Home//Total Film/June 2020/In This Issue
Total Film|June 2020WELCOME TO FILM THE SMARTER MOVIE MAGAZINEThere are event movies and then there are Christopher Nolan movies – the delicious combo of knowing literally nothing about them with giddy anticipation and the knowledge that your mouth will be ajar in wonderment for most of the experience. And you’ll talk about it over and over again afterwards… does that mean this? Is it really about that? Yep, incoming on a big screen near you – shiver of excitement at the idea of getting back in a cinema – is Nolan’s Tenet, a spy thriller that required MI5 levels of secrecy when we went on set last year. You won’t find this level of coverage in another magazine so pat yourself on the back for getting this one! And the exclusives don’t stop there; we were also on…1 min
Total Film|June 2020Chris PineWhen Quentin Tarantino stanned Chris Pine earlier this year, he raised eyebrows with one argument. “I think a case can be made that Pine hasn’t taken the next big leap from Unstoppable,” said Tarantino, singing the praises of Tony Scott’s 2010 runaway-train thriller. Fans of Star Trek, Hell Or High Water, Wonder Woman and other peak Pines may disagree, but Tarantino can take solace from this: the star’s incoming slate makes a strong case that more big leaps beckon.Wonder Woman 1984 aside, Pine will work for actor-turned-director Olivia Wilde (Booksmart) in Don’t Worry, Darling, a psychological thriller costarring Florence Pugh, Shia LaBeouf and Wilde. And if a lead is a must – as Tarantino implies – then hot talk of Pine’s casting as source author Leslie Charteris’ buccaneering thief-for-hire Simon…2 min
Total Film|June 2020YOU TALKIN’ TO ME?IN THE CROSSHAIRS THIS MONTH EDDIE MARSANAre you talkin’ to me?Am I talking to you? Who are you? Do you really exist? Yeah, I am talking to you. I’m trying to be as polite as possible, and, as my wife says, “Whenever you do an interview, remember the three F’s: be funny, be famous, and f*ck off.”We all go a little mad sometimes. Haven’t you?Usually I go mad about once a week. A bit more in lockdown. I’ve found ways of coping with it through the years. You have to be a bit crazy to enter this profession and think you can make a success of it. I had a healthy dose of narcissism early on that made me think I was going to make it. So I tricked myself…4 min
Total Film|June 2020SOUND BYTES“To me, the protocomic book movie was Verhoeven’s RoboCop.”Guillermo del Toro makes a case for the superhero boom starting long before Blade.43% Increase in film piracy in the UK after lockdown measures were enforced according to digital piracy research firm Muso.$133 MILLIONThe amount lost by X-Men: Dark Phoenix, making it the biggest box office flop of 2019.“The cloak I was made to wear! Like five foxes f***ing on my back.”Judi Dench’s vivid description of her Cats coat is quite something.“WAIT. …YOU DID A MOVIE WITH VILLANELLE?!?!? I’M. NOT. OK.”Blake Lively’s enthusiastic response to Ryan Reynolds when he posted his TF Free Guy cover on Instagram.“I CHANGE MY CLOTHES MORE FREQUENTLY IN ANIMAL CROSSING THAN IN REAL LIFE.”Like half the planet, Brie Larson is spending her lockdown in New Horizons.SKUX WARSAfter…1 min
Total Film|June 2020Slumming Of AgeI grew up in Guildford, which couldn’t be more suburban,” says Simon Bird with a droll wince. “We felt there was a story there that deserves to be told. There have been so many great American suburban films. I wanted to try and make something that could exist on a similar level to those, because I felt that the British suburbs are under-represented.”Bird is already a national treasure for playing hapless Will McKenzie in The Inbetweeners and vexatious Adam in Friday Night Dinner. But now, with Days Of The Bagnold Summer, he’s marked himself as a director to watch, adapting Joff Winterhart’s 2012 graphic novel into a bittersweet relationship dramedy that leans on such ‘70s US classics as Peter Bogdanovich’s Paper Moon, Hal Ashby’s Harold And Maude, and Elaine May’s…2 min
Total Film|June 2020IT SHOULDN’T HAPPEN TO A FILM JOURNALISTEditor-at-Large JAMIE GRAHAM lifts the lid on film journalism.THIS MONTH FILMS IN LOCKDOWNOn 20 April, a month into lockdown, Guillermo del Toro and a few of his filmmaker mates had a chat on Twitter to discuss what they’d been watching, reading and listening to. “I hope this can be about things we love. Not about things we hate or are weighed down about,” started del Toro, and so began a fascinating thread as directors such as Edgar Wright, James Mangold, Issa López, Sarah Polley, Scott Derrickson, James Gunn and Taika Waititi – and thousands of punters – weighed in.Some had been revelling in escapist entertainment, like, I suspect, the majority of people during lockdown. Alice Lowe popped up to say, “I am seeking refuge in YA and children’s fiction”, while…3 min
Total Film|June 2020John David WashingtonWhat was the audition process like?I guess I never looked at it like an audition process. I’m sure it was, but it never felt that way in the initial meeting. I was informed that Christopher Nolan wanted to meet me, so I appeared at his office, and we talked for several hours about everything and anything but the movie, really. It was like a first date, ‘getting to know you’ thing. It was like: ‘Are you cool?’ [laughs]When did you get to see a script?The mystery continues. When I found out that I got it… You know, the NFL draft is going on right now, so I feel a lot like these players when they get the phone call. After that, I returned to their office, and they took me…2 min
