Innholdsfortegnelse for July 2015 i Empire

PUT YOURSELF IN MARVEL’S JET-POWERED SHOES for a moment: how would you top Age Of Ultron, in which a giant, super-intelligent, quasi-indestructible robot bent on world destruction takes on The Avengers, the world’s most formidable supergroup of superheroes — a sort of Traveling Wilburys of acrobatic GBH? Intriguingly, and shrewdly, they’ve opted for a hipster microbrew of a follow-up, both size-wise and profile-wise, in Ant-Man. After rolling out Thor, Hulk, Iron Man et al, you’d fear this could succumb to the law of diminishing returns in action terms, and (to borrow a metaphor from a rival) be box-office kryptonite. But take the superb Guardians Of The Galaxy as your benchmark. Marvel is more than capable of taking its less obvious assets and promoting them to the first team. With the…

Robert Downey Jr. Iron-suiting up as Tony Stark for Captain America: Civil War. Chris Hemsworth Battling a huge whale in In The Heart Of The Sea; interrupting the Griswolds’ family time in the Vacation reboot/sequel; hunting as The Huntsman; and lifting the magic hammer again in Thor: Ragnarok. Mark Ruffalo Hard-hitting drama Spotlight, about a cover-up of child molestation in the Catholic Church; then abracadabraing once again in Now You See Me: The Second Act. Scarlett Johansson The new Coen Brothers movie, Hail, Caesar!; pining for Bruce Banner in Civil War; voicing Kaa for her old Iron Man 2 director, Jon Favreau, in The Jungle Book; and kicking butt in Ghost In The Shell. Paul Bettany Getting his Vision on for the second time in Civil War, before making his…

THE PICKLES As seen in Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs 2 (2013) What are they? An army of gherkins. Characteristics: Tiny, mischievous, dedicated to causing chaos. Do they speak? They cackle. A lot. Are they yellow? No. They are green. Minion rating THE EASTER CHICKS As seen in Hop (2011) What are they? An army of tiny chickens. Characteristics Tiny, naive, dedicated to causing chaos. Do they speak? They chirp. A lot. Are they yellow? Like a banana convention. Minion rating THE ELVES As seen in Rise Of The Guardians (2012) What are they? An army of Santa’s little helpers. Characteristics: Tiny, mischievous, dedicated to causing chaos. Do they speak? They gabble. A lot. Are they yellow? They’re red like a Christmas stocking. Minion rating THE BABY DRAGONS As…

CATHOLICISM Start by taking Rite Of Christian Initiation Of Adults classes and participate in church life for a whole liturgical cycle of a year. COSTUME “I’d go for heavily modified bike leathers or BMX-type armour,” says cosplayer Sam Phillips. That could set you back £100 to £1,300 (Kevlar is about £10 a foot). COSTUME Artyfakes quote an absolute minimum of £2,500 for a custom job in leather. Three weeks or so is the usual timeframe, but “most costume makers have a good few months’ waiting list”. A prop billy club would be about £150. Fighting In the Netflix show, Matt Murdock trained under sensei Stick for his whole adolescence. For the rest of us, learning to fight like a ninja is a lifetime’s work. British Ninjutsu Grand Master Gary Stone…

PORTRAIT LEON CSERNOHLAVEK What’s your favourite word in the English language? I don’t know, really. I don’t like any of them. How much is a pint of milk? Well, I don’t buy milk in pints. I buy it in bulk by the liquid ton. It’s frozen and it takes a long time to defrost, and I’ve got a special warehouse solely for that. It’s shrunk our living quarters, but we do save a lot on milk. How much does that cost? It’s something my accountant has always dealt with. He is in Luxembourg, so I very rarely speak to him. On a scale of one to ten, how famous are you? I would say about a five. I’m pretty much a sort of, “Oh, it’s that guy,” person. When I…

IAN McKELLEN CAREER GRAPH (US DOMESTIC BOX OFFICE ONLY) THE TOP 10 BILLION DOLLAR CLUB 1 AVATAR $2.788 BILLION 2 TITANIC $2.186 BILLION 3 AVENGERS ASSEMBLE $1.518 BILLION 4 FAST & FURIOUS 7 $1.467 BILLION 5 HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS — PART 2 $1.341 BILLION 6 FROZEN $1.274 BILLION 7 IRON MAN 3 $1.215 BILLION 8 TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON $1.123 BILLION 9 THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING $1.119 BILLION 10 SKYFALL $1.108 BILLION MOVIE INFLATION $1,000,000 — THE AMOUNT OF MONEY ROBERT REDFORD PAID TO SLEEP WITH DEMI MOORE IN INDECENT PROPOSAL (1993) = $1,624 MILLION…

