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THIS TIME IT’S WAR!

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JENNIFER LAWRENCE ON SURVIVING A PHENOMENON

THE EPIC ISSUE

MOCKINGJAY PART I

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VAMPIRE COMEDYPlusANGELINA JOLIE

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RIDLEY SCOTT’S EXODUSIS

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© 2014 TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

IN CINEMAS

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JANUARY 8

SCAN TO

WATCH

TRAILER

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4 EMPIRE D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 4 empireonline.com

THE PITCHTHE PITCH

Cov

er ill

ust

rati

on:

Just

in M

etz

mpire has always prided itself on its close and

convivial relations with its reader. As chief of

staff, I often peruse the avenues of social media

— Twitter, Facebook, the illustrious forum on

Empire Online — that allow our faithful to provide

what I like to think of as constructive feedback.

And it was enlightening to read a recent digital

communiqué, from forum poster McAvennie,

on the subject of what makes a good editor’s letter.

“It doesn’t need to be a rundown of what to find in the magazine,” stresses

McAvennie. After all, as he rightly points out, we have the contents pages for

that purpose (see pages 6 and 8). What’s the point of mentioning our lively

interview with superstar Jennifer Lawrence on being the face of billion-dollar

franchise The Hunger Games (on page 84)? Or recalling the time I ventured

into an arty-looking New Orleans cinema, simply to get out of the brain-

melting heat, and decided upon Winter’s Bone as I’d heard rumblings from

Sundance that it was pretty decent? In fact, it was quite brilliant. Upon

returning to the Empire office, I grandly charged everyone to mark my words,

that this Jennifer Lawrence would soon be gracing our cover (this issue

marks the fourth occasion). For I fear this could be construed as “long-

winded, name-drop-heavy rubbing of the writer’s own ego”. A strict no-no

according to McAvennie. For the record, I have yet to meet J-Law in person,

so can be let off the crime of “schmoozing and gallivanting” at this juncture.

Indeed, McAvennie is insistent that an editor must use this part of the

magazine to puncture “the bubble of fawning lackey chatter” that inevitably

surrounds them. And I can only say that it is at the top of my to-do list.

Right after the lackeys make me my morning coffee.

“A good editor’s note should give the editor the chance to offer his/her

opinion on an important issue relating to cinema,” the instructions continue.

Hence, I point the reader in the direction of our story on Netflix’s potentially

game-changing policy of releasing new movies (many of them containing

Adam Sandler) straight to their downloading service (on page 28).

Netflix’s move has been viewed as a broadside on what the studios call the

“theatrical window” (the tacitly agreed-upon delay between a film being released

in cinemas and then made available for home consumption). Major releases

(not just Lindsay Lohan films) could soon find it financially viable to head

straight to our living rooms, bypassing cinemas entirely, or at least making

only a token visit. In America at least, Netflix plans to simultaneously release

Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon: The Green Legend in IMAX theatres and on

VOD. It’s a future we’ll have to get our heads around, one rich in convenience

and choice, but at odds with the social occasion of moviegoing — that shared

experience where strangers become friends, if only for an hour or two in a

darkened room. Does this mean Netflix is changing the entire paradigm of

movie distribution? As well as offering the chance to use the word “paradigm”?

As you can see, simply welcoming the reader to their new issue is fraught

with peril. So I’ll take this moment to draw your attention to what I think

Empire does best. And that is love movies. In particular, I’m talking about

the ‘bat’-shit crazy Birdman, starring the inimitable Michael Keaton, that just

happens to be given excellent coverage by our never knowingly “fawning” and

always cutting-edge Damon Wise (on page 72). As McAvennie insists, above

all I “should not be afraid to be controversial”. So swerving studio embargoes,

I hereby declare Birdman to be the kind of constantly confounding, outrageous,

satirical and, oh yes, paradigm-shifting movie magic that makes you realise

you have the best job in the world. Just make sure you see it in a cinema.

“For the record, I have yet to meet J-Law in person.”

• Birdman star Michael Keaton debates the rules of the editor’s letter in The Paper.

Ian Nathan,

Acting Editor

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• Katniss really wishes she hadn’t shot

that arrow into her neighbour’s garden.

And cat. (p.84)

FEATURES

72BIRDMANEither Michael Keaton’s signed up for the

Admiral Flappington movie, or it’s the

strangest Oscar contender ever made...

PADDINGTONEmpire climbs deep inside the psyche

of a Peruvian, fruit-preserve-obsessed,

pleasantly anthropomorphised ursus.

THE DOLLARS TRILOGYFive great directors on why the best kind

of Western is spaghetti-flavoured. With

plenty of red sauce.

THE EMPIRE INTERVIEW: SIGOURNEY WEAVERAfter this interview she nuked Chris

Hewitt from orbit. It was the only way

to be sure.

78EXODUS: GODS AND KINGSRamses wants to cross the Red Sea? No

way! Moses wants to cross? Yahweh!

84THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY PART 1Jennifer Lawrence and her murderous

chums return for (the first half of) the big

finale. Still wondering: what have they

got against Pan Am, anyway? The meals?

94UNBROKENAngelina Jolie goes to war for her second

directorial debut. Fortunately, they

changed the title from Still Fixed.

GALE ANNE HURDOne of Hollywood’s coolest, boldest

producers. If James Cameron was the

.45 longslide, she was the laser sighting.

100

106

110

116

DECEMBER 2014

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SPINE QUOTE WINNERS: Issue 305 “Get with it. Millions of galaxies of hundreds of millions of stars, in a speck on one in a blink. That’s us, lost in space.” is from Collateral (2004). Congratulations to: Wally Achart, Bernard O’Shea, Nell Lee, Mandy Kelly, Seb Hewson, Tom Trott, Christopher Gilbert, Jennifer Leontiou, Cat Peterson and James Taylor.

☛ SPECIAL SUBSCRIBER-ONLY COVERS ON SELECTED ISSUES☛ A SAVING OF 48% OFF SHOP PRICE — JUST £2.08 PER ISSUE

☛ FREE DELIVERY — DIRECT TO YOUR DOOR 46£25

23

10

44

48

70

150

141

135

166

170

REGULARS

• Here: Jim Carrey is Birdman. Or In Dumb And

Dumber To. (p.40) Below: Not everyone’s a fan of

modern sculpture. (p.136)

THE SLATEThe inside track on Brad Bird’s

Tomorrowland — a place where it’s

impossible to get the Today programme.

ON LOCATIONLike Romanian philanthropists, we travel

the world, doing good. Good set visits,

that is. Although we’re not Romanian.

MY MOVIE MASTERMINDRemember a time when Billy Bob

Thornton looked completely different

in every film? We call it ‘the ’90s’.

RE.VIEWIncluding the Extended Edition of The

Desolation Of Smaug, aka: Raiders Of

The Lost Arkenstone References.

HOW MUCH IS A PINT OF MILK?Sir Roger Moore prefers full cream.

(Raises one eyebrow.)

MASTERPIECECity Of God: the Brazilian

GoodFellas. Or — bear with us here

— GoodFavelas.

SHORTSLetters! Competitions! Crossword!

By the way, the On Location entry

above is a Congo reference. Sorry.

IN CINEMASThis month: The Imitation Game, The

Drop, What We Do In The Shadows (play

guitar behind Cliff Richard).

THE LISTS OF OUR LIFETIMEOur 25 favourite movie posters of the past

25 years. Put them up in your doll’s house!

Blu-Tack not included.

CLASSIC SCENEDodgeBall: the funniest scene

between an off-screen husband

and wife since Far And Away.

FROM THE DIRECTOR OF LAST KING OF SCOTLAND AND TOUCHING THE VOID

THE ONLY THING MORE

DANGEROUS THAN

THE MISSION

IS THE CREW

C O M I N G S O O N

J U D E L A W

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1 0 EMPIRE D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 4 empireonline.com

• Alex Garland, Oscar Isaac and exoskeleton friend on the set.

A

YOUR TICK ET TO THE MOVIES THAT MATTER A

12.2014

T’S NOT EVERY MOVIE

that begins as a ten-year-long

argument between friends

about the nature of artificial

intelligence. Then again, Ex

Machina is the directorial

debut of Alex Garland, whose

work to date as both novelist

and screenwriter has revelled in big

ideas, imaginative sci-fi conceits and

smart genre twisting. “It was about

these things called ‘qualia’, and my

friend’s conviction in them and my

uncertainty in them, and they relate

directly to AI,” says Garland who

helpfully suggests Empire look up

qualia on Wikipedia. “A part of me

that’s a genuine sci-fi geek, that’s

interested in the science aspect of

sci-fi, just responded to that. And

in my head the argument started

to reform itself as a narrative.”

And so we’re here on B Stage

at Pinewood Studios, where

production designer Mark Digby

has built the subterranean part

of a modernist Alaskan hideout

belonging to Oscar Isaac’s

Alex Garland’s God from the machine kicks into gear

EX MACHINA>LOCATION: PINEWOOD STUDIOS, LONDON

>

Read our list of movie robots that will ruin your life: tinyurl.com/EmpireHelpfulRobots

subscribe at www.empireonline.com/sub d e c e m b e r 2 0 1 4 empire 1 1


Empire tackles the future of fi lm at tinyurl.com/EmpireFutureFilm

ONLOCATIONoN12.2014

Nathan, the reclusive millionaire

CEO of the world’s largest

(fictional) internet search

engine, named Bluebook after

Wittgenstein’s diary. Constructed

mainly from man-made elements

such as concrete, metal and glass,

with the odd natural flourish

(exposed rock, terrariums) thrown

in, Digby’s remarkable sets play

host to the majority of the film,

although they’ll be supplemented

by a fortnight’s filming in Norway.

Ex Machina — which takes

its name from the Latin “deus

ex machina”, meaning “God

from the machine”, but is also a

screenwriting term for an unearned

plot point — is, according to

producer Allon Reich, “a sci-fi

thriller, but the sci-fi is of today”.

Today’s scenes involve an

interrogation of sorts between

Domhnall Gleeson’s Caleb, a

Bluebook coder who winds

up spending a week in the

home of his enigmatic boss,

and Ava (Alicia Vikander):

an AI housed in the body of

a robot. It’s a discussion that

involves her drawings and

thoughts on the outside world.

The set is called the Observation

Room, although in a smart piece

of reverse design it’s Caleb who’s

inside a glass cube, not Ava, adding

to the subtext of who exactly

is observing whom.

“It’s old-fashioned science-

fiction,” maintains Garland

as he sets off for the studio

cafeteria for a quick snack.

“You’ve got two guys, a female

robot and another woman,

and it’s what happens to those

four people over the course

of trying to establish whether

this machine is conscious or

not. And the examination of the

machine’s consciousness leads to

an examination of their own. Hence

it gets trippy and psychedelic.”

Garland and his two actors,

who worked together previously

on Joe Wright’s Anna Karenina,

spend the day ploughing through

many pages of dialogue without

any problems, thanks to a couple

of weeks’ intense rehearsal during

which all the big, philosophical

questions were ironed out. To play

the robotic Ava, Vikander wears

a grey, skin-tight mesh suit as well

as prosthetics that cover her hair,

leaving her face a beatific mask,

a costume and make-up regime

that has required her being at

Pinewood at 4am for the past five

days. Ultimately, only her face,

hands and feet will be seen onscreen;

all Ava’s internal mechanics will be

a visual effect.

“She’s remarkable,” says

Garland of his leading lady. “She’s

wearing a costume that does not

really indicate very much about how

she will end up looking, so there’s

a lot of trust in the team of people

who are making the film.” He pulls

out his iPhone and reveals a concept

drawing of Ava that he gave the

actress to “carry with her as [a visual

of] where she would go.” Garland

smiles. “She just clearly decided, like

a bungee jumper, ‘Okay, I’ll do it,’

and then she jumped... and is doing

an amazing job.” MARK SALISBURY EX MACHINA IS OUT ON JANUARY 23, 2015.

T H E

I N S I D E T R A C K

A

WIKIPEDIA DEFINES

QUALIA AS “A TERM USED IN

PHILOSOPHY TO REFER TO

INDIVIDUAL INSTANCES OF

SUBJECTIVE, CONSCIOUS

EXPERIENCE”.

• Domhnall Gleeson and Oscar Isaac —

both soon to also be seen in another little

sci-fi movie.

• Alicia Vikander as robot Ava. Most of her body’s been realised by VFX house Double Negative.

FP_EMPIRE_STVINCENTE.id1453693.pgs 09.10.2014 18:02 >>AdRocket<<


Discover our rules of time travel at tinyurl.com/EmpireTimeTravel

MPIRE HAS BEEN ON

many movie sets over the

years. Not as many as

we’ve had hot dinners —

we like hot dinners — but

up there. And one thing

we know for sure — when

you want the skinny, the

inside dope on how it’s really going,

you don’t go to the director, or the

publicist. You go to the crew. So when

we set foot on the Melbourne set of

the Spierig Brothers’ noodle-melting

time-travel thriller Predestination,

and a member of the camera crew

wanders up, we listen to what they

have to say. “What we’ve shot so

far,” she says, spreading her hands

wide, “is iconic.” Intriguing.

Today doesn’t feel like an

iconic day, but it is intimate. On

a soundstage converted into a smoky

1970s bar, Pop’s Place, Ethan Hawke

— as a bartender — listens intently

to a tall tale spun by Sarah Snook’s

broad-with-a-troubled-past. It’s a

tale involving temporal agents, time

Ethan Hawke goes Down Under; travels through time

PREDESTINATION>LOCATION: MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA

intriguing roles I’ve had the

opportunity to play,” he says,

picking up a violin case that will

prove crucial to his character’s

journey from the 1940s to the 1990s.

After overseeing a scene where

Hawke has a critical confrontation

with Noah Taylor’s buttoned-down

bureaucrat, Mr. Robertson, Michael

Spierig ambles over to Empire for

a chat about the movie. Their first

adaptation, Predestination is based

on Robert A. Heinlein’s short story,

All You Zombies, but even with a

blueprint, the duo have been working

hard to make sure the plot’s temporal

twists and turns work. “You can’t

make time travel make sense,” admits

Spierig. “It turns you cross-eyed if

you think about it too much! We try

to stay within the rules we set up —

that’s the best we can hope for.” JCPREDESTINATION IS OUT ON DECEMBER 5.

directors, with whom he worked

on Daybreakers, keep rolling.

And then we time-jump, to

another set, this time an office

dominated by a glass table. Hawke

enters, now dressed as a temporal

agent who’s sent to track down the

Fizzle Bomber and avert New York’s

destruction. Are he and the barman

one and the same? Is this a dual

role? What time-travel fuckery is

this? Hawke simply smiles. “This

is one of the more mysterious and

T H E


A

HEINLEIN’S ORIGINAL

STORY WAS PUBLISHED IN

1959 — AFTER IT HAD BEEN

REJECTED BY PLAYBOY. HEF

MUST BE KICKING HIMSELF.

• Top: Time travel’s a brutal business

for Ethan Hawke’s agent. Here: The

Spierigs with Hawke and Sarah Snook.

jumps, and a sex change. “She goes

through a dramatic life change,

so I play both the male and female

version of the character,” laughs

Snook. “Which is very strange.”

The Spierigs, Michael and Peter,

go for a take. Snook begins her tale,

while Hawke wipes down the bar.

A nut flicks off his towel, pings

across the frame like a bullet, and

breaks the mood. “You’re a terrible

barman, Ethan!” laughs Snook.

Hawke smiles and shrugs. The

FP_EMPIRE_PRInvictus.id1386537.pgs 29.08.2014 15:53 >>AdRocket<<


HERE’S A SNAKE

loose in Soundstage 3.

Inside a moonlit dojo,

a white king cobra

is merrily squeaking

across the padded

leather floor. The

cameras roll. A robed

figure walks in, clicks his fingers

and, via some Jedi mind-voodoo,

begins to steer the ten-foot serpent.

Unlikely as it sounds, cobras don’t

hiss — they growl. And when a

cobra growls, it strikes. As the snake

javelins at its wrangler, he snatches it

mid-air. The cobra turns as stiff as

a baguette. It’s the shot they’re after.

This, it has to be said, is the most

arse-puckeringly tense set Empire’s

visited for some time. Behind the

monitor, Tom Wu casually warms

up while the reptile is wrangled —

his character, Hundred Eyes, is

about to enter the dojo for a scene

unofficially dubbed Dancing With

Snakes. The cobra’s still growling.

Just an average morning on

the set of Marco Polo. The first

Netfl ix goes epic for its next big show

MARCO POLO>LOCATION: JOHOR, MALAYSIA

ONLOCATIONoN12.2014

guest of Pinewood’s new Malaysia

Studios has conquered every last

inch of its 100,000 square feet — vast

courts, entire armies and small lakes

are housed in its five soundstages;

outside, the incongruous sight of

Marco Polo’s ship plonked in an

open field. When one of the crew

refers to it as “Weinstein World”,

he’s really only half kidding. In

conjunction with Netflix, Harvey

Weinstein’s latest production makes

Gangs Of New York look like

a mild pub fight.

Creator (and kung-fu black belt)

John Fusco first hit on the concept in

2007 during a trek across Mongolia.

“People think of Marco Polo as this

guy who brought spaghetti back to

Europe,” he says. “The truth is far

more exotic. When Marco arrived

in China, he entered a war between

the Song Dynasty and the Mongol

Empire, and found himself adopted

as son, emissary and secret agent by

Kublai Khan. Marco spent 17 years

in China — a long-form show is the

only way to go.”

subscribe at www.empireonline.com/sub D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 4 EMPIRE 1 7

For more pics from Marco Polo, visit tinyurl.com/EmpireMarcoPolo

Guiding Marco Polo’s

international ensemble are Kon-Tiki

directors Joachim Rønning and

Espen Sandberg (see page 32). “It

feels like we’re on the same journey

as Marco — we’ve filmed in Venice,

Kazakhstan, and now we’ve landed

in Asia,” says Rønning, the taller,

talkier half of the duo. “It’s such

a rich, brutal universe.” “And it’s

not ten episodes,” adds Sandberg.

“It’s a ten-hour movie.”

Polo has, of course, appeared on

screen before — most ingloriously

in the cardboard form of Gary

Cooper. “But he’s never been

played by an Italian,” says Lorenzo

Richelmy, who’s about as Italian as

you get — when Empire catches up

with him he’s rolling a cigarette

before stunt practice. “Marco was

barely 17 when he set off to China.

First guy to build a bridge between

East and West. Kickstarted the

Renaissance. And mastered kung fu.

Do you have a lighter?”

While the war backdrop screams

spectacle, the emotional bedrock

is the unlikely relationship between

Marco and Benedict Wong’s Khan.

“Kublai was like the CEO of the

first ever global empire,” Wong

says. “He was obsessed with the

legacy of his grandfather, Genghis.”

And, having toured his pimped-up

concubine quarters, perhaps a closet

Scarface fan? “Well, it’s something

to aspire to, isn’t it?”

If the tone and scale suggests

a chopsocky Game Of Thrones,

frankly, bring it on — especially

when Matrix legend Yuen Woo-ping

is designing the fights: each

character comes with their own

unique animal-based combat

system. (According to Joan Chen,

who plays Kublai’s wife, even the

sex has been choreographed like

martial arts.) Each fight takes

a week to “massage” into shape.

Empire watches as the stunt team

put the final punches to an assassin’s

ambush inside Khan’s palace. They

dive out of the walls, flip on wires,

then explode into a breathtaking,

two-minute, single-take brawl.

“We’ve been making films

together since we were ten, and grew

up with Jackie Chan,” Rønning

says. “Shooting our first kung-fu

fight felt like being kids again.”

Still, we have to ask: how exactly

do two directors work together?

“Ah, that’s easy,” deadpans

Sandberg. “I only work every

other day...” SIMON CROOKMARCO POLO IS AVAILABLE ON NETFLIX

FROM DECEMBER 12.

T H E


A

MALAYSIA IS JUST THE

LATEST PINEWOOD STUDIO

TO OPEN INTERNATIONALLY,

JOINING TORONTO, BERLIN

AND THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC.

• Marco! Polo! Lorenzo Richelmy

fl ies into action in the new Netfl ix series.

• Olivia Cheng, as Mei Lin, charges

into battle.

• Tom Wu, as Hundred Eyes, and Benedict Wong, as Kublai Khan, prepare for a take.


Does The Woman In Black make our greatest horror characters list? empireonline.com/666

• Phoebe Fox’s Eve Parkins fi nds

a spooky message.

T’S THE DEAD OF NIGHT

in rural Oxfordshire and

Empire is lost somewhere

on an abandoned air base.

Having said our farewells to

the crew packing up the night

shoot at the former RAF

Upper Heyworth, we got in

the car and made for the exit. But

the place is so dark, so vast and so

empty that even our headlights don’t

really illuminate anything: there’s

nothing to see apart from desolate

space and the looming shapes of

empty sheds and hangars. Spooked,

we head back to the safety of the

filmmakers and their floodlights, and

wait until we can follow someone

who knows where they’re going. We

don’t want to spend a night out here,

especially after a day in the company

of you-know-who.

The follow-up to the Daniel

Radcliffe-starring 2012 original,

The Woman In Black: Angel Of

Death takes place decades after

Radcliffe’s ill-fated visit to Eel

Marsh House. World War II is

raging in Europe, and teachers

Eve (Phoebe Fox) and Jean (Helen

McCrory) have been tasked with

evacuating a dozen Blitz orphans

from London to the isolated north-

eastern coastal village of Crythin

Gifford, and specifically to that

isolated house on the causeway,

uninhabited for years apart from

the malevolent shade of a certain

Jennet Humfrye stalking its hallways.

Also new to the area is RAF

bomber pilot Harry (Jeremy Irvine).

But he has a secret.

“There’s nothing more fun than

playing a character that’s lying all

the time,” Irvine tells us earlier at a

different location, stepping outside

an underground bunker set into

the crisp autumnal sunshine, still

grimacing from the herbal cigarettes

his character smokes (they have to

be herbal to protect the child actors’

youthful lungs). “It’s nice to find

She’s back, she’s bad, she’s (in) black, she’s mad...

THE WOMAN IN BLACK: ANGEL OF DEATH>LOCATION: RAF UPPER HEYFORD, OXFORDSHIRE

>

12.2014


T H E


A

ANGEL OF DEATH’S CAST

INCLUDES ADRIAN RAWLINS,

WHO PLAYED HARRY POTTER’S

DAD, AND WAS ARTHUR KIPPS

IN ITV’S THE WOMAN IN BLACK (1989).

ONLOCATIONoN12.2014

a character that isn’t just ‘stock’.

The writing’s all subtext, and there’s

a lot in the script that you won’t pick

up as an audience. Or rather, every

person will pick up on different

things. He has the appearance of

a matinée idol, and Eve and Jean

think he’s a hero...”

The bunker itself is long and

narrow, with a control room with

radio equipment at the far end,

and in among the arc lamps and

coils of wire littering the floor are

mattresses belonging to the children

and their academic guardians,

who, having escaped the bombs

in London, have now also fled

Eel Marsh House to the apparent

safety of this new bolt-hole.

The trouble is, as established in

the first film, The Woman In Black

can travel. The scene we watch

unfold involves the assembled kids,

teachers and Irvine trying to huddle

down for the night, when the ‘WIB’

(as she’s affectionately called on set)

arrives to claim the young Edward

(Oaklee Pendergast). The quiet of

the underground vigil is suddenly

broken by a whispered nursery

rhyme, and Fox leaps to her feet

crying, “You can’t have him!” as

all the lights explode.

“That’s my ‘You shall not pass!’

moment,” laughs Fox afterwards.

“Leanne (Best, replacing Liz White),

who’s playing the Woman In Black,

is one of the most personable,

bubbly people you’ll ever meet, but

when they do her up in her garb

and put her at the other end of the

room, it is genuinely terrifying.”

Less, believes director Tom

Harper, is definitely more where Her

WIBness is concerned: “We learn

a bit more about her, but we don’t

actually see any more of her than we

did last time. There certainly won’t

be any lingering close-ups.”

Screenwriter Jon Croker, who’s

also penning Hammer’s remake of

The Abominable Snowman, agrees

that he was encouraged “not to

show her too much” despite it being

Croker, “but all the stuff we’d

discussed about the hospital and

psychologically damaged soldiers

led to the Harry character. If we

hadn’t had that conversation,

a very scary part of the film

wouldn’t have existed.”

Expanding the narrative

outwards was, he concedes, a risky

strategy in terms of potentially

dissipating the first film’s pervasive

claustrophobia, but “the whole

village is empty now as well as Eel

Marsh House, and then there’s the

airfield,” continues Croker. “So

in a way, those three empty spaces

were a great variation on the theme.

There’s now no respite at all...”

After hearing that, Empire finally

heads towards the exit — although

not without casting a few nervous

glances backwards as we make our

way home... OWEN WILLIAMSTHE WOMAN IN BLACK: ANGEL OF DEATH IS

OUT ON JANUARY 1, 2015.

“a continuation of her story”.

“She’s not defeated by Arthur

Kipps in the first film,” he explains,

“so the question was, what would

happen if new people arrived?”

Susan Hill, author of the novella on

which the first film was based, came

up with the concept of the World

War II setting, initially envisaging

Eel Marsh being requisitioned as a

military hospital. But it was felt that

there were no obvious children in

that set-up, while the mythology —

a sighting of the Woman In Black is

the harbinger of a child’s death —

would seem to require them. “We

thought a school was a better fit

for this specific ghost story,” says

• Eve, who clearly hasn’t seen the original fi lm, wanders around the grounds of Eel Marsh House.

• Potential victims line up: Jeremy Irvine, Fox, Helen McCrory and a horde of innocent kids.

THE SHOOTING GALLERYThe hottest fi lms currently in production

• Above: Angelina Jolie. Below: (clockwise from top) Naomi Watts, Michael Fassbender and Tom Hanks.

For more, head to empireonline.com/shootinggallery

AND

PRESENT


1 BY THE SEA

Location Gozo, MaltaDirector Angelina Jolie

Cast Brad Pitt, Angelina JolieThe lowdown An estranged couple (Pitt and Jolie) fi nd themselves drawn to the inhabitants of a tiny, French seaside village. Sky Movies says Not exactly Mr. & Mrs. Smith 2, then, but it’s nice to see Brad and Ange enjoying their honeymoon period together.Catch Brad Pitt in World War Z

on Sky Movies.

2 THE LAST WITCH HUNTER

Location Pittsburgh, USADirector Breck Eisner Cast Vin

Diesel, Rose Leslie, Elijah Wood The lowdown Titular crone-catcher Diesel faces off against witches who have arisen in modern-day New York.

3 VACATION

Location Atlanta, USADirectors John Francis Daley,

Jonathan M. Goldstein Cast Leslie Mann, Ed Helms The lowdown The Chevy Chase comedy classic gets the reboot treatment with Helms as Rusty

Griswold, paterfamilias of a family attempting their annual vacation.

4 A MONSTER CALLS

Location Manchester, UKDirector J. A. Bayona

Cast Liam Neeson, Sigourney WeaverThe lowdown A boy copes with his mother’s terminal illness by befriending an imaginary creature. Sky Movies says Tackling serious matters in a fantastical manner, this children’s book adap has monster crossover appeal.Enjoy Liam Neeson in Batman

Begins on Sky Movies.

5 GRIMSBY

Location Cape Town, South AfricaDirector Louis Leterrier Cast

Sacha Baron Cohen, Mark StrongThe lowdown A top-secret agent (Strong) is forced to team up with his hooligan brother (Cohen) on his latest assignment.

6 UNTITLED STEVEN SPIELBERG

COLD WAR PROJECT

Locations New York, USA; Berlin, GermanyDirector Steven Spielberg

Cast Tom Hanks, Amy RyanThe lowdown The real-life story of James Donovan, the lawyer assigned by the CIA to free a U-2 surveillance pilot who crash-landed and was detained in the Soviet Union in 1960. Sky Movies says With a Coen-assisted script, Hollywood’s superpowers look well set to stoke up the Cold War. See Spielberg’s last slice of history,

Lincoln, on Sky Movies.

7 DEMOLITION

Location New York, USADirector Jean-Marc Vallée

Cast Jake Gyllenhaal, Naomi WattsThe lowdown After the death of his wife, an investment banker (Gyllenhaal) begins to wreck his own life, only to connect with a strange woman (Watts).

8 THE LIGHT BETWEEN OCEANS

Location Tasmania, Australia; Marlborough, New Zealand

Director Derek Cianfrance Cast Rachel Weisz, Michael Fassbender The lowdown Based on M. L. Stedman’s novel, indie favourite Cianfrance’s latest fi lm features a couple running a remote lighthouse who discover a baby adrift in a boat and raise it as their own, with terrible repercussions. Sky Movies says It all sounds like Thomas Hardy Down Under so steel yourself for an emotional ride.Michael Fassbender is on typically

excellent form in The Counsellor

on Sky Movies.

FP_EMPIRE_70320320BR.id1455203.pgs 10.10.2014 14:53 >>AdRocket<<

Mar

tin S

choe

ller/A

ugus

t


HOLLY WOOD IN ENGLISH

TURN THE PAGE FOR MORE FROM TOMORROWLAND.

T H E FA C EA

TOMORROW’S MANGeorge Clooney has never had it so good> IT’S BEEN A GOOD COUPLE

of weeks for George Clooney. First,

although you could be forgiven for

missing it as it was fairly hush-hush,

the world’s most eligible bachelor

debachelorised (that’s a word, don’t

quibble) himself in Venice with his

beautiful bride, Amal Alamuddin.

Second, his new movie, Brad Bird’s

Tomorrowland, made quite the debut

at the New York Comic-Con. Clooney

even showed up, whipping the crowd

into a frenzy, apologising backstage

to Adam West for everything he did

to Batman (“I was like, ‘Hey, I’m

really sorry... Just hit me...’”), and

acknowledging that he was playing

hookey. “It is not lost on me that I am

spending my honeymoon at Comic-Con,”

he quipped. On a more serious note,

he told Empire that even though he had

to shoot the Disney sci-fi spectacle by

day while completing The Monuments

Men at night, he just couldn’t say no.

“Tomorrowland is a film I am very proud

to be in. I love those guys, I love Brad

Bird, I didn’t want to miss it...” CH


TOMORROW’S W EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: BRAD BIRD AND DAMON LINDELOF TAKE THE WRAPS OFF 2015’S MOST MYSTERIOUS MOVIE

WHAT IS TOMORROWLAND? IS IT:

a) One of the many different themed lands

at Disneylands scattered across the world?

b) The most mysterious movie of 2015,

which, in a year that includes Avengers:

Age Of Ultron and Star Wars: Episode

VII, is some achievement?

c) The new Close Encounters Of The

Third Kind?

d) All of the above?

It’s early October, and Empire has come

to the Javits Center, in the middle of Hell’s

Kitchen, for the New York Comic-Con.

It’s here that we’ll finally get an answer

to our question, when some light will be

shed on Tomorrowland, the new movie

from Brad Bird, which has been a riddle

F I R S T L O O KA

• Above: Britt Robertson as Casey Newton. And what’s that behind her? Right: George Clooney as Frank Walker and his monitors, counting down to... something.

wrapped inside a mystery inside a scary

non-disclosure agreement since it was

first announced back in January 2013.

Back then, this was all we knew about

it: it shared a name with the perennially

popular Disneyland zone; it starred

George Clooney as, according to the

official synopsis, a former “boy genius”,

“jaded by disillusionment”, and Britt

Robertson as a “bright, optimistic teen”,

who team up to find an elusive place

known as... yes, you guessed it.

And that was that. The film was

cast, with Hugh Laurie, Judy Greer,

Kathryn Hahn and others signing on,

the film was shot, and the film went into

post, all with nary a peep since. Hence

the excitement as Empire heads backstage

to meet Bird and Damon Lindelof, the

writer-producer who came up with the

idea in the first place, and finally get them

to say something about this unknown

quantity, this truly exciting blank slate

in a summer of reboots and sequels and

shared universes. And so we ask that

question — what is Tomorrowland?

— and quickly realise that, in order to

understand it, we first have to go back

to Yesterdayville.

“I was having lunch with Sean Bailey,

who’s president at Disney Motion

Pictures,” explains Lindelof, “and I was

saying that when I first heard about

Pirates Of The Caribbean being made


’S WORLDa real place somewhere in the world,” says

Lindelof of the genesis, “and the movie

is about a) learning that it exists and

b) getting to it. It’s a Close Encounters

model, where you see something that

inspires you and it infects you.”

The inspiration/infection point

for Lindelof came in the shape of a box,

that he swears is real and which was

apparently uncovered in the Disney

archives by Entertainment Weekly

writer Jeff Jensen, who’d been hired

by Lindelof (after they bonded over

Jensen’s “crazy theories about Lost”

during that show’s run) to do some

digging about Tomorrowland. The

box contained, among other things,

into a movie, I was like, ‘A ride? You’re

going to make that into a movie?’ But

then, there was something almost

liberating about not being married

to a story. And Sean said, ‘What rides

in the park do you think are worthy of

exploitation?’ I said, ‘I would go and

see a movie called Tomorrowland.’”

As a ride, Pirates Of The Caribbean

immediately suggests a world and

characters (“You have great images,”

says Bird), but Tomorrowland is a

more difficult nut to crack. How do

you base a movie on an area? On ideals?

Lindelof knew he had to start with

a question — yes, that question!

“We’ll start with the idea that it’s >

2 6 EMPIRE D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 4

“stuff from the ’64 World’s Fair and

a magazine from the 1920s”, yet was

labelled “1952” (which became the film’s

working title). “There was nobody to

explain to us how all these random

artefacts ended up in the box,” adds

Lindelof. “We looked at it as, ‘Wouldn’t

it be a fun exercise as storytellers to take

this box and say every item is part of

the movie Tomorrowland?’”

By this point, “we” included Bird, who

came onto the project when Lindelof told

him about the idea during rewrite/reshoot

work on Mission: Impossible — Ghost

Protocol. His inspiration/infection point

was one word. You know the one. “It was

funny,” says Bird. “When we called the

project ‘1952’, before we were ready to call

it its name, everyone felt like, ‘What is it? It

could be a Marilyn Monroe origin story,

it could be a combination of the Roswell

crash and Singin’ In The Rain. Everyone

felt like they didn’t understand it — but

when we said ‘Tomorrowland’, everyone

went, ‘Oooooh!’ as if we were telling them

something. The fact that everyone felt

that they understood it somewhat from

saying those two words grafted together

was basically Exhibit A in why this was

an interesting thing to do. It’s about the

future, and it’s kinda positive, at a time

when that’s not a widely held view.”

The future has often been present

in Lindelof and Bird’s work, whether

it’s directly set there (Prometheus, Star

Trek for Lindelof, while Lost is about

escape and other planes of existence,

among other things) or aesthetically

informed by it (Bird’s animated movies,

The Incredibles and The Iron Giant, are

suffused with retro-futuristic concepts),

and both men saw in Tomorrowland

a chance to present a vision of the future

on the big screen that wasn’t dystopian,

for once. “When I hear that word,

Tomorrowland, I think of the future

as it was imagined back in the ’60s,” says

Lindelof. “It’s so hard to present the future

now. It’s always easier to obliterate it.”

“It’s like today,” laughs Bird, “only wiped

out.” “Was it robots that wiped everything

out? Was it a tidal wave?” adds Lindelof.

“Something with the Kardashians?” chips

in Bird, warming to the theme.

What Tomorrowland actually turns

out to be will be kept under wraps for

some time yet, although you can get a

rough idea from the concept art displayed

on this page. It will be shining, shimmering,

and a representation of Walt Disney’s

ideals (see sidebar, right) when putting

together the park (Disney himself is

referenced in the movie, while some filming

took place at Disneyland in Anaheim).

It’ll also be almost impossible to get to.

The movie kicks off when teenage

tearaway Casey (Robertson) finds a

pin among her personal possessions

at a police station. When touched, it

briefly transports Casey to the plane

of existence on which Tomorrowland

dwells. “The pin is the conduit,”

explains Lindelof. “You will get a

vision of Tomorrowland for a very

brief time. And unfortunately...”

“The first one’s free, kid,” concludes

Bird. “And once you glimpse it,

what do you do with that? You

have an experience and you’re

driven to act on the experience.”

Inspired/infected by the pin, Casey

tracks down Clooney’s Frank Walker,

• Casey, caught on Frank’s security cameras, brandishes her mysterious pin.

• Here: Brad Bird and Damon Lindelof at NYCC. Below: Clooney, Bird, Robertson, Raffey Cassidy and Hugh Laurie.


a cantankerous man with experience of

the mysterious place. It was the unlikely

pair’s first meeting that formed the basis

of the clip Bird and Lindelof brought

to the New York Comic-Con — and

which gave the first serious hint that

Tomorrowland is really not what we

expected at all.

The set-up is simple: Casey,

resourceful and intrepid, has tracked

down Frank’s seemingly dilapidated

home. Approaching it, she holds up the

pin and demands that Frank take her “to

the place I saw when I touched this”. Then

comes the first surprise — a force field

that bounces her away from the house.

What follows is a fun, playful game

of cat and mouse, involving a burning

tractor and a freeze ray, that ends with

Frank locked out of his own house while

Casey explores its interior, discovering an

array of surveillance cameras and TVs

tuned in to natural disasters happening

across the world, clues that there’s much

more to Frank than meets the eye. When

Frank regains entry via a secret tunnel,

the stage is set for a lengthy dialogue

scene as he grills Casey about the pin —

but again, Bird and Lindelof bank left,

with the sudden arrival of a sinister cabal

of besuited figures who lay siege to the

house, forcing a desperate Frank to

deploy a series of booby traps, like

a technologically proficient Jigsaw,

to ward them off. One last twist — their

assailants are ever-smiling, unfailingly

polite but deadly robots, thus allowing

Bird and Lindelof to have their PG-13

cake and eat it too as the invaders are

pummelled, lasered and destroyed in

unceremonious fashion.

“We realised very early on in the

plotting process that there needed to be

a force of antagonism,” admits Lindelof

of the robots (rumoured to be under the

control of Hugh Laurie’s David Nix),

“that wanted to prevent them from

getting to that place. Even Close

Encounters manufactures conflict.”

Empire doesn’t recall a scene in Close

Encounters where its heroes escape via

flying bathtub. But that’s a clear sign that

Tomorrowland could stand alone this

summer. “It’s not small, but audiences

shouldn’t expect a big cast-of-thousands-

battle-massive-unnecessary-destruction

endgame. This isn’t that movie. And we’re

proud that it’s not,” says Lindelof. “If

you were a seven or eight year-old kid,

you’d go to this movie and come out

of it thinking there really is a place

called Tomorrowland.”

So we will get a definitive answer

to that question? We will get to see

Tomorrowland in all its glory? Lindelof

smiles broadly. “It wouldn’t be much of

a movie if you didn’t!” CHRIS HEWITT TOMORROWLAND IS OUT ON MAY 22, 2015.

• Above: Concept art for Tomorrowland (the movie). Below: The father of Tomorrowland, Walt Disney himself.

THIS IS TOMORROWLAND

> GO TO ALTON TOWERS, AND chances are you’ll have a cracking time. But you’ll still only be riding on mere rollercoasters. Go to any one of the fi ve Tomorrowlands at Disney parks around the world, and you’ll be walking around one man’s vision.

That man is, of course, Walt Disney, who was something of a futurist and saw Tomorrowland as a celebration of mankind’s potential for progress and self-improvement. Disney’s dedication at the original site in Anaheim describes the place as “a vista into a world of wondrous ideas, signifying Man’s achievement. A step into the future, with predictions of constructed things to come.”

Such predictions, of course, can quickly become outmoded, and Tomorrowland is constantly being revamped (the fi rst zone, for example, predicted what man would achieve by the year 1986). Each zone is subtly different — Disneyland Paris doesn’t actually have a Tomorrowland; instead, its futurescape is called Discoveryland. And if you’re sick of traipsing round ideals, don't worry — it does feature rollercoasters, including one of

the most famous of them all: Space Mountain. Although that won’t be around at the Shanghai park, which will open in December 2015, as it’ll be replaced by a ride based on Tron Legacy. That pesky future just won’t stand still. CH


DAM SANDLER IS MANY

things: actor, comedian,

musician... and now pioneer.

For Sandler is at the heart

of Netflix’s boldest move yet.

Not content with redefining

the model for TV with their all-in-one

approach to the likes of House Of Cards

and their forthcoming Marvel shows, the

streaming-service giants are getting

serious about film, announcing a four-

picture deal for Sandler, with the first

movie due to arrive in 2015 or early 2016.

The news came hot on the heels of its

controversial decision to stream Crouching

Tiger Hidden Dragon: The Green Legend

day-and-date with US cinemas. “Within

pretty short order, the four biggest theatre

chains in the US, a major European chain

and a major Canadian chain all came out

and said they wouldn’t show Crouching

Tiger 2,” says Variety’s Brent Lang. That

European chain, Cineworld, justifies its

decision in the crispest terms. “We believe

that a small-screen experience can’t

compare with [the cinematic experience]

and will not support any measure which

presents it as equal to IMAX.”

Any urge to declare this an extinction-

level event for cinemas looks premature,

but any move to compress the traditional

three-month release window is significant.

“The studio executives I talk to privately

accept that the way films are released

must change,” says Lang. “People have

got accustomed to accessing the content

they want when they want it and on their

choice of device.”

For Alex Hamilton, managing director

of eOne Films UK, the studio behind

Mr. Turner and Foxcatcher, the Sandler

news is most eye-catching. “Netflix are

very smart and they’ll know that he’s a

very reliable star on their service,” he says,

“but did we wake up the next morning

thinking those theatrical-to-DVD

distribution models had gone forever?

No. It’ll be interesting to see if Netflix

want to hire distributors to distribute

their films through other media.”

That seems unlikely. Ted Sarandos,

chief content officer at Netflix, called

the theatrical distribution model “pretty

antiquated” in a keynote speech at

MIPCOM in Cannes, and has said that

the company was ultimately looking

to make ten to 14 films a year. “You

shouldn’t expect that they will be

released theatrically at all.”

The consensus seems to be that

release windows will shrink, with

Netflix’s ambitions, fuelled by an

estimated $3 billion budget (courtesy

of 50 million global subscribers),

as a major catalyst. As Sarandos

says, succinctly, “We’re accelerating

the model by putting our money

where our mouth is...” PDS

MELISSA McCARTHY — as nailed on

as you can get. Feig loves her, having

worked with her on Bridesmaids, The

Heat and upcoming action comedy

Spy. She’s probably the closest thing

we have to a female Dan Aykroyd.

EMMA STONE — sexy, sardonic,

super-funny. She’s probably the

closest thing we have to a female

Bill Murray.

SIGOURNEY WEAVER — the fact it’s

a reboot, not a sequel, would seem

to rule out Weaver returning as Dana

Barrett. But let’s hope not — she’s

probably the closest thing we have

to a female Sigourney Weaver.

MINDY KALING — the star of The

Mindy Project is nerdy, funny, and

would totally rock a pair of specs.

Probably the closest thing we have

to a female Harold Ramis.

ERNIETTA HUDSON — this up-and-

coming young actress is sassy,

stunning and would bring the laughs.

Probably the closest thing we have

to a female Ernie Hud... WAIT

A GODDAMN MINUTE...!

WHO YA GONNA CALL?

ARE THESE THE NEW

GHOSTBUSTERS?

REPORTA

THE GLOVES COME OFFNetfl ix is getting serious about fi lm

• Above: Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon sequel The Green Legend. Below: Adam Sandler and Netfl ix’s Ted Sarandos.

> IT’S OFFICIAL — A NEW

Ghostbusters is coming, and it’s

all-female. Paul Feig, director of

Bridesmaids and The Heat, is behind

the new version, which will be

a brand-new origin story in which

the Ghostbusters are gals. So,

who are likely to be crossing the

streams come 2016? Here are

some likely contenders...

FP_EMPIRE_S3627473PE.id1443990.pgs 06.10.2014 16:03 >>AdRocket<<

F I R S T W O R DA

“I PLAYED OFF SCARFACE...”J. C. Chandor talks A Most Violent Year

OR MY THIRD FILM,” SAYS

J. C. Chandor, “I start to realise

I know what I’m doing a little bit.”

There’s a late contender for

Understatement Of The Year. After

all, Chandor’s first two movies,

financial drama Margin Call and Robert

Redford survival-at-sea thriller All Is Lost,

have established him as one of the best new

voices in American cinema. So his third,

the Sidney Lumet-ish crime drama A Most

Violent Year, in which Oscar Isaac and

Jessica Chastain are married business

owners fighting a hostile takeover in 1981

New York, is a delicious prospect. We spoke

to Chandor just after he finished the movie.

Are you happy with the film, now that

you’ve had a week to reflect?

It’s the movie I intended to make, for

better or worse. It was what was in my

head, and we were able to make it better.

What was in your head?

The film is essentially a gangster

movie, basically, but it’s playing

off of your expectations in a way,

and becomes this very intense

character study. You’re trying to

figure out who these people are,

and so are they. It’s a pivotal

month of their lives.

The title implies that it’s

a violent one.

The title refers to 1981 in

New York City which, literally

statistically speaking, was the

most violent. Geographically,

violence was spread all over

New York City. But that’s

not really what the movie is

> CHANDOR LIKES TO CHANGE gears. A Most Violent Year was a 180-degree switch from All Is Lost, which itself was the complete antithesis of Margin Call, and he’s at it again with his next movie. “I am staring at a foam 1/100 scale model of an oil rig right now,” he says. The model is a facsimile of the Deepwater Horizon, an offshore oil rig that, in 2001, was the source of the biggest oil spill in history, starting with an explosion on the rig that claimed 11 lives.

The clean-up operation took months, and shone a spotlight on the practices of the rig’s owner, BP. “It’s a really fascinating, sad, tragic event that thematically plays with things I’ve played with before, going back to Margin Call,” adds Chandor, “about capitalism pushing and pushing. In this case, your fellow countrymen at BP were pushing a little too hard.”

The movie, which will star Mark Wahlberg, will shoot early next year. “To really scare people with

how hard it is to pull oil up from 30,000 feet under the sea is challenging, but I think it will be important,” he says. “It’s one of those instances where the more I’ve learned about what actually went down, I’m like, ‘Come on! The majority of senior executives don’t really drop an ultimatum and then get on a helicopter and fl y away, do they?’ But yep, they did. There are all these things that happen where we’re going to use the truth as our Bible on it. It’ll be really cool.” CH

• Jessica Chastain and Oscar Isaac.

