Home//Total Film/June 2015/In This Issue
Total Film|June 2015The Big TimeMail, rants, theories etc...Email totalfilm@futurenet.com Write Total Film, 1-10 Praed Mews, London W2 1QY gamesradar.com/totalfilm twitter.com/totalfilm facebook.com/totalfilm totalfilm.tumblr.comThe first time I remember being aware of the concept of a ‘blockbuster’ was Jurassic Park. I watched the trailer, knew the release date and queued round the block to see it—and of course I wasn’t disappointed.Now the ‘event movie’ is something every studio is desperate to cash in on, this year more than ever. We’ve consulted industry experts to get the lowdown on the biggest blockbusters of the Summer including Avengers: Age Of Ultron (where we ventured on set and chilled with the Hulk), Jurassic World, Ant-Man and Fantastic Four to predict which will take the big bucks. Plus we venture inside the mysterious Tomorrowland: A World Beyond, hang out in Harry…7 min
Total Film|June 2015Max powerINTERVIEW!Making Mad Max: Fury Road has been an arduous journey: from the freak weather to the boundary-pushing stunts and vehicular carnage that took place over an epic shoot which began some three years ago. One thing that hasn’t wavered is leading man Tom Hardy, stepping into Mel Gibson’s boots and biker jacket to play the titular antihero. Buzz meets the new Road Warrior...When did you first discover the Mad Max films? What stood out in your memory?Black leather. The shotgun. The dog. The dog was very important to me. It was 1976-77 when it was made, and I was born that year, so I didn’t come to it until I was 10, 12. And even then I was too young to watch it. But by that time Mad Max was…4 min
Total Film|June 2015Citizen moreFIRST LOOK!The NSA hardly rates him as a Boy Wonder but Citizenfour a.k.a. Edward Snowden might just be the role Joseph Gordon-Levitt needs right now. He’s teamed up with director and conspiracy theorist extraordinaire Oliver Stone to dramatize the revolutionary whistleblower’s life before the leak. Hence this still from the first day of the shoot which portrays shy, bespectacled Snowden as, er, a mud-smeared Army recruit.It’s not a dream sequence, as Gordon-Levitt explains: “I was surprised when I first learned he enlisted in the US Army in 2004. He wanted to fight in Iraq but, during basic training at Fort Benning, broke both his legs and received an administrative discharge.” It’s just one of the nuggets gleaned from the source books Stone and cinematographer-turned-writer Kieran Fitzgerald have adapted – Luke…2 min
Total Film|June 2015THE SHORT LIST1 BACK TO THE FUTURE (1985)To terrify his teenage dad into doing the nasty with his teenage mum, Marty dons a radiation suit, creeps into George’s bedroom and mixes up his Trek/Wars lore claiming to be “Darth Vader, from the planet Vulcan”.2 TOY STORY 2 (1999)There’s a lot of love for Star Wars coming from (one-time George Lucas-owned) Pixar, but the biggest wink came in Toy Story 2 when Buzz Lightyear finally confronts the Evil Emperor Zurg and finds out that he’s his dad.3 THE SIMPSONS (1998)The references fly thick and fast in season 10 classic Mayored To The Mob. Mark Hamill is nearly trampled by rioting convention fans before starring in a weird version of Guys And Dolls, featuring ‘Luke Be A Jedi Tonight’.4 SPACEBALLS (1987)Painfully punny and overcooked…1 min
Total Film|June 2015Insecurity serviceEXCLUSIVE!David Oyelowo, Richard Armitage, Rupert Penry-Jones… just a few of the stars who bit the bullet during Spooks’ nine years as one of British telly’s least predictable dramas. What are the odds that Game Of Thrones’ Kit Harington will survive Spooks: The Greater Good, the long-simmering film adap of the spy saga?We’re not saying. Though given its heroes’ average life expectancy, Harington’s Will Holloway shouldn’t worry too much about the MI5 pension plan.“You know you’re for the chop if you work for Harry Pearce,” says Peter Firth, whose gimlet-eyed counter-terrorism chief inevitably returns in Bharat Nalluri’s film. “But at least he’ll look after you along the way.” Having been at the helm from the start, the 61-year-old seems unflustered at the prospect of a big-screen upgrade, yet he is wise…1 min
Total Film|June 2015Silent treatmentEXCLUSIVE!“I always wanted to make a silent movie, but they’re always black and white or with subtitles,” says Ukrainian director Miroslav Slaboshpitsky, or Myrek for short, relaxed and beard-y as he chats with Total Film via Skype. “I wanted to do it a different way.” The result is The Tribe, an ambitious, sexually daring and deliriously dark drama set in a school for deaf teenagers. Here’s everything you need to know...HEAR HEARYou don’t have to be able to understand sign language to watch The Tribe. “It’s not a film for deaf people, it’s not a film about deaf people, it’s a film with deaf actors,” stresses Myrek. “I built the story so a hearing person could understand it.”PERSONAL ANGLEThe film’s partly inspired by stories from the Ukrainian deaf community. “I…1 min
Total Film|June 2015OLD NEWSIn a project that’s clearly taken a ludicrous amount of time to get going, George Clooney was being linked to a role in the Coens’ then gestating Hail, Caesar! Better late than never, it’s finally due out next year.In comic-book sequel rumours, Thomas Jane and Jonathan Hensleigh were expected to return for a Punisher follow-up that never materialised (with them, anyway.) The closest Jane got to reprising the role would be in 2012 fan film Dirty Laundry.Tim Burton and Johnny Depp’s friendship was as strong as ever – as they were putting the finishing touches on Corpse Bride, plans were in motion for the pair to collaborate on a biopic of Gypsy Rose Lee.And in line for the remake treatment was a new version of Sunset Boulevard, set to star…1 min
Total Film|June 2015The scaleON FIREMiles TellerRiding high after Whiplash, Teller has a jam-packed schedule for the next couple of years, with The Life And Times Of The Stopwatch Gang joining Divergent and Fantastic Four sequels.RihannaHaving just given her film career a boost with a voiceover role in Home, Rihanna will next be the subject of an ‘unfiltered’ documentary from Battleship director Peter Berg.EastendersAlbert Square is fast becoming a breeding ground for Hollywood talent, with Ben Hardy in X-Men: Apocalypse, and Sam Strike starring as a young Leatherface in a Texas Chainsaw Massacre reboot.DumboDisney has been having a lot of success with live-action reboots, but the news that Tim Burton will be directing a new version of Dumbo wasn’t greeted with a warm response.Hate CrimeThe latest film to be refused classification by the BBFC,…1 min
Total Film|June 2015Stepping away from satireThere’s no bravery in making a movie,” claims Jon Stewart, host of US topical satire The Daily Show who makes his directorial debut with real-life political drama Rosewater. “It was one of the things I would say to the actors as well as the crew – my one mantra was, ‘Nobody dies!’ We’re making a movie about a terrible thing that has been done but we’re not experiencing that.”That “terrible thing” is the story of Iranian-Canadian journalist Maziar Bahari. Adapted from his memoir Then They Came For Me, it tells of his arrest and horrific 118-day incarceration in Iran during the 2009 elections. Beaten and tortured during his captivity, Bahari was also kept in solitary confinement for a total of 107 days. His interrogators even used a Daily Show interview…2 min
Total Film|June 2015Heart And SoleThe SpotlightMere mention of the words ‘Adam Sandler’ and ‘high concept’ may send alarm bells ringing, but The Cobbler is a far cry from the outlandish Happy Madison comedies that form the backbone of Sandler’s back catalogue. Instead the film sees Sandler in muted Punch-Drunk Love mode, playing a world-weary cobbler whose magic sewing machine allows him to take on the appearance of his customers.“I’ve worked with a lot of actors and Adam is one of those guys who takes it very seriously,” says writer/director Thomas McCarthy (The Station Agent, The Visitor, Win Win). “I knew he had the dramatic chops from Paul [Thomas Anderson]’s movie, Punch-Drunk Love, and Spanglish and a few others. In those movies he was excellent. He could take on a character, not trying to do…2 min
Total Film|June 2015Good KillTHERE ARE TWO ASPECTS TO Andrew Gattaca Niccol’s drone warfare film. One is a powerful polemic about the morality of conducting military campaigns like they’re Call Of Duty sessions; the other, an undeveloped drama about the drones behind the drones…Ethan Hawke plays Tom Egan, a grounded pilot forced to swap the thrill of the co*ckpit for a nondescript control centre in the Mojave Desert. “You are now leaving the US of A” reads a sign on the door – and aren’t we just? Inside, Egan, Suarez (Zoë Kravitz) and colleagues command a fleet of drones capable of blowing up enemy suspects around the world with impunity. The ease of execution is terrifying. Niccol keeps the combat scenes credible, tense and harrowing, a cursor on the screen spelling sudden death for…2 min
Total Film|June 2015Far From The Madding CrowdLONG BEFORE HER NAMES AKE kicked ass in the Capitol, there was Thomas Hardy’s Victorian gamesplayer, Bathsheba Everdene. Less passive than Hardy’s most famous heroine, Tess, feisty farmer Bathsheba (Carey Mulligan) tries to play the field, figuratively and literally: a proto-feminist hoping to wed for love rather than obligation, and run her business against a bucolic backdrop. Having inherited wealth and a rural estate, she’s also independent enough to get embroiled in a love quadrant; turning down marriage to solid shepherd Gabriel Oak (Matthias Schoenaerts), getting in too deep with pernicious cavalryman Sergeant Troy (Tom Sturridge) and enflaming rich, reserved neighbour William Boldwood (Michael Sheen).Cinematic and romantic on paper, Miss E’s girl-power pastoral passions deliver an idiotproof primer for any filmmaker. David Nicholls hasn’t messed with the formula, cleaving closely…3 min
