Innholdsfortegnelse for February 2024 i Empire

DECEMBER TRULY IS the most magical time of the year. Not because of all that Christmas stuff —pah! —but because it’s when a box arrives at Empire Towers containing the most coveted of all confectioneries: the Tom Cruise cake. First introduced to him by Diane Keaton in 2008, so the legend goes, this exquisite, white-chocolate coconut Bundt is bestowed by Cruise upon a lucky few each holiday season, including, happily, us. Hence my writing these words while surrounded by crumbs. And feeling the need… the need for a quick lie-down. Thanks, Tom! There are plenty of other reasons to celebrate the end of 2023. It’s been a brutal year, with the strikes taking months to reach their fair resolution, the spectre of AI hanging over everything, and the madness that…

LETTER OF THE MONTH JA-SON AND THE ARGONAUTS Now that the film industry has slowed down, it gives the opportunity to review some classics. May I suggest starting with my all-time favourite, Jason And The Argonauts? The film was that good, I named my only son Jason (true). Thankfully he is my only son, as my next favourite film of all time is King Kong. CARL BAILEY MBE, VIA EMAIL Your son must be relieved that you’re not a fan of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. For such commitment to your love of film, Carl, have a Picturehouse membership on us. Empire’s star letter wins a Picturehouse Membership, valid for one year at all Picturehouse Cinemas across the UK, including the flagship Picturehouse Central in London’s West End. The Membership comes…

THANKSGIVING 2 Eli Roth’s Black Friday slasher Thanksgiving, about an axe-wielding, John-Carver-mask-wearing maniac, is coming back for seconds. Slated for a 2025 release, Roth has already started writing the sequel, promising fans, “John Carver will kill again!” THE APPRENTICE Maria Bakalova will play Ivana Trump in Holy Spider filmmaker Ali Abbasi’s biopic about her father. Currently in production, the film — in which Sebastian Stan will play Donald and Jeremy Strong will play Roy Cohn — will follow the future POTUS’ rise to prominence amid corruption in ’70s and ’80s New York. LORDS OF WAR The Cageaissance continues! Nicolas Cage is set to reprise the role of arms dealer Yuri Orlov in Andrew Niccol’s long-gestating Lord Of War sequel. Eyeing a March 2024 shoot, this follow-up finds Cage’s Orlov facing…

SOMETIMES MAN’S BEST friend needs its own best friend. In Pablo Berger’s animated film Robot Dreams, a lonely, anthropomorphised dog (simply named Dog) orders an AI companion, Robot. The unlikely pair form a deep connection as they race around ’80s Manhattan. Speaking with Empire, Berger explains how he made a film which, despite having no humans or dialogue in it, has struck a chord with global audiences and Guillermo del Toro alike. FINDING A GREAT STORY “I never planned to make an animation,” says the Spanish director. “But I just fell in love with the story.” Robot Dreams is based on Sara Varon’s graphic novel of the same name, which Berger read over a decade ago. He filmed two live-action movies, then couldn’t wait any longer: he needed to make…

THE BOOK Binoche was already acquainted with Marcel Rouff ’s classic French novel The Passionate Epicure, which inspired the characters in The Taste Of Things. “I read the book 35 years ago when a friend gave it to me. It’s not a great piece of literature but it’s a yummy book,” she says. Yet her character Eugénie, cook and love interest to restaurant owner Dodin (Benoît Magimel), was not a central figure in the original story. So when writer-director Tran Anh Hung approached Binoche about the film, the actor had an active hand in expanding Eugénie’s story. “I said, ‘I’d love to be in your film but there’s not a lot for me to do.’ So Hùng developed the role.” THE COOKING Playing a cook felt organic for Binoche, who…

YOU MAY KNOW her as the Force-wielding Rey Skywalker, but in her new comedy-drama, Sometimes I Think About Dying, Daisy Ridley is going in a very different direction. She plays Fran, a socially anxious office worker who has surreal visions of her own corpse. It’s a big departure from Ridley’s previous roles, and, as she tells Empire, “the most far away from me”. She talks us through the biggest hurdles. KEEPING SCHTUM For huge chunks of the movie, Fran has minimal dialogue, conveying her feelings through facial expressions alone. The script originally featured a lengthy voiceover; that was scrapped, but still came in handy. “It worked like an inner monologue,” Ridley says. “I used it like stage directions.” For the actor, that insight into Fran creates a separation between how…

WHEN MAKING A film about Bob Marley, one of the planet’s most beloved musicians, putting together a killer soundtrack is the easy part. Speaking with Empire, director Reinaldo Marcus Green (King Richard) breaks down the tunes chosen for upcoming biopic One Love, which stars Kingsley Ben-Adir as the reggae icon. EXODUS Green’s film centres around the creation of Marley’s 1977 masterpiece Exodus, recorded in London after the singer survived an assassination attempt in Jamaica. The album —and its indelible title track —made Marley a global star. “We get into the lyrics and what the song means, and then at that moment in our film it’s really about expansion,” says Green. “Bob was huge in Jamaica, but he wasn’t as well-known in Europe and America. That album put him on another…