Below: J. C. Chandor.

GETTING DEEP

CHANDOR SPILLS

ON HIS DEEPWATER

HORIZON MOVIE

about. The thing I’m playing with is that

people go to the movies with a little bit

of a blood-lust thing. It’s not a Quentin

Tarantino movie, but it certainly is their

most violent year.

Why did you choose 1981?

I love to use facts in reality. And I had

wanted to make a period film about

an immigrant coming to the United

States. I played off of that Scarface

angle, so to speak. I knew that the ’80s

were very different from today, and ’81

was a horrible combination of things.

It was a very cold winter and a very hot

summer, and other horrible things led

to crime and more crime.

You initially had another lead in mind...

I had been meeting with Javier Bardem,

on and off, for almost a year. When he

read the first draft, he wanted a little

bit more of a black-and-white story,

but in the end the Americanness of

this character was a far more grey area.

When needed, he creates a mist around

himself. Jessica had come on board in

the interim and she brought up Oscar’s

name. She said, “Have you ever met

this guy? I went to Juilliard with him

15 years ago, he’s an amazing actor,

his mom is Guatemalan and his dad is

Cuban,” and she starts giving me this

guy’s stats! It sounded like he was born

to play this role. That’s the way the

world works sometimes.

There’s a shot in the trailer where Isaac

looks like Michael Corleone from The

Godfather Part II. Another inspiration?

They look alike, he and Pacino from

his early days, but there are a lot of

differences. But this character had

seen The Godfather! In a way, he

could not be further from a gangster,

but he’s still a businessman who

wants to be macho and who wants

to be cool. He’s been influenced by

that movie, but as a performance

Oscar has made it entirely his own. CHA MOST VIOLENT YEAR IS OUT ON JANUARY 23, 2015.


FP_EMPIRE_S3627473PE.id1444042.pgs 06.10.2014 16:06 >>AdRocket<<


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Talking of husbands, her real-life co-star is Ben Affl eck, currently busy playing the Caped Crusader in Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice. We know that Garner has seen the Batsuit, but did Affl eck practise the Bat-voice around the house? “We were not privy to the Batman voice at home, but I’ve been on set enough to hear bits of it,” reveals Garner, who seems quite taken with her other half’s Bat-tones. “It’s spot on. Growly and decisive and sexy, if I do say so myself! Exactly what you would hope it to be!”

Affl eck was less growly for his recent Ice Bucket Challenge, which saw the Argo director drag his wife into their pool. “I was not exactly in on it!” she recalls. “He has a director’s eye, so I thought when he wanted me to open the swimming pool’s cover, he just meant it would look better. So I really should have thought, “Jennifer, who are you dealing with here?” We only had one of our three kids out there and the others were so mad, we almost had to re-enact it for them.”

The 42 year-old actress stars in the adaptation of Judith Viorst’s book Alexander And The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, playing the mum of a family going through... well, you can guess the rest. “I’m a really big fan of kids’ books in general,” she says. “And this one I’ve read to my kids for fi ve or six years. I have an intimate relationship with the book!” It also reminded her of her own literary ambitions. “I loved kids’ books so much that every free minute I had I worked in the library of my school and I wanted to grow up and write.”

The fi lm fi nds her married to Steve Carell, the third screen husband she’s had in recent years after Ty Burrell (in Butter) and Joel Edgerton (in The Odd Life Of Timothy Green). “Haven’t I been married to the nicest guys on screen and off?” she laughs. “I was just texting with Joel this morning, and I adore them all. If I could rotate among the guys I’ve worked with recently, you’d never have to introduce me to anyone new.”

F I V E T H I N G SA

F I R S T W O R DA

JENNIFER GARNEROn dealing with kids, sai blades and

her husband’s “Batman voice”

SETTING SAILJoachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg talk Kon-Tiki and Pirates 5> TWENTY-TWO MONTHS HAVE

passed between the 2013 Oscars, where

Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg’s

seafaring epic, Kon-Tiki, was nominated for

Best Foreign Language Film, and its release

in the UK. But the Norwegian directing

duo have been plenty busy since, working

on Dead Men Tell No Tales, aka Pirates 5.

“We all have our heads very much into

Pirate land,” says Sandberg. “We chased

Pirates for a long time, you know,” adds

Rønning. “We had just done Kon-Tiki, but

we were wild cards. But Pirates reminds us

of the kind of movies that we grew up with.”

With the return of Captain Jack Sparrow

(“There’s no movie without Johnny Depp,”

says Rønning, while Javier Bardem is set to

sign on as the villain) not due until 2017,

they’ve had time to shape it. “We are going

back to the spirit of the first one,” says

Rønning. “Of course,” adds Sandberg, “it

will be also fantastical with supernatural

elements, but we’re going to treat it for real.”

‘Real’ was very much the keyword on

Kon-Tiki, their stunning tale of Thor

Heyerdahl’s 1947 voyage from South

America to the Polynesian islands on the

eponymous raft. “The raft we use in the

movie was built by Thor Heyerdahl’s

grandson,” says Rønning, “and he

actually travelled with that from

Peru to Polynesia in 2006 as

an anniversary expedition.”

Sandberg chimes in: “It’s

very true to the spirit of

Thor Heyerdahl.” CHKON-TIKI IS OUT ON

DECEMBER 19.

As for Garner’s own heroic past, she played Elektra in the much-maligned 2003 Daredevil and its 2005 spin-off. Does she have any advice for whomever takes over the pleather suit in Netfl ix’s take on The Man Without Fear? “Be careful of your sais! Put something on the tips when you’re practising, and always wear shoes... That comes from personal experience — I spent many, many hours twirling those stupid things...” JWALEXANDER AND THE TERRIBLE, HORRIBLE, NO GOOD, VERY BAD DAY IS OUT NOW.

FP_EMPIRE_252328Empi.id1450111.pgs 09.10.2014 09:23 >>AdRocket<<

3 4 empireonline.com

• Here: Jason Sudeikis, Charlie Day and Jason Bateman return. Below right: On set with director Sean Anders.

< A dwarf appeared in our

dreams and told us Twin

Peaks is coming back to

TV, with David Lynch

directing nine episodes for

Showtime. We checked

Twitter, and he was right.

< Toby Jones and

Bill Nighy will head

the cast of the Dad’s

Army movie, and

are currently at

an old boot camp,

learning not to panic.

Q&AA

EMPIRE GRILLS THE STARS OF HORRIBLE BOSSES 2...

“DISCIPLINE’S NOT A GOOD WORD...”

ON THERADAR

< When Robert

Downey Jr. joins Chris

Evans in Captain

America 3, based on

Marvel’s Civil War series,

he will essentially be

the sequel’s bad guy.

< A Say Anything... TV

show has been halted

in its tracks by Cameron

Crowe and John Cusack,

leaving Lloyd Dobler to

focus on his surround

sound company.

< The best part of The

Lego Movie — Will Arnett’s

Lego Batman — is getting

his own movie. Will

Superman join him in

Man Of Bricks?

HEN EMPIRE SAT

down to put a selection

of random questions to

Jason Bateman, Charlie

Day and Jason Sudeikis

— the returning stars

of Horrible Bosses 2, in which their

characters move on from planning a

murder to attempting to kidnap Chris

Pine — we had one rule, and one rule

only. Do not ask them if they’ve ever

had a horrible boss...

What is your stock answer to the question,

“Have you ever had a horrible boss?”?

Bateman: I don’t answer anymore. I just

turn to Charlie.

Day: And I just always say, “Yes. And one

of these days, I’ll remember their names.”

Sudeikis: I get it, it’s a good question.

I would speak about a manager I had

when I worked in a clothing store in

Chicago. She wasn’t a horrible boss in

that she stole money or anything, but

she just cared more than I did about

the situation.

Day: I had some bosses when I was

waiting tables, and they sucked. But

the restaurant is now gone. I took the

high road!

Sudeikis: Perhaps I was the horrible

employee. That’s wisdom.

You are bosses yourselves in real life —

have you ever had to discipline an employee?

Day: Discipline’s not a good word. We

didn’t hit anybody with a closed fist.

Bateman: Keep it open, keep it loose.

Day: Just a little whiplash slap on

the nose.

In the film, the guys think they’ll make

$5 million from their ‘Shower Buddy’

business. If you were handed that much,

what would you spend it on?

Bateman: Some high-yielding stock!

Apple stock seems like a constant safe bet.

Day: Los Angeles private school? I’d

probably just pay down a quarter of my

mortgage. I’m just kidding!

Sudeikis: I would use it to create an

art-thief contest advertised on Reddit,

offering $500,000 up front if you steal the

Mona Lisa and deliver it to my parents’

house in Kansas. They just celebrated

a wedding anniversary and I missed it,

so how else do you make up for that as

the first child?

At one point, Dale, Nick and Kurt play

Fuck, Marry, Kill. Please play that now.

Day: (To Bateman) I would fuck Sudeikis,

marry you and then kill myself!

Bateman: I’ll second that.

Day: You can’t marry Sudeikis, he won’t

be a good match.

Sudeikis: I’d marry myself, because you

can’t love anyone until you love yourself.

I’d probably kill Charlie, but then I’d

fuck Bateman to death. The Charlie

kill would be from that old wives’ tale

that if you drop a penny from the top

of the Empire State Building, it would

build up enough speed and go right

through the skull.

What’s the most surprising thing about

Chris Pine?

Day: I was surprised by how tall he is.

Bateman: I was surprised by how bald

he was.

Day: It took forever to sew that hair on.

Everything is a trilogy these days. How

would you wrap up Horrible Bosses?

Day: Maybe we’ll just skip it and go right

to the fourth.

Sudeikis: It’s just the three of us doing the

plot of Ghost — open up the final draft

file and do a find and replace. We’d want

Demi Moore back to do it. You could fill

the Whoopi character with a reality show.

Making Whoopi?

Sudeikis: Oh boy, that’s not a horrible

idea! JAMES WHITEHORRIBLE BOSSES 2 IS OUT ON NOVEMBER 28.

“REPORT VADER TO HR!”

HOW TO DEAL WITH REALLY HORRIBLE

BOSSES

> CINEMA IS LITTERED WITH bastard bosses. We approached the employment team at Prolegal Solicitors to see how best to deal with them...

My boss is a sexist pig who only promotes men and steals all of his female employees' ideas. Should I rally the girls together? — Judy

“This is sex discrimination. You might want to raise it with HR and ask them to take action about it. If other women feel the same way, you might want to speak to them about whether they would support you.”

My boss picks me up on the smallest details, like using the correct cover sheets for TPS reports. Also, he makes me work weekends on short notice. Is that mmm’kay? — Pete G. “This sounds like micromanagement. Taken to extremes, this can be a form of bullying. Speak to him about it, or speak with HR.”

I have a small desk job at a large corporation. Angered by my perceived “lack of faith”, my line manager started choking me in front of my fellow employees. Should I press charges? — A. Motti

“This sounds like a criminal assault. You might want to raise it with the police.”ALI GRAY

D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 4 EMPIRE 3 5


LAYING A DECISION

-phobic, arrested-development

twentysomething in Say When,

Keira Knightley was meant to

show off a distinctly un-adult

talent — skateboarding. Only...

she doesn’t. Not really. “I took lessons!

I wasn’t great but I was actually alright

— but then they realised that the only

time we could do it was right in the

middle of the shoot, and the insurance

wouldn’t cover it if I fucked myself up.

So I couldn’t do the actual skate thing

I’d been practising, I could only flip the

board.” She pauses. “Please tell everyone

I’m actually an amazing skateboarder.

The film doesn’t do my skills justice.”

Growth is hard to come by for

Knightley’s character, who bails on her

boyfriend for a week to move in with

a teenage girl she’s only just met (Chloë

Grace Moretz) and her charming dad

(Sam Rockwell), but the experience of

working with Lynn Shelton saw the

actress break new ground. “While I’m not

much like my character, I understood that

sort of... floating feeling,” she says. “That

constant questioning of whether you’re

doing the right thing: ‘Am I doing this

right? Should I be behaving differently?’”

Questions Knightley undoubtedly

asked herself during key scenes where

Megan makes money by swinging a giant

arrow about on the side of the road to

advertise a nearby business. “Shooting

that stuff was so guerrilla. ‘Oh shit, there’s

a street corner, can you just stand there

with the sign, and dance? Twizzle it!’” says

Knightley. “And do you know, not one

person looked at me? And there was a

fucking film crew on the

other side of the street!

And I’m really going for

it — dancing, all in white,

with a massive sign... Maybe

that’s how I should walk down

the street in London...” APSAY WHEN IS OUT ON NOVEMBER 7.

GLIMPSED! Frank Marshall — husband of Star Wars producer Kathleen Kennedy, of course — recently visited Episode VII’s Pinewood set and tweeted a picture of this Cliff Chiang poster, apparently hung up to dissuade cast, crew and visiting alum (the likes of Kevin Smith, Jon Favreau and — yes! — Roger Moore) from running their mouths off about what they’ve seen. But, as Princess Leia once said, “The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fi ngers.” Because...

LEAKED! It seems that unscrupulous Bothan spy-types have taken the vow of silence surrounding Episode VII as a challenge. Slowly but surely, details about the movie seem to be leaking out, including — spoiler! — the name of Daisy Ridley’s character (Kira), a return to Yavin IV, and rumours that Chewbacca may have a robotic hand.

But that pales into insignifi cance next to the power of the major leak, the movie’s big twist, which we’re not going to repeat here. But are these deliberate fake leaks, designed to put snoopers off the scent? Will the shroud of secrecy be loosened in an attempt to appease these virtual rebels? Or will the grip be tightened?

DELETED! The Twitter accounts of John Boyega and Daisy Ridley. Ridley, who had been rumoured to be receiving hate tweets, said goodbye, but Boyega just upped and vanished. However, his Instagram — jboyega — is still active. What does it mean? Where could they be? And just how high are their midichlorian counts?

IT’S NOT BEEN A GREAT YEAR FOR KEIRA KNIGHTLEY AND ORIGINAL TITLES. SHE SIGNED UP FOR CAN A SONG SAVE YOUR LIFE?, SHE WINDS UP IN BEGIN AGAIN. SHE JOINS THE CAST OF LAGGIES, SHE ENDS UP IN SAY WHEN. AND IT’S NOT THE FIRST TIME THIS HAS HAPPENED IN HER CAREER EITHER…

YOUNG ADULTKEIRA KNIGHTLEY REGRESSES FOR SAY WHEN

RENAMING KEIRA

• Above: Keira Knightley takes a deep breath. Below: With co-star Mark Webber.

THIS MONTH IN STAR WARS

INTERVIEWA

FP_EMPIRE_0559MAZDAE.id1465013.pgs 16.10.2014 16:03 >>AdRocket<<

3 8 empire d e c e m b e r 2 0 1 4 empireonline.com

EntEr DonE In 60 SEconDS 2015 — anD fIlmmakIng glory coulD bE yourS

avid Smith. PhiliP

Askins. Maeve Stam. Indira

Suleimenova. Mark Wong.

Those are the names of the

five extraordinarily talented

filmmakers who have won the

Jameson Empire Done In 60 Seconds

competition; who took up the gauntlet

we threw down — remake any film you

like in just one minute — and responded

in glorious, thrilling, hilarious fashion.

Next year, someone reading this very

page will join them –— and former finalist

Lee Hardcastle, now a fully fledged

filmmaker in his own right — on the DISS

honour roll. For the most challenging short

film competition on the planet is back,

bigger than ever — and all it needs is you.

The concept remains as simple as ever:

take a film — any film, be it The Tree Of

Wooden Clogs or Guardians Of The

Galaxy — and condense it into just one

minute. You can be faithful, you can be

abstract and use the source material as

This Could Be You. And You. And You.

D o n e i n 60 s e c o n D sA

• Black Swan

• There Will Be Blood

• Blade Runner • 127 Hours


> IF YOU’VE ALWAYS WANTED

to enter Done In 60 Seconds but

have been put off by a lack of

fi lmmaking kit, then don’t worry:

you’ve probably got everything

you need on you right now.

This year, we’re encouraging

entries shot on mobile phones and

tablets. Don’t be daunted by that

prospect — fi lmmaking has become

a much more attractive and accessible

prospect on devices over the last few

years, allowing directors a more

hands-on approach to getting the

shot they want. Can’t get a massive

camera or even a DSLR into a tight

space? No problem with a phone.

And now there are numerous bits

of kit, including portable Steadicam

rigs and boom mics that can be

clipped onto the device, on the

market to help you lend your mobile

masterpieces a more professional

sheen. And a myriad of apps are also

available to enhance the fi lmmaking

experience, from Horizon — an app

that helps you keep shots steady,

erasing the curse of the shaky-cam

— to MovieSlate, on which you can

log the day’s shots. And when it

comes to editing, there’s also the

likes of iMovie, on which you can cut

your one-minute movie together

without needing to upload the

footage anywhere else.

It’s in your hands. Literally.

FOR MORE DETAILS, GO TO THE DISS MICRO-

SITE AT WWW.JAMESONEMPIREDISS.COM/

loose inspiration, you can be lo-fi,

you can crank up the home-made FX,

you can be funny, you can be serious.

Just be creative, and wow us.

As ever, the competition is open

to many countries from around the

world (see right for the full list).

Can the rest of the world fight back

after the UK won in 2013 and 2014?

It’s up to you — simply head over to

www.empireonline.com/awards2015/

EASY CELL

ENTER DISS ON

YOUR MOBILE

PHONE

A R G E N T I N A B R A Z I L

B U L G A R I A C Z E C H R E P U B L I C

G R E E C E I N D I A

K A Z A K H STA NKO R E A

P O L A N DR O M A N I A

R U S S I A U K R A I N E

• Top Gun

CONTENDERS READY?ELIGIBLE COUNTRIES

• Last year’s jury members Ben Wheatley, Jon S. Baird and Edith Bowman with DISS winner David Smith.

• Team Empire fi lm The Boxtrolls in 60 seconds.

Sar

ah D

unn


DAZE OF FUTURE PASTAT I M E C A P S U L E A

DUMB AND DUMBER TO REUNITES JEFF DANIELS AND JIM CARREY 20 YEARS

AFTER THE ORIGINAL. WE ASKED DIRECTORS PETER AND BOBBY FARRELLY

TO SHARE THEIR MEMORIES OF TWO SCENES FROM BOTH MOVIES...

DUMB AND DUMBER TO 2014DUMB AND DUMBER 1994The scene: Harry and Lloyd ride into

Aspen on a scooter, where they find

they’ve turned into snot-drenched

human popsicles.

Peter: I think that was the first scene

we ever shot. We were shooting in

Breckenridge, Colorado, and we

were at 9,600 feet. The town is

fucking high, man. We needed the

snow — three days before, everything

was green and the night before, it

got dumped on. Thank God!

Bobby: We thought, “Let’s put some

boogers on their noses.” It really

sold how cold they were. It’s such a

nice reveal. The big trick for us was

not laughing, watching it on the

sidelines. Takes a little bit of doing.

Peter: We were not used to not

cracking up. We didn’t know any

better. Every night, we would show

the dailies in the bar at the hotel. I’d

go to bed at two in the morning —

I didn’t realise this was like a job, that

you should get to bed at nine

and get up and feel good the

next day! We’ve gotten

better at that over

the years.

Bobby: We

didn’t get any

smarter!

The scene: Harry and Lloyd, back

after decades apart, hop on a bike

outside their apartment and embark

on another road trip.

Bobby: That was the first day we

shot on the movie. There was that

moment where we thought, “Oh

jeez, I hope they can get back into

character.” And they did!

It was like they hadn’t

been away.

Peter: Jeff had just won

the Emmy for a

dramatic role

(on The

Newsroom).

He got on set and we gave him a

standing ovation, and I remember

him thanking everybody and shaking

his head, then this dumb look comes

over his face. And we called, “Action!”

Bobby: Yeah, he’s won the Emmy

and now he’s got his pants down,

he’s showing ass crack. I could see

the look on his face...

Peter: Talk about doing a 180!

Bobby: Jim’s grinding into him as

they ride on the bike. He always

pushes it a little too far. He’s the

alpha idiot. CHDUMB AND DUMBER TO IS OUT ON

DECEMBER 19.• Bobby and Peter.

• Above: Ghostbusters. Below: (top to bottom) Frosty The Snowman, Lone Survivor and Django Unchained.


Gary

Frie

dman

/Con

tour

by G

etty

Imag

es

What was the first movie you ever saw?

Frosty The Snowman. That was a radical

experience: I can still remember some of

the images from it, real vivid. Around the

same time, I recall seeing The Mack and

Super Fly. I’ve been a fan of movies ever

since I can remember. I would go every

Saturday and sometimes Sunday. Plenty

of times I’d see the same movie over

and over again: Rocky, Jaws, Jaws 2,

Ghostbusters. We’d stay at the movie

theatre all day.

What was the movie that inspired you

to go into films?

I loved Eddie Murphy in 48 Hrs..

That is a perfect movie. I thought he

was a badass, you know what I mean?

Eddie Murphy and Clint Eastwood

and Al Pacino in Scarface – those were

the influential movie guys for me.

What was the last movie you watched

from behind the sofa?

To this day, Jaws remains my favourite

Stars’ personal picks with Empire and Sky Movies

ICE CUBEmovie. To me, it’s just perfect in all ways.

It delivers what it says it’s going to deliver.

Pure terror! It still makes me shiver every

time I’m near the water, man.

What was the last movie that made you

cry with laughter?

Ride Along! I enjoyed it, even though

I’m in it and I produced it. It’s still

a great movie. It came out funnier

than on the page.

What was the last movie that made

you fight back the tears?

I usually don’t like movies that pull

up those kinds of emotions! I saw this

movie with Mark Wahlberg, an army

movie called Lone Survivor. That

was a hardcore movie. Intense.

What was the last movie that made the

hairs on the back of your neck stand on end?

The Shining. I’m a big fan of psychological

horror, and that’s a perfect movie about

the horror of a family member trying to

kill you. Seven is brilliantly done

and has a nice creepy factor.

Another favourite of mine is

the first X-Files movie.

What was the last movie that

surprised you?

Django Unchained. I thought

I was going to hate it, because

I usually hate slave movies.

They make you feel bad

about yourself. But it turned

out great.

What was the last movie you

couldn’t stop thinking about?

My wife and I watch stuff

together, and the last Blu-ray

we checked out was The Place

Beyond The Pines. It was a trip

how the movie was focused

on one guy, and then he gets

killed and it flips focus to

the officer who killed him.

It’s two movies in one!

I never expected that.

What will be the next movie

you see?

The Hobbit: The Battle Of

The Five Armies. The Lord

Of The Rings and Hobbit

movies are picture-perfect

— they’re put together as

well as movies can be.

I’ve been following it

from the beginning.

I’m looking forward

to the spectacle.

WATCH ICE CUBE IN THREE KINGS, AVAILABLE ON SKY MOVIES. TO DISCOVER WHAT ELSE IS AVAILABLE, HEAD OVER TO SKYMOVIES.COM. THE BOOK OF LIFE IS OUT NOW AND IS REVIEWED ON PAGE 56.

AND

PRESENT

MY MOVIE LIFEMY MOVIE LIFE

For more, head to empireonline.com/mymovielife


F YOU’RE SICK OF THE

sparklier brand of vampires that

have been flapping around your

multiplex of late, help is at hand in

the shape of the stars of What We

Do In The Shadows, a bat-on-the-

wall mockumentary that is our favourite

New Zealand horror comedy since Peter

Jackson parked his blood-soaked Flymo.

The head of the pack is Viago, a

379 year-old dandy (currently living in

the Wellington suburb of Te Aro, New

Zealand), who’s the kind of fiend who

puts down absorbent sheets before he

fangs a neck. His prissiness regularly

has him butting heads with his three

similarly-undead-but-distinctly-less-

chore-focused flatmates: Vladislav,

the sexy one, aged 862; Deacon, the

cool one, aged a mere 183; and Petyr,

the scary one, aged approximately

8,000 years old. Give or take a few

centuries here and there.

That’s the roll call taken care of,

but the entirely mortal humans

behind the project are writer-

directors Taika Waititi and

Jemaine Clement, and they’re

keen to point out they came

up with the idea well before

Edward Cullen saw his

first glitter pen.

“When we first made the short this is

based on in 2006, we were like, ‘Vampires?

That’s pretty ’70s!’” says Clement, best-

known as one half of Flight Of The

Conchords, and who’s been working with

Waititi for years. “After a while we were

like, ‘Ah, vampires are cool now!’ and

then, ‘Ah, vampires, yeah!’ When we

finally got round to actually making the

film, everyone would roll their eyes when

we mentioned what we were doing. Now,

eight years on, it’s late enough that people

were ready to make fun of vampires.”

“I was just worried that someone

would do it before we did,” adds

Waititi. “Well, someone did,” says

Clement. “There was a Belgian

film in 2010 called Vampires,

which is a documentary about,

um, vampires. Its tagline was

something like: ‘Not scary,

not sexy, not trendy... Just

Belgian.’” “Oh shit,” Waititi

deadpans. “Ah well.”

JEMAINE? PRESENT. VAMPIRES? PRESENT. BUCKETS OF BLOOD? PRESENT. WELCOME TO WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS...

• Viago and Deacon pose with a picture of Noel Fielding.

• The new Shadows: Vladislav (Jemaine Clement), Viago (Taika Waititi), Petyr (Ben Fransham), Deacon (Jonathan Brugh), Nick (Cori Gonzalez-Macuer) and Stu (Stuart Rutherford).

I N S I D E S T O R YA

BITE OF THE CONCHORDS

subscribe at www.empireonline.com/sub M O N T H 2 0 1 4 EMPIRE 4 3

“Some interviews with some vampires”

is What We Do In The Shadows’ tagline

— perfectly reflecting the film’s Office-

like, flying-about-the-house-as-you-do-

the-hoovering, “Can someone clean the

dried blood out of the sink?” tone — but

it isn’t quite fair, because WWDITS (as

no-one calls it) also features werewolves,

led by another Conchordian, Rhys Darby.

“I remember asking him, ‘Do you

wanna be a werewolf? It’s quite a manly

part,’” says Waititi. “And he said, ‘Sure,

okay.’” Darby’s not-actually-that-manly

pack leader’s main job is to repeat the

mantra, “Werewolves, not swearwolves!”

as he tries to calm his fellow furries and

delay their transformation when they

start dropping curse words and getting

lairy (and hairy) in response to the

vampires’ childish sledging.

“Those insult scenes were pretty

long,” says Clement. “The whole film’s

improvised, so those werewolf sections

went on for about ten minutes longer

than they should have. And no-one

really knew when to say cut, because

we were in character. Sometimes

we would try and direct with our

characters: ‘No, let’s go now!’, ‘Say

that again!’, ‘If I were you I would

point the camera at that guy!’”

“We’d love to do a follow-on

short about the werewolves, and call

it What We Do In The Moonlight,”

says Waititi with a smile. “Following

the werewolves around and seeing

how their wives chain them up

at night. You know, on those

‘special occasions’.”

“I think Peter Jackson should

have a cameo,” adds Clement,

already casting Empire’s next editor

(see page 122) in his mind’s eye.

“He would actually love to do that.

He’s always dressing up as zombies

and things like that...” ALI PLUMB

WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS IS OUT ON

NOVEMBER 21.

CLEMENT AND WAITITI PICK THEIR BLOODY INSPIRATIONS

WHAT TO WATCH BEFORE

WATCHING WHAT WE DO IN THE

SHADOWS

> ASK JEMAINE CLEMENT

and Taika Waititi to pick a list of their favourite vampire movies, as a primer ahead of What We Do In The Shadows, and you get a typically deadpan response. “I’d put Only Lovers Left Alive in,” says Waititi. “Though I haven’t seen it. I’m imagining it’s a little like The Hunger, but maybe funnier.”

Poke away, though, and the duo soon reveal a fi ne list of fl icks about fanged fi ends. There’s Tomas Alfredson’s Let The Right One In, of course, and Tom Holland’s original Fright Night (“That’s pretty special to me,” says

Clement), while Waititi waves the fl ag for The Lost Boys and — yes! — Wesley Snipes as Blade. “I think that’s one of the best ones.”

But there’s also a hint of the old-school in What We Do In The Shadows that can be traced all the way back to the greatest Dracula of them all — Christopher Lee.

“The first one I ever saw was Scars Of Dracula,” says Clement. “It starts off with a skeleton being resurrected by a bat dropping blood onto it. That gave me nightmares for about ten years. I used to have a lot of nightmares about vampires chasing me...” CH

MICHAEL CAINE EXPLAINS THE PLOT

AN IMAX BITHANS ZIMMER

GOES BRAAAAAAAAHM

MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY WITH HIS SHIRT

OFF (HELLO, LADIES)

MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY WITH HIS SHIRT

ON (HELLO, OSCAR)

SOMEONE IN AN INTER SHIRT

DRINKING STELLA

SPACETIME SPACETIME

SOMEONE SAYS, “LET’S GET OUT

OF HERE!”

THEY GET OUT OF THERE

CHEWBACCA

THIS MONTH:INTERSTELLAR

HOW MANY WILL YOU TICK OFF?

• Fright Night


Stev

e Ca

rty/C

onto

ur b

y Get

ty Im

ages

M O O R EFA C T S !A

> He suffers

from hoplophobia

— a fear of

fi rearms.

> He was the

8,000,000th

passenger on

Air France.

> He was

credited as

Turk Thrust II

in Curse Of The

Pink Panther.

HOW MUCHIS A PINTOF MILK?

Q & AA

He’s keeping the bovine end up

SIR ROGER MOORE

How much is a pint of milk? Do I look

like a cow?

Do you do your own shopping? In

Switzerland I do, but not in the South

of France. I like to find things. My wife

despairs when I go shopping with her

because I buy everything.

What is the most you’ve spent on a pair

of shoes? Interesting question. I don’t

know why. It was in 1960-something in

Rome with Bob Baker, producer of The

Persuaders, and for my sins — I wouldn’t

do it today, but back then I didn’t think

about it — I wanted to buy a pair of

crocodile shoes. I went into a shop and

afterwards Bob said, “How much?” I said,

“£70 or £80.” He said, “For the pair?”

I said, “No, each shoe.”

Were these the same crocodile shoes that

you wore in Live And Let Die? They were

another pair that I shouldn’t have worn.

Crocodiles, funnily enough, enjoyed eating

them. Little bloody cannibals, they are.

Who did you play in your first school play?

I never did a play at school. I had to read

a lot, recite The Revenge, Lord Alfred

Tennyson. The acting bug didn’t bite

me until I actually did my audition for

RADA. I did The Revenge because

I knew that. “Sink me the ship, Master

Gunner — sink her, split her in twain!

Fall into the hands of God, not into the

hands of Spain!” The other thing was

it off and I flew across the room with

my backside in flame. Everybody was

laughing, they thought it was great, until

they realised it was real flames coming

out, and I wasn’t just lighting a fart.

Do you have a nickname? Michael Caine

calls me ‘Rog’. I call him ‘Sir Morrie

Micklewhite’. That was his real name,

Maurice Micklewhite.

When did you last walk out of a movie?

I don’t think I’ve ever walked out of

a movie. I like watching even bad films.

I’m always happy to see someone who’s

worse than I am.

On a scale of one to ten, how hairy is your

arse? I’ve never had a look. Would you

like to have a look? (Turns to PR) Would

you have a look?

What one thing do you do better than

anyone else? Very little. CHRIS HEWITTROGER MOORE’S NEW AUTOBIOGRAPHY, LAST MAN

STANDING, IS OUT NOW.

I quoted a speech from The Silver Box,

Galsworthy. (Adopts Cockney accent)

“It was a bank holiday and I saw this

young Mr. Barthwick trying to find

a keyhole on the wrong side of the

door, and so I helped him.”

What’s the best thing you’ve ever stolen

from a hotel? I once said I stole towels

because I was bored with an interview.

I was very stupid to say that because

now I notice when I go into hotels they’ve

taken all the towels out. I’ve nicked

a couple of flannels from time to time.

Do you clean your own bathroom? Good

God, no. Though if it’s gone down the

side of the pan, I’m not going to leave it

for someone else.

Do people ever quote your lines back at you

in the street? Oh sure. “My name is...”

Which movie scared you as a child? Snow

White And The Seven Dwarfs. The witch

was terrifying.

Have you got any scars? Yes, I have three

holes in my backside, where most people

have one. I got blown up on The Spy

Who Loved Me, when Curt Jürgens fires

a missile at me through a tube underneath

the table. I very stupidly said, “I think

I should be sitting in the chair instead of

standing behind it,” which had a steel back

so I was protected. The special effects

team, with a little touch of anxiety, let

FP_EMPIRE_EmpireSkyH.id1460411.pgs 15.10.2014 11:03 >>AdRocket<<

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EV ERY NEW MOVIE REVIEWED AND R ATED >

MORTEN TYLDUM’S LAST

movie was Headhunters, a slick,

sick and witty thriller that suggested a

solid future in Hollywood despatching

the likes of Mark Wahlberg and

Liam Neeson down dark American

alleyways in pursuit of smirking

Eurovillains. And yet here we find

the Norwegian director only a little

further west, dealing with cut-glass

Queen’s English accents, cucumber-

sandwich picnics on immaculate

lawns, and a very Union-Jack-bunting

story of polite wartime triumph.

On the surface, The Imitation

Game is the kind of crisp, British

prestige piece you could suspect

of cashing in on Downton fever

(one character is played by Allan

Leech, aka Tom Branson), while

passing off TV’s Sherlock (Benedict

Cumberbatch) in the guise of another

stand-offish, mystery-solving genius.

But if you know even a little about

Alan Turing, you’ll know not to trust

such a smooth surface. You’ll also

understand that Tyldum’s latest film

— from a script on the 2011 Black

List — isn’t such a crazily far cry

from the murky, pacy Headhunters.

Tyro screenwriter Graham Moore

couldn’t have made a more impressive

debut. It’s a tight and wiry plot with

barely an ounce of fat on its bones.

There is a gripping rhythm to it,

each scene a loud finger-snap which

draws you back and forth between

a trio of elegantly entwined narrative

strands: 1) Turing’s arrival at Hut 8 in

Bletchley Park and his cerebrally

Herculean efforts to crack the ever-

mutating Enigma code, by which

A

RELEASED November 14CERTIFICATE TBCDIRECTOR Morten TyldumCAST Benedict Cumberbatch, Keira Knightley, Matthew Goode, Charles Dance, Rory KinnearRUNNING TIME 113 mins.PLOT The true story of how Alan Turing (Cumberbatch) and a team of cryptanalysts at Bletchley Park during World War II struggled to crack the Nazis’ naval code, and thereby help the Allies win the war. A

A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an Enigma machine

THE IMITATION GAME


the movie guide: Unmissable HHHHH excellent HHHH Good HHH Poor HH traGic H

october 31-november 28

• Genius: Benedict Cumberbatch as odd duck/expert

puzzle-solver Alan Turing.

Over 14,000 reviews on empireonline.com


• Keira Knightley plays cryptanalyst Joan Clarke — Turing’s

“platonic love”.no.1

no.2

no.3

no.4

Rory Kinnear’s Inspector Nock is a Äctional character named after screenwriter Graham Moore’s roommate.

The real codebreaking machine — the bombe — is housed in a Bakelite box. The filmmakers decided against letting you see its innards.

Derek Jacobi previously played Turing in the TV movie Breaking The Code.

It is an urban myth that the apple that poisoned Turing is the inspiration for the Apple logo. Apple has denied this.

German U-boats communicated;

2) the 1951 police investigation into

the professor for his homosexuality,

which was then still criminal in the

UK; 3) Turing’s schoolboy years

in the late ’20s, where he had to

contend with both vicious bullying

and forbidden love.

At times there are concessions to

convention, on-the-nose scenes which

feel like they’re pushing a neat point

rather than relaying reality (putting

a Bletchley codebreaker’s sibling on

a suddenly doomed battleship, for

example), while certain historical

facts, such as the Polish influence on

the mechanics of British wartime

cryptanalysis, are overlooked.

Yet all this is hard to berate.

Compare The Imitation Game with

2001’s Enigma, another Bletchley-

based thriller (a fictionalisation

of the cypher-cracking efforts by

Turing’s team), and it’s like racing a

thoroughbred against an asthmatic

nanny-goat — almost embarrassing

how much better this is, despite

Enigma’s Michael Apted/Tom

Stoppard/Robert Harris pedigree.

Moore’s opening line, spoken by

Cumberbatch, is, “Are you paying

attention?” After a few minutes you’ll

realise it’s virtually impossible not to.

The key to The Imitation Game’s

success is the way it seamlessly

combines its thriller and biopic

elements: the story of Turing, it

posits, is the story of the Enigma

codebreaking. If you leave him out

of it you might as well be making

U-571. There’s more, too. It’s also,

in part, the story of the birth of

artificial intelligence (Turing being

the bona fide genius whose ‘Turing

machine’ pre-empted the computer),

and a platonic love story which deals

with Turing’s very real relationship

with fellow cryptanalyst Joan Clarke

(Keira Knightley). Plus, amid all its

talk of crosswords and algorithms,

there are four puzzles happening at

once: 1) the main puzzle of the code,

which is energised by the fact that

every attempt to crack it before the

Nazis change it up is a desperate,

matter-of-life-and-death race

against the clock; 2) the puzzle of

the Soviet spy who may or may not

number among Hut 8’s workers;

3) the puzzle of the 1951 reported

break-in to the inscrutable professor’s

home in Manchester, during which

nothing was stolen; 4) the puzzle of

Alan himself — who is this “odd

duck”? What makes him tick? Why

is he so rude? “The problem,” he

narrates of his childhood, “began

with the carrots...”

... And ends, in 1954, with a

cyanide-laced apple. There is tragedy

at both ends of the chronology,

and connecting them is Benedict

Cumberbatch, delivering his finest

big-screen performance yet. He

seethed as the übermenschy Khan in

Star Trek Into Darkness, he roared

as the vainglorious Smaug in the

last Hobbit movie, but here he folds

in on himself and buttons that dark-

tinged charisma right down. It might

not be an entirely accurate portrayal

(the real Turing doesn’t appear to

have been quite so walled-in), yet

Cumberbatch’s almost paradoxical

blend of supreme self-confidence

and intense shyness rings true,

especially in the way the peerless

logician’s mind of his Turing can’t

always process the confusions of

human interaction (“People talking

never say what they mean”).

Turing didn’t have the easiest

professional relationship with his

military superiors and Cumberbatch

clearly relishes those moments in the

script where Moore milks this for

dramatic effect. The first encounter

between Turing and Bletchley’s

Commander Alastair Denniston

(Charles Dance, giving it a bit of

Tywin) must rank as one of cinema’s

most delicious job interview scenes:

“Are you a bloody pacifist?!”

Denniston seethes incredulously,

after Turing displays his customary

lack of tact. In Cumberbatch’s sure

hands, Turing is less a force of

nature than a passionate force of

logic and integrity — a bold and

beautiful mind. He displays far more

than an Oscar-baiting repertoire of

tics and twitches. There is a bright,

burning inner life in evidence, too,

taking us beyond the flashbacks,

flash-forwards and neat dialogue

beats. It’s a tough thing to perform,

but Cumberbatch aces it.

Is it a complete portrayal? No. The

fact that Turing’s close friendship

with Joan Clarke is given more

prominence than his homosexual

relationships has already elicited

disapproving tuts. His further, post-

War work on computers is skimmed

over. But does it need to be complete?

Again, we return to the core

strength of Tyldum’s film: that it

pursues the dramatic twists and

turns while exploring the man. It

remains a supremely impressive

balancing act, and no less a tribute

to a truly great Briton for that.

Turing wasn’t granted a pardon

for his ‘crime’ until last year. That

it’s taken so long for a fitting

cinematic testament to his brilliance

is very much mitigated by the fact

that The Imitation Game is one of

the most entertaining and engaging

films of the year so far. DAN JOLIN

Averdict A

A superb thriller and a worthy biopic of a real hero. It’s also simultaneously an encouraging follow-up for Headhunters’ Morten Tyldum, an impressive debut for screenwriter Graham Moore, and a big-screen career highlight for Benedict Cumberbatch. HHHH

Penny Dreadful © Showtime Networks Inc. All Rights Reserved. SHOWTIME is a registered trademark of Showtime Networks Inc.© 2014 CBS Studios Inc. CBS and related logos are trademarks of CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. © MCMXCII Bonne Question. All Rights Reserved. TM, ® & © by Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved.TM & © 2014 Twin Peaks Productions, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

ON DVD & BLU-RAY™

ON BLU-RAY™

Empire_Magazine_PressAd_220x285_PennyDreadful_TwinPeaks_00.indd 1 07/10/2014 12:12

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• Bloody marvellous: Taika Waititi

as dandy Viago.

WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWSSpinal Tapping the vein

A

RELEASED November 21

CERTIFICATE 15

DIRECTORS Jemaine Clement,

Taika Waititi

CAST Taika Waititi, Jemaine

Clement, Jonathan Brugh, Cori

Gonzalez-Macuer, Jackie van Beek,

Stuart Rutherford, Ben Fransham

RUNNING TIME 85 mins.

PLOT A fi lm crew from the New

Zealand Documentary Board follows

a quartet of house-sharing vampires

as they prepare for Wellington’s big

undead social event of the year: The

Unholy Masquerade.

A

COMEDY IS LITTERED WITH

manchildren, scattered across the

genre like discarded LEGO bricks

in a playroom. Most these days are

played by Will Ferrell (including

one, coincidentally, in a movie

almost entirely made from LEGO

bricks). At their worst, they’re little

more than selfish, offensive douches

whose repulsive egotism is supposed

to be endearing. But at their best,

they’re preposterous, glorious idiots:

walking comedy goldmines like

Derek Zoolander, Ron Burgundy,

Buster Bluth, Tracy Jordan and

Peep Show’s Jez.

With What We Do In The

Shadows, Kiwi filmmakers Taika

Waititi (Eagle Vs Shark) and

Jemaine Clement (the non-Muppet-

songwriting half of Flight Of The

Conchords) have made a brilliant

connection: what are vampires if

not the ultimate manchildren? They

suggest that being undead must

be the ultimate state of arrested

development — it’s ‘living’ without

aging, after all. So much so, their

characters are not only permafrozen

in immaturity, like neverending

students, but also effectively fish

out of their generational waters,

as clueless about fashion as they

are information technology.

As with all the highest gag-hit-

rate jaunts, the plot is loose and

sparse. It’s primarily a character

piece that puts the jokes and

characters first. There is Viago

(Taika Waititi), a 379 year-old

dandy and die-never romantic

who can’t abide clutter; Deacon

(Jonathan Brugh), 183 years old,

seedy and self-absorbed, like a has-

been rock star forever lost in the

reverie of his heyday; Vladislav

(Clement), 862 years old and

“a bit of a pervert”, but sensitive

enough to realise he probably

shouldn’t be torturing people in his

dungeon anymore; and Petyr (Ben

Fransham), a full-Max Schreck

8,000 year-old monster who lives

(of course) in the basement. Then

into their uncomfortably balanced

lives crashes boorish local bloke

Nick (Cori Gonzalez-Macuer), who

is accidentally turned and responds

to his newfound supernatural power

by running down the streets of

Wellington and yelling, “I am

TWILIGHT!” as a chat-up line.

Among the film’s many treats,

you’ll witness a bat-fight, ineffective

hypnosis, a pack of werewolves (not

swearwolves) led by Rhys Darby,

a ghost cup and buckets-upon-

buckets of blood. Perhaps this is the

most surprising thing about What

We Do In The Shadows: despite its

ironically warm heart and likable

characters, it doesn’t stint on the

horror and gore elements. These

guys feast on the innocent, and at

times it’s no less gruesome than it

is hilarious. It’s almost as if we’re

back in the early, viscera-gobbling

days of Peter Jackson.

AVERDICT A

Here it is at long last: a truly great

vampire comedy. And also the funniest

horror fi lm to come out of New Zealand

since Braindead. ★★★★

Part of the joke is that such

dark goings-on are happening

somewhere so mundane, so its

reference points often feel a bit

parochial. Yet this all feeds into its

charm; gags about Slough hardly

hurt the international success of

The Office, and you don’t need an

intimate knowledge of Wellington’s

night life to find the vampires’ bar-

hopping scenes amusing. Presented

in a mockumentary format that

worked so well for Christopher Guest

in the likes of Waiting For Guffman

and Best In Show (not to mention

Rob Reiner’s saggy, long-haired

archdruid of the subgenre, This Is

Spinal Tap), and boasting a great

line in vampire/horror parody which

riffs on everything from Nosferatu to

The Lost Boys to Blade to Twilight,

What We Do In The Shadows

doubtless ranks alongside the bigger-

budget likes of 22 Jump Street and

The Inbetweeners 2 in the ‘2014’s

Best Comedy’ stakes. DAN JOLIN

Freederm.co.uk

FOR SPOT-PRONE SKIN

FP_EMPIRE_0034310Fre.id1459084.pgs 14.10.2014 13:54 >>AdRocket<<



A

RELEASED November 14CERTIFICATE 15DIRECTOR Michaël R. RoskamCAST Tom Hardy, Noomi Rapace, James Gandolfini, Matthias Schoenaerts, John Ortiz RUNNING TIME 105 mins.PLOT Brooklyn bartender Bob (Hardy) does the bidding of his belligerent cousin-nominal boss Marv (Gandolfini), who lost the bar to gangsters using it as a ‘drop’ for illegal takings. But a robbery puts them in a tight spot, just as lonely Bob’s personal life is on an upturn.A

time) have taken over the ’hood

using intimidation, extortion and

racketeering. People who irk them

end up in bits in dripping bin bags.

And an apparently ordinary schlub,

seemingly none-too-bright, glimpses

a better life within his grasp if he

can extricate himself from crime,

violence and dark history.

Tom Hardy’s quiet, kind-hearted

Bob Saginowski isn’t entirely what

he seems. He keeps his head down at

the bar and takes out the trash, bullied

by James Gandolfini’s loudmouth

Marv (a little lamentably, given it’s

immigrant (Noomi Rapace’s Nadia).

Belgian hotshot Michaël R.

Roskam, who made a splash with

Bullhead, makes his American

debut with a strong cast (including

Bullhead’s Matthias Schoenaerts as

a persistently nerve-wracking psycho

who claims ownership of abused

dog and abused woman) and a

good instinct for suspense. Dennis

Lehane (whose usual beat, Boston,

gave us Mystic River and Gone

Baby Gone) adapted the screenplay

from his short story, Animal Rescue,

and while he has fleshed it out

with characters and sub-plots, these

don’t go anywhere particularly. It

does feel stretched out, thinner than

the episodes he wrote for The Wire.

