Home//Total Film/September 2024/In This Issue
Total Film|September 2024Welcome to TOTAL FILM THE SMARTER MOVIE MAGAZINEBeetlejuice certainly isn't a name I'd have said three times as a kid. The film occupied a strange ne(i)therworld for me, in that I absolutely loved it, but I was also just a little bit terrified of it: the scene in which Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin age and crumble at super-speed still gives me the heebie-jeebies. But now feels like a pretty good time to summon the bio-exorcist to delight and frighten a new generation.Yes, Michael Keaton got nuts in The Flash, but Beetlejuice Beetlejuice provides him with the opportunity to really cut (the Juice) loose. And Tim Burton – back on a high after the success of Netflix series Wednesday – has fully committed to the practical effects, which is the kind of nostalgia that I can really…2 min
Total Film|September 2024HOT RIGHT NOWSince leaving behind the role of vampire Edward Cullen in 2012, Robert Pattinson has built himself a sparkling career. He may have gained worldwide recognition for acting in blockbuster franchises like Twilight and Harry Potter, but, much like the latter's leading man, the actor has gone on to choose extremely interesting projects. Most recently he's been attached to star alongside Jennifer Lawrence in Lynne Ramsay's Die, My Love, about an isolated mother struggling with her mental health. He's also returning to producing with a remake of the 1981 horror Possession.The last time Pattinson produced was on 2010 romantic drama Remember Me – a largely forgotten entry in his early career. The fact that his filmography since is full of incredibly memorable projects is a credit to him as a performer…2 min
Total Film|September 2024NO FILTERI can't exactly put my finger on it,’ Kate Winslet says of when she first heard of war photographer Lee Miller. Famous for capturing scenes from the front lines and concentration camps during World War Two as Vogue’s war correspondent, Miller is a figure Winslet ‘gradually became more aware’ of throughout her life. Producing a film focusing on that portion of Miller's career, though, all started with a table. Contacted by a friend who owns an auction house, said friend told Winslet that she'd come into possession of a table owned by Miller's sister-in-law. ‘She said, “You've just got to get it,” and as I received it I sat down and put my hands on it and thought, “Lee Miller, what if I made a film about her? God, that'd…5 min
Total Film|September 2024FAN SERVICELike many years previously, Marvel was the studio to steal the spotlight at this year's Comic-Con, impressing with a barrage of theatrical presentations in the famous Hall H. The undeniable highlight of the proceedings revolved around announcing the title and new villain of the upcoming fifth Avengers outing – a film that's been in a spot of trouble since Jonathan Majors’ Kang the Conqueror was removed from future plans following legal woes surrounding the actor.Now we know that the movie will be titled Avengers: Doomsday, with famous Fantastic Four villain Doctor Doom returning to the screen to wreak havoc on the multiverse. And, presumably, this instalment in the long-running series will be set in an alternate universe, as the familiar face playing Doom was unmasked on stage in a surprise…4 min
Total Film|September 2024SELF CAREIn 2021, Canadian actor Megan Park (Charlie Bartlett, Diary of the Dead) garnered raves for her writing/directing debut The Fallout, a delicate high-school-shooting drama starring Jenna Ortega before she launched into the stratosphere. Now she follows it up with another excellent teen movie, My Old Ass, which starts off as a broad, fantastical comedy but subtly shifts through the gears until it packs a real punch.‘With The Fallout, it was, “How do I make something that's heavy really palatable?”’ ponders Park. ‘This movie, on the surface, doesn't have as heavy a subject matter, but the mushroom trip and the idea of meeting your older self is the entry point. People have come up to me and said, “I didn't expect to cry my face off in a movie called My…2 min
Total Film|September 2024Ruth BradleyWere you a fan of the show before signing up?I hadn't seen it! I'd read about it. Then I was sent one scene and it was all coded so I didn't know what it was. I called my agent and said, ‘This is some of the best dialogue I've ever read. What is this?’ He was like, ‘Actually, it's Slow Horses…’Tell us about your character, Emma Flyte…She's the new head dog for Diana Taverner. She's come from the Met. She's a straight shooter. Head dog is traditionally a man's position, so she's a trailblazer. She starts so confident and excited, like, ‘I've finally arrived.’ And then she meets Lamb…Who outwits her, like he does everyone else…Every time someone meets Jackson Lamb, they're so distracted by his looks, his smell [laughs],…1 min
Total Film|September 2024PARTNERS IN CRIMEPicking up a week after the Riddler flooded Gotham City in 2022 movie The Batman, eight-part HBO show The Penguin finds a city suffering. ‘Rife with conflict,’ is how executive producer Dylan Clark, who also produced the Matt Reeves movie, puts it, pointing out that there's a ‘power vacuum’ following the death of crime lord Carmine Falcone (John Turturro).‘Gangs in Gotham are going to try to seize opportunities,’ Clark tells Teasers. ‘But you have this crafty, manipulative, conniving, charming character, Oz Cobb, waiting in the wings. Watching Oz's rise is like a Scarface story. He's known as The Kingpin in the comics.’As played by an unrecognisable Colin Farrell, who again inhabits the role (and the prosthetics) in the show, Oswald Cobblepot radiated a dark charisma that reached far beyond the…2 min
Total Film|September 2024MURDER BY NUMBERSIn a year of splendid French courtroom dramas like Anatomy of a Fall, Cédric Kahn's The Goldman Case is another to join the ranks. In 1976, French activist, left-wing intellectual and criminal Pierre Goldman (Arieh Worthalter) stood trial for two murders he didn't commit. As the trial gets underway, he blatantly admits to armed robbery charges, much to the exasperation of his attorney Georges Kiejman (Arthur Harari, the Oscar-winning co-writer of Anatomy…).Kahn (2018’s The Prayer) first discovered Goldman through reading his book Dim Memories of a Polish Jew Born in France. ‘It was both an autobiography and a creed,’ says Kahn, when Teasers meets him in Paris. ‘And so it was interesting to have his take on the way he defended. He told his story and defended the case, but…2 min
Total Film|September 2024TEEN QUEENWhat was it about Astrid that you connected with?I loved that she was a geek, of course. She's just a really insightful, confused girl who has an awkward relationship with her mom, which is insane – to act like you hate Lydia Deetz. I always saw that as a challenge as well, because she's so cool. Lydia and Astrid are very different but they're the smartest ones in the room.What was it like working with Winona?Winona and I just started talking and we couldn't stop. On day one, I feel like she opened and extended her arms towards me, and for that I'm immensely grateful, because it made the shooting experience that much more comfortable. We became in sync really suddenly, which was really beneficial for a fever dream-esque film…1 min
Total Film|September 2024IT'S A KINDA (PRACTICAL) MAGICHow did your collaboration on this come about?I worked with Tim before on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Sweeney Todd and I'd been involved with some of his projects on the periphery, like Corpse Bride and Wednesday. My life is mostly Star Wars but [producer] Tommy Harper came to see me one day and said, ‘Hey, we're going to be doing Beetlejuice 2. Do you think you could be involved?’ Then really, it just became a sense of Lucasfilm and Warner Bros. making sure that they could cement their relationship together – to open up our workshop, which was essentially a Lucas-based workshop, to a wider audience.Is it more fun to work on a film where the remit is as many physical effects as possible?We're using classic rod puppets…2 min
Total Film|September 2024Class ActThere's nothing like an awards season to sharpen the senses. Just ask Colman Domingo, the American actor who, this year, received the first Oscar nomination of his career for civil-rights drama Rustin. From the BAFTAs and the Golden Globes to the Critics’ Choice and Screen Actors Guild awards, Domingo was a near-permanent fixture on the circuit in the lead-up to the Academy Awards. ‘You go back home after that epic run,’ he reflects, ‘and you think you're going back to your “normal life” and you realise there's nothing normal any more. Things are different.’Some might say it's about time Domingo gained the recognition he richly deserves, following extensive work in the theatre and a growing TV and film career that includes cult shows like Euphoria and acclaimed Oscarwinning movies like…9 min
