Innholdsfortegnelse for January 2020 i Empire Australasia

“I WANT WONDER Woman to be the James Bond of the superhero world,” says Patty Jenkins of the sequel to her 2017 hit. “I set out to make a grand, massive tentpole, à la the 1980s.” Not just in the style of the ’80s either, but set in 1984 — with all the colour and brash confidence of that era. After helping bring an end to World War I but losing the love of her life, Chris Pine’s Steve Trevor, we rejoin Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman more than 60 years on. But for director Patty Jenkins, this was always the right time to return to Diana’s story and always the story to tell. “This story came to me very clearly while we were making the first film,” says Jenkins. “There…

1 JOKER After the popularity of the ‘Joker stairs’ in New York’s Bronx, Todd Phillips adds 20 more minutes of staircase action. A montage where a baby in a pram is pushed down the steps is not a homage to Battleship Potemkin — just Joker back on his bullshit again. 2 DOWNTON ABBEY Realising that the antics of the Crawley family didn’t a) have enough drama and b) didn’t reach a young demo, Universal reissue it digitally, integrating scenes from Jordan Peele’s Us ; Mrs Patmore’s kitchen is overrun with rabbits, the Dowager Countess gets a deep-throaty shadow-world voice, and Carson dances to ‘I Got 5 On It’. 3 RAMBO: LAST BLOOD Addressing criticisms that septuagenarian John Rambo is too cartoonish to be believable, Rambo: Last Blood injects more realism,…

LIKE THE RUTHLESS efficiency of a terminator hunting down John Connor, the ruthless apathy of US audiences has seemingly put pay to the future of the Terminator franchise. Opening on 1 November, Terminator: Dark Fate bowed at number one at the box office but its disappointing gross in America ($29 million) and globally ($94 million) means it could end up as a $130 million loss for studios Paramount, 20th Century Fox and Skydance Media. The lacklustre performance has left director Tim Miller baffled. “I have no idea,” says Miller when asked about why the film failed to find huge numbers. “[Skydance executive] David Ellison told me it was tracking [box office expectations] fairly well up until the Monday and then it dropped off a bit. We don’t really know why.…

THEME PARK ROBOTS In Wally’s Wonderland, Nicolas Cage plays a fairground janitor who is forced to battle evil animatronic monsters. Think Westworld but with more screaming. A JAGUAR In Primal, Nicolas Cage plays an animal hunter who is forced to seek revenge after a mercenary escapes confinement on a ship and lets a jaguar loose. Think Under Siege, but with more scratching. PIG KIDNAPPERS In Pig, Nicolas Cage plays a truffle hunter who is forced to seek revenge after his pig is kidnapped. Think John Wick, but with more slop. AN ALIEN WHO HATES JIU JITSU In Jiu Jitsu, Nicolas Cage plays a jiu jitsu fighter who is forced to fight an alien who comes to Earth every six years. Think Kickboxer but with more, er, recurring aliens.…

OUT 30 JANUARY / CERT M15+ / 96 MINS DIRECTOR Benedict Andrews CAST Kristen Stewart, Jack O’Connell, Anthony Mackie Best known as the pixie-haired American in Godard’s Breathless, Jean Seberg’s off-screen drama far outstripped her on-screen work. This visually strong but thinly written piece explores the latter part of her life where her support of the civil rights movement saw her become an FBI target. Though it refuses to embrace Seberg’s complexities, the film gets by on great production values (Rachel Morrison’s cinematography is as luminous as Seberg’s pink frock) and strong performances — particularly O’Connell as the (fictionalised) FBI surveillance wonk who becomes increasingly empathetic towards his subject’s plight and Stewart in the title role, portraying Seberg’s political purpose and personal fragility with skill.…

