Total Film - July 2023

I will be lining up a shot, and I’ll go, “That’s just not this movie.” You don’t hear me saying, “That’s not my style” – and I have heard other directors say that, to the point where the right idea does not find its way into the movie. My taste is: does it tell the story? And that’s it.’ MASTERING SUSPENSE ‘It all starts with the lens, and then where you’re placing the camera, and how you’re lighting the scene. When you think “suspense”, you think moody dark lighting. But in reality, some of the most suspenseful things you’ll ever see in film are expressly lit. Primarily, the most important element of suspense is: you have to care about the characters in peril. You have to be invested. ‘A movie is a contract you sign with the audience. And in the first 10 minutes, I’ve told you what kind of movie you’re going to get. You know within the first 10 minutes what the moral universe is of Chinatown, Se7en, E.T. ‘So the notion of two movies came not from making a big two-part action film or following the trend of four-hour conclusions to some franchises. It was all grounded in emotion.’ SETTING THE TONE ‘What I’ve learned over the course of Dead Reckoning is, [my films will] always be different, because I’m not bound to or confined by a signature style. I actually don’t care in the slightest if you know who directed the movie. ‘I’ve learned that by putting the camera where the story tells me to put it, where the emotions tell me to put it, I’m not really in control of those things. The narrative is. So if I’m shooting a scene that has humour, it’s going to be one style. And if I’m shooting a scene that has paranoia, it’s going to be another style. ‘We are interrogating every single shot before we do it. [Jonathan] “Chunky” Richmond is my camera operator. He and journey, as well as his obvious outer emotional journey. We made a lot of discoveries on Rogue Nation… We realised that there was an amazing, emotional connection with Tom and Rebecca Ferguson - with Ethan and Ilsa - and that these exposition scenes [we’d be dreading] were really about the feelings that were developing between these two characters. ‘So going into Fallout, I told Tom, “I want to lean on that. I want to go deeper into the emotional part of the story.” And Tom wanted to tie up the story of Michelle Monaghan’s character, Julia. So finally, going into this, I said to Tom, “Look, if we’re going to do this again, I want to go even bigger and even deeper on the emotional front. We know that’s going to be a longer movie. More character translates into more movie. So let’s not kid ourselves, and let’s not try to fight the running time. Let’s just make a four-hour movie, and break it in half. Let’s make a bigger emotional arc for your character.” Tom Cruise gearing up for a scene with writer/director Christopher McQuarrie TOTALFILM.COM JULY 2023 | TOTAL FILM | 51

– you understand what can and can’t, and what should and shouldn’t, happen in those universes. It’s the movie’s obligation to honour that contract. When you feel yourself dissatisfied by a movie, it came to some conclusion that just did not honour the contract. It did not live up to the opening 10 minutes. ‘In a Mission: Impossible movie, in a big action movie… you’re being told that it’s a kind of film where, in the end, everything is going to be OK. The secret to suspense is: “I know it will end well. I hope this will end well. But I can’t see how it could possibly end well.”’ CRUISING ATTITUDE ‘You know, [my relationship with Tom has] really been one long conversation about movies, occasionally interrupted by production… And it really hasn’t stopped. A big part of that is, I don’t take my position for granted. No matter how long I’ve worked with him, I always assume it’s my last day. So he’s going to figure out I don’t know what I’m doing, and that’s going to be the end of it. ‘And Tom is very much similar in that neither of us believe we know the answer. We are in constant search of the answer, and we are constantly looking at our own work, as well as the work of other people around us, and saying, “How could this have gone better?” ‘It is a constant process of analysis, self-reflection, brutal honesty with one another. Most times, when you’re in a position of someone like Tom or me or even Eddie [Hamilton, editor], the people around you will simply assume that you know what the movie is, and they don’t question it. Tom and I are starved for it. We are constantly asking people to criticise. And so we’ll have these screenings with friends and family. And afterwards, we’ll ask questions. It’s important to have filmmakers in the room because they’ve been there too, and they understand that they’re not helping you by patting you on the back. They’re actually helping you by kicking you in the junk.’ SENSE OF AN ENDING ‘Invariably, if you’re making a two-part instalment, you have the danger of Part One being a cliffhanger, and that cliffhanger not being satisfying, or leaving the audience feel somewhat as though they’ve been had. And how do you make the ending of Part One satisfying and a complete story? ‘We obsessed about that every day. And we found a very elegant way to do that. We were very pleased when we tested the movie that one of the comments was: “It did not suffer from two-part-itis.” ‘And at several of our director screenings as well, they were very happy with the fact they felt very, very satisfied, and were very excited to watch the next movie. And yet they’d had a complete experience.’ INFORMATION OVERLOAD ‘[I learned so much about] trains, trains, and more trains. And anything anybody would ever need to know about how and where to shoot train sequences. I know more than I ever wanted to know. It is definitely not for the faint of heart. ‘And the knowledge we are acquiring on IZkmyMph far eclipses anything that we’ve done in any of the movies previously, particularly aerial sequences, because we are quite experienced in that now, after Fallout and Top Gun[: Maverick] and Rogue Nation. We are not at all unfamiliar with aerial sequences. We pushed ourselves to the absolute limit on that. ‘We don’t see ourselves in competition with Bond or John Wick. We love those movies, and we admire those filmmakers, and we want to see those guys win. All we’re really doing is competing with ourselves. And coming away from Top Gun, we looked at that movie, and said, “We’re going to bury those guys. We’re going to crush Top Gun.” ‘That’s how we look at it. Our only rivals are ourselves. You’ll see things in Part Two that benefit entirely from everything we learned from Maverick.’ ‘IT IS A CONSTANT PROCESS OF SELF-REFLECTION AND BRUTAL HONESTY’ CHRISTOPHER McQUARRIE Rebecca Ferguson returns as former MI6 agent Ilsa Faust 52 | TOTAL FILM | JULY 2023 SUBSCRIBE AT WWW.TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS MASTERCLASS

the beginning of the movie to the end, in collaboration with Christopher McQuarrie and Tom Cruise and the team and the studio. You guide the audience’s emotion with every cut, depending on how long it’s on the screen, and what the image is, and how you want to tell the story. You choose the lines coming out of the actors’ mouths, and quite often will go through all the takes and use the picture of one take with the sound from another. ‘Before the film is edited, you’re essentially collecting ingredients. The script is like the cookbook. And then you collect the ingredients, and prepare them. But the editing is like the cooking of the food. And then when you’re doing the VFX and the music and the sound, you’re plating the food: before it’s presented to the audience, you do all the finishing touches.’ THE LONG HAUL ‘We started filming in September 2020. But before that, there was quite a complex EDITOR EDDIE HAMILTON ON CUTTING TOGETHER A BLOCKBUSTER, AND MAKING ACTION SEQUENCES SOAR. AS TOLD TO MATT MAYTUM DAILY GRIND ‘So, right now, it’s 8.30am. I’ve spent the last hour dropping down VFX shots into the movie. As a film editor, I have to check every version of every shot that comes in. And then at 11am, I look at them on a big screen, and then during the day, we’re mixing sound and doing colour reviews. And then Tom Cruise joins us remotely to review the sound mix in the afternoon. ‘Around lunchtime, and then around 6pm, we have an hour and a half with Tom to review, so that he can listen to the sound mix and give us notes. And then from 10pm to midnight every day, I go through colour with Tom, remotely. The hours are quite… It’s very intense. It’s the last push to get the movie over the finish line. But it’s coming together really well.’ EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ‘It’s a position of quite important power in some ways, because you’re in charge of everything the audience sees and hears from Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames round out the core team Vanessa Kirby is back as Alanna Mitsopolis – the White Widow TOTALFILM.COM JULY 2023 | TOTAL FILM | 53 MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE

sequence on a train in the third act of this film, and we pre-vis-ed it. Pre-vis-ing is a technique where you use a computer graphics engine to create shots which feel like they’re from a movie. We don’t do much of that, to be honest, so that was really the only sequence we pre-vis-ed for this film. And for the next film, we pre-vis-ed quite a big underwater sequence because that is monstrously complicated. ‘And then, effectively, on a daily basis, as the footage comes in, I’m breaking it down very thoroughly, so that I can find footage quickly, which is really the secret to editing a movie: being organised. So I have every line of dialogue broken down by every type of camera angle. And I break all the beats of action down… Every time Tom skids over a car, I have it from all these different angles, and I can choose which one might be the best one.’ ACTION STATIONS ‘From the very beginning of the movie to the end, it’s just one massive, complex sequence after another. But that’s why people buy a movie ticket. It’s a big adventure. We want people to have a great night out at the movies. ‘You’re always thinking about clarity of storytelling so that the audience understands what the objectives of the characters are, and what happens if they succeed or fail in this action sequence, and what the stakes are. As long as you set all that stuff up for the audience, you will be invested emotionally, which is obviously the Holy Grail of any scene. ‘It’s about clarity of geography, and clarity of stakes, for a successful action sequence. And to a certain extent, it’s about the rhythm of the shots. But really, it’s about the micro emotions you’re trying to communicate to the audience so that they’re totally connected to the protagonist and what is going on ‘THAT’S WHY PEOPLE BUY A MOVIE TICKET – IT’S A BIG ADVENTURE’ EDDIE HAMILTON around him. That’s the real key: how is your protagonist feeling? ‘In a dialogue scene or an action scene, you’re always trying to make sure that the emotional intention of the scene is clear for the audience, and that they give a shit about what’s happening. I think that the real trick is, if we’ve done our job right – if I’ve done my job right as an editor – everything is paced so that you are constantly leaning in, and you never even think, “Is this the right time to go and pee?” You don’t want to give the audience space to feel that that’s an option. They have to be pulled along in the story, and kept engaged the whole time, and [they] don’t want to leave the cinema because they don’t want to miss anything.’ Get ready for some of that famous Cruise running… Cruise tangles with Esai Morales (Gabriel) atop a speeding train Pom Klementieff (above) joins the cast 54 | TOTAL FILM | JULY 2023 MASTERCLASS

CHRISTIAN BLACK, ETHAN GILLESPIE, GILES KEYTE, PARAMOUNT musically. So compared to Fallout, the approach to this one was much more orchestral. Lorne Balfe: I think that, musically, there’s a lot of nods to the origins of film music. It’s Bernard Herrmannesque kind of textures. So there is a kind of delving into the past, especially with the subject matter. It is such a modern concept and subject, that there’s something quite interesting about where we’ve ended up with this very old-school, noir-type score. STUNT BLASTING Cecile Tournesac: The core of [scoring action set-pieces] is really finding the music that will really be able to emphasise the scale of what we’re seeing on screen, and to just support it properly. It’s quite challenging to really find the piece of music that will be able to let the visuals speak for themselves but also support them in a way that you will actually feel connected to the rest of the story. Because the stunt isn’t just a stunt. It’s also connected to why he has to do this to actually complete the mission. And that’s where the music comes in, to give the weight that it needs in the whole arc of the story. Lorne Balfe: I think, also, it’s about when music isn’t used. It’s the same with Top Gun: I’ll say the word ‘tasteful’ decisions because they weren’t my decisions. Composers generally just want to fill it up as much as they can. It is about when not to use it, and to embrace the sound effects, because it just becomes monotonous, and a wall-to-wall of sound that doesn’t, after a while, mean anything. MISSIONS PAST Lorne Balfe: There is a musical language sonically with Mission, and I think it’s always gone back to trying to borrow from the TV show. And that TV show was very contemporary at the time. We think of it as retro at the time, but it was contemporary. It was obviously very jazz-infused. But the instrumentation and percussiveness of it was very prominent. When you watch the show, there are whole themes and sequences where it’s mainly percussive-led. We’ve delved into that, and we’ve done a lot of recording on the score with the Swiss Top Secret Drum Corps, which is a military drumline. And that sound is heavily used in the film, to kind of go back to that percussiveness. I think in the last one, we were very sort of bongo-orientated, which was a sound from the TV show. We’ve done that obviously, again, this time. We couldn’t not have bongos. But the Secret Drums Corps – that brought a whole new kind of colour to it. I think Tom and McQ really allow us to experiment, which always ends up [as] a different type of score. MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – DEAD RECKONING PART ONEOPENS IN CINEMAS ON 11 JULY. COMPOSER LORNE BALFE (IN WHITE) AND MUSIC EDITOR CECILE TOURNESAC ON SOUNDTRACKING SUSPENSE AND STUNTS. AS TOLD TO MATT MAYTUM LAYING THE GROUNDWORK Lorne Balfe: We actually technically started writing three years ago on Dead Reckoning. Chris had an idea of what the style of the music was that he wanted. We’re blessed to have a very well-known theme, which takes a lot of the hard work out of the situation. You’ve got one of the most recognised themes in existence to do with film music. And during those three years… I lost count at one point. We were on over 12 hours of music? Cecile Tournesac: Yeah, I think we were nearing that, with all the different directions that we were trying out. Lorne Balfe: And I think the whole thing has been discovery and experimentation – and also manipulation. There are two main themes with Mission: Impossible. You’ve got the infamous opening title, and then you’ve got the plot theme. Every time you think that there’s no new discoveries to be had, it happens. All of a sudden, that theme that was written 50-odd years ago, there is a new way to use it and for it to help tell the story. Cecile Tournesac: Even with the blessing of having those two melodies, I think it also can become this curse where you think you’ve gone as far as you can with the theme, and somehow Lorne manages to find a completely new way of presenting [it]. EVOLVING SOUND Cecile Tournesac: As far as the process, when it comes to having done Fallout before, I think Chris was wanting to evolve into a quite different sound. He’s made it quite clear that each of his films need to be quite unique in their voices, be it aesthetically, visually, and also TOTALFILM.COM JULY 2023 | TOTAL FILM | 55 MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE

The Star Wars galaxy continues to expand on the small screen with AHSOKA. Rosario Dawson tells Total Film about her former Jedi’s standalone j o u r n ey, w h i c h f e a t u re s f a m i l i a r f a c e s , d a n ge ro u s enemies and plenty of lightsaber action. WORDS MATT MAYTUM 56 | TOTAL FILM | JULY 2023

