Home//Empire Australasia/March 2019/In This Issue
Empire Australasia|March 2019THIS MONTH AT EMPIREEVERY FILM FAN can probably attest to having particular images and sounds from certain movies vividly burned into their infant brain before they could even properly understand what a “film” even was. For me, there were four such incidents of filmic brain-branding (that all coincidentally occurred when I was at the age of four-and-under): being traumatised at the sight of Kermit The Frog being zapped in an electric chair in 1979’s The Muppet Movie while at a drive-in; being traumatised by that weird brain slug that gets shoved into Chekov’s ear in 1982’s Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan; being traumatised by watching Darth Vader crush that rebel dude’s windpipe in Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope, and… being utterly enthralled by John Williams’ magical theme music (sidenote:…2 min
Empire Australasia|March 2019“You’ve got to dive in feet first”BACK IN 2009, Chiwetel Ejiofor was sent an early copy of The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer. An unconventional memoir, it told the story of how the teenage Kamkwamba saved his famine-stricken Malawi village by building a makeshift windmill from scrap parts, despite his parents being too poor to send him to school. “I was just stunned by it,” says Ejiofor. “It was inspirational and touched on so many relevant issues to the wider world, condensed to a tale of this one boy’s ingenuity, skill, drive and passion for life. It triggered a lot of emotions.” It ultimately became a passion project for the 12 Years A Slave actor, writing and directing the film, as well as acting in a key role. But Ejiofor…2 min
Empire Australasia|March 2019The Golden Globes don’t matterAH, THE GOLDEN Globes. In the film calendar’s annual awards season, it’s always been the slightly embarrassing, frequently drunk uncle — the one who married into the family and occasionally says things that make everyone else feel uncomfortable. The one who, frankly, we should all stop paying attention to. This year’s ‘vintage’ was another fine example of Golden Globes contrarianism — never more so than in this year’s Best Drama winner, Bohemian Rhapsody. Currently at 62 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes, it is the worst-reviewed Golden Globe Best Drama winner in over 30 years. Having likely passed a billion at the box office by the time you read this, Bohemian Rhapsody’s awards success feels like an attempt to pander to a broad audience — something the Globes has always tried…3 min
Empire Australasia|March 2019TEN THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT... THE DARK CRYSTAL: AGE OF RESISTANCE1 __ It’s a prequel to the 1982 Jim Henson movie. Set many years before the original, it’s the story of a Gelfling (the pointy-eared ones) rebellion against the vicious Skeksis (the ones who look like boiled vultures) in the magical world of Thra. Discovering the horrible secret to the Skeksis’ power, three Gelflings stir up a fight to destroy them and save their dying world. 2 __ Whereas in the movie the Gelflings were a dwindling race, in this series there are so many Gelflings that there will be numerous tribes represented, each living in very different terrains. 3 __ The cast is astonishing. Voicing the lead trio of Gelflings are Taron Egerton as Rian, Anya Taylor-Joy as Brea and Nathalie Emmanuel as Deet. Other Gelfling voices include Helena…2 min
Empire Australasia|March 2019TIM’S TRADEMARKSGOTHIC FANTASY While Dumbo might cake on the eyeliner less than some of its Burton stablemates, there’s still evidence of the filmmaker’s whimsy in the Art Deco-inspired Dreamland theme park and the bold, colourful costumes. REGULAR PLAYERS While Johnny Depp, Burton’s most frequent collaborator, is absent here, the Burton Family still draws Michael Keaton (four films, including this), Danny DeVito (four films) and new muse Eva Green (three films). QUINTESSENTIAL OUTCAST Dumbo himself is very Burton-esque: an outsider who doesn’t fit into the natural order of things. The director’s idiosyncratic tastes find a natural affinity with Dumbo’s Victorian circus and its cavalcade of friendly freaks. DANNY ELFMAN Dumbo marks the 16th score for Burton from Elfman, continuing a 34-year-long collaboration that began in 1985 with Pee-wee’s Big Adventure. Only three…1 min
