Home//Total Film/June 2022/In This Issue
Total Film|June 2022Welcome to TOTAL FILMI remember seeing Jurassic Park for the first time in a cinema in West Virginia where I was staying for the summer holidays, and can still recall the shiver of delight as the sound system made me think Velociraptors were pattering behind me and the thud of a T-rex footstep buzzed my internal organs as well as that onscreen cup of water. It was pure cinema and instrumental in making me want to do the job I now have. And this month, that job led me to the set of a film that was a huge part of my childhood, The Railway Children. Jenny Agutter as Bobbie was my hero as a kid – and also later when I saw her in An American Werewolf In London – and it…1 min
Total Film|June 2022HOT RIGHT NOWIt needs to be something absurd, ” said Bill Skarsgård back in 2020. “There needs to be something weird and strange and off with it. And inexplicable. Like, what is this?”Skarsgård, son of Stellan, younger brother of Alexander, was talking about what makes a great movie monster and applying the theory to his role of Pennywise the Dancing Clown in It. But he might just have easily been musing on the part of Eric Draven in The Crow, for the titular antihero is brutally murdered only to be brought back to the land of the living by crows, ready to exact his revenge. Absurd. Weird. Strange. Inexplicable. And so damn cool.“I need to be afraid, insecure and inspired all at the same time, ” says Skarsgård on how he chooses…2 min
Total Film|June 2022POWER UP1 PEACE OUTWhen we last left The Boys, minds had been blown (literally), sociopathic ubermenschen were being blackmailed, and Hughie and Starlight looked like they might finally get their happily-ever-after. Unsurprisingly, that didn’t last long. As creator Eric Kripke tells Teasers, Season 3 picks up “a year later” and an uneasy détente has been reached. “The season begins in peacetime, [and] Hughie and Victoria Neuman have formed the Federal Bureau of Superhuman Affairs. Most of the characters are reasonably happy, except for Butcher and Homelander, and they figure out how to turn this Cold War pretty hot and bloody.”2 TOPICAL TREATMENTThe comic-book source material for The Boys concluded in 2012, but the series has deviated massively. Kripke has always aimed to incorporate current anxieties, spending “a lot of time just…2 min
Total Film|June 2022THE ODD COUPLEThere’s a rich legacy of huggable movie robots, from Johnny 5 and the Fix-It family to Baymax and Wall•E. The eponymous Charles from director Jim Archer’s feature debut Brian And Charles isn’t exactly huggable – his torso is a washing machine, after all – but he is oddly loveable.“I remember we had a costume that was quite elaborate and well-done, and we were just like, ‘This is too good, ’” Archer tells Teasers. “We wanted to keep that kind of chaotic, slightly terrifying but weird lo-fi-ness to him.”Somewhere in the Welsh countryside, Charles (Chris Hayward) is brought into the world by eccentric genius Brian (David Earl), cobbled together from sticky tape and spare parts. A monotone automaton, Charles likes cabbages, gives himself the surname ‘Petrescu’ and dreams of life outside…2 min
Total Film|June 2022INSIDE RANHe has scaled mountains and circumnavigated the globe, but even Ranulph Fiennes is not immune to fear. Caught waiting backstage before a lecture in director Matthew Dyas’ docu-portrait, Fiennes is asked how he feels. After a pause, his reply is – typically – both reserved and revealing: “Not confident.”Expansive and detailed, Explorer deftly disentangles the man from the myth. Whether you see Fiennes as the “last great explorer” or figment of “white privileged folly”, Dyas upends preconceptions, first by showing us how the former adventurer stays busy with lecture tours in his seventies.“He’s an amazing contradiction, ” says Dyas. “He drives his Ford Mondeo Estate from Exmoor to London, parks by the Albert Hall, puts the seats down, then moves his autobiographies so he can sleep in the car to…2 min
Total Film|June 2022NEW BLOODAlicia Vikander is sitting in an opulent hotel-suite room, all gold furnishings and Louis XVI-style splendour, typing away furiously on her mobile phone. Dressed in a black velvet catsuit, her high-heel boots perched nonchalantly on the desk, she looks, quite frankly, pissed off.Every so often, she lets off a little huff of annoyance and shakes her head in exasperation. Teasers is in Paris to watch her transformation into Mira, a jaded actress in HBO’s TV series Irma Vep. It’s not so much a remake, more of a meta extension of French director Olivier Assayas’ original 1996 film that starred his ex-wife, Hong Kong megastar Maggie Cheung.Assayas is at the helm of the show as well, tackling the ghosts of his past. Namely that of Cheung, who becomes another actress called…4 min
Total Film|June 2022IT SHOULDN’T HAPPEN TO A FILM JOURNALISTI’ve been writing this column for several years now and yet have never mentioned my biggest foe in the world of movie journalism – word counts, whereby a commissioning editor supplies the writer with the required length for any given article. I’ve never mentioned it because this column runs to 660 words and I’d need at least twice that to get into it properly.And therein lies the problem; it’s never enough, whether you’re writing a 30-word capsule review or a 3,500-word cover feature. In fact, in my 26 years of scribing (scribbling?), I can think of only one time it was enough (nay, too much), and that’s when I interviewed Adrien Brody for The Village and he spoke in monosyllables. Partly, I think, it’s because he was in a bad…3 min
Total Film|June 2022THE HERO TIM ROTHTim Roth always splits his movie choices into two categories. “The ones that you do to pay the rent, ” he grins, “and passion projects.” More often than not, though, it’s the latter that’s filled up the 61-year-old Brit’s CV, from cult classics like Reservoir Dogs and Made In Britain to this month’s Mia Hansen-Løve movie Bergman Island, as a filmmaker touring Sweden’s iconic Fårö…Did you know much about Fårö, where director Ingmar Bergman lived and worked, and the setting for your new movie Bergman Island?No, I didn’t. I mean for me, it was a backdrop to actors, the rock formations, and the island. And then we came into it. It’s in the film. There’s a six-minute ferry ride. And then a short drive. And we were in the thick…3 min
Total Film|June 2022FORWARD THINKINGProducer Frank Marshall has suggested there will be more Jurassic movies. But will Colin Trevorrow and the cast of Dominion be part of them?CHRIS PRATTI think this is it for me. It’s the perfect bookend to this franchise. As long as there’s an opportunity for a brand to exist, there’s probably going to be things. But as far as my involvement? To me, it feels like a great organic ending.BRYCE DALLAS HOWARDI don’t know what’s possible from here. But it’s the end of the road for my character, and for so many of these characters, in terms of it being the completion of our arcs. Which is exciting and emotional and powerful and eventful.SAM NEILLI’ve heard rumours [there will be future movies], and there are some really good, young people…2 min
Total Film|June 2022IMAN VELLANI IT’S IMAN’S WORLD...You were very familiar with Marvel before you got this role…Yeah. In high school, I literally only read Iron Man comics, and then I picked up an Ironheart comic, and Riri Williams is getting her Disney+ show. Kamala was on the cover of that one, and I was so confused. I was like, ‘Who’s this Brown girl?’ And I just fell in love with her. I dressed up as her on Halloween that year. I sent that photo to [casting director] Sarah Finn after I got cast, and she was like, ‘Shut up. How is this real?’Did you really connect with the character back then?She was this Pakistani-American Muslim superhero fanatic, and so was I. I just didn’t think a story like that existed. So it was very refreshing to…3 min
Total Film|June 2022ALEX GARLANDMY LIFE IN PICTURESMEN 2022Garland’s latest sees Jessie Buckley take a restorative break to a village occupied entirely by… unsettling variations on Rory Kinnear.“The starting point was [the myth of] The Green Man. This is about the fourth or fifth version of the script I had written. But the first time I wrote a Green Man-based script was between writing Sunshine and Never Let Me Go. So I’d been rewriting scripts based around that imagery since then. There are all sorts of genre tags you could stick on Men, but one of them would be sort of psychedelic folk horror. Or you could just say folk horror, because usually folk horror implies psychedelics for some reason I’ve never completely understood. I think it’s because of the connection with magic. But…9 min
Total Film|June 2022TOP GUN: MAVERICK TBCDIRECTOR Joseph Kosinski STARRING Tom Cruise, Jennifer Connelly, Miles Teller, Monica Barbaro, Glen Powell SCREENPLAY Ehren Kruger, Eric Warren Singer, Christopher McQuarrie DISTRIBUTOR Paramount RUNNING TIME 131 mins (TBC)★★★★★ OUT NOW CINEMASSoon after we catch up with US naval aviator Pete ‘Maverick’ Mitchell (Tom Cruise) in the Mojave Desert, hair on fire as he attempts to become the first pilot to hit Mach 10, a flinty admiral nicknamed The Drone Ranger (Ed Harris) tells him extinction beckons for human pilots trained in the art of dogfighting. “Maybe so, ” replies Mav as the corners of his mouth twitch mischievously and his eyes gleam in signature defiance. “But not today.”Cruise has no doubt had similar conversations with studio heads. Hollywood doesn’t make films like Top Gun: Maverick any more, in which…4 min