JULY 2023 | TOTAL FILM | 57

ilms 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 later go on to help create a number of the animated series that have fleshed out the universe on the small screen, including Rebels, Resistance and The Bad Batch. Filoni has also been heavily involved in Disney+ live-action series The Mandalorian, alongside its writer/showrunner Jon Favreau. That tweet – and Dawson’s interest – making its way to Filoni’s timeline was, Dawson has previously said, ‘the Force at work’. Filoni’s curiosity was captured, and a long-lasting mental note was made. Dawson would eventually be cast for a guest appearance in the fifth episode (or Chapter, if you will, as Episodes mean something else in the Star Wars universe) of The Mandalorian Season 2, which debuted in November 2020. Despite the enormous amount of potential for exploring the character further, Dawson tells Total Film that it was very much a standalone appearance at that juncture. ‘It was an interesting conversation when we approached The Mandalorian because it was a definite one-off,’ she says. ‘The contract was solely that episode. It was a test run for everybody involved, you know? And an opportunity to just explore what the audience felt.’ At that point, there was everything to play for. ‘It could be anything,’ continues Dawson. ‘It could be more guest spots. It could be its own show. It could be lots of different potentials…’ At the time Dawson was having these conversations, Mando S1 hadn’t even aired, and while there was confidence internally about the show, no one knew for certain how audiences would react. FIRST STEP… That’s not to say it wasn’t something that required proper consideration, though. This was a potentially huge commitment for Dawson. ‘Obviously it’s not something to play with,’ she says. ‘It’s such an important character, and it’s such an incredible opportunity that unless I was really, truly willing in my heart to make that level of commitment, that would be maybe not the right move, to go there.’ She calls that first episode ‘a taste test’. ‘You’re making a commitment to potentially really do this, you know?’ Ahsoka appeared again in The Book of Boba Fett (2022) – alongside a young Luke Skywalker – before landing her own eponymous series. There’s certainly plenty to explore with Ahsoka, or ‘Snips’ as she was affectionately known ‘ROSARIO FOUND A WAY TO TAKE ALL THAT HISTORY AND MAKE IT A LIVED EXPERIENCE’ EXECUTIVE PRODUCER CARRIE BECK Ahsoka (Rosario Dawson) and Hera Syndulla (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) to Anakin Skywalker, who trained her as his Padawan before his descent to the Dark Side and transformation into Darth Vader. Filoni created Ahsoka Tano with George Lucas for 2008 animated film The Clone Wars and the series that followed. Then only a teen, this Togruta – with orange skin, white markings, and blue-and-white montrals and lekku (those head-tails, to the uninitiated) – has grown over the several seasons that followed, plus Rebels and recent miniseries Tales of the Jedi, which fleshed out her backstory. A gifted fighter – with two trademark lightsabers – and a wise soul, she’s a character who stands out, while fitting comfortably into the Star Wars mythology. Filoni is the creator and writer of the live-action Ahsoka, as well as directing some of the eight episodes. There’s certainly a lot to draw on as this older Ahsoka begins the next phase of her journey. ‘I definitely felt an affinity to the animations, because, just watching them over and over again, it felt like memories,’ says Dawson. ‘Rosario studied The Clone Wars and Rebels, and found a way to take all of that history and make it a lived experience,’ says executive producer Carrie Beck (who Dawson calls Filoni’s ‘righthand woman’). ‘You see it in her face and physicality. Rosario took all those elements and was able to 58 | TOTAL FILM | JULY 2023 SUBSCRIBE AT WWW.TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS MAKING OF

Scott Fisher, and the VFX crew led by Richard Bluff, worked in harmony all through production to bring the fantasy to life in a very grounded way.’ While Ahsoka will presumably be engineered to work for newcomers, and viewers who have only become familiar with the character via The Mandalorian, key plot threads will lead directly from the animated shows. The search for Rebel Ezra Bridger is one. In Rebels he seemingly sacrificed himself to stop Grand Admiral Thrawn, the big bad of this era of the New Republic. Thrawn is also returning, as Ahsoka hinted at in her previous live-action appearances. A military strategist working for what’s left of the Empire, the blue-skinned, red-eyed antagonist is another example of a character who has found traction in the canon outside of the core films, with a detailed lore that began in spin-off books before he appeared in the animated series. Now, Ahsoka fears his return ‘as heir to the Empire’. Lars Mikkelsen (Sherlock) voiced the character in Rebels, and he’s also taking on the role in live action. ‘Playing a Star Wars bad guy is no easy feat, especially one as complex as Grand Admiral Thrawn who stands among our most celebrated foes,’ says Beck. ‘Lars brings him to life with an understated menace to his performance.’ ‘It’s hard sometimes to tell with the things you read online whether that’s actual fact or just some fan fiction,’ says Dawson. ‘But I’m pretty sure Dave said that this is basically like the fifth season of Rebels. So it felt nice to feel that sort of continuation with these people The troubled former Jedi Baylan Skoll is played by Ray Stevenson, who died in May Natasha Liu Bordizzo also stars as Mandalorian warrior Sabine Wren make Ahsoka not just authentic to the animation, but also authentic to her.’ Following the decline of her relationship with Anakin (and later run-ins with Vader), Ahsoka has been something of a wanderer. Dawson and Filoni have both referred to her samurai qualities, as she travels the galaxy, helping those in need; her skill with her twin lightsabers only adds to the relevance of that analogy. But there’s also another surprising geeky touchstone: Middle-earth’s pre-eminent wizard, Gandalf. ‘We made a lot of Gandalf references,’ says Dawson. ‘Ahsoka the Grey… And at the end of Rebels, you get to see her in white. There is this idea of her becoming wiser, more settled in herself, and kind of exploring herself and developing in a way that I think is really remarkable for someone of that level of prowess and skill and aptitude – that there are still places to reach towards. There’s still more wisdom.’ The show also promises lightsaber action galore (see boxout, p60), from Ahsoka’s ambidextrous elegance and beyond. ‘In order to support the number of action sequences throughout the series, the fight choreography and training started months before we began filming and was rigorous throughout the entire run of the show,’ says Beck. That physicality is also present in the extensive make-up work, and the marriage of practical props and VFX effects. ‘On set, the artists at Legacy and our prop master Josh Roth brought our droids and creatures to life,’ continues Beck. ‘The special-effects team led by TOTALFILM.COM JULY 2023 | TOTAL FILM | 59 AHSOKA

she’s got such a rich history with. You can see that with her mission that she has, going after Thrawn, and believing that he’s still alive, and holding Ezra in her heart, because they have a really beautiful, long history as well.’ LARGER WORLD Ahsoka is the first of the growing stable of Star Wars TV shows to have a female title character, and she’s not the only kickass woman in the cast. ‘The show is about a Jedi, a warrior, and a general,’ says Beck. ‘These characters are defined by their roles and responsibilities to each other and the galaxy.’ The Jedi is Ahsoka, the warrior is Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo), the general is Hera Syndulla (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). Sabine and Hera are both veterans of Rebels, portrayed for the first time in live action. ‘When you watch the 15 years of Ahsoka’s journey in animation – it took me a second to even appreciate how many women were on the show,’ says Dawson. ‘And that was Dave’s proclivity. That was George Lucas’s proclivity. And now to see it continue on with Jon and Kathleen [Kennedy] – it’s really quite beautiful.’ It was only natural that it DISNEY/LUCASFILM Rosario Dawson has loved working with Ahsoka showrunner Dave Filoni Ahsoka’s unique fighting style has been developed since Dawson’s debut in The Mandalorian My 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, she 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 fight, and we choreograph it first. Dave will give an opinion, and will give us notes. Dave wants everything to be realistic. Everything has a reason. Dave told me at the very beginning, ‘I want you to look at Seven Samurai.’ But the tricky part is that the old samurai style – it’s very realistic. It’s like: one strike, one kill. Or two strikes, you’re dead. For a fight scene, you cannot just do one strike, you’re dead. You have to continue. So that’s the part we needed to figure out how to make it realistic but interesting. My job is to figure out how to make each fight different. If you watch a lightsaber fight every episode, with the same kind of fighting, that won’t be interesting. Not everybody is good with the left hand if you’re right-handed. Ahsoka’s style is between Japanese and Chinese. A lightsaber is different than a regular sword. A Japanese sword is a one-sided blade, which means you can use the other side to block. But with a lightsaber, you cannot block, which means a lot of twirling and a lot of movements will be different than a regular samurai style. That’s a Chinese style. So I combine two styles together for her. Every single character has a different style and a different story. Rosario Dawson’s very coordinated. She’s very flexible. And she works very, very hard. But her challenge is, she’s also very busy. She never has any break. But we’re very lucky: she works very hard. And I know she always mentions that I’m very tough on her, but she takes the pain! MM would continue through Ahsoka. ‘I think that’s actually one of the reasons why people have loved Ahsoka’s and Sabine’s and Hera’s journey all of this time,’ continues Dawson, ‘because they had been so prominent as female representation in a space that we don’t get to really see women be like that, to be such leaders, to be finicky, to be headstrong, to be stubborn, and to see how different they are, and how well they come together as a chosen family. It just was really fun to see how that’s only just expanded and grown, and that there’s such a rich history there, and not just because of a desire for more inclusivity or diversity, but because it’s just been inherent to the story that’s been told ever since Dave and Carrie came on board.’ There’s another formidable female in the form of Shin Hati (Ivanna Sakhno), who cuts a dangerous figure in a dark hooded cloak, wielding a red lightsaber. Shin is the apprentice of Baylan Skoll, a former Jedi on a dark path. Baylan is played by the late Ray Stevenson who sadly died in May aged 58. Ahsoka features one of his final performances. ‘Ray’s presence loomed large on set,’ remembers Beck. ‘During the Meet the woman behind Ahsoka’s lightsaber battles… 60 | TOTAL FILM | JULY 2023 SUBSCRIBE AT WWW.TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS MAKING OF

pretty remarkable and exciting. We were teenagers, and then I saw him right immediately afterwards go into this universe. I never could have fathomed that I would have had any part of that, besides just being a fan of his, and being really proud of him.’ More recently they have attended conventions at the same time. ‘It’s just been really cool that at this moment, I’m joining it, and he’s been able to come back [in 2022’s Obi-Wan Kenobi] and also get embraced by the Star Wars family in a way that I think is much deserved. It’s definitely one of those things that would be super cool if he was [in Ahsoka], but I’m just really grateful that we’re in the same universe.’ As when Dawson began her journey for Ahsoka, her future is not yet set. But if Dawson has any say in it, she’ll be back. When TF asks if she sees a lot more to explore with the character, she responds, ‘I mean, I do, and I hope [Filoni] does.’ As part of the Star Wars roadmap outlined at Celebration, Filoni will be directing his first live-action feature, which is set to be a conclusion wrapping up the events of the live-action series set during the New Republic era like The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett and, of course, Ahsoka. ‘I really marvel at Dave’s journey, and I’m so happy for him and proud of him,’ says Dawson. ‘I’ve loved him as a fan, and now, having had the chance to be on set with him daily and work with him, and pick his brain, and him being my own personal encyclopaedia for everything Star Wars and beyond – it’s just been a marvel.’ From Dawson’s breathless praise, it doesn’t sound like this is a master/ padawan relationship that will end in tatters anytime soon. ‘I think he’s one of the greatest I’ve ever worked with in this medium and in this space,’ she says. ‘And I hope that he continues to bring Ahsoka along. Because he’s been very loyal to her over the years, and she to him. That’s not going away any time soon. So any kind of way and iteration that I can keep working with Dave, and being inspired by him, and challenging him when I can – it would be awesome.’ AHSOKA STREAMS ON DISNEY+ FROM 23 AUGUST. production, he had an infectious enthusiasm and gregariousness that he shared with his fellow cast and crew.’ As for the character, Beck says that Stevenson ‘brings a philosopher’s depth to Baylan that pairs well with his imposing physical strength’. Mere months ago Stevenson participated in the franchise’s signature fan event. ‘It’s still difficult to comprehend that he will not be here to experience the outcome of his hard work,’ continues Beck. ‘At Star Wars Celebration this past April he was so energised by the outpouring of love from the Star Wars fandom. We will all miss him terribly.’ Baylan looks set to be one of Ahsoka’s most prominent threats, while Thrawn lurks in the background. In the first Ahsoka teaser, only the back of Thrawn’s head is glimpsed (Celebration attendees got a better view of Thrawn in an exclusive version of the trailer that was shown there). Another franchise player believed to be involved in some capacity is Hayden Christensen. Given Ahsoka’s connection to Anakin, it’s not hard to imagine that character looming large in her mind. But given that Darth Vader is dead by this point in the timeline, it remains a mystery if and how he could figure (flashback scene? Force ghost?). No one’s giving anything away yet. When TF asks Beck if we’ll see any familiar faces pop up, as Ahsoka did in The Mandalorian, she responds. ‘I suppose that depends on which Star Wars characters you are most familiar with.’ Dawson and Christensen go way back, having attended the same drama school (the Lee Strasberg Institute) and appeared together in 2003 true-life journalism drama Shattered Glass. If that ends up being as far as the connection between the live-action Anakin and Ahsoka goes, it’s pleasing at least to know there is real-life resonance there. ‘It’s really great,’ beams Dawson. ‘It’s one of those things, especially when the fans figure that out, and we have these pictures of ourselves when we were younger, back in what would have been our “Snips and Skyguy” kind of era. It’s ‘IT TOOK ME A SECOND TO APPRECIATE HOW MANY WOMEN WERE ON THE SHOW’ ROSARIO DAWSON Baylan’s apprentice Shin Hati (Ivanna Sakhno) targets Ahsoka In a link to previous Star Wars stories, Genevieve O’Reilly (second left) returns as Mon Mothma TOTALFILM.COM JULY 2023 | TOTAL FILM | 61 AHSOKA

Never mind ouija boards, in hot new Aussie horror TALK TO ME, a group of teenagers go one better as they find a handy method to meet the dead. A trembling Total Film hangs out with YouTube sensationsturned-directors Danny and Michael Philippou, and their cast, to unpack this unforgettable spook story. WORDS JAMES MOTTRAM 62 | TOTAL FILM | JULY 2023