Empire Australasia|March 2019WHAT EDGAR DID NEXTWHAT ARE YOU directing next? That’s what we’ve been asking Edgar Wright since June 2017, when Baby Driver was released. In the 18-month interim, he’s filmed a music documentary about cult band Sparks, but news of his next fictional feature film has been restricted to rumours and rumblings. Until now. Speaking exclusively to Empire as part of our 30th birthday celebrations, Wright reveals that his next project is an entirely original film — and his first non-comedy. He describes it as “a psychological thriller set in contemporary London”, a straight horror with a female protagonist bearing all the filmmaker’s hallmarks, minus any comedic elements. “I’ve always been obsessed with movies like Don’t Look Now or Repulsion,” he explains. “The idea of doing something in that kind of realm is really…2 min
Empire Australasia|March 2019SUPERBOWL SPECIALToy Story 4 What the hell happened to Bo Peep? WHILE THE LOUDEST stars of the Toy Story spot were Jordan Peele and Keegan Michael-Key’s Bunny and Ducky, they couldn’t overshadow the return of one of the series’ originals: Bo Peep. Bo sat out Toy Story 3 — given away, it was assumed, by Andy’s unsentimental, ruthlessly Marie Kondo-ing mother. Now she is back, and she is a changed woman. Since being separated from the rest of Andy’s playthings, Bo has been making a go of things on her own. She’s ditched the cumbersome poofy dress — now effectively walking around in her pants — because she is a lady of adventure, living her life on the open road. After years of being stuck guarding a lamp, Bo has spent…4 min
Empire Australasia|March 2019THE HANDMAID’S TALE: SEASON 3THE SUNNY-EYED, apple pie mood of the early parts of the teaser for The Handmaid’s Tale’s third season was not just a random artistic choice. It was inspired by a 1984 commercial for Ronald Reagan’s re-election campaign. The Reagan commercial, like the ad, opened with the line, “It’s morning again in America,” spoken softly over gauzy images of children laughing, people going merrily to work and young people getting married. It touted America’s strong economy, calling the US “prouder and stronger and better”, and asked the voters why they would ever want to return to a time before Reagan’s Presidency. The message was that things were great now and to rock the boat could see the country fall back into the economic difficulties of the latter days of the Jimmy…1 min
Empire Australasia|March 2019HOTEL MUMBAI★★★★ OUT 14 MARCH / 125 MINS / RATED TBC DIRECTOR Anthony Maras CAST Dev Patel, Armie Hammer, Nazanin Boniadi, Tilda Cobham-Hervey PLOT When gunmen burst into a luxury hotel, both staff and guests must struggle to survive a relentlessly brutal wave of violence in this cinematic recreation of the 2008 Mumbai Terror Attacks. “UNFLINCHING” IS THE word that comes most readily to mind when considering Hotel Mumbai, the debut feature from director Anthony Maras. Movie fans are used to terrorist actions being fodder for action movies and thrillers, where square-jawed heroes stand up to and inevitably put down whatever rabid ideologue is threatening the status quo. Here, that’s not an option. In Hotel Mumbai, the only victory is survival. Although the real world attacks were part of a larger…2 min
Empire Australasia|March 2019THE BOY WHO HARNESSED THE WIND★★★★ NETFLIX OUT NOW RATED TBC / 103 MINS DIRECTOR Chiwetel Ejiofor CAST Maxwell Simba, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Noma Dumezweni PLOT While his father Trywell (Ejiofor) tries to maintain the family farm in the face of a famine, 13-year-old William Kamkwamba (Simba) uses his ingenuity to build a windmill that might just do the trick. WHETHER HE’S PLAYING an enslaved nobleman, a super-powered sorceror, or a bloke who doesn’t see anything strange in his wife going to the front door to listen to dreadful carol singers for what seems like an eternity, Chiwetel Ejiofor has always been an actor of immaculate control and intelligence. It’s not always a given that those qualities survive a transition to the director’s chair so it’s a pleasure to report that The Boy Who Harnessed The…2 min
