce in Jawsto King Shark in THe Suicide Squad, we’ve always been captivated –and terrified – bythe ocean’s apex predators. Just when you thoughtit was safe to go back in the water, Total Filmgoes swimming with sharks… WORDS NEIL SMITH

TF INVESTIGATES

relationship, I think, is like a shark – it has to constantly move forward or it dies,” muses Annie Hall’s Alvy Singer (Woody Allen). “And I think what we got on our hands, is a dead shark.” Whether detonated, incinerated, electrocuted or devoured, we have hardly been short of dead sharks in the years both before and after the ocean’s scariest apex predator chomped its way into the public’s consciousness in Steven Spielberg’s Jaws. As you might expect of a species that has lived on Earth for more than 420 million years, though, they’re never gone for long. And when they return, and return they will, you can be certain of one thing: you’re gonna need a bigger boat. Before we go any further, we should make it clear we are talking about movie sharks – the sinister, toothy, marauding variety who haunt our culture and our nightmares with their lust for blood and taste for human flesh. Real sharks are a very different kettle of fish. For one thing, they are discerning eaters, with slow digestive tracts that mean they eat a tiny fraction of their body weight daily. For another they attack humans very rarely, and only then if they mistake us for something else, such as a seal or sea lion. There are more than 500 species of shark in our oceans, but only a few – the tiger, the bull and the great white among them – are known to attack people. And

THE REAL DEAL Non-movie sharks are actually quite discerning eaters, preferring to leave us alone (below).

Dory and her pals can just keep swimming. (Remove a shark and the whole food chain is disrupted, leading to explosive growths in some species and the wiping out of others – a so-called trophic cascade.) OK, we’ve got that off our chest. Where were we? Ah, yes: the movie shark, all teeth and muscle and deadly rampage. Ask most people and they’ll say it started with Jaws, the 1974 bestseller by Peter Benchley that became a world-conquering blockbuster the

fuelling the industrial harvesting of sharks and the depletion of their population. (Horrifically, sharks are routinely thrown back into the water alive after their fins are hacked off, going on to suffer a protracted and agonising death.) The numbers of oceanic sharks and rays have declined by more than 70 per cent over the last half century, mostly due to chronic overfishing. And the rest of the ocean is suffering too, sharks being a vital part of the underwater ecosystem that ensures

following year. In reality, though, the image of sharks as implacable killing machines was forged far earlier, thanks in part to a widely reported incident from the early years of the 20th century. In 1916 a series of shark attacks off the coast of New Jersey left five men dead, another man injured and an Eastern seaboard in panic. Lurid tales of a “Jersey man-eater” led to a media feeding frenzy and a massive shark hunt, with the attacks eventually attributed to a lone great white that nearly sank the

‘THE THING ABOUT A SHARK, HE’S GOT… LIFELESSROBERT EYES,SHAW, BLACK EYES…’ JAWS

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BIG ENOUGH? Possibly the most famous shark flick of all time, Jaws (above and opposite).

when attacks do happen – the average is 80 incidents annually, many provoked by reckless human interaction – they do not tend to be fatal, sharks being far more likely to take an exploratory bite than go straight for the kill. Sharks, in short, are among the most maligned creatures on our planet, with an undeservedly ferocious reputation that has made them one of the most ruthlessly hunted and persecuted. It doesn’t help matters that their fins are considered a delicacy, especially in Asia,

SHARKS

FEEDING TIME King Shark chows down in the upcoming The Suicide Squad.

JUST KEEP SWIMMING Jason Statham takes aim at The Meg.

vessel of the fellow trying to catch it. (Some challenged that version of events, preferring to blame oversized sea turtles or even German U-boats.) It is impossible to know if one sensational episode blackened the shark’s name forever. Was it a coincidence, though, that Cecil B. DeMille’s 1924 silent Feet Of Clay had a hero suffer a shark bite, or that Felix the Cat fought a shark in an animated short (now lost) released the same year? By the following decade, shark tales were commonplace enough for author Zane Grey to go to Australia to appear in one (1936’s White Death) as himself. Even Laurel and Hardy got in on the act, 1939’s The Flying Deuces featuring a sequence in which the duo’s attempts to drown themselves in the Seine are hampered by a less than convincing shark fin. (The shark, named Gaston, has escaped from a Parisian aquarium, according to a newspaper headline seen elsewhere in that bite-sized RKO comedy.)

Fish and clips Sharks, then, were already established

as bad guys long before the movies had even learned how to talk. It was during World War II, though, that another bone-chilling appendix was added to their CV – and if you know your Jaws you will know what is coming. In the early hours of 30 July 1945, a US naval ship sailing between Guam and the Philippines was hit by two Japanese GAMESRADAR.COM/TOTALFILM

torpedoes that effectively ripped it in two. The cruiser sank in just 12 minutes, leaving 900 of its 1,196 crew members stranded in the Pacific. It was not long before sharks began to circle, finding easy pickings among the helplessly bobbing sailors. By the time the survivors were rescued, just 316 were left from what remains the worst maritime disaster in American naval history. This, of course, was the USS Indianapolis, the same ship Robert Shaw’s Quint talks about in his mesmerising monologue on the Orca. (“The thing about a shark, he’s got… lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll’s eyes,” says cinema’s saltiest seadog. “When he comes at ya, doesn’t seem to be livin’… until he bites ya.”) The disaster was recreated in Mission Of The Shark: The Saga Of The USS Indianapolis, a 1991 TV movie with Stacy Keach, and again in USS Indianapolis: Men Of Courage, a more polished 2016 effort that saw Nicolas Cage play the vessel’s courtmartialled captain. It was catastrophes like it, meanwhile, that Victor Mature was out to avert in 1956’s The Sharkfighters, a war yarn about shark repellent that lost one of its own crew members to a shark attack while filming off the coast of Cuba. By the 1960s sharks had become a Bond villain’s accessory, to be eluded by Sean Connery in Thunderball, dodged by Roger Moore in Live And Let Die and spoofed later by Mike Myers in the JULY 2021 | TOTAL FILM

TF INVESTIGATES HOW TO...

SURVIVE AATTACK SHARK

Listen closely to James Wright, senior curator at Sea Life London Aquarium. What he says could save your life…

There’s an adage that the shark that attacks you is the one you don’t see Easy options for a shark are prey items that are not looking and are caught unawares so if you’re in the water and you can see the shark the right thing to do is face it Sharks pick up on the vibrations created by weak sick and injured animals If the vibration is more strong and rhythmic like that of a breaststroke it will probably deter them where an erratic swimming stroke would draw more interest The signals it would put in the water are not those of a strong animal A simple thing to avoid being attacked is not to go swimming around dawn or dusk as that’s when sharks are more active If you see fish jumping out of the water around you it’s a sign there’s something on the move If a shark is too close and you have an instrument with you use it to strike the shark’s nose and around its eyes If it gets really dire go for the gills: they’re just in front of the pectoral fin which is the first fin on the side of the shark’s body Fighting back is the best way to survive Sharks don’t expect their prey to fight; they expect it to try and get away from them If you turn tail and run or swim that is a red rag for them to pursue JG

TOTAL FILM | JULY 2021

Austin Powers series. (“I have one simple request, and that is to have sharks with frickin’ laser beams attached to their heads!”) The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) even had a henchman named Jaws, who ate a shark at the end of the film, allowing him to return two years later in Moonraker. Another shark took a fancy to Adam West’s leg in Batman: The Movie (“Holy sardine!”), obliging him to pull out his handy shark repellent Bat-spray; 1969’s Shark! saw Burt Reynolds’ gun-runner dive in sharkinfested waters; while Tintin And The Lake Of Sharks had Captain Haddock navigate a shark submarine. The early ’70s also brought us Blue Water, White Death, one of the first major documentaries to analyse the Carcharodon carcharias (that’s great white shark to you) in forensic detail.

The bite stuff Jaws, though, was the game-changer,

and for one main reason: its killer shark was smart. The notion, however fanciful, that a monstrous carnivore could out-think as well as eat you was a petrifying concept, one that amplified the menace of mechanical shark Bruce into an existential threat. Subsequent entries in the Jaws franchise suggested sharks will also take things personally, TRUE TO LIFE The Sharkfighters, a a fallacy Benchley felt especially sorry for propagating. (“Knowing what I 1956 film that lost a member of its crew to know now I could never write that book a shark attack (below). today,” he confessed in later life.

“Sharks don’t target human beings, and they certainly don’t hold grudges.”) And then there was that theme tune: that instantly iconic two-note motif its composer John Williams likened to a shark grinding away at its carrion. Airplane! was only one of the countless movies to parody it, using the sting to accompany its opening shot of an airliner’s tail fin stalking the clouds. Virtually every film about sharks since Jaws has followed its template, with the occasional kink or embellishment. Take The Jaws Of Death (1976) for example, whose hero discovers he has a telepathic connection with the species, or Tintorera (1977), which merged a shark hunt with a romantic ménage à trois. The Deep – also 1977 and also based on a Benchley novel – threw treasure hunters into the mix, while Orca did Jaws over with a killer whale instead. James Mason gave his voice to an animated shark in 1978’s The Water Babies – as Barry Humphries and Robert De Niro would go on to do in Finding Nemo and Shark Tale respectively – while Jaws 3-D (1983) added the extra enticement of stereoscopic spectacles. Sharks were becoming so ubiquitous they even generated a pop-culture idiom: “jumping the shark”, a reference to a 1977 instalment of Happy Days featuring The Fonz and a ski jump that many of its fans felt had pushed the show into the realms of risible absurdity.

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SHARKS

SUPER SHARKS 1999’s Deep Blue Sea featured genetically engineered smarter sharks (above and below right). FISH ARE FRIENDS Barry Humphries was the voice of the vegetarian shark in Finding Nemo (below).

The box-office failure of Jaws: The Revenge in 1987 appeared to bring an end to the shark-film craze. Indeed, it would be over a decade before the genre made a comeback with Deep Blue Sea, a fin-tastically preposterous Renny Harlin actioner in which genetically modified brainy sharks munch their way through an underwater research team. Its success opened the floodgates for a new wave of shark pics both believably intimate (Open Water, 47 Meters Down and The Shallows amongst them) and majestically overstated (The Meg, in which Jason Statham has a face-off with a prehistoric megalodon). 2013’s Sharknado, meanwhile, capitalised on an appetite

Movies by Rick Edwards and Dr. Michael Brooks, it goes back to evolution and our inbred fear of anything that can harm us. “Our primal fight or flight mechanism is almost certainly a consequence of ancient threats from predators,” they reveal. “The adrenaline shot that kicks in when we face trouble is the same hit that gave our forebears the ability to run away from them. Our hearts race, we hyperventilate, all in order to rush oxygen to our muscles. The after-effects of a fear-induced adrenaline rush are weirdly pleasurable – which is why we like watching scary movies such as Jaws.” “It is definitely an innate fear,” agrees James Wright, senior curator at the Sea

for nonsensical B-movie crossovers – see also Mega Shark Versus Crocosaurus, Sharktopus Vs. Whalewolf and far too many others to mention – spawning an unfathomably popular franchise that has never let a paucity of resources tether the limits of its demented imagination.

Life London Aquarium. “Sharks are an apex predator in an environment we’re not, so it’s kind of natural to fear them. If you go into the sea it’s essentially like you’re going to the moon; it’s totally an alien environment. Sharks stopped evolving and had reached the peak of what they need to do to survive pretty much before we existed.” With Ben Wheatley’s Meg sequel on the way, Big Shark coming from The Room’s Tommy Wiseau and rumours a Jaws remake is in gestation, King Shark certainly won’t be the last Selachimorpha we’ll be seeing on the screen. And while we may never get the Jaws 19 that was humorously trailed in Back To The Future Part II (“This time it’s really, really personal!”), we can count on the original to be making audiences jump for many years to come. Smile, you son of a bitch!

‘SHARKS DON’T TARGET HUMANS, AND THEY DON’T HOLD GRUDGES’ PETER BENCHLEY

Shark life Given viewers have happily embraced

watching sharks made airborne by freak atmospheric phenomena, the idea of a talking shark with arms and legs (voiced by Sylvester Stallone no less) in comic-book sorta-sequel, sorta-reboot The Suicide Squad does not seem that much of a stretch. What, though, explains our enduring fascination with these deadly denizens of the deep? And why do we love seeing them in movies, however detached they may be from reality? According to Hollywood Wants To Kill You: The Peculiar Science Of Death In The THE SUICIDE SQUAD IS IN CINEMAS 30 JULY.

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JULY 2021 | TOTAL FILM

THE

INTERVIEW INTERVIEW MATT MAYTUM PORTRAITS AUSTIN HARGRAVE

STUDIOS DIDN’T WAKE UP IN TIME TO THE FACT THAT IT’S ABOUT A GLOBAL AUDIENCE…

DAVID OYELOWO

T S U G U A/ E VA R G R A H N I T S U A TOTAL FILM | JULY 2021

From Selma toA United Kingdom, David Oyelowo hasa history of shepherding long-gestating passion projects tothe screen, and his directorial debut The Water Man is no different.Ahead of its UK debut on Netflix,Oyelowo tells Total Film about representation,four-quadrant storytelling,and whythose Bond rumours refuse to go away…

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INTERVIEW

hen Total Film catches up with David Oyelowo in June 2021, he’s just returned to his home in LA after a trip to the UK. Not that he’s showing any signs of jetlag. Every bit as eloquent and measured as you’d expect, he’s also surprisingly forthright, particularly when it comes to issues of representation on screen, studios’ shortcomings and the roadblocks his career faced in the UK (hence the move to LA). If some of his most important projects have faced resistance, his tenacity and dedication has borne out some remarkable films/performances, including Martin Luther King Jr. bio-drama Selma and historical romance A United Kingdom. His feature directorial debut, The Water Man, was another such passion project. Oyelowo was originally attached to produce and star, but an unexpected vacancy in the director’s chair saw him step up to the helm. “We essentially had a ‘go’ movie, but then our director decided he wanted to go off and do a bigger film,” he explains. “It meant we were sort of left in the lurch in a sense. If we didn’t go in that window, there was a real chance the film would fall apart.” Oyelowo also has a key on-screen role in the Amblin-esque fantasy-tinged drama,

TAKING THE LEAD Oyelowo on set of The Water Man with young star Lonnie Chavis.

which premiered at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival. He plays the father of protagonist Gunner (Lonnie Chavis), a young boy who goes on a quest with friend Jo (Amiah Miller) to find ‘the Water Man’, a mythical being who might have the power to cure Gunner’s sick mother Mary (Rosario Dawson). A throwback to the days when family movies didn’t talk down to kids, it’s characterdriven and surprisingly emotional. “This is a very passion-driven endeavour for me – especially as a director,” he says. Born in England to Nigerian parents in 1976, Oyelowo spent several years of his childhood in Nigeria. His acting career started on stage with the Royal Shakespeare Company, and his screen career was kickstarted by BBC One’s Spooks. Work with directors like Lee Daniels, Christopher McQuarrie, J.C. Chandor, Steven Spielberg and Christopher Nolan followed, and Oyelowo began carving out a side role as a producer. He selects work via a rule of thumb he dubs ‘the three Ps’: “the part, the people, and the project. And the most important one is the people. Being around really great actors, directors, producers, writers… that’s how your game gets raised.” Looking ahead to future directing prospects, Oyelowo says, “Much in the same way that with my acting career I try to do a range of as much as I can, I would love to be able to apply that mindset to directing. I don’t think that my films are ever going to not in some way have an element of trying to move things forward when it comes to representation, both in front of and behind the camera. But also making films that are truly three-to-four quadrants, that the whole family can watch

and enjoy, and have both magic and meaning, that’s something I’m ambitious to do.” Ambitious is an understatement, as we’re about to find out… Had you been looking for a feature to direct when The Water Man came along? I hadn’t specifically been looking for a feature to direct, but I had spent, I guess, the first 20 years of my career on screen observing great directors, knowing that one day it was something I really wanted to do. There’s a part of it, for me, that’s entertainment; there’s a part of it that’s educational; there’s a part of it that’s escapism; but there’s a huge part of it that’s cultural in relation to being able to see people who we don’t necessarily look like, or feel like there is any real affinity there. And then to find that. I grew up not seeing as many images of folks who look like me as I would like. It wasn’t until I got older, and had children of my own, that I recognised just how powerful it is to see yourself represented, not just on the periphery of the narrative, but at the centre, and how that shapes your worldview, your sense of self, your sense of belonging. And then The Water Man crossed my path, and I had loved films like this growing up, a lot of them made by the amazing Steven Spielberg. And now that I have children on my own, I sort of wondered, “Where are these films?” But even initially, I wasn’t supposed to direct it. We actually lost our director, which is how I came to direct it.