Total Film|September 2024Soul SistersPremiering to rave reviews at the Toronto International Film Festival, His Three Daughters is a precise and contained drama about a trio of estranged sisters coming together to look after their father in the last days of his life as he dies of cancer.Sounds like a hoot, right? Well, actually it is, writer/director Azazel Jacobs (The Lovers, French Exit) never forgetting that humour is part and parcel of life, even at its most tragic. Laughs squeeze from the corners of tight mouths as Jacobs first exposes and then examines the sisters’ rivalries and resentments, and insightfully scrutinises their grief without recourse to sentimentality.Of course, it helps when you have three powerhouse actors playing the trio of sisters: Carrie Coon (The Leftovers, Ghostbusters: Afterlife) is eldest Katie, clenched and controlling; Natasha…13 min
Total Film|September 2024STARVE ACRE 15Put the bunny back in the bog…DIRECTOR Daniel Kokotajlo STARRING Matt Smith, Morfydd Clark, Erin Richards, Sean Gilder, Robert Emms SCREENPLAY Daniel Kokotajlo DISTRIBUTOR BFI RUNNING TIME 98 minsOUT 6 SEPTEMBER CINEMASI don't really know what's happening any more!’ cries an anguished Matt Smith an hour or so into Starve Acre. And indeed, such is the fug of indistinct menace and metaphysical mystery in Daniel Kokotajlo's follow-up to 2017’s Apostasy that one's immediate response to Smith's woeful declaration may be to nod instinctively in agreement.Like the 2019 novel by Andrew Michael Hurley from which it evolved, though, Starve Acre is not a work one has to comprehend fully in order to be seduced. It is more of a mood piece, in truth: one that transports the viewer to a muddy…4 min
Total Film|September 2024JACKPOT! TBCOUT 15 AUGUST PRIME VIDEOWith a filmography including Spy and 2016’s Ghostbusters, a Paul Feig movie always promises not to take itself too seriously. With over-the-top action and one-liners galore, Jackpot! has its tongue firmly planted in its cheek.In the film's 2030 LA, things look much as they do today – except it's legal to murder the winner of the city's Grand Lottery in order to steal their prize before sundown. Awkwafina's (The Farewell, Jumanji: The Next Level) aspiring actor Katie Kim arrives in town wanting to turn her life around, and has no idea what she's in for when she secures the winning ticket.Feig takes a while to fulfil the promise of chaotic action but things accelerate when John Cena's Noel arrives, crashing through the ceiling. Like a lethal…1 min
Total Film|September 2024THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO 12AThere have been numerous adaptations of Dumas’ classic but there's still swash in the old buckle yet with this elegant, propulsive, three-hour revenge epic. Pierre Niney (Yves Saint Laurent) stars as the wronged 19th-century swain who assumes the titular moniker to pay back an act of betrayal. Tapping into the emotional cost of vengeance, the masks we wear and the thrill of a damn good sword fight, this is as smart as any franchise blockbuster. Playing like a heist movie with rapiers, it's a French fancy worth indulging.…1 min
Total Film|September 2024ALIENS EXPANDED TBCOUT NOW DIGITALIf you miss the peak years of DVD/BD extras, this deep dip into James Cameron's 1986 maximalist classic is for you. Even after the 2010 Anthology's MU-TH-UR-mode load, there's enough insight in Ian Nathan's 282-minute docu-dive to justify revisiting LV-426. Playing like a high-grade assemblage of disc features, it's a tribute that reiterates why Aliens deserves the expanded treatment.Everyone seems to have boarded the dropship, for starters. With Cameron, Sigourney Weaver and Gale Anne Hurd leading, Jenette Goldstein, Michael Biehn, Paul Reiser, Carrie Henn, Lance Henriksen and many more (chest)burst with stories, observations and interpretations.Kicking off with Aliens’ sense of a ‘tactile reality’, contributors tease out anti-corporate, post-Vietnam and PTSD subtexts gamely. Nicely nerdy details mount, ranging from Burke's collars to the alien queen's physique. Meanwhile, the study…1 min
Total Film|September 2024DAUGHTERS 12ACINEMAS, NETFLIXTear-jerking but thought-provoking, this lyrical, empathetic doco tracks four daughters (aged between five and 15 when filming starts) and their incarcerated fathers, before the 2019 ‘Date with Dad’ prison dance reunites them for one precious night. Directors Angela Patton and Natalie Rae dig into the awkwardness, disappointments and broken promises of the following years, but also find a touching joy in families’ slow and bumpy healing. The fatherhood group counselling revelations cut like a knife, too: ‘The streets don't love us. Our kids love us.’…1 min
Total Film|September 2024FIREBRAND 15OUT 6 SEPTEMBER CINEMASBrazilian director Karim Aïnouz delivers a grungy take on Katherine Parr, the sixth and final wife of King Henry VIII, in this occasionally taut yet sometimes over-egged period drama. With Henrietta and Jessica Ashworth freely adapting Elizabeth Fremantle's novel, Queen's Gambit, Alicia Vikander is cast as the spouse who is seen as a threat to the survival of the Tudor monarch (Jude Law), and who eventually outlives him.Katherine is suspected of holding radical views, as shown here by her covert friendship with Protestant heretic Anne Askew (Erin Doherty). When Henry returns from France with debilitating ulcers and sores up his legs, he becomes increasingly paranoid as his health declines. Playing the ultimate toxic male, Law has a field day as the monstrous king, offering up a suitably…1 min
Total Film|September 2024MANDOOB (AKA NIGHT COURIER) 15The lambent glow of the city at night lures you into debut director Ali Kalthami's hypnotic drama, a hit in Saudi Arabia. Riffing on the title's double meaning – night courier/someone who is mourned – the darkly comic action centres on the newly unemployed Fahad (Mohamad Aldokhei). Desperate to help his ailing father, he takes precarious work delivering bootleg booze to the rich. While Aldokhei brings warmth, Kalthami's Drive-style direction dazzles: slowly but stylishly, Fahad's nocturnal journeys take on the rain-slicked gleam of fatalist tragi-noir.…1 min
Total Film|September 2024HOSTILE DIMENSIONS 15Scottish writer/director Graham Hughes follows his unnerving 2019 feature Death of a Vlogger with another lo-fi mockumentary, featuring the same cast and crew. In Hostile Dimensions, doc-makers Sam and Ash (Annabel Logan, Joma West) investigate a free-standing door discovered in a derelict building, a seeming portal to… what? The subconscious? Hallucinations? Or perhaps the multiverse? The acting wobbles more than the DIY monsters, but there are ideas aplenty and the locations (all within three hours of Glasgow) lend moments of surprising scale.…1 min
Total Film|September 2024BLACK DOG 12AOUT 30 AUGUST CINEMASThe man-and-his-mangy-mutt movie is clipped of Hollywood sentiment in Chinese director Guan Hu's absorbing drama, as taciturn Lang (Eddie Peng) is released from prison and returns to his sandblasted home town on the edge of the Gobi desert in north-west China. Needing money, he joins in the hunt for the many stray hounds roaming the streets, a clean-up operation mounted in readiness for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. There's bonus cash for anyone who captures the black whippet thought to have rabies.Though tracking the familiar arc of two lonely, misunderstood souls learning to trust and love, Guan's film favours social realism over sappiness, surrounding Lang with a father who's drinking himself to death and a rundown town being bulldozed. A forlorn local zoo is made up of empty…1 min
Total Film|September 2024HOLLYWOODGATE 12AIbrahim Nash'at's rigorous, year-spanning documentary follows the Taliban regime after US military forces left Afghanistan in August 2021. Two main individuals emerge: newly assigned air-force commander Malawi Mansour and Mukhtar, an ambitious lieutenant looking to ascend the ranks. A worthy companion piece to Matthew Heineman's 2022 doc Retrograde, Hollywoodgate’s footage astounds as Taliban forces take over an exCIA base in Kabul, with abandoned military hardware everywhere you look. Painting a bleak picture of a country in turmoil, this is shocking stuff.…1 min
Total Film|September 2024TWISTERS 12AOUT NOW CINEMASOnly Independence Day took more at the box office than Twister in 1996, and yet it's taken 28 years to work up a second wind. Thankfully, Twisters is worth the wait, its swirl of large-scale spectacle, likeable characters and heartfelt sentiment excusing a plot that's just a washing line on which to peg set pieces.More reboot than sequel, Twisters focuses on Kate (Daisy Edgar-Jones), a former storm-chaser now tracking weather patterns in New York five years after a tornado catastrophe. Then her old friend Javi (Anthony Ramos) re-enters her life, pleading that she join his team to face the once-in-a-generation batch of twisters set to raze Oklahoma. As they race other chasers, their chief rival is co*cky ‘tornado wrangler’ Tyler Owens (Glen Powell), rocking a cowboy-hat-and-wet-white-T look for…1 min