UNMISSABLE EXCELLENT GOOD POOR TRAGIC Tomorrowland: A World Beyond OUT NOW / CERT 12A / 130 MINS. DIRECTOR Brad Bird CAST George Clooney, Britt Robertson, Hugh Laurie PLOT GIVEN A BADGE THAT TAKES HER TO AN ALTERNATIVE WORLD, CASEY (ROBERTSON) LOOKS FOR AN EXPLANATION. THERE ARE TWO ways to view the use of theme-park rides as inspiration for movies. The first, held by many, is it represents a dearth of ideas and a grab for anything with a smidge of brand recognition and, therefore, a small leg-up at the box office. But there is another, less cynical view and it’s embodied by Brad Bird’s sugared-up, awestruck adventure: if you start with something that fires kids’ imaginations, but has no inherent plot, you have no limits. The lack of defined story…

timbuktu out MAY 29 / cERt. 12A / 96 MINS. DIRECTOR Abderrahmane Sissako CAST ibrahim Ahmed, toulou Kiki, Abel Jafri, Fatoumata Diawara the tranquillity of a law-abiding Muslim family is shattered by gun-toting jihadists in this harrowing refection on the occupation of northern Mali in 2012. Exceptional human flmmaking. dP Four corners out JUNE 5 / cERt. TBC / 114 MINS. DIRECTOR ian Gabriel CAST Brendon Daniels, Jezriel Skei, irshaad Ally, lindiwe Matshikiza this multi-storied account of a South African turf war clearly seeks to present the cape Flats ghetto as another city of God. compelling and powerfully played, but sometimes fussily fashy. dP Shooting For Socrates out JUNE 12 / cERt. PG / 91 MINS. DIRECTOR James Erskine CAST John hannah, conleth hill, Richard Dormer, Art Parkinson in 1986,…

AS DC’S BIG-SCREEN JUSTICE League stirs to life, its small-screen universe is mushrooming. The current crop began with Arrow, which has pitted the League Of Shadows against Stephen Amell’s Oliver Queen. Season 4, due in October, will centre on a new villain and see Queen’s continued evolution from flawed vigilante to hero. Its spin-off, The Flash, has earned its second season after a storming debut. The tone is brighter but still dramatic, with Grant Gustin’s Barry Allen trying to find his mother’s killer. Season 2, also due in October, is expected to introduce another Flash in Wally West. Ambitious 13-episode superteam spin-off series Legends Of Tomorrow will arrive in early 2016, featuring Arrow and Flash, along with supporting characters including Brandon Routh’s Atom and Robbie Amell’s Firestorm. Arrow/Flash producer Greg…

WHILE THE MCU HAS ONLY grown in power, its network TV strand is still finding its strength. But the future is looking bright, with flagship series Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. riding a revitalised plotline in the wake of Captain America: The Winter Soldier and confirmed as returning for a third season in the States this autumn. A mooted spin-off has turned out to be a non-starter, but 12 Years A Slave writer John Ridley is still pushing ahead with his own Marvel project at ABC. The smart money’s on that being new hero Ms. Marvel — aka Kamala Khan, a Muslim-American Inhuman. Meanwhile, Hayley Atwell’s Agent Carter has been confirmed for a second season in the States, even though the first is still to be picked up by anyone in the…

IT’S ALL ABOUT… NAPOLEON SOLO The Vulcan Affair (1.01) Introducing cultured, suave, witty, well-travelled American agent Napoleon Solo (Robert Vaughn). IT’S ALL ABOUT… ILLYA KURYAKIN The Quadripartite Affair (1.03) Originally, Kuryakin was a minor character, but David McCallum tested so well in the pilot he became co-lead, changing the ‘American James Bond’ to the ‘American James Bond and his Russian friend’. IT’S ALL ABOUT… THE GUEST STARS The Project Strigas Affair (1.09) Guest-star appearances became a staple, but this earns special attention for pairing up William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy two years before Star Trek. IT’S ALL ABOUT… INNOCENTS AND INTRIGUE The Never-Never Affair (1.25) The original premise saw an innocent caught up in high-stakes spy games each week. Here, office worker Barbara Feldon is given a bogus mission, but…

Medellin IN ENTOURAGE: Vincent Chase beats Benicio Del Toro to the role of Pablo Escobar. It’s booed at Cannes and ultimately flops. IN REALITY: Benicio Del Toro finally got his shot at the Colombian drug lord — Escobar: Paradise Lost is out this year. Ferrari IN ENTOURAGE: Frank Darabont shoots this race-car-inventor biopic in Italy. Vincent Chase plays the young Enzo Ferrari. IN REALITY: Robert De Niro will play the not-so-young Enzo Ferrari in a film rumoured to be directed by Clint Eastwood. It will be shot in Italy. Aquaman IN ENTOURAGE: James Cameron directs. Vincent Chase stars opposite Sharon Stone. It makes $117 million on its opening weekend. IN REALITY: Jason Momoa will play Warners’ kelp-draped superhero. He’ll face both underwater villainy and a hell of a box-office target.…

