Home//Total Film/July 2023/In This Issue
Total Film|July 2023THE SMARTER MOVIE MAGAZINEAnd… ACTION! We love a breath-snatching, gobsmacking, spine-tingling moment in a kick-ass film when a stunt sequence stuns, and this issue we’re celebrating the men and women behind the scenes making the stars look balletic, kinetic and hardcore. I sat down with Gal Gadot to talk about her new spy actioner, Heart of Stone, and heard how her stunt team put her through the wringer.We also get a masterclass trom the Mission: Impossible crew on making a banger of a heartquickener, share an inside look on action-packed Ahsoka, and count down the greatest stunts of all time. (Let us know if you think we missed a corker.) Thankfully no ice baths or arnica required for reading about all this, so get stuck in…Enjoy the issue!…1 min
Total Film|July 2023HOT RIGHT NOWWith hit TV shows The Last of Us and The Mandalorian under his belt, Chilean-born American actorPedro Pascal is one of the hottest stars on the planet right now. Everybody loves him. Nobody can get enough of him. Except for his extended family, that is. Telling Graham Norton, in arch, that he has 34 first cousins, Pascal joked that they call him up and say, ‘You little shit. You’re so annoying. You finally got all the attention you were after…’It was a long time coming. Back in the late 90s, Pascal was auditioning for commercials while waiting tables. The knockbacks were relentless. Then he started booking TV work, including one episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in 1999. Fifteen years later, in Season 4 of Game of hrones, he played…2 min
Total Film|July 2023PLUSH HOURIf you know anything about Beanie Babies it’s probably that, for a moment in the mid-90s, they were as popular as Furbies, Tamagotchis and Tickle Me Elmos combined, fuelling one of the biggest speculative crazes in American history as $5 beanbag animals were bought and sold by ravenous collectors for thousands.Beanie Babies turned their eccentric creator, Ty Warner, into a billionaire in short order. But for the women in his orbit, those who possessed the innovative business acumen responsible for propelling Ty into the stratosphere - represented on screen in a new Apple TV+ film by Elizabeth Banks’ Robbie, Geraldine Viswanathan’s Maya and Sarah Snook’s Sheila - the Beanie Bubble wasn’t anywhere near as lucrative.‘The Beanie craze was this amazingly colourful backdrop for us to tell a story about what…2 min
Total Film|July 2023THELLWORDIt would be nice to commence with optimism when you get your dream gig, a column in a magazine you’ve adored for decades. To discuss new waves of filmmakers, innovative trends or giant feats of imagination coming our way. But things are looking pretty bleak.Most Total Film readers probably know that the WGA (Writers Guild of America) has been striking for a ‘fair deal’ with the AMPTP (Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers). The WGA’s position is that billions are being made from their members’ work, but ‘pay and working conditions have significantly eroded over the past decade’. It’s unclear how long negotiations will take. The WGA strike in 2007 lasted too days, and 1988’s for 153, so it’s unlikely to be over by the time you read this.The…3 min
Total Film|July 2023CLONE GUFFAWSGetting John Boyega, Jamie Foxx and Teyonah Parris as the central trio in your directorial debut is an astonishing coup. But it’s even more remarkable given that Juel Taylor signed his stars to play a drug dealer, a pimp and a sex worker in They Cloned Tyrone, an audacious blend of sci-fi, comedy, mystery, satire and blaxploitation. ‘We had that joke on set: a pimp, a prostitute and a drug dealer walk into a bar…’ he tells Teasers with a laugh.The characters fit into bleak stereotypes of Black Americans, but the film uses them to dive into a mystery that satirises a larger rot in America’s foundation. It speaks to everything from gentrification and gun violence to the Tuskegee experiment, where hundreds of Black men were unknowingly studied for 40…2 min
Total Film|July 2023NEXT BIG THINGAward-winning Broadway star Andrew Barth Feldman rose to fame as the title character in the 2019 production of Dear Evan Hansen. Making the jump from stage to screen, he has ppeared in High School Musical: The Musical: The Series and A Tourist’s Guide to Love. Next up, he stars as awkward teen Percy in Gene Stupnitsky’s raunchy comedy No Hard Feelings.How are you finding the move to screen?My career has happened in leaps and bounds and I’m hugely fortunate. Where my heart lies is in the telling of stories and being in service of that. And [No Hard Feelings] is a story that I happen to love dearly.Director Gene Stupnitsky teased that he put your Broadway skills to use during the shoot…When I came on, there was a moment missing…2 min
Total Film|July 2023HOME ALONEBritish director Charlotte Regan’s debut Scrapper is, like its title, a punchy little number. It follows Georgie (Lola Campbell), a 12-year-old living secretly alone in her flat after her mum dies. ‘I know she’s struggling with a lot. But the intention we always had was to make a joyful working-class film about the resilience of kids,’ says Regan. ‘Even when people do have parents, and this isn’t exclusive to working-class environments, kids can often be raising themselves, whatever situation they’re in.’While the story kicks into gear as Georgie’s estranged father Jason (Harris Dickinson) comes back from Ibiza to live with her, Regan’s good to her word: Scrapper is more magic realism than kitchen-sink miserablism, down to the talking spiders in Georgie’s household. ‘I’ve always loved what Taika Waititi does with…2 min
Total Film|July 2023FORCEI f you’ve seen the latest instalments from the DCEU and Fast franchises you’ll have clocked Gal Gadot popping up (in Fast X, quite literally) to cameo. Now, Wonder Woman herself is keen to create an action series with herself front and centre to rival all the big boys and their toys. Give Dom, Bond and Ethan Hunt a high-octane, multi-pic run for their money? Why not?‘I must say that this whole thing was something that I had in mind for a long time, but I also always felt like, “Who knows if there’s going to be an audience for it? A female-leadingcharacter action movie,”’ Gadot admits when Total Film catches her in late May on an unseasonably grey and cold day in Los Angeles. ‘But then when Wonder Woman…14 min
Total Film|July 2023WHAM, BAM, THANK YOU, MA'AMWhat did you think when you were approached to coordinate the stunts?I loved the fact that it was a female, strong lead. She wasn’t a snowflake. She was really badass, highly intelligent and beautiful. The whole premise was to keep the action very real. To engage the audience, but keep it really grounded, real and to feel the pain of each character whatever situation they found themselves in.Is it different planning these things when it’s a female lead?Not necessarily, because she’s a highly trained double agent. But I guess it was always keeping an element of femininity - you don’t have to be masculine to be badass. But if she was up fighting somebody particularly big or strong, she would be more skilful and have more technigue than necessarily having…3 min
Total Film|July 2023ACHIEVINGTHEIMPOSSIBLEDIRECT LINECUT ABOVETOP SCOREThere’s one achievement that’s perhaps more jawdropping than any of the extreme stunts that star/producer Tom Cruise has completed. And it’s that - in a world of IP fatigue and diminishing returns - Mission: Impossible is a rare (unique?) franchise that’s managed to keep getting better. The biggest challenge that two-part epic Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning faces is living up to its predecessor, 2018’s Fallout - the hands-down best film in the series, and the highest-grosser, too.Dead Reckoning Part One opens this summer, and finds Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt and his IMF team on a mission to stop a potentially catastrophic weapon falling into the wrong hands. As well as the likes of lisa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) and Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) returning, a figure from Hunt’s past is…17 min
Total Film|July 2023UNHOLYCOMMUNIONpicture this: you’re a pair of filmmakers from Adelaide, Australia, premiering your first feature at the Sundance Film Festival. Nobody knows who the hell you are. And then suddenly, A24 are bidding on your movie. Yep, the hip indie company behind Oscar-winner Everything Everywhere All at Once. ‘They made an offer the first day,’ says Michael Philippou, who together with twin brother Danny is the brains behind the teen horror sensation Talk to Me. Before long, the brothers uploaded the footage of that day to their YouTube channel. ‘You can see the emotion of that,’ chips in Danny. it was such a dream trip.’When Total Film meets the Philippous, 30, and their two leading women - Sophie Wilde (The Portable Door) and Alexandra Jensen (TV’s Amazing Grace) - it’s just…8 min