Total Film|September 2024ORCA THE KILLER WHALE 121977OUT 2 SEPTEMBER DVD, BD, 4K UHD, DIGITALEXTRASFeaturette, Art cardsEager to follow Jaws’ success, wily producer Dino De Laurentiis hired director Michael Anderson (The Dam Busters) to make an action drama that pits Richard Harris’ salty sea cap'n against a killer whale. But this is less Spielberg and more aquatic Death Wish, the marine monster becoming our hero as it avenges the killing of its pregnant mate. This 4K release is supported by a half-hour interview with French filmmaker Philippe Guedj, who stresses the tone of guilt and regret: ‘Orca is sadness.’…1 min
Total Film|September 2024BLOW OUT 181981OUT NOW 4K UHDEXTRASFeature film, Featurettes, Stills, EssayBrian De Palma's riff on Antonioni's Blow-Up and Coppola's The Conversation is one of his finest films, pitching sound-effects man Jack Terry (John Travolta) into a political conspiracy when he accidentally records a fatal car accident. A masterpiece of suspense, set-pieces and despair, it gets another jolt from this director-approved 4K restoration, bringing crystal clarity to its deconstruction of both movies and the post-Watergate climate. Pick of the extras is De Palma's feature debut Murder à la Mod (1968).ARROW, UNIVERSAL, STUDIOCANAL, BFI, SPIRIT/CRITERION…1 min
Total Film|September 2024HEATHERS 151988OUT NOW 4K UHDEXTRASCommentary, Featurettes, Short film, BookletDoing for high-school comedies what Paul Verhoeven's Starship Troopers did for sci-fi actioners, Heathers serves up a twisted reflection of the sweet-natured John Hughes teen movies that scored big at the box office in the 1980s. Famously, Michael Lehmann's film also prompted Winona Ryder's then-agent to get down on her hands and knees and beg the young actor not to take the lead role, reckoning it would ruin her career and prevent her ever working again.To be fair, it's not hard to see why the film gave some in the industry cause for concern. Written in response to US media coverage of a recent spate of teen suicides, this wickedly dark satire about a popular high-schooler (Ryder) falling for a rebellious bad boy…1 min
Total Film|September 2024LE SAMOURAÏ 121967OUT NOW 4K UHDEXTRASDocumentary, Featurettes, EssayAn influence on Taxi Driver (and, indeed, all of Paul Schrader's despairing visions of ‘God's lonely man’, plus Jarmusch, Fincher and many more), Jean-Pierre Melville's ice-cool noir sees hitman-for-hire Jef Costello (Alain Delon) pursued by cops and contractors alike after he's seen exiting an execution. Composed of precision-tooled set pieces shot in muted colours, Melville's mix of action and alienation is thrillingly austere – and now in pristine 4K. John Woo cites it as his favourite film and offers an appreciation among the extras.…1 min
Total Film|September 2024MVPJOHN LITHGOWAS ARTHUR MITCHELL With Dexter struggling to balance domestic obligations with his murderous proclivities, he seeks to learn from the Trinity Killer – a beloved family man who appears to have his own ‘Dark Passenger’ on lockdown. Arthur Mitchell's emotional rituals and abuse of his family are counterpoints to the comparatively composed Dexter, the tables turning as a bloody confrontation beckons. S4’s Hello, Dexter Morgan sets the pair at loggerheads, culminating in the show's most devastating twist.…1 min
Total Film|September 2024EXTRASVARIOUS THE MAXXXINE COLLECTIONOUT NOWDo not accept merch you do not deserve! Instead, check out A24’s collection celebrating the greatest Minx since Minnie. There's a whole collab with Online Ceramics, comprising T-shirts, bumper sticker, crew jacket and thong (bonus cult-movie points for every nod to film-within-a-film The Puritan II). There's also a varsity jacket, Hollywood Star keychain and a make-up set that'll turn you into a ‘VHS Vixen’ (presumably not in a Fox and the Hound sense). Go eXXXercise your wallet at shop.a24films.COLLECTIBLE LEGO IDEAS JAWSOUT NOWProof that you can never have too many Lego Bruces on one page, this delicious diorama captures Spielberg's Great White as it prepares to dine on the Orca. But if you don't want to make a scene, you can pop the fully built shark…2 min
Total Film|September 2024ARMCHAIR CINEMASHELDON HALL EDINBURGHUNIVERSITY PRESSThose who spent their childhoods poring over the Radio Times will get a nostalgic buzz from this study of films that aired on television from 1929 to 1981. The first of two planned volumes, it's a dense history of a period when movies first became available at home - and the lasting impact that had on both nervy studios and sofa cinephiles. Rigorously researched and illustrated with schedules and magazine-cover art, it's a compelling vision of days of TV past.…1 min
Total Film|September 2024KEYS IN MOVIESHARRY POTTER AND THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE‘They're not birds!’ HP says as he enters a third chamber in search of the magical stone. They're flapping about like pissed-off bats, but Potter must catch the one with a broken wing while on a broomstick. We've all done that after the pub.NOTORIOUSThe secret at the heart of Nazi activity in Brazil is locked in a wine cellar belonging to Ingrid Bergman's husband. She needs to get the key to US spy Cary Grant in Hitchco*ck's exemplary thriller. Grant later kept the prop, gifting it to Bergman – who returned it to Hitch years after.PULP FICTIONBoxer Butch toys with a number of things (hammer, bat, chainsaw) as he flees a pawn-shop gimp cellar, but ends up swiping a katana and Zed's keys. The Z-adorned…2 min
Total Film|September 2024IS IT JUST ME OR DID BLOCKBUSTERS PEAK WITH POTC?In the summer of 2003, director Gore Verbinski released his, uh, themepark-ride tie-in, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. With the box-office shipwreck that was Cutthroat Island (1995) still fresh in the memory, expectations were modest. A live-action Disney film based on a park ride? That didn't exactly work out for Tower of Terror (1997) or The Country Bears (2002).Regardless, Pirates took cinemas by storm. Audiences were thrilled by a transgressive (and ultimately Oscarnominated) performance from a star at the top of his game and by the assured swagger of Verbinski's direction. Extravagant cinematography and a seamless blend of practical and digital effects lent pomp and circ*mstance to the action, while Klaus Badelt and Hans Zimmer's hearty score gave this old-fashioned yet hypermodern blockbuster yet more…2 min
Total Film|September 2024SHELLEY DUVALLI try not to intellectualise,’ said Shelley Duvall, who died aged 75 on 11 July. A deeply intuitive and singular actor, she was unerring in her instincts, with tributes from Stephen King, Mia Farrow, Edgar Wright and many more testifying as much. As film critic and fan Pauline Kael once wrote, ‘She doesn't seem to owe anything to anyone.’Born in Fort Worth, Texas, Duvall had a peripatetic upbringing before her parents settled in Houston. She had no intentions of acting until she dropped out of studying science at junior college. At a party to showcase her then boyfriend's paintings in Houston, members of director Robert Altman's crew encountered the 20-year-old and were so struck by her that they engineered a meeting with the filmmaker. She and Altman were mutually wary,…2 min
Total Film|September 2024CALL SHEET THIS ISSUE'S EXTRASI loved poking around on the Beetlejuice Beetlejuice set, and in particular trying on a specific costume that I cannot divulge. One day I will release the pictures!Demi Moore was wearing a Mandalorian T-shirt during our interview for The Substance, noting that Grogu reminds her of her beloved chihuahua Pilaf. I can see the resemblance.Even better than meeting Kate Winslet's dog Dolly was being introduced to Henry Selick's collection of stop-motion puppets: ‘It's like being surrounded by old friends,’ the director grinned.Kathryn Hahn and I unwittingly matched for our interview. ‘I love our white tank tops!’ she said. ‘Yours looks much more fancy. I just came from the gym.’ It cost a fiver, I said. Her response? ‘Always looks the chicest.’It's always been a dream of mine to attend a…1 min
Total Film|September 2024RESIDENTS, EVILIt was something I've never seen before, something with a lot of layers of interpretation,’ says French filmmaker Alexandre Aja [The Hills Have Eyes] of receiving the script for Never Let Go in 2021. ‘Also very scary. Not just [in a] genre [way], but also our relation to our children, to our parents, to faith…’Never Let Go is indeed fresh. There are parallels to Richard Matheson's I Am Legend or, more recently, A Quiet Place, but it's a strikingly original concept set in a heightened world. Our protagonists are a mother (Halle Berry) and her two boys (Anthony B. Jenkins, Percy Daggs IV) who live in a forest. Outside lurks The Evil, an apocalyptic menace that ‘can wear many, many skins’. The house is blessed and therefore safe, and the…2 min