What lessons did you take from them? I did a ﬁlm with Angelina Jolie a couple of TOTAL FILM | JULY 2021

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X I L F T E N , T S U G U A/ E VA R G R A H N I T S U A

When you took on directing duties, did you ever consider no longer acting in it? It’s a funny one, because wrongly or rightly, in order to put a film together, a financier needs certain elements that feel like they are going to get a return on their investment. I say “wrongly or rightly” because sometimes those assumptions are made, and they are not necessarily true [laughs]. But I was one of those elements, even before I was going to be directing. I knew that extricating myself may pose challenges for the film getting made. And to be honest, I never really entertained it. I was nervous about doing both, primarily because as an actor, you have one focus. As a director, you have 100 things to focus on. I did worry about how that would affect my performance. I was dreading being the worst thing about my own movie. I talked to some very clever guys and ladies who had done it before me – actors who had also directed – and I got some great advice.

STILL RISING David Oyelowo’s star has been rising for a decade, and he’s now directing too.

years ago [Come Away]. She said to me: “A mistake you mustn’t make is to shortchange yourself because you are selfconscious about spending too much time on your own performance.” Joel Edgerton was very articulate about making sure to have a separation between the director and the actor, especially when you’re in a scene. So having your ﬁrst assistant director be the one to call “action” and “cut” is a very clean way of not confusing your other actors. And also, if you’re going to give an actor a note, if you’ve just been in a scene with them, do not just say “cut” and then immediately start giving them notes, because that just makes them feel like: ‘Were you in the scene with me? Or just observing me?’ So those were little things that I think you only arrive at through experience. There’s a saying: “Only make new mistakes, not old ones.” So I learned from my friends’ old mistakes, and went from there.

Absolutely. A big one for me was E.T., which of course was a seminal film for many people. Stand By Me. The Goonies. I’d say those three. I also really loved that Matthew McConaughey film Mud, which is more adult in tone. But what I love about all those films is how much they respect the emotional intelligence of the young protagonists in the films. There is, I think, a misunderstanding in Hollywood around what a family film is, and could be. Sometimes, a family film has become something purely geared towards kids. A family film is something that kids, their parents and their grandparents can all watch. I think the company that does that the best is Pixar, but they are given license to because it’s sugar-coated in animation. We’re doing it less with liveaction these days.

I RECOGNISED HOW POWERFUL IT IS TO SEE YOURSELF REPRESENTED

The Water Man has a throwback quality. Were there ﬁlms you talked to your cast and crew about as reference points? GAMESRADAR.COM/TOTALFILM

The Water Man took a really long time to come together, and so did Selma as well. Is that often the case for the most important projects? Unfortunately, yes. Selma was a seven-year

journey. A United Kingdom was a seven-year journey. The Water Man was a four-year journey. I’ve been trying to get a film called Sweet Thunder made for nine years – a film about Sugar Ray Robinson. It’s infuriating, if I’m totally honest, and sometimes the reasons why these films are struggling to get made are arbitrary. Sometimes they’re fear-driven. But if you keep plugging away at it, the chances are that the script will be better, because you’ve had more time to develop it; the vision for it will become clearer. I think you see in studio movies what happens when you rush storytelling and filmmaking. Often, they’ll set a release date before the script is even done. It’s almost impossible to make something good when you are rushing the alchemy of storytelling – the sheer amount of things that have to go right in order for the film to be good. All of those films I mentioned in some ways actually benefited from the time they took to get made. With Selma, you’re credited as an actor, but you did a lot behind the scenes, in terms of bringing people in like director Ava DuVernay and producer/co-star Oprah Winfrey... Well, that’s where I learned producing inadvertently. My passion to do all of that JULY 2021 | TOTAL FILM

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INTERVIEW

was just knowing deep in my soul. This was something I had to do before I left this planet – i.e. playing Dr. King in that film. And, you know, the initial director rejected me, and the film struggled to get made for several years. It was actually Lee Daniels who eventually cast me, three years after I first auditioned and we still couldn’t get it made with him because we were still in a time back then – I’m not saying that has completely gone away; things are getting better – of this narrative of “Black stories don’t travel” and “they make less money” and “we don’t know how to access the Black audience”. There were such ridiculous and offensive reasons to not make the film about arguably the most famous and important figure in American life in the 20th century. But that was the world we were living in then. I had done this film, Middle Of Nowhere, with Ava, this small $200,000-budget film. I just knew I had been in the presence of a truly phenomenal directorial voice. Lee Daniels had moved on out of frustration because he just couldn’t get the film made at the appropriate budget – which was not crazy. All we were looking for was $20 million. You had the J. Edgar Hoover movie, which had been made for three times that. [Ava] was the first director who actually said [to the financiers], “Forget about what I think it should be made for. What do you think it should be made for?” Of course, they gave us a number that was way too low. Ava rewrote the script – beautifully rewrote the script – to make it something so much more potent than it ever was before. But we were still struggling. Ironically, I had done The Butler with Oprah Winfrey – the film that Lee Daniels went on to direct instead of Selma. I asked her if she would come on board as a producer, which she did – and she actually ended up putting $2 million of her own money into that film, which is something that a lot of people don’t know. That’s how much we were struggling to get this film made. Spit, elbow grease, and a lot of passion is how that film actually got made.

why studios are dying, and are probably not going to survive the next 10 years, is because they didn’t wake up in time to the fact that it’s about a global audience. It’s not just about the audience that you deem to be important because you are white, male, and middle-aged. To be honest, what the studios did was tantamount to what Blockbuster did. They didn’t see streaming coming. They decided to stick with the old methodology, and now they’re really struggling. The great thing about the streaming platforms is that they have raw data of who’s actually watching, as opposed to the assumptions or the Svengali abilities of some studio head who predetermines what should be made, and basically casts in the lead better-looking, younger versions of themselves. So much of the work I’m doing now is on those platforms because that’s where the audience is, and they’ve always been there, but Hollywood just didn’t wake up to it soon enough. Looking back to those earlier days, Spooks seemed like it was a real launchpad for acting talent. Did you get that sense when you worked on it? To be honest – people don’t really remember this. Back in the late ’90s and early 2000s, you just didn’t have young casts on British television. It was Robson Green and Jerome Flynn. It was Amanda Burton. It was Warren Clarke. It was these people who – I hope they don’t mind me saying – but were more middleaged stars who were very safe. So it was actually quite ground-breaking to have a cast led by early twentysomethings at that time, especially in a show as expensive as Spooks was. It gave me something that had always been an ambition of mine, which was to play roles on screen that were not necessarily race-speciﬁc. At that point, we were still in an era – and I’m not saying, again, that that has completely gone away, though it’s better now for sure – where there were more stereotypical, caricatured depictions of people of colour. You were often on the periphery. That deﬁnitely wasn’t the case with the character.

THERE WERE MORE STEREOTYPICAL DEPICTIONS OF PEOPLE OF COLOUR

In terms of people in power saying things like ‘Black stories don’t travel,’ has that improved at all in the intervening years? It’s improved, but not because Hollywood has woken up to the realities of that. I think that streaming has brought about a reality that Hollywood, to be honest, has found itself kicked in the butt over. The reason TOTAL FILM | JULY 2021

FIVE STAR TURNS SPOOKS 2002-04

After treading the boards in the RSC, Oyelowo broke out in the Beeb’s spy series alongside Keeley Hawes and Matthew Mcfadyen. “It’s where my screen career started and those guys are part of a formative time in my life,” he says.

RED TAILS 2012

Oyelowo was now picking up supporting work in large-scale films. Following The Help and Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes, he proved his range as cocky fighter pilot Lightning in this George Lucas-produced historical actioner.

SELMA 2014

Oyelowo’s powerhouse portrayal of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is a tour de force example of an actor vanishing into a role, but he was equally powerful off-screen, helping usher the project to fruition over seven years.

A UNITED KINGDOM 2016

Another passion project: the romance between Seretse Khama, heir to the Bechuanaland throne, and Brit Ruth Williams. “He was prepared to let go of his kingdom for the love he had for this woman,” says Oyelowo of his real-life counterpart.

GRINGO 2018

Flexing his comedy muscles, Oyelowo plays a hapless pharma suit who gets in trouble with the Mexican cartel. Off-screen, Oyelowo made co-star and producer Charlize Theron laugh so much she peed herself. “It broke the ice, shall we say…” MM

You ended up giving the producers an ultimatum about going front and centre of the show, or being killed off in an extreme way. That was a bold move. Did you have any qualms? I definitely had qualms about it. At that point, my wife and I had our first son, and SUBSCRIBE AT WWW.TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS

DAVID OYELOWO another one on the way, and there is deﬁnitely a life component to career decisions. But to be honest, I was oﬀended at the fact that my character quite clearly, over those three seasons, you could argue had been positioned to be front and centre when Matthew [Macfadyen] and Keeley [Hawes] were leaving the show. I could just tell that there was a reticence to someone like me being front and centre of that show. And the revolving door of actors who went on to lead that show going forwards bore out my suspicions. It was a revolving door of white actors of a certain look and type. And I just thought, “I’m not sticking around for that.” And so I said, “Give me the most indisputable death possible, because I am out and not returning.” And to be honest, that was the moment where the seed of forging a career in the States was planted, because I just could tell that a glass ceiling was beginning to emerge above my head. And as much as I loved playing Danny Hunter, my heroes were folk like Sidney Poitier and Denzel Washington. And I wanted the opportunity. I didn’t have to be the lead all the time, but I wanted the opportunity to be front and centre of a narrative. I could feel that there was resistance to that on a show where it just didn’t make sense to me why there was a resistance. It was formative for me on many levels.

DAVID OYELOWO IN NUMBERS

76 $701m Acting credits to Oyelowo’s name.

Box-office take of Oyelowo’s highest-grossing film, Interstellar.

In early roles like Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes and Red Tails, you played very diﬀerent characters. Were you deliberately mixing it up? It was very conscious. My hero is Daniel Day-Lewis, and the thing that I’m enamoured with, with him, is just how chameleonic he is, and how every time I hear about him being in a ﬁlm, it’s not just excitement about the story, it’s excitement about, ‘Where is he going to go this time?’ That’s something I really aspire to.

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Did you soak anything up from Daniel Day-Lewis when you worked on Lincoln? Oh, big time. The very brief time I had on that film was so formative for me, especially in relation to Selma, but also another film I did called Nightingale, both of which were very intense, very demanding characters. To be around him was to sort of feel this vibrating aura of a combination of preparation, immersion, concentration. It was almost kind of celestial, if I’m honest. It definitely gave me a blueprint for what playing a role like Dr. King would require in Selma. People have since said, “Gosh, that’s really interesting. You were in Lincoln for just one scene, and you were in Interstellar for just one scene.” My reply is

Collaborations with Alfred Molina.

Episodes of Spooks Oyelowo appears in.

Best Picture nominees Oyelowo has appeared in: The Help, Lincoln and Selma.

JULY 2021 | TOTAL FILM

always the same, which is, “Yeah, but look who was directing those ﬁlms. Look who I got to be in the orbit of.” That just never leaves you – both as someone who eventually was aspiring to direct, but who also wants to be under the directorial gaze of the best who ever did it. You gain so much more from being around a Spielberg or a Chris Nolan or an Ava DuVernay than you do doing 10 movies with not-very-good directors with not-very-good scripts.

What did you take away from working with Tom Cruise on Jack Reacher? I had a really crazy moment while shooting Jack Reacher because it was exactly the same time I was also doing Lincoln. I actually had this crazy 24 hours where I shot with Daniel Day-Lewis by day, and then had to go and shoot a car-chase scene with Tom Cruise at night. So I had been around arguably the actor’s actor and the movie star’s movie star within 24 hours. There is a definite commonality there. People may have misconceptions about these guys, or these incredible actors or directors having a Midas touch. To a certain degree, maybe they do, but with both those actors, it’s so tough to outwork them. And they work so hard to do what they do, and they take it so seriously. It’s driven by a deep passion. Tom’s energy, his unabating passion for moviemaking is something that has been a huge inspiration for me. And again, his friendship. He’s been a huge encourager of mine, and always there with advice. Those are the folks who made the difference when it comes to how high you are trying to aspire. And again, I’m sorry to say it, but it’s why I felt the need to leave the UK: there’s a different atmosphere of “can do” as opposed to “can don’t”. I think it’s shifting in the UK now, but certainly 20 years ago to be anywhere near the likes of George Clooney and Tom Cruise and Daniel Day-Lewis and Oprah Winfrey – the table was not laid that way for someone like me. You were very much being told, if not by words, then by actions, that there is a certain space for you to inhabit, and to try and deviate from that would be painful for you. I just wasn’t prepared to subscribe to that. Did Star Wars Rebels come about from working with George Lucas on Red Tails? It was unrelated, actually. As sacrilegious as this may sound, I was not a Star Wars fan before doing Red Tails. I remember sitting next to George Lucas on set, when we were doing some reshoots in California. We were doing all this green-screen stuff to make it look like we were in Italy, and I said, “Wow, this is so amazing, that we can do this stuff SUBSCRIBE AT WWW.TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS

DAVID OYELOWO now.” Then George turned me, and says, “Oh, yeah, I had to develop that for Star Wars, because we had this problem. So I came up with this thing called green screen.” I was like, “Whoa, hold on. You can’t just drop into conversation that you invented green screen as a necessity – this thing that has revolutionised our business.” But that’s the reality. And he then subsequently found out that I had not seen Star Wars, and sent me boxes of DVDs and toys for my kids. So I was force-fed Star Wars by George Lucas. So not long after, I was doing Star Wars Rebels. So maybe he did have something to do with it. Maybe that was my indoctrination into his creative vision. But it’s funny – no matter how much work I do, there are some people where I will just forever be Agent Kallus. I sometimes think it’s disappointing for them when they realise it’s me, because there’s no way I’m going to get away with a ginger mane of hair with the sideburns. But there you go.

AMONG LEGENDS Oyelowo opposite Daniel Day-Lewis in Steven Spielberg’s biopic Lincoln. our names come up for this Bond thing – it’s because there is a true appetite for seeing people of colour in those kind of expansive stories that have nothing to do with race, but can be specific and germane to who that person is, and can have a global reach to it. I think you see that really clearly with the Fast & Furious films. One of the things that I think people love about those films is just how diverse that cast is. I think it’s less about people really literally wanting to see Idris as Bond. I think there’s an appetite for that kind of global, iconic character. We’re ready for it. So much like back in the day with Spooks, I was literally told, “We don’t think the audience is ready.” I think there is clear data and loud enthusiasm from the audience that they are ready for that. Characters of that nature, not necessarily Bond himself… I think the audience is ready for that. I certainly am as an actor, and as an audience member. I really hope that that is something that we Finally, are there any of your films you will see in the not-too-distant future. wish had found a bigger audience? Well, you know, I think the reason why THE WATER MAN LAUNCHES ON NETFLIX someone like me or Idris Elba – you know, IN JULY. He has those qualities I look for in any character I play, which is just deep, deep complexity. He was brilliant at what he did, but he hated what he did. What he really wanted to be was a song-and-dance man. He was a Black man in America, in the ’40s and ’50s, in Harlem, but he was also someone who revolutionised boxing – not only in the ring but from a business point of view. Much like playing Dr. King, who was both a saint and a sinner, those two things dwelt within him. I think that is the heart of who we are as human beings. Whenever you can find a character where that is the case, I think there’s a real chance you’re going to be holding a mirror up to humanity, and that’s going to be a fascinating watch.

Were you ever approached about James Bond? Did anyone ever put out the feelers after Spooks? [laughs] Well, you know, I don’t think it’s anything particular for me. I think if you’re an actor of a certain age who’s been aﬀorded a certain level of opportunities and you’re British, the chances are that your name at some point will get thrown into that hat. But no, not in any formal way. I mean, Barbara Broccoli is a very good friend of mine. She produced a stage production of Othello that I did with Daniel Craig in New York. There’s a couple of ﬁlm projects that we are working on together. But no exclusives here: one of them is not Bond.

MY HEROES WERE SIDNEY POITIER AND DENZEL WASHINGTON

Looking ahead, you mentioned you still hope Sweet Thunder will be made. What’s the fascination for you with Sugar Ray Robinson?

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DAVID OYELOWO FAN CLUB

“He’s natural. But not only is he a natural, he’s really prepared. ” Rosario Dawson GAMESRADAR.COM/TOTALFILM

“Sometimes with performances, you have to really work with the actor to get there. He was already there.” Ava DuVernay

“He has immense discipline… I admire him hugely as a person and as Dominic an actor. ” West JULY 2021 | TOTAL FILM

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EDITED BY MATTHEW LEYLAND

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cena evil DIESEL-POWERED SEQUEL PUTS FAST BACK IN FIFTH GEAR… FAST & FURIOUS 9 12A

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hings change,” growls Vin Diesel’s Dom Toretto during the opening moments of this long-awaited, nitro-fuelled Fast sequel. Technically, he’s referring to the serene life he and Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) have reluctantly embraced in order to raise their young son, Brian. But he could be talking about the newly minted ‘Fast Saga’ itself, which has run the gamut from down-and-dirty street racer, through globetrotting heist movie, to a mongrel genre it has now improbably pioneered – the bombastic, melodramatic, ensemble gearhead spy thriller.