Total Film|June 2022DASHCAM 15★★★☆☆ OUT 3 JUNE cinemas 6 JUNE digitalDirector Rob Savage follows up his Zoom-seance hit Host with another DIY, pandemic-set horror shot by its cast as they ad-lib scenes within the bare outlines provided. But there the similarities end. Host conjured shivery suspense within static frames; Dashcam puts pedal to metal for a helter-skelter journey full of jolts, jumps and riotous humour.Playing an exaggerated version of herself, US musician Annie Hardy flies to the UK to surprise her old bandmate Stretch (Amar Chadha-Patel). Quickly falling out with him, she exits his house, deciding to leave with the car he needs for his food-delivery service – and then, on a whim, to respond to an order. From here things go from weird to WTAF, as Annie discovers the package in need…1 min
Total Film|June 2022I AM ZLATAN TBC★★★☆☆ OUT 3 JUNE CINEMAS 20 JUNE DIGITAL 27 JUNE DVDFootball star Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s irrepressible, polarising personality is brought to the screen in this sporting biopic. Adapting from David Lagercrantz’s book, scripter Jakob Beckman sets up a standard but pacy rags-to-riches story, and doesn’t shy away from Zlatan’s abrasive qualities. Acting duties are divided between Dominic Andersson Bajraktati (impressive as a chip-on-shoulder child) and man of the match Granit Rush*ti as a teen phenom, swinging between loveable rogue and volatile hothead. The playbook is familiar, putting off casuals, but devoted footy fans will find plenty to cheer.…1 min
Total Film|June 2022GOOD LUCK TO YOU, LEO GRANDE TBC★★★★☆ OUT 17 JUNE CINEMASIt’s all a dance!” says Leo Grande (Daryl McCormack), a dashing young sex worker who’s come to a nondescript hotel room to meet his latest client, widowed former schoolteacher Nancy (Emma Thompson). “I don’t know the steps!” Nancy replies, smartly establishing the inverted tutor-pupil relationship that underpins this thoughtful look at the politics behind ‘the world’s oldest profession’.Smooth, confident and unapologetic about how he makes his living, Leo (not his real name) appears to hold all the cards in a two-hander that unfolds over the course of four clandestine assignations. Nancy, however, is no frustrated matron but a woman with agency determined to finally have the org*sm she never experienced in her 31 years of marriage.Working through a wishlist of coital must-haves means there is no…1 min
Total Film|June 2022LANCASTER PG★★★☆☆ OUT 27 MAY CINEMAS, DIGITAL 30 MAY DVD, BD“I fought my war from five miles up, ” recalls one of the doughty World War 2 airmen brought in to sing the praises of the Lancaster bomber in David Fairhead and Anthony Palmer’s follow-up to their 2018 doc Spitfire. This time, however, their subject comes with a bay full of ethical baggage. The bolstering heroism of the Lancaster’s audacious 1943 dambusting is qualified by later raids on Hamburg and Dresden that some regard as war crimes. Charles Dance’s narration and scenes of a surviving ‘Lanc’ in flight add cinematic gloss to the proceedings.…1 min
Total Film|June 2022NINE BULLETS 15★☆☆☆☆ OUT 6 JUNE DIGITAL 13 JUNE DVDA retired burlesque dancer (Lena Headey) is forced to put her budding writing career on hold when her young neighbour’s family is killed by her violent ex (a miscast Sam Worthington) and the two are forced to go on the lam. The quasi-road movie that follows is a tonally confused, dramatically inert mess, riddled with plot holes and ludicrous contrivances. Headey tries her level best with a character whose motivations change dramatically from scene to scene, but she is consistently undermined by a script that strikes false notes at every turn.…1 min
Total Film|June 2022FATHER STU 15★★★☆☆ OUT NOW CINEMASThe eventful life of Stuart Long – a retired boxer and failed actor who defied illness to become a Catholic priest – feels slightly cramped within this reverential biopic. But there’s no doubting Mark Wahlberg’s commitment to his role in this long-gestating passion project of his, particularly in later scenes that see the actor put on 30lbs of extra weight. The star’s abrasive energy stops writer/director Rosalind Ross’ feature debut surrendering to faith-based sanctimony, while Mel Gibson gives his strongest turn in years as Stu’s ill-tempered dad. Still, it’s a long preach for the unconverted.…1 min
Total Film|June 2022THE BURNING SEA 12★★★☆☆ OUT 30 MAY DIGITALFrom the makers of The Wave (2015) and The Quake (2018) comes another environmental-disaster flick, which achieves an impressive amount of spectacle without a Roland Emmerich-sized budget. The story dives headlong, and with confidence, into genre tropes, as a scrappy band of heroes attempts to save the day after a huge crack on the floor of the North Sea threatens life as we know it. The character development is well handled amid all the set-piece chaos, resulting in a predictable but engaging brush with catastrophe, topped off with some familiar anti-fossil-fuel rhetoric.…1 min
Total Film|June 2022DOWNTON ABBEY: A NEW ERA PG★★★☆☆ OUT NOW CINEMASThis glistening big-screen continuation of Julian Fellowes’ aristo soap opera finds the Crawley crew reduced to hosting a new-fangled silent ‘kinema’ shoot at Downton, for big bucks. While Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) wrestles with the film people (in a strand that’s a close, um, homage to Singin’ In The Rain), Lord and Lady Grantham (Hugh Bonneville, Elizabeth McGovern) bolt off to France, chasing a mysterious inheritance. Diehard Downton fans will thrill to the plush foreign locations, lavish costuming and frankly preposterous plotting. Pack a hankie for the final twist, though.PECCADILLO, SIGNATURE, MOVIEFARM, WARNER BROS, UNIVERSAL, MUBI…1 min
Total Film|June 2022SWAN SONG 15★★★☆☆ OUT 10 JUNE CINEMASSo often a memorable supporting presence in films ranging from Blade to Bacurau, Udo Kier is given a rare lead role in Todd Stephens’ wistful dramedy – and he grasps it with both hands.The septuagenarian German actor might seem a counterintuitive piece of casting (as the opening credits put it, Stephens’ film is “inspired by a true icon”, Ohioan hairdresser Pat Pitsenbarger), but Kier proves the perfect choice to inhabit this larger-than-life character, a local legend and queer pioneer.At the start, ‘Mr. Pat’ is confined to a drab nursing home, poignantly reminiscing about his past and those he’s lost – including lover David, a victim of the AIDS epidemic – until he’s unexpectedly invited to style a former client for her funeral. (“In five minutes, I’m…1 min
Total Film|June 2022ROBOCOP: DIRECTOR’S CUT 181987 ★★★★★ OUT NOW CINEMASThe best sci-fi either holds a mirror to the present or predicts the future. Thirty-five years on, it’s clear that RoboCop is one of those rare movies that achieves both.Paul Verhoeven’s cartoonish satire, with its clever premise of policing being outsourced to private enterprise, was shaped by the attitudes of Reaganite America. Yet, with remarkable prescience, Ed Neumeier and Michael Miner’s screenplay targets aspects of 1980s culture that continue to shape our lives: corporate greed, militarism, the media. Crucially, that means RoboCop still has bite, especially with its hilarious Greek chorus of spoof news reports, TV shows and adverts.It’s also a lean, mean storytelling machine. Unlike the flawed 2014 remake, there’s zero interest in backstory. Verhoeven trusts in the narrative arc provided by Peter Weller’s Murphy,…1 min
Total Film|June 2022GET CARTER 181971 ★★★★★ OUT 27 MAY CINEMASMike Hodges’ masterful crime saga gives Michael Caine one of his greatest roles: gangland enforcer Jack Carter, who journeys to Newcastle to investigate the death of his brother. Against a bleak industrial backdrop, accompanied by Roy Budd’s mournful score, Caine is at his most ruthless as he tours Geordie pubs and racetracks in search of answers. Featuring noteworthy turns from Britt Ekland and playwright John Osborne (as a quietly menacing villain), and dialogue that still crackles (“pissholes in the snow”, anyone?), it’s simply a stone-cold Brit classic.SONY, CRITERION, STUDIOCANAL, ARROW, SECOND SIGHT, BFI, PARK CIRCUS, UNIVERSAL…1 min
Total Film|June 2022THE WRONG ARM OF THE LAW U1963 ★★★☆☆ OUT NOW BD, DIGITAL EXTRAS ★★☆☆☆ Featurette, GalleryLightweight yet enjoyable British crime caper, in which Peter Sellers’ co*ckney gang leader Pearly Gates joins forces with the Metropolitan Police (led by Lionel Jeffries’ hapless inspector) in a bid to snare a trio of Australian robbers passing themselves off as the boys in blue. Poking fun at cops and crims alike, Cliff Owen’s briskly paced lark makes playful references to other heist movies (like Rififi) and marshals a capable ensemble, with Sellers doubling up as a pretentious French courtier. Main extra is a chat with scripter John Antrobus.SONY, CRITERION, STUDIOCANAL, ARROW, SECOND SIGHT, BFI, PARK CIRCUS, UNIVERSAL…1 min