Total Film|September 2024YOU TALKIN’ TO ME?You talkin’ to me?I'm definitely not talking at you, which is very important for communication. I'm not really listening to what you're saying though because you're the one asking the questions. So I'm talking to you? For sure – but really, I'm talking to the wonderful readers of Total Film.Why don't you tell me the story of your life?A) I don't think we have enough time, and B) I don't believe you're a licensed psychiatrist so I can't do that – but if you're not going to charge me, I've got plenty of time!Do you have an off switch?I have a pretty definite off switch but I think others would call it a ‘resting bitch face’. The off switch is very close to the nap switch. I tend to read…4 min
Total Film|September 2024TVMarvel dominated movie announcements, but there's plenty of exciting TV coming our way. On the horizon is Vought Rising, a 1950s-set prequel to The Boys starring Jensen Ackles’ Soldier Boy (above) and Aya Cash's Stormfront. ‘It's a twisted murder mystery about the origins of Vought in the 1950s, the early exploits of Soldier Boy, and the diabolical manoeuvres of a Supe known to fans as Stormfront,’ said series creator Eric Kripke.The showrunners of Prime Video's The Rings of Power answered questions about the upcoming second season, saying that Galadriel and Sauron have plenty of ‘chemistry’ despite being on parallel paths. They also revealed they're working on Season 3 as we speak. Sauron actor Charlie Vickers teased a bit about his character's mindset: ‘I think I can get her to join…1 min
Total Film|September 2024SOUND BYTES‘THERE ARE SO MANY CREDIBLE FEMALE ROLES WITHIN THIS GENRE NOW THAT THOSE ARE USUALLY THE MOST INTERESTING SCRIPTS THAT I'M READING.’ LONGLEGS STAR MAIKA MONROE ON WHY SHE KEEPS RETURNING TO HORROR.‘The reality is, you're in shapewear, you need to pee, you have commercial breaks, and that's the only time that you're able to do it. So it's just a mad scramble.’ TURNS OUT AWARDS CEREMONIES AREN'T THAT FUN, AS LILY GLADSTONE COMPARES THE GOLDEN GLOBES TO SQUID GAME.41 THE NUMBER OF YEARS FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA HAS SPENT WORKING ON PASSION PROJECT MEGALOPOLIS.$5bn THE AMOUNT THE DESPICABLE ME/ MINIONS FRANCHISE HAS EARNED AT THE GLOBAL BOX OFFICE.‘PEOPLE SHOWED UP AT MY HOUSE. PEOPLE THAT WERE STALKING ME. A GUY SHOWED UP AT ONE OF MY PREMIERES WITH A GUN,…1 min
Total Film|September 2024NEXT BIG THINGAt a time when it seems that IP rules over the theatrical landscape, Myha'la's blossoming career proves that you can really make a name for yourself working on original projects. She chats to Teasers about starring in comedy slasher Bodies Bodies Bodies, working with an all-star cast on Leave the World Behind and the upcoming third season of Industry…With Industry being about investment banking, do you ever see similarities with the entertainment industry in its competitiveness?Totally. I think the hierarchical nature of it – on a trade floor and on a set – exists, and the sort of generational gaps that happen – old-school people doing the thing and then young people coming in and doing things differently, and times changing and the industry trying to keep up with that.…2 min
Total Film|September 2024OFF THE RAILSCould you hack a train?’ That was the question Nightsleeper writer and exec producer – and train enthusiast – Nick Leather asked himself when envisioning the series. Described as an exhilarating mixture of Speed and the Kiefer Sutherland-led 24, the six-part BBC show follows an off-duty police officer (Joe Cole) who finds himself suddenly responsible for saving passengers’ lives when the sleeper train from Glasgow to London is hacked.‘I had no idea whether this show might happen,’ explains Leather, who committed himself to finding out whether the premise was possible before going ahead with it. ‘We got a hacking person, a cyber-critical infrastructure person, and a train expert, and put them in the room. After about 40 minutes of them pooling their knowledge they went, “Yeah, we could do this…2 min
Total Film|September 2024CAN WE TALK ABOUT?Giving away too much in trailers is nothing new – the Highlander promo (1986) showed climactic footage of Connor MacLeod and the Kurgan crossing swords in front of the Silvercup sign, while Friday the 13th’s (1980) counted out each of the film's deaths.But for the most part, trailers used to communicate plot and mood – and showcase thrilling visuals – without letting the cat entirely out of the bag. Take the trailer for Alien (1979), which not only kept ginger kitty Jonesy largely under wraps but also everything else, even eschewing dialogue and voiceover (voice actor Don LaFontaine dominated the era, lending his stentorian larynx to more than 5,000 trailers) in favour of atmosphere-drenched images and dissonant sound design.These days, marketing bods consider anything and everything fair game. In the…2 min
Total Film|September 2024THE HEROHenry Selick has played a defining role in bringing stop-motion animation into the Hollywood mainstream. His first feature – The Nightmare Before Christmas – has been a cornerstone of popular culture for three decades; the equally adored Coraline is back in cinemas for its 15th anniversary. Now, Selick tells Teasers about having his work displayed in the BFI's upcoming stop-motion season…The Nightmare Before Christmas has had such an impact on pop culture. That must be an amazing feeling…It's pretty great, because when we made the film, it was – for its time, for a Disney animated film – on the low-budget side. It came, it was a modest success, and it went. And then over the years it just started to take off. We celebrate Halloween in a big way…3 min
Total Film|September 2024BACK TO BLACKWhat was your relationship to the original film?For those of us that had little emo upbringings it was the first time I felt I saw some of my feelings represented on film. Michael Keaton was an undeniably charismatic actor, and it was the first time I'd really seen that in a part. I was not an actor yet but I remember being like, ‘Oh, that's something special.’ So all these years later, when it comes around and I get to be in it, it's absolutely one of those ‘pinch yourself’ moments.Any hesitation in taking it on?Finding out that it was all the same players put ice on any anxiety I may have had. And then I read the script and it was so good. It's certainly bigger than the last…1 min
Total Film|September 2024UNDER THE SKINI always say to people: just when you think this film can't get any weirder or go any further, it does. And then it does again!’ Demi Moore says with a distinctive, raspy chuckle.The Hollywood icon is speaking to Total Film over Zoom from the comfort of her sofa – Moore's internet-famous chihuahua, Pilaf, in stroking distance to her right – about The Substance, the latest feature from writer/director Coralie Fargeat. The French filmmaker made a scarlet-coloured splash with her bloody debut, Revenge, in 2017, but painted the inside of the legendary Palais an even deeper red when The Substance screened to gobsmacked audiences and critical adulation earlier this year at the Cannes Film Festival.‘That was so moving because I knew the movie could be super-polarising,’ Fargeat explains from Greece,…12 min
Total Film|September 2024‘I'VE BEEN ACTING LONG ENOUGH THAT I CAN ENJOY THE MESSINESS A LITTLE’ SAOIRSE RONANThere are early achievers, and then there's Saoirse Ronan.The 30-year-old star of Brooklyn, Lady Bird and Little Women was just 13 years old when she was Oscar-nominated for one of her first performances in 2007’s Atonement. In the near-two-decades since, Ronan has proven time and again why she was worthy of such early recognition; she is a consistently excellent performer who never fails to deliver, even when the material isn't a match for her talent.It's a balmy late June morning in central London, and Total Film is sitting across from the Bronx-born, but otherwise thoroughly Irish, star. At ease in a powder-blue, ankle-length skirt and dog-eared trainers that look as comfortable as slippers, Ronan is here to discuss – among a great many things – her upcoming feature The Outrun.…19 min
Total Film|September 2024KNEECAP 18OUT 23 AUGUST CINEMASSometimes change hits like a filthy bass line,’ we're told in this fictionalised biopic of the titular Belfast hip-hop trio. Underpinned by themes of language and identity, Rich Peppiatt's rude, raucous film hits just that way, remixing music-movie clichés to Kneecap's rebel tune with galvanising verve.Friends, drug dealers and pro-republicans, Liam Óg Ó Hannaidh (stage name: Mo Chara) and Naoise Ó Cairealláin (Móglaí Bap) find their calling when the latter's arrested. Tasked to translate Naoise's Irish for Englishspeaking cops, teacher JJ Ó Dochartaigh (DJ Próvaí) sets Naoise's notebook rhymes to music. Soon gigging in pubs, the Irish-language rappers scrawl ‘Brits Out’ slogans on their arses, mistake ketamine for co*ke, call for change and, inevitably, draw the attention of the ‘Peelers’ and worse.Mixing fiction/reality, comedy/drama and more, Peppiatt…1 min