Total Film|June 2020ELIZABETH DEBICKIHow did you land the role?I had a cup of tea with Chris, and we had a chat. And there was a little pause in time. And then I read the part for him. And then after that meeting, I got the job quite quickly after that. So it was pretty simple, and a pretty normal read. You know, you meet the director for the part… Nothing hugely dramatic or anything. Of course, my emotional turmoil during that process was interesting. [laughs]What was it like working on a set-piece with a real 747?I think one of the things about working on a film with Chris is the scale and the scope of what they’re able to achieve. But I always feel like, as a director, Chris would rather actually film…2 min
Total Film|June 2020ALONG CAME DOLLYa red-haired Beanie Feldstein is dressed in a top hat, theatrical skirt suit and fishnet tights with a rucksack on her back and maracas in her hand. She is spilling out of a VW van on a Watford housing estate in the hushed early hours. When she speaks, gabbling her goodbyes to a band in the van, it’s with a Wolverhampton accent, and the dialect coach on location radiates approval. Director co*ky Giedroyc, meanwhile, shakes her head. “One more, without the airplane,” she says, removing her headphones and looking to the sky. Beanie – or Bean, as she prefers – bounces back into the VW to go again.Why is Californian girl Feldstein in the arse end of Watford, speaking in a Wolverhampton accent? Because she’s playing 16-year-old Johanna Morrigan, the…8 min
Total Film|June 2020Guide to the GALAXYThe perfect destination for anyone who wants to get away from it all, the complex time-travel dynamics of a trip to this particular world mean it’s going to be a one-way affair – before setting out, you should probably resign yourself to the fact that this is where you’re going to die. And frankly that could come sooner rather than later, seeing as the locals (intelligent, talking apes) are suspicious of any human they meet, especially those who can talk – tourists have even been known to end up with a complimentary lobotomy. So if you want to experience the monkeys’ pre-industrial civilisation and keep your brain in full working order, it’s recommended that you pretend to be mute and try to fit in with the planet’s indigenous human population.…9 min
Total Film|June 2020moving on upPARASITE 15FILMEXTRASOUT 1 JUNE DVD, BD, Steelbook, Digital HD EXTRA Making Of, Deleted scenes, Featurette, Black-and-white version (Steelbook only)SNOWPIERCER 15FILMEXTRASOUT NOW DVD, BD, Digital HD EXTRAS Featurettes, Animated prologueA mid the euphoria of Parasite’s historic Oscar win, and its guaranteed place in pub-quiz immortality as the first foreign-language Best Picture winner, it was easy to miss the climax of a dramatic subplot. Back in 2013, Bong Joon-ho fell foul of the notorious temper of Harvey ‘Scissorhands’ Weinstein, producer of Bong’s 2013 Hollywood debut, Snowpiercer. Weinstein effectively buried the film, which went largely unseen. Fast-forward seven years to February 2020: in the same month that Bong’s gongs were awarded, Weinstein became a convicted sex offender.The near-simultaneous homeentertainment release of Snowpiercer (making its UK BD/DVD debut) and Parasite puts a fascinating spin…5 min
Total Film|June 2020A RAINY DAY IN NEW YORK 12FILMAVAILABLE 5 JUNE DIGITAL HDA Rainy Day In New York could only be a Woody Allen movie. The protagonist is milquetoast Gatsby Welles (Timothée Chalamet). He wears tweed, wields a cigarette holder and adores lounge piano. His girlfriend Ashleigh Enright (Elle Fanning) is a preppy journalism major who says things like, “When I’m sexually conflicted, I hiccup indefinitely.”Together they travel to New York; Ashleigh has an interview with existential filmmaker Roland Pollard (Liev Schreiber), while Gatsby has planned a romantic weekend. Only circ*mstances conspire to keep them apart, as Ashleigh finding herself the object of affection for Pollard, his scribe Ted Davidoff (Jude Law) and star Francisco Vega (Diego Luna). Meanwhile, Gatsby is drawn to Chan (Selena Gomez), an old flame’s sister.“What is it about older guys that’s so appealing…2 min
Total Film|June 2020seeing the lightThere are challenges, and then there are 850-page Booker Prize winners set in 1860s New Zealand that explore astrology and faith, fate and science, love and death. So it’s probably no surprise that the person best placed to unravel and then reconstruct Eleanor Catton’s dense, complex epic The Luminaries into a six-part series was… well, Eleanor Catton.“I really enjoyed the collaborative aspect,” says the novelist-slashscreenwriter. “What was hard was having to learn to write in a way that fit the budget and the schedule, both of which got tighter by the day. I like puzzles, so the problem-solving nature of adaptation really appeals to me. But it was definitely frustrating at times. By the time we started The Luminaries, I had written almost 200 drafts of the first episode alone.”“There…3 min
Total Film|June 2020pick of the kitSony VPL-VW270ESOUT NOW £4,999The most affordable true 4K projector around, this lightbox offers hardcore home-cinema specs and will give you a screen size of 60-300 inches, but you’ll need a darkened room.Optoma UHZ65USTOUT NOW £3,299Dubbed a ‘TV killer’, this ultra-short-throw laser projector offers a 120in screen from just inches away. It packs a built-in soundbar plus voice control and is great for brighter abodes.Hisense Laser TVOUT NOW £2,129This nifty product incorporates a thin lightweight 80in screen and a short-throw console that can be placed just 13cm away for 4K movies without the need to dim the lights.Epson EF-100OUT NOW £689.99Combining style and portability, this budget beamer has a small footprint and can be used in daylight to project a 150in screen for impromptu movie nights.CREDITS: SONY, OPTOMA, HISENSE, EPSON…1 min