Total Film|July 2023INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY TBCOUT 28 JUNE CINEMASwe’re witnessing history,’ says Harrison Ford’s iconic archaeologist towards the climax of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. True enough. Officially, this fifth outing is the end of the road for Indy, although incoming director James Mangold, who similarly brought Wolverine’s arc to a close in 2017’s Logan, ensures we go out on a high.There’s a nostalgic, old-fashioned feel to the film, a rollicking, globetrotting ride that pits Ford’s intrepid adventurer against the Nazis once more. Certainly, it makes up for 2008’s outlandish Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, with a more grounded story. Well, until the final reel, at least… (No spoilers!)It begins in 1944, with Ford de-aged, looking like the Indy of old. The CG work on the star impresses, even if the sequence as…4 min
Total Film|July 2023THE DEEPEST BREATH 12AOUT 19 JULY NETFLIXHow do you feel about death?’ are the first words spoken in Laura McGann’s gripping documentary. The question is one all freedivers must ponder, such are the dangers of plunging too metres down into the ocean - the height of a 30-storey skyscraper - on a single breath.You might call The Deepest Breath an inverted Free Solo, its subjects sinking instead of soaring. The danger is crushing, and pressure squeezes the divers’ lungs to the size of a fist. But there’s beauty, too, and serenity: ‘The first time I dived down… all the troubles and the shit from daily life just vanished,’ says one diver.Different participants have different reasons for pushing themselves to their limits and beyond, but McGann primarily focuses on Italian champion Alessia Zecchini and…1 min
Total Film|July 2023SMOKING CAUSES COUGHING 15OUT 7 JULY CINEMASFrench auteur Quentin Dupieux has given us absurdist horror movies about a killer tyre (Rubber), a man’s obsession with his jacket (Deerskin), and a couple buying a house with the most banal time machine imaginable in the basement (Incredible but True). So when we say he’s now turning his attention to superheroes, you can bet that Smoking Causes Coughing will offer a spaced-out alternative to the Marvel and DC universes.The Tobacco Force is a quintet of spandex-clad avengers (Gilles Lellouche, Vincent Lacoste, Anaïs Demoustier, Jean-Pascal Zadi, Oulaya Amamra) who fight off enemies by blasting them with rays of cancer. We meet them as they battle a huge rubber tortoise. Then their handler, a gunge-drooling rat (voiced by Alain Chabat) who’s irresistible to women, sends them on a…1 min
Total Film|July 2023TRANSFORMERS: RISE OF THE BEASTS 12AOUT NOW CINEMASDIRECTOR Steven Caple Jr. STARRING Anthony Ramos, Dominique Fishback, Pete Davidson, Peter Cullen SCREENPLAY Joby Harold, Darnell Metayer, Josh Peters, Erich Hoeber, Jon l-loeber DISTRIBUTOR Paramount RUNNING TIME 127 minsHow do you solve a problem like Transformers? Go big, like Michael Bay did in each of the five swaggering block-blasters he directed between 2007 and 2017, and you end up tumbling down a wearying wormhole of deafening incoherence. Go small(er), as Travis Knight did in 2018’s Bumblebee, and you’ll win back the critics - but you won’t deliver the sort of billion-dollar return Paramount expects from its Hasbro-inspired cash cow.In Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, Creed II director Steven Caple Jr. tries to find a middle ground, with fair-to-middling success. A first hour based in 90s New York…2 min
Total Film|July 2023MOTHER AND SON 12AOUT 30 JUNE CINEMASFrench writer-director Leonor Serraille follows Jeune femme (2018) with a novelistic immigration drama. Spanning some two decades, Serraille’s saga explores the experiences of a single mother, Rose (a vivid performance from Annabelle Lengronne), and her two young sons, Jean and Ernest, after they arrive in France from the Ivory Coast in 1989. Split into three chapters, with each one offering the perspective of a different character, Mother and Son astutely observes how, over time, individual identities and intra-family relationships are impacted in the struggle to belong in French society.…1 min
Total Film|July 2023THE LAST RIDER 12AOUT 23 JUNE CINEMAS 7 AUGUST DIGITALIn April 1987, the American champion cyclist Greg LeMond was nearly fatally shot by his brother-in-law in a hunting accident. And yet two years and two surgeries later, LeMond was attempting to win the gruelling Tour de France in what remains the closest race in the competition’s history. British filmmaker Alex Holmes (Maiden) orchestrates a gripping documentary retelling of these events, combining interviews with the surviving participants and sharply chosen archival footage, immersing the viewer in a truly remarkable sporting and personal comeback.…1 min
Total Film|July 2023SHABU 12AOUT 7 JULY CINEMASBrimming with buoyant beats and goodwill, director Shamira Raphaëla’s documentary is a feel-good winner. Based in working-class Rotterdam, Shabu is a 14-year-old who messes up when he totals his gran’s car. To cover the costs, he comes up with the idea of a block party with a star headliner - himself. Clumsy but well-meaning, this would-be rapper provides an endearing focus for the uplifting trajectory here. Sketchy local details and foregone conclusion aside, Raphaëla’s mix of sun-dappled images and resilient rhythms makes for a disarming pleasure: bright, light and full of popsiclefresh charm.…1 min
Total Film|July 2023STEPHEN KING ON SCREEN 15OUT 26 JUNE DIGITALWith a whopping 348 IMDb credits - and counting - to his name, Stephen King is among the most adapted writers of all time. Focusing mainly on classic King movies and miniseries, Daphne Baiwir’s documentary rounds up filmmakers from Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption) to Fritz Kiersch (Children of the Corn) for a not-very-deep dive into the master’s filmed work.After an awkward, dramatised intro that crowbars in as many King references as possible, Baiwir gets down to business with a breathless mix of talking heads, well-chosen clips and gossipy titbits. MVP Mike Flanagan (Gerald’s Game) recalls making his own version of It with his pals in seventh grade, and that, when it came to adapting Doctor Sleep, King asked him: ‘If Brian De Palma turns this down,…1 min
Total Film|July 2023THE DAMNED DON'T CRY 18OUT 7 JULY CINEMAS, CURZON HOME CINEMABritish-Moroccan filmmaker Fyzal Boulifa (Lynn + Lucy) returns with this engaging mother-son drama. Set largely in Tangier, it follows Selim (Abdellah El Hajjouji), a teenager who lives with his mother Fatima-Zahra (Aicha Tebbae). She scrapes a living by selling her body, hiding everything from her son. Selim also becomes embroiled with a westerner who is refurbishing a riad, a transactional relationship that has consequences. A film about illusions shattered and innocence lost, the result is another smartly played character study from the impressive Boulifa.…1 min
Total Film|July 2023HYPNOTIC 15OUT NOW CINEMAS, 26 JUNE DIGITALYou don’t expect subtlety from Robert Rodriguez but even by his standards, Hypnotic is a lot. Ben Affleck plays a sad detective whose daughter’s abduction remains unsolved. Could a bank heist orchestrated by a realitybending psychic hold the key to the mystery? Rodriguez keeps his foot on the gas for the 94-minute running time, frantically dispatching set-pieces and twists. Committed performances (from Alice Braga, William Fichtner and Affleck) amp up the camp appeal of a sci-fi thriller that becomes more endearing the more ridiculous it gets.…1 min
Total Film|July 2023ENTER THE VIDEO STORE: EMPIRE OF SCREAMS 181984-1989OUT 26 JUNE BDEXTRASCommentaries, Alternative versions (The Dungeonmaster), Storyboard comparison (Dolls), Featurettes, Galleries, Book, Posters, Art cardsFounded in 1983, Charles Band’s Empire Pictures was, in many ways, the successor to Roger Corman’s New World Pictures. While small in scale, Empire’s output (primarily low-budget horror, fantasy and sci-fi) may not have troubled the insides of cinemas all that much but proved a perfect fit for the burgeoning video rental market and also served up the odd mini-masterpiece.While this lavishly appointed box set doesn t include any ot Empire s very best (Trancers, Re-Animator, Prison) or even best-known (Ghoulies, Troll) productions, it does find room for a couple of low-budget treats in Stuart Gordon’s dark and playful fairy tale Dolls and Peter Manoogian’s enjoyably goofy Rocky-in-space flick Arena. Despite intriguing set-ups, the…1 min
Total Film|July 2023THE FIRM 151993OUT NOW 4K UHDEXTRASNoneA 30th-anniversary 4K release for Sydney Pollack’s John Grisham adap which, despite its BO success, emerges as one of Tom Cruise’s lesser 90s vehicles. What should have been a straightforward thriller about a Harvard graduate working for a corrupt, cultish firm is instead overlong and overstuffed with bit-part characters. Still, Pollack’s polished direction, Holly Hunter’s Oscar-nommed supporting turn, Cruise’s boyishness and a magnetic Gene Hackman hold things together. But you can’t help feeling that, released today, The Firm would be a streaming sensation forgotten within a week.…1 min