Total Film|September 2024CLOSE TO YOU TBCA family reunion comes laden with apprehension for Torontonian Sam (Elliot Page), who has not seen his relatives since transitioning. Yet a chance encounter on the train home with his old flame Katherine (Hillary Baack) gives him solace in an improvised piece that draws extensively on its star's personal experience. Director Dominic Savage's process is intensely collaborative and gave birth to the celebrated I Am… series. Alas, for all Page's commendable willingness to lay bare his soul, the results here feel histrionic, humourless and dramatically contrived.…1 min
Total Film|September 2024duch*eSS TBCNeil Marshall carved out a legacy on the 00s horror scene with Dog Soldiers and The Descent, but his recent film work – notably 2019’s hopeless Hellboy – has delivered diminishing returns. This swaggering revenge thriller follows the titular duch*ess (Charlotte Kirk, also co-writing and producing) as she seeks retribution for the death of her gangster boyfriend. Marshall's horror instincts serve the gory action well, but the overbearing narration and try-hard dialogue soon grate. The overall impression is of a crude Brit flick left over from the post-Lock, Stock era.…1 min
Total Film|September 2024ONLY THE RIVER FLOWS 15OUT 16 AUGUST CINEMASA dapting the novella Mistakes by the River by Yu Hua, writer/ director Wei Shujun's procedural is a slow-burn serial-killer tale that gradually worms its way inside you. Set in the 1990s, the story follows detective inspector Ma Zhe (Zhu Yilong) as he investigates a mysterious murderer whose victims have been left strewn by a riverbank close to a village in Southern China.Charged with solving the gruesome killing of ‘Granny No 4’, Ma becomes increasingly obsessed with – and disturbed by – the case. It hardly helps that things on his home front are also unstable, with his wife (Chloe Maayan) pregnant with a baby that may be born mentally disabled.With cinematographer Chengma Zhiyuan amplifying the noir-ish vibes, Only the River Flows becomes increasingly dream-like and haunting…1 min
Total Film|September 2024CADEJO BLANCO 15CINEMAS, DIGITALWhen her sister goes missing, a young woman (Karen Martínez) infiltrates a violent gang in coastal Puerto Barrios, searching for answers. Largely centring on real-life gang members and non-professional actors, this crime thriller has lived-in realism and a sense of danger behind every bloodied nose. Writer/ director Justin Lerner's script was informed by the cast, who lend the dialogue its gritty authenticity. The depiction of street-level Guatemala is both beautiful and intimidating, but the clumsily incorporated action leaves any character work in the dust.…1 min
Total Film|September 2024A STORY OF BONES 12AOn the island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic, the (empty) burial site of Napoleon is revered, attracting tourist dollars. If only the remains of the thousands of formerly enslaved Africans were treated with such respect… Joseph Curran and Dominic Aubrey de Vere's sorrowful documentary unearths the island's strategic positioning as part of the British Empire and the transatlantic slave trade, and how the authorities acted disgracefully when the building of an airport, in 2006, turned up a mass grave. ‘Black lives don't matter,’ laments environmental officer Annina van Neel.…1 min
Total Film|September 2024THE MOUNTAIN WITHIN ME 12APolly Steele's triumph-of-the—human-spirit documentary follows Ed Jackson, a former professional rugby union player who was paralysed from the shoulders down after a swimming accident. Defying the medics, Jackson learnt to walk again and more: here, Steele depicts his remarkable attempts to scale Snowdonia, the Alps and the Himalayas. But while Jackson's grit proves staggering, the film surprisingly lacks the drama required to hit its peak – even shots of mountain ranges don't quite convey the majesty of Mother Nature.…1 min
Total Film|September 2024HAROLD AND THE PURPLE CRAYON PGOUT NOW CINEMASLoosely adapting the picture book of the same name, Harold and the Purple Crayon opens with an animated sequence featuring the baby whose scribblings come to life. When he grows up and his narrator's voice goes quiet, a journey to the real world ensues, in which Harold (in the form of Zachary Levi) and his pals Moose (Lil Rel Howery) and Porcupine (Tanya Reynolds) become humans.Anything Harold draws with his magic crayon becomes real in our world, too, to the delight of new-found young friend Mel (Benjamin Bottani). It's a fun idea that director Carlos Saldanha (various Ice Ages) makes solid use of. Plenty of elements feel familiar – Levi's man-childout-of-water recalls Shazam! and Big, while Zooey Deschanel's casting as department-store worker and single mum Terry reinforces Elf…1 min
Total Film|September 2024CASH OUT 15John Travolta's made some VOD clangers these past few years, so this competent heist thriller, featuring a peppy turn from the 70-year-old actor, comes as something of a relief. He plays master thief Mason Goddard, trapped with his crew in a bank, forced to negotiate with an FBI agent (Kristin Davis) who happens to be an ex-lover who double-crossed him. Director Randall Emmett (who faced allegations of abuse in 2022, and is here credited under his pseudonym Ives) outdoes Michael Bay's Ambulance with the drone shots, but the most potent source of energy is JT.…1 min
Total Film|September 2024THE INSTIGATORS 15OUT NOW APPLE TV+Years after The Bourne Identity, director Doug Liman and star Matt Damon reunite for this well-cast and crafty Boston-set crime caper. Damon plays Rory, a man at his wits’ end, as he tells his therapist (Hong Chau). Rory needs $32,480 for reasons that will become clear, and he plans to get it by joining a heist run by Michael Stuhlbarg and Alfred Molina's small-time crooks.A stand-off goes wrong as the robbery takes place during the local elections, but worse is to come after Rory and his associate Cobby (Casey Affleck) steal a bracelet belonging to the mayor (Ron Perlman), who desperately wants it back. Soon, everyone from Paul Walter Hauser's thug to Ving Rhames’ cop is in pursuit.Scripted with panache by Affleck and Chuck MacLean, the film…1 min
Total Film|September 2024HEAVENLY PURSUITS 151986OUT NOW BDEXTRASFeaturette, Short films, BookletA decidedly atheist teacher (Tom Conti) at a Glasgow Catholic school finds himself associated with a series of apparently miraculous events in this quirky comic drama from writer/director Charles Gormley. There are clear hints of Bill Forsyth in the film's humour and the naturalism of its juvenile performances, while Conti and Helen Mirren make for engaging leads. If only the story didn't essentially sideline its intriguing theological underpinnings in favour of a glib romantic finale.…1 min
Total Film|September 2024THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS 181991OUT 26 AUGUST BD, 4K UHDEXTRASCommentaries, Documentary, Featurettes, Trivia track, Deleted scenes, Outtakes, Gallery, Booklet, Poster, Art cardsFrom Hans Beckert (Fritz Lang's M) to Norman Bates, serial killers were hardly thin on the cinematic ground before The Silence of the Lambs. However, their place in popular culture was changed forever in its aftermath; director Jonathan Demme's Oscar-winning box-office smash drove a wider fascination with serial killers and forensic criminology that still shows no sign of waning.Deftly adapted by scripter Ted Tally from Thomas Harris’ thriller, Demme's film employs a police-procedural setup as the bedrock for a Grand Guignol-infused slice of Gothic horror. Bridging these two distinct narrative modes is the psychological conflict between Jodie Foster's FBI trainee Clarice Starling and Anthony Hopkins’ cannibal Hannibal Lecter, the latter holding the key…1 min
Total Film|September 2024FILMS BY J. LEE THOMPSON PG/121954/55OUT NOW DVD, BD, DIGITAL (SEPARATELY)EXTRASFeaturettes, Stills galleriesTwo female-centred British ‘social problem’ melodramas from the director of the original Cape Fear. Based on Joan Henry's (Thompson's second wife) autobiography and starring Diana Dors, The Weak and the Wicked (★★★) charts the experiences of various women in England's penal system. While, set in a 30s East End slum, the studio-bound No Trees in the Street (★★) struggles to transcend its theatrical origins, despite turns from Sylvia Syms and Herbert Lom.…1 min