Total Film|June 2020fresh spinColour Out Of SpaceAfter his menacing Hereditary score, alt-rock woodwind whiz Colin Stetson sculpts queasy trials in celestial awe and humid dread for Richard Stanley’s H.P. Lovecraft riff. Heavy drones, eerie squalls and treated horns summon the heebie-jeebies with unnerving beauty. Best of all, ‘Taken’ and ‘Reservoir’ occupy the middle ground between similarly skewed scores for Arrival/Annihilation majestically.Jeff Russo follows his low-thrust Discovery scores with a more emotional, allusive mission. The autumnal title track nods lovingly to Jean-Luc’s earlier flute flirtations; cap-doffs to Jerry Goldsmith/Alexander Courage also light the way. The 157-minute haul suffers from longueurs, but Russo’s tense (‘Borg Cube’), tender (‘Talking To Data’) stand-outs engage warmly with Trek’s past and future.…1 min
Total Film|June 2020BFI FILM CLASSICSBOOKSVARIOUS | BFI/Founded in 1992, the British Film Institute’s capsule critiques have become an indispensable part of every cineaste’s bookcase. Now relaunched with snazzy new covers, the series retains both its forensic detail and its commendable brevity – though a stated push towards increased diversity is perhaps undercut by the fact that the first new titles to swell the set are all penned by white males.Of the three, Richard Deming’s Touch Of Evil study is the most engaging. It combines a blow-by-blow account of the thriller’s troubled production with a thoughtful rebuttal to Paul Schrader’s description of it as “film noir’s epitaph”, while Orson Welles’ shadow inevitably looms large. Deming takes admirable pains to recognise Welles’ collaborators.Michael Newton’s Rosemary’s Baby analysis uses a tripartite structure whose constituent parts (‘The Pledge’,…2 min
Total Film|June 2020TOP 10 PIESSTAND BY MEIn Gordie’s campfire tale, bullied Lard Ass takes revenge at a pie-eating contest by downing castor oil and a raw egg pre-tournament to prompt epic vomming. Those blueberry pies return in blue fountain form as Lard Ass sprays his cruel tormentors.AMERICAN PIEHow could this not make the list? Jason Biggs’ hapless teen virgin spies mum’s pastry cooling in the kitchen and decides to test the myth that fornication feels like a warm apple pie. Gross-out and humiliating. Which some may argue is also like sex.THE HELPHousemaid Minny (Octavia Spencer) ensures her racist boss Hilly (Bryce Dallas Howard) gets her just desserts by baking a chocolate pie that isn’t all chocolate. Serving Hilly her second slice of the brown stuff she reveals her nemesis is eating literal sh*t.BLAZING SADDLESAs…2 min
Total Film|June 2020STEVEN SPIELBERG ON JAWSon 18 November 1975, Steven Spielberg – single, beardless, unafraid to speak his mind – sat down in Los Angeles to discuss his latest movie project, Jaws. The groundbreaking thriller adapted from Peter Benchley’s novel had already shocked audiences in the USA with a box-office take of $131 million and birthed the descriptive, ‘blockbuster’; but the global phenomenon was still in its infancy, with many international cinema fans still waiting for the opportunity to be scared in their seats.Though the film’s troubled production has been well documented through the ensuing 40-plus years, this was all news when one of Hollywood’s hottest young directors met with the press to discuss working with real Great Whites, wanting to quit, the inevitability of sequels, and tick bites…What were some of the challenges you…13 min
Total Film|June 2020EYES WIDE SHUT’S SECRET SOCIETYStanley Kubrick’s last film (he died six days after showing stars Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman a final cut) struggled to get an R-rating thanks to the nudity and implied carnality of this showstopper of a scene; the crux of Cruise’s hurt husband’s nocturnal search for vice. But watched anew it’s difficult to find explicit sex acts – and that’s exactly how the exacting Kubrick designed it.Inspired by Arthur Schnitzler’s 1926 novel Traumnovelle (‘Dream Story’), which Kubrick read after finishing 2001: A Space Odyssey, Eyes Wide Shut was long gestated as the director considered both Woody Allen and Steve Martin as lead during its decadeslong development. But he offered the roles of married NY couple Bill and Alice Harford, whose frank discussion of infidelity is the nucleus for Bill’s dreamlike…2 min
Total Film|June 2020SPOT THE DIFFERENCEEASY1. Name the acclaimed 2018 WW1 doc directed by Peter Jackson.2. To whom is Sam Mendes’ 1917 dedicated?3. Which Christopher Nolan regular has a voice-only cameo in Dunkirk?4. Which is the odd one out? There’s a prize in it… a) All Quiet On The Western Front b) The Bridge On The River Kwai c) Platoon d) Saving Private Ryan.5. Name the two films in Clint Eastwood’s 2006 WW2 diptych.MEDIUM1. What was the first war movie directed by Steven Spielberg?2. Name the three MCU superhero actors who featured in The Hurt Locker.3. What’s the full title of the 1991 doc about the making of Apocalypse Now?4. In Tropic Thunder, who plays Damien co*ckburn, the director of the war-filmwithin-a-film?5. Name the three films that comprise Oliver Stone’s Vietnam trilogy.HARD1. Name the war…2 min
Total Film|June 2020DialogueMail, rants, theories etc.EMAIL totalfilm@futurenet.com WRITE Total Film, 1-10 Praed Mews, London W2 1QY (postal addresses will be used for the sole purpose of sending out prizes) gamesradar.com/totalfilm twitter.com/totalfilm facebook.com/totalfilm Drop us a line totalfilm@futurenet.comSTAR LETTERDuring lockdown I’ve been revisiting Marvel movies. There are many to love, but one major flaw across the MCU and in all the X-Men, Fantastic Four, Daredevil, Ghost Rider, Blade and Punisher movies… A heroic theme tune! Not one of them features a distinguishable soundtrack at all. DC movies, on the other hand… Can you imagine how it would be to watch Christopher Reeve rip open his shirt and fly into the sky without that theme? Or to see Batman look up to the Bat-signal without ‘Daaaaaa DAAHHHH’? Those films would not be the same. Missing a trick,…6 min