Empire Australasia|March 2019THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT★★ OUT NOW / RATED R18+ / 152 MINS DIRECTOR Lars von Trier CAST Matt Dillon, Bruno Ganz, Uma Thurman, Riley Keough SHOCK IS ONE of Lars von Trier’s tools and when used well it can harshly underline his films’ message. When used needlessly it just looks childish. The House That Jack Built is seeping with horrible moments — a breast sliced off; a taxidermied child; a mutilated duckling — all in service of a lumpen point not made particularly well. “The world is f*cked” is a message you can read in countless places — von Trier is joining the discussion, but all his lurid, gory presentation can’t disguise that he has little to add. He even seems bored by himself, at one point illustrating a damning rant with a…1 min
Empire Australasia|March 2019TALKING ABOUT A REVOLUTIONFleck took his phone off silent during the intermission of Pulitzer-Prize winning play Sweat in 2017, to see five missed calls and countless texts from his agent. “We were like, ‘What the f*ck?!’” he laughs as Empire meets the pair on day 50 of the gig that those five missed calls and countless texts were informing him of — helming Captain Marvel. After they digested the news and sat through the second half of the play (“We didn’t leave, it was really good,” says Boden), they decided to check whether their names had featured in the mix of the churning, whirling online rumour mill. “I remember Googling it,” says Fleck. “And no-one called this one…” Even though Marvel has a habit of plucking little-known filmmakers and placing them at the…12 min
Empire Australasia|March 2019THE PEOPLE VS. EDGAR WRIGHTHow often do you skip through TV channels late at night, find a film of yours on and nestle down to watch it? And has this happened in the company of people who don’t know you directed the film? STEPHEN LOWE I don’t know in what situation somebody would be round my house late at night that doesn’t know who I am. You’d have to have picked up a young tourist who has no idea who you are. That’s Dennis Nilsen territory. So no, that has never happened. I have sometimes been flipping through the channels and Hot Fuzz or Shaun will be on. And I have watched parts, for sure. Just never with a random person I picked up at a bar. If you could be in any band,…9 min
Empire Australasia|March 2019SPARKY SWEARY STRAIGHT-TALKINGKeiRa KniGhTley can’t sit still. Trying to get comfortable on an aggressively upholstered sofa, she shifts position awkwardly, a dozen cushions — each stuffed near to bursting — resisting her every move. “Sorry, this is all a bit much. I feel like I’m on a divan,” she apologises. Then, with a growl, she grabs an armful of the offending objects and hurls them to the floor. “There, now I can relax.” The Teddington-born actor has long been restless. Raised in a theatre family and performing as soon as she could walk, Knightley gained her first agent at the tender age of six and has worked consistently ever since. When most teenagers were swapping cigarette butts between classes and grousing about mock exams, Knightley was graduating from child actor to movie…13 min
Empire Australasia|March 2019RENAISSANCE MANDOLPH LUNDGREN IS RUNNING LATE. When he arrives at the hotel restaurant in Stockholm, he’s in pain. He joins me straight from the chiropractor’s office, still gingerly rubbing his side. Eight weeks ago, he had surgery for an injury sustained doing karate; an injury he then aggravated by hanging in a harness for eight hours a day on Aquaman. So far, so Dolph Lundgren. Model, actor, action star, man of steel (well, iron, technically). The man who has racked up 88 acting credits in the last 33 years, including some of the most memorable action movies of our lifetime: Masters Of The Universe, Universal Soldier, The Expendables. And, of course, the film that started it all: Rocky IV. A film in which he spoke just nine lines of dialogue and…15 min