OUT 17 JANUARY / CERT TBC / 120 MINS DIRECTOR Pamela B. Green CAST Jodie Foster, Alice Guy-Blaché, Julie Delpy In Green’s insightful documentary, the remarkable story of silent film pioneer Alice Guy-Blaché is given the scope and context it deserves. Featuring a wealth of archive materials and new research, Be Natural is presented with a voiceover from Jodie Foster. Blaché, who made her first movie in 1896 and ran her own silent-film studio in New Jersey, was important and innovative, but often had credit stolen from her by male associates. The doco underlines this with help from talking heads such as Ava DuVernay and Geena Davis. Although the format’s fairly run-of-the-mill, it’s a commendable revival of the legacy of one of cinema’s pioneering female figures.…

OUT NOW CERT MA15+ / 113 MINS DIRECTOR Guy Ritchie CAST Matthew McConaughey, Michelle Dockery, Jeremy Strong, Henry Golding, Eddie Marsan, Hugh Grant, Charlie Hunnam, Colin Farrell PLOT American Mickey Pearson (McConaughey) presides over a huge marijuana business, growing weed under the estates of Britain’s wealthiest families. Yet when he considers selling up to spend more time with his wife Ros (Dockery), a possible investor (Strong), a Chinese gangster (Golding), a tabloid editor (Marsan) and a private eye (Grant) all begin to circle Mickey’s empire. THE GENTLEMEN IS Guy Ritchie back in his manor. After the big-budget misfire of King Arthur: Legend Of The Sword and the big-budget success of Aladdin , Ritchie’s 11th feature returns to his roots: the London-based crime milieu of Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels…

1 FRANK AND RUSSELL Nick de Semlyen: “What’s the problem, kid?” With this question, East Coast crime boss Russell Bufalino (a man who, legend has it, was an unofficial advisor on The Godfather) hoves into the life of truck driver Frank Sheeran. It’s a fascinating relationship, not only in the way its tendrils snake into Frank’s personal life — Russell is both mentor and de facto family member — and in how the de-ageing tech allows Joe Pesci to play a character much older than that of Robert De Niro, once his big brother in Raging Bull. The peculiar friendship reaches its awful culmination on a 1975 road trip, as Russell, who speaks only in obliquities, issues a death sentence for Hoffa: “We did all we could for the man.”…

A God-fearing, unambitious Costco employee named Slim (Daniel Kaluuya) sits down opposite a cynical lawyer named Queen (Jodie Turner-Smith), who’s had a bad day at work. As he drives her home, it doesn’t look like they’ll see each other again. But then a white police officer pulls them over, and the situation erupts into violence. Queen and Slim go on the run, pursued by the law and forced together, gradually realising they have much more in common than they initially thought. A protest movie made in reaction to numerous recent incidents of police brutality against African Americans, Queen & Slim is unpredictable, gripping and vital. Which makes it all the more impressive that three of the key players responsible for bringing it to the screen are, in relative terms, Hollywood…

MARGOT ROBBIE SITS bouncing on the tip of a very large, very long tongue, laughing hysterically. It’s protruding from a statue of a woman’s head on a Burbank sound stage, which today has been decked out to represent a frightening abandoned funhouse. Sitting on another tongue opposite Robbie, also bouncing, are director Cathy Yan and screenwriter Christina Hodson, trying (not entirely successfully) to have a serious meeting in-between takes. This trio have formed a gang over the past four years, spearheading the movie Robbie has dreamed about since first playing the scene-stealing Harley Quinn — psychiatrist-turned-crazed criminal — in 2016’s DC comic-book adaptation Suicide Squad . Robbie, Yan and Hodson are having so much fun, you forget that the action scene they’re attempting to figure out (it involves a fight…