Total Film|June 2020Playing With FireNo one likes laughing at themselves quite like Judd Apatow. From The 40 Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up to Funny People and This Is 40, he’s made a career out of turning his own awkward life-stages into teary, beery stoner comedies. Now moving on to someone else’s issues with a much darker edge, Apatow is teaming up with SNL star Pete Davidson to find the funny side of real childhood trauma.“The movie is fictional but in a way it couldn’t be more truthful,” Apatow tells Teasers, speaking from lockdown the day before the trailer lands. “This didn’t happen, but it’s how Pete feels.”Davidson’s dad was a New York fireman who died on 9/11 – a tragedy that he relives through the character of Scott Ready, a 20-something tattoo artist who…2 min
Total Film|June 2020FATAL VISIONEver since the appearance of this virus, one of the questions that I have been asked consistently is, “Why is the movie so prescient and why is it so accurate?” This has come to me in the form of questions from journalists as well as from people assaulting me on social media. They seem to think I somehow knew this was going to happen.My response is very simple. When I pitched the movie to [director] Steven Soderbergh, I said, “I only want to do this movie if it can be accurate and fact-based.” Thankfully, Soderbergh agreed. With this in mind, I was able to get in touch with Dr. Ian Lipkin, who is the best virologist we have in the US. He said the same thing to me, “I will…2 min
Total Film|June 2020UNIVERSAL VS. CINEMASTrolls World Tour might just be the most historically significant movie since Avatar. With COVID-19 closing cinemas in March, when Universal Pictures’ promotional spend was in full swing for a 10 April release, the studio decided to release anyway, only on Premium Video On Demand (PVOD). Trolls World Tour became available to rent for $19.99 in the US, or £15.99 in the UK.For Universal, the decision was a triumph – Trolls gleaned $100m in just three weeks, with 80 per cent of that figure going to the studio, as opposed to the 50 per cent or so it receives from theatrical box office. NBC Universal CEO Jeff Shell told the Wall Street Journal that the numbers “exceeded our expectations” and declared, “As soon as theatres reopen, we expect to release…2 min
Total Film|June 2020EARL CAVEThe 20-year-old son of Australian singer-songwriter-screenwriteractor Nick Cave and British model-turned-fashionista Susie Brick, Earl Cave appeared in TV shows Born To Kill and The End Of The F***ing World before leaping into movies playing Dan, younger brother of infamous Ned, in True History Of The Kelly Gang. He bags his first lead in Simon Bird’s coming-of-age dramedy Days Of The Bagnold Summer…How did you get the gig of playing mopey metaller Daniel?I looked at [Joff Winterhart’s] comic book and it really, really looked a lot like me! And a lot of the relationship between the mother and the son resembled mine. So I went in and met Simon.Are you into heavy metal in real life?I had to kind of force myself to like it [for the role]. It was… a…2 min
Total Film|June 2020David ThewlisBlackpool-born Thewlis made a name for himself in 1993 with a bruising performance in Mike Leigh’s Naked and has been essaying complex characters since in projects as diverse as Gangster No. 1, Kingdom Of Heaven, The New World and Wonder Woman. An alumni of Hogwarts (Professor Lupin 2004–2010), the 57-year-old is now playing a food inspector with hidden depths in Atom Egoyan’s twisty-turny Guest Of Honour.What attracted you to Guest Of Honour?Firstly Atom, because I adore his films. But also this thing about memory and how accurately we remember things – that has some resonances with my own life and my own growing up. Things that are remembered in different ways by my parents, and by my brother and sister. So there was just something about the whole project that…3 min
Total Film|June 2020ROBERT PATTINSONDid your experience on The Lighthouse help you prepare for lockdown life?[laughs] I mean, the thing is, on every single movie, there’s so much time just pacing around hotel rooms. I’m definitely quite well trained for it.What was the process for landing this role?Incredibly mysterious. It was totally under the radar. I got a call saying, “Do you want to meet with Chris in three days for something?” I had no information about anything. I went around to Chris’ house, and we had a lovely chat. I kept sort of wondering… is this about a project? [laughs] It must have gone for about three hours without a single mention of why we were doing the meeting. And then at the end, he said, “So, I’ve been working on this thing.…2 min
Total Film|June 2020IRRÉVERSIBLEIn May 2002, Gaspar Noé’s Irréversible arrived at the Cannes Film Festival with all the force of a concrete wrecking ball. The Argentinean-born, French-raised director was already known for his confrontational brand of cinema after short film Carne and his prize-winning feature debut, I Stand Alone. But this backwards-playing revenge drama left reviewers shocked by the visceral scenes of violence [warning: spoilers ahead].Many fled for the exits. “Film critics are sometimes forced to see movies they know they will dislike,” shrugs the mischievous 56-year-old Noé, when he meets Total Film almost two decades on. “When you go to Cannes, it’s like the World Cup. People are fighting for their flags. I went to see movies in Cannes and I was whistling because I had a friend who was in competition…8 min