JULY 2023 | TOTAL FILM | 63

icture 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 over a fortnight later. Talk to Me has snagged a slot at the prestigious Berlin Film Festival and the co-directors and their cast are still reeling from the A24 pick-up. ‘We were just saying… it was on our list of possible career “what we want to happen” moments and it’s happened so young. It’s just mind-boggling,’ says Jensen, breathlessly. Even so, watching themselves on screen at Sundance was intense. ‘I was so scared, I cried,’ says Wilde, ‘I cried in the bathroom before! Just the anxiety of having not seen it.’ Of course, audiences are going to be scared in a whole different way. Set in the Adelaide suburbs, Talk to Me stars Wilde as Mia, a teenager still grief-stricken over the suicide of her mother two years earlier. Becoming increasingly distanced from her father (Marcus Johnson), she is spending more time with her best friend Jade (Jensen), who lives with her younger brother Riley (Joe Bird) and their single mother Sue (Miranda Otto). Things get strange when they go to a party where the hosts are in possession of a plaster-cast hand. Grip this curious ornament, say ‘Talk to me’ and a dead person appears in front of you – although no one else in the room can see them. ‘I guess Mia, at the start of this journey, her mum’s just died and she has this fractured relationship with her dad and is obviously going through that process of grieving and searching for connections in her life,’ says Wilde. ‘And I think Jade and her family are like a surrogate family and so she is really craving connection from them. So when this hand comes along, it feels like it’s an opportunity for her to find connection and find community. And then obviously it all goes to shit.’ True enough. When anyone holding the hand mutters the phrase ‘I let you in,’ the user becomes possessed. An amusing novelty at first, it soon gets wildly out of control. When the brothers began writing, they drew influences from all over, including William Friedkin’s legendary possession tale. ‘It’s such a cliché answer, but The Exorcist is so incredible,’ says Danny. ‘Those characters don’t feel like film characters, they feel like real people.’ CLOSE AT HAND The Philippous strived to do the same, creating authentic characters. ‘We haven’t really seen a film where we’ve been portrayed like that,’ says Jensen. ‘Just the actual language of how we [as young Australians] speak.’ Likewise, she praises the array of themes tackled ‘like addiction, grief, trauma, loss’. Danny attributes that to he and Michael diving into ‘personal experiences’ when they wrote. ‘It was always really personal things that frightened us that we tried to put on the screen.’ With Mia hoping to reconnect with her lost mother through the medium of the hand, does he see it as a grief story? ‘I think it’s all about connections for me. Like her rejecting this natural connection at home and pushing herself into this other family. It’s a really personal story. Even with our mother’s depression and stuff like that. And [our] mother’s mother committed suicide. Because this happens to them [you think] it’s gonna happen to you as well.’ Already, Talk to Me is being billed as the first Australian horror since Jennifer Kent’s 2014 tale The Babadook to have break-out potential. Causeway, the company behind Talk to Me, also produced The Babadook. And, in an even stranger coincidence, the Philippous were crew members on that movie. ‘It’s a weird circle,’ says Michael. ‘I saw with Jen on that film… I knew it would be good because she cared so much about every frame. She wasn’t there for a paycheque. She wanted to make the best film possible and everything meant so much to her. I love this and that’s the energy I wanted to have with ours as well.’ With their rapid-fire chatter, the Philippous burst with vitality. Able to grab your attention, it’s no surprise their background is short films, amusingly sick skits they conjured up for their YouTube channel RackaRacka, like ‘Ronald McDonald EXTREME Muckbang’, in which everyone’s favourite fast-food clown force feeds a luckless chump. ‘YouTube, we kind of fell into,’ says Michael. ‘We just started uploading for fun. And there was one video that went so crazy – we had 100,000 followers overnight. And we’re like, “Oh, what happens if we focus on this and see where this goes?”’ For a while the brothers ‘went down the rabbit hole of YouTube’, adds Michael, but their ambition was always feature A24 Joe Bird as Riley having a close encounter with the dead… 64 | TOTAL FILM | JULY 2023 SUBSCRIBE AT WWW.TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS MAKING OF

us all bond was we played [card game] Uno and whoever lost would have to do a prank,’ says Jensen. These consisted of ‘awkward social dares’, according to Danny. Jensen explains. ‘I lost the first time, so meeting the producer Sam [Jennings], I had to put mayonnaise on my hands and shake her hand and say, “Hi, I’m Alex!”’ Putting a good scoop of the gloopy sauce on her hand, she grabbed Jennings’ mitt and watched as a look of disgust crossed her face. ‘I was so embarrassed!’ Given the issues at hand (sorry), it was crucial to keep things light. ‘We’re already dealing with such a heavy subject matter,’ says Michael. ‘It doesn’t need to be like that [on set]. You don’t want the crew to be like, “Oh, here we go again.” You want them to want to come in.’ Still, the brothers couldn’t help but delve into the darkness. Before they started shooting, they ventured to Rhode Island to visit the spooky house seen in The Conjuring. ‘If someone goes, “This room is haunted in this hotel”, I’ll go, “Can I stay in there?” I find it fascinating,’ says Michael. ‘I love speaking to psychics or people that have had supernatural experiences.’ CREEP SHOW Not that all concerned felt the same. ‘We tried to get everyone to stay at a haunted abandoned town with us, a bonding trip before the film. But I don’t think people were too keen!’ Danny laughs. Indeed, their actors were a little unnerved by the prospect of real-life paranormal activity happening on set. ‘You know what? I actually had a bit of anxiety that that would happen,’ admits Wilde. Hearing about creepy goings-on on the set of Roman Polanski’s classic chiller Rosemary’s Baby didn’t exactly help. ‘I was like, “Is this gonna be legit?”’ Neither did filming in a hospital, rumoured to be haunted. ‘We were getting all these funky vibes!’ adds Jensen. ‘Adelaide is quite a haunted place.’ Wilde nods in agreement. ‘It’s like the serial killer capital of Australia!’ Those ‘funky vibes’ continued when the Philippous started bringing in the actors, in full prosthetic make-up, playing the ‘dead’ that Mia and the others connect with. ‘I remember when we were doing the first possession,’ says Jensen, explaining that in walked a woman with foul-looking teeth and manky skin. ‘She was the first one we saw as a group. It was quite early in the shoot and we were all just having the best time because we shot those sequences over a few days. And it just went silent when she walked on, because they can’t see with the contacts they wear. She just sat down. And you could literally feel the energy of the room go, “Oh, oh, OK…” It was terrifying.’ Even the plaster-cast prop hands freaked them out. ‘There’s only a few in existence right now,’ says Michael. ‘We gave one to Sophie,’ adds Danny. Wilde confirms this: ‘I put it on my shelf. And then it kind of freaked me out. So then I hid it in my cupboard!’ Jensen bursts out laughing. ‘That’s so sweet! It’s like when Jennifer Lawrence got her Katniss bow [from The Hunger Games]. Where do you put an archery bow?’ With Talk to Me now ready for release, the brothers are already looking to the future. ‘We’re developing three other films at the moment, two horrors and one action,’ says Danny. ‘I want to do a film next year.’ As for their loyal YouTube following, they’ve not been forgotten. ‘I want to upload for them,’ notes Michael. ‘Doing this film was the longest we hadn’t uploaded – it was over a year. And there were always comments and messages: “We really want to see more from you guys!” But I think film is going to be the main focus.’ There’s no doubting their energy and enthusiasm… you’ve really got to hand it to them. TALK TO ME IS IN CINEMAS FROM 28 JULY. films. ‘It was always practising to get to do a film,’ he says. While the brothers had to overcome the industry stigma against their YouTube background (‘That doesn’t get taken seriously,’ says Danny), they took inspiration from those who have made unusual leaps in the film industry. Like Jordan Peele, who went from comedy to horror. ‘I’m wearing his shirt,’ laughs Michael, pointing to the logo for Peele’s Monkeypaw Productions on his chest. ‘He’s very inspiring. Showing you don’t need to be locked into a certain box.’ Same goes for Todd Phillips, adds Danny. ‘Going from like Ma^yAZg`ho^k to Joker. Or Bo Burnham, who came from YouTube to do Eighth Grade.’ Once they got on set, the Philippous did everything they could to bring their cast together. ‘One of the ways they made ‘IT WAS ALWAYS REALLY PERSONAL THINGS THAT FRIGHTENED US THAT WE TRIED TO PUT ON THE SCREEN’ DANNY PHILIPPOU Sophie Wilde plays Mia, still recovering from the death of her mother TOTALFILM.COM JULY 2023 | TOTAL FILM | 65 TALK TO ME

He may belong to one of cinema’s greatest filmmaking dynasties, but Jason Schwartzman has found his niche in iconic US indies like Rushmore, I Heart Huckabees and Marie Antoinette. As the actor reunites with his beloved Wes Anderson for Asteroid City, Total Film meets him to talk Converse, Coppolas and careers… JASON SCHWARTZMAN ‘ONE THING I CAN SAY ABOUT ALL THESE MOVIES… THEY’VE ALL BEEN LIKE AN ADVENTURE.’ INTERVIEW JAMES MOTTRAM COREY NICKOLS/CONTOUR BY GETTY IMAGES PORTRAITS COREY NICKOLS & EMMA MCINTYRE 66 | TOTAL FILM | JULY 2023 SUBSCRIBE AT WWW.TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS

ow 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 ri#wkh#prvw#idprxv#Ľoppdnlqj#idplolhv# 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 in Wes Anderson’s Rushmore. Schwartzman – who turns 43 at the end of June – is a major member of Anderson’s ever-expanding rep company, having either featured in or zrunhg#rq#wkh#vwru|#iru#hyhu|#Ľop#ri#wkh# director’s since 2007’s India odyssey The Darjeeling Limited. This month sees him in Asteroid City, in arguably his biggest role(s) for Anderson since 1998’s Rushmore, in which he plays both a 1950s actor, Jones Kdoo/#dqg#Kdooġv#fkdudfwhu#lq#vfl0Ľ0wlqjhg# teleplay Asteroid City – Augie Steenbeck, a father-of-four photographer grieving over the loss of his wife. In a starry ensemble including Tom Hanks, Margot Robbie and Scarlett Johansson, all of whom will be touched by an alien encounter, Schwartzman is the emotional heart, although he’s too modest to say so. ‘Maybe I’m the sdqfuhdv$ġ#kh#txlsv1#ĠD#glļhuhqw#rujdq1ġ# Rqfh#djdlq/#wkh#Ľop#whdpv#Vfkzduw}pdq# with his own cousin Roman Coppola, who co-wrote with Anderson and previously directed him in 2001’s CQ (which, fxulrxvo|/#zdv#derxw#d#Ľoppdnhu# gluhfwlqj#d#fkhhv|#vfl0Ľ,1# Along the way, Schwartzman has worked with Roman’s younger sister, VrĽd#+rq#5339ġv#Marie Antoinette, in which he played King Louis XVI), and their niece Gia Coppola (2019’s social-media satire Mainstream). Even more excitingly, he’ll soon be seen in Megalopolis, the longjhvwdwlqj#vfl0Ľ#hslf#iurp#klv#xqfoh/# Ľoppdnlqj#wlwdq#Iudqflv#Irug#Frssrod1# Keeping it in the family, he’ll be joined by his mother, Talia Shire, who famously featured in both Coppola’s The Godfather and in Rocky as the boxer’s wife, Adrian. While directors such as David O. Russell (I Heart Huckabees), Alex Ross Perry (Listen Up Philip) and Tim Burton (Big Eyes) have always recognised Schwartzman’s distinct vibe, now feels like his moment. Alongside Asteroid City, you can hear him as The Spot in the brilliant animation Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. And later in the year, he’s the moustachioed host/commentator ‘Lucky’ Flickerman in prequel The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Having just wrapped his segment of Queer, Luca Guadagnino’s take on the William S. Burroughs novel, it seems like there isn’t a director in town who doesn’t want a piece of Schwartzman. Away from acting, he’s also gone from drumming with band Phantom Planet to composing scores (Funny People and the theme song for HBO’s Bored to Death) to solo project Coconut Records. Creativity is in his DNA, wkdqnv#wr#d#frqvwdqw#glhw#ri#pxvlf/#Ľop# and art. ‘In my family, it seemed like they needed it,’ he says. It’s made him the man he is today… Did Wes come to you and say Asteroid City contained a big role for you? We had worked on The French Dispatch, he and I and Roman, in a writing capacity for years, as we did on The Darjeeling Limited and Isle of Dogs1#Vr#zhġg#mxvw#frph#rļ#wkdw# and we were on the phone – this was July 2019. I just know because we spoke on my wedding anniversary. And he said, ‘I’ve got this idea for something that I want to write with Roman and present to you. And I think there’s something about this that I think is better to complete without you knowing about it.’ So you sensed that you were going to be heavily involved on the acting side of things with this project? I don’t know how big the part was, but it was basically we’ve got this thing and we’re in the beginning stages of it, but it’s happening. It will happen at some point. But I literally knew nothing about it. The Ľuvw#wklqj#kh#vdlg#zdv/#ĠMxvw#orrn#lqwr# [director Elia] Kazan.’ It’s very vague but oddly I had the Kazan book [A Life] next to my bed. I took a picture and said, ‘Look at this.’ And then I was working in Chicago and I went to see 2001, the 70mm print. Dqg#wkhq#L#zdv#orrnlqj#xs#^vshfldo0hļhfwv# guru] Douglas Trumbull making-of videos of how they did these sequences and I ended up buying these Stanley Kubrick books while I was in Chicago, and then Wes said, ‘Think about Kubrick.’ And I was like, ‘Now this is crazy.’ Maybe Wes has spy cameras in your bedroom? As you say it now, maybe there’s a microphone in my teeth! Do you feel Asteroid City is the closest Zhv#kdv#pdgh#wr#d#vfl0ĽB L#zdv#wklqnlqj#|hvwhugd|ĩ#Wkhuhġv#d#vfl#Ľ# [aspect], but you’ve got these cowboys, With co-stars Adrien Brody and Owen Wilson in Wes Anderson’s melancholic marvel The Darjeeling Limited, which Schwartzman co-wrote 68 | TOTAL FILM | JULY 2023 SUBSCRIBE AT WWW.TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS INTERVIEW