MID-SUMMER, 1989. Inside the offices of Hollywood mega producers Peter Guber and Jon Peters, a production meeting is in full swing. “I don’t care if it fucking farts, I want Peter to fucking shoot it!” Jon Peters screams at line producer Larry Franco, referring to British second-unit director Peter MacDonald. “Whatever it is, action or dialogue, I don’t care. You gotta get Peter to shoot it!” “Jon…” “I hired you to be the policeman,” yells Peters. “The fucking policeman! You gotta figure it out! You gotta figure out how to make this work!” Welcome to the daily hellscape that is the life of Larry Franco, line producer on Tango & Cash. The grunt of the producing fraternity, a line producer’s role is to supervise the day-to-day running of the project,…

Eddie Murphy movies Chris: Dolemite Is My Name is Eddie Murphy’s comeback after a while away. It’s a fantastic film, but it also made me a little sad. Watching it, I was like, “Where has this Eddie Murphy been?” Amon: It was great to see a return to R-rated Eddie Murphy. Around ’96, with The Nutty Professor , that’s when we started to get the PG era of Eddie Murphy. The pre-PG era is still prime Eddie Murphy for me. James: I wonder if that came from him having a wobble. He was in these really foulmouthed R-rated films, he was a foul-mouthed stand-up, and he had great success. Then he started to hit a bum run. Then he did Nutty Professor and Shrek and whatnot. It feels like he…

IT CHAPTER TWO OUT NOW (DVD, BLU-RAY, DOWNLOAD) / CERT MA / 170 MINS Where you land on this concluding chapter of Andy Muschietti’s mammoth Stephen King adaptation will likely depend on your feelings on the first. For me, what it lacks in the Stand By Me-ish charm of the previous outing, it makes up for in sheer ambition. The brilliantly cast grownup Losers (Bill Hader and James Ransone are uncanny as the older Richie and Eddie) are saddled with a batshit plot involving inter-dimensional magic and ancient rituals — and instead of shying away from it all, Muschietti leans in. If it’s not always effective, it’s frequently remarkable — when did a horror movie last go this big, cranking up the genre on such a grandiose blockbuster scale? Beneath…

THE YEAR... SCORSESE TOOK ON SUPERHEROES — AND SPARKED A DEBATE ABOUT CINEMA It seemed like a harmless question. It was early July, and I was sat in Martin Scorsese’s New York office. The director had shown me an unfinished cut of his latest epic, The Irishman , minus the de-ageing effects, and we were busy chatting about it. I asked if he had looked at the de-ageing work in Marvel’s films. And to my surprise, Scorsese gave a fiery criticism of the Marvel oeuvre. “No, I don’t see them,” he began. “That’s not cinema.” My guess is you’ve seen the rest of his thoughts elsewhere. I knew immediately it would get a reaction. But I didn’t know until we ran the quotes in Empire in early October just how…

RECENTLY, ON A trailer for the latest remake of The Grudge , my heart soared. For early on, a title card proclaimed, “FROM SAM RAIMI”. Three words guaranteed to perk me right up. Three words we haven’t seen enough recently. Which is possibly why they were followed by another title card, one that made my heart sink: “A PRODUCER OF DON’T BREATHE AND EVIL DEAD”. No. No to the power of max, in fact. Sam Raimi is not just a producer. He is one of the most successful directors around, able to flit between big-scale blockbusters such as the original Spider-Man trilogy, and lo-fi horrors like the original Evil Dead , and its sequels. Yet you’d be easily forgiven for forgetting that. After all, it’s been six years and counting…

RICK DALTON ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD “Anybody order fried sauerkraut?” announces Rick Dalton while torching Nazis. He admits he’s “shit-scared” of the flamethrower — but not enough to not crank it out for the film’s brilliant finale. PROF. ANDREIKO HOBBS & SHAW Luke Hobbs and Deckard Shaw may have managed to beat seven shades of shit out of über-baddie Brixton, but only Eddie Marsan’s nerdy professor manages to set him on fire. He did eventually, erm, get murdered for it. EMA EMA Proving that flamethrowers are for everyone, this festival hit from Chilean arthouse darling Pablo Larraín features Ema engaging in a spot of therapeutic pyromania with a homemade flamethrower. Arty and explosive!…