Total Film|July 2023FISTS IN THE POCKET 121965OUT NOW BDEXTRASFeaturettes, EssayOn the extras, Bernardo Bertolucci describes Marco Bellocchio’s debut as Italy’s answer to France’s New Wave. Still startling, Bellocchio’s seismic drama casts Lou Castel as a pent-up young man planning to kill himself and family members so that his brother can stand a chance of fleeing the nest. Bellocchio’s taut direction contrasts keenly with Castel’s coiled energies, bringing focus to the film’s fierce institutional critiques. A radical response to neo-realism, the result lands like an arthouse horror film, its impact bolstered by the liturgical intensity of Morricone’s score.…1 min
Total Film|July 2023EXTRASCOLLECTIBLES FUNKO POP! RETURN OF THEOUT NOWYou’ve heard of Build-A-Bear. Now it’s time to build-a-desert-skiff with a new pair of Pop!s, one featuring Chewie, the other Luke (showing off his new apple-green lightsaber). Funko is also marking Episode VI's 40th birthday with a new bobblehead take on Jabba the Hutt and his droidbothering bestie Salacious B. Crumb, and a Pop! Moment capturing Luke and Dad Vader’s fateful rematch. Give in to your fandom at funkoeurope.com.COLLECTIBLE/TOY LEGO BATCAVE SHADOW BOXOUT TBCCelebrate Batman’s return (in The Flash) with this Batman Returns set, which niftily stuffs the entire Batcave into a display box bearing a Bat-sign cutout. The 3,981-piece tableau features movable items (furniture, doors, the picture on the big telly) you can control from the back, plus a Batmobile (1992 model) with…2 min
Total Film|July 2023GAMES THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: TEARS OF THE KINGDOMOUT NOW SWITCHWhen The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild launched alongside the Switch to rapturous praise in 2017, many wondered how Nintendo could possibly top it. Six years later, we have our answer. Back then, players regularly shared 30-second clips showcasing ingenuity or catastrophe: from unlikely but successful puzzle solutions to improvised combat approaches gone horribly wrong. Tears of the Kingdom seems to have been built with that in mind, offering up a new set of constructionbased powers that give the player almost unparalleled freedom to solve puzzles and defeat enemies their own way.The playful approach of this direct successor is prefaced by a prologue which grants the series’ elfin protagonist Link a full set of hearts and a maxed-out stamina bar… before an encounter with returning villain…2 min
Total Film|July 2023CREATING BACK TO THE FUTURE: THE MUSICALABRAMS, BFI, BLOOMSBURY, SEAN EBSWORTHBARNES, TITANMICHAEL KLASTORIN ABRAMSYou should make Back to the Future into a musical,’ said Leslie Zemeckis to her director husband Robert after watching the Broadway production of The Producers in 2005. Fifteen years later, that shrewd suggestion became theatrical reality when the stage version of Mr Zemeckis’ 1985 classic had its premiere at Manchester Opera House.Klastorin’s book tells what happened during those 15 years - an exhausting period of trial and error that saw one director exit over creative differences and an opening scheduled to coincide with the film’s 30th anniversary that proved unfeasible. That aforementioned Mancunian try-out run, meanwhile, was curtailed by COVID-19.That Back to the Future: The Musical did eventually make it to London’s West End in 2021 is thus a feat to rival…1 min
Total Film|July 2023ON LOCATIONWHAT? Kellerman’s - the leafy upstate New York vacation resort for Baby and her family, and home to snake-hipped hoofer Johnny, in Dirty Dancing. This is your dance space, let’s cha-cha…WHERE? Not NY: Mountain Lake Lodge nestles in a forest in Pembroke. Virginia.GO? Unchanged since the 1986 filming, Mountain Lake has the gazebo for merengue lessons, the corner to not sit in, and the lift lake (which recedes and fills according to the season).Want us to investigate if a movie scenario is bollocks or snapped yourself at a film location? Contact us at totalfilm@futurenet.com…1 min
Total Film|July 2023TAKING STOCK SHIFTY LAWYERSThere’s one way to make crime pay: become a lawyer. Defend the innocent, prosecute bad guys, draw up contracts and finesse those loopholes - any way you look at it, there’s a fee involved. Whether they’re chasing ambulances or crushing the weak underfoot like agents of corporate greed, the Shifty Lawyer is a cinematic mainstay and a gift for character actors. Typically presented as either a big shot with an expense account or a pennypincher wearing a cheap tie, both types are willing to fight dirty to win and lick their lips at the sight of dollar signs. Often as corrupt as the criminals they represent, to them the law is a challenge to be overcome and justice a product to be profited from. These guys will keep filling their…6 min
Total Film|July 2023VIDEODROME'S ORGANIC TVI felt kind of stupid when I was doing it,’ said star James Woods of the scenes where Max Renn, the protagonist of Videodrome, gets up close and personal with his TeleRANGER TV screen.His ‘stupid’ is our disturbing and (whisper it) erotic, as a mesmerised Max approaches the televised lips of Nicki Brand (Blondie’s Debbie Harry) and the screen begins to bulge utwards as she puckers, and then billows when she blows. ‘Don’t keep me waiting,’ she murmurs, inviting Max to sink his flesh into her open mouth. This he does, meshing man and achine in a prescient horror movie that traverses the edges of reality and consciousness as it explores our fears and fascination with sex, violence and technology. Long live the new flesh, indeed.Much of Videodrome’s appeal is…2 min
Total Film|July 2023CALL SHEET THIS ISSUE'S EXTRASDEPUTY EDITORMATT MAYTUM@MATTMAYTUMChatted all things Chevalier with Kelvin Harrison Jr. and Lucy Boynton for the TF podcast. Sporting blue hair, black nail varnish and shades (indoors), Kelvin looked nothing like his courtly character.ONLINE ENTERTAINMENT EDITOREMILY MURRAY@EMILYVMURRAYWhen I sat down to chat with Rob Savage we bonded overwearing horror shirts. Even though mine was a subtle Halloween one, he noticed it straight away!NEWS EDITORJORDAN FARLEY@JORDANFARLEYThis will be my last appearance until issue 343, as I’m taking parental leave. Teasers will be in the capable hands of Jamie Graham, so if the entire section turns into horror previews, you know why.CONTRIBUTORANNA SMITH@ANNASMITHJOURNOI enjoyed getting into a hearty dissection of the word‘feminism’ with Sally Potter this month - and having a snoop around her music room where she composes.CONTRIBUTING EDITORJAMES MOTTRAM@JAMESMOTTRAMLoved chatting to…1 min
Total Film|July 2023GHOST RIDERSJamie Lee Curtis had a true, spiritual initiation into the role of Madame Leota, the disembodied head, afloat in a crystal ball, who first offers visitors passage into ‘regions beyond’. So her co-stars had something to react to, the actor kindly agreed to stick that legendary noggin of hers into an actual giant, transparent orb. Talk about dedication.When Disneyland guests first cross the pristine but gloomy portico of The Haunted Mansion, then flee the room that has no windows and no doors, and shuffle past busts whose eyes seem to follow them, it’s Leota who kicks off the ride’s ghostly jamboree. In Justin Simien’s adaptation, the latest in Disney’s attempts to bring its famous attractions to the big screen, viewers will, in his words, step into ‘the shoes of people…2 min
Total Film|July 2023Elizabeth BanksWhat stood out to you about the script?There are so many of these movies that are about mythological, mostly male figures. The idea that this was going to be about the‘little people’ who were the wind beneath his wings - that was really lovely. And the fact that it was a group of women was also really exciting.Could you relate as a woman in film?If you’re in a big, maledominated industry, you’ve certainly sat in those meetings where you are a minority voice, or feel a little trepidatious about speaking. The great thing about Robbie is, she’s not afraid of Ty Any room that they go into, she feels comfortable.How much of a priority is acting as you’ve moved into directing?Acting is my first love. I love serving other people’s…1 min
Total Film|July 2023COURTING CONTROVERSYTennis is having its moment on screen and we’re not talking about Wimbledon, from Luca Guadagnino’s upcoming Challengers to Netflix doc Break Point. Exploring the dark side of the pro circuit is Fifteen-Love, a drama about a tennis coach, Glenn Lapthorn (Aidan Turner), who is gunning for Grand Slam glory when an explosive accusation by his former protege Justine Pearce (newcomer Ella Lily Hyland) sends a volley through his perfect world.The series keeps the audience on a knife edge where nobody is sure who’s telling the truth. Why did you take that approach?Ella Lily Hyland: Justine’s very instinctual, and then her mind and body play catch-up, which is kind of what athletes are like, they work from a primal instinct. She’s playing catch-up the whole time and the audience are…3 min