this cowboy band, and they represent this group, at that point in the 50s… It’s like a changing breed. But what they represent is a freedom and going into the unknown. And at the same time, you’ve got these kids that are in a way like cowboys, going into space and going into the sciences. They seem like opposites. In a way, dowkrxjk#lwġv#vflhqfh#Ľfwlrq/#lw#^ihow`# grounded in the present, a very ‘of the wlphġ#prphqw1#Glļhuhqw# kinds of archetypes, crossing paths. Do you remember meeting Zhv#iru#wkh#Ľuvw#wlphB L#ghĽqlwho|#uhphpehu# phhwlqj#Zhv#iru#wkh#Ľuvw# time. Vividly. It was at the audition for Rushmore in Los Angeles. I had never auditioned for anything before. I went in. First of all, I didn’t know how old Wes was going to be – and he was young. And I felt instantly more comfortable. And he felt like someone that I wouldn’t have known but that I felt familiar with. And he had on these Converse sandals, which I had never seen before him and genuinely was surprised. Whoa, I’ve never seen Converse sandals! And we did end up getting into this sidebar about his shoes. I had New Balance. He was asking me about my New Balance. And before I knew it, I forgot that we were in this situation. So you bonded over shoes? Well, it dovetailed… Little things spiked up. And then he said, ‘Let’s read it.’ And I said, ‘Maybe we should not read it. And we should stop here because it’s been such a great experience. I would love to leave it at that.’ And he said, ‘No, let’s do it.’ He read the scene with me. And he was so good that all of a sudden it just felt like we were having this conversation… That was my Ľuvw#hqfrxqwhu1#Kh#pdgh# me feel like he was interested in what I had to say. And I was not used to that. You started writing with Wes on the India-set The Darjeeling Limited. What sticks out in your mind about that? Wes, Roman and I said we should go and live there and not come home until we’d Ľqlvkhg#wkh#vfulsw/#zklfk#zdv#h{flwlqj1#Vr# once we’d been writing for eight months, we had a bunch of information on the vfulsw#Ğ#qrw#Ľqlvkhg#ru#ixoo|#iruphg#exw# a lot of it. And so we were already saying lines from the movie, like in our own lives, playing the dialogue out a little bit, and acting out the scenes. There was a scene in the movie where he says, ‘I want us to say yes to everything,’ so that was our motto when we went there. ‘Let’s say yes to everything.’ We tried to engage in or initiate many of the things that kdsshqhg#lq#wkh#Ľop1 You’ve worked a lot with family members. Do you like doing that? Yeah, I guess it’s a unique circumstance. Roman, he’s older than me. When I was eight or seven… they lived in Northern California. We lived in Southern California. So I didn’t see them very often. Just on some type of holiday. But I remember I was up visiting them as a kid. And Roman was a teenager and he had a bunch of buddies who lived in Napa. And they had d#mdp#edqg1#D#guxp#vhw/#d#sxqn#^rxwĽw`111# I don’t know what you call it. A bunch of guys playing, and I went in, and I just thought it was so cool. And he put me in his lap, put the sticks in my hand and then put his hands over mine and played the ‘I DIDN’T KNOW HOW OLD WES WAS GOING TO BE – AND HE WAS YOUNG!’ AL AMY, UNIVERSAL Schwartzman’s latest role for Wes Anderson is in the desert-set Asteroid City TOTALFILM.COM JULY 2023 | TOTAL FILM | 69

drums with me in his lap. And I was like, ‘Oh, my God, this feeling is amazing.’ To play with other people. That sounds like a very formative moment for you? The formative moment. In my life, I had never been plugged into a situation – I mean, he’s really doing the drumming – where I felt like I was a part of something. I was part of a team. And after that, I wanted to play the drums and that led to me, ultimately, becoming a drummer. So music brought us together more and then he ended up making a video for my band. Roman just has many ideas. I mean, he patented a magic trick! I describe him as a Swiss army knife. Did you feel that acting was a realistic option for you before Rushmore? In the 80s, when I was growing up, the big stars of the time were very muscular and they were in really big movies, which I enjoyed so much. But I never thought, ‘I’m going to be in this industry – a muscular action-hero type of person.’ They were entertaining. And there was no gradation from action movie to comedy in the 80s. There was just big comedies and big action prylhv1#Wkhuh#zdv#vwxļ#olnh#Mlp#Mdupxvfk/# but I didn’t know about that. I loved Bill Murray and those movies, but I never thought ‘I’m going to be a Ghostbuster!’ I never saw Commando and thought, ‘That’s going to be me.’ They weren’t speaking to things that I was feeling. Growing up, what was cooler – the fact your mother was in The Godfather or that she was in Rocky? Well, it was weird. The Godfather, I didn’t really know what that was in all honesty. Obviously, my uncle directed it, and we’d go to his house, and I guess I was aware of it. But I think Rocky was a bit more… When I was little, kids would run and race and at the end, they’d say, ‘Yo! Adrian!’ I remember walking around with my mom, and people coming up to her and saying, ‘Adrian!’ and I think that she was uncomfortable. I think she appreciated it but she was also uncomfortable. I remember thinking, ‘What is this “Adrian”? Why do they say this?’ But it wasn’t that it was cool – I think she had a strange relationship to it herself. I’ve never really asked her about it, honestly, but that’s what I think retrospectively. Do you remember much about the experience of working on 2006 shulrg#Ľop#Marie Antoinette? Oh, my God, yeah. It was amazing. It was RUSHMORE 1998 In 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-hisdepth Louis XVI feels recognisably modern. SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD 2010 In 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 the worst-nightmare ex-boyfriend.’ LISTEN UP PHILIP 2014 Schwartzman’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 Pryce). ‘I am for sure similar,’ says Schwartzman. ‘I idolise people a lot.’ KLAUS 2019 This charming Netflix movie immediately felt like a festive favourite. In the 19th century, Jesper (Schwartzman) is put in charge of the postal service. Voice acting is ‘experimental in a way I love,’ says Schwartzman. MM AL AMY, NETFLIX FIVE STAR TURNS 70 | TOTAL FILM | JULY 2023 INTERVIEW

Schwartzman’s age when he made his acting debut in Rushmore $173M BOX-OFFICE TAKE OF SCHWARTZMAN’S HIGHEST-GROSSING LIVE-ACTION FILM, THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL shot at Versailles. Just for so many reasons. That experience was so unique to be there. I just remember going, ‘Remember this, because this is very unusual.’ Did you start to act like a king? Yes, I went through thousands of candles a day to keep my hotel room warm! Still, getting to be Louis XVI in Versailles, that’s part of the unique appeal of being an actor, right? Absolutely, absolutely. And the thing is, a lot of moments in one’s life whenever you look back… there are some that are just so bold, that you’re like, ‘This is crazy.’ And I’m realising that it’s crazy as it’s kdsshqlqj1#Exw#zrunlqj#zlwk#^VrĽd# Coppola] was a whole other incredible learning experience. It was a totally glļhuhqw#zd|#ri#gluhfwlqj1#L#Ľqg#lw# fascinating: how you can get people to work together and believe in your idea. Now you’ve graduated to working with Francis Ford Coppola, featuring in his long-gestating Megalopolis. What was that experience like? Oh, it was amazing. Beyond being related… It really was a powerful thing. What I witnessed every day was [he was] constantly putting himself in these situations that were totally nuts. And I was like, ‘I hope I can be this way.’ I’m not even talking derxw#dv#d#Ľoppdnhu/#mxvw#dv#d#shuvrq1#L# can’t remember the last time I had seen someone do that. It was really inspiring. After Rushmore, one of your earliest big leads was David O. Russell’s I Heart Huckabees. How did that come about? Before that movie, he had been writing another movie. And in that movie, I was playing a folk singer. He said, ‘I want you to write all of the music.’ We were working for a long time. And writing these songs and going on these walks and hikes, getting into the script. And we were a month away… We were preparing to do the movie. And I got this phone call one morning. And it was David and he said, ‘I just wanted to let you know that in a few hours I’m going to announce that we’re not going to make this movie.’ And I said, ‘OK.’ And he said, ‘I promised myself I wouldn’t make a movie I didn’t believe 100 percent in. And I believe in this movie 98 percent.’ And he said, ‘But I promise you L#zloo#Ľjxuh#lw#rxw1#Dqg#zh#zloo#gr#wkh# rqh#433#Ľop/#zkdwhyhu#wkdw#lv1ġ#L#wrwdoo|# respected that. Couldn’t believe it, though! You could’ve put an album out featuring all the songs you’d written! They weren’t that good! But I took that as a real bold lesson. To know that what you’re jrlqj#wr#gr#lv#jrlqj#wr#uxŀh#ihdwkhuv#dqg# cause problems. But it ultimately might cause more problems if you did do it, for whatever reason. I just thought it’s cool to believe in yourself or stick to your own decision. Then I go on to record this album. I’m touring around with my band. And I get this call from David… It’s been a year or two. ‘Where are you?’ I’m in New York, touring with my band. ‘What’s your address?’ So he sent this script. It was in this manilla envelope and I opened it. And I remember it said, ‘For Jason, as promised, lovingly crafted for you, David.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, my God!’ And I knew nothing about it. I didn’t know what character I was. Anything. And I was just so moved. I was not expecting him to make a movie with me. And he did. And it was so amazing. And the coolest thing, too, was that he lived 15 minutes from my house. And the way that it worked out, instead of [talking] on the phone, I would just get up every morning, get dressed, go to his house, sit in his living room, go over my script, whatever. And stay there till night-time. And he would be in meetings or grlqj#rwkhu#vwxļ#zlwk#wklv# kid. But anytime he had 10 minutes, I was there. So I was just available all for a year. And then we made the movie. And that’s why that one is so meaningful to me. It was my whole life. You’ve not done too much broad comedy, but you did pop up playing Ringo Starr in 2007’s Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. Was that fun? How scary is that to do? It was crazy. You ever have this experience in your life? Where you think that you’re good at vrphwklqj#dqg#wkhq#|rx#jr#wr#d#glļhuhqw# place and you’re like, ‘Whoa, I am so not good at this compared to these guys.’ I’m in a room with John C. Reilly, Jack Black, Paul Rudd. And Tim Meadows and Chris Parnell. I was like, ‘Wow, I am so happy that I have a few lines.’ You could feel it. You can’t help but smile. Typically, you’ve been more involved with more esoteric comedy, like Alex Ross Perry’s comedy drama Listen Up Philip. Was that a project you were immediately excited about? I was very excited to meet with Alex, just to meet this person that would’ve written ‘IT’S COOL TO BELIEVE IN YOURSELF OR STICK TO YOUR OWN DECISION’ JASON SCHWARTZMAN IN NUMBERS ACTING CREDITS TO HIS NAME Feature film collaborations with Wes Anderson to date (plus 4 shorts) Albums Schwartzman has released through solo project Coconut Records TOTALFILM.COM JULY 2023 | TOTAL FILM | 71 JASON SCHWARTZMAN

SUBSCRIBE AT WWW.TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS a script that included things like… For instance, in the description of the scene, it will say, ‘Philip enters the room. The room lv#Ľoohg#zlwk#wkh#errnv1ġ#Lw#zloo#ghvfuleh#wkh# books, describe the shelves, describe everything. And then it will say something like, ‘It is Philip’s birthday.’ But we never know it’s Philip’s birthday in the movie. There was just something really interesting about that script. But to be honest, the dialogue was so well written. L#frxogqġw#eholhyh#vrph#ri#wkh#vwxļ#wkh# character would say. How did your Star Wars cantina skit come about with Billy Dee Williams? This guy called Chris Hardwick has this podcast called The Nerdist. It’s a fantastic podcast – these very long-form conversations. He has a few friends that are with him, and they have guests on – amazing people and amazing questions. I was on his show and he was telling me that he liked the song West Coast that I wrote. And I told him it meant a lot to me and we began a friendship. One day he emailed me. Every year for Comic-Con, he does a video and he’s a huge Star Wars idq1#Kh#kdg#Ľjxuhg#rxw#d#zd|#wr#uhsolfdwh# the cantina scene from Star Wars and have his friend translate all of the lyrics from p|#vrqj#lqwr#doo#wkh#glļhuhqw#odqjxdjhv# and dialects in Star Wars, and have all those creatures sing it in their natural, native tongue. So he asked if he could have the song to do that, and then he asked if I would be in it. A lot of the people in it, those are all their own personal costumes – they’re all devoted Star Wars fans. Would you like to do more comedy? I don’t know. I would love to. It’s so hard wr#jhw#dq|wklqj#grqh/#Ľuvw#ri#dooĩ#Vr#pdq|# things have to line up for a movie to get made, it’s incredible. And there are actors… They are at a level which they’ve earned; they are the glue that holds it together. Which is amazing. But I don’t know when I will work next or what the next experience will be. I don’t have a GPS of what I’m trying to do. And I know some people try to. And I just don’t think that way. Like when I met my wife [art director Brady Cunningham], I didn’t meet her and say, ‘I’m gonna marry that woman.’ I just remember thinking, ‘Wow, I wish I could marry someone like her.’ So my thing is to be in a movie like that… I don’t know what I’m chasing! I don’t have a system. I just know it when I meet the person. And one thing I can say about all these movies… I’ve never talked about them before like this. But they’ve all been like an adventure. The making of it has been not just a movie. And