TOTAL FILM | JULY 2021

riotously OTT standards, it’s a film that puts pedal to the metal and refuses to let up, for better and worse. Despite their newfound responsibility, it isn’t long before Dom and Letty are back on the road. Here the sci-fi super-weapon they’re uniquely equipped to prevent falling into the wrong hands is Ares – a device sought by none other than Dom’s exiled brother turned granite-chiselled

black-ops badass Jakob (John Cena). Funded by billionaire brat Otto (Thue Ersted Rasmussen) and aided by THE FAST AND Charlize Theron’s hacker-psycho THE FURIOUS: Cipher in an enemy-of-my-enemy TOKYO DRIFT alliance, Jakob finds Dom’s crew to 2006 be a relentless thorn in his side from Once the series’ black sheep, the Fast the Caspian Sea to Tbilisi, with an threequel is shown extended layover on familiar stomping ample love in F9. ground in the UK. FAST & FURIOUS 7 2015 James Wan takes the wheel for an Four years ago, Fast & Furious 8 laid bare emotional entry just how easy it is to mishandle the that builds on series’ precision-engineered balance Lin’s foundations. between knowing, physics-flaunting AVENGERS: action and earnestly overwrought INFINITY WAR 2018 melodrama. It managed to cram into Like superhero(ish) the same film the execution of a team-up movies mother in front of her baby and The with action on the streets of Scotland? Rock re-directing a torpedo with his You’re in luck. bare hands. Here, Lin expertly course corrects a series careening off the rails by counterintuitively kicking everything up a gear. Barely 15 minutes in, Dom’s crew are racing over landmines at 80mph while pursued by the trigger-

SIGNIFICANT BROTHER

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Of course, this scarcely scratches the surface of everything going on in the near two-and-a-half-hour F9, which marks director Justin Lin’s return to family filmmaking following a twomovie pit-stop. Lin has nothing left to prove after helming cult favourite Tokyo Drift and lauded franchise reinvention Fast 5, but this ninth entry exposes the fact that the series has almost nowhere left to go. Even by F&F’s

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They’d soon regret their lack of seatbelts. central roles for Letty and Jordana Brewster’s Mia, for example, are long overdue as the pair jet off on a mission to Tokyo together. Meanwhile, those flashbacks allow Lin to smuggle gritty, no-frills street races back into a series that left them in the rearview mirror years ago.

SHOW OF HAN

SIBLING RIVALRY “And I’m still mad you broke my toy car!”

‘WHILE NEVER PARTICULARLY DEEP, ON AN EMOTIONAL LEVEL IT WORKS’

happy army of a nondescript Central American nation. Somehow things only escalate from there, building to the gleefully chaotic deployment of electromagnets for a standout sequence that liberally riffs on Fast Five’s glorious safe heist. As for the familial drama that drives so much of the action, F9 raises the stakes by introducing a secret flesh-and-blood Toretto. Jakob’s sudden appearance may be a retcon too far, even for a series that pulled the amnesia card years ago. But the use GAMESRADAR.COM/TOTALFILM

of extensive flashbacks to a formative event in Dom and Jakob’s early lives (with the younger Torettos played ably by Vinnie Bennett and Finn Cole, respectively) lays the groundwork effectively, establishing an irreparable rivalry between the pair while giving us a rare glimpse into the events that made Dom a mechanical messiah. While never particularly deep, on a purely emotional level it works, every greeting-card platitude delivered with such street-sage solemnity that even if you don’t believe it, you buy that the characters do. It’s all assuredly familiar, but the film also manages to usher in some welcome changes. More

But Lin’s iron grip on the wheel starts to slip when he plays to the crowd. A running joke in which Tyrese Gibson’s Roman believes himself invincible following countless near-death experiences skirts so close to smug fourth-wall-breaking territory it starts to feel a hair’s breadth away from Deadpool showing up. A silly late-film set-piece involving a Pontiac Fiero strapped to a rocket gives vocal fans exactly what they want, while enthusiastically dispensing with the infinitesimal amount of credulity the series was clinging onto. And as for the much-hyped return of Han Seoul-Oh... while more Sung Kang is always welcome, his return is dispiritingly underpowered. Certainly, anyone looking for #JusticeForHan has a wait ahead of them. Over a year after it was originally set to debut, F9 has the auspicious virtue of being the first full-fledged blockbuster to play exclusively in cinemas since Tenet. It’s not the best film you’ll see this year – it isn’t even the best Fast film directed by Justin Lin featuring a former WWE superstar as the antagonist - but it’s unlikely anything else will deliver quite as much bang for your buck, or more perfectly exemplify big-screen spectacle. It’s one family reunion you won’t want to skip. Jordan Farley JULY 2021 | TOTAL FILM

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wedish writer/director Magnus von Horn’s drama charts three days in the life of Sylwia (Magdalena Kolesnik), a young, Warsaw-based fitness motivator. She has 600,000 followers on Insta; one of her posts, in which she admits to feelings of loneliness, triggers the attentions of an IRL stalker. Von Horn crafts a compelling, ambiguous character study that digs beneath the surface of its protagonist’s digitally curated persona. Shot to heighten the sense of Sylwia’s entrapment, it’s anchored by Kolesnik’s outstanding performance. Tom Dawson

uca Marinelli’s (The Old Guard) charismatic, gradually darkening performance beat Joaquin Phoenix to FILM Best Actor at 2019’s Venice Film OUT 16 JULY CINEMAS Festival; ironic, as Pietro Marcello’s film is practically an arthouse Joker. ames Norton (Happy Valley, Little Women) stars in this heartbreaking tale as John, a window cleaner and single Poverty, politics and poetry drive the father living in Northern Ireland with his young son Michael titular antihero, a self-taught writer determined to overcome the odds, only (Daniel Lamont). Faced with a terminal illness that will ultimately leave his son orphaned, John is determined to find to find his own demons harder to his boy a suitable foster home before he dies – a life-altering conquer. By relocating Jack London’s 1909 novel to Italy but keeping the time decision that he rightly agonises over. Drawing on a true story, Still Life writer/director Uberto Pasolini teeters towards period imprecise, Marcello creates a disorientating, pertinent parable of sentimentality, but even the stoniest of hearts won’t fail to curdled disaffection. melt at Norton’s bond with the super-cute Lamont. Simon Kinnear James Mottram

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ick Broomfield’s latest investigative doc returns to territory explored in one of his best-known works, 2002’s Biggie & Tupac. One of the key players in that film, Suge Knight, is again central; following Knight’s 2015 conviction for manslaughter, Broomfield examines his legacy as a musical innovator – he co-founded Death Row Records – and his links to the deaths of two of hip-hop’s greatest icons.

TOTAL FILM | JULY 2021

Unreliable narrators aside, there’s a near-Shakespearean level of tragedy to this tale of murder, betrayal and epic falls from grace. The use of archive clips is masterful, and there’s a devastating moment where Broomfield’s friend Danny Boy sings Sam Cooke’s ‘A Change Is Gonna Come’ - just as he did to Tupac Shakur as he lay dying. Knowing what fate had in store for Shakur and Biggie Smalls, the footage of them saddens as much as it electrifies; as Tupac’s producer Tracy Robinson puts it, “It didn’t need to turn out this way.” Leila Latif SUBSCRIBE AT WWW.TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS

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Widening the scope, the director also looks beyond the music industry, probing the violence, misogyny and gang culture from which Death Row evolved. Broomfield’s knack for getting people to open up to him remains extraordinary. But though he captures several shocking testimonies, there are times where it feels a bit too anecdotal, hyperbolic and conspiratorial, evoking unwelcome memories of Broomfield’s iffy Kurt & Courtney. As such, some accounts may need to beXxxxx taken with a large pinch of salt.

wave culture PIXAR’S LATEST: BOUY STORY, OR MONSTERS SINK? LUCA TBC FILM

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ixar is renowned for stretching the conceptual boundaries of family entertainment, demanding that kids (and trickier still, adults) keep up: a lonesome robot clears up trash on a desolate future Earth in WALL•E; a little girl’s conflicted emotions wage abstract war in Inside Out; and a jazz musician’s tremulous spirit yearns to return to life in Soul. Luca, the animation giant’s 24th feature in 26 years, is inspired partly by director Enrico Casarosa’s childhood summers on the beaches of Genoa, and partly by Fellini movies (especially coming-of-age dramedy I Vitelloni). But if that sounds esoteric, Pixar does what it always does by making it fun and accessible to all – did we mention Luca is about two sea monsters who take human form when they’re above the water’s surface? We begin beneath the waves, as our eponymous hero (Jacob Tremblay), looking like a cross between a dragon, a fish and a boy, finds treasure stolen from a boat. Then the teenage sea monster who nabbed it, Alberto (Jack Dylan Grazer), pitches up, and the two GAMESRADAR.COM/TOTALFILM

Pixar’s latest is certainly visually azure-d (not sorry).

become friends, with the older Alberto showing Luca how they both morph into humans on land. Luca’s parents (Maya Rudolph, Jim Gaffigan) are not happy with this development. They plan to send their son to live in ‘the deep’ with his oddball uncle, and so

Luca and Alberto abscond to terra firma, taking up home in a coastal town full of fisherman who dream of catching sea monsters… E.T. THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL 1982 The concept is strong enough, An alien sees the but Luca is ultimately the one that best and worst of humans in Spielberg’s got away, as the story swerves into personal fable. becoming a quest to win the Portorosso FINDING NEMO Cup, an annual triathlon consisting 2003 of swimming, cycling and scoffing Nemo’s dad is as platefuls of pasta. For Pixar, it all feels fretful as Luca’s overbearing parents a little too unimaginative, tried-andin this aquatic tale. tested, and no amount of shimmering CARS 2006 waves, cobbled streets and verdant More racing and friendship in another greenery can prevent a sense of of Pixar’s not-great- monotony from creeping in. but-still-good eﬀorts. When it does, it’s usually human girl Giulia (Emma Berman) who casts it away again – befriending Luca and Alberto, she quickly becomes the leader of the pack – and the last 10 minutes stir emotions as themes of friendship, tolerance, trust, personal growth and self-acceptance bubble to the surface. Playing out as something of a companion piece to the superior Finding Nemo, Luca is one of Pixar’s weaker efforts but still worth catching, with a message that thoughtfully favours tentative hope over naïve idealism. Jamie Graham JULY 2021 | TOTAL FILM

swap chop A HORROR-COMEDY THAT CUTS BOTH WAYS…

Cheerleading tryouts have taken a dark turn…

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OUT 2 JULY CINEMAS irected and co-written by Happy Death Day’s Christopher Landon, this Blumhouse-backed slasher-com kicks off in frantically gruesome fashion. But it quickly takes a hard left into the supernatural, as Vince Vaughn’s masked killer swaps bodies with unassuming high-schooler Millie (Kathryn Newton, a force), thanks to a full moon and a mystical knife.

Freaky’s supporting cast excels, but it’s the two leads who cut the deepest. Post-swap, Newton revels in the role of remorseless, single-minded serial killer, finding the link between horror and humour necessary for the film to work as well as it does. The Blissfield Butcher’s struggle to adapt his bruteforce style to his newfound petite body provides genuine laughs. Newton’s unflinching, menacing glare also spawns surprising moments of empathy when it comes to certain characters’ (near-)deserved comeuppances.

FATIMA 12 FILM

OUT 25 JUNE CINEMAS DIGITAL HD

arco Pontecorvo’s faith-based drama centres on an apparent miracle in the eponymous village, where three children claim to all have had a divine vision of the Virgin Mary. While the locals are skeptical, the encounter attracts visitors seeking respite from WW1 tragedy in religion. The film is handsomely shot, but the narrative is predictable and ponderously paced; meanwhile, a framing device in which Harvey Keitel’s professor asks elderly nun Sônia Braga to recount the incident merely gives the two veterans the easiest paycheque of their careers. Chris Schilling

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Meanwhile, a 50-year-old Vaughn playing a shy teen trapped in the body of a serial killer should absolutely not work, but it does. The chemistry between him and Millie’s pals delights even in its (intentionally) cringiest moments. While the horror elements are more gory than scary, the action is expertly executed. Also well-judged are the plentiful callbacks to ’80s/’90s scare flicks and body-swap-coms. But for all the nostalgia, Landon’s managed to craft something that feels fresh, novel and unexpected. Erlingur Einarsson

ENDANGERED SPECIES 15 FILM

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ebecca Romijn and her annoying family must survive hyenas, leopards and poachers when their car is totalled while on safari in this toothless survival thriller, which sees Jerry O’Connell chewing more scenery than the critters do people. While it’s easy to admire filmmaker M.J. Bassett’s desire to teach the world about the evils of poaching via the medium of actors fighting off dodgy CGI wildlife, Endangered Species falls short of her preposterous ‘Megan Fox fights lions’ flick, Rogue. Anton van Beek

OCCUPATION RAINFALL TBC FILM

OUT 9 JULY CINEMAS, DIGITAL HD

irector Luke Sparke works visual wonders with limited resources in this sequel to his Aussie sci-fi Occupation, an ID4-style caper in which plucky Antipodeans do battle against bug-eyed aliens intent on world domination. Impressive special effects bolster an otherwise by-the-numbers storyline that pits humans and ‘greys’ against each other in an increasingly elaborate series of explosive combat sequences. Comic relief, meanwhile, is dubiously provided by Ken Jeong, pitched in towards the end along with his movie-quoting, Jason Isaacs-voiced ET buddy, Steve. Neil Smith SUBSCRIBE AT WWW.TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS

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TREASURE CITY 18

OUT 25 JUNE APPLE TV+

OUT NOW CINEMAS, DIGITAL HD

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ot to be confused with Raquel Welch’s 1967 spy yarn, this plodding documentary follows two scientists at opposite ends of the world striving to decipher humpback whale songs (just like the ones that saved the day in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home). Broken down sonically into droplets, swops and whups, this mysterious, captivating form of communication offers clues to a grand design that remains frustratingly out of reach in Drew Xanthopoulos’ film, which is strangely dry for one that spends so much time on water. Neil Smith

MOSLEY: IT’S COMPLICATED TBC FILM

OUT 9 JULY CINEMAS 19 JULY DVD, BD, DIGITAL HD

ax Mosley – the recently passed titan of motorsport, road safety and privacy campaigning - gets the docu-treatment in this briskly paced, wide-ranging look at his (very) eventful life. Alongside a full grid of collaborators and competitors, the man himself discusses everything from his youth and conquest of Formula 1 to that News Of The World sting and his subsequent, years-long fight for privacy rights. Benefitting greatly from Mosley’s disarming frankness, it’s unafraid to cast light on the dark corners of his world, but might be too sprawling to truly immerse more casual viewers. Erlingur Einarsson

Hungarian city at night provides the backdrop for several interlocking stories in Szabolcs Hajdu’s distinctive if depressing film. Arguments flare, relationships curdle and the radio reports a wave of anti-migrant hate, as Hadju documents a world seemingly governed by humiliation and abuse. It’s a brittle, nihilistic vision, but leavened by the superb technique of Hadju’s long, fluid takes. And if the cumulative effect underwhelms, at least individual scenes enthral with deadpan humour, agonising tension or unexpected surrealism. Simon Kinnear

prehistory lesson HOW TO EVOLVE A FRANCHISE… THE CROODS 2: A NEW AGE U FILM

OUT 16 JULY CINEMAS

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euniting us with the prehistoric family from 2013’s The Croods, this is a fine example of a sequel improving on the original. It zips along from the off, reintroducing us to caveman Grug (Nicolas Cage), wife Ugga (Catherine Keener), teens Thunk (Clark Duke) and Eep (Emma Stone), their grandma (Cloris Leachman) and Eep’s boyf Guy (Ryan Reynolds). The plot pivots on the Croods meeting the more ‘evolved’ Bettermans, Phil and Hope (Peter Dinklage, Leslie Mann) and their daughter Dawn (Kelly Marie Tran). This family doesn’t live like Neanderthals – they have things like ‘privacy’ and showers. Grug gets the hump with these show-offs. The real curveball comes with the arrival of an army of banana-seeking simians. From here, The Croods 2: A New Age gets as weird as the crazy-eyed monkey that keeps popping up, nodding to GAMESRADAR.COM/TOTALFILM

everything from King Kong to ’80s kids’ fave ThunderCats. Amid all this, Cage goes (nearly) full Cage, his delivery superbly cartoonish – though Dinklage all-but tops him as the smug Phil. First-time director Joel Crawford keeps it vibrant and fast-paced, with just the right amount of retro-strange. With gags like Thunk staring out of a window at the landscape like a primitive TV, The Croods 2 smartly treads the line between adult and child experiences. Delightful. James Mottram

Everyone except Grug was very excited by the new CaveStation 5 billboard. JULY 2021 | TOTAL FILM

drunken masters TEACHERS TEST A THEORY. EXPECT HICCUPS…

We must stress that alcohol is not advisable for Mads consumption.