It’s Hardy’s deceptive, sympathetic

performance that really distinguishes

this from any number of competent

but routine crime-gone-awry

dramas. ANGIE ERRIGO

Averdict A

The cute puppy almost steals the show but Hardy is ace and quite the watchable chameleon in his surprising switch from lovable dumb ox to cannier-than-we- thought. HHH

his final performance, his default

mode). Bob turns a blind eye when

the Chechens’ couriers furtively slip

deposits (cash for laundering from

illegal enterprises) under the bar.

After the bar is raided by two masked

characters with shotguns, both the

peeved Chechens and the piqued

cops take too close an interest in the

joint, its denizens and the missing

loot. This is very not good for Marv

or Bob. Meanwhile Bob rescues

a battered puppy dog abandoned

in a rubbish bin and bonds sweetly

over its care with a nice, intriguing

> Much of this working-

class Brooklyn tale covers familiar

ground. Heavily accented, highly

unpleasant gangsters (Chechen this

The SkeleTon TwinS Brother/Sister Act

Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us. It’s a

joyous moment, the standout scene

in the film and perhaps exactly what

you’d expect from a Wiig/Hader

team-up, two Saturday Night Live

alumni goofing off to the max.

Only the film that surrounds the

singsong doesn’t really conform to

the template, for The Skeleton Twins

is a perfectly played, beautifully

modulated study in complex brother-

sister relationships and barely

concealed pain. After a double

suicide attempt, the film brings the

distant siblings together, eking out

the hurt in their private lives —

Maggie is a serial cheater on husband

Lance (a relentlessly can-do Luke

Wilson); Milo tries to rekindle a

relationship with Rich (Ty Burrell),

the English teacher who seduced

him in school — but finding more

fertile ground in their reconnection.

As you’d expect, Wiig and Hader

have a rooted rapport and the film

is good on siblings: the rivalries, the

shared sense of humour and the

effortless ability to push each other’s

buttons. Hader skirts close to gay

caricature but pulls it back, allying

depth and darkness to catty one-

liners; Wiig juggles comedic lightness

with emotional heft, showing every

sign she is capable of becoming one

of the dramatic greats. Together,

the pair nail both the estrangement

and the gradual realisation that

they are the only people who

might understand each other.

Occasionally the film edges

towards indie-by-numbers (an

eccentric mother figure, water

symbolism 101). It also owes a debt

to You Can Count On Me. Still, the

film boasts an appealing autumnal

look and Johnson gives his leads

space to play. When Wiig and Hader

are on together, be it arguing in the

street or inhaling laughing gas in a

dentist’s office, The Skeleton Twins

comes alive. IAN FREER

Averdict A An engaging comedy drama lifted by two revelatory performances. Wiig in particular suggests an Academy Award-winner-in-waiting. HHHH

A

RELEASED November 7CERTIFICATE 15DIRECTOR Craig JohnsonCAST Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader, Luke Wilson, Ty BurrellRUNNING TIME 93 mins.PLOT After they separately try and fail to commit suicide, estranged twins Maggie (Wiig), a discontented dental hygienist, and Milo (Hader), a gay, failed actor, reconnect as Maggie invites Milo to move into her upstate New York home with regular-guy husband Lance (Wilson).A

The DRoPCrooklyn Nights

• Maggie (Kristen Wigg) and Milo (Bill Hader): not skeletons.

> About hAlfwAy through

The Skeleton Twins, Craig Johnson’s

warm and funny look at siblings in

meltdown, Bill Hader’s Milo coaxes

his twin, Kristen Wiig’s Maggie,

into lip-synching along to Starship’s

• Money. The root of all evil for Tom

Hardy’s Bob.

BLACULA_Empire_advert.indd 1 08/09/2014 11:43

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> ROGER EBERT, DEBATABLY

the most famous film critic the

world has ever seen, had a life as

dramatic as many of the movies at

which he wielded his thumbs. The

HOCKNEYDETAILS 15/112 mins./November 28 DIRECTOR Randall Wright CAST David Hockney, Paul DuBois

> WHEN IT COMES TO DAVID

Hockney, art and artist are inseparable: for six decades, his life’s been chronicled on canvas, Polaroid, even iPad. What’s left to say about the self-expressionist? Plenty, it turns out. Granted access to home movies and gossipy friends, Randall Wright’s incisive portrait reveals a survivor shielded by his own restless, rebellious talent. Hockney famously found his voice in LA without ever losing his Bradford accent: that paradox, Wright suggests, is why work as luminous as A Bigger Splash also shimmers with a hidden edge. Warm, candid and very funny, you couldn’t ask for a more vibrant entry point to one of pop-art’s enduring icons. SC ★★★★

LEVIATHANDETAILS TBC/140 mins./November 7DIRECTOR Andrey Zvyagintsev CAST Elena Lyadova, Vladimir Vdovichenkov, Aleksey Serebryakov

> UNTIL A JOB BIOPIC IS GREENLIT — next Thursday, at the current rate of Bible adaptations — Andrey Zvyagintsev’s modern parable of a working man crushed beneath the wheels of the Russian state is a spellbinding alternative. As in his haunting debut, The Return, long takes languidly capture the solemn beauty of the Russian landscape, but it’s the slow crumpling of protagonist Nikolai (Aleksey Serebryakov), as church, government and judiciary gang up to rob him of his most prized possession, that will leave a longer, angrier impression. Not appearing on Putin’s DVD shelf anytime soon. PDS ★★★★★

THE HOMESMANDETAILS 15/123 mins. /November 21DIRECTOR Tommy Lee Jones CAST Tommy Lee Jones, Hilary Swank

> THAT TOMMY LEE JONES IS AN accomplished artist behind the camera should come as no surprise to anyone who’s seen The Three Burials Of Melquiades Estrada. Still, the grizzled star is perhaps not the fi rst name you’d expect to direct a feminist Western — which is what this exquisitely shot adventure initially appears to be, with Hilary Swank on stonily strong form as heroine Mary Bee Cuddy, who recruits Jones’ outlaw to escort a trio of traumatised women. Pity, then, that a jarring mid-fi lm twist pushes it into more conventional cowboy territory, but Jones has still fashioned another handsome Western for the thinking man (and woman). GL ★★★

THE BOOK OF LIFEDETAILS U/95 mins./Out nowDIRECTOR Jorge R. GutierrezCAST (VOICES) Diego Luna, Zoe Saldana, Channing Tatum, Ron Perlman

> THOUGH HE SERVES ONLY AS

producer, Guillermo del Toro’s fi ngerprints seem to be all over this animated romantic-comedy woven around the Mexican Day Of The Dead. Childhood friends Manolo (Diego Luna) and Joaquin (Channing Tatum) both love Maria (Zoe Saldana), and their romantic rivalry has caught the eyes of Xibalba (Ron Perlman) and La Muerte (Kate del Castillo), rulers of the two kingdoms of the dead, who take bets on the victor. The lively story is animated in an appealing wooden-puppet style, and while the script doesn’t zing as much as the colourful visuals, it’s cute and likable. OR ★★★

A

RELEASED November 14CERTIFICATE TBCDIRECTOR Steve JamesCAST Roger Ebert, Chaz Ebert, Gene Siskel, Martin Scorsese, Werner HerzogRUNNING TIME 120 mins.PLOT The 70-year life of legendary fi lm critic Roger Ebert, charted and celebrated. With contributions from his friends, family, peers and those he reviewed, plus previously unseen footage from both his prime years and fi nal days.A

owlish son of a bookkeeper and an

electrician, he found fame as critic for

the Chicago Sun Times, co-hosted

a massively popular TV show (with

Gene Siskel), survived alcoholism,

wrote a Russ Meyers B pic (Beyond

The Valley Of The Dolls) and was

lampooned in Roland Emmerich’s

Godzilla: the incompetent governor

of New York is named Mayor Ebert

— Ebert responded by writing: “They

let us off lightly; I fully expected to

be squished like a bug by Godzilla.”

It’s that good humour which

is most evident in Life Itself, an

Corliss recalls the jeremiad he

wrote in response to the Siskel &

Ebert show, Martin Scorsese disses

Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls

and Siskel’s widow talks through the

two critics’ tempestuous relationship.

Best of all is the grainy footage

of the duo — the Bert and Ernie

of the film-criticism world —

squabbling like kids in outtakes.

“You couldn’t create Siskel and

Ebert if you were Frankenstein!”

marvels someone who was there.

The life of a film critic is an

unlikely subject for a documentary:

it’s an occupation, after all, that

involves sitting in chairs for long

periods, frantically typing and

occasionally vying for free pastries.

But Ebert is an unlikely man, a big-

hearted philosopher who managed

to inspire millions simply by watching

films and then writing down his

thoughts about them. Life Itself

does him justice. NICK DE SEMLYEN

AVERDICT A

A clear-eyed celebration of a giant of

fi lm writing. We’ll refrain from the

thumb jokes, but consider this a hearty

recommendation. ★★★★

insightful, very moving film by Steve

James, whose 1994 documentary

Hoop Dreams Ebert awarded four

stars out of four. Ebert allowed

James full access to his hospital

ward as he suffered through the

final stages of thyroid and salivary

gland cancer; though hugely

diminished and unable to speak, the

Chicago legend still has a twinkle in

his eye and a way with a joke.

While warm, it’s no hagiography:

the talking heads take their cue

from their subject’s famously plain-

speaking style. Time critic Richard

The Critics’ Choice

LIFE ITSELF

• The much-respected

Roger Ebert at work.

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> James Brown prided

himself on many things — humility

was hardly one of his virtues — but

one of the self-applied accolades

he touted the most was his rep as

‘The Hardest Working Man In

Show Business’. And as a man

with 94 U.S.-charting hit singles

to his name, who barely stopped

performing his entire adult life, it

was no hollow boast. So any biopic

tackling Brown would need to take

a creative approach to cram even

half of it in. And Tate ‘The Help’

Taylor’s Get On Up (co-written by

Edge Of Tomorrow’s Jez and John-

Henry Butterworth) is nothing if

not bold and inventive.

It begins with a semi-comical

routine set in 1988, involving a

woman crapping in a toilet, a self-

help business course and a raging,

crack-addled, shotgun-toting

Minister Of New New Super Heavy

Funk. Then it timewarps to 20 years

earlier, over the skies of Vietnam,

where Mr. Brown and his band draw

fire from the enemy and screech

down a military-base runway with

a flaming engine. Then it whips back

to 1939 and Brown’s impoverished

shack-in-the-bayou childhood, then

forward to 1964 to the star’s celebrated

appearance on the T.A.M.I. show,

where he upstaged The Rolling

Stones. (Mick Jagger is a producer

on the film, so the inclusion of a

rock-biopic cliché where the young

Stones are called “instant has-beens”

is semi-forgivable as an in-joke.)

All the while, Mr. Brown himself,

in the totally impressive form of

Chadwick Boseman, acts as our

host, delivering that husky jabber-

patter to camera, hard-selling the

legend (and who knows, maybe

a good dose of truth, too). It’s as

if his crack-infused ego is haunting

his own past — at points he appears

with himself in the background,

or even jumps out of a scene mid-

dialogue, leaving his manager, Ben

Bart (Blues Brother Dan Aykroyd

paying it back), patronising thin air.

As an approach it is sometimes

jarring, and it allows Brown to let

himself off a little too much (his

notably off-screen wifebeating, for

example). But in an electrifying,

career-making performance, Boseman

plays it just right. This relative

newcomer never lets us forget that

Mr. Brown was toughest on those

who loved him most, and was as

sociopathic as he was charismatic

Even if Taylor’s cut ’n’ paste craziness

does prove too dizzying, Boseman’s

magnetism, on-stage and off-, will

keep you rooted. DAN JOLIN

Averdict A

Energising, stylish and engrossing, although

its scattershot chronology and egocentric

approach might not be to everyone’s taste.

Still, Boseman is brilliant — it would be

madness if he isn’t among the Oscar runners

this season. HHHH

A

RELEASED November 21CERTIFICATE 12ADIRECTOR Tate TaylorCAST Chadwick Boseman, Nelsan Ellis, Dan Aykroyd, Viola Davis, Craig Robinson, Octavia SpencerRUNNING TIME 139 minsPLOT James Brown (Boseman) takes us on a whistle-stop tour of his life, from struggling in poverty as Little Junior, to joining R&B group The Famous Flames, to becoming the world-famous Godfather Of Soul. A

get on upThe funk is strong in this one

AnnAbelle DETAILS TBC/99 mins./Out now DIRECTOR John R. Leonetti CAST Annabelle Wallis, Ward Horton

> A spin-off from The

Conjuring, delving into the origins of the scary, supernatural doll who guest-starred in the earlier movie. We learn that Annabelle is infused with the spirit of a deranged hippie chick from a Manson-style cult and began her evil career persecuting the significantly named Mia (Annabelle Wallis) and John (Ward Horton), dull young marrieds in 1970 who inherit the curse when their next-door neighbours are murdered. John R. Leonetti, whose directorial CV includes Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, stages a few okay scares but is stuck with a dud script and bland leads. KN HH

SAy When DETAILS 15/99 mins./November 7 DIRECTOR Lynn Shelton CAST Keira Knightley, Chloë Grace Moretz

> There’s An engAging premise at the heart of Lynn Shelton’s dramedy about a late-twenties woman (Keira Knightley) baulking at the looming responsibilities of adulthood (marriage, career) and disappearing for a week to decide what she wants from life. Still, when she starts hanging out with a teenage girl (Chloë Grace Moretz) she meets at the liquor store and crashing high-school keg parties, it gets a little weird, and the more dramatic material doesn’t always ring true. But the leads are appealing — Sam Rockwell and Kaitlyn Dever, as Moretz’ dad and BFF, stand out — fleshing out multiple plotthreads that would otherwise be stretched far too thin. LB HHH

the poSSibilitieS Are endleSS DETAILS 12A/83 mins./November 7 DIRECTORS James Hall, Edward Lovelace CAST Edwyn Collins, Grace Maxwell

> in 2005, orAnge Juice frontman/A Girl Like You solo artist Edwyn Collins suffered double cerebral haemorrhages that left him comatose, then unable to read, write or speak more than four phrases: “yes”, “no”, “Grace Maxwell” (his wife) and “the possibilities are endless”. Cleverly, reflecting Collins’ improving condition, Hall and Lovelace’s film starts as an abstract collage of memories, then gets into more conventional territory charting his life with Maxwell and his journey back to gigging. The result is innovative, funny and ultimately touching. IF HHHH

third perSon DETAILS 15/137 mins./November 14 DIRECTOR Paul Haggis CAST Liam Neeson, Adrien Brody, Mila Kunis

> reTurning less successfully to the multi-story narrative of Crash, Paul Haggis’ globe-trotting triptych of unconnected and unconvincing stories pivots around Liam Neeson’s Pulitzer prize-winning but slow-typing author, Mila Kunis’ forgetful maid in a custody battle, and Adrien Brody’s fashion spy-turned-prostitute-saviour. There’s some nice craft on show, but Haggis and his great-on-paper cast (including James Franco, Olivia Wilde and Maria Bello) can’t muster any insight into the mean, broken characters, the theme-mongering is heavy-handed and the tone doom-laden. And Neeson’s book sounds dreadful (“White. The colour of trust”). IF HH


• Brad Pitt’s Wardaddy attempts to Äre up Logan Lerman’s

frightened Norman.

FuryThe Slog Of War

A

RELEASED Out nowCERTIFICATE 15DIRECTOR David Ayer CAST Brad Pitt, Logan Lerman, Shia LaBeouf, Jon Bernthal RUNNING TIME 134 mins.PLOT When greenhorn typist Norman (Lerman) is recruited to the hardened crew of a Sherman tank grinding its way through battle-torn Germany, led by adored but unstable commander Wardaddy (Pitt), he will be confronted by the grim realities of winning a war the hard way. A

There was no going back

after Saving Private Ryan. When

Steven Spielberg stripped the

varnish from Hollywood war-movie

showmanship to confront the bullet-

sliced realism of D-Day, he changed

everything. Post-Ryan, every World

War II story is required to spew up

visions of hell on Earth from the

theatre of war as disturbing and

morally soupy as ’Nam. As Brad

Pitt’s Yoda-in-fatigues will expound

to blubbing new boy Logan

Lerman: “History is violent.”

Kelly’s Heroes is unthinkable.

David Ayer’s tank-epic, set as the

war begrudgingly enters its endgame

in 1945, is determined to scrape away

even Ryan’s vestiges of nobility to

expose the mix of dehumanising

carnage and tight-knit brotherhood

that were the lot of a tank crew

crawling through the blasted heath

of Germany. Taking the imprint of

Ryan’s squabbling unit and applying

a Das Boot claustrophobia to the

clanking, filthy belly of the beast —

imagine cramming five unwashed

GIs into a rusty diving bell — Ayer

nods to the full spectrum of combat-

vérité from Cross Of Iron to Come

And See to Apocalypse Now.

To his credit, Fury is an

ambitious attempt to capture the

bloody reality of the American

advance on Berlin. The crew of

Fury, the nickname daubed on the

cannon, are not sent on pivotal

missions but simply drag its metal

hulk from skirmish to skirmish,

clearing a path for the infantry.

Ayer’s juddering, grinding warfare

is closer to the weary attrition

of Iraq than the glossy panoramas

of the Battle Of The Bulge.

Hence the look is grim. A

convincing, cloud-dulled scorched

earth of shattered farmhouses

and isolated towns no more than

heaps of corpse-strewn rubble. Ayer

throws in some striking visions:

carpet-bombers seen from far

below look like a swarm of insects;

a German officer on a white horse

emerges, mirage-like, out of the

mist; authentic tracers fire like lasers

from some phoney sci-fi shoot-out.

Sadly, it ploughs up old turf in

other ways too. The crew are a less

memorable redux of the battle-

burned toughs in Tom Hanks’

squad: Shia LaBeouf is the Barry

Pepperish, Bible-toting moralist;

Jon Bernthal is a jumpy guttersnipe

Adam Goldberg-type, and Michael

Peña is the petulant, tokenistic

Mexican machine gunner — a bit

Ed Burns, a bit Giovanni Ribisi.

They all murmur memories

of atrocity and enact garrulous

bonding rituals, but feel contrived.

Are they that much better than their

German foes, Ayers attempts to

assess? SS officers are executed in

cold blood; bodies, friend and foe,

pulped beneath the tracks. This is

what it takes, Wardaddy repeatedly

tells Lerman’s pale-faced Jeremy

Davies-alike, Norman. And we

Averdict A

A persuasive, warts-and-bolts depiction

of warfare from the guts of a tank yoked

to an overwrought, sub-Private Ryan account

of innocence under Äre — so a hit and

a miss. HHH

stop believing him.

Wardaddy proves to be an

unregulated flux of intelligence and

psychopathology, pumpsed full of

Pitt’s super-charged charisma. But

he is no more real than Aldo Raine

or, for that matter, Tyler Durden.

At times, you mistake the film for

Training Day (which Ayer wrote)

relocated to a Western Front

enlisting German children to fight

Hitler’s Total War, with Pitt

spouting survivalist aphorisms from

the turret of his prowling tank.

There is not even that much tank

battling to get excited about. While

we get a visceral taste of spending

a war shoved up against a comrade’s

arse, there is only one truly thrilling

sequence of metal-on-metal duelling

as three Shermans and a German

Tiger enact a death dance like

super-sized Daleks. It is only here

that Ayer manages fast as well as

furious. Ian nathan



Macbeth. But it’s in English, with

A-listers Jennifer Lawrence and

Bradley Cooper giving intense

pizzazz to a remorseless if intriguing

tale of passion, ambition, misery,

murder and madness. Alas, it is the

second time Oscar-winning Danish

director Bier (In A Better World)

has made an American movie —

Things We Lost In The Fire was her

previous effort — and been carried

away with style. This is overwrought,

unappealingly, almost comically,

drenched with portentously scored

and overplayed dread from the get-go

while sense, context and taste waver.

Adapted from Ron Rash’s novel

by Christopher Kyle, Serena

re-teamed Lawrence and Cooper

before Silver Linings Playbook even

opened, two-and-a-half years ago.

Since then it has been through at

least three different edits on the

search for distribution and it still

has its problems, which is not to

say that it is a mess. The glamorous

stars are compelling and look

dreamy in their period duds and

out of them, in perhaps a few more

sizzling sex scenes by firelight

than are strictly necessary, and

the landscapes are breathtaking.

We have great expectations

of Lawrence and she does not

disappoint, her Serena a fearless

beauty in the Carole Lombard line

who commands the respect of

rough-hewn labourers in the logging

camp, tames an eagle (literally and

metaphorically) and is as irresistible

as she is manipulative, cunning and

dangerously jealous in her voracious

love and desires. When she goes

crazy you believe it. Cooper achieves

the near-impossible, making an

entitled, macho man — who intends

to hunt down the last of the panthers

in the Carolinas— a resilient, striving

figure rather to be admired and

a sympathetic, classically flawed,

tragic hero type. But you cannot

possibly root for anyone (unless it’s

that elusive cougar). They have fibre

but lack morals. Instead you watch

an inexorable spiral of awfulness

the same involuntarily fascinated

way you might peek through your

fingers at a crash. ANGIE ERRIGO

Averdict A

Commercially it looks a disaster. Artistically,

if very far from a triumph, it’s interesting,

almost held together by its charismatic

stars. HH

A

RELEASED Out nowCERTIFICATE 15DIRECTOR Susanne BierCAST Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Rhys Ifans, Toby Jones, David Dencik, Sean HarrisRUNNING TIME 110 mins.PLOT In Depression-era America, privileged George Pemberton (Cooper) gambles everything to create a timber empire, finding his match in spirited heiress Serena (Lawrence). But obsessive love feeds ruthless ambition and greed, a grievous loss triggering a descent into madness.A

SERENATimber Linings Playbook

> If susanne bIer’s fIlm

were subtitled and going the

arthouse route, it would probably

get acclaim for its feverish homage

to vintage melodrama and flagrant

borrowing from Shakespeare’s

• Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence are quick to find trouble in paradise.

AlExANdER ANd ThE TERRiblE, hoRRiblE, No Good, VERy bAd dAy DETAILS PG/81 mins./Out now DIRECTOR Miguel Arteta CAST Steve Carell, Jennifer Garner, Ed Oxenbould, Dylan Minnette

> A crippling cAse of middle-child syndrome powers this family farce, as overlooked Alexander (Ed Oxenbould) wishes his family could share his bad luck and soon becomes the only one of his clan not afflicted with some form of disaster. Professional ruin, illness, social ostracism and permanent marker prevail. It’s all gently funny, and old-fashioned in tone even when dealing with tech start-ups and viral videos. But it lacks just a little bite to really grip anyone other than parents and children. HOH HHH

ExTRATERRESTRiAl DETAILS TBC/106 mins./October 29 DIRECTOR Colin Minihan CAST Brittany Allen, Freddie Stroma

> in And Around A relAtively lavish cabin in the woods, some young folks — and value-for-money paranoid veteran Michael Ironside — are bothered by spindle-limbed, bulb-headed aliens from a crashed saucer. It’s a deliberately cliché-ridden B picture from The Vicious Brothers (aka Colin Minihan and Stuart Ortiz, of the Grave Encounters films) which includes a few camcordered close encounters but isn’t a found-footage film. Instead, it nicely fills a drive-in-friendly widescreen frame with retro shocks that straddle the worlds of Steven Spielberg and George Romero with nods to the conspiracy business of The X-Files. KN HHH

SET FiRE To ThE STARS DETAILS TBC/93 mins./November 7 DIRECTOR Andy Goddard CAST Elijah Wood, Celyn Jones, Steven Mackintosh

> stylish And well-plAyed if a little thin, Set Fire To The Stars charts Dylan Thomas’ (Celyn Jones) first US poetry tour supervised by Harvard grad/ wannabe poet John Malcolm Brinnin (Elijah Wood). Like a literary Scent Of A Woman, it’s a mismatched duo movie — Jones gives good bluster, Wood gives good fretting — but it never adds up to excoriating drama. Chris Seager’s monochrome cinematography is striking, Gruff Rhys’ jazz score likable and there are strong scenes — a mad hook-up with a Beat couple (Kevin Eldon, a wired Shirley Henderson), a surreal reading of Thomas’ Love In The Asylum — but it lacks the depths and passions to burn brightly. IF HHH

ThE REwRiTE DETAILS 12A/107 mins./Out now DIRECTOR Marc Lawrence CAST Hugh Grant, Marisa Tomei, J. K. Simmons

> in premise, the rewrite

may be formulaic — a has-been screenwriter (Hugh Grant) is forced to take a job teaching scriptwriting and gets involved with a mature student (Marisa Tomei) — but has more smarts and textures than the trailer would have you believe. There are no surprises as to where any of this is going but Grant adds an appealing sad-sack quality to his dry-wit charms, the support acts (Allison Janney, J. K. Simmons) are classy and the screenwriting class scenes have enough School Of Rock charm and Hollywood in-jokery if you know your three act structures. Predictable, easygoing but thoroughly likable. IF HHH



MY OLD LADY Details 12A/107 mins./November 21Director Israel Horovitz cast Kevin Kline, Kristin Scott Thomas, Maggie Smith, Dominique Pinon

> a destitute ne’er-do-well

arrives in Paris to claim the apartment his estranged father left him, but finds a wisecracking elderly occupant entitled to stay until she dies, and her resentful daughter determined to harass him off. Uh-oh, someone’s going to fall in lurve. Despite the powerhouse trio of Kevin Kline, Kristin Scott Thomas and Dame Maggie doing her astringent stuff, some good one-liners and Parisian locations, playwright-turned-director Israel Horovitz’s whiny fiftysomethings get deeply tedious through uncertain tone shifts between grey romcom, revelations and relationship drama. Charm? Nil points. AE HH

NO GOOD DEED Details 15/84 mins./November 21Director Sam Miller cast Idris Elba, Taraji P. Henson, Leslie Bibb

> unstable jailbird (idris

Elba) sent down for manslaughter is denied parole and promptly escapes, tormenting and killing his girlfriend before ending up at the home of a devoted but frustrated stay-at-home mom (Taraji P. Henson). Elba gives good psycho smoulder and Henson occasionally gets to flex her acting muscles and break out of the damsel-in-distress clichés when she’s fighting back against this conflicted home invader, yet neither can overcome the script’s limitations. The same goes for director Sam Miller, who aims to cook up some Hitchcockian suspense, but is saddled with mundane menace. JW HH

Björk: BiOphiLiA LivE Details U/97 mins./Out nowDirectors Nick Fenton, Peter Strickland cast Björk

> MerriaM-webster calls

biophilia “a hypothetical human tendency to interact or be closely associated with other forms of life in nature”. In Björk’s hands it’s an Earth- hugging concept album, expansive multimedia project and madder-than-a-bag-of-spanners concert movie that sees the outlandish Icelander dressed as an oyster with legs and with the Milky Way for hair. Its arty quirks make it a fans-only affair, but it’s brilliant with it, a glorious maelstrom of Alexandra Palace gig footage and brain-tickling eye food (bubbling lava, musical notes as shifting circles) that’ll amuse, entertain and bamboozle — just the way Björk likes it. AP HHHH

• The scourge of the bedtime iPad: an issue for our times.

Averdict A

Both heavy-handed and ham-Ästed, this

is a self-important morality tale where you

can see everyone’s uppance coming long

before it arrives. HH

> It’s unclear what

Jason Reitman wants to say with his

latest film. Framed by a wry Emma

Thompson narration that places its

characters in relation to Voyager 1,

the first manmade object to leave the

Solar System, Reitman clearly sees

this middle-class American tale as

a literally universal human story. But

while he touches on issues including

privacy, sex, porn addiction, child

exploitation, anorexia, cyber-bullying,

overuse of psychiatric drugs, teen

pregnancy, social media, infidelity

and even the environment, he doesn’t

really say anything about any of it.

Everything is set up so

transparently. It’s clear from minute

one that the moribund marriage

of Adam Sandler and Rosemarie

DeWitt is going to lead to adultery;

that Jennifer Garner’s helicopter

parent is hovering so close that

she’s going to behead someone

with her rotors; that cool mum Judy

Greer will see her schemes harm

rather than help her daughter. As

a morality play, this shows no doubt

and no nuance: bad people are

punished in accordance with their

failings. That’s not a criticism of the

cast, who do uniformly great work

with dialogue that rarely rings true

(especially Ansel Elgort and Kaitlyn

Dever), but the viewer leaves asking

exactly the same questions they had

going in. Is social media a threat or

merely a new form of self-expression?

Reitman doesn’t seem to care.

For a film about technology’s

effect on our lives, this is surprisingly

cavalier on the details of how social

media and online gaming really work,

and shows a sometimes flagrant

disregard for reality, glamorising the

dreary world of online dating and

prostitution. Worse, the less preachy

and much smarter Heathers covered

much of this ground 25 years ago, and

while remembering the importance

of humour. Here, only Thompson

strives for anything close to a laugh,

leaving her out of step with everything

else on screen. HElEn O’HArA

Log on. Drop of A

releaseD December 5certificate 15Director Jason Reitmancast Jennifer Garner, Adam Sandler, Ansel Elgort, Kaitlyn Dever, Judy Greer, Rosemarie DeWitt running time 120 mins. Plot A look at the ways in which the lives of four teenagers and related adults are affected by technology and social media, and how they interact in the modern world.A

MEN, WOMEN & ChiLDrEN

> when the sleepy canadian

border town of Fort Dundas wakes up to find that a killer is targeting seemingly random victims, it falls to under-qualified, over-tired detective Hazel Micallef (Susan Sarandon) to unravel a mystery which could dredge up her own demons. Based on the book by Inger Ash Wolfe, this engaging — but crucially not gripping — thriller is a gloomy yet classy affair, with meaty roles for Donald Sutherland and Ellen Burstyn and a startling turn from Christopher Heyerdahl as a killer on a creepy crusade. The setting evokes Fargo and Nordic noir, and despite the cast, this is TV movie fare. DH HHH

ThE CALLiNG Details 15/108 mins./Out nowDirector Jason Stone cast Susan Sarandon, Topher Grace, Donald Sutherland, Ellen Burstyn

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DAVID BOWIE IS Details TBC/119 mins./November 17 Directors Hamish Hamilton, Katy Mullan cast Victoria Broackes, Geoffrey Marsh, Kathryn Johnson

> The laTesT in a lengThening line of exhibition guide movies, this traipse around the Victoria & Albert Museum’s delve into David Bowie’s extensive personal archive is designed to accompany the show’s world tour. But, while it occasionally sheds light on Bowie’s music, myth and mystique and provides a decent showcase for his costumes and quirky ephemera, the snippets from the closing night gala are often excruciating, as the likes of Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker and artist Jeremy Deller offer less insight into Bowie’s chameleon psyche than the fans gushing eloquently in the numerous vox-pop interludes. dp HH

DrAculA untOlD Details 15/92 mins./Out now Director Gary Shore cast Luke Evans, Dominic Cooper, Sarah Gadon

> anakin The impaler transforms into Darth Dracula in this achingly rote origin story. Like other baddies who’ve had origin movies lately, this Dracula is a misunderstood solid citizen with an understandable grudge — he drinks Charles Dance’s vampire blood so he can turn into a swarm of bats and see off the wicked Turks who want to enslave his son. Coming off No One Lives, where he was scary and stylish, Luke Evans ought to be great casting as Dracula but this medieval muddle lets him down. If Dracula really started like this, no-one would have bothered to tell any other stories about him. KN HH

thE BESt Of mE Details 12A/117 mins./Out now Director Michael Hoffman cast James Marsden, Michelle Monaghan, Luke Bracey, Liana Liberato

> The nicholas sparks

formula is slavishly followed in this adap of his weepy novel, with a hunky- but-tragic lead (James Marsden) pining for an unattainable rich girl (Michelle Monaghan) amid scenic Southern locations and across two time periods. The leads are all charming, but there’s a discordant plot thread about real crime and misery that’s at odds with all the mooning. The real problems come in the last act, where the film takes a turn into poorly judged melodrama and falls off a credibility cliff. Sparks’ legions of fans will probably still swoon, but the rest of us risk ocular damage from all the eye-rolling. HOH HH

thE rEmAInIng Details 15/88 mins./November 7 Director Casey La Scala cast Johnny Pacar, Alexa PenaVega, Shaun Sipos

> a wedding parTy is

shattered when Biblical prophecies of the Apocalypse are fulfilled in this tentative attempt to make a mainstream version of the end-of-days movies which have been popular with American evangelicals. It’s tougher than the Left Behind films: here, the raptured drop dead rather than being transported bodily to heaven, and raging demons stalk the ruins, attacking panicky, well-intentioned not-Christian-enough folks not selected for instant salvation. It has message-y moments, as characters rue their previous sins, but plays well as a low-budget essay in apocalyptic horror along the lines of Cloverfield or The Mist. KN HHH

Sleep, Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s

196-minute, minutely observed,

endlessly talky, ultimately rewarding

Palme D’Or winner. Lacking

the genre hooks of Ceylan’s best-

known work, Once Upon A Time

In Anatolia, it requires patience

but in return delivers an absorbing

portrait of a marriage teetering

on the brink of collapse.

At its heart, Winter Sleep is

a character study of a misanthrope.

A former actor-turned-hotel owner,

Aydin (Haluk Bilginer) lords it

over a Turkish mountain village,

be it writing a pompous column in

a local newspaper and dispatching

heavies to collect debts, or in

his failing relationships with his

vibrant wife (Melisa Sözen) and

feisty divorced sister (Demet

Akbag). On paper this doesn’t

sound the stuff of great cinema

— a series of extended fire-lit

conversations about the small

(mushroom collecting) and the huge

(evil in a godless world) — but it

is beautifully written and played,

revelling in messy realities in

ways movies rarely touch on.

Ceylan opens the drama out

with exquisite widescreen imagery

— eerie caves, wild horses, buildings

cut into rock faces — but finds

equal drama in the cracks and

crevices of his actor’s faces.

Sözen shines as Nihal, a smart,

analytical, passionate woman

who has given up her life for a

much older husband and movingly

tries to claw it back. But this is

Bilginer’s show. Aydin is arrogant,

judgmental and misanthropic

and the actor doesn’t stint on

any of it, an emotional narcoleptic

burying his emotions under a

cover of cynicism and intellectual

posturing. His incremental descent

towards self-awareness is never

played for sympathy; he is a fully

realised character who even at

his worst remains compelling

company. And all that delivered

by the brother of Ali ‘OzCabs’

Osman in EastEnders circa

1987. IaN Freer

Averdict A

It will test your concentration, resolve and

butt cheeks to the limit but Winter Sleep

will reward your staying power: a perfectly

played, beautiful-looking, exquisitely

nuanced picture. Would make a great, if

gruelling, decaying-wedlock double bill

with Gone Girl. HHHH

A

releaseD November 21certificate TBCDirector Nuri Bilge Ceylancast Haluk Bilginer, Melisa Sözen, Demet Akbagrunning time 196 mins.Plot The steppes of Turkey. Former actor Aydin (Bilginer) runs a hotel with his wife Nihal (Sözen) and sister Necia (Akbag). As the temperature drops outside, tensions boil inside.A

WIntEr SlEEpSteppes Up

• Girls gone: Haluk Bilginer’s

Aydin pushes away his wife

and sister.

> If there Is a cInematIc

polar opposite of Transformers:

Age Of Extinction then it is Winter

SC I-F I

AT BFI SOUTHBANK

BOOK NOW AT BFI.ORG.UK/SCI-FI

OCTOBER – DECEMBER 2014

AN OUT OF THIS WORLD SEASONOF FILM, T V AND SPECIAL EVENTS

MEDIA PARTNERS

Im

age:

Ali

en



OUT NOWAlexander And The Terrible,

Horrible, No Good, Very

Bad Day p.61 ★★★

Annabelle p.59 ★★

The Battles Of Coronel

And Falkland Islands p.66 ★★★★

The Best Of Me p.64 ★★

Björk: Biophilia Live p.62 ★★★★

The Book Of Life p.56 ★★★

The Calling p.62 ★★★

Dracula Untold p.64 ★★

Fury p.60 ★★★

The Rewrite p.61 ★★★

Serena p.61 ★★

The Way He Looks p.66 ★★★★

OCTOBER 29Extraterrestrial p.61 ★★★

OCTOBER 31The Overnighters p.66 ★★★★

NOVEMBER 7The Case Against 8 p.66 ★★★

Leviathan p.56 ★★★★★

The Possibilities

Are Endless p.59 ★★★★

The Remaining p.64 ★★★

Sacro Gra p.66 ★★★★

Say When p.59 ★★★

Set Fire To The Stars p.61 ★★★

The Skeleton Twins p.54 ★★★★

NOVEMBER 14The Drop p.54 ★★★

The Imitation Game p.48 ★★★★

Life Itself p.56 ★★★★

Third Person p.59 ★★

We Are The Giant p.66 ★★★★

NOVEMBER 17David Bowie Is p.64 ★★

NOVEMBER 21 Get On Up p.59 ★★★★

The Homesman p.56 ★★★

Mary Is Happy,

Mary Is Happy p.66 ★★★

My Old Lady p.62 ★★

No Good Deed p.62 ★★

What We Do In

The Shadows p.52 ★★★★

Winter Sleep p.64 ★★★★

NOVEMBER 28Concerning Violence p.66 ★★★★

Hockney p.56 ★★★★

Stations Of The Cross p.66 ★★★

DECEMBER 5Men, Women & Children p.62 ★★

• Get On Up

THIS MONTH AT A GLANCE AT A GLANCE

CONCERNING VIOLENCEDETAILS TBC/83 mins./November 28DIRECTOR Göran Olsson CAST Lauryn Hill, Robert Mugabe, Thomas Sankara

> COMBINING SWEDISH ARCHIVAL

footage and audiovisual extracts from Frantz Fanon’s combustible 1962 tome The Wretched Of The Earth, this is a sobering nine-part account of Africa’s struggle to emerge from the yoke of colonial oppression. Uncompromising, demanding and potently illuminating. DP ★★★★

THE OVERNIGHTERSDETAILS 12A/102 mins./October 31DIRECTOR Jesse Moss CAST Jay Reinke, Keegan Edwards

> A DOCUMENTARY FOCUSED ON

a North Dakota fracking town, this account of a Lutheran pastor’s heartrending failure to extend charity to some reprobate migrant workers exposes with compassionate detachment the hollowness of America’s claim to be the land of freedom and opportunity. DP ★★★★

THE CASE AGAINST 8DETAILS TBC/112 mins./November 7DIRECTORS Ben Cotner, Ryan White, Rob Reiner CAST Chad Griffi n, Ted Olson

> LACKING INTELLECTUAL RIGOUR and bereft of adversarial debate, this is a well-meaning but convolutedly superfi cial record of the legal struggle to overturn California’s opposition to same-sex marriage. The legal aspects are fascinating, but the human-interest storylines are pure schmaltz. PP ★★★

MARY IS HAPPY, MARY IS HAPPYDETAILS TBC/127 mins./November 21DIRECTOR Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit CAST Patcha Poonpiriya, Chonnikan Netjui, Thanapob Leeratanakajorn

> INSPIRED BY TEENAGE TWEETS,

this Thai drama on the surreality that social media imposes on ‘normal’ lives begins frenetically but settles into a wry rhythm, as it explores Patcha Poonpiriya’s prickly relationships with adults and classmates. PP ★★★

THE BATTLES OF CORONEL AND FALKLAND ISLANDSDETAILS PG/100 mins./Out nowDIRECTOR Walter Summers CAST Roger Maxwell, Craighall Sherry

> COMBINING AUTHENTIC footage and modelwork to achieve scale and intimacy, this fascinating reconstruction of two key Great War naval engagements captures the perils of maritime combat, while also noting the loneliness of command and mutual respect between foes. DP ★★★★

SACRO GRADETAILS 15/93 mins./November 7 DIRECTOR Gianfranco Rosi

> INSPIRED BY ITALO CALVINO’S Invisible Cities and made over three years, Gianfranco Rosi’s feature was the fi rst actuality fi lm to win the Golden Lion at Venice. Presenting a bustling snapshot of life along Rome’s 42.4-mile ring road, known as the ‘GRA’, it’s pure docu-soap, but is also touching, shrewd and sincere. DP ★★★★

THE WAY HE LOOKSDETAILS 12A/96 mins./Out nowDIRECTOR Daniel Ribeiro CAST Ghilerme Lobo, Fabio Audi, Tess Amorim

> BRAZILIAN DANIEL RIBEIRO’S fi rst feature offers a fresh twist on the rites-of-passage tale as Leo (Ghilerme Lobo) negotiates the usual pitfalls of growing up — confusing feelings, fractured friendships, bullies — with the added complication of being blind. Well acted by the three young leads, it’s a touching, sensitive debut. LB ★★★★

STATIONS OF THE CROSSDETAILS TBC/107 mins./November 28DIRECTOR Dietrich Brüggemann CAST Lea van Acken, Franziska Wiesz

> COMPOSED IN 12 STATIC

tableaus, this austere portrait of religious devotion follows a teenage girl’s desolate path to martyrdom. An act of faith? Or a drastic escape? Lea van Acken is outstanding but Dietrich Brüggemann’s severe gaze invites voyeurism, not empathy. A stony, stifl ing if fascinating fi lm. SC ★★★

WE ARE THE GIANTDETAILS 15/88 mins. /November 14DIRECTOR Greg Barker CAST Osama Bensadik, Ghassan Yassin, Motaz Murad, Zalnab Al Khawaja

> ALTHOUGH LACKING SPECIFIC context and fussily presented, this is a harrowing account of the Arab Spring as witnessed by seven reluctant and committed activists in Libya, Syria and Bahrain. The footage of the violence infl icted upon civilians is truly terrifying. DP ★★★★

The rest of the month, rounded upALSO OUT

WHAT TO SEE IN NOVEMBER

ALIVE ON STAGE!

THE FINAL ARENA TOUR

* EXTRA

SHOWSADDED

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IN 3D HOLOGRAPHY

LIAM NEESON

BRIAN MCFADDEN

CARRIE HOPE FLETCHER

CONDUCTED BY

JEFF WAYNE

JOSEPH WHELAN

SHAYNE WARD

AND

JASON DONOVAN

AND CALLUM O’NEILL

AS HG WELLS


FP_EMPIRE_CoDAWDPS44.id1460850.pgs 15.10.2014 12:39 >>AdRocket<<

04.11.14

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Greatest postersFrom the arty to the bombastic, Empire presents the one-sheets that have most impressed us since 1989 —

some even better than the movies they advertised...

The LISTS OF OUR LIFETIME

11 District 9 (2009)14 Ocean’s eleven

(2001)23 Being JOhn MalkOvich (1999)

21MeMentO (2000)24 Fear anD lOathing

in las vegas (1998)

13 the FellOwship OF the ring (2001) 16 the aMazing

spiDer-Man (2012) 25 reign OF Fire

(2002)

18walk the line

(2005) 15the truMan shOw (1998) 12

aMerican Beauty (1999)

20 pan’s laByrinth

(2006) 17 unFOrgiven

(1992)

22 argO

(2012) 19 FOrrest guMp

(1994)


WHAT THE...?! Did we leave out one of your favourites? Let us know at empireonline.com/253

MOON

(2009) 1THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (1991)7 THE PHANTOM MENACE

(1999)

8PULP FICTION (1994)

2TRAINSPOTTING (1996)6 BLACK SWAN

(2010)10 THE USUAL SUSPECTS (1995)

9THE ROCKETEER (1991) 5

JURASSIC PARK

(1993)

4THE IDES OF MARCH

(2011)


IS BIRDMAN…A) THE CRAZIEST OSCAR CONTENDER EVER MADE?

B) THE ARTIEST SUPERHERO MOVIE EVER MADE? OR

C) A MICHAEL KEATON COMEBACK VEHICLE DIRECTED BY A MEXICAN GENIUS IN A SINGLE SHOT (KIND OF)?

ANSWER: ALL OF THE ABOVE

W O R D S DAMON WISE

WARNING!CONTAINS GIANT EGO


DID YOU ENJOY IT?” ASKS

Michael Keaton. “It’s good, isn’t

it? It’s definitely that kind of movie,

the kind where you go, ‘Hey, wait

a minute, what did I just see...?’

That’s a good sign, to me. If you’re

an interested person, or a curious

person — and especially if you

like movies — this one makes

you go, ‘What?’”

Usually, by now, observers of the

US awards season have decided the

way things lie. This year, however,

the field is still wide open, with

no 12 Years A Slave, no Argo, no

Slumdog Millionaire to lead the

pack. From the contenders seen so

far, Alejandro González Iñárritu’s

Birdman is the strangest by far. It’s

a midlife crisis story in which the

leading man, Riggan Thomson

(Keaton) is the ageing star of a ’90s Hollywood superhero

franchise who is making a comeback on the Broadway stage

in a self-funded, self-starring, self-written and self-directed

adaptation of Raymond Carver’s short stories. Part of it is

a beautifully realised CG fantasy, as Riggan engages with,

and assumes the insane powers of, his one-time alter ego —

the Birdman of the title — but for the most part it is a jet-

black comedy of the kind they really haven’t been making

much since the 1970s.

Keaton, who made his name as the first blockbuster

Batman, straight-faced but not po-faced, suggests it was the

director, not the subject matter, that first interested him. “I sat

with Alejandro, talked with him and liked him a lot,” he says,

when we meet on the Venice Lido, the day after the movie’s

world premiere at the film festival there. “But I didn’t really

understand what the movie was, so he gave me the script. And

once I read it I was like, ‘Yeah, I should do this. It’s gonna be

pretty challenging.’ I mean, there are so many levels to it.”

ALTHOUGH BIRDMAN DOES tilt at

Hollywood’s recent preoccupation with Lycra-clad heroes,

Iñárritu’s film is not so much a showbusiness satire as a

dissection of the human ego, especially in the immediate and

socially democratic age of Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr.

And although it does tilt at Hollywood — George Clooney,

Michael Fassbender and Jeremy Renner come in for a gentle

ribbing — for Iñárritu, the original point was to make

something easier to identify with.

“It was always about a man’s ego,” says the heavily accented

Mexican director. “The idea of having that man be an actor

came later, because that’s a figure that we most popularly think

of as having an ego. Actors are much more exposed in that way.