Total Film|June 2022THE AVENGERS1961-69 AVAILABLE ON DVD, BD, DIGITALMan-eating plants! Felonious clowns! Robot assassins! Deadly milkmen! Fiendish filmmakers! Five decades before Captain America and his super-powered chums teamed up in cinemas, another team of heroes calling themselves the Avengers were entertaining television audiences around the world, battling outlandish villains in a series of stylishly surreal and silly secret-agent adventures.Not that things started that way. The brainchild of Sydney Newman, who later co-created Doctor Who, The Avengers was conceived as a more straightforward vehicle for actor Ian Hendry. However, when Hendry left at the end of the first series, co-star Patrick Macnee’s secret agent John Steed was pushed to the fore and gained a new partner in Honor Blackman’s “talented amateur” Cathy Gale.Clad in her trademark leather catsuits and ‘kinky boots’, Gale was a…2 min
Total Film|June 2022FRESH SPINSThis is going to be epic…THE NORTHMAN★★★★★Arty electro-composers Robin Carolan/Sebastian Gainsborough rough it epically for Robert Eggers’ Nordic bruiser. Archaic instruments (‘säckpipa’, anyone?) swarm amid chest-beating drums, dissonant horns, textured strings and agitated yelps, issued with taut pacing and attack-mode immediacy. A binding main cue (‘The King’) and flashes of spectral beauty (‘Seeress’) enrich the maelstroms of sound, before ‘Ættartré’ provides a reflective closer: vital counter-balance to a score of immense punch and fine-grain detail.EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE★★★★☆No strangers to experi-pop’s outer limits, US trio Son Lux bring dash and dynamism to the Daniels’ multiverse carnival. After Mitski/ David Byrne’s sweetly sincere ‘This Is A Life’, all bets are off: across 110 minutes, SL twist Chinese drums, strings, chorales and more into febrile shapes, structured around variably tender/tumultuous core…1 min
Total Film|June 2022ETERNAL THREADS★★★★☆OUT NOW PCIn a future where time travel has created catastrophic ripples in the past, an operative is sent back in time to ensure six friends survive a house fire. Watching the events of the week before, you must subtly manipulate seemingly minor choices, each having an effect on the characters’ actions. The result is a fascinating blend of soap opera and sci-fi, with far-reaching consequences to your temporal meddling – including an exhilarating bonus ending if you achieve the optimal fates for all six.WARNER BROS GAMES. NINTENDO. SECRET MODE. EELLOW TRAVELLER. DEVOLVER DIGITAL. MAHDI BAHRAMI…1 min
Total Film|June 2022SOFIA COPPOLA: FOREVER YOUNG★★★★☆ HANNAH STRONG ABRAMS BOOKSReceived opinion defines Sofia Coppola’s output as a cinema of indolent privilege, hazy and apolitical. A more searching tack emerges from journalist Hannah Strong’s monograph, which takes the “piercing honesty” in SoCop’s work as a cue to deliver highly personal insights into her deceptively personal filmography.Beginning with a first-person account of her own teenage struggles, Strong frames Coppola’s work as an empathetic cinema of growing up. After detailing Coppola’s early forays into acting, photography and music videos – and conceding that the name opened doors – Strong finds a sure expression of this in The Virgin Suicides, where Coppola’s keen grasp of young female experience cuts through a gauzy aesthetic.From here, Strong zeroes in on Coppola’s evocations of emotions and lives in motion – lives caught…1 min
Total Film|June 2022FILMMAKERS ON FILM★★★☆☆DAVID JENKINS LAURENCE KINGFrom Cocteau to Cameron, Fassbender to Fincher, Jenkins selects 50 favourite directors, deftly unpicking the ways they “create, craft and communicate”. While the pocket summations run a little prone to cliché, fine interviews with Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Mia Hansen-Løve and others sharpen the pitch. Astute entries on cultists such as Vrěa Chytilová and Christine Molloy/Joe Lawlor prove equally welcome, arming a punchy primer with plenty of reach.PICTURELUX / THE HOLLYWOOD ARCHIVE / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO. ABRAMS.BFI PUBLISHING. BLOOMSBURY. PENGUIN. TITAN. LAURENCE KING.HQ, BLACK SHUCK…1 min
Total Film|June 2022ON LOCATIONWHAT? Americans in Tokyo, Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson) and Bob (Bill Murray), get their karaoke – and liminal romance – on, complete with wigs, sake and howled versions of The Pretenders and Roxy Music in Lost In Translation.WHERE? Karaoke-Kan, 30-8 Udagawacho, Shibuya, Tokyo, JapanGO? Ask for Room 601 to get the Lost In Translation vibe going; that wallpaper is still there, so you can slump against your are-they-aren’t-they? buddy while gazing out at the Shibuya neon.…1 min
Total Film|June 2022THE GOOD DINOSAURWhy it was a good idea (on paper)Mounting a nifty what-if (…dinosaurs didn’t go extinct) premise on top of a weepie storyline amid wondrous feats of worldbuilding, Pixar seemed set to soar again. With Up co-director Bob Peterson directing, surely the studio’s latest attractions would drive kids out of their minds.What went wrong?After struggles with the plot, The Good Dinosaur’s founding creators lasted as long as a lawyer in a T-rex break-out. Peterson decamped to work on Tomorrowland; codirector Peter Sohn took over. Out went producer John Walker; in came Cars 2’s Denise Ream to help reimagine what she called a “complicated” storyline. As characters changed, voice leads were replaced. With Pixar already under scrutiny following Brave and the Cars/Monsters sequels, press commentators hovered like pterodactyls, talking ominously of “ballooning…2 min
Total Film|June 2022CALL SHEETTHIS ISSUE’S EXTRASDEPUTY EDITORMATT MAYTUM@MATTMAYTUMDanny Boyle had just completed work on miniseries Pistol ahead of our chat. How did he relax on his first morning off? “I just sat watching Christopher Hitchens videos on YouTube!”NEWS EDITORJORDAN FARLEY@JORDANFARLEYWent to the cinema this month just to watch the trailer for Avatar: The Way Of Water. Now I know what everyone who went to a showing of The Siege to see the Phantom Menace trailer felt like.CONTRIBUTORANN LEE@_ANN_LEEAlicia Vikander was delightful! She told me her Irma Vep catsuit was made of silk velvet – great for outdoor night shoots, not so great when filming in the summer.CONTRIBUTING EDITORJAMES MOTTRAM@JAMESMOTTRAMI had the pleasure of jumping back on set for the first time in two years, watching filming in Glasgow on upcoming drama Borderland, with…1 min
Total Film|June 2022MARSH TIMESThe shoot was incredibly gruelling!” laughs Where The Crawdads Sing director Olivia Newman. Filming the adaptation of Delia Owens’s best-selling novel in New Orleans meant the cast and crew braved tornadoes, flooded sets and scorching heat. “We had every kind of weather obstacle you can imagine, and crazy bugs!”It was an endurance test, which somehow seemed fitting for a story about surviving against all odds. Where The Crawdads Sing revolves around a lonely young woman named Kya (Daisy Edgar-Jones), who is abandoned by her family and forced to fend for herself in the marshes of North Carolina. Cruelly nicknamed “the marsh girl” by people in the local town, she finds herself accused of murder after her ex-boyfriend Chase (Harris Dickinson) turns up dead.Reese Witherspoon loved the novel so much that…2 min
Total Film|June 2022CAN WE TALK ABOUT?SPOILER ALERT!JORDAN FARLEY@JORDANFARLEYSurprise! The Scarlet Witch is the secret villain of Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness. What isn’t surprising for a character that can manipulate matter with a flick of her wrist, is that the consequences are brutal.Across the multiverse, the Scarlet Witch spends the Strange sequel imploding, exploding, incinerating, disintegrating, breaking, bifurcating and fatally elongating anyone who gets in her way, from canon-fodder wizards in Kamar-Taj, to John Krasinski’s Reed Richards and his fellow Illuminati council members in the film’s most noteworthy bloodbath.For a Marvel movie, it’s shocking stuff – all the more so given these acts are committed by a character we’ve been invited to sympathise with across seven films and a dedicated series. While Wanda’s (re)turn to supervillainy was set up by the final moments…2 min
Total Film|June 2022SOUND BYTES“IT’S GOING TO TAKE SOME TIME [TO REPLACE DANIEL CRAIG].”DON’T EXPECT A NEW 007 ANYTIME SOON, ACCORDING TO BARBARA BROCCOLI.2 THE NUMBER OF WICKED MOVIES IN THE WORKS FOLLOWING NEWS THAT JON M.CHU’S MUSICAL ADAPTATION WILL BE SPLIT INTO TWO PARTS.“IT WOULD HAVE BEEN THE OLDER, MORE RASPY [BATMAN] …MAYBE I’LL DO IT WHEN I’M 80!”BEFORE BATFLECK, JOSH BROLIN WAS UP FOR BRUCE WAYNE IN BATMAN V SUPERMAN.“I called Harvey ‘Pops’ from day one, which I’m sure helped; you’re not going to wank on that.”SIENNA MILLER NEVER RECEIVED UNWANTED ATTENTION FROM HARVEY WEINSTEIN.240 THE NUMBER OF ‘UNIQUE CHARACTERS’ (MOSTLY BACKGROUND) THAT WILL FEATURE IN SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE.“HE HAD AN OXYGEN TANK AND HE JUST KIND OF HELD MY BOOB, BECAUSE THAT WAS IN THE SCRIPT.”NATASHA LYONNE’S STRANGE EXPERIENCE ACTING…1 min
Total Film|June 2022NEXT BIG THINGEMMA APPLETON …IS BEING PUNK’DTeenage model Emma Appleton transitioned smoothly into acting and scored major roles in BBC3 drama Clique and Channel 4’s Traitors. She played Princess Renfri in two episodes of The Witcher, and is next up in Danny Boyle’s six-part miniseries Pistol, as Sid Vicious’ girlfriend and all-round ‘70s punk icon Nancy Spungen.Was it scary or thrilling to play Nancy?All of the above, and more. I was mainly so excited to have a go at interpreting Nancy. We see a different side of her in this story – a much more well-rounded take on her personality, and why she is the way she is, and her relationship with Sid, and with herself.Had you seen Chloe Webb’s take in Sid And Nancy?A very long time ago, and it’s wonderful.…2 min