Into The Woods FROM NOW / CERT. PG Rob Marshall’s star-swollen adaptation of Sondheim’s fairy-tale remix makes a sporting but wayward swipe at its Broadway subversions. Corden, Blunt, Streep, Kendrick et al gamely go at the swooning numbers and quizzical asides, but the unravelling happy endings and clever-cleverness prove increasingly unmanageable. IN Selma FROM JUNE 15 / CERT. 12 The most tragically relevant film of this year’s Oscars, Selma is an ensemble story of the historic civil-rights marches that forced change in the US. David Oyelowo’s Martin Luther King Jr. is the standout, while the carefully composed direction of Ava DuVernay makes the bubbling anger that drives characters and film all the more powerful. HOH ILLUSTRATIONS: THE RED DRESS (ZOMBIE HAND), PETER STRAIN (KIM PORTRAIT) The Gambler FROM NOW /…

1991 / FROM NOW / CERT. 18 BETTER THAN BEING PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES… MARTY’S mother Cathy, who improvised all her scenes, would recall that back in the Little Italy of Scorsese’s childhood, mothers would be warned to take their kids off the streets if the local gangsters planned to whack someone. He knew this world of working Joe mobsters first hand. These guys, these wise guys, were his neighbours. GoodFellas, still Scorsese’s most evocative, thrilling movie, celebrates its 25th birthday with a 4K remaster and a new documentary. Too brief, but excellent all the same, the main players (minus Joe Pesci) offer such insights that you’re sent spiralling back to the time you first witnessed such wild intensity. Ray Liotta explains that Pesci had witnessed just such an…

Where The Buffalo Roam 1980 FROM NOW CERT. 18 It flopped in 1980, but there’s a lot to love about this anarchic adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson’s Nixon-era work: especially Bill Murray, who attacks the role as mobile mini-bar and hedonistic clown. The script’s a shambles, but that’s arguably the point. Thompson’s writing was all impulse — this bottles his gonzo spirit way better than Fear And Loathing. Mean Streets 1973 FROM NOW CERT. 18 Fizzing edits, pounding pop, Catholic angst, jolting violence. Mean Streets might not be Martin Scorsese’s first film but it’s his stylistic debut, teaming Harvey Keitel and Robert De Niro for a mobster remix of Cain and Abel. This long-awaited UK Blu-ray comes with a vivid Scorsese commentary and a new ‘making of’. Or is that…

HEARTHSTONE IOS, ANDROID Newly re-tooled for smartphones, Blizzard’s Warcraft-themed card battler is as fiendishly addictive in the palm of your hand as it ever was on desktop. The Blackrock Mountain expansion adds a ton of new single player content while also introducing dragon decks! SORCERY! IOS, ANDROID An interactive adaptation of Steve Jackson’s ’80s adventure books, there are three instalments so far, each better than the last. Beautiful illustrations and thrilling adventure combine for nostalgic beast-battling fun.…

JOHN NAUGHTON Alexandra Daddario interview (p.84) “She’s funny, self-deprecating and happy to talk about the difference True Detective made to her career. I’d like to have found out more about her dad’s work as a criminal lawyer in NYC. I think she might know where the bodies are buried...” BILL McCONKEY Shrinking characters chart (p.69) “I originally watched Honey, I Shrunk The Kids when I was ten. The first thing I did afterwards was draw a giant ant. Twenty-six years on I get to revisit my childhood by drawing that same ant, but this time with all my colouring inside the lines.” OLLY RICHARDS The Martian first look exclusive (p.14), The Man From U.N.C.L.E. set report (p.96) “Everyone on the Rome set of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. was so cool…

If you see Will Poulter hanging around drains dressed as an evil clown, it’s rehearsal for his role as Pennywise in Cary Fukunaga’s It. Keanu Reeves will return in John Wick 2, presumably flying into a rage when someone posts a nasty Instagram about his chinchilla. Martin Freeman has joined Captain America: Civil War in a key role. Watch out, Cap — he’ll stick your stapler into jelly! Sela Ward could be about to show Hillary Clinton how it’s done as a female President in Independence Day 2, filming right now.…

• KAI Z FENG/TRUNK ARCHIVE 1 SHE’S A QUEEN OF ACCENTS As Nancy in Man Up, the 36-year-old flaunts a great British accent. “Fully realising a British character is something that’s been on my work bucket list,” she says. “And working with Meryl Streep — I’ve done that so this was next up!” Still to kick the brogue bucket? Australian, Irish and Scottish. 2 SHE WAS VERY NEARLY DEPOSED… Bell maintained the accent at all times, only ‘coming out’ on her last day. “I made a speech to the crew as Nancy and then switched into my American. But many people did not know I was American. Everyone felt I was a liar. It could have gone dark — they could’ve thrown me into the river!” 3 SHE COULD BE…