It doesn’t mean that only actors have an ego — every human

being has an ego. So for me it was a way to explore something

that’s universal, but doing it though an actor because I thought

it would be much more clear and easier to understand.”

Iñárritu has clearly given the matter some thought. He

describes the ego as “a dictatorship state”, and suggests

that the film, as entertaining as it may be, is something of

a warning, especially in the voice of Birdman, who whispers

conspiratorially in Riggan’s ear. “I think, in a way, the ego is

not ourselves,” he says. “The ego is a kind of projection of

ourselves, something we attach to ourselves, and we think that

we are that but we are not that. So that’s the danger. In fact,

our relationship with our ego is extraordinarily interesting.

“There’s a disparity between what we think we can achieve

• Superego: Michael Keaton as washed-up actor Riggan Thomson, aka Birdman.

• Edward Norton’s obnoxious Mike Shiner on typically irritating form.

“IT’S THAT KIND OF MOVIE: ‘HEY, WHAT DID I JUST SEE?’”MICHAEL KEATON


B R I E F I N G

BIRDMAN

RELEASED: January 2

DIRECTOR: Alejandro González Iñárritu

STARRING: Michael Keaton, Edward Norton, Naomi Watts, Emma Stone, Zach Galifi anakis

STORY: One-time superhero-blockbuster star Riggan Thomson (Keaton) attempts to launch a Broadway adaptation of the works of Raymond Carver, despite being beset by disruptive collaborators and his own ego.

SO IS HE GOING TO JOIN THE JUSTICE LEAGUE AFTER THIS? Erm, no. You may be thinking of DC hero Hawkman, who has absolutely nothing to do with this. Either that, or Batman… Which you could obviously be forgiven for.

BORIS KARLOFF

IN TARGETS (1968)

In Peter Bogdanovich’s debut feature, veteran horror star Boris Karloff plays veteran horror star Byron Orlok — and clips from Karloff’s The Terror (1963) and The Criminal Code (1931) are used to illustrate Orlok’s career. Vincent Price is similarly used as horror star Paul Toombes in 1974’s Madhouse.

WARREN BEATTY

IN SHAMPOO (1975)

The womanising Warren Beatty was self-aware enough to co-write (with Robert Towne) and produce this study of a womanising LA hairdresser who enjoys the same success with women as the star, but ultimately isn’t too happy about it. Gossips speculated about how many of the leading ladies were Beatty’s exes.

DENNIS HOPPER

IN APOCALYPSE NOW (1979)

After Easy Rider, Dennis Hopper headed to South America, ostensibly to direct The Last Movie, allegedly because he wanted to try hallucinogens found in the jungle. He went off the radar, until he popped up in a cameo as the photojournalist in Apocalypse Now, rambling like the loon folks thought he was.

ROGER MOORE

IN THE CANNONBALL RUN (1981)

At fi rst, it seems the cool English driver taking part in a transcontinental road race is the actual Roger Moore, impeccably dressed, raising his eyebrow on cue and dry where all the other drivers are sweaty. Then it turns out he’s a guy called Seymour who only wants to be Roger Moore.

JULIA ROBERTS

IN NOTTING HILL (1999)

The ’90s shortlist for casting Anna Scott, the world’s biggest female movie star, can’t have been long. So, Julia Roberts got to play Julia Roberts… And Hugh Grant manfully did a joke about mistaking her for a hooker that nodded to her CV and his rap sheet. KIM NEWMAN>

and what we really can achieve,” he continues. “That’s basically

the essence of the humour of this film. I think the ego is a little

bit tricky like that, so sometimes it flatters you — it tells you that

you are a king, that you shouldn’t allow people to mistreat you

because you are special, you are the best — they don’t understand

you because you are a genius… And then two minutes later it will

turn on you and say, ‘You are the biggest idiot, you’ll be found

out, you are a fraud...’ Y’know, it’s a very bipolar dictator, and

I wanted to explore that.”

So why tell a story about actors? Although Riggan Thomson

has a lot on his plate when the movie starts — an ex-wife, a

mistress, a daughter fresh out of rehab — a lot of the laughs

come from Riggan’s interactions with the insufferable Mike

Shiner (Edward Norton), a stage star who comes to the rescue

when one of the cast is injured in the run-up to opening night.

“The strange nature of actors,” says Iñárritu, “which is almost

impossible to understand, is that in order for them to be

successful, or good, they have to be extremely honest. And in

order to be honest, in front of many, many people, they have

to be honest about something that doesn’t exist by not being

themselves. So it’s an extraordinary kind of projection — to

let yourself be judged as other people who are actually you.

I found that fascinating.”

Iñárritu was also interested in what he calls the “meta-

dialogue” of the movie. “Michael Keaton has been Batman

before,” he points out. “I thought it would give him the authority

to play that character in a way that would be very useful for the

film and the character. At the same time, the fact that Edward

has been working for a long time in the New York theatre and

maybe has a reputation for being a prick sometimes — I think

that helps too. That’s part of the game: the mirror in the mirror.”

Not only did they not mind this, insists the director, they

totally embraced it. “Edward was laughing when he read the

script. He begged me, he said, ‘I really want to do this.’ And

Michael is so far above that. I think that’s the only way he could

have done it. He’s a very self-assured guy; he doesn’t empower

people to let him know who he is! And when you’re in a position

that’s as strong as that, you can laugh about yourself. People who

are vulnerable, who are still struggling with something, they

cannot laugh about their situation. But if you suddenly grow

and pass that, you can observe it and talk about it with a laugh.”

Iñárritu is quick to add that he’s also laughing about himself

here. “It's me too,” he stresses. “I’m not saying it’s just about

these guys. I can see myself clearly in this story, and it was a great

opportunity to explore my own demons and my own ego. When

we were writing the script, the writers and I were laughing about

it. To laugh about yourself is a healthy exercise.”

• Keaton and director Alejandro González Iñárritu on location

in New York.

ALTER EGOSKEATON AS BIRDMAN IS NOT

THE FIRST TIME A STAR’S BEEN

ENTERTAININGLY CAST AS AN

ECHO OF THEMSELVES…

76 empire d e c e m b e r 2 0 1 4 empireonline.com

At the sAme time, Birdman is not simply an exercise

in wacky humour; it is also one of the most technically exacting

films in recent memory, matched only by David Fincher’s Gone

Girl for recent artistic precision. Filmed in an elusively joined series

of single takes, it leads us right into the cramped, mildewed walls

of the Broadway theatre that has become Riggan’s temporary home.

This was always the intention — “Since the beginning of the

idea,” says Iñárritu. “I knew it was intrinsic to the nature, the

form and the substance. I want people to really get into the shoes

of this guy. Point of view, for me, is always one of the most

important things, and I wanted this to be a radical point of view.

The camera is lonely. Those corridors, I reduced them. It’s that

sensation of a narrow, labyrinthine, shitty space. All the walls

are closing for him, and I wanted that sensation visually.”

What’s most striking about Birdman is that Iñárritu seems

to have abandoned the tricksy, back-and-forth style of the films

that made his name — think Amores Perros, 21 Grams or Babel.

“Absolutely,” he agrees. “Honestly, this film has changed my way

of thinking of cinema, and all the films I have done. I now realise

how lazy I was and how much I have been relying on editing. The

true nature of cinema, for me, has always been space and time

juxtaposed and fragmented. Which is what it is, obviously. But the

way I’ve been doing it, I’m not sure I’ll be doing it again. Because

it is too safe, too manipulative. You can hide your mistakes.”

He confesses to being terrified by leaving his formula behind.

“You don’t know where you are,” he says. “It's like trying to write

without commas and dots. After two pages I’m like, ‘Fuck, am

I connecting the ideas? Is this right?’ I began to get a little lost.

Especially the rhythm: is there too much or not enough? Honestly,

yesterday when I was seeing the film in the cinema, I was feeling

a little bit of anxiety. Because I knew what could have been wrong.

I sent the actors a photo of Philippe Petit, the tightrope walker

who crossed the Twin Towers, and really, yesterday, that was me:

what the fuck was I doing? Everything could have been wrong.”

We wonder if he’s decided it’s a better way of working. “It’s

the difference between making love for real and... sexting,”

decides Iñárritu. “It’s a very interesting notion but it’s not real.”

As for Michael Keaton, he is still mulling over Birdman and

what it means. He declines to be drawn into any debate of the

current state of superhero cinema simply because he hasn’t seen

much of it. “Although, I saw a little kid on the street the other

day. He was a tiny little guy; he had Captain America pyjamas

on. I thought, ‘Oh that's interesting. He must be thinking, as a

little boy would, ‘I wanna be that guy, I wanna be that powerful.’

I guess that’s what those films do: they give you empowerment.”

While making the film, Keaton and Iñárritu joked about

adding some extra meta to the whole affair and making another

Birdman movie... “We said, ‘You know what we should do? Go

and make a full-on Birdman movie where we do the thing we’re

talking about. Make the very movie we’re talking about.’” He

laughs. “It would be amazing. And probably also rather terrible.”

[email protected]

Birdman is out on January 2 and will Be reviewed in a future issue.

• Top: Birdman hits the booze. Above left: iñárritu and crew squeeze onto the set. Above right: emma stone plays sam, riggan’s unstable daughter and Pa.

“michael keaton was batman. that’s part of the game.” alejandro gonzález iñárritu

FP_EMPIRE_7035286O2E.id1459595.pgs 14.10.2014 16:26 >>AdRocket<<


Christian Bale and riDleY sCOtt: together at last on exodus: gods and Kings. With tWo such Weighty,

intense talents combined, it had to be something biblical…


w o r d s adam smith


Exodus: Gods And Kings(2014)

180

(2000)Gladiator

c. 1250 BC Kingdom Of Heaven(2005)

1199

(2010)Robin Hood

1184 1492

(1992)

1492: Conquest Of Paradise

Exodus: Gods And Kings(2014)

c. 30

(1999)Mary: Mother Of Jesus

c. 1250 BC 1200

(1994)Royal Deceit

1415

(1989)Henry V

Ancient Middle Ages

Middle AgesAncient

RIDLEY SCOTT

CHRISTIANBALE

“Well, what do you think you need to direct

a movie like this?”

The answer to this rhetorical question —

balls the size of bally coconuts — hangs

unspoken in the transatlantic ether. Empire

is on the blower with Christian Bale, and the

helmer in question is Ridley Scott, whose

take on the Cecil B. DeMille-style Biblical

blowout might be the biggest project either

has taken on. And when it comes to auteurs

with uncommon testicular fortitude, Bale

knows of what he speaks. Acting since he

was 13, he’s one of few stars who count

Hollywood’s directorial aristocracy as

frequent collaborators. Spielberg, Nolan,

Herzog, Malick — and now Sir Ridley.

Frankly, we’re surprised it’s taken so long.

“He’s an interesting character,” Bale

continues of his first time under Scott’s

five-or-so (on a quiet day) cameras. “I’ve

had a few friends over the years tell me,

‘Oh, you should really work with Ridley,’

and he and I had met occasionally,” he

remembers. “But then I was in the middle

of American Hustle and he just called me

up and said, ‘How about this?’ I didn’t

deliberate that long about getting on

board. He’s just this no-bullshit bloke who

loves making films. Great directors have

one thing in common: you know you’re

waiting to go on set and thinking, ‘Oh

shit, can I do this?’ Well, they’re walking

on the same set going, ‘You know who the

man for the job is, who should be telling

everybody what to do? Well, that’s me.’”

The story of Moses leading the

Hebrews out of slavery in Egypt to the

Promised Land is one of those tales we all

think we know: plagues, burning bushes,

stone tablets atop Mount Sinai... yada yada

yada. A dusty drone vaguely recalled from

R.E. lessons serenaded by dozens of stifled

yawns. But revisiting the source material,

reasons as much as to avoid a celluloid

bloodbath. “There was talk about how

much we could tell, but for a start, we’d end

up making a six hour-long film. There are

these hideous massacres that happen later

on in Moses’ life, and you don’t get that.

[The Bible’s] not for kids. It really isn’t.

I wouldn’t want my daughter reading it.”

Out in Southern Spain, Bale got his

first glimpse of just how gargantuan

Scott’s vision for the film is. There in the

desert of Almería, Scott erected the biggest

set in recent industry memory. More than

what surprised Bale was the sheer blood-

drenched mayhem of the yarn.

“The first thing that surprised me was

how human not only Moses is but God is

as well,” he says. “They fight, they have

bust-ups. It’s almost like God has to prove

himself. And it’s bloody violent. Egypt

is really a fascist state. Pharaoh (Joel

Edgerton) is believed to be a god, so he’s

brazen and has a very harsh outlook on

life. And this is a place where life is very

cheap. I wouldn’t bloody last a second.”

The result was some pruning, for length

• Above: Moses (Christian Bale) gets to grips with the Red Sea. Top right: Bale and Sir Ridley Scott see the light on set. Right: Madrid-born María Valverde as Moses’ wife, Zipporah.

TIME LORDSBETWEEN THEM, RIDLEY SCOTT AND CHRISTIAN BALE LEAVE FEW HISTORY-BOOK PAGES UNADAPTED…

I N F O G R A P H I C INFOMEN

the Book of Christian

Prev

ious

spr

ead:

Bal

e: B

rian

Vand

er B

rug/

Cont

our b

y Get

ty

Imag

es. S

cott:

Sco

tt Co

unci

l/Con

tour

by G

etty

Imag

es


1800

(1977)The Duellists

Early Modern

1607 1607

(1995)Pocahontas

(2005)The New World

c. 1750

(1990)Treasure Island

1861

(1994)Little Women

1880

(1996)

The Portrait Of A Lady

1884

(2007)3:10 To Yuma

1895

(2006)The Prestige

1899

(1992)The News Boys

Early Modern Mid Modern

Mid Modern Continued overleaf

1886

(1996)The Secret Agent

300 craftsmen recreated a vast Ancient

Egyptian city, the centrepiece being

a 50-foot statue of Edgerton’s hairless

bonce. It could, Empire suggests, all be

a tad intimidating for a jobbing actor.

“Oh, I always just tell myself no-one’s

going to see it anyway,” Bale says. “It’s

the only way to deal with it. There I am,

looking a prat in the middle of all this.

Absolutely it’s intimidating.”

Things weren’t helped by the invasion

of a particularly virulent earworm from

1979. “The film I always felt I was in was

Life Of Brian. How can you help it? As

soon as you make any Biblical film you’ve

got Always Look On The Bright Side Of

Life playing in your head. It’s a fantastic

film, but one you want to make on

purpose, not by accident...”

Moses is, of course, the second-most

iconic global protector-of-the-weak Bale

has given cinematic life to. The first is

currently undergoing a refit in Detroit, with

Ben Affleck donning the masked avenger’s

cape and cowl. “It’s a little embarrassing

to compare Moses to Batman,” Bale

laughs. “There are similarities, you know,

tragic beginnings and then a heroic future.

But Moses is a little more violent. I’m sure

if there’d been guns around at that time,

Bruce Wayne might have had a chance.”

As to someone else taking over the role

that made Bale a fan deity, he was quietly

disconcerted at first, but seems over it now.

“I’ve got to admit initially, even though

I felt that it was the right time to stop, there

was always that bit of me going, ‘Oh go

on... Let’s do another.’ So when I heard

there was someone else doing it, there was

a moment where I just stopped and stared

into nothing for half an hour. But I’m 40.

The fact that I’m jealous of someone else

playing Batman... I think I should have

gotten over it by now. I haven’t spoken

with Ben, but I emailed him offering bits

of advice that I learned the hard way.

I would imagine he is doing everything he

can to avoid doing anything that I did.”

But for now Bale’s focussed on matters

Old Testament. “I saw Exodus a couple of

days ago,” he says. “It sounds narcissistic,

but there’s just something about the way

Ridley puts these kinds of film together.

They flow, they’re beautiful. They’re

harmonious. It’s really surprising, even

when you were there, just how bloody good

they are. I watched it twice in a row and

I could have watched it five times. There’s

something magnetic about this film.”

“MOSES AND GOD HAVE BUST-UPS. IT’S BLOODY VIOLENT!”

>


“I’M EMPHASISING THAT THESE WERE REAL PEOPLE.”

“I hate Instagram. Bloody hate it.”

Empire is lurking in the bowels of Abbey

Road Studios, where Ridley Scott is in the

middle of scoring, colour-correcting and,

via the magic of Skype and Herculean

multi-tasking, completing the final FX

shots for what will be one of his most

ambitious projects to date. Above him

hangs a screen on which a chopper shot of

a vaguely jaundiced desert scene repeatedly

zooms by. Perhaps Empire shouldn’t have

suggested he just whack an Instagram

filter on it. Kelvin maybe. Or the ever-

popular Hefe. “I can’t even look at it,”

Scott winces as the distinctly un-colour-

corrected, washed-out desertscape jumps

backwards 20 seconds and the 90-odd

piece orchestra rustle their pages for the

umpteenth time, ready for another run at

the cue. It seems you won’t be seeing any

Scott selfies on Facebook any time soon.

“By this stage I’m actually pretty bored

with the bloody thing,” he says, settling

White Squall(1996)

1961 American Gangster(2007)

1968

(1986)

1934

(2009)Public Enemies

1916 1937 1937

(1987) (2011)

1966

(2006)Rescue Dawn

1986

(1997)Metroland

1939

(1993)Swing Kids

1940

(2001)

Captain Corelli’s Mandolin

Empire Of The Sun

The Flowers Of War

Modern

RIDLEY SCOTT

CHRISTIANBALE

Modern

Anastasia:The MysteryOf Anna

the Book of Ridley


• Left: Scott makes his point to Joel Edgerton (Ramses). Top: Scott keeps the greenscreen to a minimum. Above: Moses consults with Nun (Sir Ben Kingsley).

down after motioning Empire into a side

room where the oomphs and parps of the

orchestra are a little more muted, and

looking suspiciously at a granola bar

an assistant has shoved into his hand in a

desperate attempt to fuel the Ridley Scott

perpetual-motion machine. “I’m really

ready to move on to something else.”

Speed has, over the last few years,

become a defining Scott trademark. It’s a

scant 12 months since Empire tried to keep

up with him first at Pinewood Studios,

where crews worked 24 hours a day to set

and reset the vast temple interiors he and

longtime production designer Arthur Max

had constructed, and then in southern

Spain and finally the Canary Islands,

where he parted the Red Sea. Now in

the final lap, Exodus is shaping up to be

vintage Scott: old-school in its biggest-

of-the-big-screen dramatic ambitions,

goosed with the judicious application

of some state-of-the art digital FX. But

initially, Scott was reluctant to take it on.

“(Exec producer and former Fox head)

Peter Chernin sent it to me,” Scott says.

“At first my reaction was, because of the

subject matter, ‘Well, that’s not really for

me.’ But then I began to read it and I was

stunned about how little I knew. As I read,

I got more and more engaged. Moses was

this tough guy, a real character. A military

leader and a prince who would never be

on the throne, but who was a close friend

of Ramses The Great. I wanted to add a

caption at the end of the movie saying that

he lived to 96 and had many wives and over

200 children. To emphasise that these

were real people. You can see Ramses II’s

remains if you want to, they’re in New

York or Cairo. I think so often with these

movies, people think they’re fabricated.”

What Scott himself fabricated was on

a pretty Biblical scale itself. And he’s not

impressed with a generation of directors

who think set-building amounts to hiring

a hangar and dressing it in green while

having actors emote to digital markers.

“They can’t cope, that’s why,” he snorts

of the new auteurs de chartreuse. “They’re

scared to death. I trained as a designer.

Seven years at art school, four years at the

Royal College of Art. I can draw very well

— which I should be able to after that — so

I draw the storyboard right from the draft.

Actually while I’m reading a screenplay. It’s

always a bit annoying not to have the whole

thing built. And I can’t abide greenscreen.

So we build 15 foot of every wall and then

top it off digitally. So all the close-ups you

don’t have to use greenscreen for. But those

15-foot walls that we’re going to top off are

pretty bloody good. So everyone, including

me, gets a sense of the whole thing.”

And far from terrifying the studio

beancounters, Scott insists that actually

building significant parts of these vast

worlds he tends to create is the more

economical way to go. “It probably comes

in at a hundred mill. Cheaper than most of

the films going out today. Why? Because

they donÕt know what theyÕre... well, I’m

not going to say that,” he smiles. “Let’s

say because of experience, because I can

storyboard it in my head and I know where

I’m going, there’s no waste. In greenscreen

you’re starting out not really knowing

where you’re going — that’s where you get

a lot of waste and budgets start to rocket.”

On the human side of things, it’s the

first time Scott has worked with one of

modern cinema’s few genuine new stars:

Christian Bale. And he seems to have been

impressed, even comparing him favourably

with his regular collaborator, Russell Crowe.

“Christian’s key strength is massive

experience,” he says. “He’s worked on a lot.

And when I got to know him well, I found

he’s like Russell in that he’s the real thing:

an actors’ actor. A real thespian. There’s

this reputation that he’s reserved, but I got

on with him really well. It’s a reason this

has been one of the better experiences.

Certainly more enjoyable for me.”

After completing the scoring (“All dots

and squiggles to me,” he lies, gesturing to

some discarded scoring paper), Scott will

be heading to Namibia to scout blasted

interplanetary landscapes for his latest,

sci-fi actioner The Martian. May Empire

perhaps suggest X Pro II for that...?

[email protected]

EXODUS: GODS AND KINGS IS OUT ON DECEMBER 26 AND WILL BE REVIEWED IN A FUTURE ISSUE.

Early 1970s

(1998)Velvet Goldmine

1978

(2013)American Hustle

1980s

(2000)American Psycho

1993

(2010)The Fighter

2018

(2009)Terminator Salvation

2020

(2002)Reign Of Fire

2072

(2002)Equilibrium

Black Hawk Down(2001)

1993 Blade Runner (1982)

2019 Prometheus(2012)

2089 Alien(1979)

2122

Future

Future

8 4 EMPIRE D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 4


make is treated as a reasonable request, and

everyone else will just have to deal with it

or have a phone thrown at their head. She

is as much of a megastar as it is possible

to be without actually being Tom Cruise.

Empire is in LA to meet Lawrence

ahead of the third Hunger Games movie,

Mockingjay Part 1 (Part 2 will follow a year

later), currently located in a really bloody

big suite, which Josh Hutcherson is not

using due to an unspecified emergency

keeping him away from the junket. A

security guard is lurking outside the room,

even though the hotel seems to be entirely

deserted except for people associated

with the Hunger Games franchise. It

is, of course, possible that a crazed fan

might run in at any moment because that

is how big The Hunger Games now is.

It is perhaps even more famous than

Lawrence. It could probably use its own

guard. The combination of a popular

novel series, smart adaptation and

Lawrence has made it one of the biggest

properties in cinema history, popular far

beyond just the expected teen audience.

The growth of the series has been

absurd. When the film adaptation was

announced in 2009, The Hunger Games

was “The New Twilight” (absolute lack of

relevant comparators be damned). When

the first instalment had a US opening

weekend of $153 million in 2012 it was

‘proof that female-led movies can actually

make money’, which is still a thing that

surprises people and apparently requires

continued analysis beyond a simple ‘people

like good stories’. When part two became

the fifth-biggest movie of 2013, it was the

arrival of a new super-franchise. Now

that the series is entering its final (two-

part) chapter, The Hunger Games is on

a precipice. If Mockingjay can match, or

surpass, the critical success of the previous

two films (commercial success is just

about guaranteed), it will join the ranks

of the biggest guns, sitting alongside The

Lord Of The Rings, Toy Story, Star Wars

and Indiana Jones. It will become more

than just a modern success; it will become

a touchstone, a formative experience for

countless kids. One for the ages.

Lawrence goes a little bit pale when

this is suggested to her. She suddenly

hen one

becomes a

megastar it is

hoped that one

will not let the

power go to one’s

head. In the face of

great riches, awards

and notoriety, it

behoves one to

remain grounded…

“JOSH’S ROOM

IS SO MUCH

BIGGER THAN

MINE! WHAT THE FUCK?”

Jennifer Lawrence may have missed

a memo.

If Lawrence seriously wanted to kick

off (we stress, for the legal department’s

nerves, she is obviously joking) about an

undersized suite, or the wrong colour

M&Ms in her snack selection, or the vibe

of the space not being quite in tune with

what her aura guru prescribes, she is

famous enough that she would probably

be taken seriously. She is, right now, that

level of famous where any demand you

B R I E F I N G

THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY PART 1RELEASED: November 20

DIRECTOR: Francis Lawrence

STARRING: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, Julianne Moore, Donald Sutherland, Sam Clafl in, Jena Malone, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jeffrey Wright

STORY: After her dramatic escape from the ‘Quarter Quell’ Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen (Lawrence) is proclaimed the fi gurehead of the rebellion against the Capitol of Panem. But, whisked off to the semi-mythical District 13, it’s not a role she takes to comfortably.

WHAT IS A MOCKINGJAY, ANYWAY? A bird that Hunger Games author Suzanne Collins made up. It’s the result of the accidental crossbreeding of mockingbirds with jabberjays, the latter being a mutant creature created as Capitol spies.

CRESSIDA (NATALIE DORMER)

The offi cial fi lmmaker for the

rebellion, she makes ‘propos’, or propaganda fi lms,

to boost morale across the districts and strengthen the

fi ght against the Capitol. She’s played by Natalie Dormer,

best known as Margaery Tyrell in Game Of Thrones.

NEWENTRANT!

• Hands Up Who Hates The Capitol Part 1:

Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) rallies

the troops.

>

> LIAM HEMSWORTH HAS BEEN

praying for revolution for four years. “I’ve loved making the other fi lms,” he says. “but I get a lot more to do in this one.”

Doesn’t he just. In the fi rst movie, as Katniss’ best friend Gale, Hemsworth mainly stood in a fi eld looking unhappy; in the second he got whipped in the town square then pretty much disappeared until

the last 90 seconds, which revealed his bulked up role for the fi nal chapters: Gale is one of the leaders of the rebellion against the Capitol. “Gale’s spent two movies with his hands tied behind his back,” says Hemsworth. “Now I get a lot of action.” Which lead to the inevitable injury. “I had a hairline fracture between two of the joints in my ankle. I heard a big crack and just went down.”

For Finnick (Sam Clafl in), being part of the plan to break Katniss out of the Hunger Games arena has been a dangerous mission without reward. His wife, Annie, was kidnapped along with Peta and Johanna and taken back to the Capitol to be tortured. “He’s like a lost puppy,” says Clafl in. “He just wants to be with his one true love…Then he takes a back seat until his epic moment, which I won’t spoil for those who don’t know it.”

In the previous fi lm Clafl in was required to train to become the image of male physical perfection. This time, not so much. “I basically starved myself,” he says, curling up in his seat. “After re-reading the book and reading the script and realising the world he’s now part of in District 13 — which is cut off from the world and on ration diets — I made

the decision to barely eat anything for a couple of months... I remember virtually fainting and everyone tried to make me eat something. Nope. I was sticking to my guns… I wanted to look a little ill and emaciated.”

Though Katniss is the poster girl for the rebellion, the woman masterminding it is Alma Coin, the president of District 13, the secret district that has been planning an uprising. As the major new addition to the series, that role goes to Julianne Moore, in a washed-out wig and dark contact lenses. “We’ve given Coin a very particular political arc,” says Moore. “[In the book] you only see her from Katniss’ perspective, so she seems incredibly elusive... there’s nothing to play. So we had to fi nd a way to make her cinematic and alive. What was important was to make her an arc, so we found a start for her that would make sense for where she arrives at the end of the second movie.”

As the political complexity of the series deepens, it will be Moore doing a lot of the heavy lifting. “Coin talks a lot,” she laughs. “Every time I would show up I’d speak in these long speeches. Other people would go out for dinner; I’d stay home and learn lines”.

LIAM HEMSWORTH, SAM CLAFLIN AND

JULIANNE MOORE FIGHT THE POWER


• Sam Clafl in’s Finnick isn’t in

a good place.

• Hands Up Who Hates The Capitol Part 2:

Julianne Moore’s President Alma Coin.


POLLUX(ELDEN HENSON)

In the books he’s an

Avox, a person who

has their tongue cut

out and is enslaved

for rebelling against

The Capitol. He was

freed by his brother

Castor and works

as a cameraman for

Cressida and the

rebellion. He

is mute.

NEWENTRANT!

• The late, great Philip Seymour Hoffman returns as Plutarch.

• Liam Hemsworth’s Gale plays a much more active role in the resistance this

time round.

>

looks younger than her 24 years and

a bit terrified at the thought of being

that big a deal. “It’s... Exciting?” she says

after some hesitation. “It’s hard sometimes

when you’re in it to step back and see it.

You’re right there in the nucleus of what’s

happening but at the same time you’re

blind to the actual impact that it has. I feel

relieved, I guess? I love those books. They

were very good, very entertaining, but

they’re also important... I had to ask myself

before I said yes to this [whether I was

prepared to be known as this character

forever]... But I thought this was a

character I would be proud to wear for the

rest of my life. Now I’m in it and can’t see

as clearly anymore, but that was a decision

I made before when I could see clearly. So

I’m going to trust it and go with it.”

or those making the series,

Mockingjay is the one they’ve all

been waiting for. It’s where the

meat really sticks to the bones. If

you thought the first two, with all

their child murder and revolution, were

a bit dark, then you may have to start

popping happy pills before this one. The

last shot of Catching Fire showed Katniss

(Lawrence) screaming directly into the

camera. She had been rescued by aircraft

from the Hunger Games arena, which she

had just blown up. Peeta (Hutcherson),

her possibly-true-love, was on another

ship, captured by the villainous Coriolanus

Snow (Donald Sutherland), along with

the surly Johanna (Jena Malone). Katniss

is now in the midst of Panem’s rebels, the

people of the presumed mythical District

13 who want Katniss to become ‘The

Mockingjay’, a figurehead of an uprising

against this repressive dystopia’s centre

of government, The Capitol. Battle is

no longer contained within specially

designed arenas. War is coming.


elegance of Snow, if not the suggestion that he might at any second stab you in the eye. “Lyndon Johnson didn’t think he was evil. He’s a war criminal. Putin absolutely doesn’t think he’s evil. He thinks the United States is evil. Nobody thinks they’re evil.” This is a bit heavier than we’d intended, but okay: evil doesn’t think it’s evil, yet that doesn’t make it any less evil. “Snow is just a man doing his job as best he can,” responds Sutherland. “He’s at the end of his life. He’s looking for someone he can groom for that job and the only person he’s found is Katniss Everdeen, but she won’t be able to do the job. So it becomes a fi ght. But it’s a chess game.”

That game is going to have more than two players, which collapses the chess analogy — maybe Hungry Hippos? — though we won’t tell you where the other challenger or challengers for Snow’s seat come from. It’s a bad time for The Capitol in Mockingjay, with cracks starting to show and the other districts threatening to break through. There seems to be no happy ending possible for Snow. “He wants to live forever,” says Sutherland, “to fi ght Katniss… But he can’t.”

Having perhaps an even more miserable

time is Effi e Trinket, Elizabeth Banks’ Capitol dress-up doll. “Oh, she is very unhappy,” says Banks, of Katniss and Peeta’s chaperone. “It’s so sad. The revolution has ruined Effi e’s wardrobe… She’s still pretty damn fabulous, but she has literally one wig and one outfi t.”

Effi e won’t see her home again until Mockingjay Part 2, and then not under the best of circumstances. In a departure from the book, in which Effi e was imprisoned and largely ‘off-screen’, she has now been “whisked to District 13 with nothing but the clothes on her back” to join the rebels. “Essentially, I’m taking the role of Fulvia,” says Banks. “Fulvia’s sort of Plutarch’s (Philip Seymour Hoffman) right hand in [the novel]. Rather than introduce another new character, Effi e takes that role”.

Mostly, though, her role is still to look as remarkable as she can against the stressed drabness of her co-stars. “Everyone in District 13 is given a standard jumpsuit thing, but obviously that won’t work for Effi e,” says Banks with a mock-appalled clutch of her necklace. “She will make couture with whatever she has. We called her approach, ‘The Project Runway of District 13.’”

DONALD SUTHERLAND AND

ELIZABETH BANKS — TWO VERY

DIFFERENT SIDES TO PANEM’S

OVERDRESSED OPPRESSORS

> “EVIL? I DON’T THINK SNOW IS EVIL,” says Donald Sutherland incredulously. In Mockingjay Part 1 Coriolanus Snow kidnaps and tortures two Hunger Games champions in order to use them as propaganda puppets, and sanctions more killing to keep the rebels down. He’s not what you’d call nice.

“He’s an oligarch,” insists Sutherland, who in person has the same magnetic

• Elizabeth Banks’ Effi e Trinket: not

so fab in drab.

• Donald Sutherland’s

Coriolanus Snow: not having a good week.


• Katniss evolves into the Mockingjay.

• Director Francis Lawrence consults Liam Hemsworth on set.

>

CASTOR (WES CHATHAM)

Pollux’s brother is

also a cameraman

in the propo

production squad.

Unlike his brother

he can talk and

serves as his

brother’s

interpreter.

NEWENTRANT!

“I think some people will read the last

book as bleak, and I don’t necessarily.

I think it’s tough, but it’s not bleak,” says

Jennifer Lawrence’s director, Francis

Lawrence, who returns from Catching

Fire to helm both Mockingjay movies.

“With Part 1, which we’re saying is

most of the first half of the book, we’re

dealing with the propaganda war. This

is the beginning of using Katniss as the

Mockingjay, as a symbol for rebellion.”

Unlike his star, Francis Lawrence is

bullish about the series’ growing stature.

“That part’s actually exciting to me,” he

says. “I was hoping Catching Fire would

be received well and do well. But in my

mind I always thought, ‘God, getting over

$400 million [in the US] again is kind of

unheard of.’ I couldn’t imagine it would.

And because the first movie had done so

well in terms of reviews, I also couldn’t

imagine surpassing that. I also had in

my head that people just really liked that

first book. There were a lot of unknowns

for me. So the success (Catching Fire

received better reviews and outstripped

Hunger Games’ domestic box office by

$20 million) was great, but then suddenly

it raises the bar even higher... Actually,

I am a little anxious about that.”

The Hunger Games has always been

able to attract a stellar cast, but the triumph

of the first two instalments means that

now big-name actors are begging to be

part of it, rather than being wooed.

“Julianne Moore came to us,” says Francis

Lawrence. “I couldn’t believe my luck.”

“I was dying to be in it,” says Moore,

who takes the role of Alma Coin,

the president of District 13 who

masterminds the rebellion and

repeatedly clashes with Katniss.

“I read the books on vacation

a while ago. My kids had read

them and I hadn’t brought

anything to read, so I picked them up.

I tore through them. When I knew they

were making a movie I thought, ‘Hmm,

I wonder who’s playing Coin...’ So I put

in a call to make it known I was very

interested in playing the role.”

While it welcomes new cast members,

The Hunger Games also represents a sad,

but hopefully triumphal, final chapter for

one of its company. As the final two films

were shot as one, 2015’s Mockingjay Part

2 will be the last time we see Philip Seymour

Hoffman in a new film. The actor, who

plays gamemaker and secret rebel Plutarch

Heavensbee, died on February 2, 2014,

of combined drug intoxication, during a

weekend break from filming Mockingjay.

“It was a horrible time, losing a friend

and also someone we were working with,”

says Francis Lawrence, his tone soft and

measured, his eyes down. “He died on

a Sunday and he was supposed to shoot

the next day. Once we heard, we just shut

down for the day... It was a really hard

thing to adjust to.”

As the leader, it fell on Lawrence to

guide the cast and crew through a personal

loss and somehow still finish the film.

“You could hear a pin drop that first day

back... We all gathered and said something

about him and for him. It was tough...

I found too that we had to take our time

at the beginning of every day for maybe

three or four weeks, because every day

there’d be someone starting back, someone

who’d been around and this was their first

day back since he’d died and they needed

their ramp-up time. So we were cautious

to be sensitive to everyone’s emotions.”

There were rumours online that

Hoffman would be digitally recreated to

complete his scenes, something which

Francis Lawrence insists was never

considered. “He had two substantial scenes

left and the rest were appearances in other

scenes,” he says. “We had no intention of

trying to fake a performance, so we rewrote

those scenes to give to other actors… The

rest we just didn’t have him appear in those

scenes. There’s no digital manipulation or

CG fabrication of any kind.”

here are two things Jennifer

Lawrence doesn’t like to talk

about. One is press attention,

because she’s so utterly bored with

it. “As soon as they get a picture

of you, you’re in a tabloid, and there’s

a fake story to go with that,” she says, eyes

rolling so hard she’s at risk of straining

herself. “I’d like people to only ever see

me in movies, but I don’t have control

over that because I’m engaged and I’m

also breaking up and I’m fighting with

Kristen Stewart and Kristen Stewart and

I are also best friends,” she says, listing just

the stories that have been published online


is primed to be spokesperson for The Capitol’s fi ght against the rebels, an opposing mascot to Katniss’ Mockingjay.

“Yeah, Peeta’s not having a great time in this,” says Hutcherson on the phone from LA. “But it was actually the one I was looking forward to the most because Peeta gets brainwashed and tortured and goes a little crazy, and all that fun stuff... Not fun in the same way that the others were, but in terms of getting to do heavy stuff with the character.”

And the horrors exacted on Peeta will go even further than those in the novel. “The book doesn’t explain everything that happens to Peeta,” says Hutcherson. “So we were at liberty to create that ourselves. We’re putting him through food and water deprivation, sleep deprivation, various forms of brainwashing.”

Peeta is joined in captivity by Johanna Mason, who seemed like the Mean Girl of the victor group in Catching Fire, but turned out to be selfl ess, throwing herself into danger to save Katniss. Her reward is brutal torment, being waterboarded and subjected to electric shock, and perhaps even death.

“Before I auditioned I remember reading the book and just crying in bed,” says Jena

Malone, who plays Johanna. “These are fi lms that are asking important political questions now. It’s asking all these dark questions in a way a younger audience can understand...” In Mockingjay, Johanna’s steely resolve is severely tested.

Like his co-star Sam Clafl in, Hutcherson undergoes a dramatic physical change in Mockingjay, the rigours of torture and mental anguish withering his frame. Unlike Clafl in, this didn’t involve Hutcherson going on a starvation diet. “Oh, Sam did that?” he says, with a slightly guilty laugh. “No, I had help from CG. I went on a diet of post-production effects… But my change was so drastic that it probably would have been a dangerous thing to do in real life. Maybe Sam didn’t know the CG option was available…”

Having such a tough part for the last two movies didn’t lessen the sorrow of leaving Hunger Games behind. “It was really sad to fi nish,” Hutcherson says. “We’ll still see each other, of course, but it’s bizarre that it’s over… We were looking at pictures of us when we started and we look so young! That’s what brought home how much of our lives has been spent making these movies.”

JOSH HUTCHERSON AND

JENA MALONE REQUIRE

A RESCUE MISSION…

> THE ROLE OF CENTRAL DUDE IN

distress in Mockingjay falls to Josh Hutcherson, who as Peeta was left on the wrong ship at the end of Catching Fire, on his way to The Capitol to be the victim of who-knows-what at the hands of Donald Sutherland’s Coriolanus Snow. And who-knows-what turns out to be a great deal of torture and mind-shattering misery, as he

• Peeta and Jena Malone’s Johanna

are brainwashed by the scheming Snow.

• Josh Hutcherson’s Peeta post-torture.

Loyalties will be tested.


BOGGS (MAHERSHALA ALI)President Coin’s

right-hand man and

effectively Katniss’

bodyguard during

the shooting of their

propaganda fi lms.

If you recognise

Mahershala Ali, it’s

most likely from

Netfl ix series House

Of Cards, in which he

plays Remy Danton.

NEWENTRANT!

• Katniss’ resistance becomes ever more fraught with peril.

• Woody Harrelson’s Haymitch Abernathy

also forms part of the resistance effort.

Hence the hat.

the day we meet, August 11 — “None of

which are remotely true, by the way.” This

is a couple of weeks before she becomes

the most public face in a hacking scandal,

which saw a cabal of weirdos break into

her iCloud account, and those of

around 100 other actresses, to steal

nude photos. It’s not surprising

it’s not her favourite subject.

The other subject she doesn’t like

to discuss is the end of The Hunger

Games, even though The Hunger Games

has, for her, already ended. “I can’t,” she

says, waving her hands in front of her and

shaking her head. “I don’t feel that [it’s

behind me] at all. It hasn’t hit me. At all.

I can’t tell you what it feels like because

I haven’t felt it yet. I think that when it hits

me will be when I go to shoot another movie

and I don’t have these [films] to come home

to. These always felt like coming home.”

She will acknowledge, at least, that

shooting has ended. The final day of

principal photography was in Berlin, with

a scene between Lawrence and Woody

Harrelson. “I remember Francis crying,”

she says. “I remember Woody, Josh, Liam

and I just held each other for so many

hours. I think that people go their whole

lives without finding something like we’ve

had. I’m just so grateful to have that

in my life. So the last thing was us just

holding onto each other like puppies.”

“She told you I cried?” says Francis

Lawrence, mildly incredulous. “It’s a lot

like the last day of college. You have all

Fire, at the time insisting she’d never

make a film of it as it was too dense.

“At the time that was true. I wasn’t

lying, I swear!” she insists. “I was just

reading it on the set of X-Men — the book

is actually covered in blue — and it was

Gary who later came to me and suggested

a film. Maybe he read that I was reading it.

It was months later... He said he wanted

to do it like The Godfather, in three parts.

It was just so exciting. I like having more

control during the creative process.”

There are quite a lot of new things for

these great friends and you’ve spent a

really intense amount of time with each

other and everybody’s swearing they’re

going to hang out all the time, but you

sort of know it’s not going to be the case...”

Jennifer Lawrence has already moved

on to the next project, to a certain degree.

She’s set to produce and star in an

adaptation of John Steinbeck’s East

Of Eden for Gary Ross, director of the

first Hunger Games. As it happens, she

discussed reading the book the last time we

met, just before the release of Catching


DIVERGENT (2014)Total body count 18

17 shot1 suicide jump into chasm

THE GIVER (2014)Total body count 4

(or possibly only 1)

1 baby euthanised by lethal injection

3 shot in the Vietnam War (but those are induced memories/histories/

fl ashbacks)

THE MAZE RUNNER (2014)Total body count 11

6 grabbed by monsters (‘Grievers’)

1 knocked down chasm1 skewered

1 eaten by multiple Grievers1 javelined

1 shot

THE HUNGER GAMES (2012)

Total body count 17

1 beaten to death with brick5 hacked by machete

1 stabbed1 strangled

1 hit with throwing knife2 beaten to death1 throat slashed

1 stung to death by wasps1 shot with arrow

1 speared by javelin1 poisoned by berries

1 eaten by beasts and shot with arrow

THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE (2013)Total body count 6

1 speared1 drowned

1 mauled by monkey2 shot with arrow (but one

is a hallucination)1 killed by thrown machete

* Onscreen deaths only, older characters not included.

CALL IT THE HUNGER GAMES EFFECT: LATELY, YOUTH DYSTOPIAS HAVE BEEN GIVING TRADITIONAL SLASHER

HORRORS FIERCE COMPETITION IN THE MULTIPLE-TEEN-DEATH STAKES. WE COUNT UP THE BODIES…*

W O R D S OWEN WILLIAMS I L L U S T R A T I O N BILL MCCONKEY

• Julianne Moore and Francis Lawrence

discuss inspirational, rebellious presidenting.

Lawrence to learn at the moment: how to

be famous; how to produce (“You have to

answer the phone more”); how to deal with

the weight of expectation that comes from

winning an Oscar in your early twenties;

how to be, according to Forbes, the second-

highest-earning actress last year, with

$34 million, just behind Sandra Bullock...

“That doesn’t feel like anything, really,”

she says of the latter. “You can’t compute

those kinds of numbers. My dad sent me

a text message two days ago yelling at me

for spending $600 on a shirt. So in a weird

way, nothing’s changed.” And being

obscenely rich doesn’t mean she can’t still

appreciate a freebie. “I was at the bar with

[my friend] Scotty, and I kissed a bartender

on the cheek. So he said, “What can I get

you?” after I kissed him. I was like, “We’ll

have two free beers now.” So we were

high-fiving and I was showing off like,

“I got us free beers!” Then I told Liam

(Hemsworth) later and he was like, “Yeah,

the bar is free. He gave you free free beers.”

t’s not entirely true that the Hunger

Games production is complete. There

is, Lawrence lets slip, one last scene to

complete for the very end of the series,

possibly featuring her nephews in

roles we won’t spoil. But after that, the

saga of Katniss will be at an end. However,

movie studios, when they find a franchise

that reliably delivers over and over again,

are understandably reluctant to let it die.

If it’s the X-Men franchise, it goes back

to the beginning and rewrites its own future

so that the previous films are an alternative

reality. If it’s The Terminator, it keeps

tying time in so many different knots that

nobody can any longer argue what does

or doesn’t make sense. If it’s Harry Potter,

it just goes to another place and time in

the same world for Fantastic Beasts And

Where To Find Them. Since Hunger

Games can take Katniss and Lawrence

no further, is there any chance that the

Hunger Games ‘brand’ could go on in

some way? Francis Lawrence answers in

a manner that suggests this isn’t the first

time he’s been asked to consider it.

“It’s a tough thing. It’s a weird thing,”

he says. “That world of Harry Potter,

there’s a lot to that world that you can

explain. You can understand the appeal

of telling another story, but can you

actually do it without Harry and Hermione

and those characters? Will people care as

much? And I guess you can say the same

thing about the Hunger Games world.

There are a lot of past games and a lot of

this world, but without Katniss, is it the

same? Part of what I like about the series

is the connection to things we think about

and talk about now. What’s the new

version of that? That would be the tricky

thing.” Well, it’s not a no...

[email protected]

THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY PART 1 IS

OUT ON NOVEMBER 20 AND WILL BE REVIEWED

IN THE NEXT ISSUE.


EMPIRE GOES ON SET WITH ANGELINA JOLIE TO UNCOVER THE 50-YEAR MAKING OF EXTRAORDINARY

WORLD WAR II SURVIVAL STORY UNBROKENW O R D S NEV PIERCE


HE BOMBER SITS

high on a scaffold in

a soundstage echoing

with the thumps, bangs

and chatter of a crew

moving kit. Superman is

painted on the cockpit,

though the Man Of

Steel himself has less

trouble in the air. This

model, the B-24

Liberator, was so unreliable that airmen

nicknamed it the ‘Flying Coffin’. The

tailgun is being tampered with, preparing

to fire. In the belly of the plane, the ball

turret sticks out from the fuselage, looking

like World War II’s answer to R2-D2.