Total Film|June 2022Alicia VikanderHow would you describe Mira?She’s transformative, multi-layered and surprising, hopefully. She is someone who is very open to magical experiences. She believes in the magic of cinema and moves into that universe of making films. I’ve tried to think as we were making this series, what is it about, and it’s really an homage to filmmaking.How did you get involved in Irma Vep?I met [Olivier Assayas] seven years ago. I was a big admirer of his films. We ended up talking about cinema for hours. Since then, every time we passed through the same city, we’d meet up. We became friends. He told me about this project and asked if I wanted to be part of it. I didn’t think twice. I really wanted to be part of it, even…1 min
Total Film|June 2022ON THE ROADWomen have lives as vivid – and inner lives as complex – as men do, ” says director Emer Reynolds, a documentary filmmaker and editor who makes her narrative feature debut with Joyride. “Traditionally, we have only seen it on screen in the odd instance, but now more films are beginning to embrace all of the colours: women as psycho killers, women as mothers, and everything in between.”A road-trip movie set in Kerry, Joyride explores the uneasy friendship that develops between middle-aged Joy (Olivia Colman), who’s about to give away her newborn baby, and teenage scamp Mully (Charlie Reid). Fate decrees that this odd couple – and the infant – find themselves stuck together in a car that Mully has ‘borrowed’. They have a fixed destination to reach, but their…2 min
Total Film|June 2022EXTINCTION REBELLIONIn a lot of ways, Jurassic Park was kind of an unfranchiseable idea, ” muses Colin Trevorrow. “It’s set in a single place, and people return to this place, time and again, to learn the same lesson. Other franchises have the luxury of, in many cases, characters we’ve known for decades, and an abundance of stories that can be told either all around the world, or in multiple galaxies or multiverses.” He chuckles. “I’m very envious, to be honest.”Trevorrow knows what he’s talking about. Having rebooted the Jurassic Park franchise by directing and co-writing Jurassic World in 2015, a full 14 years after Jurassic Park III turned the original trilogy’s roar into a whimper with its abrupt conclusion, he co-wrote 2018’s Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and is now back on…18 min
Total Film|June 2022DEWANDA WISENEW KID ON THE BLOCK #2What can you tell us about your character Kayla Watts?She’s former Air Force, and we find her in this underground dinosaur world. Kayla loves money. She will transport things and she doesn’t need to know what they are. I love her dearly. I’m super-excited for the world to meet her.How was it meeting the legacy actors?Laura really was ahead of the curve when it came to what it meant to be a woman in a blockbuster, and not one that was necessarily like a character whose name was changed from a man to a woman.Did you talk to her about that when you bubbled in the hotel?I don’t think so, because we were talking about real things. You know, her daughter was there, my husband…1 min
Total Film|June 2022AMERRICAN TRILOGYHow am I?” asks director Baz Luhrmann when Total Film catches up with the Aussie filmmaker in an LA editing suite as he races to finish his latest opus in time for a bow at the Cannes Film Festival. “For a man who doesn’t get tired, I’m tired.” Having just battled a bout of Covid while finalising the mix of his film, Luhrmann is on the final furlong of a long journey with Elvis Presley that, on reflection, he’s been on since his childhood.Growing up in Heron’s Creek in New South Wales where his dad ran the projector at the local cinema, Luhrmann was brought up on weekend matinees of Elvis’ studio pics. “As a kid, I just thought he was the coolest, ” he recalls of his first exposure…10 min
Total Film|June 2022TASMANIAN DEVILIN APRIL 1996, IN PORT ARTHUR, a coastal town on the island of Tasmania, the unthinkable happened. A young man named Martin Bryant entered a waterside cafe and started shooting indiscriminately, before turning on those in a nearby gift shop and car park. In total, he killed 35 people, wounding a further 23. It remains the worst mass murder in Australian history. “That day – and what happened – is something that’s really hard to discuss, ” says director Justin Kurzel, scrambling for words when Total Film meets him in a leafy Cannes garden to unpack his new film Nitram.Kurzel is no stranger to violence in his movies: like his blood-soaked takes on Macbeth, videogame Assassin’s Creed or mythic Aussie outlaw Ned Kelly in True History Of The Kelly Gang.…8 min
Total Film|June 2022DANNY BOYLE“I’VE LEARNED HOW MUCH I OWE TO THE SENSIBILITY OF PUNK.”When Total Film catches up with Danny Boyle via Zoom one Monday in April, he’s at home in Mile End having just completed his work on miniseries Pistol, which charts the incendiary rise of the Sex Pistols in the ’70s. “You’re never quite finished, ” he says at the top of our conversation. “But we finished, officially, on Friday afternoon.” Directing all six episodes was no small task. “It’s like mixing three films, one after another after another. I mean, my ears are still ringing. I’m a bit numb, really.”It’s not surprising that it’s still reverberating around his head. Entering the band through the viewpoint of guitarist Steve Jones, Pistol also encompasses the broader punk scene, featuring icons like Malcolm…19 min
Total Film|June 2022MEN TBC★★★★★ OUT 1 JUNE CINEMASDIRECTOR Alex Garland STARRING Jessie Buckley, Rory Kinnear, Paapa Essiedu, Gayle Rankin SCREENPLAY Alex Garland DISTRIBUTOR A24 RUNNING TIME 100 mins (tbc)Alex Garland, maestro of brainy sci-fi thrillers such as Ex Machina and Annihilation, takes a triumphant dive into freaky British folk horror with this surreally gorgeous psychological shocker. A wildly ambitious and provocative piece, it sets fear bubbling up when Jessie Buckley’s newly widowed Harper arrives for a country break in a picturebook English village, after the violent death of her husband.Outwardly calm, Buckley’s delicate portrayal shows Harper roiling inwardly, as searing flashbacks of James’ body freefalling past their apartment windows flood her with haunting guilt. But while Harper seeks healing in nature, the village reveals its horrifying face. Ten of them in fact, all…2 min
Total Film|June 2022CHA CHA REAL SMOOTH TBC★★★★☆OUT 17 JUNE APPLE TV+DIRECTOR Cooper Raiff STARRING Cooper Raiff, Dakota Johnson, Evan Assante, Vanessa Burghardt, Leslie Mann SCREENPLAY Cooper Raiff DISTRIBUTOR Apple RUNNING TIME 107 minsThe sickeningly talented writer/director/producer/star Cooper Raiff was just 22 years old when his debut sh*thouse (retitled Freshman Year in the UK) won the top prize at South By Southwest. Two years on, he’s back donning all four hats with Cha Cha Real Smooth, a swivel-hipped crowd-pleaser that danced its way to the Audience Award at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.Freshman Year was a romantic comedy-drama that saw Raiff play a lost college student who forms a connection with his resident assistant. Cha Cha Real Smooth is a romantic comedy-drama that sees Raiff play a lost graduate who forms a connection with a local mum.…2 min
Total Film|June 2022DUAL TBC★★★☆☆ OUT 5 JUNE SKY CINEMA/NOWImagine The Hunger Games directed by Jim Jarmusch and you’ll have some idea of the bone-dry sensibility Riley Stearns (Faults, The Art Of Self-Defense) brings to his latest oddball feature.Set in an alt-America where identical doppelgängers can be ordered and delivered in the time it takes to upgrade a phone, this cool (in all senses of the word) dystopian satire explores what happens when the human ‘original’ no longer has need for their cloned simulacrum. The answer, of course, is a duel to the death. In this Darwinian future, it’s the law that only one version of each person can be permitted to exist.That’s a big problem for Sarah (Karen Gillan) who, having learned the terminal illness with which she’s been diagnosed isn’t so terminal…1 min
Total Film|June 2022EARWIG TBC★★★☆☆ OUT 10 JUNE CINEMASFollowing Innocence (2004) and Evolution (2015), arthouse favourite Lucile Hadzihalilovic’s third feature is another uniquely strange concoction, telling an eerie story about a girl who has melting ice for teeth. Mia (Romane Hemelaers) lives with the eponymous ‘Earwig’ (Paul Hilton), who drains and refreezes the teeth and reports daily to a sinister, mysterious employer on the telephone. It’s all rather self-indulgent and glacially paced, filled with prolonged, dialogue-free stretches. But some of the surreal sights and sense of nightmare logic prove just as chilling as Mia’s gnashers.LIONSGATE, ANTI-WORLDS RELEASING, REVOLUTION CINEMA, SIGNATURE, BOHEMIA MEDIA, ALTITUDE, MODERN FILMS, MUBI…1 min