Empire Australasia|March 2019SWINGERSRELEASED IN THE impossibly small window in 1996 when swing music, bowling shirts and fedoras briefly threatened to make a comeback, Swingers left not one but two lasting marks on the lexicon. The first, the compliment “you’re so money”, didn’t have much in the way of cultural currency, and was killed off completely once it was adopted by an online price comparison website. The second, the exclamation, “Vegas, baby!”, died an extremely long and drawn-out death at the hands of over-excited tourists everywhere. Both phrases now seem incredibly obnoxious in the cold light of day, but they cast a long shadow on Swingers, a film which, despite outward appearances, really had no intention of playing it cool. For starters, it’s not really a movie about Vegas at all: the sharp…5 min
Empire Australasia|March 2019“It’s a hopeful but harrowing story”AFTER YEARS IN front of the camera, acting in films like Loving and The Great Gatsby, Joel Edgerton made a storming debut behind the camera in 2015 with The Gift, a Hitchco*ckian horror that made its modest budget back more than 10 times at the box office. His second directorial effort, the real-life drama Boy Erased, is more earnest and more virtuous. But as Edgerton explains, it’s just as much of a horror movie as his last film. “I think Boy Erased has more scary moments than The Gift,” Edgerton asserts. “The Gift is designed to make an audience jump and jitter. Boy Erased is a true story that gets under your skin and makes you uncomfortable in other ways.” Here, the threat is more sinister because it’s real. And…2 min
Empire Australasia|March 20195 OF THE BESTWIDOWS OUT NOW / RATED MA15+ / 130 MINS If Widows proves anything, it’s that Steve McQueen is a director without fear: not so much dipping his toe into genre for the first time, but rather dive-bombing into the thriller pool fully clothed. Updating Lynda La Plante’s 1983 TV series for an era when minority empowerment has never been more urgent, McQueen trusts his talented female leads to beat their male counterparts at their own game, and having Viola Davis front and centre is his secret weapon. Davis heads up a hastily assembled squad of gutsy women determined to succeed where their felonious fellas fatally failed, while an oppressive atmosphere of financial, sexual and racial inequality and political corruption swell the tension. All this plus Olivia the West Highland White…4 min
Empire Australasia|March 2019THE EMPIRE CLASSIC SCENEJOE RUSSO: “There’s one scene that always brings tears to my eyes. I don’t know if I cry in appreciation or because I know I’ll never be able to do anything that good. It’s the showdown at the end of Once Upon A Time In The West . I love that scene. It’s so existential, this conflict that’s been brewing between these two characters. Even though they’re at odds with each other, they’re part of the same breed, this dying breed. This is like the last gunfight on the edge of civilisation.” EXT. RAILROAD — DAY Frank (Henry Fonda) rides on horseback through the town of Sweetwater. Harmonica (Charles Bronson), sitting by a tree stump, looks up. He stops whittling a piece of wood, closes his knife,…2 min
Empire Australasia|March 2019COMMENTYOU’RE HIRED, WE’RE FIRED I was reading the comment page of your January issue and realised that one of the writers had been introduced to Empire in a very similar way to me. I was visiting fam in England with my step-father and had stopped at a service station to get a bite to eat. I walked into the newsagency there and discovered a cool mag that read ‘Empire’ in bold white lettering on the front. Not only that, Black Panther was on the front and ‘STAR WARS’ was written in the corner. I paid my money and, as we travelled on the M1, I read the thing front to back. There was an interesting talk with Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks as well as a picture of The Rock…2 min