“That’s Star Wars,” says a woman’s voice,

behind us. “They just took it right off!”

Empire turns around. It’s Angelina

Jolie. January 2014, at Village Roadshow

Studios near Australia’s Gold Coast, and

unsurprisingly, Jolie seems more than at

home on set. Surprisingly, she won’t be

on screen here. Unbroken is her second

feature as director, a $65 million take on

a story that has flummoxed filmmakers

since Universal first snaffled the rights to

the autobiography Devil At My Heels in

1956. Back then, Tony Curtis was being

lined up to star as Louis ‘Louie’ Zamperini,

an Italian-American tearaway who ran

from trouble so fast, he ended up at the 1936

Olympics. Though he missed out on a

medal, he was still young, still developing,

and was expected to excel at the 1940

Tokyo Games. War destroyed that dream.

He ended up in Japan in vastly contrasting

circumstances — via the air force, a crash-

landing, 47 days adrift on the Pacific and

two years as a prisoner of war. It is, it’s

fair to say, a pretty incredible story.

Almost too incredible to film.

“There were certain things you

couldn’t put in because in a movie they’d

seem too much,” says Jolie, smiling. “Like

him punching a shark in the face. It

happened, but we thought, ‘In a movie it’s

going to feel like one too many, so maybe

he’s flailing and he’s climbing and he’s

getting away from it, but it’s more of an

accidental kick than a direct punch.’”

“I really wanted to punch that shark

as well,” says Jack O’Connell, laughing.

You wouldn’t bet on the winner. Wired

and wiry, the Derby-born Brit is a coiled

presence, all energy and edge, enjoying

filming the pre-crash sequences, when

Louie still had an Olympian physique.

They started production with the scenes

adrift at sea, where he had to appear

emaciated (he lost two stone to prepare),

can go to those very heavy places — and

be the kind of man that you really care

about. Because the wrong type of person

is so perfect and so cool, nobody cares.”

Back in 1998, when producer Matt

Baer saw a CBS documentary on

Zamperini and resurrected the idea

of a big-screen take on his story, Brad

Pitt was considered, then Nicolas Cage

attached. Jolie looked beyond marquee

names, watching tape after tape of would-

be Louies. “A lot of the struggle was to

find that person who had that heart but

then also could physically run the races,

physically go in and out of the raft and

whereas now he can properly eat.

“Thankfully we did the worst bit at the

beginning when we were still enthusiastic

enough to really hurt ourselves!”

O’Connell will be unknown to most

US audiences. Even at home, while he’s

shown movie-star charisma in Tower

Block, Starred Up and ’71, he’s probably

still most recognised for TV series Skins

and as the swaggering teen who terrorises

Michael Fassbender in Eden Lake.

For Jolie, the part was a bastard to

cast. “It was very hard because you have

to find somebody who has enough of

a connection emotionally — that really

B R I E F I N G

UNBROKEN

RELEASED: December 26

DIRECTOR: Angelina Jolie

STARRING: Jack O’Connell, Domhnall Gleeson, Garrett Hedlund, Jai Courtney, Luke Treadaway

STORY: The life of Olympic runner Louis Zamperini (O’Connell), who joined the air force during World War II, was shot down over the Pacifi c, picked up by the Japanese and made a prisoner of war.

DON’T THE COEN BROTHERS HAVE SOMETHING TO DO WITH THIS? Yes indeed: they’ve worked on the script version of this remarkable true story, along with Richard LaGravenese (The Fisher King) and William Nicholson (Gladiator).

• Top: Internees line up in the Japanese POW camp. Here: The three crash survivors adrift in the Pacifi c.


do all the stuff he has to do, do great fight

scenes,” she says. “It is the hardest thing

I’ve ever seen an actor do, everything he’s

had to do. To have that balance of a real

soulfulness, but be a total street fighter.

A man’s man — in a young boy. Because

today there’s a lot of young men that are

wonderful, but there’s something very

classic, old-school, about Jack.”

His tape stood out — auditioning

actors had to talk about grief in their life,

and pretend they were locked inside a box

— and they met, worked through scenes,

before doing a screentest in London. “Angie

had this belief in me that she found early,

and I guess she had to convince a lot of

people that I was the right man,” says

O’Connell. “It’s a studio film and they

wanna guarantee bums on seats and I ain’t

got a following. So I’ve definitely benefited

off her faith and trust, and hopefully it’s

reciprocated by what I do here.”

Few people saw In The Land Of Blood And Honey, Jolie’s

first film as director (which has never

been released in the UK), but those who

did won’t easily forget it. A twisted love

story set against the Bosnian War, it

is far from perfect, but is distinct and

uncompromising, with an arresting point

of view; within a few minutes you know

you’re in the hands of a proper filmmaker.

“Just to hear you say that makes me so

happy and a bit shy,” says Jolie. And, yes,

she’s a world-class actress, but the insecurity

tastes sincere. “I feel the responsibility of it,

to get it right for all these people who are

working on this and trust me. I’m working

that much harder because I haven’t

convinced myself yet I’m a director.”

The career shift was not long-planned

or anticipated. She wrote In The Land Of

Blood And Honey after visiting Bosnia as

• Top: Clarence Douglas (Stephen J. Douglas) and Harry Brooks (Spencer Lofranco) man their stations. Above: Angelina Jolie directs prisoners on the Naoetsu set. Right: Jack O’Connell as Torrance High School’s short-lived running champ.

>


part of her work for the United Nations,

then directed it because she wanted “to

protect the material”. She enjoys having

more control than she does when on screen

(“I’ve done quite a few I’ve not been happy

with”), yet has almost become a filmmaker

by accident. “But I can’t believe it, I love

it so much! I love working with crew,

I love history, I love spending the day

learning everything I can about everything

from lighting to why they did this in the

plane. I love working with actors. And

I don’t think I ever loved being an actor.”

Still, it has been “daunting”, and even

someone as experienced as Ethan Coen —

who Jolie brought in to script, with brother

Joel (final credits are still to be confirmed)

— has described the movie as “a

motherfucker, a difficult production thing.

There is aerial combat stuff, dogfight

stuff, stuff on a lifeboat on an open sea.”

It feels like several films in one. “It’s

funny, we actually had a list of ‘what it’s

like’,” says Jolie, “because there are so

many different references. We’ve gone

from Chariots Of Fire to Jaws to Bridge

On The River Kwai to Cool Hand Luke.”

(Sidney Lumet’s The Hill was another

telling reference point, and Jolie speaks

glowingly of his book about directing,

Making Movies.) “This film is so

complicated,” she continues. “It really

could have been a more established

director!” She laughs. “Even Brad, I was

showing him some things and he was going,

‘It is kind of amazing that you can do

this.’ He just didn’t realise, even reading

it you don’t realise [the scale]. Thank God

we have such a great team of people.”

Jolie gives a lot of credit to everyone

else, but there’s no doubt who is in charge.

She’s warm and approachable, but her

gentleness is combined with steel. While

Jolie talks with DP Roger Deakins,

preparing for a segment with more gunfire,

Empire steps outside with Domhnall

Gleeson, who plays another crash survivor,

Russell Allen ‘Phil’ Phillips. “You can see

[in Blood And Honey] that she doesn’t shy

away from the reality of destruction if that’s

what’s required,” he says. “She’s a general,

and she does it in a very unassuming way.

But she’s a general and we’re all following

her, and that’s the way it should be.”

We wander back into the darkness of

the stage. O’Connell approaches, mock

outraged. “You’re a line-stealer! Nicking my

dialogue.” A snippet in the next scene has

transferred from Louie to Phil. Gleeson

deadpans: “I try and take as many lines

as possible off the actors around me. It’s

how I’ve made a career for myself. I’m not

going to apologise, Jack! If you make it to

30 you’ll realise that’s what’s required.”

O’Connell laughs — “You’ve inspired

me!” — and the crewmates head towards

the belly of the B-24 and their director.

• Top: The path of Zamperini’s life changes forever. Right: Jolie The Director reviews the rushs. Baseball cap and beard just out of shot.

“I LOVE DIRECTING! I DON’T THINK I EVER LOVED BEING AN ACTOR.” ANGELINA JOLIE


ON SET, JOLIE exudes a quiet

authority. There’s no sense of celebrity: no

minders or barriers between her and the

crew. This isn’t always the case even with

a workaday filmmaker, let alone someone

who is still an A-list actress (Maleficent

made more than $750 million worldwide).

Professionally, she is in a position that

is arguably unparalleled. In terms of

recent actor-directors, perhaps only Mel

Gibson has had a commensurate budget

for a prestige picture (and even he had

to act in Braveheart). If you look at the

shamefully low proportion of female

directors, the achievement seems all the

more significant — only Kathryn Bigelow

has made movies of this size —while if

you’re talking female stars-turned-

filmmakers, Jodie Foster is the closest

comparison. Before that, you’re back in

the ’50s with Ida Lupino. But then, Jolie is

already an anomaly in that studios seem to

consider her charisma more important than

gender (her espionage actioner Salt was,

after all, originally a Tom Cruise vehicle).

For Baer, who had been trying to snare

directors for 15 years, Jolie’s competence

and enthusiasm were essential. He’d been

through script after script, trying to crack

the adaptation. “The constant question

was how much of the story could you tell

in a film version?” Hope flickered in 2002

when Laura Hillenbrand decided to write

a book about Zamperini, but the Seabiscuit

author suffers from chronic fatigue

syndrome and her exhaustively researched,

and quite brilliant, Unbroken: A World

War II Story Of Survival, Resilience And

Redemption would not be ready until

2009. At that point, Baer pushed it with

Universal chief Donna Langley and

adaptations were attempted. But while the

script(s) didn’t snare Jolie, the book did.

“She made a real effort to get the job,”

says Baer. “It was one of the most amazing,

thorough, exciting things I’ve ever been a

part of in my career — in terms of watching

her use her charm, intelligence and passion.

When she came in for her first meeting,

she said, ‘Look, I think this is maybe the

greatest untold story ever.’ And obviously

I’m like, ‘Hallelujah! Somebody is saying

what I’ve been trying to say for the last 15

years. Except she has power!’ For me, it

(the production) is a fantastic combination

of these two amazing women in Laura

Hillenbrand and Angelina, who both fell

hard for this amazing story of survival.”

“I just fell in love with it,” Jolie

confirms. “I wanted to learn more about

this man’s story and for more people to

know about it. And I wanted to go on the

adventure myself and learn from it.” Like

a lot of the best directors, Jolie seems very

interested in learning — she’s an engaged

listener, attentive and curious. Regardless

of whether the film is acclaimed or Oscar-

nominated, the process has been hugely

rewarding. Not least in terms of meeting

Zamperini, who she had, without realising,

lived near for years, in the Hollywood Hills.

“I love him! The way he approaches life,

the way he talks to people, and he’s funny,”

she says, eyes glowing in the shadows of

the set. “He’s everything you hope he

would be. I didn’t have grandparents,

growing up, I didn’t grow up with a father

around my house, so I think I lean towards

these extraordinary men, who teach me

something about life. He’s taken me under

his wing a bit, he’s taken care of me a little

bit the last year and helped me through

some stuff. He’s great.” (Zamperini met

with key cast before shooting and was in

regular contact with Jolie, who showed

him the film on her laptop in hospital,

before his death on July 2 this year.)

O’Connell describes the responsibility

of playing Louie as “humungous”. He

talks warmly of meeting the man, of how

he feels more confident and capable of

growing up now, “because I’ve got such

a direct, flawless form of inspiration in

Louie.” He pauses. “I guess flawless is the

wrong term — he had his faults too, which

helped me find a lot of comfort in moving

forward. I’m extremely privileged to have

met someone as inspiring as Louie and

not only that, but to portray his life. I’ve

got to take the positives from that. If not,

I didn’t deserve the role in the first place.”

Zamperini’s personality, energy and

determination got him through brutal

experiences, while becoming a Christian

got him through the aftermath when many

would have been eaten up by hate. In Jolie

he found a kindred spirit: another survivor,

though of quite contrasting experiences,

drawn to the hope of his story.

“He was a troubled kid and he really

questioned faith, really didn’t believe in

God, had just a real darkness, a real anger

— not just in some kind of poetic way, in a

very deep way,” she says, a few yards from

where the crew are preparing a shot that will

see a section of the plane violently shaken

on a gimbal. “Through different stages of

his life he kept questioning and weighing

this light and darkness, and at some point

he was able to be open and forgive and live

in the light. That’s a universal message,

that’s not specific to a faith. Bad things

happen to all of us and we go through

many things and we see many things, in

our different ways, and we either let them

make us a darker person and damaged

and aggressive and angry and hateful, or

we somehow find a way to rise above.”

She readies to go back to the plane, to

shoot more shooting, to tell this stunning

story of survival. She laughs. “The only

way to save yourself is to rise above!”

[email protected]

UNBROKEN IS OUT ON DECEMBER 26 AND WILL BE

REVIEWED IN A FUTURE ISSUE.

WAR STORIESFIVE AMAZING WORLD WAR II

TRUE-LIFE TALES THAT SHOULD BE FILMED RIGHT NOW

WHITE DEATH1939-1940: Fighting in the Winter War against the Soviet Union, Finnish sniper Simo Häyhä lurked in snow-bound

landscapes alone for hours and notched 505 confi rmed kills — making him the deadliest ever sharp-shooter. Nicknamed

‘White Death’, he was eventually stopped by a bullet in the face... but survived, living until the age of 96.

OPERATION CHARIOTMarch 1942: Hoping to destroy German battleship Tirpitz

while it was in dry dock at St. Nazaire, the British rammed an old destroyer packed with explosives into the dock gates —

while commandos swarmed out to blitz other buildings. Many were killed or captured, but the raid was a strategic triumph.

PAVLOV’S PLATOONSeptember 1942: Soviet Sergeant Yakov Pavlov lead a platoon into a Nazi-occupied apartment building in Stalingrad... And all but four of his men were killed. Nonetheless they held the fl ats against all-comers, with a few reinforcements and an anti-tank rifl e which Povlov used to take out no fewer than

12 German tanks.

OPERATION JERICHOFebruary 1944: Aussie, Kiwi and Brit Mosquito fi ghter

bombers buzzed ultra low across the channel to France to hammer Amiens prison — demolishing a wall so that French

Resistance fi ghters could escape. One hundred-and-two prisoners were killed, 155 re-captured, but 258 escaped.

THE FILTHY THIRTEENUS paratroopers, these blokes earned their mucky moniker by rarely washing and being astonishingly hard bastards, dropping

behind enemy lines to blow up bridges and, well, Nazis. Obviously the inspiration for The Dirty Dozen, but more insane: in tribute to their leader — part-Native American Jake McNiece

— they wore war paint into battle.

• The remains of German battleship the Tirpitz.

1 0 0 EMPIRE D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 4

W O R D S SIMON BRAUND

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1 0 2 EMPIRE D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 4 empireonline.com

one of the most prestigious seats of

learning in the United States. Armed with

a BA in economics and communications,

her choice of career paths was a broad

one. Shunning Washington and Wall

Street, Hurd instead took a job at

B-movie outfit New World Pictures as

executive assistant to Roger Corman.

“Roger has a degree in chemical

engineering from Stanford,” she says,

explaining her seemingly odd course

of action. “He’s always recruited

assistants from higher institutions and

I guess he had a soft spot for his alma

mater.” Corman’s decision kickstarted

a remarkably successful career as a writer-

producer that has blazed a trail for other

women seeking top jobs in an industry

traditionally dominated by men.

Hurd moved swiftly up the ranks

at NWP — a rise for which she gives

Corman due credit. “This was 1978,” she

says, “and there were very few women

producing. Roger was so far ahead of his

time in his belief that women could do

any job that men could do. He insisted

I make that move. It was a kick in the ass!”

Petitely proportioned, sporting a trim

business suit, her hair cut in an impish

bob, Hurd is hardly the personification

of the power-mad movie exec. But in

her office at Valhalla Entertainment,

the company she founded in 1998, there

is plenty of evidence attesting to her

numerous triumphs: signed posters for

Aliens, Terminator 2, Armageddon,

The Incredible Hulk; a shelf groaning

with awards and, on the coffee table,

an ILM maquette for The Abyss’ water

tentacle, a milky serpentine treasure

that effectively invented CGI.

After cutting her teeth at NWP,

co-producing car-chase flick Smokey

Bites The Dust, Hurd’s career went into

overdrive in 1984 when she co-wrote and

produced The Terminator. It was an

auspicious debut for several reasons. “We

were starting pre-production on Battle

Beyond The Stars,” she says, “and Roger

sent me to check on how things were

going. The first place I went was the

model shop. And that’s where I met Jim

(Cameron). It’s a long story but, partly

on my recommendation, he ended up

as the art director on the film.” He also

ended up as Hurd’s first husband, wooing

her, according to legend, in the unlikely

environment of the gun range. “Doesn’t

everyone do that?” laughs Hurd. “No?

Well, that’s because you’re English. We’re

both adrenaline junkies, so it was racing

cars, shotguns, hot air balloons, dune

buggies, ultralight airplanes...”

The Terminator was born in a fever

dream that plagued Cameron one restless

night in Rome while trying to salvage his

directorial debut, Piranha II. “He had

this searing vision of The Terminator

endoskeleton emerging from the flames,”

says Hurd. “He called me and said,

‘I have this central image and I think

there’s a movie there.’” There certainly

was: a genre-defining piece of tech-noir

as powerful now on its 30th anniversary

as it was at the time. It was born as much

from Cameron’s vision as from co-writer

Hurd’s attraction to the dark side of sci-fi

and the spectre of technology run amok.

“We generally find out the consequences

of our actions as a species too late,” she

says. “Whether it’s creating chemicals that

are then used to exterminate people or

computers that could become sentient

and turn on us. It’s incredibly dangerous

and I think we’re far too complacent.”

A massive sleeper hit, The Terminator

made a superstar of a cocky Austrian

bodybuilder named Arnold Schwarzenegger

and propelled Cameron and Hurd to the

top of the Hollywood heap. “It’s hard for

me to put into words what this franchise

has meant to me,” Hurd reflects. “I have

watched it evolve, and to know it remains

as relevant today as it was in 1984, there

really is no greater thrill for a producer.

It doesn’t shock me that 30 years later we

are looking back at the incredible impact

it had on pop culture. I’m celebrating the

Terminator 30th [anniversary] not just as

a producer, but also as a fan.”

Hurd and Cameron’s next

collaboration was 1986’s Aliens, another

colossal hit, but one that brought Hurd

face-to-face with the reality of the

Tinseltown Boys’ Club. “With Roger I’d

been used to women doing everything,”

she says. “I thought that was normal. It

was not. Doing Terminator was okay

because that was an independent. Aliens

was a studio film, and [studio] people

would say to me, ‘How could a little girl

like you produce a big movie like that?’

We went to England and a head of

department said, ‘Who’s really producing

this movie?’ ‘Well, I am.’ ‘No, no, no.

You’re married to the director. Who’s

really producing the movie?’”

These were obviously people who

had not spent much time in Gale Anne

Hurd’s company. And it’s no surprise

that their condescension served only

to harden her already steely resolve.

“It was a red rag to a bull,” she says.

“I had the confidence that Roger instilled

in me. I knew to do my homework,

to be prepared and to be as good as

the guys — which wasn’t actually

that hard.”

• Top: Michael Biehn and soon-to-be-iconic Linda Hamilton in 1984’s The Terminator. Middle: Five years later, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio comes face-to-face with the water tentacle in The Abyss. Bottom: Hurd with Scott Wilson (as patriarchal vet Hershel Greene) and showrunner Scott Gimple on the set of The Walking Dead.

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subscribe at www.empireonline.com/sub D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 4 EMPIRE 1 0 3

on The Abyss, as does Mastrantonio.

A popular crew T-shirt read “The Abuse”).

“Yeah,” nods Hurd, acknowledging

that the shoot was hard on the cast and

crew. “But you’ve got to realise that no-

one was working harder than Jim. No-

one was in the water longer than Jim. He

had to watch dailies under water every day

while he decompressed. Imagine shooting

14 hours a day in the water, six days a

week. Jim didn’t get a day off; I didn’t get

a day off.” When asked if, at any point,

she felt they’d bitten off more than they

could chew, Hurd is unequivocal. “Every

day!” she laughs. “I gave everyone who

got through The Abyss a little pin,

“ON ALIENS, PEOPLE SAID, ‘WHO’S REALLY PRODUCING THE MOVIE?’”

the perfect opportunity for Hurd to show

her mettle wasn’t long in coming. In 1986,

she and Cameron, in their respective roles

as producer and writer-director, began

work on The Abyss, a film that, with some

stiff competition, still takes the sodden,

salt-encrusted cake as the most tortuous

and troubled shoot in history. “It was

honestly not that troubled,” says Hurd,

understandably keen to nip the more

extreme rumours (tantrums, fistfights,

emotional breakdowns and the like) in the

bud. “But it was impossibly difficult. We

went through two or three regimes at Fox,

and we were doing something that no-one

in their right mind would even attempt.”

What they were doing was building

the world’s largest underwater set at a

nuclear reactor facility in South Carolina,

flooding it with seven-and-a-half million

gallons of water and then making a movie

in it. Few stunt people were used; all

the actors (Ed Harris, Mary Elizabeth

Mastrantonio, Michael Biehn et al) had

to become certified divers beforehand, and

reports of close calls were rife (allegedly,

Ed Harris almost drowned when he ran

out of air and was handed an upside

down regulator that caused him to suck in

water. He refuses to discuss his experience

• Hurd and then-husband James Cameron promote Aliens in 1986.

>


> “I’M GOING TO KICK ASS THIS SEASON,” declares Andrew Lincoln, Sheriff Rick Grimes on AMC’s ratings-busting, zeitgeisty zombiefest The Walking Dead. “Rick’s made peace with his brutal side and he’s back in the leadership role.”

Lincoln’s words will be music to the ears of fans eager to see Grimes reclaim his alpha male status. As the de facto leader of a motley band of survivors, fi ghting for their lives in the aftermath of the zombie apocalypse, Grimes had been a tireless foe of the ‘walkers’ ever since the show’s 2010 debut. Lately, though, he seemed to have lost his edge, preferring to till the soil rather than blast walkers’ heads to a pulp with his trusty Colt Python. However, after ripping a guy’s throat out with his teeth at the end of the last season, it seems Rick is back on form.

“He’s at his most formidable,” confi rms Lincoln. “It’s his job, it’s what he does. He’s realised it’s one of the main reasons he and the others are still alive.”

Empire is speaking to Lincoln on the Georgia set, early in the Season 5 shoot. The word “set” is, to be honest, a misnomer. An entire studio, plus its lushly rolling backlot, criss-crossed with snaking backroads, muddy creeks and shadowy woodland, is entirely dedicated to the show. And for anyone familiar with The Walking Dead, it’s an eerie experience to leave the environs of the studio complex and head off into zombieland. Passing the remnants of the prison from Seasons 3 and 4 — the stump of a guard tower, a jagged tangle of razor wire — it strikes you that just over there is where saintly old coot Hershel (Scott Wilson) had his head hacked off; on a crest in the distance are the railway tracks that promised, cruelly, to lead to safety at the end of Season 4.

Sadly, there are no walkers on show today. But ‘the group’ is out in force. In a clearing in the woods, Rick, Daryl (Norman Reedus), Carol (Melissa McBride), Abraham (Michael Cudlitz), Maggie (Lauren Cohan) and others, careworn and grungy, come across a church. Venturing inside they confront a Biblical quotation painted above the altar: “He who eats my fl esh and drinks my blood shall have eternal life.”

“For most of the last season,” says producer Gale Anne Hurd, “the characters were dispersed. Most of them are back together now. And once again the theme is: who are you in the zombie apocalypse?”

“It’s all about the characters,” says Lincoln, touching on what, apart from the eternal appeal of zombies, accounts for the show’s phenomenal popularity. “It’s about human adaptability, a survival story. It’s not about fi nding a solution.”

Further details on what Season 5 has in store are hard to come by. But with the group reunited and Rick kicking ass again, what could possibly go wrong…?

WE SHAMBLE TO GEORGIA TO VISIT THE WALKING DEAD: SEASON 5

like a life-preserver, that said ‘Survivor’.”

In 2012, Hurd was honoured with

a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame.

She has served on the Academy’s Board

Of Governors and is an officer of the

Producers Guild Of America. She has

just been inducted into the International

Women’s Forum Hall Of Fame. She and

Cameron divorced in 1989. After a two-

year marriage to Brian De Palma, she is

now married to writer-director Jonathan

Hensleigh. She is still a keen scuba diver,

even after The Abyss, and has owned two

dive boats based in Micronesia.

her mark on feature films, with a string

of box-office blockbusters and smaller

indie fare such as last year’s Very Good

Girls with Dakota Fanning, Hurd

recently turned her attention to television.

Naturally, she jumped in at the deep end.

In 2010 she became executive producer

of AMC’s ratings monster The Walking

Dead, the horror-soap based on Robert

Kirkman’s graphic novel.

In some respects, Dead harks back to

her days at New World Pictures, with its

intensely graphic violence and flashes of

black humour, and with its tight schedules

and even tighter budgets. “It is like a

return to working with Roger,” confirms

Hurd. “That was the perfect training

ground. With Roger you learn you can do

anything within the budget, so you do.”

Commissioned for a sixth season,

The Walking Dead is now the most-

watched scripted drama among over-18s

in America. “Obviously it’s a well-crafted

show,” says Hurd, “but there’s a lot of

those on television. The perception is that

genre audiences are small. That’s not true.

If a show delivers on a character level,

people feel connected. And boy, do our

fans connect with the characters! Plus the

stakes are life and death every day. We live

in a world that’s incredibly frightening.

We try to pretend things are okay, but in

the pit of our stomachs we feel something

bad is going to happen. At least one thing

we don’t have to worry about is the

zombie apocalypse.”

What, then, do we have to look forward

to from the tirelessly prolific Hurd? A

glance at the pseudopod-sporting coffee

table offers a clue. On it is a copy of Annie

Jacobson’s non-fiction bestseller, Area 51:

An Uncensored History Of America’s

Top Secret Military Base. “That’s at

AMC,” says Hurd, her lips noticeably

tighter. “We’re expecting a script from

Chris Carter (he of X-Files fame) soon.

Fingers crossed.” Let’s say, firmly crossed.

[email protected]

THE WALKING DEAD: SEASON 5 IS AIRING NOW ON FOX TV UK.

• Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and Daryl (Norman Reedus)

tool up for Season 5.

• The walkers are still looking

a tad peaky.

SPOILERWARNING

1 0 6 EMPIRE M O N T H 2 0 1 4

D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 4 EMPIRE 1 0 7

ince lugging his

battered valise,

Peruvian bush hat

and unquenchable

optimism into people’s

hearts back in 1958,

Paddington Bear has

become a British icon

of the marmalade-

gobbling, duffle-

coated variety. He’s sold more than

30 million copies of Michael Bond’s

tales, appeared in three different TV

incarnations, been adapted for the

stage and even had his own cookery

book (try Mr. Gruber’s chicken

paprika). Now he’s a movie star too,

thanks to Paul ‘Bunny And The Bull’

King’s lovingly made origin story.

But what’s the key to his appeal?

Why — and how — has he endured

so long, this unashamedly analogue

character in a digital world…?

1. LONELINESS“I really liked Paddington as a kid,”

says King, “but you come to it as

a 35 year-old human and go, ‘I’m

not five and in the living room

anymore — why do I find this

character appealing?’ And I think

it’s that he’s in another world and

it’s a bit scary. It’s that primal thing

of being alone.”

Bond’s own eureka moment

came when he stumbled upon a

lonely stuffed bear on a Selfridges

shelf. With his little suitcase and

“Please Look After This Bear.

Thank You” label, Paddington

became an emblem for all the

children evacuated from their homes

during the War years, and King is

holding tightly to the same threads.

Paddington, he explains, is “the

first day of school, or that time you

lost your mum in the supermarket,

or you felt you didn’t have any

friends, or you’d just split up with

somebody.” You don’t need to be

a tree-dwelling mammal fleeing

a South American earthquake to

relate to those feelings (although

this bear is) because, as the director

points out, “there’s something

universal” in them.

2. BEARISHNESSIt’s a lesser-known Paddington

fact that he originally hailed from

Darkest Africa, before a publisher

versed in these things pointed out

that bears don’t live in Africa. So

he moved to Darkest Peru. There

he became a spectacled bear,

a diminutive and patient critter

known to spend days on a tree

branch waiting for a single piece

of fruit to ripen. Paddington, who

can barely wait for a kettle to boil,

shares only one of those traits.

“We’ve made him more

bearlike,” stresses producer David

Heyman of his 3’ 6” star, “because

we wanted him to exist in this world

as a bear. He’s not Ted.” The

filmmakers eschewed Ivor Wood’s

beloved animation and the ’toon

Paddingtons of the ’90s, returning

instead to Peggy Fortnum’s drawing

board to conceive a “little slip of

a bear” fit for King’s film. “Peggy’s

was the original Paddington,”

emphasises the director. “He’s

like a street urchin and because

of my love of Chaplin’s The Kid,

I thought, ‘Ah, that’s what he is!

He’s Oliver Twist or a chimney

sweep; he’s messy, a ragamuffin.”

Being an animal doesn’t always

sit well with a bear who, after all,

just wants to fit in. “He doesn’t want

to stand out as being ‘other’, but of

course he is other,” points out Ben

Whishaw, the man giving him voice.

“It’s something he learns about

himself: he is a bear and he doesn’t

need to lose his bearish ways. I think

that’s a lovely message.”

3. YOUTHFULNESS“He’s a child looking for a family,”

stresses King of his star, who

travels from the bosom of Aunt

Lucy (Imelda Staunton) and Uncle

Pastuzo (Michael Gambon) to

take up residence in 32 Windsor

Gardens with the initially dubious

Brown family (including Sally

Hawkins and Hugh Bonneville).

Down the years, Paddington has

been drawn, illustrated, stop-

motioned and animated. Now

he’s being realised by London-

based VFX outfit Framestore as

a photo-real CG character in a live-

action world. The quest to find

the right voice for Paddington —

56 years young — led first to Colin

Firth, before a much-publicised

“conscious uncoupling” saw him

exit the project.

“It’s difficult, isn’t it?” laments

King. “Colin said to me, ‘It’s not

like splitting up with a girlfriend!’,

but I felt it was a little bit. I really

felt he’d be perfect, but slowly we

realised it wasn’t quite working. He

just sounded a bit too mature. You

didn’t believe that the resonance of

his voice would come out of that

small animal.”

So King made the call to swap

the vocal talents of Mr. Darcy

and King George VI for the more

youthful timbre of Q Branch

and John Keats. “Ben’s obviously

a terrific actor, and he’s good as

Q, quiet and small, but I wondered

if he could do robust because

Paddington’s quite robust. There’s

more ‘front-foot’ about him, and

Ben has that front-foot confidence.”

Whishaw settled on a simple

approach to capturing the bear.

“The less I characterised him or

tried to do something more, the

better,” he explains. “The more

I tried to do my own voice, the

more the bear came alive.”>


• Being quite the ‘It Bear’, of course Paddington is no stranger to miniature pooches.

4. INNOCENCEThere’s a word Empire hears

mentioned more than any other

— with the possible exception of

“marmalade” — across four visits

to Paddington’s production. “He’s

a sweet innocent,” Julie Walters

tells us over a cuppa between takes

at Windsor Gardens (actually

Primrose Hill). As the Browns’

blunt housekeeper Mrs. Bird, she’s

well-placed to do a spot of ursine-

analysis. So, too, is Mr. Brown

himself, Hugh Bonneville. “He’s

not streetwise, he’s got an innocence

— but he’s not stupid,” chips in

the actor, a description his co-star

Whishaw later embroiders over

the phone. “He has to retain this

innocence. There’s an earnestness

about the bear: he’s very trusting

and honest, but at the same time,

he’s a little animal that’s causing

chaos and he’s got animal instincts.

It’s a very charming combination.”

That bear-out-of-water

unworldliness offers deadpan

delights galore for the creator of

The Mighty Boosh. “It’s just gold

for comedy,” grins King. “He’s

a lovable clown.”

5. POLITENESSAs David Heyman stresses,

Paddington is not — and never

will be — Ted. There is no

‘Paddington And That Time With

The Strippers’ or ‘Paddington Rolls

A Fat Doobie’ lurking in his back

catalogue, and in his closet lie only

empty jars once containing orangey

preserves. “They’ve done the rude

bear and now we can get back to

a world where he doesn’t have to

be rude,” says Bonneville. Because

Paddington picks up English by

listening to the BBC, his turn of

phrase is, shall we say, specific.

“An English explorer has left

his uncle and aunt hampers of

marmalade and a wireless, and

they’ve learnt English from the BBC

World Service,” explains Heyman’s

producer partner, Rosie Alison,

the film’s driving force over nearly

a decade, of Paddington’s hat-

tipping politeness. “So Paddington

has this very strong sense of English

compass, protocol and etiquette.”

And, like Amélie with paws,

Paddington has a deep yearning to

help others. In this movie, it’s the

troubled Brown clan who come

under his purview. “It’s a bit like

Mary Poppins,” adds Alison, “with

this slightly dysfunctional family

and a magical visitor who enters

their world. Mr. Banks and Mr.

Brown have a lot of affinities.”

6. INDOMITABILITY While Michael Bond’s stories

pitched Paddington against such

horrors as an overflowing bath,

a disappearing marrow and

a misguided attempt to mow Mr.

Curry’s lawn, the movie introduces

real villainy. Oscar-winning villainy,

at that. Enter Nicole Kidman’s

vengeful taxidermist, Millicent,

to up the threat factor from a Mr.

Curry bollocking to actual death.

“You need that conflict, because

in Paddington the baddies are very

minor,” explains Heyman. “And

Nicole is damn good at playing

a baddie.” But if Paddington’s

predicaments might just extend to

being added to the Natural History

Museum’s permanent collection,

he doesn’t appear particularly

bothered. “I’m going to stuff you,

bear!” cries Kidman, toting a

tranquiliser pistol, in one climactic

scene witnessed by Empire. “With

jam?” replies Paddington (voiced on

set by King himself). He knows no

fear — mainly because he has more

important matters to attend to...

Like his next cream-filled bun.

7. UNCREEPINESSAs Paul King understates, it wasn’t

“ideal” to find his star being

Photoshopped into everything from

The Exorcist to Dallas’ grassy knoll

via a surprise internet meme during

the summer. But Paddington has

already survived one scary alter ego,

long before ‘Creepy Paddington’

skulked along. An early, abortive

movie adaptation combined a dwarf

actor, a bear costume and joystick-

operated eyeballs (yes, really) to

such terrifying effect that Michael

Bond compared it unfavourably to

Boris Karloff’s Frankenstein. The

bear will shrug this off too, reckons

the perma-buoyant King. “The one

where he’s surrounded by blood,

holding a chainsaw was very funny.

I’d thought of most Paddington

jokes but not that one...”

The meme was testament,

albeit in a backhanded way, to

Paddington’s cultural status (it’s

hard to imagine Creepy Noddy

going viral in quite the same way)

and popularity. And as King

stresses, his Paddington is not even

slightly creepy. “So far, people

who’ve seen him seem to fall in love

with our bear,” he smiles. “I hope

he’s a good Paddington.”

[email protected]

PADDINGTON IS OUT ON NOVEMBER 28 AND WILL BE REVIEWED IN A FUTURE ISSUE.

• Nicole Kidman as Millicent, Paddington’s

taxidermist nemesis.


IFE IN SPACE IS NOT EASY.

In fact, according to last year’s

superb Gravity, “Life in space is

impossible.” Of course, if you’re

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replicators and holodecks, it ain’t so bad.

But in the likes of 2001: A Space Odyssey,

Apollo 13 and the upcoming Interstellar, it’s

more a case of coping with weightlessness,

claustrophobia, worryingly fragile

spacecraft and even the odd murderous

operating system... In short, space is

the ultimate challenge.

On our cinema screens we’ve often

seen how people contend with outer-space

disaster, but less often do we observe

how they deal with everyday necessities

while twirling around in zero-gravity

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L Space travel like that seen in Interstellar

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FEW MOVIES HAVE BEEN SO INFLUENTIAL ON MODERN CINEMA AS SERGIO LEONE’S A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS AND ITS ‘SPAGHETTI WESTERN’ SEQUELS. EMPIRE ROUNDS UP FIVE

WORLD-CLASS DIRECTORS TO DEFINE THE UNDYING IMPACT OF ‘THE DOLLARS TRILOGY’ W O R D S LUKE DORMEHL D O L L A R I L L U S T R A T I O N S SIMON PRADES

DOLLARS BUYERS


N A UNIVERSE THAT PLAYED FAIR, SERGIO LEONE’S

‘Dollars trilogy’ — 1964’s A Fistful Of Dollars, 1965’s For

A Few Dollars More and 1966’s The Good, The Bad And The

Ugly — would never have been hits. They arrived at a time

when the Hollywood Western was gasping its last, funded

by Italian producers with the aim of hoovering up whatever

shreds of interest still existed for the genre in Europe. They

were directed by a sword-and-sandal B picture-maker who

barely spoke any English. And they starred a young American

TV star, Clint Eastwood, who only got the poncho-swathed

lead role in each because everyone else (including Charles

Bronson) turned it down.

Starting small, in a single run-down town, and ending epic,

with the Civil War as a raging backdrop, Leone’s trio was violent,

sadistic and utterly lacking in the kind of homespun morals

you’d find in a traditional Western. When released in America

in 1967, they were huge. A phenomenon. Chiming with the

proliferating counterculture, they turned that most American

of genres on its head.

Whoever said Leone’s universe was a fair one?

With A Fistful Of Dollars turning 50 this year, Empire

seized the opportunity to speak with some of the directors who

found enough inspiration in Leone’s brutal (and often cynically

humorous) vision of the Wild West to creatively fuel their entire

careers. For these filmmakers, Leone’s Spaghettis registered as

seismic shifts on the cinema landscape. From his creation of

Eastwood’s so-called Man With No Name (an identity for three

arguably different characters which was retrospectively dreamed

up by the United Artists marketing team) to the brass-blasting

Ennio Morricone themes used on his soundtracks, Leone’s films

are now considered the epitome of cinematic cool, and the

apogee of operatic filmmaking. In short, the Dollars movies

changed everything. And not just in terms of poncho sales.

JOHN WOOWoo was in his early twenties, living in Hong Kong, when he first

saw Leone’s A Fistful Of Dollars. He was still a few years from his

big break, being hired as an assistant director at the legendary

Shaw Studios, but from the whistling, whipcracking animated

opening credits to its final shot of Eastwood riding off into the

scrubland, it was a film that would energise him for decades.

“It was a huge success in Hong Kong and Clint Eastwood

became everyone’s favourite hero,” Woo remembers. “Leone’s

Westerns created a new buzz with their unique style. He gave

Westerns a new life. His movies had modern characters that

audiences could relate to, and also a sense of humour which

was not found in Hollywood Westerns. He broke the rules.”

While Leone was a European filmmaker imitating an American

genre, it shouldn’t be a surprise that his films resonated with a young

Hong Kong audience. A Fistful Of Dollars is a fairly faithful scene-

by-scene remake of a film with which they’d have been familiar:

Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo (1961), about a masterless samurai

who arrives in a small town where competing crime lords vie for

supremacy, itself based on a Dashiell Hammett novel.

“I thought it was clever of Sergio Leone to mix the spirit of

the East with the Wild West,” reflects Woo. “[A Fistful Of Dollars] >

YEARS OF SPAGHETTI WESTERNS

DOLLARS BUYERS CLUB

“I TRIED TO CAPTURE LEONE’S EASTWOOD IN MY BOND FILMS.” MARTIN CAMPBELL


Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

had an Asian philosophy to it. Leone not only influenced me,

but a whole generation of filmmakers in Hong Kong. It changed

the whole film business. Martial arts movies during that time

were heavily influenced by him.”

No Asian filmmaker would have a bigger impact on

Hollywood action movies than Woo. Hollywood’s infatuation

with bullet time — via The Matrix — finds its source in the

balletic action of Woo’s A Better Tomorrow II, or The Killer.

But Woo himself suggests we look back further, tracking back

Westwards, to the Dollars trilogy.

Much of Woo’s style is ramped-up Leone, such as his love

of “alternating dolly shots”, unmatched by anyone other than

maybe Martin Scorsese. Also borrowed are the “brotherhoods

of bandits” storylines found in Woo’s movies, and of course,

the long, suspenseful Mexican stand-offs.

“Many people think of Once Upon A Time In The West as

his greatest film, but [my favourite] was The Good, The Bad

And The Ugly. It was not a light-hearted Western. It had deeper

thought to it and it dealt with honour, betrayal and the Civil War

in America and how it affected the American spirit.”

Such grand American themes might once have been

daunting to a foreign filmmaker, but Woo was impressed by

the way Leone took history he was not even tangentially a

part of, and re-presented it through his own lens. To an extent,

this is what Woo did with American cinema when he arrived in

Hollywood, working with American scripts like Broken Arrow,

Face/Off and Mission: Impossible II. “As a foreign director

approaching another country’s history, Leone showed that it

didn’t matter where he came from; he understood war, suffering

and the human heart,” Woo says. “He made people think.”

MARTIN CAMPBELL“Leone rewrote the book on Westerns,” says Martin Campbell,

director of two of James Bond’s boldest adventures, GoldenEye

and Casino Royale. But it was the central figure in the Dollars

trilogy which fascinated the Kiwi helmer most, one which also

launched one of Hollywood’s biggest, most enduring names: “The

Man With No Name was really the role that made Clint Eastwood’s

career after he’d been working in TV, doing Rawhide for years.”

Sergio Leone liked to say that the West he depicted was both

made by, and filled with, “violent and uncomplicated men”. But

as much as Leone wanted to create authentic Western characters,

who didn’t look like they’d just stepped off a Universal Studios

soundstage, the Dollars films owe a surprising debt to another

franchise that was all the rage in the 1960s: the 007 movies.

Writing in November 1964, Variety’s Rome correspondent

praised A Fistful Of Dollars for its “James Bondian vigour”.

Like the Bonds, Leone’s first Western opens with a rotoscoped,

pop-art credit sequence, in which a character appears in an

iris and enemies are gunned down. Both franchises deal with

brutal and emotionally blunted men, whose actors are often

underplaying against wildly theatrical villains. Both feature

questionable sexual politics, regular lashings of violence,

and plenty of inventive death sequences.

While Bond may have been part of the inspiration for the

Man With No Name, Eastwood’s cheroot-chewing persona

“Leone’s intercutting of reaction shots, his ratcheting up of

tension, his use of silence, and then those sudden, brutal bursts

of violence — it all had an enormous impact on me,” Campbell

continues. “Leone really invented those techniques; certainly he

pushed them further than anyone else had ever done before. And

his characters were an enormous part of helping with that.”

NICOLAS WINDING REFNIt is hard to imagine Leone’s films without the remarkable music

of Ennio Morricone; from A Fistful Of Dollars onwards, they

were all scored by Leone’s one-time classmate, who would go on

to become — and remain — one of the world’s most celebrated

composers. As a collaboration they’re as synonymous as Hitchcock

and Herrmann, Spielberg and Williams. “I’m heavily, heavily

influenced by Leone,” says Danish director Nicolas Winding

Refn, the man behind Drive and Only God Forgives, “but most

of all in how he used music. My mother had the vinyl record

when I was little and I heard the music a thousand times before

ever seeing the [films]. In a Leone, the picture and the soundtrack

collide to achieve a type of perfection. He directs like a

conductor. There’s an essential musicality to his films. It’s a

purity that goes back to the birth of cinema, to the man playing

the piano while the screen shows images of a moving train.”

Leone’s use of music went against everything Hollywood

tradition stated a movie score should do: heighten emotion

without drawing attention to itself. Before Leone, music was

composed after production and played for the first time over

the final edit. Where possible, Leone had Morricone compose

his scores beforehand so they could be played on set. The music

became part of the actors’ stimuli, helping shape and dictate

their performance. The same occurred in editing, helping

dictate to Leone where and when to cut.

“We’re similar in that we don’t use a lot of dialogue in our

films,” Winding Refn says. “A lot of that plays out in music rather

than in words. The more you can tell in music, the more your film

speaks to the heart. Dialogue is mostly about logic; it speaks to

your brain. Music should penetrate your heart like a missile. There

is a sexualness to it. It’s about arousing and wooing the viewer.”

In Leone’s harsh landscapes, the music does the feeling for

characters who can no longer express such things verbally. In

For A Few Dollars More, the musical motif of Colonel

Mortimer’s (Lee Van Cleef) musical pocket watch not only

triggers the flashback scenes showing his tragic backstory, but

also represents the emotions of a man who, it is alluded, has

been left impotent by his violent past. A similar thing might be

argued in Winding Refn’s films, such as Drive, which its creator

describes as “a man who drives around in a car at night, listening

to pop music that gives him emotional relief.”

“Morricone is Morricone,” says Winding Refn. “He’s

untouchable, a bona fide master. His real strength was his ability

to compose a melody that people would remember, something

that came from his pop-music background. But his music is also

very avant-garde. You see him perfecting his craft during the

Dollars trilogy. By the time you get to The Good, The Bad

And The Ugly... Forget it, it was all-out. That end scene at the

cemetery? Genius; it’s pure cinema.” >

• Above: Clint Eastwood in 1965’s For A Few Dollars More. Left: Sergio Leone dodges the desert sun on the set of A Fistful Of Dollars (1964).


exerted, in far fewer films, a tremendous influence on the way

in which blockbuster action stars were presented on screen.

Out went the smiling, moral heroes willing to do whatever they

could for their countries, fellow citizens and family. In came

the antiheroes whose most admirable trait was their permanent

stubble, gruff silence and occasional one-liners. Eastwood —

who campaigned for fewer lines on set — is the direct antecedent

of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis,

Vin Diesel et al.

“I admire how economical Eastwood’s character is in the

[Dollars] films,” says Martin Campbell, who twice reinvented

the James Bond character for new generations. “He’s incredibly

comfortable in his own skin. That’s a quality I tried to capture

in my versions of Bond. Even when the character is just taking

a coat off, or puts his gun on, there should be nothing in the

way of superfluous movement.”