ANOTHER ROUND 12A FILM

OUT 2 JULY CINEMAS

homas Vinterberg and Mads Mikkelsen reunite for another study of a man in education – but don’t expect the same scalpel sharpness as The Hunt (2012) in this awards-chugging cautionary tale, which loses focus as surely as a daytime drinker.

Mikkelsen plays Martin, a history teacher whose marriage and career have reached calcification; the most fun he can muster is drinking a soda water at a mate’s birthday party. Fellow teacher and friend Nikolaj (Magnus Millang) devises a plan to inject some joie de vivre into their lives. Citing a (spurious) theory that humans are born with too low a blood-alcohol level, he suggests their gang drink daily to up their quota, inducing a buzz that will unlock creativity and boldness. The next day, the teachers drink wine for breakfast, neck vodka in the school loos and track their booziness via breathalysers.

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VOYAGERS TBC

THE SURROGATE TBC

OUT 2 JULY CINEMAS

OUT 9 JULY CINEMAS

ord Of The Flies meets High Life in this interstellar sci-fi. Overseen by kindly Colin Farrell, 30 randy teens (including Lily-Rose Depp and Dunkirk’s Fionn Whitehead) are bunged aboard an intergenerational vessel bound for a new home planet to repopulate. The metaphor-heavy setup touches on everything from the responsibility to leave a better world for future generations in the face of climate change, to the dangers presented by fear-mongering, power-hungry leaders. Disappointing, then, that these big themes soon give way to predictable YA thrills. Jordan Farley

uiet challenges to expectation drive Jeremy Hersh’s drama, an upfront issues movie with a strong character core. Jasmine Batchelor plays Jess, a web designer who becomes a surrogate mother for a gay couple. When prenatal tests confirm the child will have Down’s syndrome, conflicts on how to proceed emerge. While Hersh’s granular eye for detail enlivens potentially schematic riffs on eugenics and choice, Batchelor projects determination and uncertainty with commanding authority, keeping us guessing about Jess’ future to the last minute. Kevin Harley

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As you might expect, all the drinking is fun – until it’s not. Though the teachers re-engage their students, go on amusing pissed supermarket jaunts, have sex on camping trips and enthusiastically write books, tragedy and disgrace also await. Director/ co-writer Vinterberg doesn’t seem to want to commit to either bacchanalian bombast or commentary on the social prevalence of alcohol, creating a bittersweet but ultimately directionless drama. Still, it’s a treat watching Mikkelsen play drunk – especially during a joyous, Christopher Walkenrivalling jazz dance. Jane Crowther

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TOVE 12A FILM

OUT 9 JULY CINEMAS

his elegant, lean and endearingly understated biopic of Moomins creator Tove Jansson takes a sympathetic look at her post-war struggle to define herself as both an artist and lover. Expressively shot in grainy 16mm, its atmospheric mood and Finnish vintage period setting are as romantic as Jansson herself, dreamily recreating the intense, scandalous lesbian affair that transformed her life. Alma Pöysti, a dead ringer for the author, gives a restless, nicely thin-skinned performance, helping make this the antithesis of a stiff period drama. Kate Stables SUBSCRIBE AT WWW.TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS

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THE FILMMAKER’S HOUSE 12A

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OUT 19 JULY DVD, DIGITAL HD

o sooner does the new Ranger (Sam Richardson) arrive in the small town of Beaverfield than he’s holing up at an inn with a bunch of colourful locals, one of whom is likely a werewolf, as a storm rages and the power cuts out. Directed by Josh Ruben (last year’s Scare Me), this horrorcomedy is a smart, fun adaptation of the popular Ubisoft multiplayer game. Admittedly, the scares and creature design never quite get the hairs rising, but the consistent gags are sure to make you howl. Jamie Graham

FILM

WITCH: WE INTEND TO CAUSE HAVOC 12 FILM

OUT 2 JULY CINEMAS, DIGITAL HD

pilgrimage leads to a resurrection in Gio Arlotta’s richly inquisitive rock doc, focused on long-neglected ’70s ‘Zamrock’ – Zambian rhythms, psych-rock sounds - band WITCH. In Searching For Sugar Man’s spirit, Arlotta visits Africa to find frontman Jagari working as a gemstone miner after his band’s demise. Arlotta’s fan’s-eye riff on the endearing singer’s story splices context and personality portrait carefully, before something glorious happens: as Jagari leads a new line-up on tour, WITCH’s brew finally gets the global love it deserves. Kevin Harley

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UNCLE VANYA 12

OUT 5 JULY DIGITAL HD

OUT NOW DVD, BD, DIGITAL HD

veteran MMA star faces off against his resentful son in this Warrior-aping muscle tussle, a bruising depiction of a family at odds that climaxes in an extended bout of bloody mano a mano. A muscled-up Stephen Dorff goes for broke as ‘Liquid’ Cash Boykins, a swaggering selfpromoter whose boozy abusing has turned mild-mannered Jett (Darren Mann) against him. Before the final dust-up, however, director Nick Sarkisov does deign to offer Jett’s mum and learning-impaired brother some well-deserved time in the spotlight. Neil Smith

shot of unoccupied seats in London’s Harold Pinter Theatre offers a stark reminder of the pandemic’s devastating effect, lending extra emotive charge to the atmosphere of provincial emptiness in this handsome production of Chekhov’s tragicomedy. Conor McPherson’s lively adap punches up the play’s humour, with Toby Jones finding warmth and twinkly charm in the self-loathing title character. As the heartsick Sonya, Sex Education’s Aimee Lou Wood more than holds her own, her tear-streaked final speech ending on a hopeful note that could hardly be timelier. Chris Schilling

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OUT 25 JUNE CINEMAS, DIGITAL HD

rustrated by the endless fascination with serial killers and sex in documentaries, filmmaker Marc Isaacs decides to shoot one day’s events in his house, involving his cleaner, a couple of contractors fixing a fence, his Muslim next-door neighbour and a homeless Slovakian man whom Isaacs has befriended. Gradually, a sense that not everything is as it seems creeps in, as Isaacs starts to play with the viewer’s expectations. The concept is fascinating, but the execution stumbles a little before a suitably understated final twist. Erlingur Einarsson

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THE MAN STANDING NEXT 15 FILM

OUT 25 JUNE CURZON 5 JULY DIGITAL HD

oo Min-ho’s gripping (if slow-paced) drama centres on events leading to the assassination of South Korea’s third president. When whistleblower Park Yong-gak (The Wailing’s Kwak Do-won, excellent) threatens to publish a manuscript exposing the corrupt regime, KCIA director Kim Gyu-pyeong (Lee Byung-hun) finds himself torn between loyalties to his former colleague and current boss. Woo spends a little too long mired in political machinations, but stages two breathlessly exciting set-pieces, while Lee’s buttoned-up protagonist remains fascinatingly ambiguous to the last. Chris Schilling JULY 2021 | TOTAL FILM

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two for the road FIRTH AND TUCCI DRIVE A MOVING STAR VEHICLE…

SUPERNOVA 15

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OUT 25 JUNE CINEMAS

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Sam’s answer is to whisk his other half off on a campervan tour of the Lake District that lets them see family, friends and some beloved old haunts for what is likely to be the final time. Tusker, however, has his own route planned: one that will strain the bonds of their love as surely as it will test the tear ducts of anybody who watches writer/director Harry Macqueen’s quietly devastating follow-up to his 2014 debut Hinterland. With its touching depiction of a lived-in same-sex union, Supernova has much in common with that year’s Love Is Strange, not least in having –

“Explain to me again how you got the caravan stuck on that roof, Stanley.”

TWO OF US 12

DEERSKIN 15

OUT 16 JULY CINEMAS, DIGITAL HD

OUT 16 JULY CINEMAS

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adeleine (Martine Chevallier) is hiding a long-term affair with Nina (Barbara Sukowa) from her family as the two prepare to sell up and move to Rome… until fate tragically intervenes in Filippo Meneghetti’s moving drama. The unconventional trials of this older pairing lend freshness to an otherwise familiar loveconquers-all story, with Meneghetti’s composed direction and sensitive script refusing to stoop to sentimentality. His leads are faultless, too, with Sukowa in particular delivering a heartbreaking turn as a woman consumed by anger and regret. Chris Schilling TOTAL FILM | JULY 2021

ou’re not supposed to mourn someone when they are still alive!” sighs US expat Tusker (Stanley Tucci), a writer and astronomer facing up to how having early onset dementia will impact his relationship with his pianist partner Sam (Colin Firth). à la Brokeback Mountain – straight actors playing the leads. However you feel about that, it’s hard to dispute how movingly the usually effusive Tucci conveys Tusker’s mental diminishment, or the skill with which Firth shows Sam’s reserve gradually cracking under pressure. Kudos also for Dick Pope’s cinematography, which is as deft at capturing Cumbria’s epic scenery as it is the interiors of the Autotrail Cheyenne to which much of the action is necessarily confined. It’s a pleasure to be along for such an intimate, poignant ride. Neil Smith

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uentin Dupieux (Rubber) brings his unique comic sensibility to this tale of Georges (Jean Dujardin), a divorcee who goes on an increasingly unhinged killing spree in a French mountain village after buying a beloved deerskin jacket. As Georges disguises the deaths as part of a film he’s making, it’s merely the start of a bizarre and frequently hilarious odyssey. Adèle Haenel co-stars as the bar worker bewitched into editing his murderous magnum opus, but it’s an utterly bonkers Dujardin who shines the brightest, like a Gallic Nicolas Cage. James Mottram

MORTAL KOMBAT 15 FILM

OUT 28 JUNE DIGITAL HD 4 JULY DVD, BD, 4K

here the 1995 Mortal Kombat adapted the videogame into a brainless but fun fight flick, this reboot walks a more serious path, amping up the gratuitous violence and dialling down any sense of character or personality. The heroes – led by MMA champ turned would-be worldsaviour Cole (Lewis Tan) – are ditchwater-dull, the story is predictable and the dialogue sucks. Still, when the fighting does the talking, the film violently comes to life; each battle is handsomely shot and choreographed, with a few especially creative, crowd-pleasing fatalities. Jack Shepherd SUBSCRIBE AT WWW.TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS

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THE CONJURING: THE DEVIL MADE ME DO IT 15

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OUT NOW CINEMAS upernatural sleuths Lorraine and Ed Warren (Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson) get some of their mojo back in a twisty, pacy threequel that ditches the usual haunted-house shenanigans for an X-Files-esque procedural involving a possibly possessed landlord killer. It eventually defaults to the sort of ill-lit subterranean tunnel-stalking we’ve seen many times before, but there are some startling set-pieces, involving flying crockery, a satanic waterbed and a funeral parlour whose patrons refuse to stay on their slabs. Neil Smith

LADY BOSS: THE JACKIE COLLINS STORY TBC FILM

CARMEN & LOLA 18 FILM

OUT NOW DVD/PECCADILLO ON DEMAND 5 JULY DIGITAL HD

arriage is everything in Madrid’s Roma community, but when Carmen (Rosy Rodríguez) meets her fiancé’s closeted lesbian cousin, Lola (Zaira Romero), they – and their families – are in for a shock. You can predict every beat of Arantxa Echevarría’s directorial debut, but at least its setting brings a fresh perspective to what is otherwise a familiar tale of forbidden love. Impressively shot with scruffy naturalism, it’s an immersive study of Roma culture, even if the film’s sympathies are rather too one-sided to offer much nuance. Simon Kinnear

OUT 2 JULY CINEMAS deep dive into the private life that ’80s ‘bonkbuster’ author Jackie Collins guarded fiercely, this accessall-areas doc uncovers the trauma and struggle that fuelled her career. Director Laura Fairrie mixes penetrating but playful interviews with Collins’ many ‘best friends’ with her star-studded Hollywood home movies and secret diaries, painting a piercing portrait. The film’s crown jewel is Joan Collins, whose elegant insights into their sibling rivalry from ’50s Hollywood to ’90s writing are gloriously candid. Kate Stables

grand designers TWO EMMAS BATTLE IT OUT IN STYLE… CRUELLA 12 FILM

OUT NOW CINEMAS, DISNEY+

ow do you solve a problem like Cruella? Disney’s dastardly Dalmatian-napping designer doesn’t seem a natural fit for a family-friendly origin story. Yet this zesty prequel succeeds by creating its own wild world.

YENSID ,SMLIF NREDOM ,SORB REN RAW ,ESUOHERUT CIP ,OL LIDACCEP , L A N A C OIDUTS

Bursting with punky style, it drops Emma Stone’s thieving orphaned urchin Estella into ’70s London’s stuffy fashion circles, scrabbling to swap loo-cleaning in Liberty’s for creating outrageous Alexander McQueen-style ensembles. Before long, she’s taken on by Emma Thompson’s hilariously terrifying queen of couture, the Baroness. But Estella’s passion for fashion becomes a thirst for vengeance on discovering the Baroness stole her precious family heirloom… Director Craig Gillespie amps up the fun furiously here, having Stone let rip as ‘Cruella’, Estella’s arrogant alter ego. Now a monochrome-haired fashion GAMESRADAR.COM/TOTALFILM

prankster, she embarks on an Ocean’s 8-style caper to steal back the jewel from the Baroness’ charity ball. As Cruella’s feud with the Baroness ramps up into wild public antics, the film’s eye-popping costumes reflect her riskiness, conjuring a Harley Quinn-like pseudo-villainess vibe. But though it’s dark for a Disney, this edgy, dog-loving escapade is no junior Joker; older kids will love its dash and daring. True, it’s overlong and too in love with its twist-on-twist plot and musical montages. But Cruella is a wicked winner, one whose playful perils make for a deliciously rowdy ride. Kate Stables

Emma’s friends caught her napping in the make-up chair again. JULY 2021 | TOTAL FILM

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THE HOME ENTERTAINMENT BIBLE

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zing street DESPITE STUMBLES, A BUNDLE OF DANCE ENERGY… IN THE HEIGHTS TBC FILM

OUT NOW CINEMAS

his is a vaccine for your soul,” director Jon M. Chu promised of his ebullient, high-energy, big-screen adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Tony-award winning 2007 musical about young Latino New Yorkers chasing their dreams in a tough neighbourhood.

It turns out to be more Berocca than Pfizer, a fizzy, feelgood outing of a film that’s a jolly post-pandemic pick-meup, if not a world-beater. Pumping up Miranda’s sweet and simple story of corner-shop owner Usnavi (a tender Anthony Ramos) striving to regain his dad’s hurricane-crushed bar in the Dominican Republic, Chu opens out this small stage show into a restless, neighbourhood-roaming, heatwavefuelled good time. Yet while his Step Up 2 skills turn upbeat numbers like block-dance party ‘Carnivale del Barrio’ into glossy, high-colour fiestas, the film struggles to keep the show’s original Frank Capra-ish community feel, its tight focus and warmth. Alas, wistful newcomer Leslie Grace lacks impact as local girl-made-good TOTAL FILM | JULY 2021

Nina, who clashes with proud cabcompany-owner dad Kevin (Jimmy Smits) over her future. That’s not just because the slightly cheesy screenplay has sandpapered any angry edges off the pair. It’s also because Chu is handier with dynamic dance numbers than these flat family scenes, or with

SEE THIS IF YOU LIKED…

DO THE RIGHT THING 1989 Chu has cited Lee’s masterpiece, with its “really cool vibe”, as a touchstone. STEP UP 2: THE STREETS 2008 Chu’s feature debut made a BO splash; he returned to helm part 3(D). HAMILTON 2020 The live recording of Manuel’s musical hit big with theatre-starved lockdown auds.