The deadpan comedian has built a buzzy career from creating and starring in acclaimed conceptual shows like The Curse and The Rehearsal. Off set, however, his rare but memorable media appearances have gained a reputation of their own. 1 AN AWKWARD INTERVIEW 2015 Fielder’s form of toe-curlingly funny press stunts have been happening for years. Like when he interviewed his co-stars from Christmas comedy The Night Before —Seth Rogen, Anthony Mackie and Joseph Gordon-Levitt — choosing to quiz them not about the film itself, but rather their bank balances, how often they have sex and (in Gordon-Levitt’s case) apparent plot-holes in Inception. 2 A BACK-UP GUEST 2017 Stating that he was concerned he wouldn’t be sufficiently entertaining when appearing on an episode of Conan and that he’d already told his…

21 DECEMBER 2023 - 17 JANUARY 2024 | EDITED BY JOHN NUGENT KILLER QUOTE “To get a sexual response from my body would take the same amount of electricity as runs north London.” ★★★★★ OUT 12 JANUARY / CERT TBC / 141 MINS DIRECTOR Yorgos Lanthimos CAST Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, Willem Dafoe, Ramy Youssef, Christopher Abbott, Jerrod Carmichael, Margaret Qualley PLOT Dr Godwin Baxter (Dafoe) puts a baby’s brain in a corpse, creating Bella (Stone). She soon earns the affections of Max McCandles (Youssef) — and Duncan Wedderburn (Ruffalo). THE ORIGINAL 1992 novel by Alasdair Gray on which Poor Things was based —or, to give it its full, appropriately ludicrous title, Poor Things: Episodes From The Early Life Of Archibald McCandless M.D., Scottish Public Health Officer —was never seriously…

★★★★ OUT NOW (BBC iPLAYER) / EPISODES VIEWED 3 OF 3 SHOWRUNNER Russell T Davies CAST David Tennant, Catherine Tate, Miriam Margolyes, Neil Patrick Harris, Yasmin Finney, Ruth Madeley, Jemma Redgrave PLOT After 15 years apart, the Doctor (Tennant) and Donna (Tate) reunite, facing enemies old and new across time and space. AS THE BBC celebrates 60 years of the TARDIS-sized jewel in its televisual crown, you’ll be hearing the word “back” a lot. Doctor Who is back! Russell TDavies is back! David Tennant and Catherine Tate are back! And that they most triumphantly are. But as this propulsive trifecta of anniversary specials plays out, there’s a feeling that’s also been brought back —of child-like imagination and endless wonder —that promises this bold new Whoniverse is the real deal. Playfully…

★★★★ OUT DECEMBER 8 / CERT PG / 116 MINS DIRECTOR Paul King CAST Timothée Chalamet, Calah Lane, Paterson Joseph, Mathew Baynton, Matt Lucas, Sally Hawkins, Rowan Atkinson, Olivia Colman, Hugh Grant PLOT Chocolatier Willy Wonka’s (Chalamet) dream of starting his own confectionery shop is choc-blocked by an evil trio of conniving businessmen. IN AMOVE that will surprise absolutely no-one, Wonka begins with a slowed-down tinkly version of ‘Pure Imagination’, the hymn to the power of creativity sung by Gene Wilder in Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory. It’s perhaps the most obvious gambit in Paddington director’s Paul King ’s origin story for the top-hatted candy man, a film that breezes by on a waft of ingenuity, charm and warmth, all delivered with gusto by Timothée Chalamet, Hugh Grant and…

★★★ OUT 5 JANUARY / CERT TBC / 110 MINS DIRECTOR James Hawes CAST Anthony Hopkins, Johnny Flynn, Lena Olin, Helena Bonham Carter, Alex Sharp, Romola Garai PLOT British stockbroker Nicholas Winton (Hopkins) reflects on his daring plan, decades earlier, to rescue children from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia before the onset of World War II. FOR THOSE OLD enough to remember, a particular 1988 episode of That’s Life!, hosted by Esther Rantzen, was an iconic moment in British television history. Nicholas Winton, the man who rescued 669 Czech-Jewish children from the threat of Nazi Germany, was given a poignant reunion with the children he managed to save, many of whom made up part of the studio audience. James Hawes’ One Life is a solid retelling of the events which led to that…

★★★★ OUT 22 DECEMBER (CINEMAS), 4 JANUARY (NETFLIX) / CERT 15 / 143 MINS DIRECTOR J.A. Bayona CAST Enzo Vogrincic Roldán, Matías Recalt, Agustín Pardella, Tomas Wolf, Diego Vegezzi PLOT In 1972, Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 crashes in the Andes. The survivors must resort to extreme measures in order to stay alive. J.A. BAYONA IS no stranger to films about survival. In 2012’s The Impossible, he followed a tight-knit family trying to outlast the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. With Society Of The Snow, it’s a Uruguayan rugby team who find themselves stranded in the Andes. And while the story of the disastrous Flight 571 has been told on screen before in Frank Marshall’s 1993 movie Alive, this version has the benefit of a Spanish-speaking cast and Uruguayan journalist Pablo…