The way that Campbell orchestrates action was also drawn

from Leone. Think of Campbell’s Casino Royale, where

long hands of poker are interspersed with scenes of sudden,

shocking violence, like the bloody fight in the hotel stairwell.

Structurally this is more than a little reminiscent of the iconic

shootouts in Leone’s Westerns, which are stretched to an almost

unbearable degree before a shot is fired.

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JEAN-PIERRE JEUNETGrowing up in France, Jean-Pierre Jeunet didn’t much like

Hollywood Westerns. “I used to see them on TV with my

parents, usually with French dubbing,” shrugs the director of

Amélie and Alien: Resurrection. “I wasn’t a fan of John Ford

and those directors. The films didn’t speak to what I was

interested in.” Then, at 17, Jeunet discovered Leone. He was

floored by the experience. “The Leone films were extremely

different to the Westerns that had come before,” he continues.

“I first saw A Fistful Of Dollars in the ’60s, and just thought

it was transformative. The style was amazing: there had never

been a film that played or looked like that before.”

Twenty years later, Jeunet had just completed the storyboards

for Delicatessen, his 1991 debut co-directed with Marc Caro.

“We were in Brittany, and had just finished work, waiting to take

the boat back to Paris. We were in a café and suddenly on the

radio it said that Sergio Leone had died. I was very sad, but I saw

it as a kind of symbol: that I must prove myself able to continue

Leone’s work.”

Although Jeunet’s career isn’t exactly filled with Spaghetti

(his closest tribute is the 2009 comedy Micmacs), Leone’s

influence is still clearly seen through Jeunet’s love of wide-angle

lenses. “Leone used his lenses like a painter uses paint, and I’ve

always tried to do that too,” he says. “It sounds a bit pretentious

to say, but that’s how I’ve always thought about it.”

For Jeunet, the short focal-length of the wide-angle lens

brings more personality, style and energy to the screen. Wide-

angle lenses distort the edges of a frame to emphasise the

amount of space in a shot. They also exaggerate distances,

creating a heightened reality in which everything takes place

QUENTIN TARANTINO IS THE DIRECTOR WITH THE MOST DIRECT LEONE TRIBUTES IN

HIS WORK. TO WIT:

MUSIC AND TORTURE

In Reservoir Dogs, Mr. Blonde asks ill-fated cop Marvin if he likes music,

turns the radio on, then proceeds with the infamous ear-cutting scene. In The

Good, The Bad And The Ugly, Angel Eyes asks Tuco if he enjoys the music being played outside, then tortures him. (Clint Eastwood’s character is

also called Blondie in that fi lm.)

A MEXICAN STAND-OFF

Tarantino loves a Mexican stand-off, but Pulp Fiction’s is among the most immediately Leone-inspired. Just as Blondie, Tuco and Angel Eyes wind up with their guns trained on each other, so too do Jules, Vincent and Honey Bunny at the end of Pulp Fiction. In

Leone’s universe, at least one person must die. Tarantino lets everyone live.

LOOKING DOWN THE

BARREL OF A GUN

The opening shot (no pun intended) of Kill Bill: Vol. 1 strongly echoes

a scene in The Good, The Bad And The Ugly, which sees Tuco point

a gun at Blondie, threatening to kill him, even as Eastwood’s

character is near death from dehydration.

THE GOOD, THE BAD AND

THE QT

on a scale only imaginable in cinema. In Leone’s wide-angle

world, the figures and settings are almost overwhelmingly

mythic; the faces of his characters unimaginably gnarled.

“His films are pure Sergio Leone,” Jeunet says. “As a director

he’s not interested in conventional reality. Seeing that play out

on screen had an enormous impact on my work.”

JOHN CARPENTER“I got into movies to make Westerns, but by the time I broke in,

they were essentially dead,” says the man who started out with

a science-fiction comedy (Dark Star), then went on to reinvent

the horror movie with Halloween. None of which ever stopped

John Carpenter from emulating the work of his heroes, Leone

especially, throughout his entire career. The signs are everywhere

in his movies, from the Clint Eastwood-inspired character of

Snake Plissken in Escape From New York to pretty much the

entirety of Vampires, one of his later offerings.

For Carpenter, Leone’s mastery of widescreen

cinematography was the real life-changer. From early in his

career, even when the budget didn’t really allow it, Carpenter

insisted on shooting in anamorphic Panavision. Metropolis

director Fritz Lang once quipped that widescreen was only good

for shooting snakes and funerals, so it proved perfect for Sergio

Leone, whose Westerns take place in a world filled (at least

figuratively) with both. Although he was wasn’t the first director

to make a widescreen Western (that would be Raoul Walsh, with

1930’s The Big Trail), Leone made the field his own.

“I tried to copy Leone’s style as many times as I could,”

Carpenter says. “It’s really an impossibility, though, because he’s

unique. As a filmmaker his vision was one of a kind.”

• Above and above right: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly (1966), arguably Leone’s most admired fi lm. Right: Gian Maria Volonté in A Fistful Of Dollars, Leone and composer Ennio Morricone’s fi rst collaboration.



THE INTERROGATION

Inglourious Basterds’ opening scene, in which SS colonel Hans Landa

interrogates French farmer Perrier LaPadite, is a virtual reconstruction of the scene in The Good, The Bad And The Ugly where Angel Eyes pressures a former Confederate

soldier to reveal the location of a cache of gold.

THE NECK BURN

In Inglourious Basterds, Aldo Raine has a rope-burn scar on his neck,

never explained in the plot. This could be a reference to Tuco, who ends The Good, The Bad And The Ugly with a

similar mark after an aborted hanging. In Leone’s fi lm, Tuco is ‘The Ugly’. It is

arguable that Raine plays a similar role in Inglourious Basterds.

Alfred Hitchcock once complained that widescreen was

difficult to edit because the effect of cutting between shots was

so jarring. Leone showed how that jarring could be employed

to great effect. When we think of Leone’s style, we picture the

dramatic leap between immense, empty vistas and close-ups so

close that we can practically count the actors’ pores. Cuts shock

more in widescreen, which perhaps explains again why they also

worked for a suspense filmmaker like Carpenter.

Cutting rhythmically between almost monumental close-ups

of his cast members, Leone defined a new type of editing.

Shades of this same pattern can be seen in the blood-testing

scene in Carpenter’s The Thing, which cuts constantly between

close-ups on faces and shots of a hand performing an action —

just like the three characters reaching for their guns in the stand-

off at the end of The Good, The Bad And The Ugly. Widescreen

might have been conceived for spectacle, but Leone demonstrated

it worked just as well (if not better) for creating tension.

“It took a long time for Leone’s Dollars films to become

iconic,” Carpenter says. “They were pretty much discarded when

they were released. They were seen as trash cinema popcorn

movies. ‘Spaghetti Western’ wasn’t exactly a term of endearment,

you know? It was designed to make fun of the fact that Italians

were making Westerns. But it always takes a while for something

to catch on. It finally did, and from that point on, these movies

were recognised as the masterpieces they are.”

[email protected]

BOUNTY HUNTERS

Django Unchained owes more to Django director Sergio Corbucci than

Leone, but note how the pairs of protagonists in both QT’s fi lm and For A Few Dollars More are bounty hunters. Each fi lm teams a younger man with a more urbane older one, with one

character pursuing a vendetta, revealed in fl ashback, that goes beyond money.

DESERT HEAT

Having escaped from being buried alive, Kill Bill Vol. 2’s Bride makes

her way through the desert in a shimmering out-of-focus shot straight out of Once Upon A Time

In The West. Both scenes also either come from or lead to

fl ashbacks, revealing a key part of the hero’s origin.

1 1 6 empire d e c e m b e r 2 0 1 4

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1 The result of a classical education (Weaver went to Stanford and Yale School Of Drama), but also a residual effect of an English mother, Elizabeth Inglis, who can be glimpsed in The 39 Steps.

2 Weaver and virtually the entire surviving cast, including Michael Biehn, Carrie Henn, Bill Paxton and Lance Henriksen, came together at the Calgary Comic Expo in April of this year.

we notice two things straight off the bat. First, and this isn’t brown-

nosing we promise, but at 62, she’s stunning — the most famous perm

in movie history is no more, but those piercing eyes and distinguished

jawline remain. Second, she’s alone. No entourage, no assistant,

no publicist. Which is something of a surprise. It’s very rare for

movie stars to be trusted to get anywhere unaided.

But then again, this is a woman who’s done it all. She’s been

the First Lady. She’s been nominated for three Oscars (sadly,

winning none). She faced down a demon dog in her fridge. And

in many ways, across four films that saw her become cinema’s

most iconic action heroine, she’s the real Alien queen.

She’s been away from movies for a little while, having spent

most of the last 18 months working on a Broadway play (a

theatre actress by trade, she treads the boards whenever she can),

but she’s about to come back to the big screen with a vengeance.

She’s just wrapped on Neill Blomkamp’s shrouded-in-secrecy

third movie, Chappie, and is about to head off to Britain to

shoot Juan Antonio Bayona’s dark fantasy drama A Monster

Calls, both of which promise to be the sumptuous filling in a

reunion sandwich: for after that movie she heads to New Zealand

to shoot not one, not two, but three Avatar sequels with her

Aliens director, James Cameron. And before it comes her first

film in two years, Exodus: Gods And Kings, which reunites her

with the man who set the ball rolling in the first place by casting

her as Nostromo warrant officer Ellen Ripley: Sir Ridley Scott.

Weaver joins us at a little table in the back and apologises for

the noise. “I hope your powerful machine can handle it,” she says

of Empire’s Dictaphone in that cool, almost British-accented

voice 1 , in a way that indicates she’s never seen a single Carry On,

and orders a warm chicken salad with a pot of Earl Grey tea on

the side. Empire, knowing it’s wise to always agree with a legend,

does the same, and turns on its powerful machine. Weaver cocks an

eye at our back-up — a voice recorder app. “Is that a lie detector?”

she asks of the sound waves showing up on the screen of the

phone. “I try to only lie in interviews. It’s much more interesting...”

Empire: You’ve teamed up with Ridley again. Thirteen years

elapsed between Alien and 1492, and 12 between that and

Exodus. So can you expect a call from him in 2025?

Weaver: (Laughs) It has been only three times. Actually, Ridley

asked me to do other movies that I wasn’t able to do because

I was already working, in the ’80s.

Empire: Movies that were made?

Weaver: Movies that were made. I don’t want to say what they

were because they were wonderfully done by other people. I was

astonished and delighted to be asked to play Tuya, the Egyptian

queen and mother of Ramses the Great. Didn’t know much

about her. I knew Ridley is so good at this kind of stirring

historical drama. He loves the spectacle of it and I always

thought the relationships in Gladiator were very interesting, and

I thought the script was very sophisticated. I jumped at it.

Empire: How do you prepare to play an Egyptian queen?

Weaver: I went to the British Museum and did some research on

Tuya and they were also kind enough to give me some artwork.

It was a very mixed blessing to be a queen in that household.

Luckily Tuya’s son is the prince, but the pharaoh had a number

of wives and I don’t think Tuya was his favourite. I felt it was

tricky to be in that household. I have a number of scenes which

all involve at some point saying the words “kill Moses”. (Laughs)

I’m afraid that if all my scenes are one-note, it’s my fault. I’m

basically saying, “Now kill Moses, you didn’t kill Moses, why

didn’t you kill Moses? I told you to kill Moses, for crying out

loud, would you please kill this man?”

Empire: Ridley’s astonishing. This is his third film in as many

years, and he’s 76.

Weaver: It is amazing. And he hasn’t changed at all. I know he

doesn’t smoke cigars, but his energy on the set and his ability to

just look for what is important and what is real and what is true

in the energy of the scenes between people, he’s able to take

everything in, in an instant. We had five cameras going all the time.

Empire: Five cameras? Does that change how you act? How you

behave on set?

Weaver: (Smiles) I never behave on set. I’ve worked on some very

fast-moving pictures because I’ve done a fair amount of indies,

but this was very fast-moving. By the time you were able to grasp

the enormity of the set and the costumes and everything else, it

was over. It would have been fun sometimes to have more time to

chew the scenery, because these were big, passionate scenes, very

interestingly written. I think Ridley got what he wanted and he

When Sigourney Weaver arrives — bang on time — at a gorgeous and intimate New York patisserie to meet with Empire,


moved on. But it seemed to be over before it started. I love

watching him work. There’s no-one like him and his joy in it

is so palpable. The vision is so big and I think there’s room for

all kinds of movies, but it was fun to be in an epic, I must say.

Empire: You have this incredible contrast coming up. You’re

about to do three more Avatars.

Weaver: Simultaneously. Not quite sure how I’m going to do that.

Empire: Have you received your schedule yet?

Weaver: I haven’t received the scripts yet. I expect them any day.

I’m actually going off on a job with Juan Antonio Bayona, A

Monster Calls, which is shooting in Manchester. He’s wonderful.

It’s why I feel very fortunate in this business, to be working with

Neill Blomkamp last winter, Ridley a year ago, Juan Antonio

now, and then Jim for I don’t know how long. It feels like we’re

going to go to Pandora and get it done.

Empire: I wouldn’t be surprised if he built a wormhole in space

so you could shoot on location.

Weaver: It wouldn’t surprise me either.

Empire: I’ve heard it said that he can do the job of everyone on

set better than they can.

Weaver: Except for actors. He still thinks he can’t act. Thank

God he hasn’t tried and found out how easy it is!

Empire: Have you had any word from Jim on what he’s going to

do this time around?

Weaver: He has taken me through the world and it will certainly

have different elements. Some of the same elements, and some

very different, wonderful elements and I think a lot of surprises.

The poor man really had to explain to me so many times what

the technology was on that shoot. He probably doesn’t want to

have that conversation with me again. He knows I wouldn’t

understand half of what he’s saying.

Empire: So Ridley hasn’t changed, but Jim seems to have

changed. He’s now a vegan, an eco-warrior. Do you recognise

the man you first met back in the ’80s?

Weaver: I think he’s evolved. No doubt Ridley has too. I think he’s

having a very stable family life now. The vegan thing was a logical

outgrowth of everything he was learning about the environment

and his work underwater. He’s a man who’s not afraid of going to

extremes. I don’t think he’s changed that much, although his life

has changed. If you saw him during Aliens, that was an interesting

situation. He’d actually shot Terminator and he tried to show it

to the crew, who were like, “Where’s Ridley Scott? Who’s this

whippersnapper from Canada?” They would never come to the

screening so they couldn’t see what he was capable of. They

learned by the end, but in the beginning they were so proud to be

English and Ridley was English and he’d made Alien, and who was

this guy to step into his shoes? It wasn’t that easy in the beginning.

Empire: Did you go to bat for him?

Weaver: I think I tried. I was so impressed with him right from

the start. I figured the crew would come around. We had an AD

who would always call him “guv’nor” and Jim is a very democratic

guy, and he would ask this older man to please not call him that

and he would go, “Righto, guv’nor,” and it was so disrespectful.

In the end that man left and it was easier. It’s hard enough to

make that film without having to convince the crew you can

direct your own script. I figure he always had that courage and

belief in himself and what he was doing. By the end you could

really tell that people really loved him, and they still do.

Empire: It always amazes me that it took so long to make a

sequel to Alien. Nowadays two things would have happened with

the first movie: they might not have gone for it in the first place...

Weaver: Yeah.

Empire: Or you’d have signed a three-picture deal from the off.

But it just seems to have happened...

Weaver: Absolutely. In those days, I know it’s hard to imagine, but

you just didn’t do sequels. It was considered tacky. Within no time,

it became very popular. I’m glad we waited so long between them

because that meant we always had another brash, young director

who came in and wanted to make it his own. That’s a big part of

the success of the series and why I enjoyed making them so much.

Empire: So if Ridley or Jim had made another Alien, it wouldn’t

have been the same for you?

Weaver: Definitely. I don’t think Jim would have killed the nuclear

family he’d taken so much effort to create. I think we were all

stunned when Fox did this Alien Vs. Predator thing. I think Jim was

quoted as saying, “That’s like making Alien meets The Wolf Man.”

How to trash a wonderful franchise. But it survived even that.

Empire: I read that you hadn’t seen the Alien Vs. Predator

movies. Is that still the case?

Weaver: Are there two of them? Three of them? I’m worried that

maybe the Alien didn’t win. That’s why I don’t want to see them.

Empire: The Alien is a bad guy. The Predator is the amoral hero.

Weaver: (Grimaces) I wouldn’t ever watch them. I may be wary of

the Alien, but I’ve got a soft spot for it deep inside. He’s my alien.

Empire: I heard that you’re still open to finishing Ripley’s story.

Weaver: I get asked about it so much. We had an Aliens reunion

in Calgary 2 , and maybe this happens to everybody who goes to

these things, but it seems so relevant to people. I’m much more

interested now than I would have been a few years ago. I was so

desperate to move on and do other things, and it was my idea as

much as everybody’s, but we kind of left them up in space and so

I feel that Ripley deserves a better finish. It feels unfinished to me.

It’s something I didn’t care about at the time. Whether it happens

or not is anybody’s guess, but there’s a lot of interest from

filmmakers about it. I don’t know. I can understand it. But anyway...

Empire: You’re booked up for the next year.

Weaver: (Laughs) Exactly. Maybe when I’m 100 or something.

I could be on a gurney.

Empire: You could be the first leading lady with replacement parts.

Weaver: And I may need them by then. I probably need them now. >

• Above: Reuniting with James Cameron for Avatar (2009). Top right: Debuting as the iconic Ripley in Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979). Above right: As Queen Tuya in Scott’s Exodus: Gods And Kings, out in December.


NOTESA

3 Williamson’s Macbeth was at the Circle In The Square, and debuted in January 1982. Critic Frank Rich said his performance was “not in control”.

4 Before Working Girl, Weaver and Nichols teamed up for a Broadway run of Hurlyburly.

5 Weaver’s father was Sylvester L. Weaver Jr., known as Pat, who was head of NBC from 1953 to ’55.

6 Weaver’s husband, Jim Simpson, is Artistic Director of off-Broadway theatre The Flea. Weaver is on the board of directors.

Empire: It’s interesting that you’re doing the Aliens reunion now.

Years ago, Paul McCartney declared he was done with playing

Beatles songs, and now embraces that legacy. Was there a point

where you were actively trying to avoid your legacy as Ripley?

Weaver: I died. I couldn’t have made it more clear! I wanted to go

and do many other things, and I had a wonderful time doing all

the movies I did, the Polanski movie and Map Of The World and

Snow Cake and all these movies that were in a more dramatic genre.

I was always very proud and felt incredibly fortunate that Alien was

basically my first film, but I did want to move on and do other

stuff. It’s only when I start to talk to young filmmakers and fans

that I felt a little badly that we left her stranded up there in space.

Empire: You seem to be embracing that legacy more and more,

though. You’re doing a lot of sci-fi, and for example in Paul, the

line, “Get away from her, you bitch!” is said to you.

Weaver: Believe me, I get scripts where it’s said to me all the time.

But with Paul, I made an exception because I love the guys so

much. Most people throw it in there because they think they can.

But with Paul, I thought it was funny. It’s not on a pedestal.

Empire: After Alien came out, the first film you did was

Eyewitness, two years later. Why did you take so long?

Weaver: I was very proud of the movie, but I really missed the

theatre, so I basically turned everything down. In fact, I was quite

mortified by the fact that I was suddenly being asked to be on the

cover of People and stuff like that. I turned all that down too. I just

wanted to be an actor. I wasn’t prepared for how successful the

film was. I wanted to go back to my off-off-Broadway life.

I really didn’t want my life to change that much. And it didn’t.

Empire: Around that time, weren’t you fired as Lady Macbeth

by Nicol Williamson from his Broadway version of Macbeth?

Weaver: He fired everybody. He went through a bunch of

queens. There were people calling it Queen For A Day. He

had done the play a couple of times and had a very rigid idea

of how every part should be played. He literally, as soon as

an actor would open his mouth, would stop them, give them

a line reading and expect the actor to absolutely mimic him.

And with Lady M, he was always showing me how to do her.

He might have been a decent Macbeth, but he was a brilliant

Lady Macbeth, and finally one day — I wasn’t even meaning

to be rude, but he was always grabbing my hand and directing

me — I said, “I think to get what you want, you really should

put the dress on and play it yourself.” And I really meant that,

because I think he had no idea how good he was. He would have

won a Tony Award, there’s no question. And after I said that, he

fired me. He ended up with a very nice young woman who was

his girlfriend, who had never had a speaking part in New York. 3

“I’ve got a soft spot for the Alien deep inside. He’s my alien.”

subscribe at www.empireonline.com/sub D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 4 EMPIRE 1 2 1subscribe at www.empireonline.com/sub

Empire: And you went on to do The Year Of Living Dangerously

with Peter Weir.

Weaver: It was such an important experience for me. He really

took the time to talk to me about acting. It was the second day

when he said to me, ÒI had no idea you were so inexperienced,Ó

and I really was. I was so inexperienced. We had dinner and he

talked to me about what my strengths were on film, what I didnÕt

have to work at, and how to relax and just be myself as the

character, and I was so grateful. That started a process where

I actually fell in love with film and now I prefer it. I love the fact

that you donÕt really have any control, not as the actor. I donÕt

think the filmmaker has control. ItÕs like you all come together

and this thing happens. ItÕs very unpredictable and itÕs hard to

harness. ItÕs an amazing energy, you tell the story together and

itÕs in a box and you open it up and you donÕt really know whatÕs

going to come out. Philosophically, I really embraced this.

Empire: YouÕve worked with people like Ridley, Jim Cameron,

Ivan Reitman and Mike Nichols 4 multiple timesÉ Is there

another director you would have liked to have worked with again?

Weaver: IÕd love to work with Peter Weir again. And IÕd love to

work with Ridley again, on something different. ItÕs hard to think

of any director I wouldnÕt want to work with again. I think itÕs

really fun to work with a director more than once. There are

plenty of directors IÕd like to work with for the first time, too.

I think people do reach out to me. I feel very available and that

makes me happy. I love working with first-time directors. The

variety of the business is fantastic. I know theyÕre doing fewer

movies now, but I think the business is in really good shape.

I think there are some really interesting stories coming.

Empire: Many people are cynical about where the business is going.

Weaver: For a while, the studios were honestly trying to see if they

could do without writers. Big mistake. You can tell because a lot of

these movies are so formulaic. ThatÕs disappointing but [itÕs]

because the business has expanded so much. My father started the

Today show and The Tonight Show 5 , and he was always talking

about how these things would feed each other and people would be

able to do almost anything through the media, and I think that

has happened. I think everything has reproduced in fascinating

ways, and now everyone can make a movie. ItÕs all this material

coming in from all over. ItÕs a very fertile time. I think thereÕs lots

of work for all the different parties. ThereÕs not as much work in

LA, but I think thatÕs great. ItÕs exciting to go to all these different

states and do movies that are getting rebates, or whatever they

are. I get to go to Manchester on Thursday, IÕm very excited!

Empire: YouÕre a regular moviegoer, then? Have you seen

Guardians of the Galaxy, for example?

Weaver: I want to see it. In the end I do a lot of my movie-

watching when they send me the DVDs. And part of it is just that

one gets so busy in New York and one has so many commitments.

I had a couple of friends I used to go to movies with and theyÕve

moved away and my daughterÕs busy and my husband is working

all the time down at The Flea 6 . I do love to go to movies, and

I definitely would have seen Guardians Of The Galaxy. IÕd love

to see Boyhood and the new Bill Hader/Kristen Wiig movie,

The Skeleton Twins. IÕm behind. Maybe in Manchester...

Empire: You can catch up with your discs. Is that a perk of being

a member of the Academy?

Weaver: Yes, I think once you get nominated maybe?

Empire: Speaking of Oscars, I wanted to bring you back to the night

you were nominated in two categories Ñ Best Actress for Gorillas

In The Mist and Best Supporting Actress for Working Girl.

Weaver: I was the first person in history to lose twice. IÕm very

proud of that. I was a little embarrassed because my parents

were there and I felt so badly for them, to have to watch me lose

twice. The funny thing about LA Ñ and this is not a criticism,

itÕs just an observation Ñ is that people really treat you like

a loser when you lose. But they would come up to you and go,

ÒWeÕre so sorry,Ó and they say all kinds of things to you. I did

think it would be fun to have a little tent where you could go in

with the other losers and just smoke and drink and swear. But in

fact I was thrilled to be nominated for a drama and a comedy.

I was very honoured and I still am.

Empire: These days, the Oscar race is dissected and pored over

on blogs. You know whoÕs going to win pretty much going in.

Weaver: Do you? Why do you read those?

Empire: ItÕs kind of my job.

Weaver: (Laughs) Alright! If you put it that way!

Empire: It takes the fun out of it. But you had won the Golden

Globes for both films, so did you get a sense going in? Did you

feel you had a chance?

Weaver: I thought I might have a chance for Working Girl. But

I got to play Dian Fossey and go to Rwanda and be with the

gorillas, which is very special, and I got to work with Mike

Nichols on this delightful comedy with Melanie (Griffith) and

Harrison (Ford). I can never remember whoÕs won what the next

year. No-one can. You remember the movies you loved and the

performances that amazed you. ItÕs all good. [email protected]

EXODUS: GODS AND KINGS IS OUT ON DECEMBER 26 AND WILL BE REVIEWED IN A FUTURE ISSUE.

• Top: Ripley returns in 1986’s Aliens. Middle: Oscar nomination #1: Working it in Working Girl (1988). Bottom: Oscar nomination #2: As Dian Fossey in Gorillas In The Mist (1988).

1 2 2 empire m o n t h 2 0 1 4 empireonline.com

W I L L B E G u E s t- E d I t E d B y

Peter Jackson

t h E B I G fa r E W E L L t o M I d d L E- E a r t hI n c l u d I n g

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Phot

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phy:

Lou

ise

Hat

ton

FP_EMPIRE_DOTPOTAEMP.id1453648.pgs 09.10.2014 17:19 >>AdRocket<<

FIRST LOOKAVATAR 5

WHAT'S NEXT FOR THE NA'VI

WOLVERINE AKA LOGAN

| MUTANT #9601

1 2 6 empire D e c e m b e r 2 0 1 4 empireonline.com

ost-apocalyptic

futures are ten-a-penny in cinema

these days, but the 2023 of Days

Of Future Past is particularly

dark. The surviving humans and

mutants are hunted by sinuous,

terrifying Sentinels, prompting Patrick

Stewart’s Professor X and Ian McKellen’s

Magneto to a desperate ploy: they send

Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) back in time

to prevent Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence)

from inadvertently setting this future in

motion by providing a model for the

terrifying robot Sentinels. These are the

darkest days for the X-Men...

simon Kinberg (screenwriter/producer):

We wanted to shake people up and to

feel that the X-Men were justified in the

insanity and extremity of their plan to

send someone back in time to change the

past. Bryan (Singer) and I, because of the

call-back to Eric’s past at the beginning of

X-Men and First Class, wanted to have

something that resembled Auschwitz in

an American city. We very early on had

the idea of placing that camp in New

York and Bryan said we should put it

in Central Park.

Michele laliberte (supervising art

Director): The Future scenes mostly took

place in the Monastery, which is not very

futuristic, actually. It’s a place out of time.

With this amazing cast came a big time

crunch. All the Future characters had

to be shot in the first weeks, which put

a lot of pressure on the art department

to get all those sets ready up front. That

included sets that did not finally make it

into the movie, but still had to be done.

There was a futuristic X-Jet that we see

only a little bit of, a damaged version

of Cerebro and the Blue Hallway (that

looked really great; I’m sorry for the

fans who won’t get to see it).

Richard stammers (Visual Effects

supervisor): The Future Sentinels were

the biggest initial challenge. We created

mood boards for Bryan, and we got close

to the look very quickly. They were quite

an elegant, slender figure, with scalloped

• Sunspot (Adan Canto) pre-

visual effects.

• Post-effects work, Sunspot uses his

powers against the Sentinels.

Back to the futureHow tHe X-men team created 2023

P


ÒTHE SENTINELS ARE REMINISCENT OF MYSTIQUE.Ó RICHARD STAMMERS

shapes from the body. The key was to

make them reminiscent of Mystique,

with the scales sitting on the body

to crudely remind you of her.

Kinberg: What the team did

with the Future Sentinels was

amazing. You write in the

script that they resemble

Mystique; you have no idea

how somebody’s actually

going to realise that.

Watching their scales

transform in the way

that Mystique’s do

was really creative

and clever, I thought.

Stammers: We show a Sentinel

transforming into diamond,

and demonstrating powers

that belong to a mutant

called Rockslide, and Lady

Deathstrike. That was

Bryan’s touch that he

really wanted to add.

Kinberg: That use of well-

known mutant powers by the Sentinels

was intentional, and it was something

we talked about — it shows that even

characters like Lady Deathstrike had

been killed by them. It was our nod to

the X-Men’s gravestones in the original

comic, or that comics cover with “X-Men

Wanted” posters scored through. We tried

really hard to integrate that cover into the

movie. There’s that scene at the beginning

of a kid scavenging, and we thought

about putting a “Wanted” poster on the

wall behind him, but it would’ve been

a little too meta.

Stammers: All the new characters

had great new powers. With Bishop

(Omar Sy), his power is only explained

through the visuals. Fans understand

it; they notice Storm (Halle Berry) and

Sunspot (Adan Canto) charge him up.

Blink’s (Fan Bingbing) portals were an

interesting design challenge. Bryan

wanted something he hadn’t seen

before. In the comics she has

crystals that she throws, and we

used lots of organic references

from jellyfish patterns to flames.

In Moscow, we got to see

Iceman (Shawn Ashmore)

doing the ice glide, so that

was a great fan favourite that we

hadn’t seen in previous films.

Kinberg: We knew we weren’t

going to have a ton of time to

do a lot of character work with

the new mutants, so we wanted

to choose powers we hadn’t seen

before. Some mutants like Bishop

had more backstory in the comic

books that we couldn’t really get

into. We tried in different drafts;

I wrote a two-page dialogue

scene between Bishop and

Storm. But in a movie that

has a bajillion characters,

there just wasn’t time.

• Concept art of Iceman freezing

a Sentinel, as Kitty Pryde and

Bishop leave.

• A Sentinel utilises Sunspot’s mutant power.

• Blink (Fan Bingbing, and below), with a Sentinel visible through the portal.

Bishop’s gun had lights built in,

so special effects only had to

add movement when he

powered up. He can then use

the gun to direct his mutant

power to absorb and

fi re energy

THE CEREBRO FILES #1

1 2 8 empire d e c e m b e r 2 0 1 4 empireonline.com

FASTER THAN A SPEEDING BULLET AnAtomy of the Quicksilver scene

he standout action

sequence in Days Of Future Past

doesn’t involve a mutant we know

well, but a newcomer called

Quicksilver, played by Evan

Peters. Blessed with supernatural

speed, his aid proves essential in knocking

out a squad of armed guards who have

cornered Wolverine, young Magneto

(Michael Fassbender) and Xavier (James

McAvoy) in a kitchen, during an escape

from the Pentagon.

simon Kinberg: None of that was in my

script before Bryan became involved

(Matthew Vaughn was originally set to

direct this sequel to his First Class). That

scene, as I had written it, was young

Juggernaut, but that was one of the first

things Bryan wanted to revise. He wanted

to see a power we hadn’t seen before.

So Bryan and I went through a list of

different mutants, and he immediately

leapt on Quicksilver, because he had seen

on the internet the kind of high-speed

photography that he ended up using in

the sequence, where everything is slowed

down and you end up seeing the sort of

granular, almost molecular movement

of things in slow-motion.

Richard stammers: We had to shoot at

250 fps to get that feeling of being both

very fast and very slow. It’s only 29 shots,

but each move is slow and graceful; you

can study it over and over again.

Michele Laliberte: The kitchen at first was

designed to be rectangular! Then Bryan

came up with that fantastic idea of having

Quicksilver run around circular walls at

high speed, so the set had to be quickly

redesigned to suit. Most of the details in

that set were driven from specific needs

for the action. We needed to hide the

suspension rig for Quicksilver in the

middle of the room, and the diameter of

the set was directed by the suspension

arm’s length. The light elements needed

for the high-speed camera were huge and

also had to be incorporated in the design.

Kinberg: To clarify one thing I’ve been

asked a few times, yes, his Walkman is

specially rigged to play music at the

correct speed for him! It’s the same way

he rigs Pong, the video game. Everything

in his life is rigged so it can work at the

speed it needs to work at.

stammers: Evan had to punch a guard,

put his finger out and touch the soup,

then put the finger in his mouth, five

times faster than you normally would,

while running on a treadmill. Sometimes

he missed his mouth! And all the time

he was being blasted with wind and water.

The moment where he jumps down from

the wall back to the floor was done

against greenscreen by jumping from one

treadmill to another while we rotated the

camera. We had to have a wire on his

back to keep him safe.

Kinberg: A lot of the success of that

scene is the visuals, but I think it’s also

the attitude that Evan Peters brings to

the character. There’s something so

winning about him. The scene of Evan

and Michael Fassbender in the elevator

that leads into that sequence? Almost all

of that was improvised. I wish I could

take credit!

• Quicksilver (shown right in concept art)

causes havoc among the Pentagon guards.

• An unÄnished effects shot of Evan Peters’ Quicksilver — note the absence of legs...

T

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Mutant MassacreBolivar Trask’s research inTo muTaTion

has seen him kill many muTanTs —

including familiar faces from firsT class

“the slo-mo creates a sort of granular movement.” simon kinberg

Magneto tells Quicksilver,

“I don’t know karate but I know

crazy” — a line from James

Brown’s The Payback, which

wasn’t actually recorded

until seven months after

the events of this film.



HE PAST SEQUENCES

of Days Of Future Past are

set in 1973, 11 years after the

events of First Class. Charles

Xavier (James McAvoy) is

a shadow of his former self

after he was crippled, and abandoned

by his adoptive sister Raven (Jennifer

Lawrence), and his X-Men have been

preyed upon by scientist and tycoon Dr.

Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage), who is

determined to quash the mutant threat…

Simon Kinberg: When we started working

on the movie, we wanted to jump forward

in the characters’ lives so it wasn’t just a

day or a year after the end of First Class;

you would really see the repercussions

of the decisions they made at the end

of that film. And then being able to play

in a different decade, with a different

vibe and a different kind of music, also

felt original for these movies and fun.

Richard Stammers: We had a futuristic

version of the ’70s; after all, 18 feet-tall

flying robots were fairly scarce! Our

production designer, John Myhre, wanted

to capture as much of the 1970s as possible

so it’s very much in the production design

and costume. But it also has to be cool

OUT OF THE PASTHOW THE X-MEN TEAM CREATED 1973

and engaging, so it’s not too extreme in the

’70s design.

Kinberg: I started looking at what year

specifically would be best for the Past

part of the story, and 1973 for a lot of

reasons leapt out at me. It was the end

of the Vietnam War and the beginning

of the Watergate scandal.

Michele Laliberte: Bolivar Trask’s world

was very interesting to deal with. The

character is dealing with high-end

technology in his time period.

We were pushing the ‘vintage’ futuristic

look. His office, lab space etc., were all

designed having in mind that he was

a very modern man in his time.

Kinberg: We’ve all tried to get

Sentinels into the movies for

a long time. Bryan tried to get

them into X2; we had them very

briefly in X3. Everybody wants

to use them because they’re so

great in the comics, and for

filmmakers the idea of creating a

new aesthetic of robot is just fun.

Bryan did an amazing job of

making the 1973 robots feel like

the technology could exist in

1973 but a little pushed,

obviously. They’re different from

Transformers or Iron Giant or any

robots we’ve seen before.

Stammers: Designing the Sentinels

was the biggest challenge. We took

input from the comics, we nodded to

that, but we wanted to show something

different and interesting. The scale

of them was daunting; we had a practical

model made that was 18 feet tall. They

were mostly designed in London; Digital

Domain did that, matched to a full-size

practical one. That was on set in Canada,

as a reference.

Laliberte: We quickly established that

Trask’s world would be purple, the

colour of the 1970s sentinels in the

comic books. We pulled out

a lot of research of materials

from the time, and knowing

that there should be no metal

involved in them, we looked

at robotic shapes made of

plastic. The moulded smoked

and colourful plastic elements

became the starting point

of the design.

Laliberte: John was really

inspired by the beautiful


“we pushed the ‘vintage’ futuristic look.” michele laliberte

• Facing page, top: Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage) is observed by Stryker (Josh Helman). Bottom: A Past Sentinel. Left: Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), Eric (Michael Fassbender) and Charles (James McAvoy), ’70s-style. Right: Blueprints of the Past Sentinel.

product design of the ’70s, from

high-end concept cars to portable

TVs in round, plastic bubbles.

He took us all on a highly creative

time-travel experience!

Kinberg: I wanted the MacGuffin of

the movie to be Raven. They’re not just

going back in time to save the world;

they’re going back to save someone

that they both loved. For Charles and

Eric (Michael Fassbender), there is

nobody that they loved like Raven. So

that started to build into the Sentinel

plot, build into Trask, so it was about

getting her blood, her DNA. With all

these big ensemble stories, you have to

find the emotional centre of the movie.

For us, First Class was about young

Eric becoming Magneto. I felt really

strongly that this was Charles’ movie,

that it was seeing someone who’d been

really wrecked by the end of First Class

— losing his legs, losing Raven — and

seeing him take a huge step towards

becoming the Professor Xavier of Patrick

Stewart. It began there, and then it

became a question of what could bring

him back from the brink? The nature

of time travel is incredibly challenging,

just avoiding paradoxes. Hopefully in

my entire life I will never have to tell

another time-travel story again.

X-MEn: DAyS oF FuTurE PAST iS ouT on DigiTAl HD noW, AnD Blu-rAy 3D, Blu-rAy AnD DVD on noVEMBEr 10.

The design of the White House lawn set, framed by the wreck of the stadium, news towers and cypress trees (above), was designed to echo the design of the Monastery in the Future scenes.


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YOUR ULTIMATE HOME ENTERTAINMENT GUIDE

P138

Phil de Semlyen

reassesses

Gareth Edwards’

latest exercise

in monster

mayhem.

GODZILLAI L L U S T R A T I O N

NOMA BAR


X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PASTAmerican History X 2014. OUT: NOVEMBER 10. CERT. 12

• Shawn Ashmore’s Iceman feels the

heat as he battles a Sentinel.

> SEVEN FILMS

into any series and the

imagination usually

flags, but the shifting

X-Men film franchise

has 50 years’ worth

of comics to mine.

This greedily grabs arcs, characters

and set-pieces from various runs

of the comic while gene-splicing

the X-Men established in the

first two films by director Bryan

Singer, who now returns to the

fold, with the prequel pack from

X-Men: First Class.

Patrick Stewart and James

McAvoy have a time-twisting

telepathic face-off and Michael

Fassbender modulates the Irish

(O’Magnet?) accent he used last

time into something closer to Ian

McKellen’s arch rasp. The covert

agenda of the time trip Hugh

Jackman’s Wolverine takes back to

his bone-clawed 1972 self might also

be to erase Brett Ratner’s X-Men:

The Last Stand and two-and-a-half

Wolverine spin-offs from continuity,

the way the Terminator wanted to

kill John Connor before birth.

charm, in Lawrence’s fashion

choices and gags about lava lamps,

head shop posters and Nixon’s

tape recorder.

EXTRAS The deleted scenes are mostly snippets with the leads, so no more of Anna Paquin’s Rogue — although there’s a shot of her in the fi rst trailer which then disappeared from the fi lm, suggesting there’s further material to mine. A tiny extra moment for Halle Berry’s Storm (played very differently in the gag reel and a serious deleted scene) would have been a game-changer for the character. Some people get more to say in the batch of lively ‘making of’ docs than in the fi lm — Bingbing Fan and Omar Sy are interviewed in their native Chinese and French. It’s

a nice package, but further revised editions down the road aren’t ruled

out: of the deleted scenes, Singer says they won’t

appear “in any cut of the movie”, hinting

that he’s not fi nished fi ddling yet. KIM NEWMANFILM ★★★★

EXTRAS ★★★

There’s more stuff here than in a

season of the average sci-fi TV show,

so it’s no surprise elements get short

shrift — Ellen Page spends the whole

film holding Jackman’s head —

and some credited players get fewer

lines than the inevitable surprise

appearances (don’t expect Vinnie

Jones). Letting Jackman play straight

man rather than cool rebel pays off

for McAvoy and Nicholas Hoult,

who hold centre-screen as a depressed

Professor X and a bipolar Beast.

Singer has an unmatched knack

for cinematic demonstrations of

superpowers: the

film astonishes

when Evan Peters’

Quicksilver does his

‘Time In A Bottle’

schtick or Magneto

activates the

1970s-design

classic giant

robot Sentinels

to terrorise the

White House. Yet

there’s room in

a terribly busy

film for period

• Here: Jennifer Lawrence’s

Mystique. Below:

Hugh Jackman, super-cool as

Wolverine.

For our DVD & Blu-ray database, head to empireonline.com/reviews/DVD


BELLE2014. OUT: NOW. CERT. 12

> As a mixed-race girl in 18th-century England, Belle (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) is caught between two worlds, and so is this biopic. Amma Asante

sways from swoonsome romance to grand political dealing, but it’s in Belle’s social limbo, even within her aristocratic family, that the film fi nds its most powerful moments.EXTRAS The Blu-ray has fi ve brief featurettes that are frustratingly light on detail, reusing clips frequently. HOHFILM ★★★ EXTRAS ★★

THE PURGE: ANARCHY2014. OUT: NOVEMBER 17. CERT. 15

> Far superior to the home-invasion thrills of the original, James DeMonaco’s ’80s-soaked thriller opens up the Purge universe to satisfying

effect, trailing a group of cannon fodder as they try to make it home on Purge Night. Frank Grillo, the late-blooming action star, grounds everything, and the action is gruesome and laced with satire. It’s a better Escape From L.A. than Escape From L.A.. EXTRAS None. Purged. CHFILM ★★★★

20,000 DAYS ON EARTH2014. OUT: NOW. CERT. 15

> Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard’s fi lm about Nick Cave is every bit as maverick as the 20,000 day-old Goth rocker/screenwriter/novelist

himself. Stylistically, it seems as scattershot as Cave’s songwriting doodle pad, but it’s expertly calibrated and laced with wit.EXTRAS ‘Making of’ and outtakes (including Cave and Kylie singing Where The Wild Roses Grow at Camden’s Koko). DHFILM ★★★★ EXTRAS ★★★

School Of Cop 2014. OUT: NOVEMBER 17. CERT. 15

22 JUMP STREET • Jonah Hill, Ice Cube and

Channing Tatum are locked

and loaded.

> EVERYTHING IS

awesome. Especially

if you’re Phil Lord

and Chris Miller, the

precociously talented

directing duo who

cranked out two of

the year’s most inventive and,

crucially, funniest comedies in the

time it takes some comedians to

write a single punchline. Hot on

the heels of The Lego Movie, 22

Jump Street reunites Jonah Hill

and the increasingly assured

EXTRAS

Substantial, without much in the way

of substance. Deleted scenes, including

a curiously muted alternative opening,

slightly smug featurettes and strangely

tame alternative takes abound. Best

thing here: the fun commentary, and

a ten-minute version of the fi lm that

takes out all the jokes yet still manages

to be hilarious. CHRIS HEWITTFILM ★★★★ EXTRA ★★★

Channing Tatum for a meta-tastic

riff on the paucity of ideas common

to sequels and romcoms, virtually

obliterating the ‘sub’ from the gay

subtext. Such clever-cleverness

could easily collapse if the gags

couldn’t support it, but Lord and

Miller never let up, with a relentless

barrage of jokes, including a Benny

Hill nod that may be 2014’s most

inspired moment. After so many

near misses, from Anchorman 2 to

the Austin Powers sequels, at last

here is a comedy sequel that’s better

than the original. Can’t wait for the

next 53 instalments.

> PUSH A BUTTON TO GET A

million pounds, but someone, somewhere

will die: it’s an age-old dilemma, fantastical

enough to remain purely hypothetical.

This compelling drama from the Dardenne

brothers, however, brings the idea closer

to home: tick a box to get 1,000 euros, but

someone, somewhere loses their job. What do you do?

Marion Cotillard is extraordinary as the “someone”

facing unemployment because her work colleagues opt

for their bonus instead. Painfully thin and haunted by

depression, she doorsteps her co-workers in what must

surely rank as the most depressing road trip ever, but the

responses she receives are nakedly revealing; some refuse,

some cave, most are playing a starring role in their own

story. The Dardennes sparingly portion out morsels

of joy and anguish, leading to a last-act vote that rivals

even 12 Angry Men in terms of heart-in-mouth tension.

In a time when even citizens of first world countries

are relying on food banks to make ends meet, Two

Days, One Night resonates with truth; it’s a damning

portrait of how impersonal we’ve become as a society.

Humanity’s ebb and flow is represented fully here,

and it’s priceless.

EXTRAS Twelve minutes of the directors

in conversation plus junket interviews with Cotillard. ALI GRAY FILM ★★★★★ EXTRAS ★★

L’Orrible Bosses

TWO DAYS, ONE NIGHT2014. OUT: NOW. CERT. 15 DVD ONLY


Green is the new black 2014. OUT: NOW. CERT. 12

GODZILLA> FROM ITS

chilling opening

montage to its smashy-

smashy crescendo,

Gareth Edwards’ post-

Monsters movie is every

inch a Proper Godzilla

Film. All the ingredients missing

from Roland Emmerich’s ill-starred

version — atomic breath, monster

design that doesn’t look like it was

fished from Jurassic Park’s recycle

bin and an actual point to the

metaphor — are in evidence in the

Brit’s pleasingly beefy Gojira. And,

yes, this Godzilla is also back on our

side, even if he has a strange way

of showing it.

Toho, which has long since

relegated that 1998 flop to Room

101, must have thrilled at the fealty

Edwards paid to its creation. The

idea of a Godzilla rising against

a new environmental threat (this

time nuclear energy rather than

Las Vegas. As for Godzilla? Well,

ol’ blue breath doesn’t disappoint

when the moment comes.

But while Godzilla is a terrific

monster movie, it’s no Monsters

in terms of human drama. Some

blame is attached to a script that

regularly leaves key characters

reduced to bit parts. Elizabeth

Olsen is badly served in a role

that requires little more than her

best danger face, while the ever-

dependable David Strathairn is

left juggling humanity’s survival

with industrial levels of speaking

the obvious (“Frankly, none of

us have ever faced a situation

quite like this one,” he

says as a giant space-bug

eats Honolulu) and

military jargon.