Total Film|July 2023LOOK WHO'S TALKINGGrowing up in Belfast in the 70s, Mark Cousins saw a lot of horror movies before he was 10 years old. ‘Local video stores had everything on the black market - I saw video nasties at a ridiculously early age,’ he says. ‘Then I saw Psycho. I could see that it was scary, but also something else. If you want to be simple, you could call it “art”.’While Psycho electrified Cousins’ senses, he also picked up on the bold structure, the atypical pacing, the unusual camera placement. He could sense there was ‘something hypnotic and nighttime about it’. Cut to 50 years later and Cousins is an esteemed documentarian (The Story of Film: An Odyssey, The Eyes of Orson Welles) with Hitchcock tattoos on his arm. It’s no surprise, then,…2 min
Total Film|July 2023THE GREEN PARTYEmboldened by the success of Spider-Man: Into the SpiderVerse, 2023 has turned into a banner year for stylistically experimental animated movies. Next up is TMNT: Mutant Mayhem, a striking new take on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles from writer-producer Seth Rogen, writer-director Jeff Rowe (The Mitchells vs. the Machines) and co-director Kyler Spears. ‘[Spider-Verse] convinced studios that you can make money, win awards and be successful,’ says Rowe, ‘all while being different.’1. TEENAGE KICKSThere have been six movies and at least five Turtles TV shows but, for the first time ever, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello and Raphael are played by age-appropriate young adults. ‘We’re delivering on “teenage”!’ Rowe exclaims. To harness the inimitable chaos that ensues when teenage boys hang out, all four young actors recorded their lines together. ‘We tried…3 min
Total Film|July 2023AIDE MEMOIREOn the evening of 13 November 2015, a series of coordinated terror attacks in Paris left at least 130 people dead and more than 400 others injured. The epicentre of the chaos was the Bataclan theatre in the city’s 11th arrondissement, where a raid on a concert by the American rock band Eagles of Death Metal saw 90 lose their lives.Alice Winocour’s brother was at the Bataclan that night and was one of those lucky enough to walk away from it. Through him she would meet and talk to other survivors, sowing the seeds for what would go on to become her fourth directorial feature. ‘I built the film around my memories and the conversations I had with my brother and others in the following days and months,’ the Proxima…2 min
Total Film|July 2023ALIA BHATTThis is your first American feature -why this project?I love the idea that it was headlined by this feamale superstar. It was a woman-led action film-it's what makes it compelling in a completely different way. opposed to just a woman being a part of the plan. I've worked in Hindi cinema for the last 10 years, and I was prepared to understand that if I was starting afresh in a completely new language, I would not maybe start off with the biggest or the best role. But this was a really good, important role, very well written, and it complemented the other characters really well.How was it working with Gal as team leader on both sides of camera?I admire her for so many different reasons. She's someone who continuously challenges…2 min
Total Film|July 202325 GREATEST STUNTSJONATHAN CROCKER, JONATHAN DEAN, JAMIE GRAHAM, KEVIN HARLEY, LEILA LATIF, MATTHEW LEYLAND, ANDY LOWE, JAMES MOTTRAM, NEIL SMITH, KIM TAYLOR-FOSTER, OERI THOMAS, JAMES WHITEWINGING ITTRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON (2011)25‘I gotta have wingsuits in Transformers 3.' So said Michael Bay after watching skydivers Julian Boulle and J.T. Holmes do their thing on TV. Used to mountains, they’d never navigated a cityscape, much less one like Chicago. ‘Skipping breakfast, going straight to launch,’ said Holmes on shoot day. Well, you’re not keeping bacon and eggs down, are you? Five Bell-Boeing V-22 Ospreys take to the sky, led by Josh Duhamel’s Colonel Lennox. Pursued by Decepticons, the strike team jump. Gliding in formation, the wingsuiters whip through the air, spiders on the wind, evading bogeys as they navigate steel and concrete. Despite…15 min
Total Film|July 2023RETURNOF THEEX-JEDIFilms and TV shows are increasingly geared towards fan service, with cameos, callbacks and references littered everywhere for the amusement of the hardcore stans that are the franchises’ most devoted followers. And sometimes fans can be of service, too. The spot-on casting of Rosario Dawson as Star Wars’ Ahsoka Tano may have never come to pass were it not for a canny fan suggestion on Twitter (which Dawson herself promptly ran with).Outing herself as a fan and throwing her lightsaber hilt into the ring all the way back in 2017, Dawson landed on the radar of Dave Filoni, a creative powerhouse at Lucasfilm and one of the key heirs to George Lucas’ galactic empire. Filoni - who worked with Lucas on animated feature and series The Clone Wars - would…12 min
Total Film|July 2023JASON SCHWARTZMAN‘ONE THING I CAN SAY ABOUT ALL THESE MOVIES… THEY’VE ALL BEEN LIKE AN ADVENTURE.’How long do we have?’ asks Jason Schwartzman, breezing into Cannes’ J.W. Marriott hotel, looking very natty in navy suit and salmon pink shirt. ‘Sometimes I take too long and then I eat up the thing.’ First, it should be noted, Total Film has rarely met such concern from an actor ensuring that we have enough face time. Second, he does indeed give lovingly long, considered answers. But it all rather sums up this unique American actor-musicianwriter. Never mind that he belongs to one of the most famous filmmaking families in the history of Hollywood; he’s still eternally grateful to be working 25 years on from making his debut as the precocious, playwriting student Max Fischer…20 min
Total Film|July 2023ASTEROID CITY 12AOUT 23 JUNE CINEMASDIRECTOR Wes Anderson STARRING Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Jeffrey Wright, Tilda Swinton, Bryan Cranston SCREENPLAY Wes Anderson DISTRIBUTOR Universal RUNNING TIME 105 minsFrom 30s Europe to 60s France and near-future Japan, Wes Anderson has travelled wide and well in the last decade. So it proves again with his 11th feature, a playfully searching delight. A sky-watching romp that contemplates infinity, Asteroid City offers a wry exploration of life’s mysteries and proves the Anderson touch can hold firm in the face of the great beyond.That arch imprint is clear from the monochrome prologue, an eastcoast-set theatrical framing device Anderson later revisits to counterpoint the film’s main action. A burst into colour then whisks us to a sun-kissed town in the US southwest, new turf for Anderson.…2 min
Total Film|July 2023HELLO, BOOKSTORE PGOUT 30 JUNE CINEMAS, DIGITALThis cosy, slightly claustrophobic celebration of chattily charismatic small-town US bookseller Matt Tannenbaum embeds us in his shabby, classics-packed store just as the pandemic threatens to bankrupt him. Using fly-on-thewall, Frederick Wiseman-style watchful camerawork, director A.B. Zax scrupulously captures Tannenbaum’s cockeyed optimism and his passionate pitching of great literature to his dwindling customers, without swerving the debt-ridden realities of his life. The result is a tad overlong, but you’ll stay gripped to see whether it’s GoFundMe or go under the hammer.…1 min
Total Film|July 2023CARMEN 15OUT NOW CINEMASA complete reinvention of Georges Bizet’s opera, Benjamin Millepied’s feature debut strikes sparks but never quite ignites. Taking place on the Mexico/ US border, the film casts Melissa Barrera (2022’s Scream) as a grief-stricken woman who sets her home alight and flees across the border, into the path of former soldier Aidan (Paul Mescal). Barrera is radiant, Mescal blistering, and the chemistry sizzles as the pair are pursued by the law. Millepied stages some emotional dance sequences, too, but the plot meanders and the soundtrack suffers from a lack of earworms.…1 min
Total Film|July 2023ELEMENTAL TBCOUT 7 JULY CINEMASDIRECTOR Peter Sohn STARRING Leah Lewis, Mamoudou Athie, Shila Ommi, Ronnie del Carmen SCREENPLAY John Hoberg, Kat Likkel, Brenda Hsueh DISTRIBUTOR Disney RUNNING TIME 103 minsPixar’s latest animation takes us to Element City, a place where air, wind, fire and earth people all live together in harmony. Well, almost. The anthropomorphised blobs of ‘fire’ are rather frowned upon, as Bernie (voiced by Ronnie del Carmen) and Cinder Lumen (Shila Ommi) soon discover when they arrive from their homeland. Renting an apartment is a big no-no when the landlords are all ‘earth’ people that look like tree shrubs and naturally consider fire a danger (‘Dry leaves!’ squawks one before slamming the door in their faces).Eventually, Bernie and Cinder settle outside the city in Fire Town, where they open…2 min
Total Film|July 2023THE LITTLE MERMAID PGOUT NOW CINEMASRob Marshall’s sparkling liveaction makeover of Disney’s 1989 animation outswims the original. Halle Bailey shines as Ariel, the mermaid who’s lovesick for the surface world. The extended runtime gives the romance between Ariel and Prince Eric (Jonah Hauer-King) room to breathe, while Melissa McCarthy is a deliciously evil Ursula. Not every change works, and the VEX can be patchy. But the underwater realm is a treat, the voice cast charms, and some of the songs are fabulous, with Bailey’s goosebumps-raising Part of Your World the pearl in the film’s oyster.…1 min