★★★ OUT 26 DECEMBER / CERT TBC / 130 MINS DIRECTOR Michael Mann CAST Adam Driver, Penélope Cruz, Shailene Woodley, Sarah Gadon, Gabriel Leone, Jack O’Connell, Patrick Dempsey PLOT As Enzo Ferrari (Driver) prepares for the 1957 Mille Miglia race, he wrestles with a failing marriage and a car company on the brink of collapse. ACCORDING TO FERRARI folklore, founder Enzo Ferrari once said that when you ask a child to draw a car, they will draw it red. Any devout tifoso knows all too well that Ferrari is more than just a race-car brand —it’s a borderline religion. Such is its power that its name is synonymous with speed. It’s something that Michael Mann’s Ferrari captures to blistering effect in its early minutes. The eponymous engineer and former racer…

“CAESAR WAS BORN IN THIS OFFICE.” Rick Jaffa motions to the tidy, unassuming workplace in which he and his screenwriting (and life) partner, Amanda Silver, are sitting. Speaking to Empire, the duo are flashing back to 2006, and the moment they realised that the thriller script they were working on, inspired by true-life stories of people adopting baby chimps (which “always ended badly”), could be the key to rebooting Planet Of The Apes —dormant since Tim Burton’s maligned ‘reinvention’ five years earlier. They saw it as a character-piece about a genetically enhanced chimpanzee “raised as a boy, like Pinocchio,” says Silver. “But he has to learn who he really is and, once he embraces his ape-ness, he can lead his apes to freedom, like Moses.” By entwining their simian ‘Pinocchio-to-Moses’…

SOMETIMES THERE ARE partnerships in film so great that you cannot mention one person without the other. Director Alexander Payne and Paul Giamatti —star of Sideways, Payne’s now cult-classic 2004 film about two friends on a wine-tasting road trip —are one such partnership. Which makes it all the more strange that it has taken until now, nearly 20 years later, for them to make a second film together. In The Holdovers, Giamatti plays Paul Hunham, a classics teacher at a boarding school in Massachusetts, who suffers from a syndrome that makes him increasingly stink of fish as the day goes on, on top of his excessive sweating. He is roundly disliked by students and faculty alike for being uptight, so no-one —least of all Hunham himself —is thrilled to learn…

RUSSELL CROWE CLUNG to the mast, about 140 feet above the rolling waves of the Pacific Ocean. It was summer 2002 and, along with 27- year-old actor James D’Arcy (then making what he hoped would be his Hollywood breakthrough), the one-time Maximus was keen to help director Peter Weir reach new heights of on-screen historical realism. Literally. A camera helicopter circled above them, while far below lay the crowded deck of the HMS Surprise: a fully rigged, 28-gun tall ship, originally built in 1970 as a life-size replica of 1757 British vessel HMS Rose. Weir’s hero shot required both actors — playing Captain ‘Lucky’ Jack Aubrey and First Lieutenant Thomas Pullings, respectively —to scale the rigging all the way to the perilously vertiginous crow’s nest. Crowe had done this without…

Chris: So, we’re approaching the 30th anniversary of 1994. What springs to mind when you think about that year, cinematically speaking ? Helen: Four Weddings And A Funeral comes to mind. And should Forrest Gump have won the Oscar, given it was up against Pulp Fiction and Shawshank Redemption? That’s been one of the most heated debates in film. James: I recall very vividly going to see Four Weddings, being massively late, and running in to see Hugh Grant going through exactly the same thing. Chris: Fuck! Fuck! Fuckity fuck! Stop all the projectors. James: I have very fond memories of that. Neel: I was nine, so The Lion King was the main film for me. Chris: There are amazing films in this year, including one of my ten favourite…

MICHAEL GIACCHINO: “When Harrison Ford says, ‘Truck? What truck?’ in Raiders Of The Lost Ark, and the next thing you know he’s on that horse and riding past all the guys who raise their hands, and he comes to the top of that hill and looks down and sees the truck. That whole scene for me is just burned into my childhood brain and I’ve carried it with me forever. I remember being in the theatre and going, ‘Yes! Yes! Go get it!’ I have forever been chasing that feeling in everything I do. Because I feel that’s what the movies are for, those exhilarating moments. That whole scene for me is everything that is great about movies.” INT. TENT — DAY Sallah (John Rhys-Davies) is talking to Indiana Jones…

EDITED BY BETH WEBB THE GHOSTBUSTERS ARE coming home. After running amok in rural Oklahoma in 2021’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife, the next instalment, Frozen Empire is returning the series to its spiritual home of New York. And some familiar faces are back for the ride. A recreation of the franchise’s iconic firehouse set was built at the UK’s Pinewood Studios, right down to the ghost-containment unit, seen above in our exclusive behind-the-scenes shot of Bill Murray and Paul Rudd. Shooting there with OG Ghostbusters Murray, Dan Aykroyd and Ernie Hudson gave director Gil Kenan all the feels. “I remember there was a moment halfway through the first morning of directing one of the big scenes where I looked at the monitor, and just caught myself with the biggest grin ever,” Kenan…