Worse, the script

sketches Aaron

Taylor-Johnson’s

bomb-disposal

• Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Ford.

JIMMY’S HALL2014. OUT: NOW. CERT. 12

> Set in 1930s Ireland, Ken Loach’s last fi lm enters the battle over a village dance hall and a clash between community and

church. Marxism versus Religion. Establishment versus The People. Loach’s socialist dogma is delivered with familiar warmth and wit, but is still curiously underwhelming. Any chance of another fi nal fi lm, Ken?EXTRAS Solid ‘making of’, deleted scenes and Loach commentary. SCFILM ★★★ EXTRAS ★★★

MALEFICENT2014. OUT: NOW. CERT. PG

> Angelina Jolie works hard as the black-wimpled baby-curser in this Wicked-lite origin yarn of Sleeping Beauty’s big bad.

Some of the action and the matte painting-look world is impressive but the fi lm lacks cohesion, true enchantment, plus smart ways to interact with the source material.EXTRAS Featurettes, a VFX montage and deleted scenes. Conspicuous by his absence is director Robert Stromberg. IFFILM ★★ EXTRAS ★★★

CHEF2014. OUT: NOVEMBER 3. CERT. 15

> Jon Favreau goes from Iron Man to Iron Chef in this short, sweet exercise in wish fulfi lment: writer/director/star Favreau cooks some

great grub, sleeps with Scarlett Johansson and dotes on Sofía Vergara — tough gig. Plot-wise it’s as limp as linguine, but the food prep is deserving of your drool. EXTRAS Deleted scenes, commentary with Favreau and his food consultant (including fi ve minutes on grilled cheese). AGFILM ★★★ EXTRAS ★★★

A-bombs) chimes so closely with

the studio’s heritage that fans can

already get giddy at the prospect of

King Ghidorah turning up for the

sequel or start hiding their knitwear

in anticipation of a Mothra cameo.

Here, though, it’s the two

insecty M.U.T.O.s, creatures of the

director’s own devising, with which

Godzilla does battle. And it’s some

battle. The sight of a pregnant

M.U.T.O. threatening

to dispense monster-

flavoured caviar across

the western seaboard

or her mate snacking on

a marooned Russian sub

are showstoppers

that are only

overshadowed

by the scary-

hilarious

trail of

destruction

wreaked on



THE SET-UP

> “I was really nervous,” remembers Gareth Edwards of the HALO (‘High Altitude Low Opening’) jump, “because it had the potential to be a really cheesy moment.” He drew on Jonathan Glazer’s Guinness Surfer ad and György Ligeti’s Requiem to give the leap a haunting tenor, and Point Break because, well, it’s Point Break. “When you watch it broken down, it’s Keanu Reeves lying down with a fan in his face,” Edwards laughs. “But I remember it being really realistic.”

THE JUMP

> Edwards’ prevized approach combined mostly VFX and wire work but real skydivers were also crucial. “It’s always hard to animate falling,” explains VFX supervisor Axel Bonami of MPC, “and to get that organic feel of the camera moving. We changed the environments and added more jumpers, but most of them are real.” Aaron Taylor-Johnson wasn’t one of them. “He wasn’t allowed to die before the publicity campaign,” deadpans Edwards, “but I bought him a skydive to make up for it.”

THE TEASE

> Eager to use the sequence in the teaser trailer but fi nding the VFX unfi nished, the studio’s marketing team paid to shoot the jump for real. “They did it the next day,” recalls Edwards. “The craziness of fi lmmaking!” The eagle-eyed will spot a key difference between the trailer and fi lm. “It’s a smaller plane, too,” reveals the director, “a C-130 instead of a C-17. The interior magically gets smaller for one shot.”

THE MONSTERS

> “I love this sequence,” enthuses Bonami. “It’s an epic shot when Godzilla appears through the lightning,” he adds. “Gareth wanted to have just the silhouette, the shadow of the monster.” The sight of the jumpers’ arrival, like fl ies in Gojira’s peripheral vision, will take some topping in the sequel. “It’s one of the sequences I’m most proud of,” says Edwards. “It’s closest to what was envisioned.”

Godzilla’s HALO Jump WO R D S PHIL DE SEMLYEN

ANATOMY OF A SCENE

EXTRAS As you’d expect from the fan-friendly Legendary Pictures, there’s plenty of juicy nuggets among the ’Zilla fi ller. Highlights include a featurette on the HALO jump sequence in which Edwards’ remarkable previz talents call back to the bedroom-based genius of Monsters — “angels descending into hell” is how the director pitched the scene to his paymasters — and plenty of monster-building insights. The look of the M.U.T.O.s, it turns out, was based partly on stealth bombers, while Andy Serkis lent a hand in fi nding Godzilla’s essence. PHIL DE SEMLYENFILM ★★★ EXTRAS ★★★★

• The beast himself. Hear

him roar!

man too thinly to carry the required

emotional jeopardy when his family

is imperilled. With the camera

set dispassionately back from

the action, the combined effect

is of little people scurrying about

inconsequentially while the grown-

up monsters sort things out

among themselves.

• The last-minute teaser shot.

• The jumpers are about to make one giant lizard very angry.

• Early concept art by Matt

Allsopp.

• Real skydivers add to the

immediacy of the shot.

1 4 0 empire d e c e m b e r 2 0 1 4 empireonline.com

MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS2014. OUT: NOW. CERT. 12 DVD ONly > Mary’s tragedy was a life lived in limbo. That sense of woozy, indeterminate doom permeates Thomas Imbach’s biopic, forsaking period drama bluster for oblique, fractured socio-realist poetry. Compelling proof there are new ways to tell old stories, with an evocative star-turn from Camille Rutherford.Extras None. Film HHH

TAPPED OUT2014. OUT: NOW. CERT. 15 VOD ONly > Orphan avenges his parents’ murder by facing the killer in a cage- fight. Cody Hackman plays David to Krzysztof Soszynski’s mutoid Goliath. Crunchy action aside, it’s a UFC Karate Kid, right down to the thrusting training montages. Special bonus: the forever-ace Michael Biehn, giving good grizzle as the movie’s Mr. Miyagi-alike.Extras None. Film HH

THE ANGRIEST MAN IN BROOKLYN2014. OUT: NOW. CERT. 15 > Robin Williams’ uptight blowhard is given 90 minutes to live... but it’s all a silly mistake! Pitched as an urban- rage farce, this New York runaround mood-wobbles from acidic to sweet too sharply and too often. All the zip’s in Williams’ verbal shit-housing. The film just can’t keep up with him.Extras None. Film HH

THE SWORD IDENTITY2011. OUT: NOW. CERT. 12 DVD ONly > Armed with a bendy, pizza-paddle sword, a lone warrior tests four masters inside a murky Ming fortress. Wire-fu-free, Xu Haofeng’s saga is odd for a wuxia epic: the fights are stark, the visuals dry as bark and, here’s a first, it’s under two hours. Strictly martial-arthouse, almost anti-thrilling, it delivers a curious kick.Extras None.Film HHH

ALSO OUTThe rest of the month’s new releases

GRACE OF MONACO2014. OUT: NOW. CERT. TBC > Nicole Kidman isn’t Grace Kelly and Tim Roth isn’t Prince Rainier in this luxury plastic-cheese yawn. Can Grace save Monaco from an income tax crisis? It really is that galactically boring, staged with all the bogus elegance of a Royal Doulton commemorative plate loaded with Ferrero Rochers. Enjoy the parrot. Extras Deleted scenes, featurette. Film H Extras HH

FADING GIGOLO2014. OUT: NOW. CERT. 15> Bookshop nerd turns male escort. John Turturro’s the gigolo. Woody Allen’s his pimp. Turturro’s wry sex farce, about as raunchy as a boiled potato, only half-jokes about its daft premise, rambling into midlife-crisis dramedy and a side street of subplots. See it for the Allen/Turturro double-act.Extras None.Film HHH

ROB THE MOB2014. OUT: NOW. CERT. 15 VOD ONly > Bonnie And Clyde with a Bronx accent, as a white-trash couple stick up the Mafia. Set during the trial of John Gotti, this ’90s true-crimer loses its buzz, but Michael Pitt and Nina Arianda share a sweet, reckless chemistry. Andy Garcia co-stars. GoodFellas clichés abound. Also doubles as “Get the fuck outta here” bingo.Extras None. Film HHH

FACT OR FICTION2014. OUT: NOW. CERT. E VOD ONly > Sport stars don’t come any odder than Marty Reisman: hustler, ping- pong champ and incurable Casanova even at 82. Leo Leigh’s biodoc is a sly, frisky treat, steered by its subject’s self-regard. Reisman claims he’s an ageing gunslinger. What emerges is a polyester Don Quixote cursed by his own long-vanished glories. Extras None. Film HHHH

DEBUG2014. OUT: NOVEmBER 3. CERT. 15 > RAT IN YOUR CRISPS! A free sample scare from David Hewlett’s cosmic B horror. Hackers do battle with a spaceship computer, manifested in the form of multiple Jason Momoas. Squirty deaths abound but it’s a victim of its own deep-space setting — there’s zero atmosphere. Destined, you sense, for Netflix-fillerdom.Extras None. Film HH

JERSEY BOYS2014. OUT: NOVEmBER 10. CERT. TBC> A beige polo neck of a film from Clint Eastwood, whose signature steady rhythms slowly vampire the life from this jukebox musical. No sharp falsetto highs: this is The Four Seasons as wiseguy soap, shot in shadows in case you don’t take it seriously. Waxy-eared if stubbornly watchable.Extras Standard ‘making of’ plus featurettes. Film HHH Extras HH

EASY MONEY 111: LIFE DELUxE2014. OUT: NOW. CERT. 18> The excellent Snabba Cash trilogy concludes with a pulsating single-take heist as its centrepiece, but even more audacious are the collision-paths of its three plots. Joel Kinnaman headlines; Matias Varela rules the movie. A deep, sink-into-crime saga, it’s not quite the Nordic Godfather, but close enough.Extras None. Film HHHH

3 DAYS TO KILL2014. OUT: NOW. CERT. 12> Paris. Hitman. Daughter. Baddies. Luc Besson stencils his scripts nowadays. This one’s been pulled from the Taken The Piss pile. No gripes with Kevin Costner’s growly heroics; plenty with the passive-aggressive mix of family drama and shootouts, incongruously cosy, like an exploding mug of cocoa. McG McDirects.Extras ‘Making of’, cast chats.Film HH Extras HH

w o r d s simon crook

“I’m a little disappointed. At least I got ass clown!”

6/10

BILLY BOBSCORES

THE SCOREBOARD

Sir Ben Kingsley/Sir Christopher Lee/Robert Rodriguez/ David O. Russell/Quentin Tarantino 9

Guillermo del Toro 8.5

Werner Herzog 8.5

Christian Slater 8.5

Bryan Singer 8

John Waters 8

Hank Azaria 7.5

Jack Black 7.5

Frank Darabont 7.5

Dario Argento 7

Roger Corman 7

Corey Feldman 7

Kevin Pollak 7

George A. Romero 7

Peter Stormare 7

Warwick Davis 6.5

Benicio Del Toro 6.5

Dexter Fletcher 6.5

John Landis 6.5

Paul Schrader 6.5

Andy Serkis 6.5

Sigourney Weaver 6.5

Jeff Bridges 6

Cameron Crowe 6

Baz Luhrmann 6

Malcolm McDowell 6

BILLY BOB THORNTON 6

Bob Hoskins 5.5

John Malkovich 5.5

Danny Trejo 5.5

Jean-Claude Van Damme 5.5

Judd Apatow 5

Andy Garcia 5

Terry Gilliam 5

John C. McGinley 5

Joel Silver 5

Jim Sheridan 5

Roland Emmerich 4.5

Eva Mendes 4.5

Wes Craven 4

Heather Graham 4

John Hurt 4

Samuel L. Jackson 4

Sam Neill 4

John Carpenter 3

Steve Guttenberg 3

Michael Keaton 3

Jean Reno 3

John Woo 3

Diane Lane 2

Listen to the Empire Podcast at empireonline.com/podcast

D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 4 EMPIRE 1 4 1

Lion

el D

eluy

/Con

tour

by G

etty

Imag

es

BILLY BOB THORNTON Will Bad Santa get stuck in our quiz chimney?

1 What is the name of the

all-female motorcycle gang

in Chopper Chicks In

Zombietown?

Chrome Hearts? (On hearing the

answer) That’s right! Damn, I knew that! I thought it was Chrome Hearts because that was the working title of the movie. It’s a pretty good title, but not as good as Chopper Chicks In Zombietown!

The correct answer is the Cycle Sluts.

2 In Sling Blade, Jim Jarmusch’s

character works for which fast

food outlet?

I invented the place! When I was a little kid, a friend’s dad had a place called Frosty Freeze. I made hamburgers there. I didn’t want to use that so I changed it to — Frosty Kreme!

Correct.

7 In Armageddon, what does

Karl (John Mahon) want

to name the asteroid, and

why? (Half a point for each).

I have no earthly idea (laughs). (On hearing the answer) I don’t think I ever knew that.

The correct answer is Dottie, after his wife. Because “she’s a vicious, life-sucking bitch from which there is no escape.”

8 Complete the line from School

For Scoundrels: “You can’t

help yourself because — ”

No, I have no idea. (On hearing the

answer). Oh that’s funny (laughs). I do remember that now. I remember at the time thinking it was a funny line.

The correct answer is “— yourself sucks.”

9 Who provided the uncredited

voice for ARIIA in Eagle Eye?

I know this. Julianne Moore.

Correct.

10 In Bad Santa, after

“elf fucker” and “Faggy

Claus”, what is the

last insult hurled at you by the

Hindustani Troublemaker?

“Ass clown”. Somebody once told me which movie that originally came from — Offi ce Space! Somebody said it about Michael Bolton.

Correct (and correct on Office Space, too). SIMON BRAUNDTHE JUDGE IS OUT NOW.

3 In Love Actually, director

Richard Curtis makes a brief

cameo appearance playing

which musical instrument?

Is it a triangle? No, wait, it’s a brass instrument, right? I remember that scene now. Is it the trombone? I remember Richard on the trombone.

Correct.

4 In Puss In Boots, Jack

demands a complimentary

what from the hotel owner?

Okay, that’s when we’re in the hotel and all the Mexican cats are there. Seems to me like it was fruit. A fruit tart? It was defi nitely food. I don’t know, a TV dinner? (Laughs)

The correct answer is a complimentary continental breakfast.

5 In what way was your Bad

News Bears co-star, the late

Sammi Kane Kraft, unique

on the baseball team she played

for in real life?

She was a Little League pitcher for a boys’ team. She was so great in the movie. So sad that she died so young.

Correct.

6 In The Man Who Wasn’t There,

which brand of cigarettes does

Ed Crane smoke?

Chesterfi elds. And he smokes a lot of them (laughs).

Correct.

1 4 2 EMPIRE D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 4

For our DVD & Blu-ray database, head to empireonline.com/reviews/DVD For our DVD & Blu-ray database, head to empireonline.com/reviews/DVD

QUOTE OF THE MONTH “In my opinion, not

nearly enough wives are killed with

choppers.”THE TERROR

DUNGEON BREAKOUT

Kim Newman’s

MOVIE DUNGEONWolfCops, zombeavers and shaggy dogs...I L L U S T R A T I O N S THE RED DRESS

DUNGEON BREAKOUT

Written and directed by Canadians

Derek Lee and Clif Prowse, who

also star as lifelong best friends

documenting a round-the-world trip,

superior found-footage effort

AFFLICTED is obviously a passion

project. In Paris, Derek has a weird

encounter with a violent seductress…

by the time they get to Italy, he’s

sleeping by day, can’t keep his food

down and sunburns terribly, but

on the plus side also develops

super-strength, speed and agility —

albeit with an inconvenient blood-

thirst. It has parallels with

the more expensive CHRONICLE,

but pulls off big action, a fresh

take on vampirism, an affecting

study of friends sticking together

in terrible circumstances and

a globetrotting jaunt.

DIRECTED BY THE SOSKA SISTERS

(American Mary), SEE NO EVIL 2 is your standard party-

in-the-morgue slasher. Bulky, under-characterised serial

killer Glenn Jacobs hops off the autopsy table to slaughter

the usual disposables in the usual gruesome ways. Necro-

fetishist sexpot Katharine Isabelle and morgue attendant

Michael Eklund are good company, but get killed too

early. DonÕt worry if you can barely remember the eight

year-old See No Evil; its highlights are flashed on screen

whenever the new material flags, which sadly it

does quite often. Greg McLeanÕs WOLF CREEK 2

also comes along well after the original,

although youÕre less likely to have forgotten

the harrowing earlier film. The sequel shifts

gears, letting star John Jarratt free-associate

entertainingly as a genial Outback serial

killer. McLean includes classic Australian

on-the-road chase action, a mass splattering

of kangaroos (ÒSorry, SkippyÓ), bravura Grand

Guignol gore, and an astonishingly wrong yet perfect

duet as Jarratt and a cringing pommie victim sing Rolf

HarrisÕ gruesome Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport.

Mark Hartley, who made the Ozploitation

documentary Not Quite Hollywood, revisits one of the

genreÕs highlights in PATRICK (aka Patrick: Evil Awakens),

a remake of the 1978 science-fiction horror film. Sharni

Vinson (from YouÕre Next) takes a job in eccentric

scientist Charles DanceÕs old, dark mansion, nursing

coma patients. One of the staring, unresponsive bed-

blockers uses vast psychic powers to kill people he hates

and torment those he loves. A more gothic, contrived,

hokey film than the original, but great fun.

Vengeance is far from sweet in a brace of all-new

schlocky horrors. In THE LAST SHOWING, a ticked-

off veteran projectionist (Robert Englund) ensnares

a young couple attending a midnight revival of The

Hills Have Eyes Part 2, in a plot to get revenge on the

multiplex society and star in his own manipulated found-

footage horror. Promising, but peters out. Then in ALL

CHEERLEADERS DIE, a vengeance-seeking lesbian (Caitlin

Stasey) infiltrates the cheerleader squad. Murdered by

jocks, the girls are revived with magic powers. ItÕs a lively,

enjoyable exploitation movie with smarts and attitude.

Classic monsters are still on the prowl. In Lowell

DeanÕs shaggy-dog story WOLFCOP, drunken Lou Garou

(Leo Fafard) is turned werewolf as part of a Satanic

conspiracy but uses his fangs to fight crime. ItÕs got plot

surprises, a nice wintry feel, engaging characters and

a couple of really gross effects. WolfCopÕs lycanthropic

exploding penis gag is more impressive than the dick-

chewed-off-by-half-woman/half-beaver sequence in Jordan

RubinÕs equally silly, slightly less fun ZOMBEAVERS. Next

to all that, B. C. FurtneyÕs more classical WEREWOLF

RISING Ñ a cabin-in-the-woods movie about an

alcoholic (Melissa Carnell) trying to dry out, who is

beset by human and monster menaces Ñ seems almost

tame. However, Bill Oberst Jr. is outstanding as a redneck

escaped con on his way to becoming something worse.

VAMPS reunites Clueless director Amy Heckerling

with star Alicia Silverstone in a vampire-themed comedy

which isnÕt that funny but turns unexpectedly moving in

the home stretch. Nice-girl vampires Silverstone and

Krysten Ritter grow tired of the NYC party lifestyle,

with Ritter inconveniently smitten by the latest

Van Helsing (The GuestÕs Dan Stevens). ItÕs

your only chance to see Sigourney Weaver

chew scenery as a queen vampire whose

severed head is stuck on the reanimated

bones of General Grant, and Malcolm

McDowell as a knitting Dracula.

Also in this monthÕs horror pack: Kimani

Ray SmithÕs EVIL FEED combines kung fu

and cannibalism and features yet more severed

penis jokes (seriously, is this the Big Horror Trope

of 2014?); Owen ToothÕs DEVIL’S TOWER starts

out as creepy social-realist horror in a British

tower block used as a living soap opera by yet

another comatose (or dead) psychic, then

turns into a scrappy zomcom; and Nick

GomezÕs LIZZIE BORDEN TOOK AN AXE,

a true-crime tale which lets the splendid

Christina Ricci flash her scariest pretend-

smile as the small-town Victorian spinster

accused of chopping up her parents.

QUOTE OF THE MONTH “To be honest, I’ll put my dickie roll up against your

nipple tartare any day.” EVIL FEED

FP_EMPIRE_GIRLGOTHIC.id1453627.pgs 09.10.2014 17:14 >>AdRocket<<


• Main: Martin Freeman’s Bilbo and

John Callen’s Oin prepare for battle.

Below: Luke Evans does his best

glower as Bard.

THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG EXTENDED EDITION Gold standard

2013. OUT: NOVEMBER 3. CERT. 12

> ÒDONÕT BUY

the theatrical cut

DVD,” Peter Jackson

jokes on his (and

Philippa Boyens’)

commentary for this

latest, augmented

release of a Middle-earth movie;

“Save your money for the extended

DVD. I’m sure everyone’s learned

their lesson by now...”

There may have been criticism

of Jackson for making a cinematic

three-course meal of such a snack-

sized book, but it’s hard to disagree

that more is indeed good. Ever since

we first watched the alternative

opening to Fellowship, there’s

been a recurrent joy in the

delayed gratification of a Rings

or Hobbit Extended Edition,

both in terms of seeing what

Jackson’s added (or, more

often, restored), and in

wading through the ever-

exhaustive ‘Appendices’

which welcome the

viewer into virtually

every aspect of these challenging

but cheery productions.

The Desolation Of Smaug’s

additional scenes (25 minutes’

worth) are particularly interesting

in two ways. Firstly, as the Tolkien

faithful will be glad to hear, two

previously missing sequences

are lifted straight from the book.

There’s the gently comedic episode

where Gandalf tries to introduce

EXTRAS It feels like nothing’s been missed in this, ahem, Smaugasbord of bonus materials, laid out across fi ve, heaving discs. We get to meet “Jingles the Defi ler”, learn that Jackson consumes on average 22 mugs of tea per day, and hear Graham McTavish (Dwalin) describe the elves of Mirkwood as “a bunch of Ziggy Stardusts”. But it’s by no means all fun and frolics. Adam Brown (Ori) has to wrestle with his ichthyophobia when Jackson orders several hundred real, dead fi sh to be dropped on his head (“I’m gonna vom!”). Jackson changed the design of Smaug very late in the day (four legs bad, two legs good). And there’s even a moment where Aidan Turner (Kili) storms off set, despite his director asking for another take. “I’m being ignored in 3D…” quips Jackson.

In this era of tight-lipped spoilerphobes and approval-processed studio product, it almost feels a privilege to be allowed to see and hear about so much of Jackson’s process. And it doesn’t hurt that he’s such an entertaining host. “I feel it’s my role to kind of abuse them,” he says of his actors, “to remind them that it’s not all croissants and hair…” DAN JOLINFILM ★★★★ EXTRAS ★★★★★

the dwarves, two-by-two, to the

borderline-beserk Beorn; and the

crossing of the enchanted river in

Mirkwood, which culminates in the

beleaguered, spore-frazzled company

having to stretcher a comatose

Bombur. Secondly, for the first

time ever, Jackson’s gone back and

completely re-edited a sequence,

changing “the way the narrative

unfolds”. So, in Dol Guldur,

we have Gandalf encountering

Thorin’s insane father Thrain

(a prostheticised Mike Mizrahi,

snipped entirely from the theatrical

version), who then appears in

later scenes in which Gandalf had

previously appeared alone. It’s

a bolder approach, but it works

far better than the talky scenes

— many involving pre-Erebor

Arkenstone talk — which had

understandably been ditched due

to pacing concerns. Although we do

welcome one Braindead-recalling

gross-out culinary moment, in

which Stephen Fry’s Master of

Laketown literally eats bollocks.



YOUTH OF THE BEAST1963. OUT: NOW. CERT. 15

> Afi cionados of cult Japanese director Seijun Suzuki cite this crazy early ’60s crime fl ick among his masterpieces. There’s a plot about

rival yakuza outfi ts infi ltrated by a vengeful cop, which Suzuki mostly ignores in favour of spectacle and lovingly staged punch-ups. The remastering does justice to the lushly nutso visuals, while a gleeful contempt for traditional narrative has clearly infl uenced Tarantino. EXTRAS A 36-page booklet. ASFILM ★★★★ EXTRAS ★★★

WITHNAIL AND I1987. OUT: NOW. CERT. 15 BLU-RAY ONLY

> A restoration of Bruce Robinson’s greatest hour-and-47-minutes removes the scratches, dust and dirt, giving fans the fi nest version of

Withnail And I available to humanity. EXTRAS Robinson commentary, Kevin Jackson commentary (the world’s foremost Withnail expert), production designer interview, Sam Bain interview (he’s a big fan), 1999 Channel 4 mini-docs. AP FILM ★★★★★ EXTRAS ★★★★★

A FAREWELL TO ARMS1932. OUT: NOW. CERT. PG

> This adaptation of Hemingway’s classic came just three years after the book. Papa hated it. You can see why: where the book was a thousand-yard

stare, Frank Borzage’s fi lm is a dewy-eyed romance. Still, it’s full of lovely touches, like a long shot from Gary Cooper’s POV and a trippy combat montage. EXTRAS Newsreel footage, a brief chat between Borzage and Cecil B. DeMille, plus the happy ending (!) shot for US audiences. NDSFILM ★★★★ EXTRAS ★★★

Plumbing the depths 1993. OUT: NOVEMBER 3. CERT. PG BLU-RAY ONLY

SUPER MARIO BROS. • The dinosaurs ruled over

by a slippery Dennis Hopper.

> A NINTENDOH

adaptation of such

incredible wrongness

even nice Bob Hoskins

called it a nightmare.

Which is oddly

appropriate: it plays

like a dark, terrible dream. Mario’s

bright, benign Mushroom Kingdom

is a warm, pixelated cuddle of a

world: and yet somehow, directors

Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel

send Hoskins’ Mario and John ‘Luigi’

Leguizamo into a murky, dystopian

alternative New York City ruled by

Dennis Hopper pretending to be a

EXTRAS Slicing through the hype of its original ‘making of’ (included), a new doc performs an in-depth autopsy on Mario’s disastrous shoot, fi lmed inside an old cement factory where the dust, script and actors never settled. Richard Edson’s priceless contribution is entirely without mercy. SIMON CROOKFILM ★ EXTRAS ★★★

dinosaur with a really long tongue.

Much of the action centres around

extreme plumbing — one of

countless malfunctioning parts.

Toad appears as a rockabilly

busker; Megadeth appear on the

soundtrack; and Mario’s signature

mushrooms are personified by a

gloopy fungus testicle that turns

out to be Princess Daisy’s dad.

All of which suggests the perviest

kids’ movie ever made, but it’s so

oblivious to its source, so lacking in

plot, and so indecisive about who

it’s aimed at, the film knocks itself

unconscious on an empty coin-

block, again and again and again.

The sets, by Blade Runner’s David

Snyder, are monumental but there’s

no disguising a novelty folly. You

don’t watch or enjoy it. You witness

it, like a 104-minute accident.

> NEARLY 45 YEARS OLD AND

re-released in HD, Federico Fellini’s

masterly satire on the ennui of Rome’s

gorgeous glitterati still sparkles. Opening

on the ruins of the ancient empire, Fellini

depicts an eternal city where God, if not

dead, is reduced to a decorative statue of

Jesus dangling from a helicopter. Yet this is no grinding

slog; Fellini’s melancholy thesis is leavened by wit, pace

(for a three-hour film it bowls along) and the seductive

energy of its stars, matinée idol-style gossip columnist

Marcello Mastroianni, beautifully jaded Anouk Aimée

and an iridescent Anita Ekberg. The famed Trevi

Fountain scene remains a sight to behold, but still more

enthralling is the lengthy, hypnotic party/dance through

the streets that precedes it, probably the most obvious

influence on Paolo Sorrentino’s 2014 Best Foreign

Language Picture Oscar-winner The Great Beauty,

a wonderful homage to Fellini’s film that, with its

inspiration, would make a great double bill for a wet

autumn afternoon. As relevant today as it was in 1960,

La Dolce Vita — which coined the word ‘paparazzo’,

derived from Mastroianni’s celeb-hungry photographer

sidekick — remains fresh and essential.

EXTRAS Rare interview with Ekberg, trailers. LIZ BEARDSWORTH FILM ★★★★★ EXTRAS ★★

Picture perfect

LA DOLCE VITA1960. OUT: NOW. CERT. 15 BLU-RAY ONLY


It’s Earth, Jim, but not as we know it 1980-’95. OUT: NOW. CERT. 18 BLU-RAY ONLY

JIM JARMUSCH COLLECTION

> WHAT IS IT

about Jim Jarmusch

that is so box-settable?

Barely a year passes

without cinema’s

beguiling emperor of

aloof — known for

hepcat-cool depictions of quirky

folk well off the drag that drift by in

a shimmery, plot-light daze, almost

mesmeric in their oddball depictions

of life — getting his back catalogue

repacked and lovingly remastered;

this time with added downloadability.

Which is, like, so right now.

Yet again it’s the early days.

Fingers crossed, we’ll soon get

a collection of later Jarmusch

— the not-so-frequently

revarnished Blue In The Face,

Broken Flowers, and his

recent laconic vampire

experiment, Only Lovers

Left Alive (newly

available solo). Here you

get some familiar pills.

Another go-round for

the rock-sheen wonders

of Big Easy prison-

bottled comedy Down

By Law; fleabag motel

EXTRAS

There are a few bits and pieces, but nothing

too deep. After all, it wouldn’t pay to derail his

mystery train. Still, for the record, there is a

German television interview with the cast and

crew of Permanent Vacation; a home-movie

behind-the-scenes of Stranger Than Paradise

directed by brother Tom; outtakes and a set

of entertainingly rambling recordings of

phone calls between Jarmusch and actors

Tom Waits, Roberto Benigni and John Lurie

from Down By Law; fi nally, some deleted

scenes from Dead Man. IAN NATHANFILMS ★★★★ EXTRAS ★★★

• Clockwise from

left: Stranger Than Paradise; Down By

Law; Permanent Vacation; Mystery

Train; Night On Earth.

portmanteau Mystery Train;

and the criss-crossing taxi tales of

Night On Earth. None of which

have diminished in their sanguine

rootlessness. Watching Jarmusch

is like taking a warm bath — just

settle back and relax.

More unusually, we get the two

early, seminal features. Stranger

Than Paradise (1984) is shot in

bleak black-and-white, but is

effortless in every sense as it charts

the slow-burn relationship between

a glum-struck loafer and his kooky

Hungarian cousin who end up

road-movieing to Cleveland.

Of even more interest to dedicated

Jarmuschites will be his 1980 debut,

Permanent Vacation, which serves

as the Jarmuschian blues-print.

It’s an episodic, marmalade-paced

amble through a dream-like New

Yawk in the company of Charlie

Parker devotee Aloysius Parker,

played by Christopher Parker (the

echo of surnames all part of the

writer-director-composer’s self-

sustaining whims). Parker-Parker-

Parker will greet a recognisable cast

of eccentrics, each caught up in their

own heads, each fighting elusive

battles with elusive foes. It’s loose

and slow even for Gentleman Jim,

but carries that oh-so-subtle sense

that he is really onto something. How

often does it feel as if we are adrift

in an ocean of weirdos? Permanent

Vacation out-Slackers Slacker, and

was informally remade as the

wonderful, dream-soothed death

fugue of Johnny Depp Western Dead

Man (also included here).

Foundations laid, Jarmusch has

worked at nothing but his own pace,

curating his own philosophy, tastes

and sense of style within the confines

of whatever genre, milieu or notion

he happens upon. He’s his own man,

God love him. Lord of a strange,

eminently box-settable paradise.

• A rare colour still of Johnny Depp in wild Western Dead Man.



> A KIND OF SCORSESE-DE NIRO-

Schrader of ’30s French cinema, director

Marcel Carné, actor Jean Gabin and

screenwriter Jacques Prévert followed the

classic Le Quai Des Brumes with the equally

brilliant Le Jour Se Lève (Daybreak) the

following year. A terrific crim-holed-up-in-

a-building drama combined with a touching ménage

à trois, the action begins with Gabin’s honest factory

worker committing a crime of passion, then flitting

back and forth between the doomed love affair (with

radiant Jacqueline Laurent) that has caused his agony

and the growing police response outside his window.

For film buffs, it has Gabin’s immense performance,

muscular, sensitive and effortlessly cool, a clutch of

great supporting turns (Jules Berry is a particularly slimy

love rival), terrific set design by the legendary Alexandre

Trauner (a shot following Gabin down the stairs is a

thing of magic) and Carné’s sense of poetry in down and

dirty locations. Also, for fans of chemical weaponry, it

has cinema’s greatest use of tear gas. RKO remade the

film in 1947 as The Long Night and attempted to destroy

every print of the original. Thank fuck they didn’t.

L’Amour Fou

LE JOUR SE LEVE1939. OUT: NOW. CERT. PG

EXTRAS A fascinating feature-length doc, scenes excised by the Vichy government, a restoration featurette. IAN FREERFILM ★★★★★ EXTRAS ★★★★

> CINEMA’S

original mad doctor

is lovingly restored to

his original, dagger-

sharp malevolence in

this re-release of what

is arguably German

Expressionism’s finest hour (and

a quarter). A multi-layered murder

mystery set in a splintered, spiky

dreamscape, Caligari is both a

skewed comment on its own unique

historical context and an undeniable

template for the next century of

to events unfolding on screen, but provides an entertaining, enlightening overview of Caligari’s origins, the confl icting facts and fi ctions of its production, multiple readings of its meaning and a convincing explanation of its ambiguous ending. An hour-long documentary (in German and subtitled) drily covers similar ground as the commentary, while a 15-minute video essay from fi lm critic David Cairns is affectionately sardonic. There’s also a brief before/after look at the restoration, a trailer and a 56-page booklet. NEIL ALCOCKFILM ★★★★★ EXTRAS ★★★

filmmaking. Its jagged visual style

informed every film noir, its plot

laid the foundations of the term

‘Hitchcockian’ and its characters

creep exaggeratedly out of Tim

Burton’s nightmares: there’s

more than a little Dr. C in Oswald

Cobblepot’s shuffling psycho.

And M. Night Shyamalan would

kill for the twist.

Angles & Demons 1920. OUT: NOW. CERT. U

THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI • Werner Krauss’

Dr. Caligari (right) awakens his

somnambulist.

SHIVERS1975. OUT: NOW. CERT. 18

> Genetically engineered turd-beasties transform an apartment block’s residents into kill-crazy sex pests

in this early Cronenberg. Its original title — Orgy Of The Blood Parasites — says it all.EXTRAS A new (Cronenberg-free) documentary, a 2008 Canadian TV retrospective and a fun video essay on the “gore-happy sex maniac” director’s career. Plus trailer, photo gallery and booklet. NAFILM ★★★ EXTRAS ★★★

SPIONE1928: OUT: NOVEMBER 17. CERT. PG

> Fritz Lang’s ridiculously entertaining silent spy thriller has the lot: a numbered spy, 326 (Willy Fritsch); a ballsy heroine

(Gerda Maurus); double agents; a slippery MacGuffi n; cool gadgets; a wheelchair villain (Rudolf Klein-Rogge); and a thrilling train set-piece 34 years before Bond. It’s brisk, bizarre and ends on a talk-about note modern fi lms can only dream of.EXTRAS ‘Making of’, booklet. IFFILM ★★★★★ EXTRAS ★★★

ANIMAL FARM1954. OUT: NOW. CERT. U

> Britain’s fi rst animated feature hasn’t aged well. Gordon Heath’s narration dominates, the cutesy pigs clash with the dingy tone,

and the anti-Communist ending — added at the behest of the fi nanciers, the CIA — will get die-hard Orwellians’ backs up. EXTRAS Commentary with animation historian Brian Sibley, mini-doc with Tony Robinson, storyboards, character sketches, poster gallery and stills. APFILM ★★ EXTRAS ★★★

EXTRAS Enthusiastic fi lm historian David Kalat’s thorough commentary bears little relevance


ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA: EXTENDED DIRECTOR’S CUTGangster Squad 1984. CERT. 18. OUT: NOW BLU-RAY ONLY

• Robert De Niro and James Woods as Noodles and Max.

> THE TANGLED,

and appropriately

epic story of Sergio

Leone’s much-chopped

masterpiece is now as

often a quoted example

of scissors-happy

Hollywood studio philistinism as

Orson Welles’ The Magnificent

Ambersons. Leone and his editor,

Nino Baragli, had originally

conceived the project as two films.

The studio baulked and Leone

delivered an initial version which

ran to 269 minutes. After further

discussions he recut it, without

more than the usual complaint, to

229 minutes, which was the version

that premiered at Cannes in 1984,

and of which he is on the record as

describing as “the version I prefer”.

But, alarmed by the violence and

unconventional narrative structure

of the film, a further 90 minutes

were hideously butchered for

the American cinema release,

an atrocity compounded by a

mind-bendingly dim-witted

reordering of the film, its sublimely

intricate flashback/dream structure

being steamrollered out with all

the editorial subtlety of a Corby

trouser press. Despondent at the

comprehensive ruining of his work,

Leone would not make another film

before his death in 1989. It was, and

is, one of cinema’s great tragedies.

The European cut was subsequently

reissued, and remains the one most

viewed, and admired, today.

This new version, supervised

by (among others) Martin

Scorsese, restores about

25 minutes excised for

the Cannes cut. (Further

footage was intended

to be re-introduced, but

rights issues apparently

prevented this.)

Thus we have the

“Extended Director’s

Cut”. But knowing

what Leone’s

intentions would

EXTRAS

Alas, nothing new. You get the dry Richard

Schickel commentary from the 2003 DVD

and an old documentary, but no insights

into the restored material, which is a huge

shame. ADAM SMITHFILM ★★★★★ EXTRAS ★★

variance in image quality, is for the

most part unremarkable, with no

plot changes but some marginally

useful deepening of character

and motivation. In the end, it

neither harms nor really improves

this sublime, haunting gem. Perhaps

it’s only appropriate that a film

suffused with ambiguity, among

whose key themes is the fallibility

of memory and the impossibility

of fixing a ‘real’ sense to things,

is itself so malleable.

Regardless, in either version

Once Upon A Time In America

remains a beguiling masterpiece

that demands to be seen. This well-

intentioned redux is an interesting,

but entirely optional footnote.

now be is a matter of post-mortem

mind-reading. Even he might have

finally blanched slightly at the

current single-movie running time,

a shade under four hours and 20

minutes which, while eased by the

judicious use of the pause button

on Blu-ray, is still an intimidating

marathon for any but the most

dedicated cinephile.

The restored material, scored

by Ennio Morricone and made

noticeable by a slight but jarring

• Rusty Jacobs’ Young Max is in trouble.

For our DVD & Blu-ray database, head to empireonline.com/reviews/DVD For our DVD & Blu-ray database, head to empireonline.com/reviews/DVD


MADAME DUBARRY1919. OUT: nOw. CERT. PG> Before the Hollywood comedies, Ernst Lubitsch sharpened his craft on vast, silent epics. This one stars Pola Negri as Louis XV’s doomed mistress. For spectacle, there’s an enormo-storming of the Bastille, but only Negri’s brisk charisma sees you through a creaky second act. Extras Lubitsch’s Als Ich Tot War, plus booklet. Film HHH Extras HHH

STRAY CAT ROCK1970-’71. OUT: nOw. CERT. 18 BLU-RAY OnLY > Bashed out over two years, here are all five films from the Stray Cat series — a magnificent trash- fest that captures Japan’s post-War delinquency through the medium of biker-girl movie. Disgracefully entertaining, and probably playing on loop in Tarantino’s head. Extras Booklet, new interviews. Film HHHH Extras HHH

THE KILLING FIELDS1984. OUT: nOVEmBER 3. CERT. 15 BLU-RAY OnLY > The dreaded Issue Movie, a marina of worthiness, is shaken alive by Roland Joffé, exposing the horrors of Cambodia through urgent, shattering survival drama. Haing S. Ngor personally endured the Khmer Rouge. His performance redefines brave. A shot in the arm for risk-averse British cinema.Extras Joffé commentary, interviews. Film HHHHH Extras HHH

HOW TO GET AHEAD IN ADVERTISING1989. OUT: nOw. CERT. 15 DVD OnLY > Body-horror and screeching comedy collide as Richard E. Grant’s ad-man is gobbled up by a talking boil. Bruce Robertson’s grotesque consumer satire, still lividly relevant, indulges Grant in all his thrashing, uncontainable, knackering glory. Shout-out to Servalan.Extras Production designer interview. Film HHH Extras HH

STRIPES1981. OUT: nOw. CERT. 15 DVD OnLY > Bill Murray joins the army. Fits in like a dog thrown into a Jacuzzi. This reissue of Ivan Reitman’s flabbier Special Edition comes with redundant Colombia escapade (painful) but extra doses of Murray’s sardonic slob (priceless). Animal House in combats. Hello, Judge Reinhold!Extras Reitman commentary, two-part ‘making of’.Film HHH Extras HHH

I CLOWNS1970. OUT: nOw. CERT. U > Not Apple’s latest Cloud update. Rather, Fellini’s 1970 curio that indulges his lifelong clown fetish. Combining mock-doc and circus routines, the result is a bracingly peculiar lament to the lost art of clowning that sees Fellini get in the spirit by plonking a bucket on his head. Extras I Clowns retrospective (in Italian). Film HHH Extras HHH

ALIENS VS PREDATOR REQUIEM2007. OUT: nOw. CERT. 18 BLU-RAY OnLY > Mr. Alien and Mr. Predator duke it out on Earth. Nothing survives this franchise-nuker that buries its confused script under slop-buckets of gore. Never mind the fan-fiction atrocities (greeting, Mr. Predalien); the AVP fights are a murky spasm of hopeless. Display the natty steelbook. Hide the disc.Extras Commentaries, deleted scenes. Film H Extras HHH

THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE1974. OUT: nOVEmBER 17. CERT. 18 > Forty years young, Leatherface gets moisturised with a birthday remastering. If you’ve yet to experience modern horror’s missing link, now’s the time: endlessly cannibalised by sequels, the original’s raw, grimy dread remains genuinely hostile. Extras Outtakes, deleted scenes, many, many docs. Film HHHHH Extras HHHHH

ALSO OUTThe rest of the month’s re-releases

w o r d s simon crook

GAMES1967. OUT: nOw. CERT. 18 DVD OnLY > Cruel hipster couple get spectacularly pranked when a psychic enters their house of games. James Caan, Katharine Ross and Simone Signoret form a spiky hate-triangle that keeps changing angles with each spiteful counter-con. Shot in 1967, it’s like a prototype Sleuth and a bit of a lost gem.Extras None.Film HHH

BLACULA1972. OUT: nOw. CERT. 15> Blaxploitation at its battiest. Stalking LA to a wiki-wah score, William Marshall’s “black prince” goes hampire in this kitschy horror that recasts the Count with tufty eyebrows, flammable polyester cape and feral sexy-time menace. The shonky sequel, also included, features Pam Grier, dubious voodoo and lashings of direlogue.Extras Kim Newman intro, booklet.Film HHH Extras HHH

BED & BOARD1970. OUT: nOw. CERT. PG > All grown-up from The 400 Blows, Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud) faces marriage, fatherhood and an affair with a Japanese temptress. Truffaut’s alter ego emerges as a callow hustler in this fourth outing, pitched as a lightweight realist-comedy. Dare we say it? Doinel turned out a bit of a knob.Extras Antoine And Collette short, commentary. Film HHH Extras HHH

MARK OF THE DEVIL1970. OUT: nOw. CERT. 18 > It’s no Witchfinder General but finally, 40 years late, here’s the Devil uncut in all its tongue-ripping infamy. Applying the thumb-screws to religious corruption, Michael Armstrong’s period nasty is the definitive Britsploitation horror: lurid yuks, sleazy sadism, all set to an ultra-wrong ’70s ice-rink score.Extras Docs, interviews, booklet. Film HHH Extras HHHH


patter — ghetto kids, drawn into

a life of crime, start out small but

become ever more ruthless as the

years pass, the stakes get higher

and friendships and families are

ripped apart by the never-ending

cycle of murder and retribution.

In focusing on the rise to power

of drug lord Li’l Zé (Leandro

Firmino) and his homeboy Rocket

(Alexandre Rodrigues), whose love

of photography is, he hopes, his

ticket out of the City, it charts

the catastrophic effect of the drug

trade on Cidade de Deus and the

bloody street wars, waged by rival

cartels, that it spawned. That’s the

big picture. What brings it to life

are the vividly drawn portraits

of the people within it.

It would be ridiculous, of course,

to assert that any film, no matter

The Kids Are Not All Right 2002. OUT: NOW. CERT. 18 W O R D S SIMON BRAUND

CITY OF GODA the masterpiece #133 A

> WITH THE SUNNY

euphoria of the World

Cup still fresh in the

memory, revisiting

Fernando Meirelles

and Kátia Lund’s

brutal debut feature

is a sobering experience.

The name Rio de Janeiro

invariably conjures postcard images

of Sugarloaf mountain and the

Christ statue of Corcovado gazing

benignly down on the city’s sweeping

bay and endless stretches of golden

sand, teeming with beautiful people

sipping pisco sours and playing

volley-football to a samba beat while

the lilting strains of Astrid Gilberto

seep from the sound systems. The

reality is not so far from the cliché.

Rio is, without doubt, one of the

most beguiling cities on Earth. But

there is a dark side, and it’s Rio’s

notorious favela, Cidade de Deus,

lightyears from the fleshpots of

Ipanema and Copacabana, that is

the setting for Meirelles and Lund’s

film — a film that thunders across the

screen, grabbing your attention like

the business end of a .38 Magnum.

Based on the acclaimed, semi-

autobiographical novel by Paulo

Lins, City Of God spans the years

from the late 1960s to the early

’80s and the changes wrought

on the favela and the people who

live there. The era was one of

tumultuous change for Cidade

de Deus, with the escalating spiral

of violent crime and dire poverty

transforming conditions from

merely harsh to downright hellish.

In essence, City Of God is a

crime drama that follows a familiar

how well made or acted, could give

you a real sense of what it’s like to

live in an environment as hostile,

chaotic and neglected as Cidade

de Deus, but City Of God comes

as close as you’ll ever get. And that

is largely down to the efforts of

a cast made up not of professional,

or even aspiring amateur, actors

but of teenagers and young people

who grew up in Rio’s favelas, some

of them in Cidade de Deus itself.