Total Film|June 2015Cobain: Montage Of HeckSEE THIS IF YOU LIKED...KURT & COURTNEY 1998 Nick Broomfield plays private dick, sniffing at the conspiracies circling around Cobain’s death.MARLEY 2012 Kevin Macdonald delivers a long, generous, rigorously detailed Bob Marley doc.CROSSFIRE HURRICANE 2012 Morgen taps the much-probed Rolling Stones to immersive ends for their 50th anniversary.For full reviews of these films visit totalfilm.com/reviewsLately, rock docs have undergone a shift of focus, riffing on fandom and the myth/reality divide rather than straight, reportage-based approaches. Shane Meadows explored Stone Roses fans; Iain and Jane Pollard celebrated Nick Cave. While no less inventive, Brett Morgen’s Kurt Cobain doc resists more experimental angles to pointed, potent effect: crafting a chronological portrait, he aims to look past the icon and into Cobain’s mind. Sketchiness with certain details aside, his success gives testimony to…2 min
Total Film|June 2015The FallingWRITER/DIRECTOR CAROL Morley’s follow-up to sad, mysterious breakthrough Dreams Of A Life confirms her place among a new wave of British filmmakers – among them Andrea Arnold, Clio Barnard, Steve McQueen, Ben Wheatley and Peter Strickland – intent on fashioning personal, challenging, mood-soaked dramas.Set at an austere girls’ school in 1969, The Falling centres on the tight bond between the bright Lydia (Game Of Thrones’ Maisie Williams) and beautiful, precocious Abbie (newcomer Florence Pugh). Sadly, at 16, BFFs are prone to be torn asunder by external and internal forces, and so it proves when Abbie confides that she’s no longer a virgin, describing org*sm as “a little death”. A sliver of space opens up between the girls and the air is further contaminated by Lydia’s dysfunctional relationship with her agoraphobic…6 min
Total Film|June 2015Stonehearst AsylumI’VE ALWAYS BEEN FASCINATED with the troubled mind”, says Jim Sturgess’ turn-of-the-century ‘alienist’, Edward Newgate, in Brad Anderson’s florid adaptation of an Edgar Allan Poe short story that’s completely bonkers and yet, curiously, not quite bonkers enough. Trainee shrink Newgate certainly finds troubled minds aplenty at the titular loony bin, an isolated Gothic pile whose “residents”, he discovers, have imprisoned their wardens and become their own keepers. Yet even with Sir Ben Kingsley’s Silas Lamb ruling a roost that includes hysteric Eliza (Kate Beckinsale) and a man who thinks he’s a horse, Anderson’s adap never goes ‘full retard’. Like incarcerated head doctor Benjamin Salt (Michael Caine), the story’s anarchic spirit remains under lock and key, vainly waiting for a Gilliam or Burton to let it loose.What Anderson serves up instead…2 min
Total Film|June 2015A Pigeon Sat On A Branch Reflecting On ExistenceCompleting one of cinema’s more oblique trilogies, Roy Andersson follows Songs From The Second Floor and You, The Living with this droll third episode “about being a human being”, winner of the Venice Film Festival’s Golden Lion. Beginning with ‘Three meetings with death’, Pigeon is a series of vignettes – some of them brief, a couple hitting the quarterhour mark – reflecting on life, death, ageing, nostalgia, debt and sexuality. The opening scene typifies what’s in store, as two palefaced types silently contemplate exhibits in glass cases in a museum, including the eponymous pigeon.A Pigeon will irritate as many as it delights and, even if you buy into Andersson’s singular world-view, some skits will simply pass you by. Others will have a profound effect: the sight of a monkey being…1 min
Total Film|June 2015Box office charts 23.02.15 – 22.03.15THE SECOND BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTELEerie how Ronald Pickup looks like Freddy Krueger on the poster. Imagine a slasher set in an old folks’ home. No Final Destination gags...CHAPPIEA film in which Dev Patel attempts to chaperone a loveable character that has creaky joints and won’t do as it’s told. Ok, we’ll stop now with the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel jokes.FOCUSTogether with his young, eager-to-emulate protege, Will Smith is a seasoned professional who takes money from unsuspecting schmucks. Ok, we’ll stop now with the After Earth jokes.THE DIVERGENT SERIES: INSURGENTAt long, long last, those ‘not as good as The Hunger Games’ gripes can be laid to rest. No, the general opinion on this one is that it’s not as good as the first Divergent.HOMENot the best reviews, but J-Lo must…1 min
Total Film|June 2015Droid RAGESausage rolls. Zoe Ball. Cow noises. Not, perhaps, three things you’d readily associate with a super-sized superhero epic. Yet all out in force on the Shepperton set of Avengers: Age Of Ultron, sequel to the biggest comic-book blowout of all time. The sausage rolls are being liberally handed round by crew members, conjuring images of Cap and co dealing with stubborn shards of pastry on top of everything else. To one side is Brit-TV mainstay Ball, observing filming with her kids, who are almost as agog as TF. And the bovine bother? That’ll be Joss Whedon. Who’s chosen to respond to a comment about how the shoot’s nearly over (it’s day 89 of 93) with some forlorn mooing. “I’m also happy to say I’m very close to finishing the script…11 min
Total Film|June 2015BIG BU$INE$$THE SUMMER IS ALMOST UPON US AND IN Hollywood that means one thing: blockbuster season. It’s always risky, pitching those tentpoles. Last summer, you could hear the sound of studio executives everywhere crying into their martinis. In the US , box-office takings were down 15 per cent – the worst summer haul in eight years and the biggest year-on-year collapse in three decades – as films like Sin City 2 and The Expendables 3 collapsed.“Last year was a bit bleak in a lot of ways,” says Matt Mueller, editor of leading trade paper Screen International. “I think this year everyone is expecting a big rebound.” So far, so good – with the $500 million-plus takings of Fifty Shades Of Grey bolstering box-office even before the summer’s underway, a period that…3 min
Total Film|June 2015INSIDE OUTPREDICTED GLOBAL BOX OFFICE $885mDIRECTOR PETE DOCTER, RONALDO DEL CARMENSTARRING DIANE LANE, AMY POEHLER, MINDY KALING, KAITLYN DIAS (VOICES)OPENS 24 JULYTHE GIST As young girl Riley (Kaitlyn Dias) moves to San Francisco, inside her, emotions Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust and Sadness face a turbulent journey.THE SELL Never mind it recalls The Numbskulls, the cartoon strip in The Beano – Pixar’s latest breaks new ground, says Docter. Depicting emotions is no mean feat for an animation. “The puzzler was, how could we take audiences somewhere that they could relate to, but they’d never been before?”THE BREAKDOWN “Apart from sequels, Pixar’s recent track record creatively has been a bit patchy,” says Gant. “Yet Brave did over $500 million worldwide. And Monsters University did nearly $750 million worldwide. I think the Pixar brand…1 min
Total Film|June 2015TED 2DIRECTOR SETH MACFARLANESTARRING MARK WAHLBERG, JESSICA BARTH, AMANDA SEYFRIED, LIAM NEESONOPENS 10 JULYTHE GIST Talking bear Ted (Seth MacFarlane) marries his girlfriend and sets out to become a father, asking friend John (Mark Wahlberg) to be the sperm donor.THE SELL Mila Kunis aside, the team are all back together for more bear necessities. “The great thing about Seth is he’s such a good writer,” promises Wahlberg, “so he was able to look at what he was able to do the first time and just make it better.” Will it be as outrageous as the original? “You can only imagine!”THE BREAKDOWN “It doesn’t have the must-see vibe that the first one had,” says Mueller. “Also, MacFarlane’s stock has dropped after his Oscar hosting and A Million Ways To Die In The…1 min
Total Film|June 2015MINIONSDIRECTOR KYLE BALDA, PIERRE COFFINSTARRING PIERRE COFFIN, SANDRA BULLOCK, JON HAMM, MICHAEL KEATON (VOICES)OPENS 26 JUNETHE GIST Minions Kevin, Stuart and Bob (all Pierre Coffin) meet female supervillain Scarlett Overkill (Sandra Bullock) and compete for the right to be her henchmen.THE SELL Do we really need to sell the Minions to you? The Despicable Me sidekicks are comedy gold. “They have become our Mickey Mouse, frankly,” says Ron Meyer, vice chairman of NBC Universal, the studio that’s bankrolling this solo outing. “Fifty years from now, people are going to instantly recognize Minions.”THE BREAKDOWN “Really popular characters from an already massive franchise, this one’s a no-brainer for me… It’s going to be absolutely huge” says Mueller. “They’ve also got a great voice cast involved – Jon Hamm, Sandra Bullock and Michael…1 min
Total Film|June 2015TOMORROWLAND: A WORLD BEYONDDIRECTOR BRAD BIRDSTARRING GEORGE CLOONEY, BRITT ROBERTSON, HUGH LAURIE, KATHRYN HAHNOPENS 22 MAYTHE GIST Former boy-genius inventor Frank Walker (George Clooney) and teenage girl Casey Newton (Britt Robertson) travel through time and space to reach the mysterious titular land.THE SELL Well, there isn’t one. In the war on spoilers, Bird and scripter Damon Lindelof are revealing next-to-nothing about this family sci-fi that takes its name from a Disneyland attraction – until now (see page 80). “I was inspired by how the future used to be seen in contrast to how it’s seen today,” says Bird, enigmatically. “No other superhero film has blended comic-book mythology and actual history this way.”THE BREAKDOWN “With what’s come out so far, it’s all a little bit vague, a little bit nebulous,” says Mueller. “What is…1 min
Total Film|June 2015DIFFERENT BEASTS“ IT ALL HAPPENED HERE . . . ” recalls David Heyman, smiling as Total Film takes him back to the defining moment of his career so far: negotiating the movie rights to a little book called Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone. Nestled a stone’s throw away from London’s bustling Oxford Street, we’re sat in the surprisingly modest but classically British (sturdy, dark-wood furniture; a stack of well-thumbed paperbacks – including J.K. Rowling’s debut novel – propped up above the fireplace...) office of his production company Heyday Films – an outfit that, over the last 15 years, has been integral to changing the face of the UK’s now-flourishing film industry. But, as with Potter, all good things must come to an end... Our interview is soundtracked by the distant…13 min