THE MARVEL CINEMATIC Universe has got more projects cooking than you can shake a temporal loom at. Multiverses are manifesting, legacy characters are getting a new lease of life, and don’t get us started on Hulk’s son, Skaar. To help break down Marvel’s future plans and where they should or could go next, our own trusty Avengers assembled at Empire Towers to share their thoughts on some key topics. THE MULTIVERSE Helen O’Hara: Look, the multiverse can be useful and great. It allows you to have an alternative-universe Black Panther, say, without being disrespectful to Chadwick Boseman. The problem with it is that it becomes dizzying and exhausting to keep on top of, even for absolute die-hard fans. Ben Travis: The big question at the heart of all this is:…

WHEN ASKED WHAT his relationship with Doctor Who was like before he was cast as the Doctor, Ncuti Gatwa says, “It was a good relationship. Not a committed relationship, but like friends with benefits.” Talking to Empire in the build-up to his first full episode airing this Christmas Day, he’s hyper-aware of the show’s unique history, and that he is following in the footsteps of 13 previous incarnations of this character across 60 years. And while he wasn’t a fully-fledged ‘Whovian’, he was a fan of the actors who played the Doctor in the ‘New Who’ era —particularly Matt Smith and David Tennant (whose performance as Hamlet in 2008 was one of the then 16-year-old Gatwa’s inspirations to become an actor).  Indeed, Doctor Who had a strong enough appeal for…

FOR NINTENDO NERDS like myself, the news that The Legend Of Zelda is finally, officially getting a big-screen outing was met with a mixture of excitement and worry. The announcement — that Wes Ball (The Maze Runner, Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes) is set to direct a cinematic adaptation of the long-running video-game series, from a script by Derek Connolly (Jurassic World), produced by former Marvel Studios head honcho Avi Arad — brings with it great promise, but also perilous risk. Of course, talk of a Zelda movie has been around for decades. The rumour mill went into overdrive, however, after the giant success of The Super Mario Bros. Movie this year: a huge, billion-dollar hit for Nintendo. After Mario, Zelda — and her heroic repeated rescuer, the…

SOPHIE BUTCHER IS THINKING ABOUT… ANXIETY FROM INSIDE OUT 2 The second I laid eyes on Anxiety, the new character in Riley’s head in Inside Out 2, voiced by Maya Hawke, I knew I loved her. The goofy smile, fluffy hair, armloads of baggage and panic about first impressions —relatable! BETH WEBB IS THINKING ABOUT… THE “MEEP MEEP” ROADRUNNER CHOIR I’d long suspected it, but when Coyote Vs. Acme composer Steven Price posted a video of his “Meep Meep” Roadrunner singers it was confirmed: animated-movie-choir member is the most fun job in the business. Sign me up. CHRIS LUPTON IS THINKING ABOUT… BARBRA STREISAND IN THE MCU Listening to Barbra’s iconic rendition of ‘Memory’ from Cats in The Marvels has got me thinking that she deserves her own MCU spotlight.…

★★ OUT NOW (CINEMAS), 22 DECEMBER (NETFLIX) / CERT 15 / 134 MINS DIRECTOR Zack Snyder CAST Sofia Boutella, Michiel Huisman, Charlie Hunnam, Ed Skrein, Bae Doona, Djimon Hounsou, Ray Fisher PLOT When her home is threatened by the cruel ruling Imperium, ex-soldier Kora (Boutella) searches for allies to help defend it. IT’S WELL KNOWN that Rebel Moon was originally conceived as a Star Wars movie. Refurbished and reimagined, it now arrives as a Netflix original. But watching it, it’s clear this isn’t just Zack Snyder’s Star Wars —it’s his The Matrix, his Blade Runner, his Gladiator. It’s Vikings and Nazis and aliens and lightsabers. This is an exercise in throwing absolutely everything at the wall, and seeing what sticks. Unfortunately, little of it does. Sofia Boutella, a seriously underrated…

★★★★ OUT NOW / CERT 15 / 96 MINS DIRECTOR Agniia Galdanova PARTICIPANT Gena Marvin This stirring documentary tells the story of Gena Marvin, a Russian, 22-year-old, queer, nonbinary artist. Marvin has been described as a drag queen, which doesn’t really cover it: more than a cabaret act, Marvin’s myriad outfits are a combination of theatricality, circus craft, avant-garde performance art, high camp, and something more otherworldly — as if H.R. Giger and Derek Jarman had a baby. There’s something inherently cinematic about these jaw-dropping, ethereal creations. But in Putin’s Russia, where the LGBTQ movement has been effectively outlawed, Marvin’s creations are an expression of rebellion. This is a devastating, urgent reminder that art can be dangerous and important and powerful — especially in ten-inch heels. JN…