EXPERIENCE 2004 ER Dahlia Taslitz, a concerned friend “That’s how I got my SAG card! I was a theatre actor and was scared of the camera. There was all this quick, on-the-fly learning. Someone came over to do a continuity shot and I thought they were being nice and taking a photo of me, so I smiled and posed!” 2010 Agatha Christie: Poirot Mary Debenham, a calm, collected English murder suspect 2010 The Debt Young Rachel Singer, a younger version of Helen Mirren’s Mossad agent “I GOT TO MEET WITH HELEN MIRREN AND WORK ON THE ACCENT TOGETHER — BUT I DID JUST WANT TO STARE AT HER, SOAK UP HER ENERGY. BUT THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN CREEPY, SO I DIDN’T... HONEST!” 2011 The Tree Of Life Mrs. O’Brien, a…

What’s Secret Cinema? It’s a UK-based company that has run experiential cinema screenings since 2007. Audiences are urged to dress according to a theme. The film name is usually withheld until they turn up. Sounds risky. It can be. Empire once showed up dressed as a camel. Luckily, it turned out to be Lawrence Of Arabia. Next up is The Empire Strikes Back. Isn’t it meant to be a secret? The company, led by founder Fabien Riggall, stepped it up last year with an elaborate Back To The Future event that involved building a replica of Hill Valley in East London, close to the Olympic Park, which was announced in advance. Riggall promises that The Empire Strikes Back will be the “the most ambitious and dreamlike” event yet. For £75,…

The Forgotten Kingdom OUT JUNE 26 / CERT. TBC / 96 MINS. DIRECTOR Andrew Mudge CAST Lillian Dube, Moshoeshoe Chabeli, Jerry Mofokeng, Zenzo Ngqobe Leaving Johannesburg to bury his father, a young man learns how to belong in this gloriously shot rite of passage, — unflinching in its discussion of AIDS, poverty and patriarchal perfidy. DP West OUT JUNE 12 / CERT. TBC / 102 MINS. DIRECTOR Christian Schwochow CAST Jördis Triebel, Tristan Göbel, Alexander Scheer Schwochow’s slow-burning thriller sees a young mother (Triebel, outstanding) escape Communist-run East Germany in the 1970s for a new life in the West, only to be trapped by bureaucracy. DH Freaks OUT JUNE 12 / CERT 12A / 62 MINS DIRECTOR Tod Browning CAST Wallace Ford, Leila Hyams, Olga Baclanova A famous flop in…

• AUGUST GIVEN HIS PEDIGREE AS HIGH school über-jock, Abercrombie model, dancer and male stripper, Channing Tatum’s acting career should, by rights, have comprised little more than beefcake himbos. Instead, his filmography since a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it debut in 2005’s Coach Carter marks him out as a hugely versatile performer, able to turn his hand to pyrotechnic action (G. I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra, White House Down), comedy (21 Jump Street), musicals (Step Up), chick-flick romance (The Vow) and taut thrillers (Haywire) with equal aplomb. As Mark Schultz in last year’s Foxcatcher, he proved himself equal to a role that would have daunted any actor. If that weren’t enough, he also has the charisma of a true movie star, with chiselled looks and a yet more chiselled physique. None of which,…

150mm approx. NAME: Alice Kingsleigh (Alice In Wonderland, 2010) SHRINK METHOD: “Drink Me” potion 115mm approx. NAME: General Decker (Mars Attacks!, 1996) SHRINK METHOD: Martian ray 25mm approx. NAME: Scott Carey (The Incredible Shrinking Man, 1957) SHRINK METHOD: Radiation/ insecticide cocktail 19mmapprox. NAMES: Nick and Amy Szalinski, Ron and Russ Thompson (Honey, I Shrunk The Kids, 1989) SHRINK METHOD: Shrink ray 3.5mmapprox. NAME: Scott Lang (Ant-Man, 2015) SHRINK METHOD: Pym Particles 7.5 mapprox. NAME: Lt. Tuck Pendleton (Innerspace, 1987) SHRINK METHOD: Shrink ray 5.5 mapprox. NAMES: Agent Charles Grant, Captain Bill Owen, Dr. Michaels, Dr. Duval, Cora Peterson (Fantastic Voyage, 1966) SHRINK METHOD: Shrink ray…

SAGA CREATORS BRIAN K. VAUGHAN, FIONA STAPLES PUBLISHER IMAGE Epic space opera in which two warring alien races hunt down the members of their tribes who dared fall in love and have a baby. Someone’s already described it as “Star Wars meets Game Of Thrones”... LOCKE AND KEY CREATORS JOE HILL, GABRIEL RODRIGUEZ PUBLISHER IDW A bereaved family move back to the ancestral home and discover strange keys that open doors to weirdness. A TV pilot was never picked up; maybe a movie is the answer. GRENDEL CREATOR MATT WAGNER PUBLISHER COMICO, THEN DARK HORSE Novelist Hunter Rose by day, criminal mastermind Grendel by night, this series has a strong undercurrent of morality. It’s a little like ’98 serial-killer movie Fallen, but way more stylish. CONCRETE CREATOR PAUL CHADWICK PUBLISHER…