Total Film|July 2023SQUARING THE CIRCLE 15OUT 14 JULY CINEMASFrom Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon to Paul McCartney and Wings’ Band on the Run, Hipgnosis - the design studio of Cambridge mischief-makers Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey ‘Po’ Powell - created some of the most iconic album covers of all time. Featuring interviews with the surviving players and a suitably classy soundtrack, this documentary from director Anton Corbijn (Control) tells an anecdotepacked, if piecemeal, story of ambition and excess. If, as Noel Gallagher asserts, vinyl’s ‘artwork is the poor man’s art collection’, Hipgnosis was the music industry’s Andy Warhol.…1 min
Total Film|July 2023THE FLASH 12AOUT NOW CINEMASDIRECTOR Andy Muschietti STARRING Ezra Miller, Michael Keaton, Sasha Calle, Michael Shannon SCREENPLAY Christina Hodson DISTRIBUTOR Warner Bros. RUNNING TIME 144 minsCan The Flash outpace its problems? After long delays, the Scarlet Speedster arrives laden with off-screen controversies at a time when the DCEU, multiverses (Spidey aside) and superhero movies seem to be losing some traction. Perhaps it’s no surprise that Barry Allen’s fitfully fun, fan-servicefreighted headline act sometimes looks like an expanded universe imploding, to ambitious but often messy effect.True, much of It director Andy Muschietti’s superhero debut entertains and surprises (less so perhaps in the latter case, thanks to those pre-release reveals). The story has emotional stakes, honed by Christina Hodson’s multi-stacked script. But The Flash also suffers from too many under-integrated elements in the mix,…2 min
Total Film|July 2023SPIDER-MAN: ACROSSTHE SPIDER-VERSE PGOUT NOW CINEMASDIRECTORS Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, Justin K. Thompson STARRING Shameik Moore, bailee Steinfeld, Oscar Isaac, Jason Schwartzman SCREENPLAY Phil Lord, Chris Miller, Dave Callaham DISTRIBUTOR Sony Pictures RUNNING TIME 140 minsWhen Spider-Mart: Into the Spider-Verse swung into cinemas in 2018, it proved something startlingly obvious, but stubbornly unchangeable: not every studio animation needs to look like Toy Story. This epiphany has been keenly felt since, but COVID-19-delayed sequel Across the Spider-Verse proves that the trendsetting series remains Miles ahead of the copycat competition.A supremely confident, ravishingly rendered follow-up, Across… dazzles from its music-infused, Gwen-centric opening moments. Since becoming ‘the one and only Spider-Man’, Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) has been letting his Spider-duties get in the way of his studies. The Spot (Jason Schwartzman) is one such nuisance…2 min
Total Film|July 2023THE BOOGEYMAN 15OUT NOW CINEMASSince 2017’s It, the Stephen King-aissance has stressed quantity of output over quality. Now, Brit director Rob Savage (Host, Dashcam) mines a curt, cruel King story for a fitfully scary mix of mourning allegory and monster movie that’s better than most but still ill-plotted, derivative and murky.Chris Messina stars as widowed psychologist Will, father to Sadie (Sophie Thatcher) and Sawyer (Vivien Lyra Blair). When he’s visited in his practice by the possibly homicidal Lester (David Dastmalchian), Will is understandably rattled. But Lester’s departure leaves behind a scarier presence in the family’s closets, ready to emerge when the lights dim.Which is all the time. The permanently under-lit aesthetic here feels forced rather than actually lived-in, though Savage uses the shadows resourcefully, teasing tension and jolts from every corner. Thatcher…1 min
Total Film|July 2023TWILIGHT (SZÜRKÜLET) 151990OUT NOW BDEXTRASFeaturettes, BookletLoosely adapted from Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s late-50s crime novella The Pledge (which also inspired Sean Penn’s 2001 film), this is one of only two feature films completed by the late Hungarian director and Bela Tarr collaborator György Fehér. Set in a heavily forested region of northern Hungary, it centres on Felügyelo (Peter Haumann), a detective on the eve of retirement attempting to track down a child killer. Shot in long takes and murky monochrome, it practically dispenses with plot, offering instead a well-sustained - if somewhat oppressive - mood of hopeless foreboding.…1 min
Total Film|July 2023SMOOTH TALK 151986OUT 26 JUNE BDEXTRASFeaturettes, ShortsWinner of Sundance’s Grand Jury Prize, this taut, unsettling drama was a career starter for Laura Dern, terrific as teenage daydreamer Connie. The initial focus is on Connie arguing with her parents and fooling around with boys. But the mood turns sinister with the introduction of Arnold Friend (Treat Williams), a thirtysomething posing as a teen. Acting like a nightmarish James Dean, he pursues Connie with increasingly predatory zeal, swiftly turning Joyce Chopra’s film into a horror about lost innocence. Criterion’s package includes new interviews with key players and three vintage Chopra shorts.…1 min
Total Film|July 2023BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF: DIRECTOR'S CUT 152001OUT NOW BD, 4K UHDEXTRASCommentaries, Documentaries, Deleted scenes, Alternate cut, Interviews, FeaturettesStylish to a fault and mashing together many genres (period romance, thriller, creature feature, martial arts actioner), director Christophe Gans’ French-language blockbuster shouldn’t work. But it does, spectacularly so, and two decades after its cinema release, this audacious epic finally has a similarly dazzling disc release. The set’s three platters serve up a stunning 4K restoration of the superior Director’s Cut alongside a wealth of bonuses, including the truncated Theatrical Cut.…1 min
Total Film|July 2023THE KID TBCBaby and the Tramp…1921OUT 26 JUNE BD EXTRASCommentary, Featurettes, Deleted scenes, Archive footage, Short, EssayRight up to The Mandalorian’s childcare programme, the narrative template set by Charlie Chaplin’s debut feature has been widely adopted. Revisit The Kid, and you will understand why. ‘A picture with a smile - and perhaps, a tear,’ as the title card has it, Chaplin’s foundling tale is a graceful model of beautifully integrated compassion and wit.With gentle empathy, the set-up sees a lost woman turned out on the street with her baby. Doomed to penury, she abandons the child. Chaplin’s Tramp finds the kid and raises him, but five years on, the mother has become successful and wants her son (Jackie Coogan) back.Chaplin elegantly balances innocence and experience, with the baby’s wailing hitting the heart…1 min
Total Film|July 2023CLASSIC SOUNDTRACK MISSION: IMPOSSIBLEDanny Elfman had his work cut out when he accepted his Mission. Sure, he arrived with one clear steer: he knew what not to do, given that his predecessor Alan Silvestri’s score for the 1996 film had been rejected. Otherwise, Elfman had just a month to nail an intricate blend of homage and reinvention. And he had to answer Brian De Palma’s demands for multiple themes and tones, be they dark, romantic, energetic, operatic or muscular.‘Brian is not Mr Mellow,’ Elfman deadpanned of his intense director. Elfman’s response was something Tom Cruise might approve of: under pressure, he sized up to the intensity and worked on instinct. The ordinarily impeccable Silvestri’s score had leaned heavily on Bruckheimeresque bombast - how those guitars squealed. By contrast, Elfman aced a fluent display…2 min
Total Film|July 20232 MOREAFTER USOUT NOW PC, PS5, XBOX SERIESFollowing the charming Arise: A Simple Story, developer Piccolo suffers a case of difficult-secondgame syndrome with this handsome but heavyhanded eco-adventure. As luminous life spirit Gaia retrieves animal spirits to bring them back from extinction, her journey is hindered by stodgy controls, confounding world design and bland puzzles.LAYA'S HORIZONOUT NOW iOS, ANDROIDThe makers of Alto’s Odyssey successfully transpose the distinctive ambience of that game into 3D with this sometimes calming, often exhilarating wingsuit adventure. Its two-thumb scheme offers remarkably fine control as you swoop and glide through a mountain range to pursue birds, compete in races and more.…1 min
Total Film|July 2023MOTHER NATUREJAMIE LEE CURTIS, KARL STEVENS, RUSSELL GOLDMAN TITAN COMICSFresh from her Oscarwinning turn in EEAAO, JLC takes the intriguing step of mounting a graphic novel based on a script she’s set to direct - a supernatural eco-thriller about Native American spirits roused by oil extraction in New Mexico. It’s a clever way of seeding anticipation for the upcoming movie, albeit one that slightly exposes its narrative shortcomings. A couple of gory impalements and a Raiders- style face-melting are among the striking visuals.…1 min
Total Film|July 2023TRAIN CRASHES IN MOVIES1 THE FUGITIVEIn the nick of time, a shackled Dr. Richard Kimble (Harrison Ford) leaps clear from an overturned prison bus as a high-speed train smashes into it, kickstarting the wrongly convicted prisoner’s quest to track down his wife’s one-armed killer and prove his own innocence.2 BACK TO THE FUTURE PART IIIA twofer. Moments after returning from 1885, where his hijacked train plunged off unfinished tracks into a ravine, Marty McFly (Michael ]. Fox) sees the time-travelling DeLorean smashed into smithereens by an oncoming freight train.3 THE GENERALNothing beats doing it for real. In 1926, Buster Keaton had one chance to get silent film’s most expensive stunt right, utilising six cameras. The bridge duly collapsed under the weight of a 26-ton train that stayed submerged until it was salvaged for…2 min