★★★ OUT NOW (PRIME VIDEO) / CERT 12A / 117 MINS DIRECTOR Reginald Hudlin CAST Eddie Murphy, Tracee Ellis Ross, Jillian Bell, Nick Offerman There are certain things intrinsic to a good Christmas movie: jingling bells, roaring fires, last-minute personal growth and, just occasionally, Faustian pacts with malevolent sprites to earn a capitalist Christmas payday. Nothing says holiday cheer quite like selling your soul, and that’s precisely the set-up for this tinsel-wrapped comedy, which reunites Eddie Murphy with Boomerang director Reginald Hudlin. Part It’s A Wonderful Life, part Drag Me To Hell, it’s an unholy concoction of ideas that is unlikely to become a seasonal staple, but sift through the nonsense and there’s a surprising amount to enjoy in this bonkers Noel nightmare. In what other film can you watch…

★★★ OUT 26 DECEMBER / CERT 12A / 104 MINS DIRECTOR Taika Waititi CAST Michael Fassbender, Oscar Kightley, Kaimana, David Fane, Rachel House, Will Arnett, Elisabeth Moss PLOT After losing 31-0 — the worst World Cup loss in history — the American Samoa national football team hire washed-up coach Thomas Rongen (Fassbender). Their goal: score a goal. THERE ARE GOOD sports movies. There are bad sports movies. And then there are good sports movies about bad sportspeople. Next Goal Wins, the latest non-Asgardian offering from Taika Waititi, aims to be in this last sub-genre. The story, of the historically crap American Samoa football team in their quest to be marginally less crap, follows in the fumbling footsteps of the likes of Cool Runnings and Eddie The Eagle. Adapted from the…

★★★ PC / PS5 / XBOX THE LAST TIME many of us saw Peter Weller’s RoboCop, he was unashamedly flogging meal deals for Kentucky Fried Chicken. Thank goodness, then, that Rogue City is here to replace our memories of ‘Colonel RoboCop’ with a more sonorous swansong for Weller’s titular tinman, who returns once again for an original story set between the events of RoboCop 2 and 3. From its scene-setting opening newsreel, right down to the perfectly rendered nuts and bolts of Rob Bottin’s iconic suit design, much of RoboCop: Rogue City authentically captures the look and feel of Paul Verhoeven’s original classic, with Weller’s plain-spoken delivery offering the icing on the cake. Missing is the socio-political subtext that gave 1987’s RoboCop its edge, as developer Teyon indulges in the…

★★★★★ OUT NOW (APPLE TV+) / EPISODES VIEWED 6 OF 6 SHOWRUNNER Will Smith CAST Gary Oldman, Jack Lowden, Saskia Reeves, Dìrísù, Kristin Scott Thomas PLOT When one of spymaster Jackson Lamb’s (Oldman) own is kidnapped, the team at Slough House mobilise to get her back. PERHAPS THE GREATEST tragedy of the modern streaming era is the treasure trove of truly outstanding shows that lie hidden away on Apple TV+, criminally unwatched by the majority of people. Aprime example of such is Will Smith’s Slow Horses, a gloriously low-fi subversion of traditional espionage thrillers, centred around an outcast band of MI5’s least wanted. Following on from the two seasons Apple dropped last year, this Christmas heralds the welcome arrival of another, based upon Mick Herron’s third book in the Slough…

JODIE COMER’S ASCENT HAS BEEN… NOT NORMAL. She began acting professionally at 14, but since breaking out —and breaking faces — as Killing Eve’s psychotic assassin Villanelle in 2018, over a handful of emotionally exhausting, psychologically challenging projects the Liverpudlian actor has bagged numerous awards: two BAFTAs (out of six nominations), a couple of Emmys, an Olivier and a Tony, let alone the rest. In each performance, she commits. Arriving fully formed in Season 1 of Killing Eve, Comer made Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s extraordinary dialogue her own, announcing herself to the world as a chameleonic actor, a master of endless accents, with physical chops to match the mindfuckery. Then in 2021, a triple-whammy: she starred opposite Ryan Reynolds in breezy comedy-drama Free Guy, went up against Adam Driver and Matt Damon…

the Original OPPENHEIMER CHRISTOPHER NOLAN ON BLOWING UP THE BOX OFFICE WITH THE UNLIKELIEST BILLION-DOLLAR BLOCKBUSTER OF ALL TIME WORDS NICK DE SEMLYEN “J. ROBERT OPPENHEIMER. Sphinx-like guru of the atom,” somebody tells the titular character in Christopher Nolan’s latest film. It’s a pulpy line that might feel at home in a comic-book movie. But Oppenheimer is anything but that: it’s an urgent treatise on mass destruction and doomed love; a dialogue-dense, time-hopping tale of physics, politics and polemics. On paper, hardly mass-audience catnip. Yet Oppenheimer proved arguably the happiest surprise of 2023, packing theatres with crowds, making just shy of $1 billion (to date) and inspiring countless conversations. A pleased Nolan spoke to Empire at the end of November, looking back at his dramatic journey bringing the man behind…