Total Film|June 2020JOSEPH GORDON-LEVITT“I’VE DONE THINGS WHERE, FROM THE OUTSIDE, IT’S LIKE, ‘THAT WAS NOT A WISE CAREER MOVE’”When Total Film speaks with Joseph Gordon-Levitt in May, both sides of the Atlantic are in lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic. While the enforced isolation has some of us bored stiff, Gordon-Levitt (Joe to pals) has been firing on all cylinders, creatively. Continuing to work on his HitRecord platform (imagine a service to crowdsource creativity), he’s also making a YouTube Originals miniseries, Create Together.“I feel mostly very lucky and very grateful that I’m able to work from home,” he says, expressing his admiration for the folks out there “doing work that needs to be done”. He’s leaning into the HitRecord community to create shorts, stories and more, all remotely. “I haven’t left my house,”…20 min
Total Film|June 2020rebel rebelMERRY CHRISTMAS MR. LAWRENCE 15FILMEXTRAS1983 OUT 15 JUNE BD EXTRAS Documentaries, Featurettes, BookletIn’83, a Christmas-infused WW2 heartbreaker seemed weird for Japanese New Wave radical Nagisa Oshima. Yet it’s in the fertile clash of contrasting ingredients that the Ai No Corrida director seasoned the genre flavours of his English-language debut. Based on Laurens van der Post’s novel The Seed And The Sower, Mr. Lawrence weathers well.In his ‘Let’s Dance’ pomp, David Bowie radiates charisma as Jack Celliers, a defiant POW who excites the interest of testy prison-camp captain Yonoi (Japanese pop star Ryuichi Sakamoto). Offsetting the psychosexual steam between the pop pin-ups, Tom Conti’s John Lawrence strikes up complex exchanges with sad*stic but honourable sergeant Hara, played by Takeshi ‘Beat’ Kitano in a luminous break-out role.As the resulting tensions-between duty/morality, East/West,…5 min
Total Film|June 2020biting backS2 IS ITS OWN BEASTTV horror-com What We Do In The Shadows owes its existence, of course, to Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement’s brilliant 2014 mockumentary about modern-day vampires. But with S2, the show is set to stride out of the source material’s, um, shadow. “The first time you do something, the anxiety is definitely real,” says Kayvan Novak, who plays Nandor The Relentless, a 767-year-old bloodsucker. “It’s safe to say the reaction was super-positive, and we’ve built on that and just moved things in the right direction for the second season.”FAMILIAR BUT DIFFERENTAs with the movie, the series centres on house-sharing nightwalkers: Nandor shares with Nadja (Natasia Demetriou) and her husband Laszlo (Matt Berry). There’s also energy vampire Colin (Mark Proksch)-who sucks people’s life force by boring them half…3 min
Total Film|June 2020sequel superiorWATCHMEN SEASON 1 15SHOWEXTRAS2019 OUT 1 JUNE DVD, BD EXTRAS Featurettes1 IT TACKLES MODERN CONCERNSOpening with an uncompromising depiction of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre, HBO’s thrilling Watchmen sequel series establishes its themes early doors: this is no longer a story about the doomsday clock ticking down to nuclear annihilation, but one about America’s troubling relationship with race and violence. In other words, it holds a cracked mirror to contemporary society and filters it through a trailblazing (anti-)superhero story-just as Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons did in their’80s graphic novel.2 IT ENRICHES THE ORIGINAL WATCHMENSet 34 years after the events of the comics, HBO’s Watchmen treats Moore’s work as gospel with one crucial exception: it reveals the identity of Hooded Justice – the Watchmen world’s first costumed vigilante. Sacrilege, you…2 min
Total Film|June 2020THE HOME ENTERTAINMENT BIBLELEGO A-WING STARFIGHTERCOLLECTIBLE OUT NOWThat’s ‘A’ for adult: as the latest addition to the Ultimate Collector Series, this is aimed at older brick-heads who are up for a building challenge. Measuring 26cm x 27cm x 42cm, its brick count is 1,673 – roughly the number of pieces it ended up in after ramming a Star Destroyer’s bridge in Return Of The Jedi (aptly, one of the minifigure pilot’s expression is a bit “oh sh*t”). Comes with adjustable stand, information plaque and pivoting laser cannons, so you can pew-pew from multiple angles.TASKMASTER: THE BOARD GAMEBOARD GAME OUT NOWIf you’re ‘board’ with games based on blockbusters (see elsewhere on this spread), why not try one based on a game show? It’s aimed at the whole family – though you might want to…2 min
Total Film|June 2020Army manoeuvresGEARS TACTICSGAMEOUT NOW | PCOften dismissed as a meat-headed blockbuster, the Gears series has always required brains as well as brawn to survive its blood-soaked skirmishes. So it’s no great surprise that it should lend itself well to turn-based tactics. Knowing when to get the lead out and when to retreat – and finding the right time to reload – is crucial, as each level brings waves of vicious Locust forces converging on your overmatched troops.It’s not exactly XCOM: you’re less likely to be outwitted than outnumbered in battles where the bullets fly thick and fast. But each encounter is still a puzzle, albeit one you can occasionally solve by slicing your biggest problems in two with a chainsaw.The series’ iconic Lancer, a machine gun with a buzzing blade, isn’t…2 min