Total Film|July 2023FLOP CULTUREWhy it was a good idea (on paper)Retro 60s fetishism was hot in the 90s. With hip and/or Oscar-grade leads (Ralph Fiennes, Uma Thurman, Sean Connery) alongside zeitgeist-y cameos (Eddie Izzard, Shaun Ryder), director Jeremiah S. Chechik’s reboot of the kinky-booted spy show seemed well-groomed to do a Mission: Impossible.What went wrong?A self-declared fan of the series, Chechik (Diabolique) loved the ‘kooky’ aspects of Don MacPherson’s script. But had Warner Bros, read it? They wanted the coolest action hit of the summer. Surrealism and killer ted bears, less so. Chechik later recalled having fun making the film, though he conceded chemistry ran low between Fiennes and Thurman, who replaced original lead Nicole Kidman. With the robotic leads lost in a tonal muddle of action and absurdity, coherence ant cuts were…3 min
Total Film|July 2023MY MOVIE LIFETHE FIRST FILM I EVER SAWI don’t honestly remember what the first movie I ever saw was but I have a pretty distinct memory of going to a double feature of Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back in 1983. It was right before Return of the Jedi was coming out and they were doing a double feature to get people all caught up. I was living in England at the time in a little town called Felixstowe and I was seven years old. It was pretty amazing. I must have really enjoyed it because I joined the Star Wars fan club.THE FILM THAT ALWAYS MAKES ME LAUGHI’ll revisit The Naked Gund every couple of years. There’s just something about the absurdity of that humour that has had me hooked…3 min
Total Film|July 2023Dialoguetotalfilm.comtwitter.com/totalfilmfacebook.com totalfilmtotalfilm@futurenet.comSTAR LETTERI entered my living room last night to find my 16-year-old son watching what I thought were some unusual sci-fi nursery-rhyme videos. Imagine my surprise when he explained to me that it wasn’t Humpty Dumpty on screen, but M.O.D.O.K. in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. It did inspire me to come up with some ideas for future nurseryrhyme crossovers, though: Incy-Wincy Spider-Man, Hey Diddle Deadpool, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star-Lord… But my favourite is Hickory Dickory Doctor Strange.TOMELLIS, VIAEMAILIn the Multiverse of Mouseness? Seems fitting, given the Disney connection. And maybe we need to tweak what M.O.D.O.K. stands for in this new nursery-verse: Mind Out, Dumpty-face is Overbalan- Ker-splat! Tom and everyone with a letter printed here will receive a copy of Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, available…5 min
Total Film|July 2023IN THE CANNES@JORDANFARLEYA) KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOONBased on David Grann’s 2017 non-fiction book of the same name, Martin Scorsese’s western (yes, he’s finally made it) delves deep into manifest destiny, greed, racism, neocolonialism and misogyny in a rich, immersive masterclass that braids together the interests of his past projects. Faith, persecution, racketeering, entitlement, the corrupting influence of money, the disposability of life… all are present in a nailed-on awards magnet that might be some of the best work we’ve ever seen from all involved.Set in early 1920s Oklahoma, the story centres on Mollie (Lily Gladstone), a young Osage Nation woman and the hugely wealthy owner of headrights (the inherited mineral rights to oil-rich Osage County) - no wonder lascivious white men such as feckless WW1 returnee Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio) eye…5 min
Total Film|July 2023YOU TALKIN' TO ME?You talkin’ to me?I am talking to you, although my window’s open, and there’s a neighbour sitting just outside on her balcony, so I’m pretty sure she’s going to be able to eavesdrop on everything that’s going on right now.Do you have an off switch?Oh, very much. I think I’m an outgoing introvert! I love being around people and socialising, but then I hit my wall, and I need to just curl up on my couch in a dark room and be alone with my dog.You ever had that feeling where you’re not sure if you’re awake or still dreaming?I have that feeling more or less every waking moment of my life, and I’m not entirely convinced that what we’re living isn’t a simulation.When you can live forever, what do…4 min
Total Film|July 2023A BUG'S LIFEBefore the James Gunn and Peter Safran-helmed regime change kicks in under the DCU banner, there are still several DC Extended Universemovies to come out under the old guard. Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is one, due in December of this year, while The Flash is currently acing across screens. Next, there’s the interesting proposition of Blue Beetle – a lesser-known comic-book character and brand-new superhero for the screen – which arrives at a time when the DC Universe NNis in a state of flux.Trailers are promising – an extended look was shown to a receptive CinemaCon audience in April – but what are the film’s prospects in light of the shift at DC HQ, where does it sit among the existing movies, and how does it fit into the…2 min
Total Film|July 2023SOUND BYTES‘WHAT WAS REALLY COOL WAS GETTING TO AUDITION FOR BOND.’ COULD REBEL WILSON BE THE NEXT BOND WOMAN?'Physical copies in the age of streaming area moral Fahrenheit 451 level duty.’ GUILLERMO DEL TORO ADVOCATES FOR PHYSICAL RELEASES AS TITLES ARE REMOVED FROM STREAMING PLATFORMS.11 MILES THE LENGTH OF A 70MM IMAX PRINT OF OPPENHEIMER. THAT’S A LOT OF MOVIE…90 YEARS THE AGE OF ONCE UPON A TIME… IN HOLLYWOOD'S RICK DALTON WHEN HE WAS KILLED OFF BY QUENTIN TARANTINO LAST MONTH.IF YOU EVER REALLY CARED ABOUT KEN. YOU WOULD KNOW THAT NOBODY CARED ABOUT KEN. SO YOUR HYPOCRISY IS EXPOSED. THIS IS WHY HIS STORY MUST BE TOLD.' RYAN GOSLING HITS BACK AT HIS KEN CRITICS.RISING SONHaving just locked Killers of the Flower Moon, Martin Scorsese has revealed his next…1 min
Total Film|July 2023SHORT CUTSAGEING UPOppenheimer will be Christopher Nolan’s first R-rated movie in the US since 2002’s Insomnia. The rating appeared at the end of a TV spot in the States, meaning we can expect a 15 certificate in the UK.FAST TIMESDwayne Johnson has taken to social media to make good on the promise of Fast X’s postcredits sting. ‘I am 100% confirming… Hobbs is back!’ The Rock’s superagent is set to lash with Jason Momoa’s Dante. Bring it.SIMPLY THE BESTTina Turner passed away on 24 May, aged 83. The Queen of Rock ’n’ Roll won eight Grammy awards and appeared in movies Tommy, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome and The Last Action Hero.FAST FORWARDThe Flash is currently zipping across cinema screens, but Warner Bros. had a sequel script in the can before it…1 min
Total Film|July 2023CAN WE TALK ABOUT?SPOILER ALERT!This is swiftly turning into the year of the cliffhanger ending. In 2023, we’ve already seen Dominic Toretto square off against an exploding dam, Miles Morales come face to face with himself, and there’s still Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One to come, the movie with the best chance of ending on some literal cliffhanging.You can probably blame it on the Avengers: Infinity War effect. The Snap was such an anticipation-builder that it helped briefly propel Avengers: Endgame to the all-time box-office top spot. From a commercial perspective, the logic is sound; a truly great cliffhanger will guarantee bums on seats next time around as ravenous viewers clamour to discover how, for example, Dom’s bulging biceps deflect several metric tonnes of raging water. But do televisual cliffhanger endings,…2 min
Total Film|July 2023JAMIE DORNANWhat was the attraction of Heart of Stone?I’ve never done anything on such a big scale. I’ve never done anything that’s like a spy-action thriller. I have a real attitude in this career to experience all of it.‘The Heart’ is a superweapon that can predict the future. Does technology, with the pace it’s developing, scare you?Yeah. I think ‘ominous’ is probably the word. But, you know, it’s like a lot of things: there is good that could be done and there’s bad. I guess the reality is that things like greed exist, and there are people who would want to control something this powerful, and there’d be maybe disastrous consequences.Gal Gadot is your producer and co-star. How did you find working with her?There’s nobody like Gal Gadot. She’s totally on…2 min
Total Film|July 2023MISSION IN ACTIONTRAIN CRAZYMISSION: IMPOSSIBLE, 1996Yes, Tom Cruise really did shoot on top of a moving TGV train for M:I 1. A skydiving simulator was used to distort his face, creating the illusion he was travelling at high speed.ROTARY CLUBMISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - FALLOUT, 2018Yes, Tom Cruise really did hang off a flying helicopter’s payload for Fallout’s aerial finale. Stunt coordinator Wade Eastwood feared the star had broken his back when he dropped on the chopper’s cargo.HALO AND GOODBYEMISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - FALLOUT, 2018Yes, Tom Cruise really did jump out of a C-17 military aircraft for Fallout’s High Altitude Low Opening sequence. More than 100 jumps were made above the UAE to get the shots needed.GET A GRIPMISSION: IMPOSSIBLEROGUE NATION, 2015Yes, Tom Cruise really was strapped to the side of an Airbus A400M Atlas…1 min