1 BARBIE (OUT NOW, DVD/BR/4K/DIGITAL) Not content with being the biggest billion-dollar box-office hit of the year, Barbie is now coming for your home-entertainment moolah. And rightly so: Greta Gerwig’s comedy masterpiece is rich and dense, laser-designed for repeated trips to Barbieland. 2 INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY (OUT NOW, DVD/BR/4K/DISNEY+) Listen, I know this was not for everyone, and it lacks some Spielbergian je ne sais quoi —but I maintain this is a very fitting swansong for everyone’s favourite archeologist. The cameo in the finale still hits me hard. It belongs in a museum/on your Blu-ray shelf! 3 THE EXORCIST: 50TH ANNIVERSARY ULTIMATE COLLECTOR’S EDITION (8 JANUARY, 4K) I’ve owned The Exorcist on about four different formats. This 50th anniversary edition might tempt me back for more…

FOR CARL FRANKLIN, One False Move is the movie that changed his life. Not only was it the film on which he met his wife and producing partner, Jesse Beaton, but it put him on the map as a director, leading directly to movies like Devil In A Blue Dress and episodes of shows like Mindhunter. “It gave me a career,” Franklin tells Empire over Zoom. “It changed my life.” Now part of the Criterion Collection, the movie —about a group of killers (Billy Bob Thornton, Cynda Williams, Michael Beach) making their way towards a small Southern town, and a showdown with a local sheriff —is rightly regarded as one of the finest thrillers of the ’90s. Here, Franklin talks us through its creation… THE DIRECTOR An actor-turned-director, Franklin had…

THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELS MORE EXORCISM MOVIES... IT WAS A huge ask that David Gordon Green’s The Exorcist: Believer have as big an impact as William Friedkin’s 50-year-old classic The Exorcist. Not only is Believer the fifth or sixth official Exorcist (the fourth got made twice), but it was the fourth mainstream exorcism of 2023, following Prey For The Devil (girls can be exorcists, too!), The Pope’s Exorcist (Russell Crowe rides a scooter from the Vatican to Spain!) and The Nun II (a Conjuring spin-off ). Even when the rights-holders don’t get an actual Exorcist movie into theatres (there was a two-season TV show, too), there are countless imitations and spin-offs around. Certainly enough to suggest that the Biblical possessee who claimed to be called Legion —which was good…

THE VERY NATURE of making American Symphony — the documentary that charts musician Jon Batiste’s attempts to compose a symphony to be performed at Carnegie Hall, all while his wife, Suleika Jaouad, battles leukaemia — meant that director Matthew Heineman had to get close to his subject. As in, they were together, in the same room, “pretty much every single day for seven or eight months”, according to Heineman. Yet the day that really tested their bond came long after filming had wrapped. “Jon called me one day this summer and said, ‘Do you have a cut of the film?’” recalls Heineman, who was then working on two different cuts, one of which was uploaded and available. “I was like, ‘Can you wait a beat?’ And I didn’t hear back…

ALEX GODFREY HAD A JCVD PINT OF MILK EXPERIENCE “To interview Jean-Claude Van Damme is to enter a vortex. One which constantly surprises you, curveballs you, confounds you. Within two minutes he did the splits for me, unprompted. He did a big kick for me, unprompted. He danced for me, unprompted. Honestly, I’m still reeling.” JOANNA MORAN DIRECTED A PHOTOSHOOT WITH AMERICA FERRERA “Days after Thanksgiving, I flew out to New York for a photoshoot with Barbie’s Gloria, shot by Jason Bell. Despite being on the Sun Terrace of The Peninsula Hotel, we were minus the sun and operating in minus degrees Celsius. America was clearly a bit chilly, but remained ever the professional.” BEN TRAVIS HOSTED A SCOTT PILGRIM Q&A WITH EDGAR WRIGHT “1-2-3-4! I’ve loved Scott Pilgrim…

MUCH LIKE MARY Shelley’s famous monster tale, Lisa Frankenstein is an outsider’s story. Scribed by Diablo Cody of Juno and Jennifer’s Body fame and directed by Zelda Williams, the ’80s-set horror-comedy follows grieving teen Lisa (Kathryn Newton), who accidentally resurrects a young dead bachelor (Cole Sprouse) with courtship on his mind. Speaking with Empire, the duo dig deep into their eccentric romance. Zelda, what was your relationship with Diablo’s work like before this movie? Williams: Actually —and I don’t think we’ve talked about this —one of the first things that I auditioned for when Imoved to LA was the best-friend character in Juno [the role went to Olivia Thirlby]. Cody: I actually didn’t know that! That’s interesting… Williams: Yeah, Imoved to LA when I was 17, so that being one of…

IT’S MIKE FLANAGAN’S THIRD CRACK AT STEPHEN KING When it comes to his TV shows, jump-scare aficionado Mike Flanagan has had fun with the literary chillers of Shirley Jackson, Henry James, Christopher Pike and Edgar Allan Poe. But his feature-length adaptations are reserved almost exclusively for horror’s modern master: Stephen King. Following Gerald’s Game in 2017 and Doctor Sleep in 2019, Flanagan’s now going a little more niche. A novella from 2020’s If It Bleeds collection, The Life Of Chuck tells a three-act tale of the death and life (in that order) of a 39-year-old accountant. And it is not, in fact, a horror at all. THERE’S A HELL OF A CAST Flanagan proves once again he can gather a great ensemble, with Tom Hiddleston taking the title role, joined…