Excitement for Towel Day was ramping up by the minute. Nina’s halting romance with cabdispatcher Benny (a hard-working Corey Hawkins). Even when the clever camerawork has the couple dancing literally up the walls, like La La Land, things feel emotionally underpowered. Bigger on feelings than West Side Story-style high drama, In The Heights should be all about being torn between ambition and relationships. It crackles with music-video energy and visual imagination in hairdresser Vanessa’s fabric-wrapped dreams of being a designer in ‘It Won’t Be Long Now’, thanks to sparky songstress Melissa Barrera. Her slow-burn love story with Usnavi, snagged on his dance-floor timidity but fuelled by his big-heart generosity, is deliciously engaging too. When the film gets it right like this, or with Olga Merediz’s yearning granny, you forgive its lack of star power and the shortage of The Greatest Showman-style singable tunes. It may not have Hamilton’s grabby narrative or musical power. But the sheer exuberance of a swimming pool bursting with dancers celebrating a lottery win with propulsive rap anthem ‘96,000’ may be the uncomplicated good time your soul needs. Kate Stables SUBSCRIBE AT WWW.TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS

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CAVEAT TBC

OUT 25 JUNE SKY CINEMA/NOW TV

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young mum-to-be (Tamara Lawrance) becomes suffocated by her late boyfriend’s mother (Fiona Shaw) in this moderately gripping psychodrama, a Rosemary’s Baby-style portrait of prenatal paranoia in which Hitchcockian crows (the original title was Corvidae) serve as creepy, cawing harbingers of doom. Jack Lowden co-stars as Shaw’s creepily solicitous stepson in a film whose initial promise succumbs to some overly predictable reversals. The dilapidated countryhouse setting, however – think Downton Abbey in need of a paint job – is effective. Neil Smith

DR. BIRD’S ADVICE FOR SAD POETS TBC FILM

FILM

OUT 9 JULY CINEMAS

oé Wittock’s narratively slight tale of objectophilia (sexual attraction for particular inanimate objects) is nonetheless as sleek and dizzying as the fairground ride on which reclusive Jeanne (Noémie Merlant) fixates, thanks to gorgeous lensing and commitment to subject. Following Jeanne as she becomes aroused by spit-polishing the lights on a centrifugal spinner at her dead-end job, the film’s acceptance of its protagonist’s lust (she gets naked with the machine, licks its oil) means Jumbo could be read as a metaphor challenging heteronormative love as well as an assured curio. Quite the ride. Jane Crowther

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OUT NOW DIGITAL HD he quirky title’s only the start of it in Yaniv Raz’s expansion of his 2016 short, a coming-of-age story about a poetry-obsessed teen (Lucas Jade Zumann) troubled equally by warring parents (Jason Isaacs, Lisa Edelstein), his sister’s disappearance, and his adolescent crush on an attractive classmate (Waves’ Taylor Russell). Help is at hand from a talking pigeon (told you it was quirky...) in a drama that uses overtly ostentatious flourishes to convey the shifting sands of encroaching mental illness. Neil Smith

uby Rose and Morgan Freeman try to light a fire under this lifeless husk of a thriller, in which Freeman’s retired cop, living in a suspiciously large (and sterilised) house, forces Rose’s ex-assassin to do his violent bidding around town. It’s all tenuously linked to a bizarrely long opening montage about a hero cop’s attempted murder via newspaper headlines. Rhyme, reason and intrigue are soon vanquished, via artless violence, cheap production and Midnight Run writer George Gallo’s wooden direction. It’s the worst kind of bad: the boring one. Erlingur Einarsson

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seemingly simple babysitting gig comes with an eyebrow-raising catch for amnesiac loner Isaac (Jonathan French): a leather harness with a chain that keeps him out of selected rooms in the isolated island house where he has been hired to mind his landlord’s troubled niece, Olga (Leila Sykes). The lean if twisted premise of first-time feature director Damian McCarthy’s modest spook-fest generates enough atmospheric menace to hold the attention, though you might find your interest flagging a bit by the time that telltale crossbow finally comes into play. Neil Smith

VANQUISH 15 OUT NOW CINEMAS 23 JULY DIGITAL HD 2 AUG DVD

JUMBO TBC

THE WITCHES OF THE ORIENT U FILM

OUT 16 JULY CINEMAS, VIRTUAL CINEMAS

fter his searching film about combustible tennis maverick John McEnroe, Julien Faraut struggles with a contained collective in his third sports doc. The ‘witches’ referred to here were a Japanese volleyball team (aka Nichibo Kaizuka) who drew adoration in the ’60s, inspiring anime in their punishing pursuit of excellence. Faraut excels with the training and competition montages, judiciously scored by Portishead and others. But while the Olympics climax is undeniably intense, contextual insights run thin and the modern-day reflections prove more affable than absorbing. Kevin Harley JULY 2021 | TOTAL FILM

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star vehicle SPIELBERG’S DEBUT WILL STILL TRUCK YOU UP…

Dennis Weaver is a Mann on the run.

DUEL: 50THANNIVERSARY EDITION 12 FILM EXTRAS

1971 OUT NOW BD, DVD EXTRAS Featurees, Gallery

t may be turning 50 this year, but the decades have taken none of the shine off Steven Spielberg’s thrilling feature directing debut. Graduating to his very own TV movie after helming episodes of Marcus Welby, M.D. and Columbo, Spielberg’s automotive monster movie is a model of streamlined storytelling that makes a virtue of its limited resources. Whether you take the story at face value or seek deeper meanings in its exploration of emasculation made flesh, Duel is a powerfully effective piece of high-concept filmmaking; its lasersharp focus never straying from the nail-gnawing game of cat-and-mouse between beleaguered salesman David Mann (Dennis Weaver) and the rusty, smoke-belching truck pursuing him across miles of empty desert road. Sadly, despite the ‘Anniversary’ tag and a new cover by legendary horror-

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BUT I’M A CHEERLEADER 15 FILM

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1999 OUT NOW BD EXTRAS Commentary, Featurees, Short

wo decades before Natasha Lyonne-starrer Russian Doll, director Jamie Babbitt made her feature debut with this colourfully subversive cult satire (now even more colourful in this 4K restoration). Lyonne is Megan, an all-American cheerleader sent by her parents to the True Directions rehab camp in hopes of erasing her gay urges. From Clea DuVall to Michelle Williams, RuPaul Charles and John Waters legend Mink Stole, it’s a fantastic cast for what now feels like an LGBTQ+ groundbreaker. James Mottram

TOTAL FILM | JULY 2021

poster artist Graham Humphreys, this is simply a re-release of the original 2015 Blu-ray. There are no new extras, just the same archival interviews with Spielberg and writer Richard Matheson that first appeared way back on DVD. This is also a missed opportunity to include the original US TV cut, with this new Blu once again favouring the 15-minute longer international cinema version, which also crops the film’s original 1.37:1 photography to 1.85:1 widescreen. Anton van Beek

THE BABADOOK 15 FILM

EXTRAS

2014 OUT NOW DUAL FORMAT EXTRAS Commentary, Making Of, Featurees, Short

ennifer Kent’s deliciously creepy debut cracked open the door for female directors in horror and sparked a wave of resonant genre films dealing with grief, trauma and mental health. Dreary reality bleeds into nervejangling fantasy as the titular storybook monster – Nosferatu in a top hat – invades the home of a grieving widow (Essie Davis) and her young son (Noah Wiseman). The highlights of the Ba-Ba-Ba-barrage of extras are a granular commentary by Aussie critic Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and a detailed Making Of. Jamie Graham

NASHVILLE 15 FILM

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ven by the adventurous standards of 1970s Hollywood, Robert Altman’s magisterial ensemble drama (back on the big screen in 4K) remains a dazzling statement of cinema’s potential. Following two dozen protagonists (stars, fans and wannabes) over several days in country music’s capital, it’s a sprawling fusion of concert movie and satire. Ambitiously intertwining sex, politics and celebrity, Altman turns the city into a serio-comic microcosm of America. And the technique! The camera pans and zooms, the editing connects and counterpoints - and the cast even wrote their own songs. Simon Kinnear SUBSCRIBE AT WWW.TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS

BLU & VOD DVD RAY

ONE-ARMED BOXER 18

MERRILY WE GO TO HELL PG

1972 OUT NOW BD EXTRAS Commentary, Alternate credits, Galleries, Booklet

1932 OUT NOW BD EXTRAS Documentary, Video essay, Booklet

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EXTRAS

aving made a name for himself with The One-Armed Swordsman (1967), Jimmy Wang Yu’s spiritual sequel is a fight-filled kung fu cult classic. Here he plays a martial-arts student who, after his arm is karatechopped off by a fanged Japanese mercenary, must learn a secret onearmed fighting technique to get his revenge – all set to Isaac Hayes’ ‘Theme From Shaft’. Clearly not the “film of documentary realism” the trailer promises, but all the more enjoyable for its silliness. Anton van Beek

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1955 OUT 28 JUNE BD EXTRAS Commentary, Documentaries, Featurees, Gallery, Booklet

harles Laughton’s sole directing credit, this dazzling Gothic fairytale also gave Robert Mitchum his most iconic role as a switchblade-wielding preacher with ‘love’ and ‘hate’ tattooed across his knuckles. Following the film’s 2013 Blu-ray debut, this new Criterion Collection doublediscer ups the ante with an improved restoration and expanded roster of bonus features. Thankfully, it retains the fascinating two-and-a-half-hour Charles Laughton Directs… doc compiled from behind-the-scenes footage and outtakes. Anton van Beek

hidden depths THE SCARIEST HORROR YOU’VE NEVER HEARD OF…

EXTRAS

lcoholism, infidelity, the word ‘Hell’ in the title… Dorothy Arzner’s marital drama is a prime example of pre-Code candour. Like oft-sozzled reporter Fredric March, it can appear off-balance – the final twists of hope and despair deserve more time – but there are sparks of wit and fine performances, with Sylvia Sidney nailing every nuance of a rollercoaster relationship. Pick of the extras is film historian Cari Beauchamp’s video essay; listen out for the tale of “the only priest with a SAG card”. Matthew Leyland

LAKE MUNGO 15 FILM EXTRAS

2008 OUT NOW BD EXTRAS Commentaries, Interviews, Video essays, Deleted scenes, Art cards, Booklet

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sk 10 genre aficionados what is the best-kept secret of postmillennial horror and eight of them will say Lake Mungo, a small fake-doc offering from Australia that mixes Paranormal Activity with Making A Murderer. Self-distributed in Oz and slipping quietly onto DVD elsewhere, it caused barely a ripple. Writer/director Joel Anderson has not made a film since, disappearing from public view. Nowhere to be found in the Blu’s deep-dive extras, his absence only adds to the film’s mythology. And what a film. Anderson brings an unwavering authenticity to this examination of the disappearance of 16-year-old Alice Palmer (Talia Zucker), thought to have drowned while swimming at a dam. Over the next seven months, the film crew repeatedly interview Alice’s mum (Rosie Traynor), dad (David Pledger) and brother (Martin Sharpe), plus a psychic (Steve Jodrell) and various locals of the town of Ararat. What emerges is a genuinely chilling ghost story and a profound portrait of GAMESRADAR.COM/TOTALFILM

loneliness. Alice’s story is as affecting as that of her touchstone namesake Laura in Twin Peaks. A commentary by Aussie author Alexandra Heller-Nicholas digs into the themes of technology, memory and Australia’s colonial past, while filmmakers such as Rob Savage (Host) and Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead (Spring, Synchronic) wax lyrical. “I was absolutely terrified,” shudders Savage. “But it stuck with me beyond being a scary movie.” Absolutely. Jamie Graham

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return to power KEVIN SMITH SHARES SECRETS OF

MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE: REVELATION…

t’s 36 years since He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe finished its sword-swinging, epoch-defining run. Finally, OG fans get to find out what happens next with Netflix and Mattel Television’s Masters Of The Universe: Revelation. Extending character arcs in fresh directions, it’s powered by showrunner Kevin Smith and a voice cast including Chris Wood (He-Man/Prince Adam), Mark Hamill (Skeletor) and Sarah Michelle Gellar (Teela)… Kevin, what was the hook that re-opened this universe? KEVIN SMITH: I knew the original cartoon insanely well. But I went back and was like, “I’m gonna spin one and see if it’s everything I remembered.” I watched an episode and right in the opening credits, where you get the whole “I am Adam, Prince of Eternia and defender of Castle Grayskull…”, one of the most compelling lines is that only three people know the secret that Adam is He-Man. And one of those people was not Teela, his closest friend. I was like, “Well, what if Teela finally found out?”

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THE ALPHA AND THE OMEGA Skeletor still has his eyes (or holes where they should be) ﬁrmly set on conquering Castle Grayskull (right). WHAT SORCERY? He-Man joins forces with Sorceress (below right).

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Did you receive any mandates from Mattel or Netflix? KS: We went into Netflix, and I met [development exec] Ted Biaselli. Ted loves Masters Of The Universe and he said, “You’ve got to understand, every episode I watched, I was afraid Skeletor was going to kill He-Man. What I’m looking for from this show is that same SEE THIS feeling I had as a kid. I want stakes. IF YOU I want to feel like this all matters LIKED… that people can die at any moment. HE-MAN AND THE and MASTERS OF THE All I ask is that you don’t mock this UNIVERSE 1983–85 stuff or do inside jokes. I know it’s Muscles, magic and the low-hanging fruit to make fun morals across 130 of it. Please, the one thing I’ve always epic episodes. wanted my whole life is that somebody CLERKS: THE ANIMATED SERIES would treat these characters like they were Shakespearean.” 2000-01 Kevin Smith’s prior And I was like, “I can’t do animated series, Shakespeare but I can do Fake-speare. based on his hit I can get you close. I can give Skeletor a indie debut. old speech!” They encouraged me SHE-RA AND THE big to let the characters be dramatic. And PRINCESSES OF POWER 2018–20 there’s a scene between Evil-Lyn [Lena Netﬂix’s reboot of Headey] and Beast Man [Kevin Michael another Filmation show, contemporising Richardson] in Part Two that is one of the finest dramatic pieces I’ve ever been it for the beer.

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involved with, and that I’ve ever seen in something. Chris, was Masters Of The Universe part of your childhood? CHRIS WOOD: I grew up playing with the toys and being obsessed with Grayskull specifically because it was like the most epic, boy-castle toy ever. And doing this felt very full circle, because I have a young son now, so it’s super-cool to get to embody this character that has been such a huge pop-culture phenomenon. Of course, there’s a pressure that comes from making comparisons, but I just tried not to think that and do my own thing, knowing that the story and the phrases and all of that do all the nostalgia work for you.

RIDE ON He-Man reunites with his trusty Bale Cat (above). FIGHTING FIT Teela is more than a capable ﬁghter (top right). GREEN BEAST Moss Man is voiced by Alan Oppenheimer (above right).

Sarah, what can you tell us about Teela’s journey? SARAH MICHELLE GELLAR: I think her journey is one that everybody can understand. It’s that moment of growing up and realising, “I’m an adult. I need to figure out who I am, not based on who my parents are, or the people around, or what’s expected of me.” She feels extremely betrayed by the people that she loved the most and that’s when you really go on that journey. It was exciting to take that journey with her. Tiffany, how does your new character, Andra, play into Teela’s story arc? TIFFANY SMITH: I think that the cool thing about their dynamic is that we’re getting to see Teela at a different phase of her life that we didn’t see, obviously, in the original series. There’s one line that I love so much: “I’m the brain, she’s the brawn.” I think that it’s a really simple way to put it, but they do rely on each other. It’s amazing to get to see two best friends going on this journey together.

How do you hope audiences respond to this version of Teela? SMG: She’s so badass! Just the haircut alone. And what I really hope is that when they make the Teela Halloween costume, and the Andra one, is that they come with muscles, like those muscle-suit Batman costumes, so that girls understand that they can look like that too. And I’m just putting that out there to whoever is listening! Tony, how were you wooed into voicing baddie Scare Glow? TONY TODD: Well, Kevin and I worked on a network pitch for something five years ago, so we always knew each other and we kept each other in mind. He called me and said, “I need you to come play. We’re rebooting Masters Of The Universe.” I read the scripts and then went in. He’s such a joy to work with because he genuinely loves whatever project that he’s involved with. He loves it as a fan, and that translates. Tara Bennett MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE: REVELATION IS ON NETFLIX FROM 23 JULY. JULY 2021 | TOTAL FILM

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Cecily Strong and Keegan-Michael Key play Melissa and Josh.

well tuned HOW MUSICAL COMEDY SCHMIGADOON! FINDS THE RIGHT KEY…

ollowing musical roles in The Prom and Jingle Jangle, Keegan-Michael Key makes it a hat-trick with Apple TV+ comedy Schmigadoon! Key heads the cast alongside SNL star Cecily Strong: they play a couple, Josh and Melissa, seeking to pep up their relationship with a countryside backpacking trip. “In the middle of the hike, they get lost and find this small town,” explains Key. “The town is straight out of a 1940s musical, where everyone is singing and dancing. And then they discover they can’t leave until they find true love!”

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show,” says exec producer Cinco Paul, who co-wrote Schmigadoon! with his Despicable Me screenwriting partner Ken Daurio. “We wanted the actors to sing live on the set and dance, so we had to get a wide variety of real musical-theatre talent involved. These people had to have the chops required to pull it off.” Among the big names who signed up for the six-episode series are Tony Award winners Alan Cumming, Kristin Chenoweth and Jane Krakowski. “It was really important that we have legit Broadway stars,” says Strong. “Walking around New York right now, all of the theatres are shuttered. And back when we filmed it, the theatres were shuttered. It’s sad to see Broadway looking this way. But we got to make musical

theatre during this time and it was really wonderful because Schmigadoon! is such a tribute to Broadway.” BRIGADOON 1954 For the uninitiated, the show’s title Musical schmaltz is a nod to the 1947 Broadway musical elevated by Gene Brigadoon, which was turned into a Kelly’s tap genius. Gene Kelly movie in 1954. Despite the CRAZY EXpun, Paul is keen to point out that GIRLFRIEND viewers don’t need to be familiar with 2015-19 Comedy inspired by Broadway history to enjoy the series. Broadway, boy bands “The title encapsulates the idea that and power ballads. this is a parody and a funny look ZOEY’S EXTRAORDINARY at musicals,” the showrunner admits. “But I think it works just as well for PLAYLIST 2020-PRESENT people who don’t know them because A sort of grown-up it’s an introduction. Key’s character Glee, with a ton of catchy, contemporary Josh certainly helps in that respect, musical numbers. because he knows nothing about them. He hates musicals!” “This is definitely a show where we’re not asking anybody to go in knowing everything that happens in Brigadoon or Oklahoma!,” confirms Strong. “But there are little nods of our heads, or Easter eggs, for the musicaltheatre audience. There’s something for everyone.” Adam Tanswell SCHMIGADOON! STARTS ON APPLE TV+ ON 16 JULY.