Total Film|September 2024THE MUSIC LOVERS 151971OUT NOW BDEXTRASCommentary,Featurettes, Short films, Gallery, BookletReleased in the same year as Ken Russell's other masterpiece The Devils, this portrait of tortured Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky serves up a similarly feverish whirlwind of self-destructive mania, repressed desires and erotic energy. In doing so it arguably comes closer than any other film to capturing what it is like to be swept up by a piece of music, confirming Alexander Verney-Elliott's assertion that his late father Russell ‘was the greatest director in the world at being able to marry image with music’.ARROW, STUDIOCANAL, SPIRIT/CRITERION, BFI, MGM/PARK CIRCUS…1 min
Total Film|September 2024CLASSIC TRACKS GIORGIO MORODERCHASEMIDNIGHT EXPRESS, 1978Moroder's Donna Summer work inspired director Alan Parker to hire the synth/disco pioneer for some escape music. In reply, Moroder bagged an Oscar for his proto-Hi-NRG issue of insistent, indelible synths: ‘This inevitable stream of notes,’ as Hans Zimmer put it.CALL ME, BLONDIEAMERICAN GIGOLO, 1980Barrelling along like I Feel Love on guitars, the opener to Paul Schrader's thriller was ‘a driving song’, said Moroder. It was also emphatically a Moroder song; his session musos, Harold Faltermeyer included, gathered behind Debbie Harry's gale-force vocal.CAT PEOPLE (PUTTING OUT FIRE), DAVID BOWIECAT PEOPLE, 1982‘Schrader wanted a very dark sound,’ recalled Moroder, who answered the request in kind – all low notes, backwards mixes, guitar dirges. Bowie's off-the-scale vocal (‘Gaso-LEEEEEEENE!’) maxes the gothic grandeur, while Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds relit the fire in…2 min
Total Film|September 2024BOOKS 1001 MOVIE POSTERS: DESIGNS OF THE TIMESTONY NOURMAND, GRAHAMMARSH, CHRISTOPHER FRAYLING ANDALISON ELANGASINGHE REEL ART PRESSEmbarrassment of riches’ doesn't quite cover this compilation of one sheets, quads and panels, edited by poster authority Tony Nourmand. Spanning more than a century of images gathered from over 20 countries, it's a celebration of an art form that, as Christopher Frayling's introduction remarks, hasn't always benefitted from its ties to advertising, marketing and hucksterism.There's plenty of the latter in this hefty tome's 640 pages, from the cleavage-heavy artwork for Jane Russell's The Outlaw (‘The picture that couldn't be stopped!’) to the fanciful claims made for William Castle's The Tingler (‘When the screen screams you'll scream too… if you value your life!’). Yet there's plenty of subtlety too, particularly in items from Hungary, Poland and the former Czechoslovakia, which offer…1 min
Total Film|September 2024FLOP CULTUREWhy it was a good idea (on paper)For writer/director Richard Kelly, Southland Tales seemed set to prove Donnie Darko was no fluke. With rising stars on board, including Sarah Michelle Gellar, Seann William Scott, Justin Timberlake and Dwayne Johnson, Kelly's sci-fi politico-pop-art satire promised ideas and ambition in abundance.What went wrong?In contention for a Nic Cage movie (Knowing) and an X-Men outing (The Last Stand) post-Darko, Kelly instead nurtured the urge to make something bolder, more personal. The problem was, he did – and for most viewers, the reach was more impressive than the result. With a vision bigger than his budget, he had $17m – and a mere 29-day shoot - for a film that he later said needed $50m. Much of the money went on location fees. He…2 min
Total Film|September 2024TEASERSWhat happens when two very similar guys get thrown together in a strange twist of fate? That's the question at the core of Wolfs. To make things more interesting, those two guys also happen to be professional fixers tasked with disposing of the same body. Played by Hollywood royalty Brad Pitt and George Clooney – teaming up once again after collaborating on the Ocean's films, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind and Burn after Reading – the fixers are forced to work together, no matter how much they dislike the idea.Drawing on the archetypal hitman and inspired by the likes of Le Samouraï and La Femme Nikita, writer/director Jon Watts (Spider-Man: No Way Home, Cop Car) was keen to find the humour in that situation. ‘I wanted to see what it…5 min
Total Film|September 2024Halle BerryDid the script's originality strike you?Totally. This was a world that I had never seen. Fresh and new, mysterious and intriguing.How did you find working with the boys?They were so committed, so emotionally intelligent. Free. Huge imaginations. They weren't actor kids who have done a lot of theatre. And then we spent time together, like a little family.It's a grounded, unglamorous performance from you, reminiscent of Monster's Ball. Is that scary or liberating?Oh my god, so liberating. Like when I did Jungle Fever, for Spike Lee. I love to disappear inside of a character, leave all my inhibitions at the door. So much of moviemaking can be what you look like: changing lights; touching up make-up; ‘Don't look that way, it's not a good angle…’ With this, the more horrific…1 min
Total Film|September 2024PRIME TIMETransformers One marks the first time since 1986’s TV-series spin-off that the shapeshifting robots have graced the big screen in animated form. Producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura and director Josh Cooley tell Teasers about their friends-to-enemies origin story…What makes now a good time for a Transformers prequel?Josh Cooley: The other films have created the story of once [the Autobots and Decepticons] get to Earth, and the massive war that's going on. The thing that makes this special is you're seeing where that relationship came from. What got me interested was it was on Cybertron [their home planet] with no humans.Lorenzo di Bonaventura: It's so hard to find a story that really is about the characters. The plot is ‘What's going to happen between these two guys, Orion Pax and D-16 [who…2 min
Total Film|September 2024BETWEEN TAKESWhat's the first thing you do when you arrive on set?I will usually have my lunch and three to five drinks with me, so I deposit those in their respective places. I don't need a lot of downtime, so I like to go right into hair and make-up. And I like to yell at the crew on the first day, just to establish dominance!What do you take on set with you?I always have a book with me; I can't retain anything from a Kindle, so it has to be a physical book. I also have to do the New York Times crossword every day; that's the only time, though, that I want to be on my phone.How did the Speak No Evil set compare to others?It was really nice, because…3 min
Total Film|September 2024ALL THAT GLITTERS1 IT'S BASED ON A TRUE STORYJoan Hannington is a real figure, and the series is based on her 2002 memoir I Am What I Am: The True Story of Britain's Most Notorious Jewel Thief. ‘When I read the book I was really drawn into just what this person had been through,’ says series director Richard Laxton, who came across it when looking for material to adapt for the small screen. ‘I first met her in pre-production. [She was] this extraordinary force of nature and character, and emotionally honest.’2 JOAN'S MUCH MORE THAN A THIEFShe's a complex protagonist with a troubled past that pushes her into a life of crime. That's part of what drew Laxton to her story. ‘I'm interested in the human condition and why we behave like…2 min
Total Film|September 2024I, SPYThere are two storylines,’ says director Adam Randall (I See You) of Season 4 of acclaimed spy-thriller show Slow Horses. ‘You have a terrorist bomb explosion in a shopping centre, and the murder of an agent. The key question is, how are these things related?’It's a question that no one's asking bar Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman), head of the slovenly Slough House that's home to the titular MI5 agents considered ‘rejects’, ‘sh*theels’ and ‘burnouts’. Jackson is the most slovenly of all, drinking, farting and scoffing Jaffa cakes. But he's also the smartest person in the room, one step ahead of his glamorous MI5 counterparts at The Park, led by Diana Taverner (Kristin Scott Thomas).In S4 one of Jackson's agents, River Cartwright (Jack Lowden), goes rogue to investigate. His leads take…2 min
Total Film|September 2024THE LLWORDDavid Fincher's The Social Network has aged like a fine wine, charting the rise of Mark Zuckerberg and his social media phenomenon Facebook, which changed the world, connected him to billions of people but ultimately ended with him staring blankly at a screen, feeling more alone than ever. For those of us who are film obsessives, social media has allowed us to connect to those who share our passion. Where your family and IRL friends might not be up for counting down to the new Gladiator II trailer like it's New Year's Eve, online you can find like-minded people who also want to break it down frame by frame.But of late the bad seems to be outweighing the good. ‘Film Twitter’ has diminished more film events for me than enriched…3 min