IN NEWS THAT will surprise no cat owner: your cat probably won’t care if you are murdered in front of them. This is what animal co-ordinator Melissa Millett discovered while training five of them on the set of Pet Sematary, all sharing the role of Church, the Creed family pet. “We were pretending to stab each other and kill each other, we were screaming —it was our best shot at acting. A dog would be like, ‘Oh my God, are you hurting that person?’ But a cat? They kill things for fun, so they were like, ‘Whatever, kill them, I don’t care.’ There was no concern! It’s just a completely different animal.” Millett was preparing them for the level of intensity that comes with being on a horror set. But…

AN AWARD-WINNING word-of-mouth phenomenon watched by millions, Netflix comedy Schitt’s Creek was a huge success. Co-creator and star Dan Levy is following it up with Good Grief: a drama about artist Marc (Levy), who suddenly loses his husband (Luke Evans), and reconnects with his friends during his grieving process. For some, this is a surprise move for the creator of a comedy show. “Perceivably, it’s a 180-degree change from where I came from,” Levy tells Empire. “Yet to me, it makes so much sense. Schitt’s Creek always had dramatic tension… This felt like an extension of that.” That emotional core is the same, then; the difference is the layers surrounding it. “With Schitt’s Creek, we figured out the drama, and then built the comedy all around it,” Levy explains. “With…

Sophie Butcher (Social Media Editor): This is such an exciting prospect. When is Anya Taylor-Joy not absolutely killing it? I just think she’s one of the best of her age and I can’t wait to see her in this. Alex Godfrey (Features Editor): I admit that the first time I saw Mad Max: Fury Road, I found it so overwhelming that I didn’t know what to make of it. It was only on subsequent viewings that it became this beautiful monument of a film. Beth Webb (News Editor): I feel like everyone remembers where they were the first time they watched Fury Road. For me, a big reason for that was when I realised that I was watching this epic feminist odyssey underneath a Mad Max veneer. This was before…

What one thing do you do better than anyone else you know? Okay, I love people. When you love people, you have frequencies. Frequencies are feelings. They are thoughts of love. When you love people, you can go inside them. Because only love will open the gate, and invite you. So my biggest specialty in life is intuition of people. How a person is suffering, or happy… I’ve got that, I think. Do you buy your own groceries? Well, I don’t like to do grocery shopping, because you have to wait in line… But I like to do it with my kids and we have fun. I like to smell the vegetables and fruits. But if I do groceries I end up doing pictures with people, and I get stuck.…

★★★★ OUT NOW / CERT 18 / 99 MINS DIRECTORS Sam H. Freeman, Ng Choon Ping CAST Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, George MacKay, Aaron Heffernan, John McCrea Neo-noir meets erotic thriller meets queer revenge tale in this feature debut from Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choon Ping. A chilling homophobic encounter with a group of men, headed up by George MacKay’s Preston, leaves drag artist Jules (Nathan StewartJarrett) completely traumatised. Months later, Jules concocts a plan to expose Preston, setting up a tense, often-uncomfortable exploration of sexual manipulation and shifting senses of masculinity — a pulse-pounding thriller delivered through a fascinating dual character study. The clarity of directorial vision, grounded screenplay and excellent performances make Femme a compelling ride. SB…

★★★★★ OUT 26 DECEMBER / CERT 12A / 124 MINS DIRECTOR Hayao Miyazaki CAST Soma Santoki, Masaki Suda, Kô Shibasaki, Aimyon, Yoshino Kimura, Takuya Kimura PLOT In 1940s Japan, grieving 12-year-old Mahito (Santoki) is sent to the countryside. There he encounters a mysterious heron, who draws him into a fantasy land. AS IT TURNS out, Hayao Miyazaki simply cannot stop. The legendary Japanese animator —co-founder of Studio Ghibli; master of fantasy anime; creator of Totoro, Kiki, Ponyo, No-Face, Soot Sprites, the Catbus and many more —intended to retire following 2013’s The Wind Rises, his elegiac World War II plane drama. It wasn’t the first time. He also meant to retire after 1997’s epic war fable Princess Mononoke; and again after 2001’s global breakout Spirited Away. Every time, he returned with…

★★★★ OUT 5 JANUARY / CERT 18 / 96 MINS DIRECTORS Jane Giles, Ali Catterall PARTICIPANTS John Waters, Adam Buxton, Stewart Lee, Ben Wheatley If you were a film fan of a certain age, of a certain location, and of a certain disposition, chances are you visited the hallowed fleapit that was London’s Scala. Open from 1978 to 1993, it was the unofficial home of subversive, alternative, late-night cinema, and a haven for self-described weirdos and misfits. This affectionate documentary tells its history through a winning parade of talking heads (including Empire’s own Kim Newman), speaking with reverence about the cinema’s grubby, grotesque charms and innovative programming approach. The assemblage of film clips from typically transgressive material screened there gives it just the right bite and energy. A film made…