Total Film|June 2022LAST LOOKS TBC★★★☆☆ OUT 10 JUNE DIGITAL 13 JUNE DVDSitcom helmer Tim Kirkby (Fleabag, Veep) turns to SoCal crime in this overindulgent but fitfully enjoyable noir-com. Charlie Hunnam leads beard-first as Waldo, an ex-cop living off-grid who leaves retirement to investigate a Hollywood case of suspected uxoricide. With Howard Michael Gould’s knotty script operating to P.I. genre rules, the cast both break and make this case. While Mel Gibson grates as extravagantly hammy thesp Alastair Pinch, Hunnam compensates nicely: with loose-limbed charm, the Sons Of Anarchy star navigates the script’s quirk-laden convolutions with the requisite ease.LIONSGATE, ANTI-WORLDS RELEASING, REVOLUTION CINEMA, SIGNATURE, BOHEMIA MEDIA, ALTITUDE, MODERN FILMS, MUBI…1 min
Total Film|June 2022LEAVE NO TRACES TBC★★★☆☆ OUT 10 JUNE CINEMASPolish director Jan P. Matuszynski dramatises, in painstaking detail, the events surrounding the 1983 killing by Communist police of 18-year-old Warsaw student Grzegorz Przemyk, witnessed here by his friend Jurek (Tomasz Ziętek). Shot in grainy 16mm and utilising a murky palette of browns and greys, this purposefully oppressive account reveals the chilling methods adopted by the authorities to deny justice to the victim’s loved ones. However, the sheer number of characters – some historical, others invented – and narrative threads dilutes some of the film’s dramatic power.…1 min
Total Film|June 2022BERGMAN ISLAND TBC★★★☆☆ OUT 3 JUNE CINEMASIngmar Bergman’s gloomily majestic movies are still the pinnacle of arthouse achievement to many cinephiles. No wonder, then, that nervy director Chris (a thoughtful Vicky Krieps) is seized with crippling writer’s block when on a retreat at Bergman’s hallowed Fårö island house, as her passionless marriage to Tim Roth’s more successful director Tony implodes.However, writer/director Mia Hansen-Løve, known for her delicate dissections of emotional crises in Father Of My Children (2009) and Things To Come (2016), can’t resist popping a confusing movie-within-a movie into the mix, to mirror her heroine’s secret longings. Suddenly, Chris’ stalled script, a jagged little holiday romance between Mia Wasikowska’s moody, unhappily married film director and her long-lost love (Anders Danielsen Lie), comes to life in front of our eyes with Chris…1 min
Total Film|June 2022RHINO 18★★★☆☆ OUT NOW DIGITALOleh Sentsov’s grim drama traces the path of thick-skinned thug Vova (Serhii Filimonov) through Ukraine’s criminal underworld. From a virtuoso opening sequence that turns Vova’s childhood into a seamless, giddying whirl, to a near-unwatchable scene of violent, carpentry-based revenge, Rhino is a bruising, muscular piece of filmmaking. Yet writer/director Sentsov never digs as far beneath the surface of his blank-faced lead as you feel he could; beyond brief flickers of self-awareness, we’re given little reason to care very deeply about his apparent hopes of redemption.…1 min
Total Film|June 2022ELIZABETH: A PORTRAIT IN PARTS TBC★★★★☆ OUT 27 MAY CINEMAS 1 JUNE PRIME VIDEOOne British institution pays tribute to another in Roger Michell’s final film, a chronicle of the monarch’s 70-year reign that ambitiously seeks to find a fresh perspective on the most famous woman on the planet.Conceived by the late Notting Hill director as a lockdown space-filler, APIP may struggle to make its presence felt amid an expected wall-to-wall coverage of HM’s Diamond Jubilee. Those who seek it out, though, will be rewarded by an all-embracing, wide-ranging and pleasingly mischievous exploration of both who the Queen is and what she represents.Separated into 19 chapters, Michell’s doc recognises Liz is both one thing and many: a head of state and a family matriarch who’s both reassuringly familiar and curiously unknowable. Elizabeth takes a similarly protean…1 min
Total Film|June 2022ALL MY FRIENDS HATE ME TBC★★★☆☆ OUT 10 JUNE CINEMASDecent but f*ckless, Pete (Tom Stourton, also co-writer) is attending his 31st birthday gathering with some old uni muckers. As the timid birthday boy and his posh pals occupy a mansion, fractures show; the party-hearty crew gets wasted, Pete humblebrags about his charity work... Wobbling between promising and naggingly under-focused, TV director Andrew Gaynord’s debut feature is well played but overly elusive. A playful climax reveals hidden depths about friendships, but this otherwise nimble comedy struggles to land the emotional punch hoped for.PECCADILLO, SIGNATURE, MOVIEFARM, WARNER BROS, UNIVERSAL, MUBI…1 min
Total Film|June 2022PLEASURE 18DIRECTOR Ninja Thyberg STARRING Sofia Kappel, Revika Anne Reustle, Evelyn Claire, Chris co*ck, Dana DeArmond SCREENPLAY Ninja Thyberg, Peter Modestij DISTRIBUTOR Mubi RUNNING TIME 109 mins★★★★☆ OUT 17 JUNE CINEMAS, MUBIBusiness or pleasure?” a gum-chewing Swedish teen is asked at US passport control. “Pleasure, ” she responds firmly, already convinced that stardom is hers for the taking. This powerful, eye-popping tale about new-in-town Bella Cherry’s (Sofia Kappel) fast and furious ascent through the LA p*rn industry is all business, however.Expanded from a hit Cannes 2013 short, Pleasure, a graphic and often viscerally realistic study of adult-film production, may be the most shocking film of the year. Don’t rock up expecting glossy, triple-X titillation, though. Making her feature debut, director/co-writer Ninja Thyberg sweeps Bella straight into the flatly unglamorous world of…2 min
Total Film|June 2022STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN 12A1982 ★★★★★ OUT 17 JUNE CINEMASSometimes, it takes outsiders’ eyes to re-energise known IP. In 1979’s stylish but stiffened Star Trek: The Motion Picture, galloping around the cosmos had started – paraphrasing Kirk – to look like a game for the young. Enter writer Jack B. Sowards, exec producer Harve Bennett and director Nicholas Meyer, Trek newcomers who proved well-equipped to galvanise the Enterprise for its big-screen return.In place of its predecessor’s reverence, Wrath arrived as a roaring action-adventure. Sowards, Bennett and Meyer saw what they had to work with clearly and, crucially, played those pieces to maximum advantage. Making no bones about the crew’s age, they also dived deep into Federation archives to resurrect vengeful, fanatical exile and ubervillain Khan, played by Ricardo Montalbán from the chest.Despite Meyer’s struggle…1 min
Total Film|June 2022DOUBLE INDEMNITY PG1944 ★★★★★ OUT 30 MAY BD EXTRAS ★★★★★ Commentary, Documentaries, Featurettes, Radio plays, BookletAdapted from James M. Cain’s 1943 novel, Double Indemnity wasn’t the first example of what would later become known as film noir. But Billy Wilder’s masterful cinematic tale of seduction, greed and murder was undoubtedly the genre’s first true masterpiece and quickly became an urtext for other filmmakers. As film scholar Eddie Muller puts it, “If I have one movie to show people to explain what film noir is, it’s Double Indemnity.”Given how influential it proved, it’s easy to miss how revolutionary Wilder’s film was. While most of its contemporaries follow detectives solving crimes, Double Indemnity essentially does away with sleuths (although Edward G. Robinson’s insurance adjuster fulfils a similar function), focusing its attention on the story’s…1 min
Total Film|June 2022PSYCHO 151960 ★★★★★ OUT 27 MAY CINEMASSeveral sequels. A prequel TV series. A shot-for-shot remake. Even a 24-hour frame-by-frame art exhibit. Is there anybody left who doesn’t know what happens in Alfred Hitchco*ck’s most famous – and most influential – movie?Here’s your chance to put that familiarity to one side. Now back in cinemas, you can watch it as Hitch intended – nay, demanded. “It is required that you see Psycho from the very beginning, ” ordered the film’s revolutionary ad campaign, the zenith of the director’s career-long project to pin audiences helplessly to their seats.On every level, he did it. As the foundation stone for the slasher genre, Psycho finds horror in the everyday, via a new kind of cinematic monster. As narrative sleight-of-hand, it remains unparalleled, shifting perspective from…1 min
Total Film|June 2022EXTRASVARIOUSLIGHTYEAR MERCHANDISEOUT NOWLego, Funkos, arm blasters, training visors, plushies, scooters, buckets; you can even get Buzz Lightyear action figures! Yes, the list of tie-ins stretches… dunno, what’s a neat phrase meaning ‘a long way’? We’re particularly intrigued by the super-squishy Goo Jit Zu dolls – should be handy stress-relievers when the kids demand to have two of everything, plus spares. Available from retailers galaxy-wide.VARIOUSDOCTOR STRANGE MERCHANDISEOUT NOWBehold the multiverse of merch, where icons have been recast as curiously pliable plastic effigies – or action figures – and you can become a Strange variant yourself thanks to a wearable cloak throw (more suited to lounging than levitation, TBH). And gaze in disbelief at the heat-changing mug, which may only be activated by the solemn incantation, “Put the kettle on, will ya?”…1 min
Total Film|June 2022LEGO STAR WARS: THE SKYWALKER SAGA★★★★☆ OUT NOW PC, PS4/5, SWITCH, XBOX ONE/SERIESThe last Lego game from Traveller’s Tales came out in 2019. In a medium that moves at such a rapid pace, that may as well be a galaxy far, far away. Yet The Skywalker Saga has clearly benefited from the long wait for its arrival. Given distance from the disappointment of The Rise Of Skywalker, it feels more like the celebratory sign-off Episode IX should have been.With nine films to cover, it’s quick to get to the best bits of each – though if you start from the prequels it takes a while to find its feet, with The Phantom Menace’s climactic lightsaber fight bafflingly before the Battle of Naboo has even begun. Otherwise, embellishments are shrewdly judged, with an expanded version of…1 min