Total Film|June 2020two moreBE MORE WONDER WOMAN / BLACK PANTHER RULESTwo titles offering young’uns schooling in superheroes from made-up secret kingdoms. The more openly inspirational text is Be More Wonder Woman, marrying sage life lessons (“Don’t let others bring you down”) with comic-book action (Diana wrestling an octopus). Meanwhile, with its ‘fun facts’, doodle-y visuals and bubble lettering, Black Panther Rules is a playful guide to Wakandan lore and T’Challa’s friends and foes. (Challenge to Ryan Coogler: make a legit antagonist out of Stegron The Dinosaur Man.)STAR WARS: THE RISE OF KYLO RENCollected edish of the four-part Marvel series charting the path from Ben to Ren in brisk – possibly too brisk – fashion. Gets under the armour of the Knights Of Ren more than the films managed, and there are a few…1 min
Total Film|June 2020TOTAL RECALLMISSION TO MARSGetting his ass to the red planet, Douglas Quaid (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is aboard a ship docking on a Mars Federal Colony. This shot was realised by miniature effects co-supervisor Mark Stetson with small-scale models and ‘smoky’ matte paintings to create the illusion of the Martian atmosphere.PASSPORT CHECKIn the bustle of the immigration desk, a towering woman’s yellow coat is unmissable. The name we see in the stamped passport, Priscilla Allen, belongs to the actor. An acting teacher with few screen credits, Allen remembered winning the role over “a women’s wrestling champion and a drag queen”.IRONSIDE WILLMichael Ironside’s baddie Richter is on the lookout for Quaid (Ironside had been a contender for the lead in director Paul Verhoeven’s RoboCop). The graffiti “Kuato lives” foreshadows another impressive practical effect to…1 min
Total Film|June 2020POLITICAL SATIRE ON FILMWith a March 2020 headline, mock news site The Onion aptly illustrated the problem facing satire today. “Man just buying one of every cleaning product in case Trump announces it’s coronavirus cure,” ran the story. Soon after, Donald Trump all but went there, only to later claim he was being sarcastic when he was duly pilloried. You could make it up, sure, but who would have believed you until it happened?Has today’s political climate defanged political satire by being too extreme even for extreme satire? Cinema suggests as much. In some eras, political leaders would be ripe targets. But we’ve yet to see movies that lacerate the likes of the Trumps/Johnsons, even as they cry out for Dr. Strangelove-grade takedowns.True, modern movie satires need not feel bad for failing to…3 min
Total Film|June 202060 Second ScreenplayTF SAVES YOU THE COST OF A MOVIE EVERY MONTH. THIS ISSUE: THE HUNTFADE IN:INT: PRIVATE JETRich douchebags harass a stewardess until a drugged man enters asking for help. Suddenly a MYSTERIOUS WOMAN stabs out his eyeball with her stiletto.MYSTERIOUS WOMANMake sure no one can see my face! The audience can’t know who I am yet.THE AUDIENCEThat’s just one of the questions we have.EXT: FIELDA group of right-wing strangers wake up gagged. They find a huge crate of weapons in a clearing.HANDSOME GUYHi, you seem nice and I’m clearly a heroic type. Let’s stick together.EMMA ROBERTSSure, as nothing else makes sense so far, a good team-up between attractive characters will really anchor the story.Suddenly, EMMA ROBERTS gets shot in the face and HANDSOME GUY steps on a landmine. Both are…3 min
Total Film|June 2020Boyz N The WoodWhen Spike Lee won a long-overdue Academy Award in 2019 he was never going to ignore the elephant in the room: “The 2020 presidential election is around the corner… Make the moral choice between love versus hate,” an impassioned Lee said. “Let’s do the right thing!” It wasn’t the first time Lee had spoken out against ‘Agent Orange’ – the filmmaker’s nickname for President Trump – and it wouldn’t be the last, for in Da 5 Bloods Lee has cast frequent collaborator Delroy Lindo as a xenophobic, MAGA-hat wearing Trump supporter.“I had major, major, major reservations about playing a Trump supporter,” Lindo tells Teasers. One of the film’s eponymous ‘Bloods’, Lindo’s Paul returns to modern day Vietnam with three surviving squad mates (played by Clarke Peters, Isiah Whitlock Jr. and…5 min
Total Film|June 2020PREGNANT PAUSEThe award-winning adolescent abortion drama…I think the film is so much about friendship and unspoken trauma,” says Eliza Hittman, talking up her new film Never Rarely Sometimes Always. The Brooklyn-born director’s third movie, following It Felt Like Love and Beach Rats, it tells of Autumn (Sidney Flanigan), a pregnant 17 year-old who travels with her cousin Skylar (Talia Ryder) to New York, where she can get an abortion without parental consent.The idea first flickered back in 2012, when Hittman read about the death of Savita Halappanavar, an Indian woman living in Ireland who was denied a lifesaving abortion and passed away. “I was really stunned by that,” says Hittman. She then discovered women regularly fly from Ireland to London to legally get an abortion before travelling back home on the…2 min
Total Film|June 2020EVACUATION STATIONUsually BAFTA is all about handing out gongs. In the case of Jessica Swale, the British Academy of Film and Television awarded her a bursary – eight years ago – to develop her first screenplay. The result is Summerland, a WW2 evacuee drama starring her good friends Gemma Arterton and Gugu Mbatha-Raw, who both starred in productions of Swale’s 2015 Olivier-nominated play Nell Gwynn.Back when she was formulating Summerland, on the proviso that it was a brand-new idea, Swale had to start from scratch. “I wrote down that I’m interested in underdogs and folklore and imagination and a child’s perspective,” she says. Cunningly, she’s integrated all these themes into a story set on England’s south coast that stars Arterton as Alice, a folklore historian who, in 1940, is something of…3 min