★★★★ OUT 5 JANUARY / CERT 15 / 113 MINS DIRECTOR Sofia Coppola CAST Cailee Spaeny, Jacob Elordi, Ari Cohen, Dagmara Domińczyk, Tim Post, Lynne Griffin PLOT Teenager Priscilla Beaulieu (Spaeny) meets Elvis Presley (Elordi) in 1959. The pair strike up a relationship — which soon turns into a toxic marriage. SELDOM DO THE words “glamorous” and “childbirth” belong in the same sentence. Yet as a heavily pregnant Priscilla Presley emerges from the car that has rushed her to hospital in high-heeled boots and recently applied false eyelashes, those two words seem to bond like “rock” and “roll”. The latest entry in Sofia Coppola’s sad-girl canon is a meticulously crafted melodrama about a meticulously crafted young woman; a teenage fan-turned-bride whose world is dictated by the love of her life —one…

THE THREE MUSKETEERS: MILADY ★★★★ “The primary draw here is the action, which, with Bourboulon’s practical, done-for-real approach, makes the most thrilling on-screen blade-work we’ve seen in years. Almost as thrilling as those magnificent hats.” DAN JOLIN GODZILLA MINUS ONE ★★★★ “A refreshingly humanist take on the iconic monster franchise. This makes the most of director Takashi Yamazaki’s animation background through terrifying kaiju action, set amid post-war ruin.” KAMBOLE CAMPBELL GENIE ★★ “If the stars had only been served a better script, in a film that strived to be something more ambitious than a cash cow wearing a Santa hat, this could have been just the kind of silly and sentimental film that you crave for a seasonal watch.” BETH WEBB LEO ★★★ “A fun but meandering animated adventure, Leo…

Early in the summer of 2022, Andrew Haigh was wandering the streets of Sanderstead, south-west London, clutching a faded photograph of his childhood home, hunting for a place he hadn’t been in nearly 40 years and hadn’t much missed. The house in the picture looked the same as most others around there: boxy, neat hedges, large but not grand. Eventually he found it; marvelled at how little it had changed. He wasn’t entirely sure why he’d come. He hadn’t walked through that door since he was ten, but something made him knock. “I have some very complicated memories of that house,” he says today. Stepping through the door, into a stranger’s familiar home, those memories crept out of every corner. He’d spend a lot of time here over the next…

FEBRUARY 2024 | EDITED BY CHRIS HEWITT “IT MEANS PROVIDENCE, or fate,” explains Nora (Greta Lee) in this year’s Past Lives of the Korean word “in-yun”. “It’s an in-yun if two strangers even walk by each other in the street and their clothes accidentally brush. Because it means there must have been something between them in their past lives.” This may sound corny, but surely the making of writer-director Celine Song ’s astonishingly accomplished debut film is one big, fat in-yun. By all standard measures, it’s a small story, about three people —South Korean-turned-New Yorker Nora; her childhood sweetheart from Korea, Hae Sung (Teo Yoo); and the American she marries, Arthur (John Magaro) —and what they mean to each other. Yet its impact has been giant, wowing audiences around the…

COWABUNGA! WITH ALL the energy of a swiftly thwipped throwing-star, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles made a thrillingly kinetic return to the big screen in idiosyncratic animation Mutant Mayhem —this time with actual teenagers voicing Leonardo (Nicolas Cantu), Raphael (Brady Noon), Michelangelo (Shamon Brown Jr) and Donatello (Micah Abbey). Director Jeff Rowe —previously co-director on The Mitchells Vs The Machines —talks Empire through its biggest laughs, baddest brawls, and… well, total mutant mayhem. FLY GOES SUPER Before the Turtles enter the frame, we begin with the origins of antagonist Superfly (Ice Cube) —starting as… well, regular-fly. Until scientist Baxter Stockman (Giancarlo Esposito) is raided by the police, his experimental ooze comes into contact with animal test subjects, and mutants are born. “There’s not a joke for the first five minutes…

OLIVER PARKER’S THE Great Escaper is, contrary to its jolly and cheerful poster in which its two iconic leads smile at the camera while surrounded by massive fonts that promise a knockabout comedy, a sombre and moving treatise on guilt, grief and ageing. It is well worth your time. But this is not why it will go down in the footnotes of film history: it will do so because it is the final film of both of those leads, Michael Caine and Glenda Jackson. That wasn’t on the cards when Parker started work on the movie, which tells the true story of Bernie Jordan (Caine), a World War II veteran, now living in a care home in Hove, who —egged on by his wife Rene (Jackson) —heads off on a…

1 Arnold won a Golden Globe in 1977 for Best Acting Debut In A Motion Picture (Male). For which movie? 2 But actually, Schwarzenegger’s first movie was Hercules In New York (1970). What name was he credited under? 3 What is the title of the Philip K. Dick short story on which Total Recall is based? 4 With a worldwide gross of $521 million, what is Schwarzenegger’s highest-grossing movie? 5 How many movies has he appeared in with rival-turned-great-friend Sylvester Stallone? 6 According to Sarah Connor in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, when will Judgment Day take place? 7 In Batman & Robin, Arnie plays Bat-villain Mr Freeze. What is the character’s real name? 8 What is the name of the character played by Marianne Muellerleile in The Terminator? 9 “I’ll…