Total Film|June 2022CITIZEN SLEEPER★★★★☆OUT NOW PC, SWITCH, XBOX ONE/SERIESThis absorbing RPG casts you as a digitised human consciousness in a steadily decaying artificial body, living on an abandoned space station. At the start of each cycle, you apportion dice to activities; from salvaging scrap to hacking databases, the lower the score, the riskier the job. The gig-economy grind can be bleak when your daily roll leaves you with ones and twos, but sharp writing ensures you’ll feel solidarity with your fellow scavengers: behind the austere exterior beats a warm, generous heart.WARNER BROS GAMES. NINTENDO. SECRET MODE. EELLOW TRAVELLER. DEVOLVER DIGITAL. MAHDI BAHRAMI…1 min
Total Film|June 2022AURORA★★★★☆DAVID KOEPP HQScreenwriter Koepp (Jurassic Park, Spider-Man, Kimi) returns with his second novel a nimble thriller set in a world rocked by Covid and now facing an even bigger catastrophe. A CME (coronal mass ejection) belches from the sun, causing electromagnetic chaos on Earth. As a billionaire, his sister, her wastrel ex-husband and several others cope (or not) in the aftermath of electrical outage, Koepp elegantly depicts societal collapse. Taut, terrifying and sure to have you stashing supplies ASAP.PICTURELUX / THE HOLLYWOOD ARCHIVE /ALAMY STOCK PHOTO. ABRAMS.BFI PUBLISHING. BLOOMSBURY. PENGUIN. TITAN. LAURENCE KING.HQ. BLACK SHUCK…1 min
Total Film|June 20223 MORE100 BIBLE FILMS★★★★☆Following strict inclusion criteria, Matthew Page’s exhaustively researched BFI screen guide runs from 1898’s The Life And Passion Of Jesus Christ to 2020’s Lamentations Of Judas, showcasing how the world’s best-known book has long influenced a diversity of filmmakers.STAR WARS: BROTHERHOOD★★★☆☆Sci-fi novelist Mike Chen takes a throwaway line from Episode III (“That business on Cato Neimoidia”) and spins it into a diverting romp that allows us to enjoy Anakin, Obi-Wan and Padmé enjoying each other, for once.STAR WARS: LEGION★★★★☆Stormtrooper helmets on parade, customised by pro artists in ways that are cute, cheeky, ingenious and unexpected (Tommy Storm-Cooper, anyone?). Have a go yourself with the blank bonce that’s included.PICTURELUX / THE HOLLYWOOD ARCHIVE / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO. ABRAMS.BFI PUBLISHING. BLOOMSBURY. PENGUIN. TITAN. LAURENCE KING.HQ, BLACK SHUCK…1 min
Total Film|June 2022BOATS IN MOVIESTITANICThe titular transatlantic steamer is the ‘ship of dreams’ but turns into a nightmare for posh Rose and her bit of rough, Jack. Not before they’ve wing-spanned on the prow and steamed up a car below decks, mind. Don’t come knocking if the Coupé De Ville’s rocking…DEAD CALMA grieving couple sailing their 80ft ketch round the Pacific have the sad knocked out of them by a run-in with an unhinged sailor. A real-life race winner before its star turn, the vessel shows its speed during a tense sail-by rescue as Nicole Kidman plucks Sam Neill from the waves.THE AFRICAN QUEENBogey’s grumpy captain is proud of his clapped-out 30ft steamboat that transports missionary Rose (Katharine Hepburn) to safety through East Africa during WW1. Two boats were used to portray the ship…2 min
Total Film|June 2022CAR FOR SALEFILM: SMOKEY AND THE BANDITVEHICLE: 1977 PONTIACFIREBIRD TRANS AMYEAR: 19771977 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am in black with gold accents and a CB radio for calling all friendly truckers, sex workers and dune buggy clubs. 6.6-litre engine for getting the jump on ‘Smokey’, black leather interior and T-top roof to accommodate driver’s stetson. Decent mileage on the clock due to previous owners’ cross-country beer trips but still in great condition despite off-road driving and river jumping. Tyres will need replacing due to wear from donuts, j-turns, skids and burning rubber starts. Perfect for road trips from Georgia to Texas and back, in 28 hours flat… Put your pedal to the metal and your foot to the floor. 10-4?“PLAIN TALKING THIS MONTH WATER BOTTLE TOURWhen agents/managers set up their clients for a…1 min
Total Film|June 2022DriveStunt driver by day, getaway driver by night, the nameless hero of Drive lives or dies by his skills behind the wheel. It is appropriate, then, that a car journey should play a key role in the making of this modern classic, one that served as a crucial ice-breaker for its putative director and prospective leading man.Having made his name in Europe with his hard-hitting Pusher trilogy, Viking saga Valhalla Rising and unconventional biopic Bronson, Danish helmer Nicolas Winding Refn was keen to have another stab at Hollywood. (His first attempt, 2003’s Fear X, had been such a failure it left him virtually bankrupt.) Dying Of The Light, a Paul Schrader script about a CIA agent losing his sight, had piqued his interest. Having jetted to LA to work on…8 min
Total Film|June 2022MAD MAX: FURY ROAD’S POLE-CATSWith Mad Max: Fury Road, Australian filmmaker George Miller swerved CGI wherever possible and instead raised the bar for in-camera set-pieces. He then pole-vaulted clean over that bar by introducing the kamikaze inhabitants of Gas Town – think Cirque du Soleil performers, only with a leather fetish and doing their stunts from the top of a tanker travelling at 50mph.The pole-cats spring into action in the climactic chase sequences, when the War Rig races back towards the Citadel carrying Max, Furiosa and members of the Vuvalini. A fleet of souped-up vehicles pull alongside and the tanker is boarded by death-defying nutters swinging atop 40ft poles.The high-altitude brain behind this sequence was action unit director Guy Norris, who first worked with Miller 34 years previous on Mad Max 2. But it…2 min
Total Film|June 2022STRANGER DANGERIt’s the tortured who torture…” says Ethan Hawke, clearly still deeply uncomfortable about playing his first bad guy. “Broken people break people.” Talking to Total Film about his difficult decision to take on the role of masked child-murderer the Grabber in Scott Derrickson’s coming-of-age horror The Black Phone, Hawke remembered all the good reasons he’d turned down other villain offers in the past.“I mean, it’s just a very difficult place to put your imagination in, ” says Hawke, speaking before he muddied his reputation even more in Marvel’s Moon Knight. “Macbeth is a great example. It’s Shakespeare’s horror film. When you perform that play it’s like an incantation for madness, and it kind of teaches your mind what it’s like to think that way. I’ve been doing this job since…2 min
Total Film|June 2022TANGLED WEBFresh off Top Gun: Maverick, director Joseph Kosinski has something smaller-scale but no less ambitious in his crosshairs. Work began on Spiderhead – adapted from George Saunders’ short story by Deadpool screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick – when the much-delayed Maverick was finished in summer 2020.“It is much more contained, which is not only creatively interesting coming off of Top Gun, but also from a practical point of view, it allowed us to shoot it in the heart of the pandemic, ” Kosinski tells Teasers. The film was shot in Australia’s Gold Coast, converting a then-unused sports arena into a soundstage.“In its tone, it’s much more idiosyncratic, ” Kosinski continues. “It’s a film that you can’t categorise in any box.” Spiderhead is the story of a “brilliant visionary” Steve…2 min
Total Film|June 2022PRIMAL FEARTalk about a success story. After his DIY Zoom-séance movie Host became a smash during lockdown, Brit director Rob Savage signed a three-picture deal with Blumhouse Productions. The first film of the package, Dashcam, shares DNA with Host and is out this month (see our verdict in the Reviews section). The second is something very different and extremely exciting.“It’s amazing, ” says Savage, who still can’t quite believe he’s adapting The Boogeyman from Stephen King’s 1978 collection of short stories, Night Shift, which has already given film fans Children Of The Corn, Cat’s Eye and Maximum Overdrive. “I can barely say anything, but I can say that it’s going to be a f*cking great movie. We’ve got the best cast [David Dastmalchian, Sophie Thatcher, Chris Messina, LisaGay Hamilton], and we’ve…2 min
Total Film|June 2022BROTHERHOOD OF MANThis is a Chris Pratt you’ve never seen, ” enthuses David DiGilio, the writer/showrunner behind The Terminal List, the new serialised adaptation of Jack Carr’s hit novel about a Navy SEAL out for revenge after his mission goes dangerously south. Pratt may be no stranger to the SEALs, after featuring in Osama bin Laden drama Zero Dark Thirty. But, says DiGilio, Pratt has never played a character like James Reece.“I would describe him as an unreliable narrator with an unbelievable skillset. And so this is a man who is fighting demons, he can’t trust his memory, but he can always trust his instinct. And it is a very dark, dramatic role for Chris to play, and he is exceptional. It is a man who is really searching for order out…2 min