REMEMBER UNIVERSAL’S DARK Universe? The studio once had grand plans for an interconnected world of horror, with Johnny Depp slated to star as the Invisible Man. That fizzled out almost as soon as it arrived — but a new, standalone remake of the H.G. Wells character is pressing ahead. Saw co-writer and Upgrade director Leigh Whannell is behind a fresh Blumhouse-produced take, which sees Elisabeth Moss as an abused wife who finds herself haunted by her violent scientist ex-husband, played by Oliver Jackson-Cohen. The Invisible Man as a low-budget claustrophobic thriller? Well, that’s something you don’t see every day. THE INVISIBLE MAN IS IN CINEMAS FROM 27 FEBRUARY…

THE PARAMOUNT PRODUCER behind The Godfather , Love Story , Chinatown and Rosemary’s Baby , Robert Evans was the toast of ’70s Hollywood and as well-known as the stars themselves for his flamboyant look and hedonistic lifestyle. In his memoirs, he also proved himself to be a master yarn-spinner, recounting his wild, cocaine-addled times with no small amount of pomp and self-regard. Here are four of his most iconic, larger-than-life moments. HE ALMOST CAME TO BLOWS WITH FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA After a testy production of The Godfather (during which Evans objected to Al Pacino’s casting, referring to him as a “little dwarf”), Coppola wired Evans to tell him exactly what he thought of him. “Your stupid blabbing about cutting The Godfather angers me for its ridiculous pomposity,” he wrote. “...…

MAJOR BLOCKBUSTER FRANCHISES don’t often take a year off. But when Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes Of Grindelwald received a lukewarm reception from critics and audiences alike (even with a hefty $654 million worldwide haul, it’s the lowest-grossing Wizarding World movie), that’s exactly what Warner Bros. did — adding an extra 12 months of prep on Fantastic Beasts 3 to get the magic back. One year on, the third Beasts movie has a November 2021 release date, is officially set to depict Rio de Janeiro’s wizarding community, and is bringing all its key players (Johnny Depp included) back — with one important change. While franchise stalwart David Yates will still direct, this time J.K. Rowling won’t be the only one working on the screenplay. After writing the Fantastic Beasts and Crimes…

OUT NOW / CERT PG / 96 MINS DIRECTOR Andy Fickman CAST John Cena, Keegan-Michael Key, John Leguizamo John Cena’s inherent likeability has helped him deliver winning comedic performances in the likes of Trainwreck and Blockers, but there’s only so much he and his overqualified castmates can do to elevate the formulaic material in Playing With Fire. After saving a trio of siblings from a house fire, Cena’s straight-laced superintendent, Jake Carson, takes the uncontrollable urchins into his care until their parents arrive, inevitably learning the value in letting his guard down along the way. But the feel-good moments are not enough to offset the lazy jokes, awkward editing and clunky dialogue. Aiming for harmless family fun is perfectly fine, but it should be executed better than this.…

OUT NOW / CERT PG / 101 MINS DIRECTORS Nick Bruno, Troy Quane CAST (VOICES) Will Smith, Tom Holland, Rashida Jones, Ben Mendelsohn Mixing secret-agent movie parody, body-swap comedy and mismatched buddy bonding, Spies In Disguise is always enjoyable if rarely innovative. After lone wolf spy Lance Sterling (Smith) is turned into a pigeon by techie Walter (Holland), the odd couple try to thwart a clawed-handed villain (Mendelsohn) from wiping out the world’s security forces with a mega-drone. The M:I/007 stylings are familiar, the messaging scattershot and true wit mostly AWOL. Still, there’s broad fun to be had with a tiny avian agent struggling in a big world, and there is something refreshing about a kids’ action flick built on progressive ideas of pacifism, mediation and gluten-free breadcrumbs.…