Total Film|June 2015PERFORMANCE ANXIETY21 JUMP STREET (2012)As if being dressed in tight green spandex isn’t bad enough, Schmidt (Jonah Hill) well and truly ruins his high school’s performance of Peter Pan when he has a mid-air scrap with fellow undercover cop Jenko (Channing Tatum). Cue gasps from the audience and Molly (Brie Larson) storming off stage.HOME ALONE 2: LOST IN NEW YOR K (1992)It’s Christmas carol time. Whoever put warring bros Kevin (Macaulay Culkin) and Buzz (Devin Ratray) so close together for the show needs a proper telling off, though – when Kev shoves his older brother for pulling a candle prank, the entire stage collapses.BRIDESMAIDS (2011)“Really quick! Speaking of Consuelo, Lillian and I took Spanish together in school...” Annie (Kristen Wiig) makes a fool of herself at best bud Lillian’s (Maya Rudolph)…1 min
Total Film|June 2015TIME TO DIEThey’ve survived plane crashes, exploding buildings and psychopathic surgeons. But if this cast of movie heroes and villains were real, would they have made it to the closing credits or died en route? Total Film consults doctors and medical experts to see what would have actually happened…DIE HARD 1988Off duty New York cop John McClane (played by Bruce Willis) is caught in the middle of an armed heist in a Los Angeles skyscraper. Taking on an army of gun-toting bad guys, he has a vested interest in helping to escape and free the hostages, as he’s married to one of them.ON CALL: Dr Ram Moorthy, Head and Neck Surgeon.INJURIES35 mins: Hits his head against a wall and falls down stairs.“The plasterboard is likely to have caused some bruising but because…2 min
Total Film|June 2015CAST AWAY 2000When a plane carrying Chuck Noland (played by Tom Hanks) crash lands into the South Pacific Ocean, he’s washed up on a desert island. And there he remains, alone, for four years until he builds a raft and is rescued by a passing freighter.ON CALL: Dr Joe Taylor, Lecturer of Medicine at Worcester College, University of Oxford and Engagement Manager at Candesic, the healthcare consultancy.INJURIES24 mins: The plane crash.“While only one in 11 million will die as a result of a plane crash, Chuck has a 76 per cent chance of a fatal injury once his plane suffers catastrophic damage.”38 mins: No water.“The average fluid content of a coconut is 250ml, and the minimum amount a person would need in a tropical climate is 1.5litres each day. Dehydration is clearly…2 min
Total Film|June 2015GAME CHANGERSTHE FALL GUYIt features zombie death, but nothing in Thrones’ opener shocks like an act of man. Disturbed doing sex with his sister Cersei in a tower-top by young Bran Stark at the window, Jaime pushes the plucky, likeable 10-year-old off. The casual cruelty sends a clear signal: we’re that kind of show.GOLD STANDARDDaenerys’s tattooed manmountain Dothraki husband Khal Drogo is in a sacred city where he can’t spill blood, so her vile brother Viserys gets co*cky and demands a golden crown. Alas, safe ground doesn’t exist in Thrones. “A crown for a king,” mocks Khal, pouring molten gold on Viserys’ boiled noggin.HEAD’S UP“The gods are just,” says Grand Maester Pycelle as late King Robert’s loyal hand Ned Stark is on trial. But teen sicko King Joffrey sure isn’t, so…1 min
Total Film|June 2015LIFELINEDEC 31 1943Born Krishna Pandit Bhanji in Snainton, Yorkshire.1967Makes his West End theatre debut. Later joins the RSC under Trevor Nunn.1982Stars in Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi. The film takes eight Oscars including Best Actor for Kingsley.1990 – 2000Character roles including Schindler’s “conscience” in Schindler’s List, a gangster in Bugsy and a potential torturer in Death And The Maiden.2000Plays furious gangster Don Logan in Jonathan Glazer’s Sexy Beast – gets second Oscar nod.2002Is knighted. Tells the Queen that “winning an Oscar pales into insignificance”.2010Racked up further hits including first collaboration with Scorsese in Shutter Island. Awarded star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame.2015Has packed slate, with Robot Overlords, Wake, Self/less, The Walk and Autobahn.…1 min
Total Film|June 2015Ocean captureKON-TIKI 15OUT 13 APRIL DVD, BDIn 1947, Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl’s six-man crew set sail aboard the titular raft, against all advice and common sense. Their destination: Polynesia, 5,000 miles west across the empty Pacific, in an attempt to prove that Peruvian settlers once made the same journey. Any dramatisation of this journey faces a similar challenge, given that Heyerdahl’s own footage won a documentary Oscar. How can make-believe match real adventure?Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg’s film has a simple, elegant solution: to recreate, where possible, the original conditions, shooting on the ocean, limiting CGI to the supporting cast of sharks. It’s a film to restore your faith in the virtues of letting action unfold within eye-catching widescreen landscapes. Compared to, say, the synthetic sparkle of Life Of Pi, this…3 min
Total Film|June 2015Apocalypse thenROLLERBALL/NETWORK 151975, 1976 OUT NOW BDAMERICAN CINEMA IN THE ’70s had a rare gift for imagining what dark dystopias and apocalypses might befall us, Rollerball and Network being among the darkest and most imaginative predictors. These very different films have much in common: released by United Artists within 18 months of each other in the midst of America’s most anxious decade, they’re both tales of the media, a reflection of the wider fact that New Hollywood’s post-Watergate nightmares were hellish dark dreams of information and control.This control is most obvious in Rollerball, a dynamic science fiction focused on a brutal track sport with James Caan its ageing star performer. The film has a subtly drawn top-line satire – rollerball, a corporate executive tells Caan, is a tool of sedation, a…3 min
Total Film|June 2015Out of sightEver since Iron Man, the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has conditioned audiences to expect superheroes to be larger-than-life personalities in primary colours saving the world. Now imagine a more subversive angle where another kind of Marvel hero, dressed in black, face hidden by a ski mask, is trying to do right, not for the whole world but for one tiny corner of Hell’s Kitchen in New York City...Getting intimate, gritty and serialized is precisely how Daredevil – premiering on Netflix on 10 April – is seeking to reframe Marvel’s ever-expanding comic-book franchise for the small screen, in the first of a slew of exclusive new MCU character series. Daredevil explores the dual life of blind lawyer/vigilante Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox), who’s on a one-man mission to quash criminals preying on…5 min
Total Film|June 2015TOTAL FILM ONLINEgamesradar.com/totalfilmTOTALFILM ONLINEON OUR WEBSITE…The Complete Guide To Jurassic Worldhttp://www.gamesradar.com/complete-guide-jurassic-worldFourteen years after Jurassic Park III, the dinosaurs are finally making a comeback. We excavate the full story of how it happened...20 Alternate Movie Endings Better Than The Originalhttp://www.gamesradar.com/20-alternatemovie-endings-better-original/Half of them are skippable DVD filler, but a good number of alt-endings nail it – spoilers ahoy as we visit the Dodgeball and Die Hard 2 you didn’t see...Behind The Scenes Of Chappiehttp://www.gamesradar.com/behind-scenes-chappie/Pictures so alluring from Chappie: The Art Of The Movie (out now!) that you may feel inspired to build your own pimped-out Pinnochi-robot.@TOTALFILMCAKE OF THE MONTHhttps://twitter.com/totalfilm/status/578897009287012352We’ll be honest, we had fingers crossed for a puppy to promote The Drop’s home-ent release, but a great handsome wedge of processed sugar did just fine.SPECTRE POSTER: YOU RESPONDhttps://twitter.com/totalfilm/status/577972204891176960“Very Steve McQueen” (@BillyCollins85); “He looks amazing!”…1 min
Total Film|June 2015Flirting with disasterON SET!Overcast, Kilburn High Road feels torpid and bleak, pedestrians staring at the pavement as they shuffle along. Step inside Mexican cantina Love And Liquor, however, and a blast of zest slaps you full in the face.‘If you care about the characters, the comedy will ring true.’ SIMON PEGGBen Palmer (The Inbetweeners Movie) is shooting a key set-piece in British romantic-comedy Man Up. Already a few drinks into their blind date, Jack (Simon Pegg) and Nancy (Lake Bell) are passing their time in this lively, deliciously tacky environment by arguing, flirting, bad dancing, crying (well, he is, in a toilet cubicle) and trying to make Jack’s soon-to-be ex-wife, Hilary (Olivia Williams), and her new man, Ed (Stephen Campbell Moore), jealous via an ostentatious show of can’t-keep-their-handsoff-each-other chemistry.Nancy: So what rating…5 min
Total Film|June 2015Love it or Levitt?THE WALK 2015Surprisingly, Snowden isn’t Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s first foray into adapted documentaries. Opening in October is Robert Zemeckis’ The Walk, an account of Philippe Petit’s tightrope walk between the newly completed Twin Towers back in 1974. Sound familiar? That’s because it’s also the story of James Marsh’s Oscar-winning doc Man On Wire. Quite how Zemeckis’ CG will compare with the archive imagery is yet to be seen, although the first trailer was suitably stomach churning.UNTITLED COMEDY 2015After 50/50 and an uncredited turn in The Interview, he’s reteaming with Seth Rogen and regular collaborator Evan Goldberg for an as-yet-untitled comedy set on Christmas Eve in NYC. He, Rogen and Lizzy Caplan play old friends looking for the ultimate party; a thirtysomething Superbad?PLUS...Outside of films, JGL has turned HitRECord, the online production…1 min