SONY, EMMA MCINT YRE/CONTOUR BY GETT Y IMAGES ‘[ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE] IS WONDERFUL – I LOVED EVERY MINUTE ’ Schwartzman brings his spot-on voice acting to superhero hit Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse TOTALFILM.COM JULY 2023 | TOTAL FILM | 73 JASON SCHWARTZMAN whatever that is, is what I’m interested in, because that’s what I can control. We’ve just heard you as The Spot in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. How cool was it to get a role in that? Beyond cool. First of all, I love them. I love the people [involved]. That movie is so wonderful. I loved it on so many levels. And to be asked to be part of it, I couldn’t eholhyh#lw1#Dqg#wkdw#fkdudfwhuĩ#Ľjxulqj# that one out… is so fun. And I loved every minute of it. It was such a joy. You do it in these chunks, and I don’t understand… People always say, ‘Thanks for coming in.’ I’m like, ‘Thanks for having me! What the fuck? I’ll be here every day. This is so fun. I love it!’ Doing a voice is super amazing. Ehfdxvh#L#oryh#wu|lqj#wklqjv1#D#Ľop#vhw#dqg# a camera and a bunch of people staring at you… If you say, ‘Can I try it like this?’, you start to feel like a little bit of an asshole. People are like, ‘I gotta get home to my kid, what the fuck are we still doing here?’ It’s still probably that way with animation, but wkhuhġv#ohvv#shrsoh1#Lwġv#d#zkroh#glļhuhqw# version of working. It’s really wonderful. You’re also in upcoming Hunger Games prequel The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Were you a fan of the original movies? Big time. I was a big fan. And then to become a part of it… I am so grateful just for being invited to be part of this world. And it meant so much to me. And it was the best experience. It was amazing. I loved it so pxfk1#Dqg#L#mxvw#Ľqlvkhg# two others. I did a movie called Between the Temples with Carol Kane. This wonderful little movie with this director, Qdwkdq#Vloyhu1#Dqg#L#mxvw#Ľqlvkhg#zrunlqj# with Luca Guadagnino on Queer, based on the William Burroughs book. They’re still Ľoplqj#uljkw#qrz#exw#Lġyh#Ľqlvkhg1# Does it feel like this is a really magical time in your career? I hope so. I hope so. Well, yes. I want to say in the beginning, just to have a career is magical. But I will say that… I’ve met these people. And these experiences that I really feel like have changed my life, and the way I think about things, deeply. Without giving too much away, for The Hunger Games, I worked with this magician for months. Tobias Dostal. If you ever want to see the most amazing shit ever, [look him up]! This friendship that I formed with him… I remember sitting there zkhq#zh#zhuh#Ľuvw#kdqjlqj# out thinking, ‘I think this person’s gonna be in my life for a long time.’ I remember thinking it’s changing the way I think about the world. Just seeing what he was doing, what was possible, and how he thought about magic and how magicians think about things... Are you now good at magic? No, I’m terrible. I’m not really good. Ultimately, I remember talking to him about this one thing… and I just can’t do this thing. And he’s like, ‘You’ll get it. It took me 10 years to get it smooth.’ I don’t have 10 years! But what I did do was spend a lot of time with him. And that changes the way that I interact with my children, the way that I play with them… All of a vxgghq/#L#Ľqg#L#dp#xvlqj#olwwoh#wklqjv#L# learned from Tobias to make my daughter smile. Basically what I’ve learned is like new ways to entertain my children! You have two daughters. Are your kids too young to really know what you do for a living? My 12-year-old daughter now knows. I made a movie called Klaus and that was a really important movie for me to make, ehfdxvh#lw#zdv#wkh#Ľuvw#wlph#wkdw#wkh|#hyhu# could see something that I’ve done and it was really sweet. I don’t tell them what I do and I don’t bring them with me to work but I did a radio show – I’m on hiatus from it now – for SiriusXM, called Coconut Radio. For six years I did it. I think they thought I was a radio DJ. That, they heard… They could hear me on the radio. I couldn’t hide it! ASTEROID CITY OPENS IN CINEMAS ON 23 JUNE. JASON SCHWARTZMAN LINE READING ‘I love you too, but I’m gonna mace you in the face!’ JACK THE DARJEELING LIMITED ‘YOU MADE ME SWALLOW MY GUM! THAT’S GOING TO BE IN MY DIGESTIVE TRACT FOR SEVEN YEARS!’ GIDEON GRAVES SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD ‘MY TOP SCHOOLS WHERE I WANT TO APPLY TO ARE OXFORD AND THE SORBONNE. MY SAFETY’S HARVARD.’ MAX FISCHER RUSHMORE

EDITED BY MATTHEW LEYLAND @TOTALFILM_MATTL ★★★★★ TOHTS AMAZEBALLS ★★★★★ WELL-ROUND-ED ★★★★★ SCOTT POTENTIAL ★★★★★ SALLAH BIT MUCH ★★★★★ LOAD OF BELLOQS THE WORLD’S MOST TRUSTED MOVIE INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY Time, please… 76

OUT NOW The Boogeyman ★★★ p87 Carmen ★★★ p80 Fast X ★★★★ p87 Flamin’ Hot ★★★★ p85 The Flash ★★★ p84 Hypnotic ★★★ p87 The Little Mermaid ★★★★ p83 Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse ★★★★★ p86 Transformers: Rise of the Beasts ★★★ p81 23 JUNE Asteroid City ★★★★ p78 The Last Rider ★★★★ p83 The Super 8 Years ★★★★ p87 26 JUNE Stephen King on Screen ★★★ p85 28 JUNE Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny ★★★★ p76 Run Rabbit Run ★★★ p79 30 JUNE Hello, Bookstore ★★★ p80 La Syndicaliste ★★ p83 Mother and Son ★★★★ p83 Small, Slow but Steady ★★★★ p83 To Nowhere ★★★ p80 7 JULY The Damned Don’t Cry ★★★★ p87 Elemental ★★★ p82 Name Me Lawand ★★★★ p83 Shabu ★★★★ p83 Smoking Causes Coughing ★★★ p80 14 JULY Squaring the Circle ★★★ p83 While We Watched ★★★★ p80 19 JULY The Deepest Breath ★★★★ p79 ALSO RELEASED We couldn’t see them in time for this issue, so head to gamesradar.com/totalfilm for reviews of the following: TITLE RELEASE DATE Insidious: The Red Door 7 July Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One 11 July No Hard Feelings 23 June Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken 30 June For more reviews visit gamesradar.com/totalfilm EXTRAS Archive/Blu-ray reviews p88-89 TV, Extras, Soundtracks, Games, Books p90-94 78 80 REVIEWS 86 82 JULY 2023 | TOTAL FILM | 75

★★★★★ OUT 28 JUNE CINEMAS We’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 a whole is a little too overloaded with VFX. We find Indy and archaeologist pal Basil Shaw (Toby Jones) chasing the Lance of Longinus – the blade that drew Christ’s blood – in a race against the Nazis, who are scooping up antiquities across Europe. The opener culminates in a lengthy chase atop a train, as Indy goes manoa-mano with high-ranking Nazi Jürgen Voller (Mads Mikkelsen), with all his usual derring-do. Cut to 25 years later. On the eve of the Moon landings, Indy’s living in a crummy New York apartment (a photo of Dad, as played by Sean Connery, is on the wall – a nice touch). He’s woken up Space Race. Joined by Boyd Holbrook’s ruthless muscle Klaber, he’s been tracking Helena’s movements… As she yanks Indy into her pursuit, we discover that Helena (or ‘Wombat’ as Indy says, using her childhood nickname) isn’t entirely pure of heart. She’s something of a chancer, with gambling debts to boot - interesting character choices that add nuance. As the action moves to Tangier and later Greece, she hooks up with her adept teenage protégé Teddy (Ethann Isidore). INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY TBC Hat’s all, folks… DIRECTOR James Mangold STARRING Harrison Ford, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Mads Mikkelsen, Boyd Holbrook, Antonio Banderas SCREENPLAY Jez Butterworth, John-Henry Butterworth, David Koepp, James Mangold DISTRIBUTOR Disney RUNNING TIME 142 mins RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK 1981 Indy’s debut sees him grapple with – guess who? – Nazis for the lost Ark of the Covenant. TIME AFTER TIME 1979 Malcolm McDowell’s H.G. Wells chases Jack the Ripper in this time-slipping fantasy adventure. LOGAN 2017 Mangold sublimely wraps up an iconic character arc with this older Wolverine yarn. For more reviews visit gamesradar. com/totalfilm S E E T H I S I F Y O U LIKED by his neighbours loudly playing The Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour, though it’s fairly clear Dr. Jones has not turned on, tuned in and dropped out. He’s grumpy with these long-hairs. Even the kids he teaches at Hunter College, where he’s been for 10 years, have little interest in what he has to say. With his marriage to Marion seemingly over, Indy is also on the verge of retirement, his days of whip-cracking long behind him… Until, that is, he’s paid a visit by his goddaughter Helena Shaw (Phoebe Waller-Bridge), Basil’s offspring. She’s desperate to continue her father’s search for Archimedes’ Dial, a gizmo he believed could predict fissures in time. Trouble is, she’s not the only one looking for it. So is Voller, still alive and, under an assumed identity, instrumental in helping the US government in the DISNEY PREDICTED INTEREST CURVE™ THRILLED ENTERTAINED NODDING OFF ZZZZZZZZZ RUNNING TIME START 25 50 75 100 125 FINISH Goodbye wrinkles Beatlemania Wombat Moon Day Tuk-ing in Dive, dive, dive Creepycrawlies Siege mentality 76 | TOTAL FILM | JULY 2023 SUBSCRIBE AT WWW.TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS

Mola Ram brought new meaning to ‘pulling the heartstrings’. WallerBridge makes for a good foil for Indy, calling him ‘an ageing grave robber’ and coming out with some choice Anglo phrases (‘cheeky bugger’). And as you’d hope, Ford slips effortlessly back into the role – the wry smile, the quick put-downs (‘You’re German, Voller, don’t try and be funny’). The action is slickly handled by Mangold, not least a thrilling tuk-tuk chase through Tangier. But best of all, this is an Indiana Jones film with tears in its eyes. We see the character has grown older, but not necessarily wiser. Drinking a bit too much, he’s full of There’s also room for Antonio Banderas in a small role as an old chum of Indy’s, a Spanish deep-sea diver, who takes the group underwater as they continue to seek a missing part of the Dial. Mangold doesn’t overplay the nostalgic throwbacks, although there’s a nice reference to Indy drinking ‘the blood of Kali’ (from 1984’s Temple of Doom) and an on-screen map charting the characters’ movements. There’s also an appearance by series veteran Sallah (John Rhys-Davies), although given the vitality he brings, he’s disappointingly underused. For once, Indy doesn’t have to face his greatest fear, but worry not – there are plenty of other icky things he’s forced to endure. Mikkelsen is chilling as Voller (‘You didn’t win the war. Hitler lost it,’ he sneers in one scene), who’s assuredly the best antagonist Indy has faced since regrets about pursuing fortune and glory and leaving his loved ones behind. ‘Family never was your strong suit,’ chides Helena. Ford has shown he’s a dab hand at playing the curmudgeon, so it seems apt that Mangold and his co-writers should steer the character in this direction. By the end, though, you’ll have a smile on your face, especially when it comes to the final shot: an elegant tip of the hat to one of cinema’s greatest heroes. JAMES MOTTRAM THE VERDICT A terrific thrill ride. With Ford in fine form, Indy’s last stand is a highly satisfying blend of action, humour and emotion. ‘Best of all, this is an Indiana Jones film with tears in its eyes. We see the character has grown older, but not necessarily wiser’ ‘Stop reading the review, Indy – we’ve got a Nazi to defeat and a McGuffin to find!’ TOTALFILM.COM JULY 2023 | TOTAL FILM | 77

territory. Theatre and photography are two such methods; in a fantastically funny set-piece, other characters turn to song. Meanwhile, Augie’s daughters declare themselves witches and attempt to reanimate their mum from her ashy remains in a Tupperware container. If emotional focus splinters a little across Anderson’s starry ensemble, his wit and way with actors remain joyous. Effectively playing Bill Murray, Tom Hanks wears his Anderson-ian predecessor’s trousers well. Maya Hawke impresses as a teacher doggedly clinging to facts amid chaos, while Scarlett Johansson graduates from Isle of Dogs voicework in doubled-up roles as dark-haired/blonde actors struggling with toxic directors. Meta-puns and layers of art/reality mount, sometimes to playful ends, sometimes to faintly distancing effect. But there’s no doubting the invention and drollery on show, much less the subtle sincerity of Anderson’s questioning. As his characters ponder how to ‘do’ life’s uncertainties, one answer offered is ‘Trust your curiosity’. As ever, Anderson’s curiosity guides him wondrously well. KEVIN HARLEY THE VERDICT Anderson visits fresh frontiers with a close encounter of the quirky kind, holding wit, whimsy and sly wisdom in supple balance. ★★★★★ OUT 23 JUNE CINEMAS ASTEROID CITY 12A Once upon a time in the Wes… DIRECTOR Wes Anderson STARRING Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Jeffrey Wright, Tilda Swinton, Bryan Cranston SCREENPLAY Wes Anderson DISTRIBUTOR Universal RUNNING TIME 105 mins pun on his flair for symmetries. Westworld, meet Wes world. Here, precocious Junior Stargazers (and parents) visit a meteor-crater site to display their scientific inventions, ranging from botanical acceleration to astronomical imaging. So far, so Rushmore-esque. But photographer Augie Steenbeck (Jason Schwartzman) also has to let go of the damaged family car – and his children’s recently deceased mother. Meanwhile, atom-bomb tests shake the area and an alien drops by, prompting a military quarantine. Family, grief, lockdown, anxiety… Stretching his familiarly ‘cool and delicious’ sensibilities (to borrow a phrase from his script), Anderson touches on themes of mortality, modern dread and nuclear fears here, interrogating how our beliefs and identities help us navigate unknown From 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. Even so, the spectacle of a colour-coordinated train bisecting the parched landscape plays like a nifty Jason Schwartzman and Tom Hanks answered the call when Wes Anderson asked them to star in his new movie E.T.: THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL 1982 Sci-fi is the framework for a reverie on distance and isolation in Spielberg’s heart-melter. MOONRISE KINGDOM 2012 Precocious kids, alarming trousers… Asteroid camps out close to Wes’ scouting period piece. NOPE 2022 Meta-matters and cowboy-hatted UFO-watchers merge in Jordan Peele’s creature feature. For more reviews visit gamesradar.com/ totalfilm S E E T H I S I F Y O U LIKED NETFLIX, UNIVERSAL PREDICTED INTEREST CURVE™ THRILLED ENTERTAINED NODDING OFF ZZZZZZZZZ RUNNING TIME START 15 30 45 60 75 FINISH The world’s a stage Casting spells Under quarantine ‘The depths of our pain’ Song for the spaceman Poison pen letters Train comin’ round the bend Mum’s in the stars Jet packsa-go-go Symmetry of life 78 | TOTAL FILM | JULY 2023 SUBSCRIBE AT WWW.TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS

★★★★★ OUT 19 JULY NETFLIX ★★★★★ OUT 28 JUNE NETFLIX THE DEEPEST BREATH 12A RUN RABBIT RUN TBC Dive hard… Bunny peculiar… How 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 100 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 Irish safety diver Stephen Keenan, whose love of the sport – of the way of life – led to an intense connection between them. This plunge into the depths of the human heart adds another flavour to this tense, exhilarating documentary with its awe-inspiring footage of rolling waves and midnight-blue deeps, though some narrative shuffling on McGann’s part sacrifices slivers of the human aspect in favour of sharpening the suspense. It’s a tricksy tactic that feels a little cheap, but The Deepest Breath is compelling enough to survive it. Immersive viewing. JAMIE GRAHAM THE VERDICT A fascinating documentary with air in its lungs and its heart in its mouth. So, 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 pregnant with atmosphere, with director Daina Reid (TV’s The Handmaid’s Tale) conjuring up an increasingly hallucinatory experience. Together, Snook and LaTorre make for an admirable force, excelling as they elicit an electric chemistry at times. It’s also heartening to see Herriman play against type (see his Charles Manson in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) as the well-balanced father. Sadly, a generic script doesn’t aid the film’s ambitions. A little less than the sum of its parts, Run Rabbit Run is more intriguing than outright terrifying. JAMES MOTTRAM THE VERDICT Good performances are nullified by a slightly seen-it-before script, but you’ll still have some freaky fun. Mia (Lily LaTorre) masks her feelings The Deepest Breath deals with both the wonder and the danger of the sea TOTALFILM.COM JULY 2023 | TOTAL FILM | 79

★★★★★ OUT 7 JULY CINEMAS SMOKING CAUSES COUGHING 15 Avengers disassembled… French 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 week-long retreat to rebuild team spirit, during which the movie morphs into a series of bonkers vignettes. Fragmentary, frivolous and flimsier than a Rizla paper, Smoking Causes Coughing is blackly comic in Dupieux’s blank-faced way. Is the film equating our desire to consume thrillingly grisly stories with smokers’ need to suck on cancer sticks? Perhaps – both are distractions from existential terrors. But it’s better not to wonder what Dupieux is smoking and just get high on the fumes. JAMIE GRAHAM THE VERDICT Slight even by Dupieux’s standards, but fun while it lasts. Those on his wavelength will cough with laughter. Praise be, there’s a new bunch of spandex-clad superheroes in town... HELLO, BOOKSTORE PG ★★★★★ OUT 30 JUNE CINEMAS, DIGITAL This 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. KATE STABLES WHILE WE WATCHED 15 ★★★★★ OUT 14 JULY CINEMAS Vinay 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. CHRIS SCHILLING TO NOWHERE 15 ★★★★★ OUT 30 JUNE CINEMAS London seems small in writer/ director Sian Astor-Lewis’ debut feature To Nowhere, the city closing in on teenagers Tulip (Lilit Lesser) and Finn (Josefine Glæsel) 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 falters. EMILY GARBUTT CARMEN 15 ★★★★★ OUT NOW CINEMAS A 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. FAY WATSON BULLDOG, DAZZLER MEDIA, GR APEVINE, METFILM, PAR AMOUNT, PICTUREHOUSE 80 | TOTAL FILM | JULY 2023 SUBSCRIBE AT WWW.TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS

gigantic planet-eater Unicron (Colman Domingo) needs to continue its gluttony in our galaxy. Would that Caple Jr. and his five credited screenwriters had found a way to make us invested in the outcome, instead of merely assaulting us with another energy-draining orgy of bombastic Bayhem. Beasts is at its best when building a pleasing bond between Noah and wisecracking Autobot Mirage (Pete Davidson) that feels much like the one Hailee Steinfeld forged with Bumblebee five years ago. Fishback, too, is a likeable presence who stays relatable throughout, mainly by behaving as most of us would were we ever to find ourselves pursued by mechanical spiders through an underground temple. Period-specific needle drops offer a nostalgic bonus, with L.L. Cool J.’s Mama Said Knock You Out injecting a thunderous energy into one pivotal setpiece. Sixteen years on from the Shia LaBeouf original, though, the many brains behind this franchise have still to figure out how to satisfy an audience without leaving it bludgeoned. NEIL SMITH THE VERDICT Autobots, assemble! Maximals, maximise! And as for you puny humans, don’t forget the most important directive of all: bring paracetamol! ★★★★★ OUT NOW CINEMAS TRANSFORMERS: RISE OF THE BEASTS 12A Gorilla in the mix… DIRECTOR Steven Caple Jr. STARRING Anthony Ramos, Dominique Fishback, Pete Davidson, Peter Cullen SCREENPLAY Joby Harold, Darnell Metayer, Josh Peters, Erich Hoeber, Jon Hoeber DISTRIBUTOR Paramount RUNNING TIME 127 mins Cullen) and his laying-low Autobots largely playing second fiddle to former soldier Noah (Anthony Ramos), museum researcher Elena (Dominique Fishback) and their gradual realisation that a glowing artefact at her place of work is one half of a beacon-like key sought by ’bots both benign and nefarious. By the time the second hour rolls around, alas, it’s business as usual. A jump to Peru and the arrival on the scene of robo-gorilla Optimus Primal (Ron Perlman) and the rest of the bestial ‘Maximals’ paves the way for an overblown final face-off with evil automaton Scourge (Peter Dinklage) and his equally despicable Terrorcons. At stake is the universe itself; turns out that aforementioned key is what How 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 keeps things appealingly humanscaled, with Optimus Prime (Peter Fantastic beasts; pretty easy to find BEAST WARS: TRANSFORMERS 1996-99 The animation may be dated, but this remains an influential fan favourite. FANTASTIC FOUR: RISE OF THE SILVER SURFER 2007 Planet-eaters gotta eat, as the Marvel quartet discover when they come up against Galactus. X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST 2014 ’Bots are all Peter Dinklage cares about as mutant-hating Bolivar Trask. For more reviews visit gamesradar.com/ totalfilm S E E T H I S I F Y O U LIKED PREDICTED INTEREST CURVE™ THRILLED ENTERTAINED NODDING OFF ZZZZZZZZZ RUNNING TIME START 20 40 60 80 100 FINISH Planet of the apes ‘Life ain’t a comic book!’ Cross that bridge Night at the museum Work friends ‘Indiana Jones-type shit!’ Road rage Bird gone bad Suits you Team building TOTALFILM.COM JULY 2023 | TOTAL FILM | 81

Directed by Peter Sohn (The Good Dinosaur, and not to mention the voice of Buzz Lightyear’s robotic cat, Sox), Elemental offers beautifully rendered visuals, most notably in an underwater trip to visit a rare flower. Vocally, Athie is a comic delight as Wade, a character prone to bursting into tears. His flashback to a terrifying encounter with a sponge is a particular joy. And there are gags aplenty – including a game of tag played out in Wade’s watery home by two relatives, Marco and Polo (geddit?). No doubt about it, there’s a lot to like about Elemental, but you’re left wishing it had pushed further and deeper rather than just tentatively exploring its themes. If the inventive concept and visuals have got you expecting another Inside Out from Pixar, you might want to douse some of those flames of excitement. JAMES MOTTRAM THE VERDICT A sweet-natured love story, well intentioned, animated and acted, but lacking the depth of some of the studio’s greatest triumphs. ★★★★★ OUT 7 JULY CINEMAS ELEMENTAL TBC Fire, walk with me… DIRECTOR Peter Sohn STARRING Leah Lewis, Mamoudou Athie, Shila Ommi, Ronnie del Carmen SCREENPLAY John Hoberg, Kat Likkel, Brenda Hsueh DISTRIBUTOR Disney RUNNING TIME 103 mins coal nuts that Bernie makes). Using this as a backdrop, Elemental could’ve been an interesting study of the immigrant experience. But it soon switches to a more conventional coming-of-age story: moving on a few years, it finds Bernie and Cinder’s grown-up daughter Ember (Leah Lewis) ready to take over the store… were it not for the fact she has a terrible temper (‘Take a break, make connection,’ she keeps saying, like a mantra). With her father’s health ailing, Ember feels compelled to run Fireplace without ever asking herself what she wants. Then, after an accident in the basement, she meets Wade Ripple (Mamoudou Athie), a ‘water’ person who’s also a city inspector. He’s about to close the store down due to various safety issues but falls for Ember. ‘We can’t touch,’ they cry as the film sets out to explore how these two characters, who are such polar opposites, can make it as a couple. Again, the film raises ideas of difference and barriers, yet it never really feels like the challenges facing Ember and Wade are insurmountable. Pixar’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 a store, Fireplace, selling all sorts of fire-related paraphernalia (like Can fiery Ember and go-with-the-flow Wade make it as a couple? INSIDE OUT 2015 Pete Docter shows how to dramatise the intangible – emotions, feelings – in Pixar’s work of genius. THE GODFATHER PART II 1974 Elemental takes inspiration from Vito Corleone’s arrival at Ellis Island in Coppola’s masterpiece. FLEE 2021 This animated doc offers a more adult take on the immigrant experience. For more reviews visit gamesradar. com/totalfilm S E E T H I S I F Y O U LIKED B F I , B L U E F I N C H , D I S N E Y, D O G W O O F, M O D E R N F I L M S , P I C T U R E H O U S E , TA P E PREDICTED INTEREST CURVE™ THRILLED ENTERTAINED NODDING OFF ZZZZZZZZZ RUNNING TIME START 15 30 45 60 75 FINISH Earth, Wind and Fire (and Water) Ripple effect Toot toot! The crying game Ember’s fireplace Flood waters Ever after Ends 82 | TOTAL FILM | JULY 2023 SUBSCRIBE AT WWW.TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS

LA SYNDICALISTE 15 ★★★★★ OUT 30 JUNE CINEMAS A shocking true story, based on the 2019 book by Caroline Michel-Aguirre, receives a prosaic treatment in Jean-Paul Salomé’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. NEIL SMITH MOTHER AND SON 12A ★★★★★ OUT 30 JUNE CINEMAS French writer-director Léonor 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. TOM DAWSON THE LITTLE MERMAID PG ★★★★★ OUT NOW CINEMAS Rob 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 VFX 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. MOLLY EDWARDS NAME ME LAWAND PG ★★★★★ OUT 7 JULY CINEMAS Director 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. NEIL SMITH THE LAST RIDER 12A ★★★★★ OUT 23 JUNE CINEMAS 7 AUGUST DIGITAL In 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. TOM DAWSON SMALL, SLOW BUT STEADY 12A ★★★★★ OUT 30 JUNE CINEMAS, CURZON HOME CINEMA A 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. KATE STABLES SQUARING THE CIRCLE 15 ★★★★★ OUT 14 JULY CINEMAS From 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. MATT GLASBY SHABU 12A ★★★★★ OUT 7 JULY CINEMAS Brimming 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. KEVIN HARLEY TOTALFILM.COM JULY 2023 | TOTAL FILM | 83

Batwing sees some action, lifted by pleasingly familiar soundtrack cues in a vigorous combat set-piece. And as Supergirl, Sasha Calle dishes out bracing, if underused, hits of Kryptonian aggro against (similarly underused) franchise foes. Muschietti directs confidently, notably in an opening sequence that betters both Justice Leagues for fun. What’s less persuasive is the CGI, an eyesore that’s particularly gaudy when the finale’s ‘secrets’ drop. The tone is similarly choppy, especially in a climactic punchline that clashes with the film’s emotive developments. With just Aquaman’s return incoming, the result is a movie that suggests this DCEU had promise, even if its directors couldn’t quite focus it. Time to pass the baton… KEVIN HARLEY THE VERDICT The Miller/CGI excesses weigh heavy, but the sparky script, Keaton’s Batman, Calle’s Kara and some ‘spoilery’ cameos bring flashes of fun. ★★★★★ OUT NOW CINEMAS THE FLASH 12A Fast hurrah… DIRECTOR Andy Muschietti STARRING Ezra Miller, Michael Keaton, Sasha Calle, Michael Shannon SCREENPLAY Christina Hodson DISTRIBUTOR Warner Bros. RUNNING TIME 144 mins too many under-integrated elements in the mix, often caving to excess. Consider Ezra Miller, doubled up as Barry and an alt-timeline ‘bro Barry’- ish variant. When prime Barry discovers he can travel through time by running really fast, he visits a period before his mum’s murder and attempts to save both her and his imprisoned dad. In the event, Barry changes much more – the gags about altered 80s movies are nicely nerdy – and ropes slob-Barry into helping rectify matters. Even without Miller’s off-screen troubles, The Flash would be Millerheavy. A little of their mannered delivery goes a long way, and there’s a lot of it here. Nor are they strong on expressing vulnerability, which is a problem in a narrative that demands it. The other supes fare better. Michael Keaton serves his comeback with an old pro’s measure, ensuring his pasta-based ‘Batsplanation’ of branching timelines lands nimbly (although he’s perhaps a bit too agile for a 70-year-old). Ben Affleck looks comfy in the Bat-boxers for once. The Can 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 Just don’t call him Quicksilver BACK TO THE FUTURE 1985 Quantum-fired Capra-com, wryly referenced in The Flash. THE DEATH OF SUPERMAN LIVES: WHAT HAPPENED? 2015 Jon Schnepp’s doc offers a glimpse of Kal-El as he never was… BIRDS OF PREY 2020 Also involves sandwich-based crises. For more reviews visit gamesradar. com/totalfilm S E E T H I S I F Y O U LIKED DISNEY, SIGNATURE, WARNER BROS. PREDICTED INTEREST CURVE™ THRILLED ENTERTAINED NODDING OFF ZZZZZZZZZ RUNNING TIME START 25 50 75 100 125 FINISH On the clock Babies keep falling on… Memories of murder To the manor born Wing and a prayer Cyber scrotum Fast Kara Elf-music Superman legacy Who the f…? 84 | TOTAL FILM | JULY 2023 SUBSCRIBE AT WWW.TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS

★★★★★ OUT NOW DISNEY+ FLAMIN’ HOT 12 TBC Corn supremacy… 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 Montañez. 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 hard not to root for Montañez, who is brought to the screen with warmth, wit and depth by Jesse Garcia. Annie Gonzalez impresses as his wife, too, but the film comes alive in the flair of its storytelling. Remember how Michael Peña’s Luis narrated stories in the first two Ant-Man movies? With some imaginative fantasy scenes, Flamin’ Hot takes that idea and runs wild with it to great success. There is some doubt as to the facts of the story, and Longoria hardly shakes up the biopic formula. But the result is a tasty treat that will satisfy a thirst for entertainment. EMILY MURRAY THE VERDICT With its high-spirited energy and emotionally empowering story, Flamin’ Hot packs a pleasing punch. ‘So you mean it’s hot… and cheesy?!’ ★★★★★ OUT 26 JUNE DIGITAL STEPHEN KING ON SCREEN 15 The talking-head zone… With 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, Daphné 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, do you want to make it?’ De Palma (Carrie) is just one of the big names missing, along with John Carpenter (Christine), David Cronenberg (The Dead Zone) and King himself. As compensation, there’s some great behind-the-scenes footage from Darabont’s The Green Mile showing the author taking a turn in the electric chair. Though the interviewees raise good points about King’s strong female characters and working-class roots, there’s so much ground to cover you wonder if this wouldn’t have been better as a TV series – unlike, say, The Shining. MATT GLASBY THE VERDICT A diverting doc that, at 105 minutes, only scrapes the surface of its subject. Frequent King adapter Frank Darabont TOTALFILM.COM JULY 2023 | TOTAL FILM | 85

discovery, but it still has the capacity to wow despite sky-high expectations. Co-written by Phil Lord and Chris Miller (alongside Shang-Chi’s Dave Callaham), this is no safe bet, lightly remixed sequel. As a multiverse story, it delivers on the broken promises of so many live-action efforts, in that it actually goes to exquisitely realised and incredibly fun new worlds. Though the crux of the story takes a long time to come into focus, the eventual reveal is smart and unexpected. As Across… was made simultaneously with threequel Beyond the Spider-Verse, there are part-one problems to reckon with, as character arcs and major plot threads are left frustratingly unresolved. For now, Into the Spider-Verse has the edge over this wilder, webbier, halfcomplete sequel double-bill, but swings this ambitious and accomplished don’t come along nearly often enough. If Into the Spider-Verse heralded a new era for animation, Across… is evidence that the adventures of the one and only Spider-Man were far from a one-off. JORDAN FARLEY THE VERDICT Visually astonishing, emotionally daring, this spectacular sequel has enough wit, imagination and thrills to fill several worlds. But prepare to be left hanging till the (next) sequel hits screens. ★★★★★ OUT NOW CINEMAS SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE PG Worlds-wide web… DIRECTORS Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, Justin K. Thompson STARRING Shameik Moore, Hailee Steinfeld, Oscar Isaac, Jason Schwartzman SCREENPLAY Phil Lord, Chris Miller, Dave Callaham DISTRIBUTOR Sony Pictures RUNNING TIME 140 mins Schwartzman) is one such nuisance – an inept villain of the week who turns major threat to the multiverse. Pursuing the Spot to alt-universe mega-city Mumbattan with Spider-Gwen (Hailee Steinfeld), Miles meets Spider-Man 2099 (Oscar Isaac) – the humourless leader of the multiverse-protecting Spider Society – and learns a truth that threatens to tear his world apart. It’s almost redundant to say that a sequel to Into the Spider-Verse looks incredible. But this thing looks incredible, stylistically and technically outstripping even its groundbreaking predecessor. The ‘living comic book’ aesthetic has been refined and advanced exponentially. It may not benefit from the same thrill of When Spider-Man: 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 Swing back into action with teen-Spidey Miles Morales SCOTT PILGRIM VS THE WORLD 2010 Shares Across…’s anarchic energy, villainous Schwartzman and opening musical montage centred on a female drummer. THE LEGO MOVIE 2014 Lord and Miller turn a corporate tie-in into an expression of individualistic creativity. SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE 2018 The best Spider-Man movie ever, and arguably the finest animated film of the last decade. S E E T H I S I F Y O U LIKED SONY, DISNEY, UNIVERSAL, CUR ZON, WARNER BROS. PREDICTED INTEREST CURVE™ THRILLED ENTERTAINED NODDING OFF ZZZZZZZZZ RUNNING TIME START 25 50 75 100 125 FINISH The Mary Janes Spot on the Heels Canon Event Do your own thing Face-toface Taking it Easy I’ll B. Back Renaissance Man 86 | TOTAL FILM | JULY 2023 SUBSCRIBE AT WWW.TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS

★★★★★ OUT NOW CINEMAS THE BOOGEYMAN 15 Closet encounters… Since 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 and Blair impress too, tapping into persuasive reserves of fear and sorrow. The inexplicable absence of Will for a stretch exposes sketchy scripting, however, which worsens as a rote but workable exercise in grief-horror devolves into something blunter. Mourning metaphors gradually assume the over-literal shape of a nasty creature, almost as if writers Bryan Woods/Scott Beck (working with Mark Heyman) wanted to redo A Quiet Place. As in King’s story, The Boogeyman might have worked better with the closet door ajar ‘just a crack’, tempting the imagination to fill the gap. KEVIN HARLEY THE VERDICT Close(t) but no cigar: solid casting and scares mix with thin plotting and middling monsters. Don’t expect any more light than this throughout the film FAST X 12A ★★★★★ OUT NOW CINEMAS Director 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. NEIL SMITH THE DAMNED DON’T CRY 18 ★★★★★ OUT 7 JULY CINEMAS, CURZON HOME CINEMA British-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. JAMES MOTTRAM HYPNOTIC 15 ★★★★★ OUT NOW CINEMAS, 26 JUNE DIGITAL You 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. LEILA LATIF THE SUPER 8 YEARS 12A ★★★★★ OUT 23 JUNE CINEMAS, CURZON HOME CINEMA The 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. TOM DAWSON TOTALFILM.COM JULY 2023 | TOTAL FILM | 87

1984-1989 ★★★★★ OUT 26 JUNE BD EXTRAS ★★★★★ Commentaries, Alternative versions (The Dungeonmaster), Storyboard comparison (Dolls), Featurettes, Galleries, Book, Posters, Art cards ENTER THE VIDEO STORE: EMPIRE OF SCREAMS 18 Sit back, rewind… Founded 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 of 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 remaining trio - baffling sci-fi-fantasy anthology The Dungeonmaster, toothless creature-feature Cellar Dweller and Gordon’s battling-bots effort Robot Jox - ultimately fail to live up to their inherent potential. Taken together, though, the films accurately reflect the hit-or-miss quality of Empire Pictures’ prodigious output over the six years it was in business. Enter the Video Store: Empire of Screams is also a fittingly eclectic reminder of the video rental market’s heyday. ANTON VAN BEEK THE VERDICT An enticing offer for anyone who spent their formative years browsing the shelves of their local video store. Mr. Punch, we’re gonna need a bigger doll’s house TWILIGHT (SZÜRKÜLET) 15 1990 ★★★★★ OUT NOW BD EXTRAS ★★★★★ Featurettes, Booklet Loosely 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 Béla Tarr collaborator György Fehér. Set in a heavily forested region of northern Hungary, it centres on Felügyelõ (Péter 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. TOM DAWSON HOPPING MAD: THE MR. VAMPIRE SEQUELS 15 1986-1989 ★★★★★ OUT NOW BD EXTRAS ★★★★★ Commentaries, Featurettes, Extended scenes, Booklet Despite 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. ANTON VAN BEEK HARD TARGET 18 1993 ★★★★★ OUT 26 JUNE 4K UHD EXTRAS ★★★★★ Book, Lobby cards, Poster John 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. NEIL SMITH SMOOTH TALK 15 1986 ★★★★★ OUT 26 JUNE BD EXTRAS ★★★★★ Featurettes, Shorts Winner 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. JACK SHEPHERD A L A M Y, A R R O W , E U R E K A , P A R A M O U N T, S E C O N D R U N , S O N Y/ C R I T E R I O N , S T U D I O C A N A L , U N I V E R S A L , W A R N E R 88 | TOTAL FILM | JULY 2023 SUBSCRIBE AT WWW.TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS

1921 ★★★★★ OUT 26 JUNE BD EXTRAS ★★★★★ Commentary, Featurettes, Deleted scenes, Archive footage, Short, Essay THE KID TBC Baby and the Tramp… Right 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 as gun-toting heavies find him in a car. When the Tramp shuffles on-screen and finds the child, Chaplin handles the ensuing tonal shifts with feathery lightness. Though he flirts with sentimentality, the ratio of pathos to pratfalls is a miracle of dexterity. The Tramp’s fight with a tank-chested bruiser is hilarious; his face when he loses the kid to Victorian officialdom is heart-rending. Coogan mixes cheek and charm winningly as the naughty nipper, too, while the idea of charity binds the film in a warming thematic embrace. Alongside a sparkling-fresh transfer, Criterion’s reissue includes a fine commentary from Chaplin scholar Charles Maland. KEVIN HARLEY THE VERDICT Chaplin’s move from slapstick shorts to serio-comic features is a bundle of joy: sweet, witty and tender. The kid stays in the picture THE FIRM 15 1993 ★★★★★ OUT NOW 4K UHD EXTRAS ★★★★★ None A 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. JACK SHEPHERD BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF: DIRECTOR’S CUT 15 2001 ★★★★★ OUT NOW BD, 4K UHD EXTRAS ★★★★★ Commentaries, Documentaries, Deleted scenes, Alternate cut, Interviews, Featurettes Stylish 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. ANTON VAN BEEK NATIONAL LAMPOON’S VACATION 15 1983 ★★★★★ OUT 26 JUNE 4K UHD EXTRAS ★★★★★ Commentary, Poster, Art cards, Bumper sticker The 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. JAMES MOTTRAM FISTS IN THE POCKET 12 1965 ★★★★★ OUT NOW BD EXTRAS ★★★★★ Featurettes, Essay On 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. KEVIN HARLEY TOTALFILM.COM JULY 2023 | TOTAL FILM | 89

2006–2010 AVAILABLE ON DVD, BD, DIGITAL Save the cheerleader, save the world… each season focusing on a new group of characters, only to scrap that idea when he saw how audiences and critics responded to the first season’s ensemble. He really should have trusted his initial instincts. Incredibly, the third and fourth seasons went from bad to worse, with audiences tuning out in their millions as storylines became mired in increasingly convoluted series lore, and characters flip-flopped from hero to villain and back again at random as the writers struggled to find anything fresh to do with them (even pulling the tired old amnesia trick on a couple of occasions). By the time of the show’s cancellation in 2010, ratings had sunk from the 16.97m US high of the Season 2 opener to just 4.41m for the Season 4 finale. A quickly forgotten, 13-episode revival series (Heroes Reborn) followed in 2015, bringing little new to the franchise beyond dull lead characters that came across as pale imitations of their predecessors. But none of these missteps diminishes the impact of Heroes’ spectacular debut season. Even today, in a media landscape swamped with superheroes, the show’s initial 23-episode run still feels fresh and exciting. If only it had ended there and then, Heroes would be remembered as a genuine TV great rather than the missed opportunity it became. ANTON VAN BEEK The 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 a city-destroying explosion somehow linked to Zachary Quinto’s chilling, super-powered serial killer, Sylar - steadily build towards the first season’s thrilling finale. But how do you follow up on that? As the show’s second season launched, it became clear that Kring had no idea. Perhaps this was hardly surprising, given that the showrunner subsequently revealed he originally planned Heroes as an anthology series, HEROES CLASSIC TV UNIVERSAL Super debut: Heroes made a big impact in 2006 COMPANY MAN, S1, 2007 Written by Bryan Fuller, this relatively self-contained episode finally spills the beans on Jack Coleman’s morally ambiguous hero-hunter Noah Bennet, flipping between the past and present to reveal his history with ‘The Company’ and the strength of his allegiance to his family – including superpowered adopted daughter Claire (Hayden Panettiere). A V E R Y S P E C I A L EPISODE 90 | TOTAL FILM | JULY 2023

TOTALFILM.COM EXTRAS FUNKO, LEGO, LOUNGEFLY, MERCHOID, NUMSKULL JULY 2023 | TOTAL FILM | 91 COLLECTIBLES FUNKO POP! RETURN OF THE JEDI OUT NOW You’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. ACCESSORIES LOUNGEFLY ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE OUT NOW Introducing a new Marvel variant: the lenticular Spider-Man. Give either of these items – a mini-backpack and a zip-around wallet - a tilt and the pic switches from Miles Morales to Spider-Gwen. Our heroes are framed by a red, glow-in-the-dark hexagon-slash-interdimensional portal, and there are more small details on the fronts, backs and insides than there are Spider-people (give or take). Make a thwip! to funkoeurope.com. COLLECTIBLES JURASSIC PARK TUBBZ OUT 30 JUNE Hollywood creates blockbuster. Numskull Designs creates range of cosplaying ducks based on blockbuster. Fans recreate blockbuster, with added wackwack sound effects… The Jurassic Park TUBBZ collection has now expanded to nine, with the addition of Velociraptor, Dilophosaurus and game (over) warden, Robert Muldoon. Each 9cm-high PVC duck comes with a bathtub display stand; get your feet wet at merchoid.com/uk. MATTHEW LEYLAND COLLECTIBLE/TOY LEGO BATCAVE SHADOW BOX OUT TBC Celebrate 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 opening roof and hidden shooters. And there are seven minifigures: Catwoman (with whip), Penguin (fish and brolly), Max Shreck (Walken stick), Bruce Wayne, Alfred and two versions of the Dark Mike. Open up lego.com.