OUT 31 JANUARY (NETFLIX) CERT TBC / 135 MINS DIRECTORS Benny Safdie, Josh Safdie CAST Adam Sandler, Julia Fox, Kevin Garnett, Idina Menzel, LaKeith Stanfield PLOT In hoc to some very bad dudes, New York jewellery salesman Howard Ratner (Sandler) thinks he has a way out: a rock from an Ethiopian mine that could net him over $1 million. Problem is, a famous basketball player has talked him into lending it out, and getting it back won’t be so easy. DIAMONDS ARE FORMED under extreme pressure in the Earth’s crust. But it seems unlikely that any gem has been subjected to pressure quite as extreme as that which bears down on Howard Ratner, the hero of this triumphant flop sweat of a movie. Howard, a fast-talking dealer of precious stones…

1 BENOIT BLANC Nick de Semlyen: Poirot. Marple. Holmes. Blanc. It’s one of the nicest surprises of 2019 — Daniel Craig joining the ranks of the world’s top super-sleuths on the strength of a single, ultra-tangy performance. His Benoit Blanc is, frankly, a ludicrous concoction: with the voice of Foghorn Leghorn, the appearance of a particularly dapper chartered accountant, and a partiality for tortured doughnut analogies, the character is purest slab-of-ham. But from the moment he piano-plinks his way into the film to the moment he unmasks the villain, Craig is clearly having the time of his life — and the feeling is contagious. “I read a tweet about a New Yorker article about you,” one of his suspects sniffily tells him early on. In the real world, Twitter has…

IT WAS A day that, at first, seemed like any other. Thursday 18 July. People around the world were celebrating Nelson Mandela Day, Anton left the Love Island villa, and Mexican drug lord El Chapo was beginning his life sentence in prison. In San Diego, thousands attended the first day of Comic-Con, with Tom Cruise making a surprise appearance on stage to hype up Top Gun: Maverick. The day was winding down. And then, at 10.07pm UK time, it happened. Accompanied by the slightly menacing promise, “This Christmas, you will believe,” the trailer for Cats was unleashed online. First we saw humanoid forms scuttling across a dark, neon-lit alleyway. Then the swoosh of a tail. A maudlin song, ‘Memory’, kicked in, enhancing the feverish and surreal mood. And famous people…

BONG JOON HO has set movies in monster-infested sewers, on trains travelling through post-apocalyptic blizzards, and in abattoirs awash with the blood of giant pigs. Look a little closer, though, and the South Korean director’s films actually all take place in a single setting. “In my films, you really see the people on the bottom rungs,” says the filmmaker. “Normal human beings in conditions in which they can no longer act human, in situations where they become treated like ghosts.” Bong’s heroes tend to live at the foot of a ladder that’s impossible to climb. The people far above, meanwhile, are incompetent idiots, living lives of luxury, oblivious to the desperate, daily struggle of those beneath them. It’s these strugglers’ stories that Bong has dedicated his career to telling. Parasite…

IT’S BEEN EIGHT years since Martin Lawrence — once one of the most popular movie stars in the world — has made a film. That was Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son , a film which really tested the integrity of the Big Momma’s House franchise. But, after almost a decade out, Lawrence is back in a big way. There’s next January’s Bad Boys For Life , which will see him return alongside Will Smith, but first he crops up in an extended cameo in the new Harmony Korine film, The Beach Bum , playing a character called Captain Wack. So we asked him to talk us through some of his standout movies… DO THE RIGHT THING (1989) Lawrence’s first role, as the loudmouth Cee, came in Spike Lee’s classic…

The Searchers Chosen by BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN: “The last scene of The Searchers. John Wayne was the epitome of opting out for individual freedom, but spends the entire picture attempting to reunite a family. At the end of the picture he sweeps Natalie Wood up in his arms and brings her back to the cabin. They all run inside the cabin. The camera’s sitting on the inside of the cabin, looking out into the desert. He’s standing there. He grabs his arm, the wind comes up, brushes his hat for a moment, and he turns and walks away into the desert. It’s gorgeous. We stole a little bit of that for Western Stars. A very little bit.” EXT. JORGENSEN HOMESTEAD — DAY Mose Harper (Hank Worden), Mrs Jorgensen (Olive…