Meirelles’ decision to use non-actors

was based on two factors: firstly,

there were virtually no professional

black actors available. “Today,” he

said in a 2012 interview, “I can open

a casting call and have 500 black

actors, but just ten years ago this

possibility did not exist. In Brazil

there were three or four young black

actors.” Secondly, he was reluctant



to recruit those who were available

since they didn’t have the life

experience he was eager to draw

on. In the end, out of a hundred

or so chosen, only Matheus

Nachtergaele (who plays Carrot)

had any background as an actor.

Meirelles cast him after seeing him

in a play. He was somewhat irked

when, before production began,

Nachtergaele let him down by

becoming a huge star in the 2000

movie A Dog’s Will.

Rather than introduce his

untrained cast to traditional acting

techniques, Meirelles ran workshops

at which they were encouraged to

improvise real-life scenarios:

robberies, fights, gun battles and

the like. Hailing from some of the

meanest streets in South America,

they’d probably seen enough of that

kind of thing already. Whatever the

case, it’s the astonishingly natural

performances that lend City Of God

its raw authenticity.

It was not, as is often assumed,

shot in Cidade de Deus itself;

not even Meirelles was prepared

to risk that. It was, however, filmed

in a nearby, less dangerous

neighbourhood, a fact which, along

with its non-professional cast,

would more often than not point to

an exercise in neo-realism. In fact,

it is intensely cinematic, employing

hyperactive camera moves, hand-

held pans and crash zooms. Machine-

gun cutting keeps the narrative

hurtling forward with the wild

energy of a runaway train. As has

been said before, City Of God may

be hard to watch in places, but it is

impossible to take your eyes off it.

In October 2013, the

documentary City Of God —

10 Years Later premiered at the Rio

de Janeiro film festival. Directed by

Cavi Borges and Luciano Vidigal, it

was made up of background footage

from the film and interviews with the

cast and crew. Some of them have

gone on to great success following

City Of God’s multi-Oscar-

nominated glory. Alice Braga (who

plays Angélica) appeared in David

Mamet’s Redbelt, in I Am Legend

with Will Smith and opposite Matt

Damon in last year’s Elysium.

Alexandre Rodrigues has starred in

a string of Brazilian TV shows,

including City Of Men, a spin-off

of City Of God. Most amazing of

all is Seu Jorge (Knockout Ned).

Best known to non-Latin audiences

for his Portuguese-language covers

of David Bowie songs in The Life

Aquatic With Steve Zissou, he has

continued to act and now enjoys

a stadium-filling musical career.

His album Carolina became an

international hit in 2003.

Others have not been so lucky.

Alongside the uplifting rags-to-

riches tales are stories of hardship,

poverty and a drift back into crime.

As for Cidade de Deus, although it

is still blighted by the drug trade,

conditions have improved markedly,

with new emphasis on building

infrastructure and improving

education. Thanks to the 2010

deployment of a Police Pacification

Unit, arrests are up 550 per cent, with

homicides down 83 per cent. It even

has its own currency, the CDD, which

is currently indexed at roughly 20 per

cent higher than the Brazilian real.

“Hard to watch in places, but it is impossible to take your eyes of it.”


TV

For many more TV reviews, head to empireonline.com/reviews

THE NEWSROOM: SEASON 2

2014. OUT: NOW. CERT. TBC> The fi rst season

climaxed by dubbing

the Tea Party the

American Taliban

and Aaron Sorkin’s

media drama is no less forthright

for year two, though he does

lose some of the chaos for an

overarching plotline about a hoax.

It’s a smart move that makes for

an even stronger second season.

EXTRAS Raucous commentaries,

episode-by-episode interviews

with Sorkin and deleted scenes. JD SHOW ★★★ EXTRAS ★★★

SGT. BILKO: THE COMPLETE COLLECTION

1955–’59. OUT: NOW. CERT. PG DVD ONLY > This still seems a

strong candidate for

Best TV Sitcom Ever

— and now there’s

fi nally a complete

set. Phil Silvers is a whirlwind

of comic timing as the conniving

sergeant, leading his platoon of

sad-sack eccentrics into grandiose

capers. Infallible comedy gold.

EXTRAS Commentaries, recent

interviews, Silvers’ I Love Lucy

cameo and a decent booklet. KN SHOW ★★★★★ EXTRAS ★★★★

THE SOPRANOS: THE COMPLETE SERIES1999–2007. OUT: NOW. CERT. 18

BLU-RAY ONLY > Thanks to a

tighty-whitied drug

dealer, Tony Soprano

is no longer TV’s

antihero du jour. So

this box set is a timely

reminder that The Sopranos still

has a formidable presence. It’s

complex, fearless and wonderfully

ambiguous. Cut to black.

EXTRAS Five hours of interviews

and deleted scenes, plus 25

commentaries. Free time?

Fuhgeddaboudit. NDS SHOW ★★★★★ EXTRAS ★★★★★

BATMAN: THE COMPLETE TV SERIESGo West 1966-’68. OUT: NOVEMBER 10. CERT. TBC

> AIRED BETWEEN

1966 and 1968, ABC’s Daft

Knight awkwardly straddles

the superhero universe as

both pioneer and pariah.

Syndicated worldwide, it was

the first truly global comic

brand, but for New Hollywood it’s a parping klaxon

for everything the modern superhero shouldn’t be:

lurid, camp and (whisper it) fun. There’s no Bat-angst

packed in Adam West’s utility belt. No glove-wringing

over murdered parents. In fact, West’s biggest internal

struggle was squeezing into his underpants. So why

bother with a 2D hero with the character arc of

an ironing board?

Well, that’s a bit like asking why people smile.

Measured against the new, moody-sad Batworld, DC’s

creation is framed at such a mercilessly wonky Dutch

angle the show plays even more like an epic piss-take.

First episode Hi Diddle Riddle starts with an exploding

cake, and pretty much sets the tone. What’s remarkable

about the pilot is the format arrived fully formed (fruity

puns, cliffhangers, useless Robin getting kidnapped),

and never really budged for 120 episodes. All that

changes is the speciality villain. The best, most luridly

grotesque episodes belong to either Burgess Meredith’s

The Penguin or Cesar Romero’s The Joker (moustache

under the make-up even fuzzier in hi-def). Lurking

inside this box set, however, is a pungent, forgotten

cheese-dream of exotic guest villains. Who remembers

Liberace perforating the dynamic duo into a giant piano

roll? Or Joan Collins’ The Siren, armed with an

analogue scream that sounds like a colossal swear bleep?

All those KAPOWS! weren’t inspired by the comic —

they were lifted from Roy Lichtenstein. Maybe that’s why

it’s proved such an anti-influence: the show’s far more

successful as a ’60s pop-art pastiche than a superhero

adaptation. The series hit Peak Kitsch in the second

season. With nowhere else to go, the third, final season

plunged into self-parody and a thrashing aquarium

of shark-jumping. When Batman pulls on a pair of

Bermuda shorts and has a surf-off with The Joker in the

Beach Boys-inspired calamity that is Episode 104, you

know the joke’s over. Choice moment: Vincent Price,

bald, screaming, riding a donkey up a one-way street.

EXTRAS Three hours of docs and archive

curios. Alongside new interviews and a read-through of the pilot, Adam

West attends a dinner-dinner-dinner hosted

by Kevin Smith that serves a full course of

hard-to-swallow trivia. Picture this: West

was asked to play James Bond. Notably,

there’s a screentest from would-be-

Bruce, Lyle Waggoner, providing wooden

proof of just how inspired West’s take on

Batman was. This limited edition comes

with trading cards, booklet and mini

Batmobile. Best grab it now before

Joel Schumacher bulk-orders the

lot. SIMON CROOK SHOW ★★★★

EXTRAS ★★★★

• Burt Ward’s Robin, Adam West’s Batman and coordinated pals.

Order frombfi.org.uk/sci-fi

THE CHANGES

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THE BOY FROM SPACE

2-DVD

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OUTER SPACE

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MORE CULT AND CLASSIC SCIENCE FICTION ON DVD

7-Disc set includes:

� All 20 surviving episodes from Series 1– 4

� Digitally remastered picture and sound

� Return of the Unknown: all-new documentary featuring interviews with cast and crew, and rare clips

� 11 audio commentaries with cast and crew, including Philip Saville, Wendy Gifford and Peter Sasdy

� An interview with director James Cellan Jones

� Four missing episode reconstructions

� Extensive stills galleries

� Fully illustrated booklet with essays and full episode credits

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SHOWRUNNERSTARA BENNETT. OUT: NOW> The fi lm Showrunners, by Reign Of Fire cameraman-turned-documentarian Des Doyle, is a high-access peek inside the world of TV. This companion book is essentially a collection of interview off-cuts: big names like Joss Whedon and Kurt Sutter offer witty war stories, but it makes for a stodgy read, partitioned by unappealing chapter titles such as “The Co-Showrunning Paradigm”. NDS ★★★

STAR WARS COSTUMES: THE ORIGINAL TRILOGYBRANDON ALINGER. OUT: NOW> “Never-before-seen detail!” is typical of blurbs for behind-the-scenes books, but in this case, it’s entirely warranted. This exhaustive analysis of the Lucasfi lm Archives reveals fascinating tidbits on everything from the Rebel technicians’ hat insignias to the red and blue buttons on General Veers’ battle armour. The Princess Leia slave-dancer chapter has a fold-out cheesecake shot. AP ★★★★★

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA VAULTPAUL RUDITIS. OUT: NOW> Following Alien and Terminator templates, the B. G. Vault details the culty show from Star Wars rip-off to impressive 2004 reboot, through gorgeous pull-out art and smart text. Full of great trivia (Don Johnson was the network choice for ’70s Starbuck), the Vault is as good on visual effects as it is on TV, particularly how the reboot distanced itself from camp sci-fi dom. Better than the patchy franchise deserves. IF ★★★★

ALIEN: THE ARCHIVE OUT: OCTOBER 31 PLANET OF THE APES: THE EVOLUTION OF THE LEGEND JOE FORDHAM AND JEFF BOND. OUT: NOW ROBOCOP: THE DEFINITIVE HISTORY CALUM WADDELL. OUT: NOW

THE WORTH OF A ‘MAKING OF’

book has little to do with the quality of

the movie it’s detailing. A five-star belter

with a smooth production would likely

be a dry old read, but a stinker on which

everyone had a miserable time? That’s

a book. These collections have varying

degrees of success, largely dependent on

where their directors sat on the loopiness

spectrum and how confidently idiotic the

studio execs were at each stage.

The Alien saga is a consistently rich

acid spring of disgruntled directors,

panicking studios and monsters on the

fritz, which is why this is far from the

series’ first investigation, but Alien:

The Archive is by some distance the best

of this triple bill (we are, at this point,

obliged to point out the existence of the

excellent alternative book Alien Vault,

as it’s written by the acting editor of this

mag and he docks your pay if you don’t).

There are two primary reasons why

it works. One, there’s input from almost

every significant player, particularly the

connecting figure of Sigourney Weaver,

who is fair to everyone but not necessarily

discreet, and provides a strong through-

line to the book (which oddly does not

have a listed author). Two, each of these

films had a visionary director who wanted

to do something none of the other movies

had. So even if the later films didn’t match

the ambition of their creators, it means

the stories of struggles along the way are

vivid and many. The visual element is also

extremely strong, offering up the usual

glossy stills but also a fine selection of

pointless, delicious nerdery, like a display

of the various signs dotted around the

Nostromo in Alien. This book might not

offer much new to those who’ve combed

through the ‘quadrilogy’ Blu-ray box set

and the many other Alien books that have

come before — if you don’t know about the

Alien 3 aborted wooden planet by now

you were probably never very interested

— but this is as good a telling as any other.

Planet Of The Apes: The Evolution Of

BOOKS

ARCHIVE ROUND-UPAliens, apes and robots, oh my!


For many more book reviews, head to empireonline.com/reviews

The Legend has a tougher job because not

only does it have eight films to document

— original, current, and that Tim Burton

one everyone, primarily Burton, wishes

had never evolved — but a lot of the

people it would have been useful to speak

to have inconveniently died. Joe Fordham

and Jeff Bond do a manful job with what

they have, and if you’re not aware of the

stories behind the increasingly bonkers

and political sequels then there’s lurid

material here, but in the spaces where a

voice from the production would be useful,

they often fall back on documenting or

editorialising with their own opinions,

which seems against the book’s

purpose. Readers come for the inside

story from those who made it. The

authors’ hearts don’t seem to be in

exploring the later films, which

get a rather fluffy treatment.

Aliens and Apes have an

enormous fan base for their

respective sagas, even when they

both plunged enthusiastically

into madness. One has to wonder

if there are quite so many in thrall

to RoboCop 3. Even if you don’t

care about the films — hell, even if

you’ve never bothered to see the films

— this is a fun read, because it seems,

based on accounts — particularly that

of Nancy Allen — that after the first

film, nobody enjoyed a single minute of

production and nobody in charge had

the slightest idea what they were doing.

It’s a story of a series rushing from

sly wit to stupidity. It’s a shame that

it ends with the making of the recent

series reboot. It blows great clouds of

smoke right up that film’s shiny cyborg

backside, treating it like a glorious

resurrection rather than a widely reviled

stiff. That is the key thing with these

oral histories: the minute you

smell a lie or studio suck-up,

they fall apart. By all means

fib to make a better story,

but never get caught.

Olly RichaRds

Alien: The Archive HHHHH

PlAneT of The APes: The evoluTion of

The legend HHHH

robocoP: The definiTive hisTory HHH

• Clockwise from main: Alien’s original concept art; the Älm’s iconic facehugger egg; annotated storyboards from RoboCop 3; the original prosthetics for Planet Of The Apes. Below: Game-changing motion capture in Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes.


For many more soundtrack reviews, head to empireonline.com/reviews

KEYNOTES #9

PRIDEVARIOUS. OUT: NOW

> This two-CD playlist for the miners’-strike crowdpleaser entertainingly mixes

the obvious (Frankie’s Relax) with the not-so-obvious (Human League’s Hard Times), hitting almost every ’80s sub-genre from disco (Sylvester) to post-punk (Joy Division) via New York cool (Grace Jones). We also get Billy Bragg (obvs) and bits of Christopher Nightingale’s likable score. Great fun, but loses points for only including the hateful 7” mix of New Order’s Blue Monday. IF ★★★★

SIN CITY: A DAME TO KILL FORROBERT RODRIGUEZ. OUT: NOW

> Dropping the three-stories/three-composers strategy he employed on the fi rst Sin City, Robert

Rodriguez takes on the whole job, only delegating the odd track to Austin muso Carl Thiel. Noirier than a Bogart box set painted black, the 26 brief tracks have all the mewling saxes, foreboding horns and sultry keys-tinkling you’d expect. But little stands out, and the Steven Tyler-fronted Skin City is an unwanted chunk of dodgy hair-rock. WT ★★★

1 THE LONG RIDERS (1980)

(Director and long-term

collaborator) Walter Hill had

liked the instrumentation on some

of my records and thought it would

work in that film. I think he had

in mind that the music would not

be a detached thing. It had to be

cinematic but a little more textural,

more personal.

2SOUTHERN COMFORT (1981)

Walter liked the idea of seeing

music in the film, especially if

you’ve got all these people together

going through some sort of social

ritual. We needed to have musicians

as part of the scene so Walter said,

“Go out and get me some Cajuns!”

3 PARIS, TEXAS (1984)

We scored the whole film

in three days. We had these

corrugated plastic hoses. When you

stood on ladders and made circles

with these things, it created a tone

like wind in the desert. Based on

that, we started to improvise this

(blues legend) Blind Willie Johnson

guitar theme throughout the

picture. It couldn’t be monotonous.

It still had to feel like film music.

4 ALAMO BAY (1985)

I heard about this film and

I thought, “I want to do that if

I can.” I thought, “How am I going

to get close to Louis Malle?” Then

one day his brother called: “We

are interested in talking to you

about Alamo Bay.” I said, “Man,

I’m right there.” Louis Malle didn’t

say much. Just: “Make me sound

like John Ford.”

5 CROSSROADS (1986)

That film cost so much money.

The catering truck was like

a spaceship in a cotton field in

Mississippi. We had lobster crêpes

for breakfast. It was a heck of a

piece of work and I think it closed

in five days. Jesus, what a mess.

6 JOHNNY HANDSOME (1989)

That’s my favourite score,

I think. Because of the

character’s disfigurement you had

to suggest somebody else inside.

That’s one thing music in film is

supposed to do: you are seeing one

thing, but this is the truth of it.

7 TRESPASS (1992)

That was hard. Even if you

are in this abandoned factory

with these drug guys, it’s still just

people in buildings. I called Jon

Hassell, the trumpet player,

a master of space and abstract

mood. He was fabulous.

Walter Hill looked up from

his Variety paper and said,

“This guy’s great.”

The slide-guitar king talks movie musicRY COODER

THE GUESTVARIOUS. OUT: NOW

> The majority of the vastly enjoyable soundtrack for Adam Wingard’s stylish thriller would sound

at home in an ’80s Berlin nightclub. The tuneage flits from dark, electro brooding — Love And Rockets’ Haunted When The Minutes Drag, Mike Simonetti’s The Magician — to dreamy synth sounds courtesy of Annie’s Antonio and Clan Of Xymox’s Masquerade. Goths will love The Sisters Of Mercy’s Emma, but for the most part this sounds like the pop career John Carpenter never had. IF ★★★★

• Here: Ry Cooder in 1972, photographed

by wife Susan Titelman. Below:

Charlie WilsonÕs War.

Sus

an T

itel

man

8 GERONIMO (1993)

Eighty pieces is a goddamned

big orchestra. That was a

fabulous experience. Sitting in the

middle of that orchestra was pretty

darn good.

9 PRIMARY COLORS (1998)

That was a problem. They

brought me in way late. I had

two weeks. I had a lot of scramble

because that’s not my style of film,

really. I was happy to do it, but it

was mostly conversation. That

was not the Walter Hill way.

10 CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR

(2007)

I tried as hard as I could

to come up with music for that but

I just couldn’t. Somebody said,

“Get that guy out.” There was no

argument for me. You needed

Shostakovich. An old guy from

Santa Monica can’t pull that off.

IAN FREER

1 5 8 empire D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 4 empireonline.com

There’s a possibiliTy you may

have heard of Destiny. When it launched

on September 9, it was dubbed the half-

billion-dollar game, after publisher

Activision said that was how much it

would cost to make — and it promptly

recouped that amount in less than a week

on sale. A whopping 4.6 million people

played the pre-launch beta. Worldwide,

11,000 stores stayed open until midnight

so gamers could buy it at the earliest

opportunity. It generated not so much

a glare as a lightning storm of publicity.

So, what is all the fuss about? You

could try asking one of the millions of

Destiny players, but the chances are that

you would struggle to get an answer: they

remain firmly glued to their PlayStation

4s and Xbox Ones. Part of the game’s

attraction lies in its status as the first

game for the next-generation consoles

to create a genre of its own: developer

Bungie describes it as a “shared-world

FUlFIlYOUR DESTINYDestiny arrived in a blaze of glory — and it can only get even better

shooter”, which adequately describes how

it mixes first-person shooter gameplay (as

exemplified by Halo, Bungie’s previous

smash-hit franchise) with the social

experience of a massively multiplayer

online game (like World Of Warcraft) and

the character development, loot-collecting

and upgrading of a role-playing game.

In practice, there are many aspects of

Destiny that have been putting massive

grins on gamers’ faces and look set to

keep them enthralled for months, or even

years, to come. Curiously, though, it’s

a bit of a slow-burner. In its initial stages

it feels like a conventional first-person

shooter, albeit a beautifully fettled one

whose production standards are off the

scale. And its setting is delicious —

Earth and the planets in the Solar System,

transplanted 700 years into our future,

with various alien races occupying them.

However, you soon encounter various

aspects that leave you in no doubt that

• Above: An all-new Salvage mission. Below: October’s ‘Iron Banner’ timed event.

OUT: NOW. PS3, PS4, XBOX ONE, XBOX 360

subscribe at www.empireonline.com/sub D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 4 empire 1 5 9

Destiny is charting new waters.

Perhaps the best is a sense that

we’re all in it together — a glorious thing

to find in a game, given that it so self-

evidently isn’t the case in real life. That

might come about when you find yourself

in a tricky spot, and a completely random

player appears to help you take out the

aliens who have been battering you. Or

when you discover you can jump into The

Crucible, to take on other human players,

as a quick livener between story missions.

Or when you pluck up the courage to

form part of a six-man group with your

mates, and take on a fearsomely hard,

and utterly epic, Raid. Or the first time

you win a Legendary-rated item of gear,

and discover the edge that it gives your

character when you try it out.

But the biggest of Destiny’s joys is

the way in which it constantly mutates

and expands — something which is only

possible due to its unique, online structure.

3

2

1

Destiny is officially the biggest UK launch of a new gaming franchise ever. In the beta alone, 6.5 million guardians were created.

Destiny has either won or been nominated for over 180 awards — and that was before the game came out and anyone could accurately assess it by playing it.

The first downloadable content (DLC) expansion pack for Destiny, The Dark Below, is scheduled to arrive on December 14. It’s shrouded in secrecy, although we know it centres on the Moon, but should add new missions, game modes and — players are hoping — another super-tricky Raid. PS4 owners are promised some exclusive content.

The second DLC release, House Of Wolves, will arrive in the next six months. Again, Bungie is keeping it tightly under wraps, but we do know that it will focus on the alien race called the Fallen. So the new action House Of Wolves brings will most likely take place on Earth, the Moon and Venus.

That $500 million Activision said Destiny will cost is actually spread over a ten-year period. The next full iteration of the game — likely to be called Destiny 2 — is due to arrive in 2016. The joy of Destiny is that Bungie can always add new planets to it — imagine the fun you could have on Jupiter and its four principal moons!

By the end of its first week on sale, Destiny owners had logged more than 100 million hours of online play. By now, that figure will be in the billions. Beats slaving in an office...

Bungie has already added a new

multiplayer mode called Salvage, in

which you must secure relics on a map

and disrupt enemy players as they try to

do the same. The first timed events —

already startlingly diverse in their nature

— have begun to appear in the game. And

the absolute top players have already been

singled out by Bungie and rewarded with

items that are beyond covetable. Fans

are also having a big say in the game’s

evolution — for example, Bungie has

already promised to ramp up the areas in

the game in which voice-chat is possible.

Already, a social system is building

up around Destiny, with players cranking

up the difficulty levels to the max in search

of bragging rights and the rarest items

of gear. Destiny is not just here to stay:

it’s becoming even more compelling,

sophisticated and absorbing as every

week goes by.

DESTINY IS ouT NoW.

• Top: The Blind Watch Skirmish takes place on Mars. Middle: Skirmish mode again, this time Twilight Gap on Earth. Above: The Bastion Rumble sequence at Meridian Bay, Mars.

DESTINY, IT’S ThE FUTURE

IN ASSOCIATION WITH

Want to knoW What you’ll be playing over the next feW years? look no further.

three months

six months

and beyond...


IN THE 35 YEARS SINCE GIGER’S TERRIFYING,

implacable space alien first stalked the ragtag crew of the

Nostromo, sequels and spin-offs have slowly but surely

neutered the once unkillable beast by ignominiously

twisting it into screeching, bull-rushing cannon fodder.

And games have done their part to contribute to its

decline, reaching an embarrassing nadir with last year’s

dreary Aliens: Colonial Marines, which cemented

the xenomorph’s transformation from unstoppable

killer into a monster about as scary as a paper target

on a firing range. But Creative Assembly has

changed all that.

The key is in the title. Alien: Isolation lifts the

concept of Ridley Scott’s 1979 film by stripping

back pulse rifles, Predaliens and power loaders,

and focusing on a singular xenomorph that

stalks players through the game’s creaking

corridors. Dropped into the engineering

overalls of Amanda Ripley, Ellen’s

daughter, the story picks up 15 years after

her mother went missing as she ventures

aboard the remote space station Sevastopol

where the Nostromo’s black box recorder

has been picked up. Unfortunately, the

station has also picked up an Alien.

The majority of time in Isolation

is spent crouched in the shadows,

nervously studying your motion tracker

for any sign of movement, while the

ship’s groaning and clattering pierces

through the ominous silence. When the

formidable Alien does emerge — slowly

unfurling from a ceiling duct or rearing

its head around a corner in an air vent —

it’s a moment of terrifying, immobilising fear.

You can’t defeat it. Instead, survival is a nerve-

shredding ordeal, ushering the player to silently

retreat into a locker or use the surroundings to create

a temporary distraction. Keeping your approach varied

is integral to staying alive, as the Alien’s impressively

intelligent AI learns from your actions and demonstrates

progressively unpredictable behaviour.

These encounters occur in self-contained, dimly

lit environs of varying size. Some are populated

with malfunctioning androids and others with

hostile survivors. Using the latter as live bait

is the cause of much fiendish gratification,

but other less sociopathic options become

available later when you’re handed a flame-

thrower and given the blueprints to craft

other handy gadgets.

Isolation’s greatest strength is

how it sustains this unrelenting

sense of tension across its sizeable

campaign. While objectives are

rudimentary in nature (mostly

involving re-booting defunct

systems), the staging is credible

and authentic, taking small

steps towards its big shocks

and predictable narrative twists.

In perfectly capturing the

essence of Scott’s original,

Creative Assembly has given

us a creature to be feared again,

and delivered the scariest game

of the year. Prepare to scream.

BRYAN MURRAY ★★★★★

DESTINYPS3, PS4, XBOX ONE, XBOX 360> Don’t believe the hype: Destiny doesn’t deliver a completely new gaming experience, although the more you play it, the more you feel its RPG and MMO elements kicking in. And it is great: a gorgeous-looking, slick-feeling fi rst-person shooter that lets you play solo or with your friends, and while the multiplayer keeps it simple, it’s inviting and moreish. Some humour wouldn’t have gone amiss, however, and it remains to be seen how Bungie proposes to keep us playing once we’ve finished the story missions. ★★★★ SB

DISNEY INFINITY 2.0PS3, PS4, XBOX ONE, XBOX 360> Last year’s Disney Infi nity allowed younger gamers to delve into a vibrant toy box populated by beloved characters, where it wasn’t unusual to see Mr. Incredible fi ring rolls of toilet paper at Jack Sparrow in a crude, user-built Wild West. The sequel adds Marvel’s mightiest heroes but strips away the diversity that made the original shine. Improved combat and creation tools are welcome, but the single play set included in the box (compared to the original’s three) feels like a cynical gesture. Let’s hope next year’s inevitable Star Wars edition fares better. ★★ BM

GAMES

Game over, man OUT: NOW. PC, PS3, PS4, XBOX ONE, XBOX 360

ALIEN:ISOLATION

For hundreds of game reviews, head to empireonline.com/reviews/games

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Needdirection?Pack your popcorn, select your seat, and preview

our BA (Hons) Digital Film Production and

Screening – starting September 2015.

www.chi.ac.uk/media


CONTACT US VIA: EMPIRE MAGAZINE, ENDEAVOUR HOUSE, 189 SHAFTESBURY AVENUE, LONDON, WC2H 8JG

L E T T E R OF THE MONTH

I’LL BE BLACK BEAUTY

In an issue where you rightly laud the genius of Terminator 2: Judgment Day — The Empire Masterpiece #132, pages 142 and 143 — I’m glad you were able to include on page 15 what may have happened had James Cameron taken the unusual decision to cast a cybernetic horse as the Connors’ saviour. What the equine android is doing underneath Dan Stevens from Downton Abbey pretending to be some sort of knight-type bloke in Night At The Museum 3 is beyond me, but there you have it.CHRIS KIPPAX, NEWCASTLEFinally, it’s clear what the 800 in T-800 stands for: horsepower. An inspired spot deserves an inspired prize, so here are £125 in Zavvi vouchers for you to, um, pick something inspired with. Might we suggest the complete box set of Only Fools And Horses? No, wait, War Horse and a rubber horse head mask. Perfect.

YOU TALKIN’ TO US

THE SCARE BEAR BUNCH Well, thanks Empire — that was an unexpected onslaught of genuinely terrifying cinematic memories. I’m referring, of course, to your Lists Of Our Lifetime: Greatest Scares from your otherwise very enjoyable November issue. These sips of nightmare fuel were never meant to be drunk in a single sitting during one particularly unsettling bedtime reading session. Now, when I close my eyes I’m imagining a disintegrating sloth man, Ghostface looming behind me, being buried alive, Bilbo going pointy-toothed ape-shit and Blair Witch’s Mike somewhere in the corner. Forget the spoiler warning — how about a don’t-read-this-all-at-once-alone-in-bed warning? Now, where’s my teddy? AMY ARTHUR, MERSEYSIDEThat’s not a teddy, that’s a… No, you’re right, that’s a teddy.

TV KILLED THE MOVIE STAR I just wanted to say how great it is that you’re covering TV now. All the forms of distribution are so intertwined these days that it was becoming a more and more nebulous line in the sand. I really enjoyed your coverage of the upcoming Winter TV season in the October issue, and I love that you’re covering TV in the

weekly podcast too. Applaud the change. KAREN REDFORD, EDMONTON, CANADAAnd by “TV”, you mean “episodic moving-picture-with-accompanying-sound entertainment streamed to your tablet or PC”, right?

BOOM TIME Must every article include a moment where an actor says they can’t talk about the plot? I’d like someone to spill the beans about the entire fi lm, then have Empire quote it verbatim in an issue, before thousands of fi lm buffs explosively combust around the world with the word “SPOILER” being spelt in the sky with nerd innards. Just me? Alright, then. RYAN GASCOYNE, SHEFFIELDInnerds, if you will.

PULP FRICTION Okay, this is long after the fact, but I just read your review of the Pulp DVD release. One little thing: as a Sheffi elder, I should tell you we wouldn’t say, “S’alright, s’pose.” It would be emphasised as, “S’alreyt s’pose.” Closely followed by “£9.99, ’ow much?”CHRIS HAYWOOD, SHEFFIELD, GOD’S OWN COUNTY

STAYING IN THE DARK (KNIGHT) Damn you, Empire, damn you. When I fi rst heard about Chris Nolan’s Interstellar I, along with a few friends, decided to take a Night’s Watch oath to remain absolutely in the dark about it. The purpose being to see what I would hope is a stellar (guffaw) fi lm without any prior knowledge, thereby enhancing my viewing experience. I would watch no trailers, see no stills and read no features.

So seeing Matthew McConaughey looking all spacemanish on my subscribers’ cover was a little frustrating. And to know there is a big, sprawling feature all about the ins-and-outs of production, the infl uences and tone of the picture, the production design and aesthetic, well… it’s really very annoying.

The home of entertainment. The online store for all of your DVD, Blu-ray and entertainment needs — all with UK free

delivery. Each month, Empire’s star letter wins a £125 voucher from the fabulously generous guys at zavvi.com! When you write to us, please ensure you include your full contact details so we can arrange delivery of your prize.

“It’s difficult to be awake in the morning...”


[email protected] // @EMPIREMAGAZINE (#EMPIRELETTERS) // FACEBOOK.COM/EMPIREMAGAZINE

For once I don’t want to read your journalism and, gosh darn it, you are making that very diffi cult. How am I meant to keep my oath now? At this point, were you a physical being — let’s call you Dr. Empire — I would squeeze you by the shoulders and say, whilst breathing heavily through my nose, “You are my number one guy.” That is how annoyed I am, Dr. Empire — I’ve had to use a Tim Burton Batman reference in a letter about a Chris Nolan fi lm.

Keep up the good work, mind, even though I don’t want to actually read it. Yet.GAVIN CROSBY, VIA EMAILThank… you? Yes, that’s it: thank you.

CHATTER TELEPHONE HOME En route to school this morning, my four year-old daughter came up with a movie pitch that could make me — sorry, her — a multi-millionaire: “E. T. as a baby”!

Come on, Empire — corral some of your infl uential Hollywood chums together and let’s make this happen! In this age of rebooted, prequel-heavy origin stories, who wouldn’t want to see that little rubber blighter pootling about on his home planet? In a hover-pram! With a glowing red bit! You lot can keep the bulk of the box

offi ce, I’ll hang on to the merchandising rights

and we can buy the kid off with a pony or something. My only stipulation is that the credits contain the words “A Daisy

Belle joint”.MATT SEARLES, VIA EMAIL

Great idea! Have some free merchandising advice: insist that they make a “E. T. as a baby” video game tie-in for the Atari 2600.

RECENT AWARDS WON: BSME Entertainment Editor Of The Year 2013 — Mark Dinning; BSME Rising Stars 2013 Best Writer — Phil de Semlyen; PTC Designer Of The Year 2012 — Elliott Webb; BSME Entertainment Editor Of The Year 2010 — Mark Dinning; PPA Consumer Magazine Of The Year 2010; International Media Award 2010 — Chris Hewitt; International Circulation

And Distributor Awards 2009 — Best UK Magazine; BSME Entertainment Editor Of The Year 2009 — Mark Dinning; BSME Consumer Magazine Website Editor Of The Year 2009 — James Dyer; Bauer Media Team Of The Year 2008; Bauer Media Website Of The Year 2008; Bauer Media Event Of The Year (Empire Awards) 2008; BSME Entertainment Editor Of The Year 2008 — Mark Dinning

Editor-At-LargeNev Pierce

CONTRIBUTORSNeil Alcock, Simon Crook, Fred Dellar, Ali Gray, David Hughes, James Jennings,

Daphne Lockyer, Guy Lodge, Dorian Lynskey, Andrew Osmond, Martyn Palmer, Pat-rick Peters, Olly Richards, Mark Salisbury, Anna Smith (ALS), William Thomas, James

White, Owen Williams. Antonella Bordone (design). Kat Halstead (subbing). Noma Bar, Informen, Red Dress, Bill McConkey, Justin Metz, Simon Prades (illustrations).

BAUER MEDIAChief Executive PAUL KEENAN

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CONTRIBUTING EDITORSSimon Braund, Aubrey Day, Angie Errigo, Will Lawrence,

Kim Newman, David Parkinson, Damon Wise

Empire is published monthly by Bauer Consumer Media Limited. Nothing in this magazine can be reproduced in whole or in part without the written permission of the publishers. Transparencies and any other material

submitted for publication are sent at the owner’s risk and, while every care is taken, neither Empire, not its agents, accept any liability for loss or damage. Although Empire has endeavoured to ensure that all information in the

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registered offi ce: 1 Lincoln Court, Lincoln Road, Peterborough, PE1 2RF. This issue on sale October 30.

@empiremagazine I’m about to live the dream.

Harry Cornwell@HarryCornwell


1 What was Edgar Wright’s first

theatrically released film?

2 Before Simon Pegg, who was

originally offered the role of IT whiz

Benji Dunn in Mission: Impossible

III?

3 Which British director has shot

music videos for Radiohead, Vampire

Weekend and Badly Drawn Boy?

4 In Prometheus, how does Rafe Spall

meet his untimely end?

5 Who did Nick Frost play in The

Adventures Of Tintin: The Secret

Of The Unicorn?

6 What was the only other title

considered for Hot Fuzz?

7 The finger gunfight in Spaced was

filmed in an alley next to which pub?

8 In Notting Hill, where does Dylan

Moran hide a book?

9 Who does Edgar Wright play in

Land Of The Dead?

10 How many exes are there to defeat

in Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World?

PUB QUIZCornetto, anyone?

ANSWERS: 1 A Fistful Of Fingers. 2 Ricky Gervais.3 Garth Jennings. 4 An alien worm/snake thing goes down his throat. 5 Thomson, not Thompson. 6 Blue Fury. 7 The World’s End, Camden, London. 8 Down his trousers. 9 Photo-booth zombie. 10 Seven.

Win The Newsroom: S2 on Blu-ray, a 42” HDTV and a Blu-ray player! AARON SORKIN’S SMASH-HIT TV SHOW THE NEWSROOM IS entering its third season this winter and to get you up to date and prepped for his latest batch of news-studio shenanigans, we’re giving you the chance to win a copy of the second season on Blu-ray, along with a 42” HDTV and a Blu-ray player. To be in with a chance of taking home this fantastic package, and seeing the drama from the Atlantis Cable News team unfold in high-defi nition, have a bash at this month’s crossword. No pressure, but the red light is on, people. THE NEWSROOM: THE COMPLETE SECOND SEASON is out on Blu-ray, DVD and Digital Download now.

NOVEMBER ANSWERS:ACROSS: 7 Into The Storm, 8 War Horse, 9 Burn, 10 Ice Cube, 12 Tyson, 14 U-Turn, 16 Seconds, 19 Chan, 20 American, 22 Lee Holdridge. DOWN: 1 Anna, 2 Gothic, 3 The Robe, 4 Ashes, 5 Cowboy, 6 Amarcord, 11 City Hall, 13 Legends, 15 Runner, 17 Olivia, 18 Naboo, 21 Argo. ANAGRAM: Matthew McConaughey

COMPETITION ENDS NOVEMBER 24

HOW TO ENTER Take the letters from each coloured square and rearrange them to form the name of an actor, actress, director or character. Text ‘EMPIRE’ to 83070, followed by your answer, name and address (with a space between each element of your message!). Texts cost 50p plus standard operator costs. Lines close at midnight, November 24. Winners are selected at random. See below for terms and conditions.

Terms and conditions: One entry per person. Texts cost 50p + standard network rate. Ask the bill payer’s permission before entering. Entries must be received before November 25 or will not be valid (but the cost of the text may still be charged). One winner will be selected at random. Competition promoted by Bauer Consumer Media Limited t/a Empire (“Empire”). Empire’s choice of winner is fi nal and no correspondence will be entered into in this regard. The winner will be notifi ed, by phone (on the number the text was sent), between seven and ten days after the competition ends. Empire will call the winner a maximum of three times and leave one message. If the winner does not answer the phone or respond to the message within 14 days of the competition’s end, Empire will select another winner and the original winner will not win a prize. Entrants must be over 18, resident in the UK and not be employed by Empire. The prize is non-negotiable with no cash alternative. Empire is not responsible for late delivery or unsatisfactory quality of the prize. Entrants agree to the collection of their personal data in accordance with Empire’s privacy policy: http://www.bauerdatapromise.co.uk/. Winner’s personal details will be given to prize provider to arrange delivery of the prize. Bauer reserves the right to amend or cancel these terms or any aspect of the competition (including the prize) at any time if required for reasons beyond its control. Any questions, please email [email protected]. Complaints will not be considered if made more than 30 days after the competition ends. Winner’s details available on request (after the competition ends) by emailing [email protected]. For full Ts&Cs see http://www.bauerlegal.co.uk/competition-terms.html.

ACROSS1 Man, Lady, Eagle maybe? (4)3 Francis Ford Coppola got her married in 1986 (5,3)9 In which Cate Blanchett developed ESP (3,4)10 Musical whose tagline was, “The movie of Tomorrow” (5)11 Comedian-actress, Oscar-nominated for her debut role in Robert Altman’s Nashville (4,6)13 Steve who was Martin Sixsmith in Philomena (6)15 Massimo, Oscar-nominated for his role in Il Postino (6)17 Evening activities for eco-terrorists Jesse Eisenberg and Dakota Fanning (5,5)20 Kurosawa, arguably Japan’s greatest and most inspirational fi lmmaker (5)21 Sounds light and rhythmic, this recent Ben Whishaw-starrer (7)22 She played Juliet Miller in Shallow Grave (5,3)23 A torrid one from Pacino, De Niro and Val Kilmer (4)

DOWN1 Closeness experienced by Mark Rylance and 22 across (8)2 Ryan, Tatum, Shaquille etc. (5)4 Benedict Cumberbatch was involved with the fi fth (6)5 Kiwi composer who provided the scores for The Crow, The Craft and Daredevil, among many others (6,6)6 Robert Duvall made him great (7)7 Hammond portrayed by Natalie Portman in V For Vendetta (4)8 Confused hallway mimic seen in The Lincoln Lawyer (7,1,4)12 It involved Stanley Tucci, Tony Shalhoub and a restaurant serving wonderful food, but not Louis Prima (3,5)14 Laurence, the fi rst actor to be made a life peer (7)16 Estevez found amid EMI-Lionsgate get-together (6)18 Was it bright for Geoffrey Rush to take an Oscar-winning role in this? (5)19 Robin Williams’ 1996 fast-ageing role (4)


TILL FEELING BEREFT AFTER

bidding farewell to Walter White and

Jesse Pinkman? Finding yourself

yearning for Albuquerque or

pondering adding “hazmat suit” to

your Christmas list? Well, you’re in

luck, because this month’s Empire competition

offers a shot at some real crystal Blu persuasion.

You can get the ultimate Breaking Bad fix by

winning one of five limited edition Heisenberg

Blu-ray tins, packed with all five seasons and

over 50 hours of special features. And just to

make you feel like a real rich bitch, one reader

will take home a 42” TV, a Blu-ray player,

a PlayStation 4 and a Breaking Bad onesie.

Yes, a onesie. And if that isn’t a high to rival

the blue stuff, you can strap us to a tortoise.

Head over to empireonline/breakingbadcomp

to be in with a chance of winning.

BREAKING BAD: THE COMPLETE SERIES Ñ LIMITED

EDITION HEISENBERG TIN IS OUT ON DVD AND BLU-RAY

WITH ULTRAVIOLET ON NOVEMBER 3.

SWANKYHOME ENTS SYSTEM PLUS BREAKING

BADEXCLUSIVE TIN

Terms and conditions: Competition promoted by Bauer Consumer Media Limited t/a Empire (‘Promoter’). To enter, visit the URL above and follow the instructions. Entries must be received before November 27, 2014, or will be held to be invalid. One winner will be selected, by random electronic draw, from all correct answers. The winner will be notifi ed by email within 28 days. Promoter will email the winner a maximum of three times. If the winner does not respond within 14 days of the fi rst message, Promoter will choose another winner. Promoter’s decision is fi nal on the correctness of answers and chosen winner, and no correspondence will be entered into on either subject. The name and home town of the winner are available on request by emailing [email protected]. Multiple entries are accepted but entrants must be over 18, resident in the UK, and not employed by Promoter or professionally connected to the competition or prize. Full T&Cs apply, see http://www.bauerlegal.co.uk/competition-terms.html. Promoter may disqualify entrants if it believes they have breached any of its T&Cs. Promoter reserves the right to amend or cancel its T&Cs or this competition (including the prize) if required to do so for reasons beyond its control. Prize supplied by DNA PR. It is non-negotiable with no cash alternative and Promoter is not responsible for late delivery or unsatisfactory quality of the prize. Concerns about the operation of this competition should be emailed to [email protected]. Complaints will not be considered if made more than 20 days after closing date. Entrants’ names and phone numbers will be collected by the Promoter to process entries. The winner’s name and number will be given to the prize provider to arrange prize delivery. Data may be stored by the Promoter/prize provider after competition end date but will not be used for marketing without consent. Promoter’s treatment of personal data will be in accordance with: http://www.bauerdatapromise.co.uk/.


THE NEXT ISSUE OF EMPIRE IS ON SALE NOVEMBER 27

CLASSIC SCENE

DODGEBALL “We should mate.”

SETTING THE SCENE > Rawson Marshall Thurber’s comedy sees pumped-up prat White Goodman (Ben Stiller) take on Peter LaFleur (Vince Vaughn) in a sweaty battle royale. Here, White attempts to seduce bank employee Kate Veatch (Christine Taylor, Stiller’s real-life wife) using his ultimate weapon: an infl atable codpiece.

INT. GLOBO GYM (GOODMAN’S OFFICE) — DAY

As Kate enters, Goodman is pretending to read a dictionary.

Goodman: Oh hello, Katherine.

Good to see you. I didn’t know

you were dropping by.

Kate: You asked me to

come over.

Goodman: Did I?

Kate: Are you reading

the dictionary?

Goodman: You caught me. I like

to break a mental sweat too. Grab

a chair. So, I trust everything’s going

swimmingly with our acquisition

of Average Joe’s?

Kate: So far, yeah. There’s

a lot to do over there, so I should

probably get back. (Noticing his

portrait behind his desk) That is

a really interesting painting.

Goodman: Oh, thank you. Yeah,

that’s me, taking the bull by the

horns. It’s how I handle my business.

It’s a metaphor.

Kate: I get it.

Goodman: But that actually

happened, though. Anyway, we’re

a pretty tight-knit tribe here, but

there’s always room for one more

squaw. So, please, whatever you

do, don’t think of me as your boss.

Kate: I don’t.

Goodman: I don’t want to get

into a formal thing here. I’m White,

you know. I’m White. W-h-i-t.

(Pauses) E.

Kate: Well, thanks, Mr. Goodman,

but I’m contracted by the bank.

They just assigned me to your

account, that’s all.

Goodman: Right, well. You work

for the bank. Bank works for me

so, ipso facto, I’m your boss. Point

is, I would love to see that pretty

little bone structure of yours around

here some more. I mean, there’s no

reason we need to be shackled by the

strictures of the employee-employer

relationship. Unless, of course,

you’re into that sort of thing. (Laughs)

In which case, I got some shackles

in the back. (Laughs again) I’m just

kidding. But seriously, I’ve got ’em.

Kate: I’m just doing my job, Mr.

Goodman. In fact, I actually prefer

it over there.

Goodman: Really? You like it with

those freaks over there in Loser-

Town, huh?

Kate: Freaks? They’re not freaks.

They’re people, just like you and me.

Goodman (laughing uproariously): People? “People, just like you

and me.” Oh, man. That is what

I love about you, Kate. You’ve

got a “personality”. Ah, that is rich.

(Pulling his chair up to hers) A real

sauciness that I find extremely

attractive. We should mate.

Kate: What?

Goodman: Date. I said we should

date some time. You know, socially.

Go out and kick it. Are you okay?

Kate: I’m fine. I just, er, threw up

in my mouth a little bit.

Goodman: Hey, you know in some

cultures, they only eat vomit. I’ve

never been there, but I read about

it... in a book. (Laughs)

Kate: I’m sorry, Mr. Goodman.

I don’t date clients.

Goodman: I get it. Don’t crap where

you eat. I understand. (Clicking his

fingers) Me’Shell! Please escort Ms.

Veatch out. Oh, and Katherine,

make sure my acquisition of that

gym goes smoothly. They’re up to

something over there. I can smell it.

She leaves. Goodman lets the air out of his codpiece.

THIEF_Empire_advert_Oct.indd 1 03/10/2014 12:23

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