Total Film|June 2022DI OF THE BEHOLDERFrom Kristen Stewart in Spencer and Emma Corrin in The Crown to the Razzie-sweeping Diana: The Musical, there’s been no end of Dis over the last couple of years. According to director Ed Perkins, however, it’s still worth looking back on her tumultuous life and times – provided, of course, it “brings something new to the conversation.”Boldly eschewing expert punditry, an omniscient narrator and a quarter-century of hindsight, The Princess instead employs the VT of the time to tell Diana’s story: the one that began in 1981 with Di’s engagement to Prince Charles, spanned both a fairytale wedding and a bitter divorce and ended 16 years later with a tragic car crash in a Parisian underpass. It’s a saga, says the director of 2019 documentary Tell Me Who I Am…2 min
Total Film|June 2022FANGIRL POWER‘I only auditioned because was a huge Marvel fan, ” laughs Iman Vellani, the 19-year-old newcomer cast in the title role of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s latest Disney+ series. It’s April and Vellani is Zooming with Total Film from her childhood bedroom in Markham, Ontario, Canada. “The only thing I would talk about is Marvel, Marvel, Marvel – specifically Iron Man. That little corner is totally an Iron Man shrine.” She signals to a red-and-gold hued patch on a wall plastered with posters (mostly Marvel, but Portrait Of A Woman On Fire can be glimpsed in the mix).It’s appropriate that Vellani’s a full-on Marvel fangirl, as the character she’s bringing to the MCU is a superfan of the Avengers (particularly Captain Marvel); Kamala Khan avidly follows her idols’ exploits in…11 min
Total Film|June 2022SHAKE, RATTLE ‘N’ ROLEWhat was the process in getting Austin ready to play Elvis?It involves a lot more than you might expect. It’s not just the movement that you see in performances. When I’m working with an actor – especially when they’re playing somebody that’s already well known – the biggest thing is that anyone could sit and watch Elvis Presley over and over again and then do a version of what he does, that’s possible. But that takes us into the world of impersonation and mimicry. The work that I do is to try to find out why those movements happen. And that means going right back to the beginning of who Elvis is as a person. That’s looking into a childhood. It’s history. It’s heritage. My question was always: “Why is…3 min
Total Film|June 2022BOXED IN?The revolution has been televised. With more shows on offer than ever before, and with more money now being pumped into making them, the blurry line between TV and movies has almost disappeared completely.Last year, the estimated number of adult scripted original series in production rose to 559 across broadcast TV and streaming services. Netflix, Amazon and Disney+ now share over half a billion subscribers worldwide, topping a growing list of 42 different Subscription Video On Demand (SVOD) services that each currently have over a million paying customers.According to Ofcom, the average adult now spends five hours and 40 minutes a day in front of a TV – making up nearly a third of our waking hours. And we’re not just watching rubbish either.As the likes of Star Wars, The…11 min
Total Film|June 2022FIVE STAR TURNSTRAINSPOTTING 1996Debut Shallow Grave turned heads two years earlier, but Boyle’s adap of Irvine Welsh’s hip, scabrous tale of Edinburgh junkies was an adrenalin injection of style and substance (abuse). “Clockwork Orange for the ’90s, ” purred Variety.28 DAYS LATER 2002US incursions A Life Less Ordinary and The Beach didn’t exactly soar, but this DV-shot, UK-set zombie – sorry, rage-virus – flick was fast and furious, with real bite. “Social intolerance is everywhere, ” said Boyle, presciently.SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE 2008A feelgood movie featuring extreme poverty and subtitles? Boyle had to fight for his vision of a Mumbai teen (Dev Patel) winning the Indian version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? His reward was eight Oscars.127 HOURS 2011The true story of Aron Ralston (James Franco), who in 2003 went canyoning, was…1 min
Total Film|June 2022A-HA: THE MOVIE 12A★★★★☆ OUT NOW CINEMASNearly four decades after they first stormed the charts, Norwegian trio Morten Harket, Pal Waaktaar and Magne Furuholmen – or a-ha, as they’re better known – get their own access-all-areas documentary. The band who gave us ‘Take On Me’, ‘The Sun Always Shines On TV’ and Bond theme song ‘The Living Daylights’ were enormous in the ’80s, but producer/director Thomas Robsahm’s movie is no mere nostalgia trip back to the time of big hits, big hair and ripped jeans.Robsahm takes an insightful look at how the band survived early pop superstardom – weathering splits, solo projects and albums (such as 1990’s East Of The Sun, West Of The Moon) that didn’t jive with the public. While there’s plenty of footage from the early days, the film also…1 min
Total Film|June 2022EVERYTHING WENT FINE 15★★★★☆ OUT 17 JUNE CINEMAS, CURZON HOME CINEMAFrançois Ozon’s latest is an unsparing – but oddly uplifting – look at euthanasia. Based on a memoir by late screenwriter Emmanuèle Bernheim (Ozon’s Swimming Pool and 5x2), it tells of her struggle with her aged, ailing father after he demands to die via assisted suicide. Sophie Marceau and André Dussollier are perfectly cast in the lead roles, while Ozon takes the same pragmatic and intelligent approach as his 2018 Catholic Church drama By The Grace Of God. Eschewing ethical debate, it’s a fine film about enjoying life’s blessings.…1 min
Total Film|June 2022BETWEEN TWO WORLDS 12A★★★☆☆ OUT 27 MAY CINEMAS, CURZON HOME CINEMAJuliette Binoche stars in a Loachian drama from director Emmanuel Carrère, where writer Marianne goes undercover to explore the hardships experienced by cross-channel ferry cleaners. Adapted from Florence Aubenas’ non-fiction bestseller, the film earns legitimacy points by casting non-professional actors, one of whom (firebrand Hélène Lambert) is more than Binoche’s égale. Yet it muddies the waters with a plot that foregrounds its duplicitous protagonist’s ethical quandary at the expense of her subjects’ economic exploitation.…1 min
Total Film|June 2022ELEVEN DAYS IN MAY 18★★★★☆ OUT NOW CINEMASOn the anniversary of an 11-day barrage of Israeli military assaults on Palestinian territory in 2021 that left over 60 children dead, directors Mohammed Sawwaf and Michael Winterbottom visit the victims’ families, who share their raw recollections with the viewer, frequently breaking down before the camera. Overlaid are the accounts of many of these killings (narrated by Kate Winslet) accompanied by Max Richter’s ethereal score. Home videos from happier times are juxtaposed with harrowing footage of death and destruction. A rough, emotional and triggering watch, but a pertinent one.LIONSGATE, ANTI-WORLDS RELEASING, REVOLUTION CINEMA, SIGNATURE, BOHEMIA MEDIA, ALTITUDE, MODERN EILMS, MUBI…1 min
Total Film|June 2022LISTEN TBC★★★☆☆ OUT 10 JUNE CINEMASTwo poverty-stricken Portuguese parents (Lúcia Moniz, Ruben Garcia) living in London are thrown into a horrifying nightmare when the social services intervene after their Deaf daughter is found with bruises on her. As melodramatic as that sounds, writer/director Ana Rocha de Sousa strips back the histrionics to create a pared-down slice of Ken Loach-esque social realism. Co-starring Sophia Myles (as a fairy godmother gone rogue), Listen feels sketch-like, with little in the way of backstory. But ace performances and the film’s burning sense of injustice carry you through.LIONSGATE, ANTI-WORLDS RELEASING, REVOLUTION CINEMA, SIGNATURE, BOHEMIA MEDIA, ALTITUDE, MODERN FILMS, MUBI…1 min
Total Film|June 2022COP SECRET 15★★★☆☆ OUT NOW DIGITALYou’d expect a one-time national goalkeeper to be a safe pair of hands. And so it proves with Iceland’s Hannes Þór Halldórsson, who makes a confident directorial debut with this parodic actioner about two Reykjavík cops who fall in love on the job: closeted, hard-as-nails Bússi (Auðunn Blöndal) and clean-cut ex-model Hörður (Egill Einarsson). The central relationship adds a hom*oerotic frisson to proceedings, but in the main this goofy caper plays things pretty straight, with its fast-paced vehicular mayhem, frenetic shoot-outs and scenerychomping baddie (Björn Hlynur Haraldsson).…1 min
Total Film|June 2022EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE 15★★★★☆ OUT NOW CINEMASDIRECTORS Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert STARRING Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, Jamie Lee Curtis, Stephanie Hsu, James Hong SCREENPLAY Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert DISTRIBUTOR A24 RUNNING TIME 139 minsBetween flatulence and flurries of surrealism, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert’s Swiss Army Man (2016) told a slyly affecting, existential tale of life, death and friendship. For their second trick, the Daniels aren’t reining in the extremes. More sophom*ore surge than slump, Everything thrives in the push-pull between off-the-charts excess and grounding humanity.The result is a head trip, a riot – and a bit erratic. But, as with Swiss’ Daniel Radcliffe turn, the Daniels’ trump card is the exquisite anchorage their leads provide as everyday people juggling multiverses of responsibility, even before the actual multiverse arrives.Michelle Yeoh is Evelyn,…2 min