Empire Australasia|March 2019THRONE THEORIES1 A SONG OF FIRE Daenerys and Jon Snow, after a protracted campaign and heavy losses, venture forth — she astride Drogon, Jon astride Rhaegal — to bathe the Night King’s army in a sea of dragonfire, before going on to rule the Seven Kingdoms as Targaryen king and queen. The Iron Bank abandons Cersei (paying your debts has consequences), leaving her in the lurch until Jaime (or rather Arya, wearing his face) makes an end of her, thus fulfilling the prophecy that Cersei’s ‘little brother’ would prove her undoing. The Hound carves up what’s left of The Mountain, Theon rescues Yara and retires to the Iron Islands, and Bran, despite knowing everything, proves no help whatsoever. 2 A SONG OF ICE After discovering that Tyrion is, in fact, the…2 min
Empire Australasia|March 2019GLOBAL SHOCKSGLENN CLOSE Lady Gaga was expected to bag the Best Actress (Drama) gong, but The Wife’s star took it home instead. SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE The Miles Morales origin story beat Disney and Pixar’s usual stronghold in the Best Animated Feature category. GREEN BOOK Peter Farrelly’s road trip comedy-drama beat Mary Poppins Returns and Vice to the Best Musical/ Comedy gong. FIRST MAN Justin Hurwitz’s original score edged out category favourites Black Panther and Mary Poppins Returns. RAMI MALEK Malek’s performance was widely praised, but most had predicted Bradley Cooper to take either Best Actor or Director for A Star Is Born. He left empty-handed.…1 min
Empire Australasia|March 2019THE IDRIS REMIXIDRIS ELBA LOVES music. The young Idris would watch his uncle spin records and dream of being a superstar DJ; the grown-up version would foster a respectable sideline as a DJ and producer, sometimes under the moniker ‘Big Driis’. After years of inhabiting dark, challenging characters on screen (Stringer Bell, Detective John Luther, Nelson Mandela), the actor was looking for something a little closer to home. “It just felt like I owed it to myself to have a job which encompasses what I love in my spare time and what I do as an actor full time,” says Elba, talking to Empire in Ibiza, the day after filming wraps on Turn Up Charlie, a new comedy drama about Elba’s greatest passion. Elba plays Charlie, a frustrated DJ who never escaped…2 min
Empire Australasia|March 2019There’s something about MaryLONG BEFORE THE likes of Margot Robbie and Nicole Kidman became the Australian (Vegemite) toast of Tinseltown, the young daughter of a Queensland publican named Mary Maguire managed to go from Catholic schoolgirl to international movie star in record time. Although currently not a household name in her home country, new book Australia’s Sweetheart aims to shine a light on a star-studded life that took in everything from attending the 10th Academy Awards to dodging bombs during the The Blitz. Here’s a primer on the forgotten Aussie star that you need to know about... SHE WAS A STAR AT 15 After making her debut in one of Australia’s earliest talkies, 1933’s Diggers In Blighty, Mary (then known as Peggy) landed the leading lady role in Charles Chauvel’s 1935 epic Heritage.…2 min
Empire Australasia|March 2019FIGHTING WITH MY FAMILY★★★ OUT 21 MARCH / 108 MINS / RATED TBC DIRECTOR Stephen Merchant CAST Florence Pugh, Jack Lowden, NickFrost, Lena Headey, Vince Vaughn, Dwayne Johnson PLOT The lives of the eccentric Knight family from Norwich revolve around wrestling but the bonds of brother Zak (Lowden) and sister Raya (Pugh) are tested when the WWE comes knocking, but only one sibling makes the grade. Can the family survive the ascension of one of their own? THE WWE, BACK when it was known as WWF and there was no animal-based confusion, was the home of grown men in neon tights and face masks, wrestling other grown men in neon tights and face masks to respectable crowds in modest arenas. The World Wrestling Federation became World Wrestling Entertainment Inc. and, as the ‘inc’…3 min
Empire Australasia|March 2019SWIMMING WITH MEN★★ OUT 21 MARCH / CERT M / 97 MINS DIRECTOR Oliver Parker CAST Rob Brydon, Charlotte Riley, Jane Horrocks, Rupert Graves PITCHED AS THE new Full Monty, this does indeed share DNA with the hit 1997 comedy, following as it does a group of disparate, largely disconsolate men who find solace and support while performing nearly naked — here as part of a male synchronized swimming group. However, Oliver Parker’s film lacks the warmth and depth of its forebear, sunk by thin characterisation, clichéd female roles in Charlotte Riley’s bubbly coach and Jane Horrocks’ stony-hearted wife, and a clunky humour that weighs down the slight tale. An excellent cast — including Rob Brydon, Thomas Turgoose and Jim Carter — work hard with the material, but are so under-served, it’s…1 min