Total Film|June 2015The Hardy stuffON SET!“Sorry, is that wet?” asks Carey Mulligan. “Are you alright sitting there?” Buzz is perched on a stone step outside Sherborne Abbey in Dorset, chatting with the impeccably polite English actress between takes on Far From The Madding Crowd, a reimagining of Thomas Hardy’s 1874 novel.It’s October 2013, and the heavens have opened on this small market town in the south west of England. Mulligan is dressed in full red-and-blue striped period finery (complete with matching hat), but she’s keeping the rain off under a full length puffer jacket. It’s the beginning of the sixth week of a nine-week shoot, and we’re in town for the biggest day of the production. One hundred and fifty extras have been milling around since 7.30am, and the production team were up dressing…3 min
Total Film|June 2015Q/A PETER FIRTHHow have you found playing Harry Pearce all these years?Rarely as an actor do you get to play a character over that amount of time. Often you have to condense any character progression or growth into just 100 minutes, so 10 years is something of a luxury.What did you enjoy most about making The Greater Good?Working in Berlin was enjoyable; it felt cool to be in a place so high in the rankings of the spy world. But what I really enjoyed was shooting out in the streets with concealed cameras. You really create an atmosphere of reality being among ordinary people who don’t realise you’re filming. There’s a real excitement about it as it’s not the normal way to work.Where does Spooks sit in the British spy pantheon?I think…1 min
Total Film|June 2015It shouldn’t happen to a film JournalistFor the past two weeks I’ve been waiting for Britt Robertson to call, the Tomorrowland actress rearranging our chat on four occasions. Being the gracious type, she’s always let me know ASAP. Or at least her publicist has, via the Disney PR department.Such juggling is par for the course when you’re dealing with movie types. Ego, you say? Discourtesy? Recovering from a Bacchanalian blowout in the Hollywood hills? Nah, it’s usually nothing more than a clogged schedule as they attempt to squeeze promo duties between shooting a movie, sifting scripts, taking meets, working out and maybe, just maybe, finding time for friends and family.That said, there are occasions when famouses go walkabout. Just last month a tight-throated PR called me at my allotted time slot with Joaquin Phoenix to explain…3 min
Total Film|June 2015The One To WatchThis month’s trending topics...I watched Brief Encounter. My nana is British. We get the Queen’s Speech on Canada’s national broadcast channel on Christmas Day…”Sarah Gadon, 28, is explaining her perfectly plummy period-RP as Princess Elizabeth in A Royal Night Out. Set on V.E. day, 1945, as Lizzie and sister Margaret plunge into London’s nightlife to celebrate incognito, it offers a luminous role that’s going to make the indie It-girl – Cosmopolis, Maps To The Stars, Enemy – a star. “Elizabeth is such an exciting woman,” she says of the vibrant youth in the film who now rarely cracks a smile as our Queen. “Very sharp, very smart. She’s a trail-blazer, an inspiration to women all over the world.”It’s the start of a big year for Gadon. We’ll also see her…1 min
Total Film|June 2015The Talent‘ You’re in a for a hell of a ride in GOT season 5’A barbarian thunders forward, kicking up dust with his horse. A lone soldier steps up, lobs a dagger into the horse’s head and beheads the brute with a wink. Enter Michiel Huisman – stealing Game Of Thrones in season 4 with an Indiana Jones moment as Daario Naharis before joining Ford himself in romantic drama The Age Of Adaline.You must have been pretty pleased when you read that moment in the Game Of Thrones script…When I read it, I thought it was amazing. And when I was standing there on set, I still thought it was amazing. You rarely get to be so badass!The Age Of Adaline is a pretty unusual story…I was blown away by that…1 min
Total Film|June 2015Believe it or notDisney’s back raiding its vault of classics for live-action makeovers. The latest primed for the big screen – after The Jungle Book and Beauty And The Beast – is DUMBO... with Tim Burton at the helm. This new version is rumoured to add a family story to reflect Dumbo’s struggle. Burton was behind Disney’s billion-dollar-busting redo of Alice In Wonderland, and he’ll no doubt make his mark here: massive dark droopy eyes for Dumbo? Johnny Depp in circus gear?MM ETA | TBC Dumbo is currently in pre-production.Plain talkingLearn the movie lingoThis month:“Auteur”In short, a fancy word for director. But make sure you use it sparingly and with great care. Derived from the French for author, it should be reserved for directors who have a particularly distinctive voice, and the clout…1 min
Total Film|June 2015More mischief and mayhemThe Inside ScoopA Fight Club sequel is finally on the way... but it’s not going to be a film. Or a novel. Instead, firebrand author Chuck Palahniuk is making his first foray into comicbook writing (Invisible Monsters and Lullaby have previously been adapted into the form), and here he takes Agenda through through the process of following up his most notorious hit.How would you compare collaborating with interior artist Cameron Stewart and cover artist David Mack to any dealings you had with Fight Club director David Fincher?I wish I’d done this comic before the film! Cameron has taught me the restrictions inherent in what can be depicted in a comic script. Each medium has its own rules, and pacing a narrative in panels would’ve been excellent training for the film.…2 min
Total Film|June 2015Fast & Furious 7The franchise still has va-va-vroom...SEE THIS IF YOU LIKED...PIT STOP (1969) Macho men racing cool cars isn’t new. Check out Jack Hill’s B-movie.Ocean’s Eleven(2001) You’re gonna need a bigger poster. F&F7 also boasts impressive bulge.Fast & furious 5 (2011) The one with the bank vault hauled through Rio.For full reviews of these films visit totalfilm.com/reviewsBY RIGHTS , FAST & Furious 7 should be spluttering on empty. Few franchises ever reach such a number, and those that do hardly serve up memorable movies;
Total Film|June 2015The SalvationTHE WESTERN IS ALIVE AND well (-referenced) in Kristian Levring’s violent horse opera, one of the most exciting cowboy movies to clip-clop onto screens in a while. Stylish, sexy, with a quick-draw narrative, it’s set in 1864 in the small town of Black Creek: a typically lawless frontier settlement where violence and death are commonplace.Swapping cannibals for cowboys, Hannibal’s Mads Mikkelsen plays taciturn Jon, a Danish immigrant and ex-soldier whose wife and son are accosted and murdered in a moment of shocking brutality. Jon takes swift revenge on the culprits, only to discover the main perpetrator was the brother of Delarue (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), an even more psychopathic sharp-shooter who naturally wants to avenge his sibling’s death, The cowardly sheriff (Douglas Henshall) and mayor (Jonathan Pryce) soon give Jon up,…2 min
Total Film|June 2015Lost RiverSEE THIS IF YOU LIKED...TO THE WONDER 2012 If Terence Malick made perfume adverts, this would be a corker.ONLY GOD FORGIVES 2013 Nicolas Winding Refn’s bloody mess divided critics like a split lip.LOST HIGHWAY 1997 This nightmare noir may be minor Lynch but it’s still a major headf*ck.For full reviews of these films visit totalfilm.com/reviewsFilm is a collaborative art. But there’s still one job you can legitimately do alone with no qualifications, if there’s nobody to stop you. Unfortunately, it’s the foundation all great cinema’s based on: screenwriting. Ryan Gosling is a man of many talents: a fine actor (Half Nelson) who makes creditably leftfield choices (Lars And The Real Girl) and who’s not afraid to whip out his ukulele (Blue Valentine) at a moment’s notice. What he’s not, as…2 min
Total Film|June 2015A Little ChaosWHAT ATTRACTS AN ACTOR TO direct? It takes just one scene to discover what Alan Rickman, behind the camera for the first time since 1997’s The Winter Guest and here playing Louis XIV, saw in A Little Chaos. But any thoughts that Rickman the director might bring out new shades in Rickman the actor are dashed; he’s almost self-parodic here.Louis is not centre stage, either. Instead, the focus is on Sabine De Barra (Kate Winslet), a commoner whose radical notions of gardening beguile the king’s chief landscaper, André Le Nôtre (Matthias Schoenaerts). Winslet’s aptly grounded demeanour anchors the film and she gets stuck in, sleeves-up and green-fingered, albeit dressed in highly impractical garden wear designed to accentuate her décolletage. Schoenaerts, meanwhile, is enigmatic, Rickman trading on the Belgian star’s relative…1 min
Total Film|June 2015EverlyWe’ve seen ‘one-room’ sci-fi (Cube), horror (Maléfique) and thrillers (Buried) before, so why not an action movie? Cheap to make, easy to follow and claustrophobic to watch; what could possibly go wrong? Everly. Despite its game leading lady, intriguing director (Joe Lynch directed Wrong Turn 2, arguably an improvement on the original) and exciting premise, even star Salma Hayek seems keen to forget it, telling the press “It’s not what I thought it would be. I want it to go away...”We begin in the bathroom of the eponymous Mexican prostitute who we meet, bloodied and naked, retrieving a hidden gun from the cistern while Japanese gangsters threaten to break down the door. She pulls on a tiny nightdress, looks at a photo of her estranged daughter that she keeps in…2 min