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The show is directed by Barry Sonnenfeld and filled with extravagantly choreographed hoofing routines. “Schmigadoon! is a love letter to the golden age of musicals, like Singin’ In The Rain and Seven Brides For Seven Brothers,” continues Key, whose character is initially hesitant to join in with the mayhem. There’s a greater sense of diversity than you might find in musicals of old. “The people that live in this town just happen to be from different racial backgrounds, existing in a certain amount of harmony,” says Key. “It’s funny… Parody is a term that we could use but also, in a manner of speaking, it’s a deconstruction of the musical, while also respecting the genre.” A wealth of Broadway talent was enlisted to play the town’s residents. “This is an incredibly demanding

SEE THIS IF YOU LIKED…

TV Ramona Young, Lee Rodriguez and Maitreyi Ramakrishnan as the three best friends in Never Have I Ever.

MAKING OF

growing gains TALKING TEENHOOD WITH THE STAR OF NEVER HAVE I EVER S2..

he 2020 debut season of Never Have I Ever was a big Netflix hit, watched by a reported 40 million households and scooping the People’s Choice Award for Comedy Show Of The Year. Co-creator Mindy Kaling’s childhood is the inspo for topsy-turvy teen Devi Vishwakumar, played by Maitreyi Ramakrishnan. Here the star talks new pals, coping with Covid and sporting superstars… What can you reveal about S2? Let’s just say that as excited as I was about S1, I’m even more so about S2. So much happens; I want everyone to be super-shocked when they see it. We worked really hard on it. You have Megan Suri (TV’s Atypical) joining, as new school friend Aneesa… It’s awesome to see another brown girl on the show, and she’s cool to hang out with. Devi isn’t the epitome of brown girls; not all can relate to Devi, so maybe some can relate to Aneesa.

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Did you have a lot of fun on and off set? If not for Covid, we’d have had lots of shenanigans! On the first season, me and a few other cast did this cool Da Vinci-themed escape room together. I needed to win, and we nailed it. There was a lot of screaming. On this season, we were really safe and worked under a lot of restrictions. I love our show’s crew

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so much; some of them say that I’m the niece they never asked for, but got. [laughs] We all joke with each other a lot. Tennis legend John McEnroe both stars and narrates… what’s he like? Honestly, I didn’t really know who he was! I’m not a big sports guy at all, in general, except when I hype up my [Toronto] Raptors, which is my Canadian pride coming into play. I first met [McEnroe] at a table read for Episode 10 of Season 1 and he seemed pretty chill. He came in, did his thing and left.

SEE THIS IF YOU LIKED…

TO ALL THE BOYS 2018-21 Comedic, poignant teen-movie trilogy centred on shy Lana Condor’s secret love leers. BOOKSMART 2019 Kaitlyn Dever and Beanie Feldstein are besties looking to party hard on graduation eve. SEX EDUCATION 2019-PRESENT Hormonal highschoolers air and share issues in Netﬂix’s frank, funny dramedy series.

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I asked him if he still played sports. He said yes. I said, cool, that’s sick, I don’t play sports, I just wanted to know. I respect people who do. I’m too lazy for sports [laughs]. Devi’s outfits are spot on… Sal[vador Perez] does a great job costuming the characters. In the S1 scene where Paxton’s sister [Lily D. Moore] made dresses for Devi to model, the fabric came from Mindy’s outfits from The Mindy Project. The S2 costuming is so good [does chef’s kisses]. Picking up the People’s Choice Award must’ve been a big moment… I was really shocked that we won, that we had all that support. It was crazy. We left the award on stage; I didn’t take it because of Covid. I’m so conscious about what I touch! What’s next for you? I’m being really selective. I don’t want anything one-dimensional. I’d love to take a role that’s not at all like Devi. A period piece would be really sick - especially those costumes – or a dark psychological thriller. Ashanti Omkar NEVER HAVE I EVER S2 IS COMING SOON TO NETFLIX. JULY 2021 | TOTAL FILM

Alanna Ubach, Mindy Kaling, Henry Winkler, Lucas Neﬀ and Ben Feldman take on the monstrous new roles.

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beasts in show WHAT’S ON THE ITINERARY FOR DISNEY’S MONSTERS AT WORK…

STRAIGHT DOWN TO BUSINESS

SEE THIS IF YOU LIKED…

Facilities Team, aka MIFT. The group includes Fritz (Henry Winkler), Tylor Tuskmon (Ben Feldman) and his BFF, Val Monsters, Inc. (2001) ended with the THE BEST OF discovery that the factory could harvest Little (Mindy Kaling). Kaling, of course, LAUREL AND power from kids’ laughter rather than has Pixar previous with Inside Out – but HARDY 1968 her character is the diametric opposite screams. Starting the day after the Catch up on a key movie stops, Monsters At Work captures inspiration for Mike of Disgust. “Val is so enthusiastic and and Sulley with this earnest and pure,” says Kaling. “And the transition. “What I love is that the expertly curated I normally play sociopaths, so that’s story just continues,” enthuses Billy compilation. Crystal. “It doesn’t feel like a sequel.” really nice! I love visually how cute she MONSTERS, INC. is. I think her colour palette is great: the 2001 Not the chronological pinks and the oranges. It matches her beginning of the personality, which is really upbeat.” franchise, but the And yes, so are the voices behind the best place to start. fantastic frolleagues. “I love getting SUPERSTORE back into Mike,” Crystal says. “I don’t 2015-21 think he ever left [me]. It’s pretty much Another work-centric Of the new intake, Tuskmon is the one ensemble sitcom my favourite character that I’ve ever to watch, an underdog ready to prove a charmingly himself in the retooled company. played. To get a chance to team up again Carrying out some vital scares-to-laughs featuring gauche Feldman. in such a beautiful, funny, brand-new retrofitting is the new Monsters, Inc. Erstwhile Mad Men actor Feldman says series was so exciting for me.” John he’s sure his natural awkwardness is Goodman is in full agreement: “It was what got him the role. “I do this a no-brainer. The script is so good and stammer and I’m a little neurotic, so the animation is such high quality, I got really lucky because that’s which makes it a lot of fun.” apparently what [executive producer] Bob Gannaway was looking for,” he chuckles. “I feel like I slipped through the cracks, but I couldn’t be more As promised by Roz (Bob Peterson), thrilled and more honoured to be a part Sulley and Mike now head up the new of this.” Tara Bennett mirth-based operation. Although it’s debatable how prepared they are for the task ahead… “I used to say about Laurel MONSTERS AT WORK STARTS ON DISNEY+ and Hardy that they were two minds ON 2 JULY.

MIKE AND SULLEY ARE BACK…

without a single thought,” smiles Crystal. The monster mates conjure a similar feeling. “Sulley is always the smarter one, but Mike thinks he’s in charge; he has responsibilities. At the end of some of the episodes, Mike runs comedy classes where he tries to teach the monsters how to be funny, so we had a great time inventing those and trying to be funny when Mike really isn’t.” There are other challenges for our heroes, which Crystal welcomes: “It’s great that they have to deal with a couple of new characters who just breathe a whole new life into the family of Monsters, Inc. and Monsters University.”

SAY HELLO TO MIFT…

…AND KEEP YOUR EYES ON TYLOR

…AND THEY’RE IN CHARGE

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Gabriel Byrne’s Bill faces an ever-harder struggle to survive an alien invasion.

MAKING OF

raising wells THE ALIEN APOCALYPSE INTENSIFIES IN WAR OF THE WORLDS S2…

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modern, pan-European adap of H.G. Wells’ alien-invasion classic, SEE THIS IF YOU War Of The Worlds launches into its second season with fresh LIKED… threats, new characters and answers to cliffhanging questions. Creator Howard Overman and his cast discuss making a show about MISFITS 2009-13 Lighter sci-ﬁ from a global crisis in the midst of a real-life one. Overman, centred on young oﬀenders with superpowers. stop at nothing, even if it hurts those How did you make an entire season in three months during a pandemic? around her and puts people in danger. COLONY 2016-18 She’s a dark horse. Her methods are GABRIEL BYRNE (BILL): It’s the Allegories abound in this Stephen Kingnature of creating television these days; dubious, but I always enjoy playing post-alien morally ambiguous characters [laughs], approved the pace is relentless. It’s not an easy invasion drama. and finding moments of vulnerability, show to shoot. In Season 1, we were WAR OF THE because people have different sides. contending with the cold and rain; in WORLDS S1 2019 Season 2, it was the heat in the studio Overman’s smart re-imagining for 12, 13 hours a day; and we were also BAYO GBADAMOSI (KARIEM): transposes Wells’ My character’s been left with a sense jumping around between episodes, story from England of guilt around what happened at trying to keep in mind the arc of the to France. the end of Season 1, with its massive story and characters. But it’s a great cliffhanger. He’s on this journey of project to work on. I’m the oldest in trying to be a protector, trying to keep the cast and love being surrounded by the energy of young people running this band of humans together. There is a lot of care and curiosity in Kariem, up and down stairs with guns! and we explore that in this season. It’s my first time playing a character Where do we find your characters from one season to another, and in Season 2? I feel an ownership and rootedness PEARL CHANDA (ZOE): You meet in who he is. Kariem is South Zoe at the start of the season. She’s Sudanese and my dialect coach is the chief of the resistance that has amazing, really helping me get into been formed, and her main aim is to his accent and understand the win the war against the aliens, who culture of the people. are forever getting stronger. She’ll

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Howard, you seem to have an ongoing affinity with sci-fi… HOWARD OVERMAN: I find it offers possibilities to tell interesting stories that look outside our own worlds while also looking at us. Arrival did that very well – you’ve got aliens on Earth, but it’s really about having a kid, and [about] the nature of love. I’m not into little green men with zapping lasers! Why does Wells’ novel still resonate? GB: It’s such a prescient, beautifully thought-out and constructed story. And it deals with an existential threat to humanity, which is a timeless theme, whether you’re talking about war, or the pandemic, or the environmental crisis, which in my opinion is a greater crisis than even the pandemic. The big question is if we can get a vaccine to deal with the environment. H.G. Wells was a genius of a writer, and understood how fragile we all are; he looked at technology, the future, patterns in history, and the profound idea that humankind is susceptible to extinction. Ashanti Omkar WAR OF THE WORLDS S2 IS RELEASED ON DISNEY+ ON 16 JULY. JULY 2021 | TOTAL FILM

LEGO DAILY BUGLE TOY/COLLECTIBLE OUT NOW

Hold the front page: built from 3,772 bricks, this is the tallest Lego Marvel set yet (until they make, like, special edition tiptoes Galactus, or suchlike). Across three floors you get heroes, villains, window smashing, waffles… kinda like the TF office on press week, TBH. One-fifth of the 25 minifigures are exclusives: Blade, Black Cat, Daredevil, Punisher and of course J. Jonah Jameson, simmering (or Simmons-ing, if you will) away. Get your final edition at lego.com.

LUCA MERCHANDISE VARIOUS OUT NOW

Lots of suitably seaside-y tie-ins for Disney/Pixar’s latest: swimming cossies, trunks, sun hats, beach towels – and a monster-faced backpack to shove it all in as you head out on your restriction-bound holiday. Indoor items, meanwhile, include plushes, figurines, a mix ‘n’ match, build ‘n’crash scooter playset and a host of Funko Pop!s, featuring characters in land and aquatic modes (lest you be tempted to chuck the former in the bath to see what happens). Splash out at shopdisney.co.uk.

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CRUELLA MERCHANDISE VARIOUS OUT NOW

T-shirts, pins, Loungefly bags, asymmetrical monochrome sweatshirts… looking at this range, it’s tempting to conclude that the de Vil has the best merch. Collectors may be especially enticed by the limited-edish doll, a 45.5cm Stone-cold replica, wickedly accessorised with matching gloves, mask and cane. Plus rhinestones. To paraphrase the song, to see her is to take a sudden thrill (even if it is kinda pricey). All there in black and white on shopdisney.co.uk.

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EXTRAS LEGO FRIENDS APARTMENTS

TOY/COLLECTIBLE OUT NOW Following the brick-based Central Perk comes a 2,048-piece set comprising Monica and Rachel’s apartment, Joey and Chandler’s apartment, and the adjoining hallway. Well, gotta plonk Ross somewhere. There’s enough fan service to rival an HBO reunion special: Phoebe’s dollhouse, the fallen cheesecake, the chick, the duck and a pole for poking Ugly Naked Guy (minifigure not included, which is probably just as well). Hang your Thanksgiving turkey hat at lego.com.

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SLAPSTICK POP ART PRINTS OUT NOW

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Lovers of vintage buffoonery will be falling over themselves to get hold of these prints from Art & Hue, released to mark a myriad of milestones, from the centenary of Laurel & Hardy’s first pair-up (The Lucky Dog) to the 75th anniversary of Norman Wisdom becoming a professional entertainer. Printed on museum-quality card, the collection’s available in three sizes and 19 colours. Screen takes no responsibility for you dropping a picture frame on your foot or nailing your thumb to the wall in reckless emulation of your comic heroes. Make a madcap dash to artandhue.com. ML

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fresh spin

CLASSIC SOUNDTRACK

Carey Mulligan and Ryan Gosling in Drive.

TF scores the latest soundtracks…

Cruella

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The de Vil rides out with Carnaby-chic style and swagger across two albums. Headlining an Awesome Mix-ish comp, Florence + The Machine echo Siouxsie’s ‘Trust In Me’ on the silk-frocked ‘Call Me Cruella’. But Nicholas Britell steals the show with a malevolent twinkle, his Cursed Child-ish score draping a lustrous coat of insouciant wit, swing and mystery over Cruella’s pointed shoulders.

A Quiet Place Part II

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hen a film isn’t overburdened with idle natter, the music can step in and take over the emotional satnav. Still fresh a decade on, the soundtrack to Nicolas Winding Refn’s existential romantic thriller nails the job without once losing its cool. Exquisitely curated and evocatively scored, it plays like a crash course in atmosphere, emotion and style, designed to fit the film like a silk jacket. Just as its songs seduced fans into fancying themselves as Ryan Gosling at the wheel, so their makers steered the soundtrack as a whole. One key influence was Johnny Jewel, of the Italians Do It Better label and nightowl hipsters Chromatics. From its title down, Chromatics’ Night Drive album (2007) helped set Drive’s neon-noir tone and furnished Refn with the John Carpenter-ish ‘Tick Of The Clock’. In the blissed-out synth-pop mix, Desire’s ‘Under Your Spell’ and College/Electric Youth’s ‘A Real Hero’ provided warmth beneath the wheels. Produced with Daft Punk’s Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, French house don Kavinsky’s ‘Nightcall’ is another

expressive beauty, evoking distance and longing between Kavinsky’s electro-treated vocals and Lovefoxxx’s unguarded coo. If charges of arch electro-nostalgia never stuck to Drive, one vital point explains why: among other virtues, its music is meltingly, sincerely gorgeous. Jewel was initially hired to score the film, but the gig ultimately went to the more experienced Cliff Martinez, who was brought in on a ferocious deadline. Luckily, Steven Soderbergh’s wingman had an indie-schooled head for working at speed – and he had the songs to navigate by. Duly, Martinez eloquently evokes the one-step remove of a world seen

through glass in the rain-slicked shimmer of ‘Rubber Head’ and ‘I Drive’. By emphasising mood over momentum, monkish minimalism over mayhem, he also gives himself room to move in tight spots, sliding elegantly between narcotic reveries (‘Wrong Floor’) and throbbing intimations of volcanic violence (‘Skull Crushing’). Martinez’s man-machine marriage displays impeccable tonal control right up to the closing ‘Bride Of Deluxe’, where a supple shift into top gear summons the sensation of waking from a dream. If certain ’80s influences - Tangerine Dream, Vangelis – linger, Drive also honoured their pioneering spirits by pointing the way forward. Its influence stretched from Kung Fury and The Guest to Taken 2. More pointedly still, Stranger Things’ Duffer bros drew deep inspiration from its mix of retro-cool and in-the-now emotion. Drive may not say much, but it makes sure you feel every flickering heartbeat. Kevin Harley SUBSCRIBE AT WWW.TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS

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Sometimes maximalist, sometimes intimate, Marco Beltrami’s textured score helps connect the tissue between John Krasinski’s monster movies. Familiar detuned piano melodies keep the frayed family themes in close earshot, but it’s in contained, combustible dread that Beltrami excels. While ‘You Scream You Die’ sustains six minutes of clenched-jaw suspense, ‘Training Day’ shreds what’s left of your nerves.

drive VARIOUS/CLIFF MARTINEZ | LAKESHORE

two more

Recent thumbtwiddlers…

GAMES

scare package CAPCOM DELIVERS A FESTIVAL OF FRIGHTS…

RESIDENT EVIL: VILLAGE

GAME OUT NOW | PC, PS4/5, XBOX ONE/SERIES, STADIA

alk about a cold open. Shifting from the sweaty Louisiana bayous of Resident Evil 7, Capcom pitches hapless protagonist Ethan Winters into a snowbound Eastern-European hamlet. Then it immediately turns up the heat, as he’s attacked by a group of snarling lycans, one chewing off two of his fingers as he escapes from the ravening pack. If its predecessor was in thrall to The Hills Have Eyes and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Village draws from the series’ own history: this frantic set-piece is effectively a first-person Resident Evil 4. But it’s not long before this restless 10hour adventure changes tack.