FIFTY-ODD years ago, Rick Baker was just another kid up in his room sketching monsters. No-one could have guessed at a future career which would help redefine the art of special effects make-up. But from the still unmatched transformation sequence in John Landis’ An American Werewolf In London through to Gremlins 2 and Hellboy, Baker’s work has contributed to many of the last few decades’ most memorable movie moments, as well as winning him no fewer than seven Oscars. But now, like many 64-year-olds, he’s downsizing and selling many of the fruits of that astonishing half-century career. “It was a difficult decision,” Baker tells Empire from his Los Angeles home. “I’m kind of a pack-rat, I had at least 20,000 square feet of storage space. The storage cost for these…

ILLUSTRATION NOMA BAR Whiplash 2015 / FROM JUNE 1 / CERT. 15 FULL METAL DRUM KIT DURING AN audience Q&A at the Toronto Film Festival, which is included as an extra on Whiplash’s Blu-ray, first-time director Damien Chazelle was asked what drove him to switch careers from jazz drummer to filmmaker. His answer is meant as a half-joke — isn’t it obvious? — but you can detect an edge to his tone: “Everything that’s in the film.” Whiplash is one of 2014’s finest movies, and home to an Oscar-winning performance from beloved character actor J. K. Simmons (aka Juno’s dad). Above all, it is a personal piece, and all the better for it. Chazelle’s bloody, sweaty, teary experience drenches every frame and gives his characters such compelling, convincing life that…

JOJO WHILDEN/NETFLIX “YOU’RE laughing, you’re laughing, you’re laughing…” Kate Mulgrew pauses for effect. “Then you’re dead.” That’s what watching Orange Is The New Black: Season 3 will be like, promises the actress who plays mother hen Galina ‘Red’ Reznikov in Netflix’s acclaimed prison-set dramedy. “Last season was very dark, and I should know, because I was severely beaten three times and almost died,” she adds. “There’s been an effort this year to lighten the show, but (showrunner) Jenji Kohan, being the unpredictable genius that she is, twists it when you least suspect it. Just when you think you’re safe in your seat, she’ll shoot you in the head.” Mulgrew and castmates are talking to Empire in the breakout room of New York’s Kaufman Astoria Studios, the real-world location of the…

JEDI ROCKS Fancy a blistering guitar, Solo? These custom-made beauties, by British designer Doni, take the shell of Star Wars toys — in this case the Millennium Falcon — and bolt them onto the body of guitars to create a fully armed and operational thing of beauty. That also lights up. Other items in the range include a Rebel Bass, but sadly not a Boba Fret. Doniguitars.co.uk. Prices vary, but expect to pay around £450 TOHT’S AM AZEBALLS If you’ve ever watched the end of Raiders Of The Lost Ark and thought, “I’d love to recreate the moment where Ronald Fraser’s Gestapo git, Major Toht, has his face exploded by the power of the Ark Of The Covenant in the comfort of my own home,” then you’re in luck. Firebox…

ILLUSTRATION INFOMEN A Most Violent Year Queensboro Bridge A key dramatic scene in J. C. Chandor’s crime thriller involved a running gunfight on the 59th Street Bridge between Queens and Manhattan. This is one of the easiest landmarks to visit if you land at JFK: ask your cab driver to take this bridge to Manhattan and boom, that’s one ticked off the list. Daredevil 115th Street/7th Avenue Much of Netflix’s latest series was shot outside Manhattan, in Williamsburg or Greenpoint. But the scenes where the young Matt Murdock was blinded by toxic waste were filmed around 115th Street and 7th Avenue, standing in for 43rd Street and 9th Avenue in Murdock’s native Hell’s Kitchen. Breakfast At Tiffany’s 169 East 71st Street If you want a touch of Audrey Hepburn’s elegance,…

BOYHOOD Richard Linklater’s decade-and-change-spanning epic charts the maturation of a Texan lad. Along the way, there is joy, heartbreak and Ethan Hawke failing to predict The Force Awakens. FROM JUNE 19 HALT AND CATCH FIRE: SEASON 2 AMC’s 1980s-set serial about the early computer race continues. Considerably more serious than Silicon Valley, it stars Lee Pace and Scoot McNairy as tech wizards on the up. FROM JUNE 2 LUCY Scarlett Johansson trips major ballsack in Luc Besson’s psychedelic actioner, the midpoint between Hard Boiled and Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas. If you can explain the ending, please write in. FROM JUNE 12 FURY David Ayer, currently marshalling a cadre of supervillains in Suicide Squad, orchestrates grittier action in this World War II tank movie. Brad Pitt, splendidly, plays a…

1. Find gangster names from the movie in a grid. 2. WHICH FOOD ITEMS ARE NOT SMUGGLED INTO LEWISBURG PRISON? 3. Which of these taglines was NOT used to promote GoodFellas? A “As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster.” B “No-one stays at the top forever.” C “Shooting people was ‘no big deal’.” D “Murderers come with smiles.” E “Three decades of life in the Mafia.” 4. Which of these SOPRANOS actors is not in GoodFellas? 1 Lorraine Bracco 2 Michael Imperioli 3 Steven Van Zandt 4 Frank Vincent 5 Tony Sirico 5. Match the song to the scene A The Rolling Stones’ Gimme Shelter 1 B Harry Nilsson’s Jump Into The Fire 2 C Derek And The Dominos Layla 3 6. This…