Total Film|June 2022FIRESTARTER 15★★★☆☆ OUT NOW CINEMASKeith Thomas follows his directorial debut The Vigil (2019) with a solid version of Stephen King’s 1980 novel about a young girl (Ryan Kiera Armstrong) gifted/cursed with powers of pyrokinesis, who flees with her dad (Zac Efron) when a secret government agency seeks to harvest her powers for their own ends. This new ’starter leans harder into the father/daughter dynamic than the previous Drew Barrymore-starring adap (1984). It also boasts a nifty keyboard-led score by Cody Carpenter and his famous dad John – who was fired from Firestarter in 1982 when a little film called The Thing flopped.…1 min
Total Film|June 2022UNPLUGGING 15★☆☆☆☆ OUT 13 JUNE DIGITALMatt Walsh and Eva Longoria muster all the warmth and sexual chemistry of a hostage situation in this dreary comedy about a couple who decide to spend a weekend away totally “off the grid”. Even at a slim 94 minutes, Unplugging is an incredible drag, suffering from such a dearth of ideas that it wastes time on snack-making montages, incoherent conspiracy plots and wordless scenes of people walking through fields. It’s entirely unclear whether the goal was to create a bawdy Farrelly brothers-style romp or a gentle indie comedy; either way, no one is laughing.PECCADILLO, SIGNATURE, MOVIEFARM, WARNER BROS, UNIVERSAL, MUBI…1 min
Total Film|June 2022CONSTANTINE: THE HOUSE OF MYSTERY 15★★☆☆☆ OUT NOW BD, DIGITALEXTRAS ★☆☆☆☆ FeaturetteMatt Ryan’s brooding occultist may be the title star of this latest DC animated outing, but in reality this is a compilation of four shorts, three of which (Kamandi, The Losers and Blue Beetle) already appeared as extras accompanying earlier animated DC releases. Unfortunately, as fun as those other shorts may be, the half-hour Constantine ‘toon is a dud; the repetitive and gory time-loop tale serving as an unnecessary and protracted reminder of the ‘grimdark’ New 52-era continuity the franchise has recently been well rid of.PECCADILLO, SIGNATURE, MOVIEFARM, WARNER BROS, UNIVERSAL, MUBI…1 min
Total Film|June 2022DOCTOR STRANGE IN THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS 12ADIRECTOR Sam Raimi STARRING Benedict Cumberbatch, Elizabeth Olsen, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Benedict Wong, Xochitl Gomez SCREENPLAY Michael Waldron DISTRIBUTOR Disney RUNNING TIME 126 mins★★★☆☆ OUT NOW CINEMASSet after the events of Spider-Man: No Way Home, in which a well-intentioned but misjudged spell by Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) opened portals to parallel universes, In The Multiverse Of Madness picks up multiple threads from the good Doctor’s solo movie, NWH and WandaVision in a complex crossover concoction that’s par for the course for Marvel fans, but bewildering for anyone who hasn’t been keeping up.There’s also a geekgasm crossover behind the scenes. Sam Raimi directs, returning to the comic-book-movie fold after his 2002-07 Spider-Man trilogy.The Evil Dead filmmaker’s fingerprints are evident in some jump scares and ghoulish images, but he never veers too far…2 min
Total Film|June 2022PICKPOCKET PG1959 ★★★★★ OUT 3 JUNE CINEMASA masterpiece of minimalism, Robert Bresson’s drama lasts only 76 minutes, stars a nonprofessional cast and includes lots of close-ups of hands. Yet its influence is incalculable: Taxi Driver is just one of many famous imitators. Inspired by Dostoevsky, it’s the story of Michel (Martin LaSalle), a loner who turns to petty theft to prove his intellectual superiority.Bresson insisted it wasn’t a thriller and, sure enough, it beguiles as a treatise on obsession, guilt and redemption. That said, watching the mesmerising, meditative intricacy of Michel at work is thrilling.SONY, CRITERION, STUDIOCANAL, ARROW, SECOND SIGHT, BFI, PARK CIRCUS, UNIVERSAL…1 min
Total Film|June 2022WILD THINGS 181998 ★★★★☆ OUT NOW BD, 4K UHD EXTRAS ★★★★☆ Extended cut, Commentaries, Making of, Featurettes, Outtakes, Gallery, Booklet, Poster, Art cards“I undertook this project to do a commercial film. And what do people like? Sex and violence, ” states director John McNaughton about his lurid neo-noir satire. While the film’s steamier scenes became its main talking point, a revisit courtesy of this sultry new 4K restoration reminds you just how smart and funny Wild Things is, the story piling outrageous twist on outrageous twist with warped genius. And it has a scenestealing turn from Bill Murray too – how many other erotic thrillers can you say that about? Hefty extras.SONY, CRITERION, STUDIOCANAL, ARROW, SECOND SIGHT, BFI, PARK CIRCUS, UNIVERSAL…1 min
Total Film|June 2022THE WITCH: LIMITED EDITION 152015 ★★★★☆ OUT NOW DUAL FORMAT EXTRAS ★★★★☆ Commentaries, Featurettes, Short film, Book, Art cardsMy greatest expectation was that it would get enough good reviews that someone would let me make another film, ” recalls writer/director Robert Eggers (The Northman) of his atmospheric feature debut, The Witch. Suffice to say, this 17th-century supernatural chiller, about a Puritan family’s descent into religious hysteria and terror, did all that and more, launching Eggers’ career and becoming one of the most acclaimed horror films of the past decade.Not that Eggers agrees with all of the plaudits heaped on The Witch over the years (“Even though I was proud of what I accomplished… to be a little frank, the film is a little bit overrated”). But those, like us, who do still rate the…1 min
Total Film|June 2022WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE’S ROMEO + JULIETVARIOUS CAPITOL RECORDSLong before Florence Welch contributed to 2013’s The Great Gatsby, she fell for an earlier Baz Luhrmann soundtrack. The film was 1996’s Romeo + Juliet, freely/faithfully remixed from Shakespeare and furnished with music to melt over. The result “dictated my whole teenage life”, says Welch, adding, “I think I’m still reeling from the effects of that movie.”Not just an album ‘of its moment’, then, R+J showed how a soundtrack can own its moment. Reconfiguring post-Tarantino soundtrack-as-playlist thinking for mid-’90s teenagers, Luhrmann (helped by producers Nellee Hooper/Marius de Vries and composer Craig Armstrong) hit his target audience heart-on. And if you were particularly receptive to the sight of Leonardo DiCaprio through a fish tank while Des’ree’s ‘I’m Kissing You’ plays, all the better.Eclectic yet era-specific, Luhrmann’s playlist built bridges…2 min
Total Film|June 2022NINTENDO SWITCH SPORTS★★★★☆OUT NOW SWITCHThough unlikely to match the seismic impact of Wii Sports, this sequel to Nintendo’s 2006 classic seems destined to become a Switch multiplayer favourite. Tennis and Bowling are largely unchanged, while Volleyball and Badminton’s change of pace justifies their inclusion. The swordplay of Chambara repurposes one of the best activities from 2009’s Wii Sports Resort, but it’s Soccer, with its fast-paced two-on-two action recalling Rocket League, that proves the standout.WARNER BROS GAMES. NINTENDO. SECRET MODE. EELLOW TRAVELLER. DEVOLVER DIGITAL. MAHDI BAHRAMI…1 min
Total Film|June 20222 MORETREK TO YOMI★★★☆☆OUT NOW PS4/5, XBOX ONE/X/S, PCThis Kurosawa-inspired samurai revenge tale certainly looks the part – between its chiaroscuro presentation and its cinematic framing, you’ll want to pause just to drink in the detail. Alas, its stilted swordfights let the side down, and there’s too little downtime between them for its tragic story to have the desired emotional impact.TANDIS★★★☆☆OUT NOW PCMahdi Bahrami’s compact puzzle game works best as an unconventional sculpting tool. The object is to transform geometric shapes into others, warping their form by manipulating their position and orientation on tabletop grids. Without hints it would be ludicrously difficult, but the ‘wrong’ solutions can sometimes produce something strikingly beautiful.WARNER BROS GAMES. NINTENDO. SECRET MODE. EELLOW TRAVELLER. DEVOLVER DIGITAL. MAHDI BAHRAMI…1 min
Total Film|June 2022TWILIGHT’S LAST SCREAMING★★★★☆SEAN HOGAN BLACK SHUCK BOOKSSome might describe this US-centric follow-up to the author’s previous metafictional history, England’s Screaming, as more of the same. But when ‘the same’ means more of Hogan’s imaginative melding of disparate horror films into a single cohesive canon – one capable of spinning an origin and ending for Jason Voorhees out of Cronenberg’s The Brood – it’s a cause for celebration. And if it means readers discover films they’d previously overlooked, so much the better.PICTURELUX / THE HOLLYWOOD ARCHIVE / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO. ABRAMS.BFI PUBLISHING. BLOOMSBURY. PENGUIN. TITAN. LAURENCE KING.HQ, BLACK SHUCK…1 min
Total Film|June 2022IS IT BOLLOCKS?THIS MONTH THE DUKE’S EASEL BUDDYQ The 1961 theft of Goya’s Duke Of Wellington portrait in The Duke sees the picture stolen from an easel, exposing ‘The Scream’ by Edvard Munch. True art or narrative forgery?A Tracy Jones, The National Gallery www.nationalgallery.org.uk @NationalGalleryIn short, no – Munch’s The Scream has not been displayed at the National Gallery. The director of The Duke, Roger Michell, was asked about this at the Venice Film Festival and said he’d put the painting in this scene simply as a funny moment. In real life, upon recovery of the painting, it was remarked that it was ‘in fundamentally good condition’ and ‘basically undamaged’: three small cracks in the panel (present when the Gallery acquired it in 1961) had opened out ‘during its enforced captivity’, and…2 min