Total Film|June 2015The Town That Dreaded SundownDO YOU LIKE SCARY MOVIES? Then everything you need to know about American Horror Show director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon’s clever meta-horror happens in one sly scene. Two teenagers smoke weed and make out in a spooky junkyard. It’ll be no surprise that they soon become victims of the ‘Phantom Killer’ but they’re also gay (or at least experimenting) and sitting beneath a huge red arrow pointing towards a picture of the chief suspect, plus one is bumped off in a manner only seen on screen once before.The classic kill referenced is from Charles B. Pierce’s original The Town That Dreaded Sundown from 1976, an unusual proto-slasher about a spate of unsolved murders in ’40s Texarkana. But the genius of Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa’s script is that it acknowledges both the (real) crimes and…3 min
Total Film|June 2015The Divergent Series: InsurgentSEE THIS IF YOU LIKED...THE HUNGER GAMES 2012 The best YA adap, with Jennifer Lawrence’s ass-kicking Katniss an obvious model for Tris.DIVERGENT 2014 Neil Burger sets up Veronica Roth’s clapped-out Chicago in this exciting first part.THE MAZE RUNNER 2014 More walled-city adolescent fun, with some sh*t-scary monsters thrown in for good measure.For full reviews of these films visit totalfilm.com/reviewsGO WITH HAPPINESS”, TRIS Prior and her Dauntless renegades are told by their peace-loving Amity brothers and sisters at the beginning of Insurgent. Whether you will do the same rather depends on what you’re expecting from this follow-up to Divergent, the $289 million-grossing adaptation of the first book in Veronica Roth’s bestselling trilogy of YA novels. You want more of the same? You got it. Hoping for something radical? Forget it.Insurgent has…3 min
Total Film|June 2015Still out, still good…JOHN WICK“A brutally simple revenge flick that gives Keanu Reeves his best role in years... An extremely welloiled, beautifully put-together action machine that glides past like Wick’s Mustang 69, with fight scenes as cool and crunchy as compacted snow.”WHILE WE’RE YOUNG“Noah Baumbach’s smart urban satire on aspiration and generational interplay hits all its marks, exploring what it means to grow up – and what it means not to want to. Sharp filmmaking, treating serious themes with beguiling lightness.”THE WATER DIVINER“Making his first shot at feature direction, Russell Crowe homes in on a key trauma in Aussie history and brings it vividly to life. A bonzer shot at an epic, with impressively staged battle scenes and sweeping widescreen photography.”…1 min
Total Film|June 2015THE SEVEN AGES OF CINEMALONG-AGO BC: ICE AGEWhen pop-eyed acorn-fanciers roamed the Earth!MORE RECENT BC: ICE AGE: DAWN OF THE DINOSAURSEvolution marches on: witness the coming of Simon Pegg’s one-eyed weasel.THE 16th CENTURY: ELIZABETH: THE GOLDEN AGE’Twas a time when everyone agreed the original was much better.THE 19th CENTURY: THE AGE OF INNOCENCEAge of wanting to get it on with your missus’ cousin, more like.THE ’80s: ROCK OF AGESThe discovery of a deadly new element: hair metal.2014 AD: TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTIONDinos return! But do they do anything cool? Do they f...2015 AD: AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRONRobots get so smart they talk like an episode of Buffy.…1 min
Total Film|June 2015MAD MAX: FURY ROADPREDICTED GLOBAL BOX OFFICE $405mDIRECTOR GEORGE MILLERSTARRING TOM HARDY, CHARLIZE THERON, NICHOLAS HOULT, ZOË KRAVITZ, ROSIE HUNTINGTON-WHITELEYOPENS 15 MAYTHE GIST Max Rockatansky (Tom Hardy) teams up with Furiosa (Charlize Theron) and her band of females to outrun the crazed Nux (Nicholas Hoult) across the desert.THE SELL Those on set claim it’s going to change the way we look at action movies. “It’s a pretty epic chase across the wasteland,” reveals director George Miller, who cast Tom Hardy as his Road Warrior, replacing original star Mel Gibson. There’s minimal dialogue and maximum carnage… “I wanted to have the visuals come first.”THE BREAKDOWN “I do have a good feeling about this one,” says Gant. “The trailer looks great. But 30 years is a long gap to revisit a franchise. Tom Hardy also…1 min
Total Film|June 2015SAN ANDREASPREDICTED GLOBAL BOX OFFICE $295mDIRECTOR BRAD PEYTONSTARRING DWAYNE JOHNSON, ALEXANDRA DADDARIO, CARLA GUGINO, IOAN GRUFFUDDOPENS 29 MAYTHE GIST After an earthquake devastates California, rescue chopper pilot Ray (Dwayne Johnson), sets out to rescue his estranged daughter Blake (Alexandra Daddario).THE SELL In a summer of sci-fi, it’s an old-school tale of people in peril. “I loved the script and the idea of being in a disaster movie that felt very real and very grounded,” says Johnson. Not convinced? Johnson points out it will be the “first 3D earthquake disaster movie ever filmed.” We’re sold.THE BREAKDOWN “It’s a generic disaster movie,” warns Gant. “How excited are we about an earthquake at this point? I this one’s really hard to call. I must admit, I am a little bit cautious about it in…1 min
Total Film|June 2015PANDIRECTOR JOE WRIGHTSTARRING HUGH JACKMAN, ROONEY MARA, AMANDA SEYFRIED, GARRETT HEDLUND, LEVI MILLEROPENS 17 JULYTHE GIST Orphan Peter (Levi Miller) is whisked away to Neverland, where he is kidnapped by the pirate Blackbeard (Hugh Jackman) and meets James Hook (Garrett Hedlund).THE SELL J.M. Barrie, with a twist, distinguishes this potential franchise-starter. “This isn’t exactly the Neverland story you know,” says Joe Wright, of his Peter Pan origin story. It also isn’t the Tiger Lily you’ll know – the casting of the non-Native American Rooney Mara has caused controversy.THE BREAKDOWN “A really tough one to call,” admits Gant. “As Cinderella showed, there is audience for a completely conventional telling of the film done on a lavish scale with a really good cast. And this film doesn’t look like it’s trying to…1 min
Total Film|June 2015THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.DIRECTOR GUY RITCHIESTARRING HENRY CAVILL, ARMIE HAMMER, ALICIA VIKANDER, HUGH GRANT, ELIZABETH DEBICKIOPENS 14 AUGUSTTHE GIST American CIA agent Napoleon Solo (Henry Cavill) and Russian KGB spy Illya Kuryakin (Armie Hammer) reluctantly join forces to bring down a nuclear-arms dealing organisation.THE SELL Guy Ritchie and his producer/writer Lionel Wigram put a fresh spin on the classic ’60s espionage show. “There is the ’60s spirit and tongue-in-cheek sense of humour and a certain sort of style,” says Wigram, “but beyond that, we felt the need to invent our own thing, like we did with Sherlock Holmes.”THE BREAKDOWN “It feels like this is the blockbuster that some people are overlooking,” says Mueller. “The Sherlock Holmes films both cleared $500 million-plus… If Man From U.N.C.L.E. gets anywhere near that, I think Warner Brothers…1 min
Total Film|June 2015Magica Mystery TourSince being greenlit by Walt Disney Studios in June 2011, Tomorrowland: A World Beyond – or just Tomorrowland as it was for a long-time titled and, before that, 1952 – has been shrouded in a fog of mystery so thick it would have J.J. Abrams pleading for clarity. We shouldn’t be surprised; it is, after all, written and produced by J.J.’s Lost-buddy Damon Lindelof, a guy who cemented his rep for providing more questions than answers by scribbling enigmatic Alien prequel Prometheus and then returning to TV for another headscratcher, The Leftovers.At first, all anyone knew, as of late-2012, was that it would be directed by Brad Bird (Mission Impossible – Ghost Protocol, The Incredibles) and star George Clooney. No one was sure if it was a science-fiction film (it…9 min
Total Film|June 2015THE GENDER AGENDA#HeForShe. #AskHerMore. Julianne Moore refusing to pander to E!’s excruciating ‘Mani-cam’. Gender inbalance is a hot topic and A-list women are leading the march, right down the red carpet. Fresh from playing Emmeline Pankhurst in Suffragette, Meryl Streep embodied the reaction of every woman watching the Oscars with her emphatic “Yes, yes, yes!” as Patricia Arquette accepted her Best Supporting Actress Oscar with a heartfelt plea for equality. But is Hollywood heeding these imploring voices, or just paying lip-service?In the early days, Tinsel Town was awash with women in front of and behind the camera, one iconic Golden Era pic showing United Artists superstar Mary Pickford and double Oscarwinning screenwriter Frances Marion sitting in stencilled director’s chairs on set. Could they have believed that, almost a century later, fewer than…5 min
Total Film|June 2015THE SPYING GAME“I’VE ALWAYS WANTED TO MAKE a spy movie,” says Paul Feig with a grin as white and sunny as the LA sky. “I’m a big James Bond fan. I’m a big spy-movie fan in general. I think it was around the time Skyfall came out, I was like, ‘Man, I want to make one of those!’ But then realising the Broccolis are never going to let a comedy director do a Bond movie…”Of course, when you have Bridesmaids and The Heat in your back pocket – combined box office of $518m from a $75m spend – you don’t need the Broccolis.“I thought, ‘Wait a minute, I love working with funny women – I’m just going to write a female spy movie so I can have the world that I want,…9 min
Total Film|June 2015THE RAID 2 2014The sequel to the 2011’s massacre and martial arts thriller once again finds cop Rama (played by Iko Uwais) fighting for his life, and with a few hundred henchmen. This time he’s undercover and banged up behind bars to take down corrupt police chiefs and underworld gangs.ON CALL: London Registrar Dr Keir Shiels, star of BBC Three’s Junior Doctors.INJURIES14 mins: Scraps with 24 fighters.“He’s only actually hit three times. He blocks a lot of punches and aside from a couple of swipes to the stomach, he’d suffer just bruising to the chest and back.”17 mins: Punches a wall repeatedly.“He would’ve fractured all his knuckles and broken all his metacarpals which would’ve taken six weeks to heal, so they’d have prevented him from doing anything else in the rest of the…2 min