Total Film|July 2023MING QIU: STUNT FIGHT COORDINATORMy responsibility is for all the fights – with swords, or without swords. I was a professional martial artist back in China. I’ve done stunts since 1999. I doubled all the Asian actresses in Hollywood. And in the past 10 years, I doubled Ming-Na Wen on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. And, of course, he did The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett. That’s how Dave [Filoni] and Jon [Favreau] know my work.I read the script, and try to understand the story. Each episode, we’ll be given fights. There’s multiple fights. There’s heavy, heavy action on this show. If I knew, I’d probably be like, ‘I don’t think I can do this!’ There were so many fights.Dave knows what he wants. He’s very organised. We go read a script, understand the…2 min
Total Film|July 2023FIVE STAR TURNSRUSHMORE 1998In the start of a long collaboration with director Wes Anderson, Schwartzman plays an obsessive but struggling high-schooler, Max Fischer. ‘I could relate to many aspects of the character,’ he says.MARIE ANTOINETTE 2006‘I’d never done anything set in the past before… I wanted to do the best job I could.’ True to the spirit of his cousin Sofia Coppola’s revisionist epic, Schwartzman’s out-of- isdepth Louis XVI feels recognisably modern.SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD 2010In Edgar Wright’s cult comic-book favourite, Schwartzman is Gideon Graves, the ultimate end-of-level boss. The star approached the character from Scott’s perspective: ‘Be his idea of he worst-nightmare ex-boyfriend.’LISTEN UP PHILIP 2014Schwartzman’s nervy, neurotic energy finds a perfect outlet in Alex Ross Perry’s comedy of perspective as a writer who moves in with his idol (Jonathan…1 min
Total Film|July 2023RUN RABBIT RUN TBCOUT 28 JUNE NETFLIXSo, Succession is over and you are craving your Sarah Snook fix. Then look no further than Netflix’s taut mother-daughter chiller, set in rural Australia. Snook plays Sarah, a fertility doctor who lives with her child Mia (Lily LaTorre) after a split from the girl’s father (Damon Herriman). Lurking in the margins of Sarah’s life is her estranged mother, Joan (Greta Scacchi), who is in a nursing home with dementia.Things turn strange when Mia insists on being called Alice, the name of Sarah’s sister, who disappeared when Sarah was young. Then Mia starts wearing a pink-ish rabbit mask. As the distance between the girl and her mum grows, Mia’s behaviour becomes ever more unsettling. Is she possessed? Or is Sarah losing her grip on reality?The film is…1 min
Total Film|July 2023WHILE WE WATCHED 15OUT 14 JULY CINEMASVinay Shukla’s gripping, sobering doc examines the challenge and cost of speaking truth to power in the misinformation age. As rival channels stoke nationalistic fervour with hysterical, ratingsgrabbing debates, Indian broadcaster Ravish Kumar stoically continues holding the government and his peers to account. With advertisers pulling out and viewing figures dwindling, the toll on this world-weary firebrand is obvious. But while he paints a (necessarily) gloomy picture of modern political discourse and media reportage, Shukla’s portrait of a modest hero ends on a cheeringly hopeful grace note…1 min
Total Film|July 2023TO NOWHERE 15OUT 30 JUNE CINEMASLondon seems small in writer/ director Sian Astor-Lewis’ debut feature To Nowhere, the city closing in on teenagers Tulip (Lilit Lesser) and Finn (Josefine Glaesel) against a backdrop of underpasses and off-licences. A brisk 85-minute runtime charts a day of truancy and underage drinking for the duo, amid several attempts to navigate their charged, ambiguous relationship. Lesser and Glæsel provide a steady backbone for the film as uneasy adolescents playing at adulthood - the moments when they’re interrupted by tangential side characters are when the story faltersBULLDOG, DAZZLER MEDIA, GRAPEVINE, METFILM, PARAMOUNT, PICTUREHDUSE…1 min
Total Film|July 2023LA SYNDICALISTE 15OUT 30 JUNE CINEMASA shocking true story, based on the 2019 book by Caroline Michel-Aguirre, receives a prosaic treatment in Jean-Paul Salome’s drama. Isabelle Huppert plays Maureen Kearney, an Irish-born trade union representative in France who paid a heavy price for going public with her suspicions that massive job cuts were imminent in the country’s nuclear power industry. The tale should rightfully infuriate, but the film is likelier to muster an apathetic shrug as the twists unravel over a ponderous two hours. Maureen herself is a remote presence: a consequence, maybe, of the brittle froideur that Huppert emanates in every scene.…1 min
Total Film|July 2023NAME ME LAWAND PGOUT 7 JULY CINEMASDirector Edward Lovelace (The Possibilities Are Endless) spent four years filming the subject of this moving and insightful documentary: a young Kurdish boy, deaf since birth, who travels to the UK (via a traumatic, turbulent year in a Dunkirk refugee camp) to learn British Sign Language, only to see his family threatened with deportation. Only the hardest of hearts would fail to be warmed by a touching tale of struggle and survival that needs a mere 91 minutes - and an uplifting finale at a Trafalgar Square rally to reach levels of inspirational feels that arguably rival Best Picture-winner CODA.…1 min
Total Film|July 2023SMALL, SLOW BUT STEADY 12AOUT 30 JUNE CINEMAS,CURZON HOME CINEMAA sports film that’s not about winning or losing, Shô Miyake’s quiet but often mesmerising drama hits as hard as its heroine Keiko (Yukino Kishii), a Tokyo female boxer who is profoundly hearingimpaired. Exquisitely rendering Keiko’s small world of sparring and training, Miyake’s gently paced film is more concerned with her isolation, as Kishii’s vulnerable performance suggests the fear beneath her determination. A delicate soundscape - the chat, coaching shouts and thudding flurries of punches that Keiko cannot hear - brings home her immense challenges.…1 min
Total Film|July 2023FLAMIN'HOT 12 TBCOUT NOW DISNEY+When news went viral that a film about the making of the beloved cheesy snack Flamin’ Hot Cheetos was in development, it was treated as the punchline of a joke. However, as with the hero of the movie, you shouldn’t underestimate this lively biopic, a classic underdog story that proves the formula can still work.While the directorial feature debut of actor Eva Longoria (Desperate Housewives) tells the origin story of America’s favourite corn snack, it is more interested in the man behind the nibbles, Richard Montanez. After a rough start in life, Montañez landed himself a janitor job at a Frito-Lay factory and gradually worked his way up to marketing executive, changing the company’s fortunes along the way with his role in the invention of the Flamin’ chow.It’s…1 min
Total Film|July 2023FAST X 12AOUT NOW CINEMASDirector Louis Leterrier (Transporter, Clash of the Titans) brings welcome injections of energy and inventiveness to a series that has spent eight years striving to match up to 2015’s Furious 7. Fast Five also provides a spark for a story that sees Jason Momoa’s vengeful Dante Reyes striking out at the Torettos. Momoa is a refreshingly flamboyant threat, while a set-piece in Rome gives X its most Xhilarating moments. The massive ensemble leaves some stars (including Brie Larson) a little short-changed, but Leterrier still makes entertainingly outrageous work of the highway to Fast XI.…1 min
Total Film|July 2023THE SUPER 8 YEARS 12AOUT 23 JUNE CINEMAS, CURZON HOME CINEMAThe Nobel prize-winning French author Annie Ernaux constructed this wistful cine-memoir with her son and co-director David Ernaux-Briot. It consists entirely of Super 8mm home-movie footage from the ’70s, including clips from trips to Chile, Albania, Morocco, USSR and a droughtridden London, shot mainly by Annie’s then-husband Philippe when she was working as a teacher. Ernaux’s ever-perceptive voiceover accompanies the silent images, commenting on the dynamics in her own family as well as the wider changes unfolding across French society.…1 min
Total Film|July 2023HOPPING MAD: THE MR. VAMPIRE SEQUELS 151986-1989OUT NOW BDEXTRASCommentaries, Featurettes, Extended scenes, BookletDespite the international success of the 1985 Hong Kong horror-comedy Mr. Vampire, its sequels have gone largely unseen in the UK, until now. If none scare up as many guffaws as the original, standalone films Mr. Vampire II, III, and IV remain easy recommendations for fans of jiangshi cinema’s hopping corpses, seductive spooks and magical monks. The absence of Mr. Vampire 1992 (the only direct follow-up to the first film) is alleviated somewhat by the inclusion of exuberant 1989 franchise knock-off Vampire vs Vampire,…1 min