LANDMARK. SPINE LINES ISSUE 225 COVER 1: “This whole galaxy, the whole universe, used to be compressed into a tiny spot this big...” is from Paris, Texas. COVER 2: “It’ll be the corporations that name everything. The IBM Stellar Sphere. The Microsoft Galaxy. The planet Starbucks” is from Fight Club. COVER 3: “The galaxy is on Orion’s b- ... what is word?” “The bed?” is from Men In Black. THE WINNER Congratulations, Jim Howard. You’ve scored yourself an Empire cap!…

THE CLASSICS THE JUNGLE BOOK (1967) The Mouse House’s 1967 classic will be available to stream, alongside Aladdin , The Lion King , The Little Mermaid and all your other animated childhood faves. To have not included these masterworks would have caused outrage: for Disney fans, these are the bare necessities, after all. WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT (1988) Robert Zemeckis’ 1988 cartoon/live-action hybrid remains as remarkable now as it was on release, artfully blending slapstick silliness with gripping film-noir mystery. STAR WARS (EPISODES I-VII, ROGUE ONE) (1977-PRESENT) Intimate family drama about a dysfunctional family, centred on a son riddled with daddy issues. Supposed to be pretty good. THE SIMPSONS (1989-PRESENT) Thanks to Disney’s recent acquisition of Fox, there’ll be 30 whole seasons of Springfield absurdity to enjoy when Disney+ launches.…

BEFORE HARVEY WEINSTEIN, there was Roger Ailes. A full 15 months before allegations against the producer triggered the #MeToo movement, Fox News CEO Ailes was hit with his own allegations, with multiple women accusing him of sexual harassment. “It was the year before Harvey,” explains director Jay Roach, whose film Bombshell depicts the fallout at Fox. “These women came out [with their allegations] not exactly expecting a giant surge of support. I thought that was really interesting: telling the story of early ripples in what later became a giant tsunami of revelations.” Work on a film about the Ailes scandal began almost immediately after the news broke. The Big Short screenwriter Charles Randolph began working on a script in late 2016. Roach — who made his name on comedies like…

DA FULL-ON FOE SPEED 2: CRUISE CONTROL 1997 The peak of Dafoe’s late ’90s/early ’00s rogues’ gallery was this disgruntled former cruise worker-turned-ocean-based tech-terrorist. Dafoe’s venomous scenery-chewing is fantastically pantomimic. DA FREAKY FOE WILD AT HEART 1990 With his pencil moustache, slick hair and prominent gums, Dafoe’s blood-curdling hitman is like a creepy Rhett Butler. In a David Lynch film not short of disturbing imagery, Dafoe steals every scene he’s in. DA CONFLICTED FOE SPIDER-MAN 2002 Spider-Man’s most famous adversary is played here like Gollum: a good-hearted businessman torn apart by his inner Goblin. One of Dafoe’s most cherished villains, which produced an all-time great cackle. DA AMBIGUOUS FRIEND THE LIGHTHOUSE 2019 Is heavily bearded wicky Thomas Wake to be trusted? Is there some “enchantment in the light”? What of…

James Dyer (Digital Editor-In-Chief ): Did you know there’s a type of curry called The Mangalorean? I had one the other night. Jamie Inglis (Deputy Art Director): Lovely. John Nugent (News Editor): So are people excited for this? Chris Lupton (Creative Director): I am. Ben Travis (Online Staff Writer): So, does he ever take his mask off? James: I don’t know. I can only assume he does, otherwise you don’t hire Pedro Pascal. Ben: It’s not even like Dredd, where you see his chin. He’s fully covered. James: Stormtrooper helmets! Ben: This shot feels like a very tonal statement of intent. This is after Return Of The Jedi and you’re in the lawless badlands. It’s quite metal. John: Well metal. James: Are these Dewbacks? I’m not sure that they are.…