Empire Australasia|March 2019DESTROYER★★★★ OUT 21 MARCH / 121 MINS / RATED MA15+ DIRECTOR Karyn Kusama CAST Nicole Kidman, Toby Kebbell, Tatiana Maslany, Sebastian Stan, Scoot McNairy PLOT Seventeen years after being part of an undercover operation that went wrong, police detective Erin Bell (Nicole Kidman) hears that Silas (Toby Kebbell), the leader of the gang she infiltrated, is back in town. Bell is intent on settling old scores, whatever the cost. WE HAVE, WITHOUT a doubt, never seen Nicole Kidman like this before. But there’s far more to her performance in Destroyer than the remarkable, ravaging make-up job that has already received so much attention, and deserves to draw comparisons with Charlize Theron’s transformation for Monster in 2003. The role of LA detective Erin Bell is the kind you’d expect someone like…2 min
Empire Australasia|March 2019ALITA: BATTLE ANGEL★★★ OUT NOW RATED M / 122 MINS DIRECTOR Robert Rodriguez CAST Rosa Salazar, Christoph Waltz, Keean Johnson, Jennifer Connelly, Mahershala Ali, Jackie Earle Haley PLOT In the year 2563, cybernetics expert Dr Dyson Ido (Waltz) discovers a 300-year-old trash-heap treasure: the “core” of an advanced cyborg with a surviving teenage-girl brain. He rebuilds her and names her Alita after his dead daughter. But Alita (Salazar) has warrior instincts — and nemeses to fight. JAMES CAMERON IS a filmmaker who’s never failed to surprise us. He gave Alien a kick-ass war-movie sequel and turned an over-budget sinking-ship romance into history’s biggest movie, subsequently outgrossed when we went ga-ga for his nine-foot-tall blue cat people. His cinematic visions have always felt awesomely vast and startlingly original. But what’s surprising about Alita:…2 min
Empire Australasia|March 2019THE ORIGINS OF NICK FURYWhere is Nick Fury in his career in Captain Marvel ? He’s been out of the army for a while, and he’s now basically riding a desk in the newly created S.H.I.E.L.D., doing threat assessment, trying to figure out where the next war will jump off or where our next threat will come from, never even believing or knowing anything about extra-terrestrials. And what does he see for himself at the point we find him? He’s kind of bored! [Laughs] He doesn’t go in the field and do a lot of stuff. He’s doing threat assessment and there’s not a lot of ways to do that that are exciting. Does he have less of an edge to him — less world-weary, seen it all? He doesn’t have…3 min
Empire Australasia|March 2019SHOTS FIRED10 BAND REHEARSAL SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD - 0:02:54 Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World opens with an optical illusion, as Wright’s camera pulls back from Sex Bob-omb as they launch into a number, and then pulls back some more, stretching a small living room into something that looks like Wembley Stadium. “We did it for real. We had a massive carpet that went all the way back, and pulled out the wall, so the camera can track back. And the sofa was on coasters, and as the camera goes past, you push the sofa back into the shot.” Don’t try it at Fantastic Furniture. 9 GRABBING SOME PINTS THE WORLD’S END - 0:00:30 The opening shot of The World’s End is, according to Wright, “Gary King’s perfect world”, in…5 min
Empire Australasia|March 2019Much Ado About KennethAt the age when most of us were made to read Shakespeare, Kenneth Branagh was obsessed with him. He’s been a fan since he was a teenager and has directed six of Shakespeare’s plays on film, as well as starring in so many stage productions we lost count. Branagh’s latest project, as both director and actor, is Shakespeare-centric but no adaptation. All Is True is a fictionalised biopic, focused on the last years of Shakespeare’s life, after the writing stopped. It’s something Branagh has been percolating for 30 years, since the first time he mentioned it to its eventual writer, Ben Elton. It’s both a domestic drama, dredging up dark family secrets, and a look at how genius can come from very ordinary men. Under transformative prosthetics, Branagh plays with…13 min