Total Film|July 2023HARD TARGET 181993OUT 26 JUNE 4K UHDEXTRASBook, Lobby cards, PosterJohn Woo’s first US feature looks a tad primitive by today’s action standards, but still packs a punch as Jean-Claude Van Damme’s mullet-favouring combat veteran Chance Boudreaux goes head-to-head with a band of manhunters who kill the homeless for sport. The New Orleans locales add a distinctive flavour to the chaos that ensues, with Aliens’ Lance Henriksen and The Mummy’s Arnold Vosloo giving as good as they get as JCVD’s primary opponents. Sandwiched between Universal Soldier and Timecop, it’s the Muscles from Brussels at his Hollywood pinnacle.ALAMY, ARROW, EUREKA, PARAMOUNT, SECOND RUN, SONY/CRITERION, STUDIOCANAL, UNIVERSAL, WARNER…1 min
Total Film|July 2023NATIONAL LAMPOON'S VACATION 151983OUT 26 JUNE 4K UHDEXTRASCommentary, Poster, Art cards, Bumper stickerThe original Griswold family adventure: not, perhaps, the most obvious choice for a 4K upgrade, but a welcome one all the same. For their annual holiday, Chevy Chase’s everyman Clark insists on driving wife Ellen (Beverly D’Angelo) and their kids (Anthony Michael Hall, Dana Barron) cross-country to visit Walley World. What could go wrong? Well, everything - not least a classic run-in with John Candy’s security guard. Directed by Harold Ramis from John Hughes’ script, it’s a very 80s but still very funny jaunt, one that lances the American Dream like a boil.…1 min
Total Film|July 2023CLASSIC TV HEROES2006-2010 AVAILABLE ON DVD, BD, DIGITALThe brainchild of Teen Wolf Too screenwriter Tim Kring, Heroes was nothing short of a revelation when it exploded onto television screens in September 2006. Arriving at a time when superheroes were not ubiquitous on screens big and small, Kring’s serialised drama about ordinary people developing extraordinary powers was soon being touted as the next great piece of genre TV. Across the course of Season 1, it was hard to argue otherwise.Operating under the catchy mantra ‘Save the cheerleader, save the world,’ the debut season of Heroes was a near-perfect example of televisual storytelling. Unlike so many other serialised dramas, not a single one of its 23 episodes feels wasted. The fascinating characters, intricately woven mysteries, and gripping core storyline - centred on visions of…2 min
Total Film|July 2023FRESH SPINSGUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL.3After his wicked comeback on James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad, John Murphy replaces former Guardians composer Tyler Bates here. More a departure than an evolution, Murphy’s score maxes (War)lock’n’load guitars, liturgical chorales and rocket-fuelled action cues. If the results lack the old cavalier spirit, they don’t want for emotional grandeur: Did That Look Cool? milks choir and orchestra for dear life, while That Hurts reworks old cues to shamelessly heartwringing effect.BEAUIS AFRAIDAfter Midsommar, Bobby Krlic reteams with Ari Aster for another mutable exercise in queasy atonality. Eerie strings, spectral horns and depth-charge throbs nail a mood of claustrophobic anxiety, from the Alien-esque Always with Water to the folk-horror-ish The Forest. Suburban Dream is initially welcoming but too evocative of Colin Stetson's Reborn (Hereditary) to be wholly…1 min
Total Film|July 20232 MORESHOCKING CINEMA OF THE 70SRevised edition of a book first published in 2002, offering a lively collection of essays on cinema outside the American mainstream. Editors Xavier Mendik and Julian Petley also lend their voices to this journey through the seedier underbelly of 70s counterculture. Across five sections and 13 chapters, the book tackles both the obvious (Death Wish, The Last House on the Left) and the less expected (Japanese grind house, Canadian horror). Fullcolour illustrations and historical context further illuminate all the smut ’n' sleaze. JOEL HARLEYGUILTY PLEASURESFirmly in the ‘audience studies’ camp, Alice Guilluy’s cheerful romcom survey springs Sweet Home Alabama (2002) on British, French and German focus groups to see if they find it gratingly American or a sugary treat. There’s a strong whiff of repurposed PhD…1 min
Total Film|July 2023IS IT BOLLOCKS?THIS MONTH KILL BILL VOL. 1Q In movies people habitually rip cannulas out of their veoms when they wake up in hospital. Is this what the doctor ordered?A Dr kate Scoffings, GPA cannula is a tiny plastic tube inserted into a vein usually to give fluids straight into the venous system and sometimes to deliver drugs – antibiotics, or other fluids – or for blood transfusion, for example. Anything that needs to have a quick action. Really a nurse or health-care assistant hould remove them before someone is discharged. They can do it safely, with minimal pain and minimal bleeding. While you could remove it yourself, you would probably make a bit of a mess and it would sting a bit. Technically, removing them isn’t a difficult or complex procedure…2 min
Total Film|July 2023GOLDEN GRAHAMSTHIS MONTH Over the Edge and Bullywelcome to Golden Grahams, my new column spotlighting ace movies that are underseen or underappreciated. Films in the canon get enough love. Let’s talk about the finest obscurities and oddities, or the odd more-famous title that doesn’t get the respect it deserves. I’ll tell you, you tell your mates.There aren’t many better pictures about disaffected youth than Jonathan Kaplan’s Over the Edge (1979) and Larry Clark’s Bully (2001). I discovered both when I was a disaffected youth myself, and now that I’m a disaffected middle-aged man who’s nostalgic for his disaffected youth, they retain their power.Both movies are based on true stories. Over the Edge, set in the suburban community of New Granada (‘Tomorrow’s city… today!’ chirps the roadside sign), realistically portrays kids’ resentments…3 min
Total Film|July 2023IS IT JUST ME OR IS RAMBO'S CLIFF JUMP PEAK ACTION CINEMA?@JAMIE_GRAHAM9‘Could this possibly happen? Absolutely,’ says Sylvester Stallone on First Blood’s DVD commentary. And therein lies the secret of the 1982 film’s most heart-stopping action sequence. Well, that and the fact we’d never seen the like before.You know the scene; it’s iconic. But let’s recap anyway: Vietnam vet John Rambo (Stallone) has been arrested for vagrancy while passing through the mountain town of Hope, Washington. Savagely mistreated by Sheriff Teasle (Brian Dennehy) and his men, he busts out of the police station and is pursued into the woods, tracked by cops and dogs until he’s hanging from a cliff face. Sadistic Deputy Sergeant Art Galt (Jack Starrett) arrives in a helicopter and starts taking potshots… and then, shockingly, Rambo pushes off the cliff and plummets down, down, down, into a…2 min
Total Film|July 2023RYUICHI SAKAMOTOELECTRO GODFATHER‘I don’t like nationalities and borders,’ said Ryuichi Sakamoto, who died on 28 March, aged 71. Throughout his career, the Japanese composer made fertile work of this dislike. Born in Tokyo to a hat designer and a literary editor, he grew up surrounded by creativity and embraced classical and pop music. As one third of proto-techno trailblazers Yellow Magic Orchestra, he helped shape electronic music before film called.CHRISTMAS GIFT‘I started off very lucky because Mr [Nagisa] Oshima trusted me completely,’ said Sakamoto of his move into film scoring. He enjoyed ‘total creative freedom’ on Oshima’s POW movie Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983), rewarding the veteran filmmaker with a breakout score that blurred pop/classical boundaries. He also acted in the film and banked a hit with Forbidden Colours, the title…2 min
Total Film|July 2023KEY SCORESMERRY CHRISTMAS, MR. LAWRENCE 1983Given Bernard Herrmann’s Citizen Kane score for reference, Sakamoto instead offered a timeless one of his own.THE LAST EMPEROR 1987Working with David Byrne and classical composer Cong Su, Sakamoto banked an Oscar for his score’s lyrical immersion in Chinese history.SNAKE EYES 1998Pulp and beauty: Sakamoto rose to the challenge of De Palma’s flashy noir with a high-grade, Bernard Herrmann-esgue score.THE REVENANT 2015With Alva Noto and Bryce Dessner, Sakamoto evoked the space and majesty of Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s revenge epic with controlled power.ARROW, DISNE Y, LIONSGAT E, MODERN, PAR AMOUNT, SKY, SONY JAPAN, TWENTIE THCENTURY STUDIOS…1 min
Total Film|July 2023JUKEBOX MUSICALSEASY1 Happy Feet Two marked the final animated role for which megastar? 2 Which actor won a BAFTA for their role in Moulin Rouge!? 3 What was the original title of the stage musical that inspired Greatest Days? 4 Which actor connects Mamma Mia! with Cinderella (2021)? 5 Kenneth Branagh’s Love’s Labour’s Lost features songs predominantly from which decade? a)50s; b)30s; c)80s.MEDIUM1 Which members of The Beatles voice their animated counterparts in Yellow Submarine? 2 Which film did Mamma Mia! overtake to (briefly) become the UK’s highest-grossing movie? 3 In Moulin Rouge!, who is credited as the voice of the Green Fairy? 4 George Lucas has a ‘story by’ credit on which animated musical? 5 Bono covered which Beatles song for Across the Universe?HARD1 Sunshine on Leith is based on…1 min