OUT 9 JANUARY CERT TBC / 119 MINS DIRECTOR Sam Mendes CAST George MacKay, Dean-Charles Chapman, Mark Strong, Andrew Scott PLOT On 6 April 1917 — three years into World War I — two young British soldiers in northern France, Schofield (MacKay) and Blake (Chapman), are tasked with delivering a life-saving message to a distant battalion. To get there, though, they must traverse life-threatening enemy terrains. TALK OF A tracking shot might usually merit a sentence or two in a film review. A paragraph maybe. Even with Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman , which presented itself as an unbroken take, the technique was just one of a handful of talking points. But 1917’s camerawork engulfs the film. It’s supposed to. While not quite pretending to be a continuous long take, there…

OUT NOW CERT PG / 123 MINS DIRECTOR Jake Kasdan CAST Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Karen Gillan, Awkwafina, Danny DeVito, Danny Glover, Alex Wolff PLOT In a funk after his life-or-death Jumanji adventure, graduate Spencer (Wolff) ventures back into the video game for round two. But the glitching cartridge doesn’t just pull in his friends this time — it also nabs his grouchy grandad (DeVito), along with his ex-business partner Milo (Glover). NOBODY EXPECTED MUCH from Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle , a belated post-Robin Williams reboot-quel. But it ended up a surprise treat — a frequently hilarious body-swap comedy masquerading as a generic franchise revival, its four seemingly cardboard-cutout heroes (including Dwayne Johnson’s Dr Smolder Bravestone and Karen Gillan’s Ruby Roundhouse) revealed as intentionally clichéd video-game avatars.…

OUT NOW CERT M / 108 MINS DIRECTOR Taika Waititi CAST Roman Griffin Davis, Thomasin McKenzie, Scarlett Johansson, Taika Waititi PLOT Ten-year-old German boy Johannes ‘Jojo’ Betzler (Davis) has grown up in Nazi Germany idolising Adolf Hitler. But when he discovers his mother (Johansson) is harbouring Jewish girl Elsa (McKenzie) in their home, his outlook begins to change — to the dismay of his imaginary friend Adolf Hitler (Waititi). INSIDE OUT’S RILEY had Bing Bong. Fight Club’s Jack had Tyler Durden. Now, in Jojo Rabbit , we get another cinematic imaginary friend for the ages: Adolf Hitler. In Taika Waititi’s latest, Hitler Youth boy Jojo’s confidant is none other than a goofed-up, gurning version of the Nazi leader played by Waititi himself. If the fact that Waititi is a Polynesian…

THREE SIMPLE SYLLABLES. Two simpler words. But their cultural significance is huge. We’ve heard them plenty of times over the years. Sometimes there’s a variation on a theme — “Goodbye, Mr Bond” most often — but the basic gist remains the same. A megalomaniacal villain with designs on taking over the world has lured James Bond, the world’s greatest secret agent, into a trap and is about to bump him off. Today, those words are being delivered in Cuba by Christoph Waltz’s Ernst Stavro Blofeld, head of evil organisation SPECTRE and Bond’s adopted brother. Well, not quite. To be completely honest, Empire isn’t in Cuba, but a soundstage at Pinewood Studios that’s pretending to be Cuba, while outside the October wind rages and howls. And we’re not listening to Christoph…

When Amblin Partners boss Steven Spielberg — who evidently knows a thing or two about making war movies — first read Sam Mendes and Krysty Wilson-Cairns’ script for 1917 , he gave the filmmakers some simple feedback: “People won’t be able to breathe.” Set on 6 April 1917, the story follows two British soldiers, reserved Schofield (George MacKay) and cheeky chappie Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman), on a perilous mission to deliver a letter that will call off an attack and save 1,600 lives, including Blake’s brother. It’s a taut, thriller-like premise that honours the sacrifices made by a generation. Yet what Spielberg responded to also lay in the execution. As conveyed in the script, Mendes plays out the action in real-time and as if in one continuous shot. “The reason for…