It’s effectively an anthology of fear, representing different brands of horror. First, there’s a Gothic castle, in which Winters is stalked by the statuesque vampire Lady Dimitrescu and her three blood-hungry daughters. The game turns into a creature feature later on,

before taking a trip to a factory for experimental killing machines. But the standout is a mansion filled with blank-eyed dolls, in which your guns are confiscated. After an excruciating slow build, you’re led to anticipate an attack from a puppet army. Yet after a hair-raising Ringu homage, Winters finds himself cowering from a manifestation of his parental anxieties. Clumsy plotting and hackneyed action spoil the final act, but the chill of House Beneviento lingers. Chris Schilling

Chicory OUT TBC | PC, PS4/5 This compact Zelda-esque adventure sees you restoring colour to a washed-out world with the help of a magic paintbrush. Combining creative daubing with robust puzzles and witty dialogue, it’s a low-key charmer enlivened by an exceptional, instantly hummable score from Celeste composer Lena Raine.

Subnautica: Below Zero

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OUT NOW | SWITCH, XBOX SERIES, PS4/5 Unknown Worlds’ survival sandbox gets a narrative-focused follow-up that balances freeform exploration with MASS EFFECT OVERBOARD! HOOD: OUTLAWS a more propulsive LEGENDARY EDITION GAME & LEGENDS story. It largely hits OUT NOW | PC, SWITCH GAME GAME right notes, OUT NOW | PC, PS4, XBOX ONE OUT NOW | PC, PS4/5, XBOX ONE/SERIES the combining moments rom 80 Days’ creator Inkle, this of wonder and terror brisk interactive novella puts you arrying the space-opera sweep of grim, gritty retooling of the Robin with a steady string Star Wars with the thematic heft in the high heels of the scheming Hood myth, this multiplayer heist of discoveries – even if it’s the ones you of Battlestar Galactica, the Mass Effect Veronica Villensey. Having pushed her game pits groups of not-so-merry make unprompted trilogy makes a return in enhanced husband into the Atlantic while en men against one another. The job of that feel more form. The first entry has a gripping route to America, she has just eight both sides is to crack the Sheriff of story and the series’ best villain, while in-game hours to create an alibi and Nottingham’s vault first, before making meaningful. find a way to frame another passenger good their getaway without letting the the third has ambition to spare. The middle chapter remains the pick, for his murder so she can start a new loot fall into the hands of their rival however: from its shocking start to the life with the insurance money. Your outlaws. In patches it’s thrilling, with heart-stopping tension of its final first few trips are doomed to failure, but narrow escapes and tense standoffs. mission, it’s a gripping, character-led every do-over is a chance to uncover Yet characters largely fall into familiar thriller. Its ideologies are outdated, but new secrets and fine-tune your plan; archetypes and with just a handful of it’s good to have Cdr. Shepard back. CS either way, the payoff is hilarious. CS maps it quickly loses its lustre. CS

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JULY 2021 | TOTAL FILM

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BOOKS two more

Of Sith and symbiotes…

THE PHILOSOPHY OF VENOM

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The makers of The Philosophy Of Deadpool dip back into the Marvel archives to give Spider-Man’s symbiote nemesis the same brash if slight treatment. Basically a collection of manic artwork divvied up under loosely suitable chapter headings, the result is both a loopy celebration of Venom’s anarchic personality and a handy way to get up to speed ahead of his impending movie comeback. Wolverine and She-Venom are among the other wildcards making colourful cameos.

THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK 40th ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL

TOTAL FILM | JULY 2021

SETH ROGEN | SPHERE

ew celebrities are better at the awkward social encounter than Knocked Up’s Seth Rogen, an unlikely leading man with a diffident screen persona whose debut memoir reads like one long, nervous guffaw. Over the course of 220 free-wheeling, self-deprecating and profanity-strewn pages, Yearbook records cringe-inducing meetings with Tom Cruise, George Lucas

and others that are as uncomfortable to imagine as they are hilarious to read about. If you’ve ever pondered what it’s like to be held captive by Kanye, piss off Nicolas Cage or be abused by Eddie Griffin in a Las Vegas elevator, this is the tome for you. You’ll also discover how it feels to be the least famous guy at the Grammys, a casual observer at the “Oscars of porn”

BLADE RUNNER 2029 CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE MAGIC BOX VOL 1: REUNION THE FIRST 80 YEARS BOOK GRAPHIC NOVEL

MICHAEL GREEN, MIKE JOHNSON, ANDREAS GUINALDO | TITAN

he follow-up to comic-book saga BR 2019 carries on the story of Ash, a conflicted Runner whose work ‘retiring’ rogue Replicants on Earth is compromised by the fact her lover is a leader in the Replicant Underground movement. The mythology-expanding story is backed by artist Guinaldo’s evocative depiction of the rain-sodden eco-catastrophe that is 2029 LA. Violent (included an eye-gouging), but supremely stylish. James Mottram

BOOK

ROB YOUNG | FABER

ou can tell a lot about a country by studying its TV, something Young takes to heart in this forensic dissection – subtitled Viewing Britain Through The Rectangular Window – of the moving pictures he grew up watching in the ’70s. Spanning everything from the “yesternow” of Nigel Kneale’s chilling sci-fi to the “national story” told by Danny Boyle’s Olympics opening ceremony, this tightly packed treatise takes pains to illustrate how what we view affects how we view ourselves. Neil Smith

FABIO LICARI, MARCO RIZZO | TITAN

id you know Steve Rogers once became a werewolf? Possibly, since all the info here is already public. But the appeal of this beautifully assembled encyclopedia is that it saves you scrolling through tons of wiki articles. In under 200 pages, we learn the entire comic-book history – so far – of the first Avenger and his evershifting importance in the zeitgeist, accompanied by dozens of bestmoments panels and detailed bios of key creatives. Musanna Ahmed

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Belated big-birthday tribute, available in mag and hardback (with canon-busting ‘two-saber Vader’ cover) formats. More definitive making-ofs are available, and there’s some filler: 10 pages (out of 144) recapping Eps IV-V. But there’s a good chunk of lesser-seen pics (a palm-fitting Falcon model) and the jolly reminder that Lobot is short for lobotomy.

YEARBOOK

BOOK

and the sorry stand-up sap who has to follow Jerry Seinfeld on stage. Rogen is a splendid raconteur, as a chapter about a hellish expedition at summer camp attests. It’s a little disappointing, then, that so many of his anecdotes involve hallucinogenics, items that recur with such regularity you wonder if Snoop Dogg’s blunt roller had a hand in their writing. Rogen may well have had a blast dropping acid at Burning Man and ingesting ’shrooms in Amsterdam, but his hedonistic exploits tend to boringly blur together. Thank goodness, then, for The Interview, the calamitous fallout from which will never be tiresome to revisit. Neil Smith

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BUFF CINEMA CELEBRATED AND DEBATED. BOOSTING YOUR MOVIE GENIUS TO SUPERHERO LEVELS…

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thi s issue

SAIL FAIL? A HEX ON THIS MOVIE BEST BOY SCOUT?

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STIRRING UP MEMORIES STAR GATES SHAKESPEARE + POOL

130 UNTANGLING THE ANSWERS CLEAVING LAS VEGAS TERRIFIC TAKAHATA JULY 2021 | TOTAL FILM

FILM BUFF

INVESTIGATION

IS IT BOLLOCKS?

ALTERNATIVE BOX OFFICE

In this classic swashbuckler, Douglas Fairbanks stabs a sail with his sword and rides it from crow’s nest to the deck. Much-copied and referenced – but three sheets to the wind or shipshape?

01 PUSS IN BOOTS 2011 $555M 02 GROWN UPS 2010$271M 03 GROWN UPS 2 2013 $247M 04 WILD WILD WEST 1999 $222M 05 TRAFFIC 2000 $208M 06 SPY KIDS 3-D: GAME OVER 2003 $197M 07 THE HITMAN’S BODYGUARD 2017 $177M 08 SAUSAGE PARTY 2016 $141M 09 THE PIRATES! IN AN ADVENTURE WITH SCIENTISTS! 2012$123M 10 ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO 2003$99M

Film Buffinvestigates the facts behind outlandish movie plots. THIS MONTH THE BLACK PIRATE

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Q A

ANDY WILKINSON FILM SWORD MASTER, DIRECTOR AND AUTHOR OF TAKE ONE, ACTION!

VERDICT BOLLOCKS Want us to investigate if a movie scenario is bollocks? Ask us at totalfilm@futurenet.com TOTAL FILM | JULY 2021

ON LOCATION

REEL SPOTS BEHIND THE CAMERA

1971 2021 WHAT? In Bedknobs And Broomsticks, WW2 evacuee kids are sent to rural Dorset and find their mild-mannered carer is magical. Well, she’s Angela Lansbury. Of course she is. WHERE? Corfe Castle, Dorset. GO? Corfe stands in for the quaint hamlet of Pepperinge Eye and the castle is now a National Trust property. Wear purple like Miss Eglantine. Thanks to Erlingur Einarsson. Snapped yourself at a film location? Send us the details at totalfilm@futurenet.com SUBSCRIBE AT WWW.TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS

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Peeking behind the curtain of this great moment in film, this is how it was done. The sail was pre-cut. A fixed false blade was placed in a pulley and counterbalance rig for Douglas Fairbanks to grab hold of. The rig was behind the sail so the camera can not see it in shot. As Fairbanks drops to the deck below, his weight on the rig cuts through the sail and the counterbalance lowers him to the deck. The pulley counterbalance was designed by Fairbanks’ brother, Robert, a founding member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The swords in common use on 16th-century ships were the dirk and the cutlass, both short blades designed for cut-and-thrust actions. Not much room on board a ship, so cut and thrust was the best option. Both would pierce the sail, but neither would be sharp enough or have the weight to split the sail. The sailcloth was made of tough, heavily woven canvas. Sails that could be torn easily were useless at sea. What would happen if attempted? The blade would enter, however, as soon as you put weight on it the blade would slide out. You would need to be above the blade constantly to even move it down the sail, not that you could do that either. The scene is pure ‘smoke & mirror’ magic from the movies. But we are still talking about that scene 95 years later, so my hat goes off to the filmmakers and Douglas Fairbanks for creating such a great moment.

THE BIGGEST MOVIES… STARRING SALMA HAYEK

BOOSTING YOUR MOVIE GENIUS TO GOD-LIKE PROPORTIONS

10 OF THE BEST

TOP GATES Indomitable ingresses…

JURASSIC PARK

That famous theme swells as Dr. Ian Malcolm and wide-eyed nippers approach John Hammond’s new dino theme park in automated jeeps, via the torch-lit biblical gates. They look sturdy enough to keep a T-rex in, what could possibly go wrong?

SKYFALL

Whenever the new Bond title is announced there’s much speculation as to what it refers to. In 007’s 23rd outing, it’s his Scottish ancestral lodge, entered via a brooding gateway bearing two stag sculptures. “Oohh, look!” audiences squealed. “The name’s written on the gatepost!”

THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWIN TOWERS

Hobbits Sam and Frodo rock up at the spiky, uninviting Black Gate of Mordor hoping to sneak through, but are thwarted as the aperture closes. Gollum sensibly cowers in its shadow. Perhaps they should have called ahead?

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STARGATE

Want to get somewhere briskish? Better step through this circular portal – an Einstein-Rosen bridge device like an intergalactic tram between Earth and a place “beyond the known galaxy”. “What a rush!” comments one squaddie zapped through the threshold. Roger that.

GAMESRADAR.COM/TOTALFILM

BABE

Adorable porker Babe shepherds six stubborn sheep expertly round a sheepdog trial course, ending with an elegant shoo-ing into a pen and the creaky closing of a gate behind them. No wonder the crowd goes wild. That’ll do indeed, pig.

WILLY WONKA & THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY

Golden-ticket winners go through the swirly, wroughtiron Wonka factory gates for a sweetie-crammed tour. Beyond lies chocky excess, blueberry allergies, shrinkage and general humiliation. Bit like Legoland.

CITIZEN KANE

The first scene to the film habitually voted GOAT begins with a pan across ornate abandoned gates emblazoned with a bombastic ‘K’, through which the fallen world of Xanadu can be glimpsed in darkness. A movie ‘opening’ in every way.

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WITHNAIL & I

The titular resting actors from London break the countryside code when moseying through Cumbrian fields, getting caught between an ajar five-bar gate and a randy bull. “He wants to get in that field and have sex with those cows,” notes Withnail. Not helpful.

NOTTING HILL

When a stammering British bookseller goes on a date with a Hollywood actress, he shows off his physical ineptitude by failing to climb a garden gate – twice – while exclaiming “Whoopsie-daisies!” She’s up and over it like a mountain goat, because she’s Julia Roberts.

A VIEW TO A KILL

Technically a bridge, but the Golden Gate plays a key role in Bond defeating diabolical Silicon Valley baddie Max Zorin, as he slips to his death wearing the hell out a double-breasted blazer. Still, has a laugh before he goes. JC JULY 2021 | TOTAL FILM

FILM BUFF

BACKGROUND ARTISTRY Celebrating the extras and bit parters stealing scenes

KINGSMAN: THE SECRET SERVICE 2014 WHO Chair man SPECIAL SKILLS As Colin Firth’s Harry Hart ﬁghts his way out of a church service gone feral, one chap’s really not going for the kill He haleartedly waves a chair around, making contact with no-one and nothing For ages Take a seat, extra

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HINDSIGHT CORNER!

Stars eat their words…

SETH ROGEN

ON EMMA WATSON ‘STORMING’ OFF THIS IS THE END 29 MARCH 2021 “I don’t look back on that and think, ‘How dare she do that?’ […] It was not some terrible ending to our relationship. She came back the next day to say goodbye. She helped promote the film. No hard feelings and I couldn’t be happier with how the film turned out in the end.” 30 MARCH 2021 “I want to correct a story. Watson did not ‘storm off the set’ and it’s shitty the perception is that she did. The scene was not what was scripted, improvised, changed drastically and not what she had previously agreed to. The narrative that she was in some way uncool or unprofessional is complete bullshit.”

THISFilmMONTHMEAL PENALTIES crews work six hours from call time and then have a lunch break. If they work over six hours, producers must pay them a monetary penalty for eating into their right to a break.

TOTAL FILM | JULY 2021

JONAH HEX

Subject toinfamous reshoots, Warner Bros’ adaptation ofthe DC comic book needed a clearer push at the outset… Why it was a good idea (on paper) An Oscar-nominated lead, scenerychewing supports, writers with head-banging action form, a badass character… Scripted by Crank’s Mark Neveldine/Brian Taylor, Hex promised a rugged western, action, revenge and anti-hero hybrid, served bone-cold from the ’70s comic fringes with Josh Brolin in the Eastwood-ish bounty hunter’s saddle. Cult renown beckoned.

looked like the work of Hex’s goofy Gatling guns, the multiple origins montages suggest a failure to solve one core problem: where to start.

What went wrong? “Our script for that movie was a hard-R,” says Taylor. “It was really intense and gnarly.” The studio kept their script but replaced them as directors with Jimmy Hayward, previously credited with Horton Hears A Who! This rum clash of voices proves one thing: start with a weak foundation and you’ll end in ruins, rewrites and reshoots. Francis Lawrence (I Am Legend) oversaw the latter. The result was a costly hodgepodge, complete with random snake-men, creaking wise-cracks, excessive weaponry, supernatural gubbins and blink-and-miss cameos. Party game: spot Michael Shannon. While the (shr)edits

What happened next? “JH: box office karma,” tweeted Neveldine/Taylor as Hex tanked. Hayward returned to animation with Free Birds, Brolin gravitated to other comic-book titles and co-star Megan Fox turned critic: “No one should ever see that movie.”