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 3 ★★★★★ After 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. BEAU IS AFRAID ★★★★★ After 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 soothing, while guiding, ethereal vocal melodies suggest subliminal designs at work beneath the surface abstraction. Tom Cruise, taking posture correction to the next level A24 MUSIC, DISNEY, PAR AMOUNT A-holes and Oedipal odysseys… Maintaining the original show’s 60s spy moves within the frame of a modern score, Elfman is some distance from his more whimsical, lyrical work for Tim Burton. The closest visit to old haunts is the melancholy chorale and gothic brood of Betrayal, though you can hear some of Batman’s thrust in Big Trouble. Elsewhere, Elfman mixes tempered rhythmic elements (low bass, scuttling percussion) and restrained suspense cues alongside themes for Ethan Hunt, the IMF and the film’s romantic elements. Love Theme? brims with mystery, never fully resolved. The marvellously titled Mole Hunt is Schifrin-esque, Red Handed fleetingly evokes Hitchcock/Herrmann and The Disc echoes Ennio Morricone. The Heist is a terrific musical set-piece, part weightless woodwinds and part low-end tension, while the stretch from Train Time onwards brings out Elfman’s kinetic best: Zoom B sticks the landing emphatically. The score represented both a departure for Elfman and new directions for action movies, away from action-hero bluster and on to more symphonic and subtly developed approaches. Different composers would take the baton for subsequent Missions, many terrifically – notably Hans Zimmer, Michael Giacchino and Lorne Balfe. But it was Elfman who showed how to light the fuse. KEVIN HARLEY Danny 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 of taut, suspenseful and thematic orchestral storytelling, brassy and forthright but also unpredictable and light-footed. Not that he didn’t have something to cling to. Two of Lalo Schifrin’s themes for the TV series help give the score structure and momentum. Urgent, jazzy and cool, the main theme bookends the soundtrack nicely. The Plot, meanwhile, haunts the score in various (non-latex) guises from Sleeping Beauty onwards, standing as a model of how to honour, update and integrate classic cues. DANNY ELFMAN POINT MUSIC MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE CLASSIC SOUNDTRACK 92 | TOTAL FILM | JULY 2023 SUBSCRIBE AT WWW.TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS

One giant leap for the Legend of Zelda series. Quite literally, mate AFTER US ★★★★★ OUT NOW PC, PS5, XBOX SERIES Following 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 HORIZON ★★★★★ OUT NOW iOS, ANDROID The 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. Recent thumb-twiddlers... MORE 2 rain-slicked cliffs, as long as there’s an overhang somewhere near the top). ‘Recall’ pauses and rewinds the trajectory of any object: you can rise back into the sky by clinging onto a fallen rock, or return a projectile to sender with interest. With ‘Fuse’, you combine any material with a weapon to increase its durability while transforming its capabilities. Two spears can be joined to jab enemies from a safe distance, while a sword can become a whip with the help of a Lizalfos tail. Or you can mount a lamp on your shield to illuminate the dingy depths below. Best of all is ‘Ultrahand’, which gives you the power to glue multiple items together. Inspired by the likes of Fortnite and Minecraft, it lets you assemble a vast range of homemade contraptions, from gliders to ground vehicles to steerable laserfiring robots. If the process seems fiddly at first, a later ability remembers your most recent builds and allows you to reproduce them in seconds. The challenge has been heightened to account for such powers, but even the colossal guardians of Hyrule’s elemental temples – bigger and better than the original’s Divine Beasts – are no match for an inventive player. That irresistible combination of design craftsmanship and self-expression makes for a landmark video game. CHRIS SCHILLING When 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 Ganondorf takes him to the brink of death. He awakens in a world that’s subtly changed at ground level, but expanded vertically in both directions, from a serene floating archipelago above the clouds to a gloomy labyrinth beneath the surface where the game’s toughest enemies lie. But it’s Link’s new abilities that are the star attraction. ‘Ascend’ lets you pass through solid material above you (no more struggling to climb ★★★★★ OUT NOW SWITCH One game to Hyrule them all… THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: TEARS OF THE KINGDOM GAMES NINTENDO, PRIVATE DIVISION, TAKE-TWO INTERACTIVE, NETFLIX TOTALFILM.COM JULY 2023 | TOTAL FILM | 93

MOTHER NATURE ★★★★★ JAMIE LEE CURTIS, KARL STEVENS, RUSSELL GOLDMAN TITAN COMICS Fresh 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. NEIL SMITH ON KUBRICK (REVISED EDITION) ★★★★★ JAMES NAREMORE BFI Naremore’s incisive study combines close readings of Stanley Kubrick’s films with insights into their production histories and cultural contexts. This revised edition of the 2007 original includes references to the wealth of Kubrick scholarship that has emerged in the intervening years. Naremore also reassesses the reputations of final work Eyes Wide Shut and the posthumously produced Spielberg pairing A.I. Artificial Intelligence. JOSH SLATER-WILLIAMS HORROR FILMS FOR CHILDREN ★★★★★ CATHERINE LESTER BLOOMSBURY Making a case for horror cinema as an essential part of childhood experience, author/ lecturer Catherine Lester dives into our formative kindertraumas, tracing a route from Gremlins to Hotel Transylvania. Thoughtful and insightful, this essay collection also explores the implications of scary movies that cater to a younger audience, identifying the ‘horrific child’ as a key hallmark. A solid rebuttal to more reactionary takes on moppets’ viewing habits. JOEL HARLEY That Back to the Future: The Musical did eventually make it to London’s West End in 2021 is thus a feat to rival Doc Brown’s DeLorean – and even then it had to face the critics with an understudy playing his role. If you’ve seen the show you’ll know how ingeniously it pulls off the original’s time-travelling antics while wisely jettisoning some of its less palatable elements. (No dressing room for you, gun-toting Libyans!) If you have yet to, though, this tome is the next best thing, containing as it does not just a full breakdown of how its script came together but also a complete libretto of all the songs. Robert Zemeckis, meanwhile, is on hand to provide a glowing afterword in which he admits he once considered directing it himself. NEIL SMITH You 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. SHOCKING CINEMA OF THE 70S ★★★★★ Revised 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 grindhouse, Canadian horror). Fullcolour illustrations and historical context further illuminate all the smut ’n’ sleaze. JOEL HARLEY Schlock and aww… 2 MORE ABR AMS, BFI, BLOOMSBURY, SEAN EBSWORTH BARNES, TITAN ★★★★★ MICHAEL KLASTORIN ABRAMS CREATING BACK TO THE FUTURE: THE MUSICAL BOOKS GUILTY PLEASURES ★★★★★ Firmly 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 here (charts and box-office tables alert!), but alongside feminist insights, Guilluy also draws compelling contrasts between Euro viewers’ tearful, ‘tingly’ engagement with romcoms and their scorn for US consumerism. And who knew about the enviable Germanmultiplex phenomenon of Prosecco-packed Ladies’ Night? KATE STABLES 94 | TOTAL FILM | JULY 2023 SUBSCRIBE AT WWW.TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS

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

PAR AMOUNT, UNIVERSAL IS IT BOLLOCKS? Film Buff investigates the facts behind outlandish movie plots. 01 FREE WILLIE [SIC] 1994 ...........................................................................$153.7M 02 JUNIOR 1994 ..................................................................................................$108.4M 03 THE THIN RED LINE 1998 ........................................................................$98.1M 04 PLANES, TRAINS & AUTOMOBILES 1987.....................................$49.5M 05 KEEPING UP WITH THE JONESES 2016 .......................................$29.9M 06 THE JACKET 2005 .........................................................................................$21.7M 07 MY LIFE IN RUINS 2009 ...........................................................................$20.5M 08 WHIP IT 2009 .................................................................................................. $16.7M 09 THE BOOK OF HENRY 2017 ......................................................................$4.6M 10 DIG! 2004 ............................................................................................................. $0.2M A 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 should 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 – once you’ve removed the exceptionally sticky dressing (which is a bit of an art in itself!), the actual cannula can slide out easily. On removal they tend to cause a lot of bleeding unless direct pressure is applied immediately. We’re not talking arterial pumping here, but certainly a steady trickle that would spoil your shirt. The wider the bore of the original cannula then the more blood will ooze out. Most characters in films who have a drip don’t actually seem to have a reason to have one, apart from it makes them look more ‘hospital-y’ and they can do the dramatic ‘rip out the drip’ thing (see also nasal cannulae for oxygen). In the UK if someone can drink then it is much more effective to have them drinking fluids by mouth than going in via drip. So if the person is well enough to leap up and rip out their drip I would assume they could also manage a quick glug of water. Other treatments that go in by IV access would tend to be given over quite a short period of time. So, for example, an antibiotic infusion would usually be run in over a few minutes, not hours and hours. Want us to investigate if a movie scenario is bollocks or snapped yourself at a film location? Contact us at [email protected] VERDICT BOLLOCKS ALTERNATIVE BOX OFFICE The biggest movies… THAT COULD BE INDY FILMS THIS MONTH KILL BILL VOL. 1 Q In movies people habitually rip cannulas out of their veins when they wake up in hospital. Is this what the doctor ordered? A Dr Kate Scoffings, GP ON LOCATION REEL SPOTS BEHIND THE CAMERA WHAT? 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). 96 | TOTAL FILM | JULY 2023 SUBSCRIBE AT WWW.TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS

TOTALFILM.COM JULY 2023 | TOTAL FILM | 97 Did we miss something? Let us know on @totalfilm KNOWING Leaving the laws of physics at the door, a derailed subway train shows zero loss of momentum as it smashes through concrete pillars, another train and numerous hapless commuters. Thankfully, Nicolas Cage survives the Wilhelm scream-accompanied CG carnage. THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI ‘What have I done?’ Alec Guinness’ Colonel Nicholson redeems himself in his final moments, falling on the detonator and exploding the bridge. The train carrying enemy soldiers and dignitaries then, right on cue, plummets into the titular river. UNBREAKABLE Seen through news footage of the aftermath, evil genius Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson) callously disregards human life in his search for a superhero. He causes a derailment that kills 131 of 132 passengers, leaving only David Dunn (Bruce Willis) unharmed. SUPER 8 Lens flares abound as a gang of movie-making kids bagging the free production value of a passing loco witness complete chaos as it hits a car and derails. The children dodge the flying debris, while an extraterrestrial being transported by the military scarpers. PAUL TANTER THE FUGITIVE In 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. B A C K T O T H E F U T U R E PART III A twofer. Moments after returning from 1885, where his hijacked train plunged off unfinished tracks into a ravine, Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) sees the time-travelling DeLorean smashed into smithereens by an oncoming freight train. A N T- M A N An epic battle on a tiny scale takes place on a child’s toy track. Yellowjacket (Corey Stoll) faces an oncoming Thomas the Tank Engine, which comedically skews expectations by hitting him and anticlimactically falling off the tracks. Of course it would – it’s a toy! THE GENERAL Nothing 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 iron during World War Two. SKYFALL James Bond’s (Daniel Craig) pursuit of Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem) through subterranean London takes a turn when the former agent detonates an explosive that opens a nearby Tube tunnel and derails an entire train aimed directly at 007. Delays very likely. T H E G R E AT E ST SHOW ON EARTH Cecil B. DeMille’s models are still impressive 71 years later as an attempt to rob a travelling circus results in a crash involving two trains and a car. Spielberg credited this scene with inspiring him to make movies, as seen in The Fabelmans. 2 4 6 8 1 0 1 3 5 7 9 Keeping track… TRAIN CRASHES IN MOVIES 10 OF THE BEST DISNEY, ENTERTAINMENT ONE, EON, MARVEL STUDIOS, PAR AMOUNT, SONY, SUMMIT ENTERTAINMENT, UNITED ARTISTS, UNIVERSAL, WARNER BROS.

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THIS MONTH Over the Edge and Bully Editor-at-Large Jamie Graham unearths underrated classics… O N E M O R E… GOAT 2016 Fraternity hazing rituals at a Southern college. Brutal, brilliant. Starring, of all people, Nick Jonas. BUFF Welcome 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 and rage when they’re presented with nothing to do but loiter at a crappy prefab ‘rec’. Cops, teachers, parents – none of them gets it. The only escape is to blast rock music, drop acid and shoot at a passing cop car with an air rifle before returning to identikit condominiums for a tea of stuffed peppers. Bully, meanwhile, takes place in a flatline Florida where our rich-kid protagonists are slackers and stoners who cruise their convertibles from mall to arcade to beach. Empty days pass in a numbed haze of booze, weed and sex, lots of sex. Not all of it consensual – the titular Bobby (Nick Stahl) rapes both Ali and Lisa (Bijou Phillips, Rachel Miner). Bobby has a history of violence. He’s dissed and beaten ‘best friend’ Marty (Brad Renfro) since they were toddlers. So Marty, Ali and Lisa decide to kill him. They rope in some other kids who are equally unplugged from any sense of real-world consequences. The murder is planned heedlessly. The act itself is messy and sad. Both films have an eye for banality, an ear for music and dialogue. They taste the copper-throated anger, touch the moral void. And both films have a nose for controversy, with Over the Edge being held back from UK distribution for five years, while Bully director Clark was accused of being a dirty old man given his camera’s unapologetic mooning over young flesh. Neither drama portrays adults as uncaring stereotypes but instead recognises the yawning generation gap. The young actors are stellar, including a 14-year-old Matt Dillon making his debut at the centre of Over the Edge. A handful of critics got Bully. Roger Ebert hailed it a ‘masterpiece’ and suggested it might even help to explain America’s epidemic of high-school shootings. The Guardian labelled it a ‘magnificent, coldly brilliant movie… In Cold Blood for the new decade.’ But most saw only the graphic nudity, as unable to fathom these kids as the adults are in the movie. And while Over the Edge received decent reviews, it is, 44 years on, a criminally underseen title. Kurt Cobain namechecking it as a favourite movie didn’t change that. Nor did Arrow awarding it a handsome Blu-ray release in 2021. Clark’s infamous debut Kids is also great but Bully is the film that everyone should know. Kaplan went on to reach wider audiences with The Accused but it’s a far lesser film than Over the Edge. Watch these underappreciated pictures. I promise you won’t be bored. JAMIE WILL RETURN NEXT ISSUE… FOR MORE RECOMMENDATIONS, FOLLOW @JAMIE_GRAHAM9 ON TWITTER See this if you liked… REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE 1955 Nicholas Ray’s milestone drama. When it comes to troubled youths, James Dean’s the leader of the pack. IF.... 1968 Malcolm McDowell leads a violent uprising at school. Kubrick took one look and had his Alex DeLarge. HEATHERS 1989 Cliques, teen queens, peer pressure: this morbidly funny satire shoves a bomb under it all. ELEPHANT 2003 Gus Van Sant’s uninflected look at a high-school LIONSGATE, WARNER BROS. shooting. No sensation, no solutions, just sadness. TOTALFILM.COM JULY 2023 | TOTAL FILM | 99

S P O I L E R ALERT! SHIFTY LAWYERS WORDS PAUL TANTER There’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 pockets and sating their greed until their eventual comeuppance. Buff cross-examines the legal eagles getting in on the action… Celebrating the standout stock characters in movies… DAVID KLEINFELD S E A N P E N N , C A R L I T O ’S WAY (19 9 3) Penn was never fully happy with his performance, continually begging director Brian De Palma for more takes during filming. He needn’t have worried, though – the actor delivered a masterclass of smarmy narcissism as an insecure, coked-up sleazeball who steals a mobster client’s money and then assists his jailbreak from Rikers Island prison barge purely so he can bludgeon him and watch him drown. Having saved best friend Carlito (Al Pacino) from serving a 30-year sentence and literally laughing at his plans to go straight, he then offers him up to the DA in exchange for leniency on his own case. ‘You ain’t a lawyer no more, Dave. You a gangster now,’ sums up Carlito. Kleinfeld reaps the consequences of his own crooked actions, getting stabbed and finally gunned down in his hospital bed. 100 | TOTAL FILM | JULY 2023 BUFF