Total Film|June 2015SKYFALL 2012James Bond (Daniel Craig) is presumed dead after a train-top plunge into a river following a botched MI6 operation. But when HQ is blown up, Bond resurfaces to take on an ex-agent gone rogue.ON CALL: Student Doctor Bertie Garbutt, from St George’s University.INJURIES7 mins: Bond is shot in the chest.“He’s shot with a depleted uranium shell and the sheer weight of them would’ve caused a lot more damage. It would’ve caused air in the chest cavity that made his lung collapse and the exit wound would have shattered his shoulder blade.”12 mins: Bond is shot, falls off a train roof and lands in a river 80m below.“This could sever his spinal cord or break his neck. And he might have drowned.”31 mins: Bond removes a bullet from his shoulder.“He risks…1 min
Total Film|June 2015THE FILM INTERVIEW“I BELIEVE THAT STORYTELLING IS TRIBALLY CENTRAL AND ESSENTIAL,” HE SAYS, “AND THEREFORE TO SCREAM AS DON LO GAN IS AS LIFE-ENHANCING AS TO BLESS AS MAHATMA GANDHI.”He’s played Gandhi, fa*gin and Doctor Watson, worked with Spielberg, Scorsese and Polanski, won an Oscar, been given a knighthood and has a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame. It’s not entirely surprising then that Sir Ben Kingsley is a little bit intimidating in the flesh. Never less than charming, he shakes our hand warmly when we arrive for our interview in the basem*nt of a London studio and offers us a drink. Measured and articulate, sipping black tea from white china as we chat, there’s nonetheless a sense that his relationship with the press hasn’t always run smooth. He says he…15 min
Total Film|June 2015Undead zingersWHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS 15OUT 13 APRIL DVD, BDYES, NIGHT TIME!” SAYS TAIKA Waititi’s Viago, flashing a winningly goofy grin as he levitates out of his coffin at the 6pm alarm call. Recently, anyone sick of the Twilight juggernaut and True Blood’s decline might have replied with an “Er, no” at the prospect of another revamp for suck-heads but Only Lovers Left Alive and festival favourite A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night have revived vampirism’s rep. With a simple but ingenious wheeze, Waititi (Eagle Vs Shark) and Jemaine Clement’s (Flight Of The Conchords) comedy does likewise: like Shaun Of The Dead with fangs, it makes its house-sharing vamp leads not moody hunks but berk-ish man-children saddled with critical lapses of self-awareness.Those Shaun comparisons splatter all over the…4 min
Total Film|June 2015Sub genreBLACK SEA 15OUT 13 APRIL DVD, BDIf Humphrey Bogart’s character in John Huston’s masterly The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre (1948) had gone diving instead of prospecting, the result might’ve been something like Black Sea, Kevin Macdonald’s absorbing submarine-set thriller. Penned by Dennis Kelly (creator of Channel 4’s ultraviolent/stylish Utopia), it starts as Jude Law’s ex-Navy sub captain, Robinson, gets laid off from his marine salvage job; the chance to stick it to the man comes when he hears of a Nazi U-Boat carrying Russian gold resting on the bed of the Black Sea.Hiring a dilapidated sub, he and his crew set out to get rich quick, with a promise that any spoils will be split. Greed, fear, claustrophobia and violence soon dominate, be it via Scoot McNairy’s anxious stooge…7 min
Total Film|June 2015Out of the ruinsROBERTO RO SSELLINI: THE WAR TRILOGY 121945-8 OUT NOW BDCritical disputes still swirl around the three films Roberto Rossellini directed following the Allied liberation of Rome in 1944. Are they really a trilogy? Are they the triple foundation-stone of Italian neo-realism? And how come Rossellini, seemingly so dedicated to ‘telling it like it is’, downplays Italian fascism to the point of invisibility?Still, taken separately or together, there’s no denying that, as evocations of an Italy (and Germany) still shuddering from the impact of WW2, these three films pack a rare emotional and visceral impact. Rome, Open City, shot a few weeks after German troops were driven out of the Italian capital, tangibly captures the fear and tension of the city under Nazi occupation as a resistance leader seeks shelter among…3 min
Total Film|June 2015BLIND JUSTICEWas it daunting, stepping into the Marvel Cinematic Universe?Yeah, it was... I was blissfully ignorant as to how impactful these things are. Writers on set would be like, ‘You have no idea!’ When I did Stardust in 2007 I was much younger and overwhelmed by the whole thing. This time around, I feel more prepared for the unknown, more ready and slightly thicker-skinned, maybe... I’m 10 years older!Are you excited to re-do Daredevil’s origin story?What excited me was, when I watch Marvel films my favourite parts are those 20 minutes right after – to use Spider-Man as an example – he wakes up and he’s bitten and he realises this is what’s happened. He discovers with the audience what he’s capable of. I love that part! The little boy in…1 min
Total Film|June 2015Best in ShowFIRST LOOK!As publicity stunts go, it doesn’t get much bigger… But after years of speculation, Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson’s surprise appearance at Paris Fashion Week could mean only one thing: Zoolander 2 is on…Blue Steel-ing their way down the runway of Valentino’s Fall/Winter show as alter-ego male models Derek Zoolander and Hansel to the tune of The Human League’s ‘Don’t You Want Me’, the pair grabbed the biggest headlines of the week – not a bad promotional start for the much-delayed follow-up to Stiller’s 2001 comedy hit. Their walk even had the audience of amused fashionistas – including Vogue editor Anna Wintour – on their feet for a standing ovation. “I’m going to keep it simple today,” an in-character Stiller, kitted out in a shimmering custom ‘Night Butterflies’ silk…1 min
Total Film|June 2015Q/A LAKE BELLIn A World… made you hot property. Why did you plump for Man Up?Coming from doing something that was very personal – In a World... is my baby – I was excited to find things where they’re other people’s babies. When I’m working on something that really inspires me, that makes me want to go and write. So in a way, I’ve used that.It feels like a collaborative set…There’s camaraderie. A good playground of creativity. The ‘loosey-gooseys’ are always my favourite takes. That’s at the end when we’ve already done all our lines just so, and then we are awarded a ‘loosey-goosey’ take.Your Brit accent is faultless. Did it take much work?There’s a script waiting for another draft and I’m from New York but I went to drama school here,…1 min
Total Film|June 2015Expansion packFIRST WORD!While Paul Feig reboots Ghostbusters with a quartet of funny women (Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Leslie Jones and Kate McKinnon), Dan Aykroyd and Ivan Reitman have set up Ghostcorps, a production company to oversee an expanded universe promising additional films and ‘branded entertainment’. Here’s what to expect.MEN OF ACTIONHow this’ll dent the other film’s feminist credentials remains to be seen, but plans are afoot to follow Feig’s scary comedy with a male-centric, action-orientated sort of sequel. Channing Tatum is in line to star and produce: according to writer Drew Pearce (Iron Man 3), Tatum is “part of the core creative team”.POWER TEAMThat core team also includes the Russo brothers, extremely hot property after the success of Captain America: The Winter Soldier. They’re expected to direct this film, but they…1 min
Total Film|June 2015Q/A CAREY MULL IGANWere you familiar with the story before you signed up?I’d never read the book. So I got sent the script, and read the book and I loved the story. I haven’t really done a costume drama for a really long time. I kind of avoided them a little bit.Do you think it’s quite a feminist novel for its time?Yeah, I think so. Bathsheba starts out the story with no intention of getting married. She has no desire for that. She’s rich and complex. She takes pride in being one of the rare women who has her own farm and runs things herself. She’s a very practical person.You hadn’t read the book before, but have you found yourself drawing on it now?Bathsheba is really young at the beginning of the story,…1 min
Total Film|June 2015Antisocial networkEXCLUSIVE!“As times change, so do its horrors,” writer Nelson Greaves tells Buzz via email, chatting about new movie Unfriended, a horror that plays out entirely on a computer desktop as Skyping teens are pursued by a ghostly presence. “Unfriended presents a new way to be scared,” he adds. “You’ve never experienced fear like this before...”SCREEN TIMEThe idea started with producer Timur Bekmambetov, who’s best known for directing the Night Watch and Day Watch films, and who funded Unfriended himself. “For 15 years, he had the idea to do a movie on a computer desktop,” says Greaves. “Everyone told him he was crazy, but he was just 15 years ahead of everyone!”DESK JOBDirector Levan Gabriadze shot the film over just two weeks in LA, but the real challenge was in editing…1 min
Total Film|June 2015FLASH BACKThis month: Issue 106 September 2005COVER STORYWith Peter Jackson off finishing King Kong, we were feeling Middle-earth withdrawal; The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe was the closest thing we could find to fill the void. Director Andrew Adamson has admitted that he was feeling the pressure of the comparison, but told us, “Peter helped make this possible. He showed there’s an audience for a faithful adaptation of classical fantasy.” The film ended up storming to $745m worldwide (besting King Kong), but takings have declined with each movie since, and it’s failed to match the lasting impact of Jackson’s saga.TF INTERVIEW MATT DILLONThe teenage rebel was mounting a comeback with Crash.ON THE OUTSIDERS“I was the second youngest in the cast but I was a veteran, y’know?…2 min