YEARS OF A CLOWN AUTHOR PAUL DUNCAN / OUT JULY 7 FIFTY YEARS after the publication of Charles Chaplin Jr.’s autobiography, and a century since the debut of his most famous creation, The Tramp, what is there left to say about the life and work of the man George Bernard Shaw described as “the only genius to come out of the movie industry”? A lot, as it turns out. Published in its customary lavish ‘coffee-table’ style — i.e. roughly the size and shape of a coffee table — Taschen’s latest treasure trove trawls the Chaplin family archives, and Chaplin’s own extensive writings, in an unprecedented attempt to assemble the entire Chaplin history in words and pictures (900 of them). It’s a colossal task, but one quite manageable for an editor…

1 Nightcall Kavinsky Drive 2 Little Green Bag George Baker Selection Reservoir Dogs 3 Swinging On A Star Bing Crosby Hudson Hawk 4 It’s Caper Tim (The Self-Preservation Society) Quincy Jones The Italian Job 5 Gritty Shaker David Holmes Ocean’s Eleven 6 Ode To Joy Beethoven Die Hard 7 Doctor Destructo Tangerine Dream Thief 8 Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien Edith Piaf Inception 9 It’s Your Thing The Isley Brothers Out Of Sight 10 Foggy Mountain Breakdown Flatt & Scruggs Bonnie And Clyde 11 The Windmills Of Your Mind Noel Harrison The Thomas Crown Affair 12 God Moving Over The Face Of The Waters Moby Heat TO LISTEN TO THE ABOVE, SEARCH ‘EMPIRE MAGAZINE’ ON SPOTIFY, OR VISIT OUR YOUTUBE ACCOUNT.…

Batman BATMAN (1986) Classic Speccy isometric adventure where the caped one had to rescue Robin by finding missing bits of a hovercraft. Obviously. BATMAN: THE MOVIE (1989) Punching, driving, flying — this one had it all. Beating up thugs in Axis Chemicals soon grew dull but the Batmobile rocked. BATMAN: GOTHAM CITY RACER (2001) Uninspired racing spin-off, not to be confused with the unrelated Project Gotham Racing: actually good. BATMAN BEGINS (2005) This one saw you scare enemies into submission instead of beating them up, all while Liam Neeson growled bunkum in your ear. BATMAN: ARKHAM ASYLUM (2010) The Arkham series finally empowered players to feel like they were the Dark Knight. With Mark Hamill as The Joker.…

• PORTRAIT: BRIAN BOWEN SMITH. ILLUSTRATION: PETER STRAIN I THINK YOU HAVE to be optimistic about the future,” says Britt Robertson. She should know. The star of Brad Bird’s Tomorrowland: A World Beyond and this month’s Nicholas Sparks adaptation The Longest Ride, the 25 year-old is being propelled onto Hollywood’s A-List. Not bad for someone plucked from relative obscurity by Bird to play teenager Casey, whose drive leads her to the futuristic city of the title. Although “plucked” hardly reflects the lengthy audition process. “The first couple of times I auditioned it wasn’t even real pages from the movie,” she says. “They let me read the script when it was down to me and two other girls.” Making the film with Bird and George Clooney proved life changing. “Casey inspired…

AMY AMY AMY Six essential Winehouse tracks: 1. Love Is A Losing Game 2. Stronger Than Me 3. Tears Dry On Their Own 4. Rehab 5. Back To Black 6. Take The Box “IT WAS NEVER MY intention to wind people up,” says Asif Kapadia of Amy, a documentary about the life of the late Amy Winehouse. Too late — Mitch Winehouse, Amy’s father, has led a backlash against the film, with a statement from the family alleging that the film “contains some basic untruths”. “It’s a bit weird!” says Kapadia. “But there was a point where it was, ‘You know what? We’ve fallen in love with [Amy]. We just want to tell her story’. The clue is in the title. It’s about her, not them.” Kapadia’s last documentary was…

CROWE BY NUMBERS 5 Possible interpretations of the ending of Vanilla Sky, as listed by Crowe on his director’s commentary. 85 Cuba Gooding Jr.’s shirt number in Jerry Maguire. 3 Future Oscar-winners in Fast Times At Ridgemont High (Cage, Whitaker, and Penn). 4 Number of times a character says, “We bought a zoo,” in We Bought A Zoo. ARTISTS MOST OFTEN HEARD ON CROWE MOVIE SOUNDTRACKS CAMERON CROWE MOVIE SETTING MAP Best and worst U.S. Box Office (adjusted for inflation) $ 281,611,20 Jerry Maguire $ 34,767,300 Elizabethtown 16 THE AGE CROWE WROTE HIS FIRST ROLLING STONE COVER STORY (ON THE ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND). A former music journalist, Cameron Crowe has written for… Creem, Paste, Rolling Stone, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, NME, Playboy, Penthouse, The Telegraph, Empire…