Empire Australasia|March 2019BAD TIMES AT THE EL ROYALE00:03:36 NICK OFFED, ER, MAN __“I tend to think in moments when I’m working on a story,” says Drew Goddard, writer/director of Bad Times At The El Royale. “This was one of the first five things that popped into my head.” ‘This’ is the opening scene, in which Nick Offerman’s thief meticulously hides a bag of money in a grubby motel room, while we watch from what we will later understand is a two-way mirror. “Voyeurism is a key theme. I wanted to set the tone for the audience; we’re going to watch these people.” 00:16:26 CHECKING IN __ Shifting ahead ten years, Goddard assembles his characters — Jon Hamm’s vacuum salesman, Cynthia Erivo’s lounge singer, Jeff Bridges’ priest, Lewis Pullman’s bellhop and Dakota Johnson’s mystery lady — in the…3 min
Empire Australasia|March 2019Oskar recognitionLIAM NEESON WILL never forget shooting outside the gates of Auschwitz for Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List. You’ll remember the scene. It’s the moment Neeson’s Oskar Schindler is remonstrating with a Nazi guard to save a little girl from the camp because her small hands could fit inside metal shell casings to clean them (this is a Schindler improv — there’s no reason to clean inside metal shell casings). Fearing the site would turn into a “Hollywood backlot”, The World Jewish Congress denied Spielberg access to shoot inside the concentration camp, so the production evocatively utilised the exterior gates and train tracks. Waiting for the busy scene to be set, Neeson peered through the fences. “I was looking at the huts we were denied entry to,” says Neeson on the phone…10 min
Empire Australasia|March 2019WILDLIFEOUT NOW RATED M / 105 MINS DIRECTOR Paul Dano CAST Carey Mulligan, Jake Gyllenhaal, Ed Oxenbould, Bill Camp PLOT When 1960s dad Jerry (Gyllenhaal) is let go from his golf-course job for being too friendly to customers, a chain of events unfolds that rocks his whole family, not least wife Jeanette (Mulligan). AT THE RIPE old age of 31, Paul Dano decided to direct. And the indie star didn’t make things easy for himself, either: he took on a book by Richard Ford, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist whose spare, haunting prose has been compared to that of Raymond Caver. Wildlife is the tale of a 1960s nuclear family — mom, dad, teenage son — whose lives blow up like an atomic bomb. We see things through the eyes of…2 min
Empire Australasia|March 2019Blowing up expectationsJ.C. CHANDOR IS a director who knows how to turn his hand to genre movies and come up with something unexpected. In his new action-drama Triple Frontier, a group of hardened American combat veterans — played by a starry ensemble that includes Pedro Pascal, Ben Affleck, Charlie Hunnam and Garrett Hedlund — join forces to plan an audacious heist of a Colombian cartel kingpin, set in the notorious border zone between Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil. “We have a professional warrior class doing all the fighting in the US,” says Chandor, who co-wrote the script with Mark Boal (co-writer of Zero Dark Thirty and The Hurt Locker). Chandor shares with Boal an interest in the role of American military veterans today. “When you see the movie, it’s not like it’s on…2 min
Empire Australasia|March 2019THE MONEY SHOTMEN IN BLACK: INTERNATIONAL The good guys dress in black. Remember that. So when Tessa Thompson [1] makes face-to-face contact with Chris Hemsworth [2], the title held by she, MIB, means what you think you saw, you did not see. You certainly didn’t see Will Smith or Tommy Lee Jones in this initial trailer for the spin-off (vivid memories, you might say, turn to fantasies). Instead we have fresh blood taking on new enemies across the world. But trust me, if they ever show in your section, believe me, it’s for your own protection — ’cause they see things that you need not see, and be places that you need not be. Like, say, London [3], as this explosive shot suggests. Altogether now: “Here come the Men In Black, galaxy…1 min