Total Film|June 2015The need-to-know...THE INFILTRATORAfter wrapping up work on Breaking Bad in September 2013, Bryan Cranston hasn’t wasted any time cooking up new projects. With Trumbo and Kung Fu Panda 3 already in the can, he’s shooting The Infiltrator in London. This ’80s set, basedon-fact thriller sees Cranston playing undercover agent Robert Mazur, who worked his way into some of the world’s most notorious cartels. Co-starring Diane Kruger, The Infiltrator is directed by The Lincoln Lawyer’s Brad Furman and may well open in time for awards season consideration.ZOOTROPOLISWhile Disney’s unsurprising announcement of Frozen 2 might seem like a safe bet, the studio isn’t afraid of tackling more out-there material. Zootropolis, earmarked for a March 2016 release, takes the talking animals formula to the titular ‘modern mammal metropolis’ (the film is known as Zootopia…2 min
Total Film|June 2015MAISIE WILLIAMS“People always say this,” laughs Maisie Williams when Agenda suggests that the success of Game Of Thrones must have lead to a lot of film offers, “Not really, no!” Young, restless and clearly very bright, she’s disarmingly normal for someone who’s grown up on set of a TV epic. After a start in blockbuster telly, the 17-year-old (she turns 18 this month) has opted for lower-key indie fare on the big screen, like this month’s The Falling. In Carol Morley’s (Dreams Of A Life) ’60s-set, supernaturally-tinged drama, she plays Lydia, a student at an all-girls school in the grip of a fainting epidemic. “It was difficult and it was intense,” she says. “I’m glad that I’ve done it though, and it pushed me. That’s what you kind of want...”What attracted…4 min
Total Film|June 2015Career injectionWhen reviews aggregator Rotten Tomatoes recently assembled Jennifer Lopez’s 10 best movies, it took until number 5 to deliver a movie that cracked even a 50 per cent rating. Conclusion? Whatever screen promise she might once have had hasn’t been sustained.Survivors of the Gigli turkey-time experience may well ask: what promise is this you speak of? The promise of her late-’90s work, essentially. For Out Of Sight, we dubbed her 1998’s “Bright Young Thing”; for U-Turn, we compared her to noir’s classic femmes fatale. Roger Ebert praised her “star presence” in musical biopic Selena; Variety called her “smoldering and soulful” in Blood And Wine. And she took risks with Tarsem Singh’s bonkers The Cell: a failure, but a bold failure.But The Cell’s flop seemed to discourage Lopez from risk, because…2 min
Total Film|June 2015Sissy SpacekThe HeroShe shot to fame in Terrence Malick’s debut Badlands, got drenched in pig’s blood in Brian De Palma’s Carrie and has since teamed with Robert Altman, Costa-Gavras, Oliver Stone, Paul Schrader and David Lynch. And now she’s working for TV royalty Glenn Kessler, Todd A. Kessler and Daniel Zelman (Damages) as the matriarch of a fractured family in Bloodline…What attracted you to Bloodline?I enjoyed Damages. And my interest was piqued for serialised film. It’s a new template. Wonderful storytelling. I felt like a beginner. I’m so intrigued by this television phenomenon. Binge watching. Breaking Bad was the thing that made me go, “Ooh”.You have a radar for quality: you’ve been in five films that have been nominated for Best Picture…Five? That’s interesting. I don’t know if I have any…3 min
Total Film|June 2015Monsters: Dark ContinentSEE THIS IF YOU LIKED...BATTLE: LOS ANGELES 2011 Marines take on aliens with noisy results in this dumb-but-fun slice of military mayhem.PACIFIC RIM 2013 Giant robots grapple with monsters from the depths in Guillermo del Toro’s kaijū epic.EDGE OF TOMORROW 2014 Tom Cruise has time on his side as Europe takes a battering from extraterrestrial octopi.For full reviews of these films visit totalfilm.com/reviewsLOW IN BUDGET, HIGH IN concept and brimming with invention and audacity, Gareth Edwards’ Monsters showed you don’t need millions to make a smart, character-full genre picture featuring giant squid-like aliens. It also showed how quickly careers can be made these days, Edwards going straight from directing his modest $500,000 debut feature to the blockbuster behemoth that was Godzilla and the first of the standalone Star Wars spin-offs.No…3 min
Total Film|June 2015Child 44SEE THIS IF YOU LIKED...GORKY PARK 1983 Murders in Moscow, in Michael Apted’s taut thriller set behind the Iron Curtain.TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY 2011 Classic cerebral le Carré espionage, with Hardy and Oldman in their first on-screen pairing.THE DROP 2014 Hardy and Rapace warm up for Russia with this wintry Brooklyn shaggy dog story.For full reviews of these films visit totalfilm.com/reviewsTHERE IS NO MURDER IN paradise” we’re told more than once in Child 44, a sturdy adap of British author Tom Rob Smith’s 2008 award-winning novel inspired by the case of Soviet child-killer Andrei Chikatilo. And it’s this portrait of “paradise” that most fascinates. If movies about Stalin-era Russia tend to focus on revolutions or Cold War clashes, it’s refreshing to see the daily paranoia of life behind the Iron…3 min
Total Film|June 2015I Am Big Bird: The Caroll Spinney StoryKICKSTARTER -ED IN THE WAKE of the insightful Being Elmo, this affectionate portrait of original Sesame Street cast member Caroll Spinney reveals the octogenarian inside the iconic costume: a gentle soul whose isolated childhood informs his characters. What proves more elusive is a strong enough story to justify funding the production in the first place.Bullied by classmates (“Having the name Caroll didn’t help...”) and his straitlaced father, Spinney sought escape in the US Air Force then threw himself back into first-love puppetry, performing on a Krusty-style clown show in Boston before being spotted by Jim Henson. His early days on Sesame Street were tough; he found himself unable to keep time with songs and, in colleague Frank Oz’s estimation, was too in awe of Henson: “He didn’t fit in, and…4 min
Total Film|June 2015GlasslandPERHAPS IT’S DUE TO THE recession that Ireland is producing a lot of austere dramas at the moment but the economy’s loss is cinema’s gain. In just his second feature as writer/director, Gerard Barrett has crafted a cleareyed look at alcoholism, thwarted hopes and the ruts in which we get stuck. With its unexplained title, downbeat subject matter and deliberate pacing, it’s not exactly Friday night fodder but it’s absorbing all the same.Star-in-the-making Jack Reynor (of the similarly stark What Richard Did) plays John, a young Dubliner trying to keep things together as mother Jean (Toni Collette) falls apart. He works nights for a taxi firm to get by, hangs out with f*ckless friend Shane (Will Poulter) and visits little brother Kit (Harry Nagle) at a children’s home; she gets…2 min
Total Film|June 2015Force MajeureREAD PREVIEWS FOR RUBEN Östlund’s snowbound comedydrama which swept the board at the Guldbagge Awards (Swedish Oscars) and you’ll be expecting an off-piste The Impossible. But don’t be fooled. Although it features a family tested by disaster, it’s closer in spirit to a euro-centric Woody Allen flick: a brutal and, at times, blackly funny film about a marriage in crisis.In a near-empty hotel in the French Alps, a Swedish family headed by harassed mum Ebba (Lisa Loven Kongsli) and distant dad Tomas (Johannes Kuhnke) take a skiing holiday together, the elegant rituals of the slopes contrasted wittily with the fraught routines of domestic life. Tomas has taken time off work to focus, for once, on his loved ones but his phone’s constantly ringing, and he and Ebba keep nipping outside…2 min
Total Film|June 2015HomeCANDY-COLOURED AND CUTE as a bug, this amiable kid-tickling sci-fi toon about an odd-couple quest dares to boldly go where... just about everyone’s already been. When friendless, accident-prone alien Oh (Jim ‘Bazinga’ Parsons) teams up reluctantly with Rihanna’s feisty human Tip, we’re not going anywhere that Lilo And Stitch or Shrek or, most recently, Mr Peabody And Sherman haven’t already taken us. Except that usually they get there faster. Setting up the elaborate and cuddly Earth invasion by the high-tech but cowardly Boov species definitely makes this sight-gag-sprinkled tale a slow starter. But once Oh accidentally betrays their location to the Boov’s deadly enemies, the Gorg, his fugitive mission with Tip bombs along through swooping jeopardy, including wrecking Paris with a topsyturvy Eiffel Tower, like a junior Inception.Comedy here is…6 min
Total Film|June 2015Get HardMANY OF THE GREATEST comedies skewer taboos and tackle edgy subject matter, not only to raise laughs but to, y’know, make important points too. Not Get Hard, which – by way of the most heinous squandering of a premise since last year’s laugh-free Let’s Be Cops – is likely to register as one of 2015’s most crushing comedic disappointments.The set-up seems ripe for laughs with a social conscience and the pairing of Kevin Hart and Will Ferrell should have set sparks flying. Ferrell is James King, a naive banker sentenced to hard time in a notoriously tough high-security prison. With only 30 days of his cushy gold-plated lifestyle left to savour, King pays car-cleaning entrepreneur Darnell Lewis (Hart) to train him in preparation for prison life, wrongly presuming that he’s…4 min
Total Film|June 2015Coming soon...For 30 years, the Mad Max series has taken Tina Turner’s advice to heart and not provided us with another hero. But the time has finally come for reckless post-apocalyptic driving to gain a new champion. Mad Max: Fury Road (15 May) sees Tom Hardy don the Joan Collins shoulder pads, but will the film even begin to match something modern and edgy like The Rover? Let’s hope not – that was well depressing. Witness the rebirth of another fantasy legend: The Moomins, in Moomins On The Riveria (22 May). Also hitting the big screen, but with Kit Harington rather than some strange Finnish hippos, is Spooks: The Greater Good (8 May). An earthquake is silly enough to take on The Rock in San Andreas (29 May) and Samuel L.…1 min