Total Film|September 2024BETTER THE DEVILI don't think in terms of, “It's a reboot” or trying to start a new franchise – this isn't content, it's a movie that needs to stand on its own,’ says director Brian Taylor, Zooming with Teasers from his study rammed with retro film posters and books. ‘Nobody wants to see a cheap knock-off of a Guillermo del Toro $100-million movie.’As helmer and co-writer on the fourth instalment of the Hellboy universe – after Guillermo del Toro's 2004 and 2008 adaps of the Dark Horse Comics character, and Neil Marshall's redo in 2019 – Taylor is all about returning to the source. For the first time in all his on-screen iterations, Hellboy’s creator Mike Mignola has written the script (alongside Christopher Golden and Taylor), adapting directly from his 2008 Crooked…2 min
Total Film|September 2024SPIRITUALSUCCESSOR21 JUNE 2023, LEAVESDEN STUDIOSThere's a lot of waiting around on film sets. Waiting for action, waiting for playback, waiting in line for lunch… but today Total Film is enjoying a little lingering. We're standing on a sloping monochrome floor next to a mottled grey sofa in a room with pockmarked metallic walls. We've entered via a turnstile door and shuffled our way past yellowing, plastic corrugated sheets and a tilted coffee table towards a service window where a ticker-tape dispenser runs into eight digits. The art on the walls can only be described as queasy. All we need is a shrunken head explorer and a bisected magician's assistant to complete the scene…Code-named ‘Blue Hawaii’ for secrecy, this is one of numerous recreations of sets from 1988’s cult favourite, Beetlejuice,…15 min
Total Film|September 2024THE LADY IS A VAMPWhat's your relationship to Beetlejuice?A big fan already. So when Tim told me, ‘Listen, there is a key role in the film for which I thought about you’ I was very happy to play it. All I can say is that Delores is really a present for me. She's a beautiful monster.What was it like to work with Tim?I have to say that our personal relations really helped to create something special, something beautiful. And I really love to work with him because Tim is so precise. He knows how to create something that is shocking and funny and emotional at the same time.And you worked with Winona again after both appearing in Bram Stoker's Dracula back in 1992…My first American movie – it was a cameo in Dracula. So…1 min
Total Film|September 2024RISKY BUSINCESSWhen Francis Ford Coppola held an exclusive buyers screening for his long-gestating Megalopolis in March, everyone from Hollywood studio heads to celebrity well-wishers turned up. The culmination of a career that includes such landmark titles as The Godfather and Apocalypse Now, this $120 million self-funded passion project was his ‘magnum opus’, as he told Total Film when speaking about his 2007 film Youth Without Youth. ‘I think it's good to be ambitious. I think it's good to be overly ambitious. I think it's better to be overly ambitious and fail, than to be under ambitious and succeed in a mundane way.’An idea he first had in 1977, Megalopolis is a bold tale about power and corruption set in a near-future metropolis called New Rome, and starring Adam Driver as Cesar…8 min
Total Film|September 2024KEEPING IT REALWhat was the most challenging aspect of Elisabeth's decay to realise?It's only parts of her that are ageing at the beginning. You don't want it to look too bulky. If you apply prosthetics, it's an additive process. So you have thickness. You don't want, suddenly, the part that's changing to look bigger when it's supposed to be smaller, especially when you have the other limbs or body pieces that look normal. The difficulty was there, I think. Really, it was to try to make the audience forget about the effects, and to feel about the journey of Demi's character.This is Demi's first full-blooded horror film. How did you find working with her?She was a trooper. She was amazing. She was never complaining. The only thing she asked for was to…2 min
Total Film|September 2024FIVE STAR TURNSATONEMENT 2007Ronan won the career-launching role of Briony Tallis following an open casting call, and walked away with the film's only acting nom at the Academy Awards.HANNA 2011Reuniting with Atonement’s Joe Wright to put a fairy-tale spin on a coming-of-age story, Ronan trained in martial arts and knife fighting to play a teen assassin.BROOKLYN 2015As a woman torn between life and love in New York and her Irish home town, Ronan dazzles. Variety called her technique ‘as emotionally devastating to audiences as icebergs are to transatlantic ocean liners’.LADY BIRD 2017In her first collaboration with Greta Gerwig – a ‘semi-autobiographical’ account of the writer/director's own childhood – Ronan plays the eponymous high-school senior.LITTLE WOMEN 2019Ronan stood out among a stacked cast as aspiring writer Jo March in Gerwig's acclaimed adaptation. ‘It's…1 min
Total Film|September 2024SING SING 15OUT 30 AUGUST CINEMASA thoughtful US prison story that swerves Felon-style yard fights for rehearsal-room revelations, Greg Kwedar's powerful reality-based drama explores the redemptive power of community drama in the otherwise brutal life of Sing Sing jail. Colman Domingo's John, the theatre group top dog, finds himself challenged by smart, volatile newbie Eye (Clarence ‘Divine Eye’ Maclin), whose rage (and knife) threatens to get them shut down.The film's grainy 16mm camerawork gives the pair's friction-filled relationship a keen intimacy. Maclin (an ex-prisoner in real life, like most of the cast) is astonishingly good, as a Hamlet-playing tough who discovers that his gangster life is just another role that trapped him. He goes toe-to-toe with Domingo in their fractious scenes with the intensity of a seasoned pro.Domingo, alternately mellow and quietly…1 min
Total Film|September 2024RED ROOMS TBCCINEMASA man is on trial for snuff-movie killings – but our focus is not him, or the victims: it's on a mysterious young woman who queues up to watch the proceedings in court every day. As we watch Kelly-Anne (Juliette Gariépy) return to her expensive, impersonal apartment, the intrigue builds, especially when she befriends a young woman who's obsessed with the accused. Canadian writer/ director Pascal Plante's film uses language and sound more than visuals to convey its horrors, making for a distinctive and disturbing psychological thriller.…1 min
Total Film|September 2024PARADISE IS BURNING TBCIt's summertime in suburban Sweden and three sisters, aged 16, 12 and seven, have been left to fend for themselves after their mother walked out months earlier. The eldest, Laura (Bianca Delbravo), acts as a de-facto parent, but social services have started to ask questions. Written and directed by Mika Gustafson, this is an ambiguous yet vibrant portrait of female adolescence. As the title suggests, it's a film of opposites –freedom and responsibility, euphoria and sadness, rituals and spontaneity – and it's impressively acted by the young nonprofessional cast.…1 min
Total Film|September 2024BETWEEN THE TEMPLES 15OUT 23 AUGUST CINEMASA ge-gap romances never get old, be they 1971’s Harold and Maude or the recent The Idea of You. Throw in grief and religion, though, and they can get awfully complicated, as this offbeat comedy from indie auteur Nathan Silver repeatedly and amusingly demonstrates.Having lost both his wife and his ability to sing, cantor Ben Gottlieb (Jason Schwartzman) is in a slump no amount of drunken brawling and half-hearted suicide attempts can shake him out of. Until, that is, his former music teacher Carla (Carol Kane) re-enters his life, determined – at the age of 70-something – to have the bat mitzvah she missed out on as a child. Ben agrees to become her tutor, convincing himself along the way that she's the woman of his dreams.…1 min
Total Film|September 2024OZI: VOICE OF THE FOREST PGIt's never too early for kids to learn about deforestation, greenwashing and the impact of palm-oil production – and if it takes a cartoon orangutan to make the lesson palatable, so be it. There isn't much sophistication to be found in this tale of an ape separated from her parents who sets out to unveil what happened to their habitat. Yet making Ozi a social-media influencer is a droll touch, while the classy voice cast includes Amandla Stenberg, Laura Dern, Djimon Hounsou and –in his final film role, playing an albino crocodile – Donald Sutherland.…1 min
Total Film|September 2024GRACIE AND PEDRO: MISSION IMPOSSIBLE PGIf you've ever panicked about the possibility of losing a pet, then this family animation may prove surprisingly gripping. Dog Gracie (voiced by Claire Alan) and cat Pedro (Cory Doran) go missing while their owners are moving house, ending up on a vaguely eventful journey while the kids back home stage a viral campaign to locate them. It's mildly amusing in parts, and has an impressively starry supporting voice cast (Bill Nighy, Susan Sarandon, Danny Trejo, Alicia Silverstone…). Definitely one for the kids, but not too much of a chore for grown-ups.…1 min