JUNE 01 In 1982, District 9’s fookin’ prawns come to Earth, specifically Johannesburg. JUNE 02 JUNE 03 According to his fake ID, McLovin was born on this day in 1981. JUNE 08 Have you checked out the Sheffield Doc/ Fest yet? It started on June 5, and you’ve got a couple of days yet. Find out more at sheffdocfest.com JUNE 09 Jimmy Fallon’s first book, Your Baby’s First Word Will Be Dada, is published in the States. Prepare for memes galore. JUNE 10 Dust off that dress — Liz Hurley is 50 today. JUNE11 Farewell to The Duke — John Wayne passed away on this date in 1979. JUNE 16 1994 — Before Sunrise’s Jesse and Celine meet on a train in Vienna, Austria. Hope those crazy kids end up…

station to station Out JUNE 26 / Cert. TBC / 78 MINS. DIRECTOR Doug Aitken CAST Patti Smith, thurston Moore Comprising 62 one-minute vignettes showcasing an eclectic mix of artists and musicians, this meditation on the state of contemporary culture is stylistically diverse, alternately pretentious and mesmerising, but certainly never dull. dP Black souls Out JUNE 12 / Cert. TBC / 103 MINS. DIRECTOR Francesco Munzi CAST Marco Leonardi, Peppino Mazzotta this simmering study of three brothers and an impetuous son explores how feudal kinships impact upon a morally benumbed Calabria. the tone is pseudo-Sopranos at times, but the oppressive ambience is grippingly sustained. PP the supreme Price Out NOW / Cert. TBC / 75 MINS. DIRECTOR Joanna Lipper CAST Hafsat Abiola, Kudirat Abiola As a tribute to a long-standing…

1 Take A Cut Of The Profits To play the title role in the 1911 Australian film Sweet Nell Of Old Drury, Aussie stage legend Nellie Stewart agreed a fee of £1,000 plus a share of the profits, the first recorded instance of a film star getting a cut of the points. Sly’s Rocky(s), Jack’s Joker, Tom’s Missions and the rest were decades away. D’OH! Donald Sutherland is said to have lost out on $20 million of Animal House profits by instead sticking with his $50,000 fee. 2 Trust Your Casting Instincts The studio thought he was “a shrimp, funny looking, not attractive”. Producer Robert Evans wanted “anyone but [ him ]” and watched Francis Coppola test “every actor who had an O at the end of his name”. But…

1. THE HELMET Suit designers Sammy Sheldon and Ivo Coveney, who’ve been on board since the Edgar Wright days, were still tweaking the look during shooting. As for why Lang needs a helmet, Sheldon explains, “When you shrink, the molecules in the air are too big for your lungs. He has to be fully contained or he’d die.” 2. THE TUBES Mysterious chemicals whizz around Scott’s body, via tubing. “We had a long discussion about the two cables going into his helmet,” says Coveney. “They’re a massive weakness — Yellowjacket could just rip them off and he’s dead. But, in the end, it just looks cooler with them on.” Adds Sheldon: “The fact that he’s shrinking is enough to get away with anything else, really!” 3. THE GLOVES A red,…

AFTER THE DISAPPOINTMENT of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Sony ditched plans to create a shared universe around the wallcrawler. Enter Marvel. The Sony email hacks revealed Kevin Feige had been courting the studio for co-ownership, but to no avail. “Everything usually works out for a reason,” he told Empire back in December. “We’ll see what happens.” What happened was, after Sony head Amy Pascal stepped down, Marvel swooped, striking a deal that will see Spider-Man join the MCU for Avengers movies while Sony releases his solo ventures, keeping Feige involved on the creative side. Marvel will have a teenage Spidey, bouncing off the older, wiser, richer Avengers, while Sony continues its exploration of the Spider-brand: producers Pascal, Avi Arad and Matt Tolmach will oversee an animated film, written by Chris…

THOR 2011 DIRECTOR JOSS WHEDON • PLAYERS STELLAN SKARSGÅRD, SAMUEL L. JACKSON, TOM HIDDLESTON Erik Selvig (Skarsgård) meets Nick Fury with the Tesseract (aka the first Infinity Stone). Then Loki (Hiddleston) appears in a reflection and appears to possess Selvig. This was Joss Whedon’s first work as a director for Marvel. SETS UP Captain America: The First Avenger, Avengers Assemble. IRON MAN 3 2013 DIRECTOR SHANE BLACK • PLAYERS ROBERT DOWNEY JR., MARK RUFFALO Another late addition, this reveals that Stark has been narrating the film to his new BFF, Bruce Banner. Following the end of Avengers Assemble, this established the tradition that MCU stings placed at the very end of the credits were gags, and didn’t advance the wider arc of the universe. SETS UP Nothing. But it’s good…