Total Film|June 2015ANT-MANPREDICTED GLOBAL BOX OFFICE $385mDIRECTOR PEYTON REEDSTARRING PAUL RUDD, MICHAEL DOUGLAS, EVANGELINE LILLY, JUDY GREEROPENS 17 JULYTHE GIST Aided by Dr. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas), thief Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) becomes diminutive superhero Ant-Man and together they plot a heist to save the planet.THE SELL Frankly, it’s a Marvel movie – and Marvel is on a hot streak. Still, the departure of director Edgar Wright, replaced by Bring It On’s Peyton Reed, has required some rapid PR. “When [it] comes out it will be the absolute best version of Ant-Man that could have existed,” claims Marvel’s Kevin Feige.THE BREAKDOWN “Marvel have yet to put a foot wrong, certainly since they’ve been in control of their own films,” says Gant. “So you never count them out. However, the premise sounds really…1 min
Total Film|June 2015JURASSIC WORLDDIRECTOR COLIN TREVORROWSTARRING CHRIS PRATT, JUDY GREER, BRYCE DALLAS HOWARD, TY SIMPKINS, VINCENT D’ONOFRIOOPENS 12 JUNETHE GIST At dinosaur theme park Jurassic World a new GM hybrid dinosaur, Indominus Rex, goes wild. Staff, including Owen Grady (Chris Pratt), must somehow stop it.THE SELL Fourteen years since we were last on Isla Nebula, the selling points for this fourth installment are clear: make it fresh, not prehistoric. “Everybody has seen a dinosaur now, so it can’t be about that,” says producer Frank Marshall. “We have to have a good story.” The park is open…THE BREAKDOWN “Dinosaurs never really get old,” says Gant. “We’ve lost the wow factor a bit – when Jurassic Park came out, watching those dinosaurs was amazing. Now that’s something we see on TV. But I feel there…1 min
Total Film|June 2015MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - ROGUE NATIONDIRECTOR CHRISTOPHER MCQUARRIESTARRING TOM CRUISE, JEREMY RENNER, ALEC BALDWIN, SEAN HARRIS, SIMON PEGGOPENS 30 JULYTHE GIST Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) returns for another espionage adventure with the old team, including Brandt (Jeremy Renner), Benji (Simon Pegg) and Luther (Ving Rhames).THE SELL With the release date shifted from December to dodge Star Wars, the fifth installment sees the gang hitting locations including Casablanca, Vienna and London, taking on the Rogue Nation of highly trained operatives dubbed “the anti-IMF”. Expect to see Cruise on a motorbike, in a tux and clinging to a plane.THE BREAKDOWN “Cruise is so smart, in terms of getting smart filmmakers and smart writers, and surrounding himself with great actors,” says Mueller. “So I don’t anticipate him fumbling the ball, but it’s going to have to go far…1 min
Total Film|June 2015FANTASTIC FOURDIRECTOR JOSH TRANKSTARRING MICHAEL B. JORDAN, KATE MARA, MILES TELLER, JAMIE BELL, TOBY KEBBELLOPENS 6 AUGUSTTHE GIST Gaining superpowers after an experiment goes awry, scientists Reed Richards (Miles Teller), Sue Storm (Kate Mara), Ben Grimm (Jamie Bell) and Johnny Storm (Michael B. Jordan) must save the world from a tyrant.THE SELL Banishing memories of Tim Story’s two attempts at Marvel’s quartet, “It is a very different film from the others,” says writer/producer Simon Kinberg, “and one that I think is very different from other superhero movies. It’s a more grounded film than I think people are anticipating.”THE BREAKDOWN “It’s probably the one film that’s most deserving of a reboot” says Mueller. “They’ve got a fanboy favourite director in Josh Trank. There’s a hip factor to this that maybe the other…1 min
Total Film|June 2015Britt RobertsonYou’re the eldest of seven siblings. They must think you’re kind of cool, headlining a huge movie like this?No. They always tell me I’m dorky and stupid. I’m a really silly human being. When I go home, I don’t talk about work. We just goof around and I think they appreciate having their sister around when they can.How did you land the lead role in Tomorrowland?It was a very lengthy process. I put myself on tape in New York maybe eight months before they started shooting, and then they had me come in and read for the casting director, and then she had me read for the director… and we heard nothing for, like, months. Then they asked me to come back in to the director. A month later, when…2 min
Total Film|June 2015TAKING THE STAGEFAT AMY IS SUSPENDED upside-down from the ceiling. Legs akimbo, a vision in skin-tight lycra, the curtains have just lifted on Pitch Perfect 2 when the a cappella-loving Aussie suffers the wardrobe malfunction to end all wardrobe malfunctions. Delivering a literal bum note to an entire auditorium of shocked onlookers, she also ends up flashing star guest President Obama himself. Well, she did make her big entrance warbling Miley Cyrus’ ‘Wrecking Ball’.“At the end of the first film, the Bellas are kind of at the top of their game,” franchise overseer Elizabeth Banks explains to Total Film, “so we take them down a notch in this one. We love them as underdogs, so we wanted to re-establish their underdog status. They have a very embarrassing public performance and they get…8 min
Total Film|June 2015PARTNERS IN CRIME“We started out just with the idea of wouldn’t it be funny if I was a cop who had to get somewhere in 48 hours,” says actor/producer Reese Witherspoon of the seed that would become Hot Pursuit – a madcap action comedy that sees the Wild and Legally Blonde star play a police officer who’s in way over her head when she’s charged with protecting a drug dealer’s widow (Sofía Vergara) from the criminals and dirty cops on their tail. It wasn’t long, though, before the real source of comic potential became apparent – the central pairing itself. “We quickly realised that what was funny was us together doing crazy things,” says Modern Family star Vergara when Total Film meets the pair in sunny Los Angeles, “and creating this type…9 min
Total Film|June 2015HALLOWEEN 1978In the first of the 10-movie franchise, student Laurie Strode (played by Jamie Lee Curtis) is stalked by a masked and mute Michael Myers, who escapes a secure mental hospital to wage war on his old neighbourhood.On call: Dr Hannah Barnham-Brown, Student Doctor at St George’s University of London.INJURIES1hr 2mins: Michael lifts post-coital Bob off the ground with just one hand then stabs him.“If you’re that strong, the lift won’t do you much harm, but you might pull a tendon.”1hr 16mins: Michael’s stabbed in the neck with knitting needle.“It didn’t hit an artery or blood would be gushing like a fountain. I think it hit a muscle and didn’t go in very deep.”1hr 20mins: Michael’s eye is wounded by a coat hanger.“When the mask comes off, his left eye looks…2 min
Total Film|June 2015HOME ALONE 1990There’s more violence in this Christmas classic than most other festive favourites as Daniel Stern and Joe Pesci play bungling burglars Marv and Harry, who plan to rob the McCallisters’ home. But the forgetful family have left son Kevin (played by Macaulay Culkin) home alone. He saves the day with ingenious and hellish traps.ON CALL: London Registrar Dr Keir Shiels, star of BBC Three’s Junior Doctors.INJURIES1hr 13 mins: Harry’s shot in the groin and Marv in the face by an air gun.“The pellet is unlikely to penetrate Harry’s jeans and might have just bruised him. Marv’s lucky it didn’t hit his eye – it could’ve been a brain damaging injury.”1hr 14 mins: Both Harry and Marv slip on icy stairs.“The fall, surface and impact means Harry would’ve broken a number…2 min
Total Film|June 2015GO WESTEROS† † †Watch your back, IMAX. Until now, IMAX has been cinema’s domain, the six-storey behemoth that your living room can’t match no matter how many first-run series nestle inside your subscribers’ package. But here’s the thing: your TV viewing can graduate to IMAX.Earlier this year, IMAX cinemas in North America netted $1.9m for screenings of two Game Of Thrones fourth season episodes, a huge take-home for episodes seen on TV seven months before. As HBO head Michael Lombardo said, “If we were premiering the first episode of the new season in IMAX, I wouldn’t have been surprised. But that’s not what we’re doing. It’s heartening and surprising that people are willing to pay money and drive somewhere to re-experience a show they’ve already seen…”Adapted from George R.R. Martin’s A…8 min
Total Film|June 2015FIVE STAR TURNSGANDHI1982The experience of playing India’s beloved spiritual leader, recalls Kingsley, “was like facing a sheer mountain face every day. I didn’t know how I was going to get through it.” Shedding 20lb was a start, the future knight of the realm mirroring Gandhi’s vegetarian diet to replicate his slight frame. Two Baftas and an Oscar followed.SCHINDLER’S LIST1993Playing Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal in a 1989 TV movie was good prep for Kingsley’s role as Itzhak Stern, who aids Liam Neeson in keeping his fellow concentration campees out of the gas chambers. “He was like Schindler’s conscience,” says Kingsley. “He chose an extraordinary man who was somehow equipped for the unimaginable.”SEXY BEAST2000“I’m very fond of him,” Kingsley says of Don Logan, the psychopath who terrorises Ray Winstone in Jonathan Glazer’s crime drama.…1 min
Total Film|June 2015High fiveSEE THIS IF YOU LIKED...RAN 1985A mad king, and the best battles you ever will see, as Kurosawa does Lear.BRAVEHEART 1995Billy Connolly is in Five Armies, reminding us of Mad Mel’s fight for freedom.ANCHORMAN: THE LEGEND OF RON BURGUNDY 2004For the five armies, see the news anchors’ epic battle royale.For full reviews of these films visit totalfilm.com/cinema_reviewsTHE HOBBIT: THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES 12OUT 20 April DVD/BDWHILE THE DECISION TO MAKE three films out of a slim children’s book will always make more commercial than artistic sense, this trilogy-closer suggests that Peter Jackson did it for love rather than riches enough to make Smaug fume with jealousy. By far the best of the triptych, The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies succeeds not only in forging a 70-minute…3 min