Total Film|September 2024HARD MILES 12DIGITALInspired by a true story, R.J. Daniel Hanna's sports drama tracks social worker Greg Townsend (Matthew Modine) as he leads a cycling team of juvenile offenders on a 762-mile ride to the Grand Canyon. The redemptive terrain is familiar but softly pedalled to avoid corny sentiment, and the committed cast give unshowy performances. Meanwhile, there's a sprinkling of politics to go with the pep talks and peloton –the correctional school's funding is about to be cut – and the mountainous roads make for a slideshow of stunning vistas.…1 min
Total Film|September 2024BABES 15BFFs in New York since childhood, yoga teacher Eden (Ilana Glazer) and dentist Dawn (Michelle Buteau) find their friendship severely tested when the latter gives birth to a second child and the former becomes pregnant after a one-night stand. Scripted by Glazer herself and Josh Rabinowitz, and directed by Pamela Adlon, Babes doesn't tiptoe around the physical realities of pregnancy, with its jokes about discharging breast milk and vagin*l secretions. The material feels better suited to a sitcom format, but the two female leads make for credible best friends.…1 min
Total Film|September 2024BEFORE DAWN 15DVD, BD, DIGITALDespite drawing on the real diaries of WW1 Anzac troops on the Somme, this solid, sentimental story of naive Aussie farm boys thrown into the mud and slaughter of trench warfare feels like something we've often seen before. Lacking a Gallipoli-level big-battle budget, first-time director/co-writer Jordon Prince-Wright tracks sniper hero Jim (a too-gentle Levi Miller) through nerve-shredding raiding parties and deafening shelling, focusing on chin-up camaraderie rather than his growing disillusionment. The dialogue is stiffer than an officer's upper lip.101 FILMS, APPLE, CURZON, KALEIDOSCOPE, SONY, UNIVERSAL, WARNER BROS.…1 min
Total Film|September 2024CORALINE PG2009OUT 15 AUGUST CINEMASIn 2009, reviewers of Henry Selick's stop-motion Neil Gaiman adaptation tended to emphasise the optical furnishings. No, not the buttons – the 3D glasses viewers needed to wear. Well, never mind the stereoscopics: 15 years and innumerable Halloween-cosplay homages later, Coraline’s darkly delightful pleasures remain multidimensional, whichever ‘D’ you watch it in.It's easy to see why kids related to the agreeably wayward Coraline (voiced by Dakota Fanning), a smart, stroppy and terminally bored tween girl desperate to get her parents’ attention. But Mum (Teri Hatcher) and Dad (John Hodgman) are busy, always, so she turns to a mirror world where everything seems picture-perfect – until its resident Other Mother and Father aim needles, threads and buttons at her peepers…Marshalling the creepy/cautionary currents of classic children's fiction, Selick…1 min
Total Film|September 2024SOLDIER BLUE 181970OUT NOW DVD, BD, 4K UHD, DIGITALEXTRASCommentary, FeaturetteInspired by the horrific 1864 Sand Creek massacre, but fired by more recent American atrocities in the Vietnam War, Ralph Nelson's (Lilies of the Field) brutal revisionist western (here newly restored) still shocks half a century on. Based on a novel by T.V. Olsen, it follows a stranded young woman (Candice Bergen) and soldier (Peter Strauss) through a divided Colorado. While their burgeoning romance grates, and the pace flags in the middle, the climactic scenes of violence will sear your memory for a good long while.…1 min
Total Film|September 2024THE MEXICO TRILOGY 181992-2003OUT 26 AUGUST 4K UHD AND BDEXTRASCommentaries, Featurettes, Poster, BookletThis handsome, extras-packed box set offers a fine reminder of what a gutsy, gung-ho filmmaker Robert Rodriguez is. El Mariachi (1992) is a case in point. The opening salvo in Rodriguez's trio of gunslinging Mex-westerns, it showcases a writer/ director defying the odds. Legendarily produced for just over $7,000, it announced Rodriguez as a genre-savvy super-stylist who knew how to make the most of limited means. Starring Carlos Gallardo in the title role, a guitar player with dreams of being a Mariachi, this tale of mistaken identity has a raw, rough and seductive edge to it.Following the film with Desperado (1995), the best of the trilogy, the director recast his lead, bringing in Antonio Banderas as well as Salma Hayek. Studded…1 min
Total Film|September 2024NIGHT OF THE EAGLE 121962OUT NOW DVD, BD, DIGITALEXTRASCommentary, Featurettes, Alt opening, Stills gallery, Art cardsUnfairly overlooked for many years, Sidney Hayers’ British horror (aka Burn, Witch, Burn) is pure class. Based on the 1943 novel Conjure Wife by Fritz Leiber, it stars Peter Wyngarde as an arrogant university professor whose wife (Janet Blair) has been secretly helping his career with Jamaican witchcraft. But what will happen if she stops? The leads are great value, the story moves at a clip, and Reginald Wyer's gorgeous cinematography suggests an everpresent, lurking evil.…1 min
Total Film|September 2024FRESH SPINSI SAW THE TV GLOWDirector Jane Schoenbrun tunes into haunting wavelengths with the music for their horror-slash-trans allegory. Alongside the ambient screen burn of Alex G's synthy score, Schoenbrun's self-curated ‘mixtape from another dimension’ suggests a 90s Donnie Darko, gorgeously. Artists variably hushed (Maria BC), dislocated (Yeule), dirge-y (King Woman) and jangly (Jay Som) feature, while alt-stars Caroline Polachek/The Weather Station transmit lush anthemics, and Sloppy Jane/Phoebe Bridgers steal the show with the serene Claw Machine. Cult love calls.A QUIET PLACE: DAY ONEPig composer Alexis Grapsas follows Marco Beltrami (quietly) with confident couplings of heart and horror here. Piano and woodwinds introduce warm, welcoming motifs on Samira's Theme and Marionette, before Subway Tunnels maxes the rumbling dread. Elsewhere, panic (Revolving Door) and suspense (Day One) mount surely. The action cues…1 min
Total Film|September 20242 MOREADVENTURES IN ANIMATIONRichard Williams, the man who brought Roger Rabbit and 1971’s celebrated A Christmas Carol to life, takes us on a tour of his formidable career in animation. With the three-time Oscar-winner having passed in 2019, the book was completed posthumously by co-writer/wife Imogen Sutton. Comprehensively subtitled How I Learned, Who I Learned From and What I Did with It, it's a fitting complement to Williams’ Animator's Survival Kit, similarly packed with both his art and wisdom. JHREBEL MOON: HOUSE OF THE BLOODAXEFor Zack Snyder's army of fans, this is a comic-book prequel to his two-film sci-fi opus. The director conceived the story, and it comes scripted by Magdalene Visaggio (Vagrant Queen) with art from Clark Bint (Murder Most Mundane). Set five years before Rebel Moon, the tale takes…1 min
Total Film|September 2024TOTAL FILM BUFFIS IT BOLLOCKS?Film Buff investigates the facts behind outlandish movie plots.THIS MONTH BOB MARLEY: ONE LOVEQ In Bob Marley: One Love, the reggae icon (Kingsley Ben-Adir) plays a concert two days after an assassination attempt and, later, forgives his would-be shooter. True?The broad strokes of the attempted killing are true, although the film stirs it up with some artistic liberties. On 3 December 1976, gunmen did arrive at Marley's 56 Hope Road house. Marley's wife Rita was shot in her car, though reggae expert Roger Steffens says manager Don Taylor was shot five times, not six. Steffens also refutes the image of Taylor leaping to protect Marley, claiming the kitchen was too small for that manoeuvre. Everyone survived and Marley played at the Smile Jamaica concert two days later, giving…2 min
Total Film|September 2024REEL ESTATEFOR SALE This Victorian house in the suburbs might be dilapidated compared to the other tidy suburban homes of the area, but it is nothing that a lick of paint won't rectify. Going at a very reasonable price because (full disclosure) of a family tragedy in an upstairs bedroom. But that was many years ago. The perfect residence for a young family. Teenage babysitters are in abundance, and the tree-lined streets come into their own each autumn, lit by jack-o’-lanterns. Potential buyers might want to consider cosy lighting and warm-coloured curtains – the windows, like the eyes of the previous resident, are blank, pale, emotionless……1 min
Total Film|September 2024GOLDEN GRAHAMSTHIS MONTHHabit and WendigoThrilled by the trailer for Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu, I found myself rewatching perhaps my favourite riff on Dracula to date, Larry Fessenden's New York indie Habit (1995).Fessenden's horror factory Glass Eye Pix has birthed some of the most interesting horror helmers working today, including Ti West (House of the Devil, the X trilogy) and Jim Mickle (Stake Land, We Are What We Are). Fessenden's distinctive appearance, meanwhile – missing front tooth, crow's-nest hair – has helped land him character roles in a deluge of horror movies and dramas such as The Brave One, Wendy and Lucy and Killers of the Flower Moon. But it's his intermittent work as a director that most excites me, grounding genre myths in realistic milieus.In Habit, Fessenden plays Sam, an alcoholic struggling…3 min