Redeeming feature When even John Malkovich’s thick-sliced ham looks tired, you know a film is hexed. Mastodon’s spaghetti-doom-metal score has swagger, mind, and Michael Fassbender gives good leer.

Should it be remade? Ranging from Deadwood-ish turf to more outré re-imaginings, the comics brim with potential. Legends Of Tomorrow’s Jonah suggests as much, while Brolin’s idea of a low-budget-ish Hex could extend to a mini-series, like a post-Civil War Mandalorian. Either way, Hex will surely ride again. KH

47 $11

NUMBERS BUDGET (EST.)

$ M BOX OFFICE

NUMBER OF AWARDS

TF STAR RATING

★

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE

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PLAIN TALKING Learn the movie lingo

FLOP CULTURE

BOOSTING YOUR MOVIE GENIUS TO GOD-LIKE PROPORTIONS Wayans and Willis, in the latter’s best film (according to one man).

IS IT JUST ME…

ORBRUCE IS THEWILLIS’ LAST BEST BOY SCOUT FILM?

f Bruce Willis had been a star in the ’40s and ’50s, he’d have been a staple of film noirs – the tough, smart-mouthed gumshoe with a code of honour hidden beneath corrosive cynicism. Sin City recognised this, casting him as detective John Hartigan, stoic and sardonic. But it’s 1991 action- thriller The Last Boy Scout – written by Shane Black, directed by Tony Scott – that supplies his perfect role. “What about John McClane?” you ask. Maybe, if four variable sequels hadn’t left his record so stained; his vest looks pristine in comparison. And besides, I’ve always preferred Scout to the original Die Hard. Partly it’s the knowing noir touches, as Willis’ flea-bitten P.I. Joe Hallenbeck smokes and drinks and chases down a case

asks Jamie Graham

involving an exotic dancer (Halle Berry), a dead partner, a couple of car bombs, a corrupt senator and gambling in major league football. Partly it’s the glossy action (the rain-lashed football match that turns shockingly violent, the car in the swimming pool, the gun-in-the-hand-puppet shootout), masterfully edited by the best cutter in the action business, Stuart Baird. But mostly it’s the crackerjack wisecracks batted between Joe and Jimmy Dix (Damon Wayans), the disgraced former football star who finds himself riding shotgun on the case. “Danger’s my middle name,” Jimmy grins at Joe. “Mine’s Cornelius. Tell anyone, I’ll kill you,” comes the half-serious reply. Whereas Die Hard is confined to the Nakatomi Plaza, Scout earns its rambling badge traversing LA:

SOIDUTS YRUTNEC HT 02 ,SORB RENRAW

LAST TIME IS IT TIME TOdesksDITCH HOLOGRAPHIC INTERFACES? into a virtual world. BRIAN NOIR

RICHARD STRONG A lot of them are impractical in the real world, but doubters should try virtual interfaces blended with real controls. You can do it in VR now by importing keyboard, mice, and

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The worst offenders are when ELUE D. PALMER JR-KEVIN they make the hologram glitch. No… Wait until I have one in my You know, so it’s more ‘real’. house, in my self-flying car and at my job… then we can move 80 PROOF LOUIE on to something better. Lol, fun essay. But c’mon, where

OFFICE-OMETER THE TF STAFF VERDICT IS IN!

IT’S IT’S NOT JUST YOU JUST YOU

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night-time alleys, all steam and neon, and sun-soaked streets. “Water’s wet, the sky is blue, women have secrets – who gives a fuck?” is Joe’s motto, but Scott, a master stylist, gives us orange sunsets and blue-filtered interiors. True, there’s something quite sour about Joe’s female relationships – his wife is having an affair; his 13-year-old daughter regularly calls him “fuck-up” and “asshole” - but here, as elsewhere, the tone is one of self-conscious excess. Black and Scott are taking noir to the nth degree. Think Bogie’s Philip Marlowe minus the Hays Code, plus double-fisted gunplay. Hell, the fact that the whole film is gloriously OTT makes it glorious, period. Or is it just me? Share your reaction at www.gamesradar. com/totalfilm or on Facebook and Twitter.

would we be without directors ripping each other off… I mean paying homage to Hollywood history? MATT SMITH *Laughs in A/R* JULY 2021 | TOTAL FILM

FILM BUFF

CLASSIC SCENE

COCO

Brings back memories… 124

Back from the afterlife on a mission, 12-year-old Miguel tries to awaken great-grandma Coco’s memory of her father… Throughout the Pixar film’s development, this heart-rending sequence remained pivotal. “We always knew,” says co-director Adrian Molina, “this would be the scene we were painting the entire film towards.”

Despite Miguel’s urgency, nothing registers in Mamá Coco’s lined, lost face… Directors Molina and Lee Unkrich spent time looking through pictures of the oldest people they could find for Coco, their faces like “road maps” of wrinkles. Co-writer Matt Aldrich apparently compared Coco to “a living raisin”.

Could a photo of Coco as a child with her parents stir something? As the Pixar crew explored Mexico extensively for research, they encountered many versions of the ‘ofrenda’, a home altar for lost loved ones often featuring photos. Pixar created its own ofrenda at the production base.

FINAL DESTINATION

WRINKLES IN TIME

PHOTOGRAPHIC MEMORY

Perhaps a song might work… Coco needed a tune that would be unforgettable as a belter or lullaby; with ‘Remember Me’, Robert and Kristen Anderson-Lopez delivered. It also needed instrumental accuracy. Cameras attached to guitars gave the animators reference points to study, right down to the strings’ vibrations.

Spurred by Miguel’s singing and the memory of the dead, Coco slowly reconnects with life… Brad Bird contributed the idea of her finger twitching. Meanwhile, the filmmakers researched Alzheimer’s patients who had been revitalised, however briefly, by music. “This wasn’t something we made up,” says Unkrich.

As Coco stirs, Miguel’s eyes fill… As Miguel, Anthony Gonzalez was an untutored but committed singer. “He sings like a possessed soul,” praises co-voice Gael García Bernal. During a 2020 lockdown watch-along, Gonzalez tweeted: “Singing ‘Remember Me’ was very emotional! I always cry!” Gets us every time, too. Kevin Harley

GOOD VIBRATIONS

AS TEARS GO BY

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R A X I P /Y E N S I D

TOTAL FILM | JULY 2021

WAKING LIFE

BOOSTING YOUR MOVIE GENIUS TO GOD-LIKE PROPORTIONS

INSTANT EXPERT

ISAO Detail TAKAHATA man… R

LITERARY DREAMER

aised in Okoyama, Isao Takahata (1935-2018) studied French Literature at The University Of Tokyo, where Jacques Prévert’s poetry and Paul Grimault’s animations proved influential. On graduating, he worked at Toei Animation and befriended Hayao Miyazaki, sharing his longing to create far-reaching works. Takahata’s directorial debut, The Little Norse Prince (1968), flopped but secured critical favour and solidified his resolve.

EMOTIONAL EXCAVATOR

MIYAZAKI’S MENTOR SLOW BLOOMER

DEEPER THAN LIFE

hile Takahata claimed he was “not a genius like Miyazaki”, he had a gift for rendering real feelings as heightened abstraction. With subtlety and sophistication, Grave Of The Fireflies essays a devastating hybrid of wartime history and personal experience. In Only Yesterday, limpid images correlate hazy nostalgia; in My Neighbors The Yamadas, episodic plotting, microscopic detail and open spaces mix to evoke family life’s nuances. 125

fter Toei, Takahata alternated literary realism (Anne Of Green Gables) and fantasy (Panda! Go, Panda!). He continued working with Miyazaki, who changed their lives when Nausicaä Of The Valley Of The Wind – produced by Takahata - helped birth Studio Ghibli. The duo’s subsequent works highlighted key contrasts: Miyazaki made hit adventure Laputa: Castle In The Sky while Takahata meticulously crafted a costly, sprawling doc on canals.

akahata was an early devotee of fastidious, slowcrafted detail. Miyazaki praised Norse Prince’s psychological ambition but lamented its delays. For The Tale Of The Princess Kaguya, he insisted animators practise cutting melons to animate the slice and speed correctly. The film took eight years to complete.

akahata brought the same finesse to fantastical works such as Pom Poko, an energetic satiri-fantasy with eco-themes. After Yamadas flopped, he took a Ghibli backseat before beginning his final film. Drawn from a Japanese folk tale, Princess Kaguya upholds Takahata’s faith in 2D animation, inviting “viewers to imagine what is behind the images”. Beneath Takahata’s lush command of granular surface detail, deeper truths beckon. Kevin Harley

KEY MOVIES

GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES 1988

ONLY YESTERDAY

LANAC OIDUTS

1991 Two orphaned siblings suffer war’s hell Blurred at the edges, just like memory, in Ghibli’s most heart-shattering feature. Takahata’s manga adap plots a young Beautiful and brutal, the watermelon woman’s journeys between past/ sequence leaves deep scars. present with aching tenderness. GAMESRADAR.COM/TOTALFILM

POM POKO

1994 Raccoon-dogs (tanuki) with unfeasibly large testicles sabotage building sites. Rugged and rowdy, Takahata’s satire is an enviro-allegory with balls on.

THE TALE OF THE PRINCESS KAGUYA

2013 A magical young woman seeks selfdetermination in Takahata’s swansong: a gentle meditation on loss and yearning. JULY 2021 | TOTAL FILM

FILM BUFF

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BOOSTING YOUR MOVIE GENIUS TO GOD-LIKE PROPORTIONS

THE BIG SHOT

ROMEO + JULIET’S POOL SCENE

ne of the titular teenagers’ most famous scenes has long been performed from a balcony, as advised in Shakespeare’s stage directions. But Baz Luhrmann’s lysergic, poppy, sexy, cool interpretation doesn’t hold with tradition in any fashion. Though Claire Danes’s Juliet does have a balconied bedroom, her red-hot love connection with Leonardo DiCaprio’s Romeo happens as the duo fall into a dappled swimming pool together before splashing and swirling their way to a climatic kiss. Luhrmann came up with the conceit during production for the 1996 film, deciding that the H2O added an extra, teasing, dimension to the scene: “using the water so they can almost be together and not together” as they wade, swim and dive through the Bard’s romantic words. Building the pool on the set in Mexico City where cast and crew had decamped, Luhrmann needed to shoot fast, as Danes was still in school and could only work limited hours. She was also wearing a wig for her role, which meant a special ‘in-water’ hairpiece needed to be crafted so that it reacted as natural hair and not as a follicle sponge. Both constraints meant that as soon as Danes fell in the pool, production only had an hour to film her and DiCaprio wet. For Luhrmann, the pressure only added a frisson to proceedings, creating the crackling chemistry that leaps off the screen when viewing the film. “That’s why I think the scene has such vibrancy,’ he concluded recently. “Even just standing next to each other there’s a sort of vibration – because there’s a sense that we have to live it and do it. There’s not a lot of second chances. The water adds an environment that makes it essential that it isn’t all about touching – until they do touch.” It wasn’t the only do-or-die moment during filming – production was plagued by a hurricane that wrecked sets (you can see the foreboding clouds looming during the Veracruz beach scenes) and key hairdresser Aldo Signoretti was kidnapped and ransomed for $300. But the visceral buzz, the tangible sense of danger and romance and the transporting nature of the whole endeavour only served to make this incarnation of a celebrated play an industry standard and a blockbuster hit. Jane Crowther

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BOOSTING YOUR MOVIE GENIUS TO GOD-LIKE PROPORTIONS

EASY

1. Dwayne Johnson starrer Welcome To The Jungle (2003) is also known by which title? 2. The ‘Poo Hole Song’ features in which 2019 TV-adapted family flick? 3. The fifth Anaconda movie is a crossover with which horror series? a) Piranha b) Lake Placid c) Sharknado d) The Exorcist. 4. Which jungle movie stars Leslie Mann, John Cleese and Richard Roundtree? 5. The Tin Drum was joint winner of the Palme d’Or alongside which jungle classic?

THE TF BRAIN JUNGLE MOVIES DwayneJohnson! Johnny

Weismuller! Poo! Test your quiz-survival skills…

account of the making of The African Queen? 3. Which 2018 movie carries the sub-title ‘Legend Of The Jungle’? 4. ‘Amy The Talking Gorilla’ received a Golden Razzie nod (Worst New Star) for MEDIUM 1. What is the highest-grossing film worldwide which movie? with the word ‘jungle’ in the title? 5. Raiders Of The Lost Ark’s Peruvian jungle opener was actually filmed where? 2. Which 1990 movie offers a fictionalised

HARD

1. What’s the name of the emerald at the centre of Romancing The Stone? 2. Name the role and movies that connect Bruce Reitherman with Haley Joel Osment. 3. Name the movie containing this quote: “The jungle plays tricks on your senses. It’s full of lies, demons, illusions.” 4. Which other ‘jungle’ character did Tarzan star Johnny Weissmuller play? 5. Who directed 1994’s The Jungle Book? sremmoS nehpetS .5 miJ elgnuJ .4 odlarracztiF .3 )3002( 2 kooB elgnuJ ehT dna )7691( kooB elgnuJ ehT ni ilgwoM .2 )’traeH ehT‘( nózaroC lE .1 DRAH iiawaH .5 ognoC .4 ilgwoM .3 traeH kcalB retnuH etihW .2 )6102( kooB elgnuJ ehT .1 MUIDEM woN espylacopA .5 elgnuJ ehT fO egroeG .4 dicalP ekaL )b .3 dloG fO ytiC tsoL ehT dnA aroD .2 nwodnuR ehT .1 YSAE SREWSNA

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SPOILER ALERT! TF SAVES YOU THE COST OF A MOVIE EVERY MONTH. THIS ISSUE: ARMY OF THE DEAD FADE IN: EXT. HIGHWAY A newlywed couple have sex while driving and crash into a military convoy transporting mysterious, possibly extra-terrestrial, cargo from Area 51.

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DAVE BAUTISTA Absolutely not! But also yes, OK, because you insisted a bit. EXT. LAS VEGAS The team enter the containment gates and spot a zombie tiger, which raises many unanswered questions about the zombie virus.

SOLDIER The film’s just started and we’ve already featured NORA ARNEZEDER sex, aliens and explosions. Story integrity has been By the way, the zombies aren’t all slow, stupid compromised! Repeat, story integrity has been– monsters. Some are clever. But they still eat people. It’s complicated. Also they have a king. A zombie breaks out of the containment unit and kills all the soldiers in horrendously gory ways. ELLA PURNELL Then maybe my friend is still alive and I can SOLDIER reunite her with her children? Dear God. Our only hope is that Zack Snyder will now rein things in a bit. NORA ARNEZEDER Um, sure… INT. GREASY DINER Gratuitously bloody zombie deaths play out in an INT. CASINO overlong slow-motion montage that also features The team get inside and pair off to offer some lots of unnecessary nudity. Meanwhile, DAVE different character dynamics. BAUTISTA flips burgers. NORA ARNEZEDER CASINO OWNER I really don’t trust you. The president is dropping a nuclear bomb on Las Vegas in four days, but there’s $200 million in my SHIFTY GARRET DILLAHUNT bank vault. I need you to go and get it. I will pay Why? Actually, don’t worry. Just help me you considerably less money than that. decapitate this Zombie Queen so I can sell her head for personal gain. DAVE BAUTISTA assembles a crack team including a pilot, a safe-cracker, a smuggler, a YOUTUBER DAVE BAUTISTA and more. He somehow still needs his estranged Hey everyone, the nuke is now launching early daughter ELLA PURNELL to drive them there. and we now only have 90 minutes to–

NEXT ISSUE

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MATTHIAS SCHWEIGHÖFER dies after throwing OMARI HARDWICK in the bank vault to save his life. SHIFTY GARRET gets his face eaten off by the zombie tiger. The YOUTUBER explodes.

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EXT. CASINO ROOF ELLA PURNELL actually finds her friend. DAVE BAUTISTA rescues them both and they escape in a helicopter. The Zombie King jumps in and fights them. ELLA PURNELL Yikes! Oh well, at least we missed the nuke. The nuke lands and the shockwave hits the helicopter. DAVE BAUTISTA kills the Zombie King but not before being bitten. The helicopter crashes in the desert. ELLA PURNELL Ugh, now I have to kill my dad. Is my friend even still alive? Come to think of it, her children probably died in the blast anyway. Oh well, at least the zombies have been destroyed. EXT. LAS VEGAS OMARI HARDWICK exits the bank vault completely unharmed and unaffected by any nuclear radiation. OMARI HARDWICK I’m still alive and now I have loads of money! He notices he has been bitten and is just taking a long time to turn into a zombie for dramatic effect and sequel bait. OMARI HARDWICK Noooo! I demand a Snyder recut! FIN NEXT ISSUE: TBC

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ELLA PURNELL Wait, my friend is trapped with the zombies! I demand to go too, despite there being less than zero chance she’s still alive.

DAVE BAUTISTA Never mind.