Inherent Vice FROM NOW / CERT. TBC Forget the plot: even director Paul Thomas Anderson admits his take on Thomas Pynchon’s gumshoe epic doesn’t make sense. Instead, savour the oddball riffs and his terrific cast. Joaquin Phoenix is hilarious as P. I. ‘Doc’ Sportello, a stoner Bogart. Pair him with Jeff Lebowski and you’d have film’s least effective detecting force. PDS Big Eyes FROM NOW / CERT. 12 Quite possibly Tim Burton’s least Tim Burtony film ever. It’s refreshing to see the Godfather Of Goth ditch the cobwebbed pumpkins to forge a study of real-life artists Margaret and Walter Keane. But while Amy Adams quietly charms, Christoph Waltz hams harder than Miss Piggy, coming perilously close to tipping the whole thing over. NDS American Sniper FROM NOW / CERT. 15…

A Most Violent Year FROM NOW / CERT. 15 Assured, elegant and gripping, J. C. Chandor’s ’81 New York-set drama is notable for being an anti -crime movie, its protagonist (Oscar Isaac’s heating-oil company owner) a rare example of a character keen to triumph without breaking the rules. It provides further proof that Chandor is one of the most exciting filmmakers working today. DJ Wild FROM NOW / CERT. 15 Reese Witherspoon goes full Aragorn in this hiking epic, as self-flagellating wanderer Cheryl Strayed. The landscapes are vast but this is introspective filmmaking, a collage of sounds and images that explore the troubled heroine’s mind. Witherspoon, backpack-lugging her way to an Oscar nod, has never been better. NDS Trash FROM NOW / CERT. 15 Three Rio street kids find a…

Shaun The Sheep Movie FROM JUNE 1 / CERT. U Aardman’s lambs-on-the-lam caper is a rollickingly daft delight. With zero dialogue (even the human characters talk in grumbly gibberish) it relies on sharp visual gags, inventive chase sequences and the odd priceless hedgehog reaction shot. There are clichés and the soundtrack is a bit corny, but it’s enough fun to classify as a triumph of the wool. NDS Fifty Shades Of Grey FROM JUNE 8 / CERT. 18 Neither as mucky as you might hope nor as watered-down as you might expect, this improves on the S&M novel with solid casting and Sam Taylor-Johnson’s careful direction. Dakota Johnson gives a potentially awful character some spark, but the lack of any discernible plot undermines her best efforts, and Christian Grey remains…

• ILLUSTRATION: PETER STRAIN THREE COLOURS LOVE OUT NOW / CERT. 15 WHEN ASSESSING BOYHOOD BACK IN the August 2014 issue, Empire’s reviewer (full disclosure: your writer here) offered the opinion that Richard Linklater’s eventual Best Picture nominee was “possibly the director’s masterpiece to date”. In the first draft of the review, no doubt was expressed. But in went the “possibly”, added not through a faltering belief in Boyhood, but in tribute to Linklater’s semi-concurrent meditation on the passage of time, the Before trilogy: Before Sunrise (1995), Before Sunset (2004) and Before Midnight (2013). In 1989, Linklater had met a young woman, Amy Lehrhaupt, in a Philadelphia toy shop and, he told the Chicago Tribune, spent “from midnight until six in the morning walking around, flirting, doing things you would…

The Unexpected Adventures Of Martin Freeman AUTHOR NEIL DANIELS / OUT NOW Essentially Martin Freeman’s Wikipedia page padded out with pap photos and quotes from The Observer , this is pulp faction of the lowest order. Highlights include the summarised plot of The Office spread over four pages and a selection of Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy reviews, in a row, for some reason. “It is a must-read for any fan,” says the blurb on the back. It is not. AP The Definitive Ant-Man AUTHOR VARIOUS / OUT NOW We’ll get to meet two Ant-Men (Scott Lang and Hank Pym) in the forthcoming Marvel movie (see page 64 for more on that), but in the comics there’s an additional third: a sleazy S.H.I.E.L.D. agent named Eric O’Grady who uses the…

PROPER JAWSOME Thank you for your feature on 40 Things You Didn’t Know About Jaws. Because, honestly, I didn’t. I’ve had to stop clicking on the 57 Things You Never Knew About Tarantino web pages. (Thing 34: he once worked in a video store. Fancy!) It was truly a pleasure to learn some new stuff. And no clicking required! Kudos! HENRIK HANSEN I don’t care what the rebel alliance says about you guys — I love Empire Rian Johnson HERE’S A BIG QUESTION: DID ANYBODY EVER FIND OUT WHY THE TRICERATOPS GOT SICK IN JURASSIC PARK? CRAIG GREENHALGH, FACEBOOK I couldn’t help but notice Jurassic World’s new dinosaur has a rotten premolar on the left side. If Isla Nublar needs a dentist, I’m ready. MIKE RUSSELL TWITTER TREND couldn’t help…