Total Film|June 2020TIME TO SPYThe sun is setting, but the day has just begun. It’s September 2019, and Total Film is at an anonymous logistics airport in Victorville, California. We’re here to watch nighttime filming on ‘Merry Go Round’, the shooting codename for Tenet – the latest big-budget blockbuster original from master filmmaker Christopher Nolan. All we know is that it’s an action epic, evolving from the world of international espionage. And that’s pretty much all we’ll know… for now.As the orange sunset fades to black, Emma Thomas (Nolan’s wife and longtime producing partner) acts as our guide to the set, while preparations are made for a practical set-piece on an all-too-rare scale. Tonight, Victorville is doubling for Oslo. Blue lights strobe from ‘politi’ cars and an ‘ambulanse’, as a truck sprays the ground…22 min
Total Film|June 2020KENNETH BRANAGHWas landing a role in Tenet a secrecyshrouded process?It doesn’t feel like it’s shrouded in secrecy, but, in fact, it is. It was as simple as Christopher ringing me up, and saying, “Look, we have this film that we imagine you might not be available for, but if you thought that there was a possibility, the character films in a sort of fairly compressed way.” I’d just about finished Artemis Fowl. We were in prep for Death On The Nile. I talked to my bosses, to make sure that it could work logistically. The next evening, Christopher came to see me, and delivered the script by hand, as he had done also with Dunkirk. It’s funny: you get an international master artistic brainiac and a mailman all in one.Was filming…2 min
Total Film|June 2020Blaze of GloryWell, it’s kind of a funny story,” says Will Ferrell, explaining how he first happened upon the Eurovision Song Contest. “My wife has family in Sweden. Our first trip there would have been the spring of’99, and we were out in the countryside at their little summer cabin, and her cousin said [Swedish accent], ‘So, shall we sit down and watch Eurovision?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, I guess. What’s that?’ I watched mesmerised for the entire three hours. Ironically, that year a Swede won: Charlotte Nilsson. I was just blown away by the spectacle, the camp. Everything you guys are used to, we didn’t have anything like that, in America. I literally went, ‘That would make a great movie.’”Fast-forward 16 years and Ferrell had done exactly zilch about making that…8 min
Total Film|June 2020SIMON PEGG My Life in PicturesSHAUN OF THE DEAD 2004A zomcom with braaains, laughs and Queen on the jukebox…“At the time, we just wanted to make our zombie film and have a premiere so our parents could come along. That was it. You don’t look into the future. So the idea that we created something with longevity? It’s the ultimate accolade. And it’s strange actually, that during the pandemic it’s been talked about more, and these memes keep popping up.“We never got above ourselves and all ‘Jack the biscuit’ about it, but we were blown away, absolutely blown away, that people like Tarantino liked it and gave us quotes. George Romero’s nod was the most wonderful for me because it was all because of him and our love for his amazing trilogy. Those films were…9 min
Total Film|June 2020FIVE STAR TURNS10 THINGS I HATE ABOUT YOU 1999After acting since childhood and getting a regular role on 3rd Rock From The Sun, Gordon-Levitt showcased his leading-man chops in the teen comedy, which riffed on Shakespeare’s The Taming Of The Shrew.MYSTERIOUS SKIN 2004Gregg Araki’s hard-hitting coming-of-age drama saw JGL shine as a gay hustler who’d suffered childhood abuse. “I’ve played the nice kid… but Gregg was the first one to call me sexy,” he said.INCEPTION 2010Playing it cool as Arthur in Nolan’s subconscious heist movie, Gordon-Levitt walks away with the film’s most striking set-piece. A second Nolan collab followed in The Dark Knight Rises (2012).LOOPER 2012Wiry Gordon-Levitt had been told to bulk up many times in his career. He finally did, and sported a fake nose, to play young Bruce Willis in…1 min
Total Film|June 2020about a girlNEVER RARELY SOMETIMES ALWAYS 15FILMOUT NOW DIGITAL HDThe title of this powerful drama refers to the questions posed by an abortion-clinic counsellor to determine the physical and mental health of women who are contemplating termination.Ascertaining those things is difficult in taciturn teen Autumn (newcomer Sidney Flanigan), a pregnant 17-year-old from small-town Pennsylvania buffeted by the casual toxic masculinity pervading her life. From the stepdad who views all females (even the family dog) as ‘slu*ts’, to the classmate who mimes blow j*bs at her, Autumn and her similarly world-weary cousin, Skylar (Talia Ryder), struggle daily for agency. Things don’t get any easier when the girls travel to New York for an abortion.Written and directed by Eliza Hittman (2017’s Beach Rats), NRSA could be dismissed as an ‘issues’ movie about female autonomy.…3 min
Total Film|June 2020science frictionSpace Force is not about Space Force. That is to say, Netflix’s new 10-episode sitcom, co-created by The Office US dream team Greg Daniels and Steve Carell, is not an insider’s view or exposé of the real-life space-warfare branch of the US Armed Forces. “We’re doing a fictional work of the imagination here,” says exec producer Daniels. “I don’t know how accurate it is.” However… “Sometimes there’s a bit of humorous overlap,” he admits. For example? “Well, one of our early ideas was that our Space Force would have camouflage fatigues with the pattern of the Moon’s surface on them as seen from a telescope, which we thought was funny – you’re never going to be outside of a space suit on the Moon, so why would you need camouflage?!…5 min