JELLICLE CATS This phrase is used as if describing a particular cat tribe, but basically all cats are Jellicle cats as far as the musical and the poems it is based on are concerned. The term apparently comes from poet T.S. Eliot’s infant niece trying to say “dear little” cats. POLLICLE DOGS If all cats are jellicle cats, all dogs are Pollicle dogs. And yes, the same baby niece tried to say “poor little” dogs and garbled it again. Cute kid, or just incompetent speaker? You decide. It doesn’t matter much because dogs are presented only through cat mockery in this story. JELLICLE BALL Once a year, all the Jellicle cats assemble to make the ‘Jellicle choice’ (see below) and cut some rug — aka displaying their “terpsichorean” (dance) powers.…

1. QUENTIN TARANTINO In 2013, Tarantino turned up to Busan Film Festival, explaining to reporters he’d come on a whim “to hang out with Bong”. Describing Memories Of Murder and The Host as “masterpieces”, he added, “Of all the filmmakers in the last 20 years, Bong has something that [1970s] Spielberg had.” Which probably helped ease the blow for QT when Parasite pipped Once Upon A Time In Hollywood to the Palme d’Or this year. 2. GUILLERMO DEL TORO The Pan’s Labyrinth mastermind was the first to congratulate Bong on his Parasite triumph at Cannes. “Rarely have I been as delighted by an award — a truly deserving filmmaker and a great guy [to] boot!” the director wrote on Twitter, where he’s regularly singing the Korean’s praises and debating his…

AKIRA FIRST ANNOUNCED: 12 APRIL 2002 Warner Bros. optioned Katsuhiro Otomo’s cyber-epic in 2002, planning a live-action remake. However, directors including Stephen Norrington and Jaume Collet-Serra came and went, while screenwriters such as Gary Whitta and Steve Kloves sought a way to Westernise the story. Just as it looked like it was going ahead with Taika Waititi at the helm this year, it was put on hiatus again. THE CROW FIRST ANNOUNCED: 14 DECEMBER 2008 The remake of Alex Proyas’ supernatural thriller has been hit by legal issues, bankruptcy and deal collapses. It looked like it might be a Bradley Cooper vehicle, then one for Tom Hiddleston, then it finally looked like a dead cert with Corin Hardy directing and Jason Momoa in the lead. However, in June 2018 Hardy…

Titanic THERE ARE LEGENDARY stories from the Titanic set. The spiralling budget. The thunderous tantrums. An aggrieved crew member lacing the lobster chowder with PCP, sending 50 stoned members of the crew (including Cameron and Bill Paxton) to hospital. James Cameron, in the middle of a scene, snatching a hat he didn’t like from Kate Winslet’s head and throwing it into the sea. Then there are the legendary shots, and none more so than this: Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Rose (Winslet) finally getting to first base on the ship’s bow, the sunset swirling around them. And they needed real-life magic to make it happen. It was the autumn of 1996, midway through the humongous 160-day shoot, where a full-scale replica of the Titanic was docked at the Rosarito coastal resort.…

THIS MONTH IN THE LINE OF DUTY WRITER JEREMY DRYSDALE WATCHES THE EPICTHE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING FOR THE FIRST TIME I’M NOT CONVINCED that the rules to this game are any more onerous than 1) pick a film you haven’t seen from a list and 2) don’t write any more than 750 words about it, but I’m going to add a third: don’t pick the film which runs at nearly three-and-a-half hours — at least not if you’re on a deadline. So anyway, here we are. On the basis that so much happens and I understand so little of it, having never seen any of the other films or read the books, this is going to be a slightly esoteric review which leaves the…