Total Film|June 2020MAKING OF mission completeLaunched in 2013, Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. marked the MCU’s first foray into TV. For seven years, the elite spies have battled baddies like HYDRA, the Kree and now the semi-robotic Chronicoms. Revolving around a team led by the resurrected Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg) and the formidable Agent May (Ming-Na Wen), the show’s final season sends our heroes back in time so they can save Earth’s future.Coulson technically died in S5 – was bringing him back as a ‘Life Model Decoy’ hard to justify?JEFFREY BELL (exec producer): When LMD Coulson showed up at the end of Season 6, we were all so happy to see him. This is a fresh start for the character and his relationships with everyone else. Bringing Coulson back gives us the chance to dive into all…3 min
Total Film|June 2020super size spreeWith the 2020 lockdown leaving us starved of cinema trips, bringing the big screen into your living room is the perfect back-up. And with most of this year’s Oscar winners now available to watch at home, it’s a great time to invest in a projector for your home-cinema bunker.WHAT TYPE OF PROJECTOR DO I NEED?There are two main types of projector tech – DLP (Digital Light Processing) and LCD (Liquid Crystal Display). Most home-cinema projectors tend to use DLP, which offers better contrast and black levels. LCD models are better known for their accurate colours but tend to be pricier and bulkier. In reality, it’s best not to get too hung up on which tech to go with and concentrate more on on features like whether you want Full HD…2 min
Total Film|June 2020fridayTwenty-five years back, Ice Cube aimed to transform our perceptions of South Central LA. “After movies like Boyz N The Hood, Menace II Society and South Central came out, everybody thought the way we grew up was the worst thing ever in life,” says the former N.W.A rapper. His response was Friday, a wickedly quotable stoner comedy about a (mostly) beautiful day in the neighbourhood, packaged with a beautifully baked soundtrack to match.If N.W.A’s Straight Outta Compton album influenced Boyz, Friday milked Cube’s 1993 hit ‘It Was A Good Day’. The Isley Brothers-sampling track marked the beginning of a fine partnership, for starters: after directing the ‘Good Day’ promo, F. Gary Gray banked his feature debut with Friday. And the influence of ‘Good Day’ extends to Cube’s title track, a…2 min
Total Film|June 2020two moreMoving OutThis co-op game of furniture removal is this year’s Overcooked – chaotic, knockabout fun with relationshipruining potential. Smashing windows to lob sofas into the van might just help you beat those gold-medal times; preferable, surely, to the inevitable arguments that result from trying to manoeuvre them through narrow doorways…Disaster Report 4: Summer MemoriesEffectively an interactive micro-budget B-movie, this ambitious survival game sees you negotiate a Japanese city ripped apart by earthquakes. It’s technically shambolic, with clumsy controls, arduous objectives and wild tonal lurches. But it’s also a touching human story that invites you to reflect on how you’d react in similar circ*mstances.…1 min
Total Film|June 2020IS IT BOLLOCKS?THIS MONTH LAWRENCE OF ARABIAQ In David Lean’s masterpiece, Lawrence of Arabia’s young friend perishes in fast-moving quicksand. Dry truth or hard to swallow?A DR BETHANY FOX SENIOR LECTURER IN GEOGRAPHY UNIVERSITY OF HUDDERSFIELDYes, quicksand definitely exists, but the general view is that no, people aren’t likely to get sucked to their deaths because people are less dense than quicksand. What happens is that quicksand is a mixture of sand and water whose properties alter when subject to some kind of mechanical shock, like someone walking on it. The sand liquefies, so you sink in up to the point where you’ve displaced your bodyweight’s worth of sand/water mixture. Meanwhile, the water and sand have become segregated, so now your legs are surrounded by drier sand which is very hard to…2 min
Total Film|June 2020IRRFAN KHANIn Ang Lee’s 2012 film, The Life Of Pi, Irrfan Khan delivered a moving monologue about the difficulty of parting ways with those we’re used to having around. “I suppose in the end, the whole of life becomes an act of letting go,” he intones, those expressive eyes brimming with tears, “but what always hurts the most is not taking a moment to say goodbye.”Last month, the movie world felt similar emotions when Khan died at the age of 53 in Mumbai after a two-year struggle with a rare neuroendocrine tumour. As his fellow Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan tweeted, Khan was “an incredible talent, a gracious colleague, a prolific contributor to the world of cinema […] left us too soon”.A wannabe cricketer from Jaipur, Khan went to drama school when…2 min
Total Film|June 2020OR IS BRAVEHEART’S LONGSHANKS THE BEST VILLAIN EVER?asks Paul TanterAccording to 1995’s Braveheart, King Edward I – aka Longshanks – was “the most ruthless king ever to sit on the throne of England.” Patrick McGoohan’s performance more than lives up to the billing: a masterclass by a multi-talented actor in his last major film role. And yet, just as McGoohan was snubbed by awards bodies at the time, so Longshanks has been long overlooked by those compiling ‘Best Villain’ lists. Let’s redress the balance.Longshanks pursues his goals-power for power’s sake; crushing all who oppose him – with a rapacity that puts the likes of Thanos to shame. It took the Mad Titan three whole Phases of the MCU to achieve his aim of retiring to a cottage. Yet in a mere 20-ish minutes, McGoohan demonstrates unfathomable cunning,…2 min