Empire Australasia|March 2019PRIME TIMEI think I can guess this one: is Plastic Man basically a bloke made of petrochemical-derived polymer? Almost. A Golden Age superhero, Plastic Man was first introduced way back in 1941 in Police Comics #1 as Patrick “Eel” O’Brian, a small-time crook who specialised in safe-cracking. During a heist-gone-wrong, a chemical spill (what else?) accidentally grants O’Brian the properties of plastic. So he’s waterproof? And not widely recyclable? More like stretchy. Plastic Man can mould himself into practically any shape, any size and is virtually impervious to any force. He was also one of the earliest superheroes with a defined sense of humour, dispatching his foes with a well-timed wisecrack. Why hasn’t he made it to the big screen already? He’s more of a cult character than a headline hero.…1 min
Empire Australasia|March 2019The flight planDURING THE SHOOT of Tim Burton’s Dumbo, Colin Farrell (who plays the nominal human lead Holt Farrier) caught himself watching his director enraptured by what was playing out in front of him. “When Tim comes in to give his notes, he is a 60-year-old. [But] watching the monitor, he is just a child. It was lovely to see that level of engagement,” laughs the actor. “I swear to God, if we can get a reaction off a seven-year-old that is anywhere in the neighbourhood of what Tim’s reaction was in front of the monitor, we’ll be doing well.” Yet, for all the innocence that Burton is bringing to his updating of Disney’s 1941 baby-elephant-with-big-ears-flies classic, Farrell confirms that, “Tim is suspicious of things getting too sweet.” The story sees Dumbo…2 min
Empire Australasia|March 2019FIVE NOTABLE TRANS ACTORSLAVERNE COX The first openly trans woman to be nominated for an Emmy, Cox rose to fame as Sophia on Orange Is The New Black. BRIAN MICHAEL SMITH Smith came out as trans in 2017, using his role on Ava DuVernay’s TV drama Queen Sugar as a vehicle to disclose his gender identity. MYA TAYLOR Taylor earned international recognition for her breakthrough role in the iPhone-shot 2015 drama Tangerine. DANIELA VEGA Vega shot to fame when her starring role in Sebastián Lelio’s A Fantastic Woman won Best Foreign Language film at the Oscars. NICOLE MAINES Maines (below) made history in July when she joined the cast of Supergirl as Nia Nal, the first trans superhero on television.…1 min
Empire Australasia|March 2019HOW MUCH IS A CARTON OF MILK?Do you have a nickname? I hate nicknames. And I’ve always been a bit jealous of people who have them. Vanessa Kirby’s [Mission: Impossible Fallout] is Noo. We became friends later, but in the beginning we were sitting in make-up and she said “Becky” or something, and I said, “My name is Rebecca. Don’t shorten it. I’m happy we caught it on the first day.” That was the first time I met her! After that we hugged and kissed — we’re good friends now — but I remember thinking, “What a bitch I am.” When have you been most starstruck? I’ve just finished shooting a film called Doctor Sleep with Ewan McGregor. And every bloody time I met him I made a fool out of myself. A fool, I tell…3 min
Empire Australasia|March 2019UsPEELE HAS BEEN very open about the directors who have influenced his second movie, a surreal horror in which a family is attacked by sinister doppelgängers. In this spot, you can see plenty of shots that nod to his heroes. 00.03 VERTIGO, ALFRED HITCHco*ck Hitchco*ck’s ‘Bay Area movies’ strongly influenced the look of Peele’s film. “His works in the Bay Area have a vibe and an aesthetic for a horror thriller that you don’t see too often,” Peele explains. Several shots evoke Vertigo, with big, lonely vistas that give a sense of anonymity in a big city. 00.04 THE SHINING, STANLEY KUBRICK The Kubrick influence is clear in this spot. Lots of symmetrically arranged frames draw your eye down long corridors, bringing to mind The Shining and 2001. Peele cites…1 min
Empire Australasia|March 2019THE LEGO MOVIE 2: THE SECOND PART★★★★ OUT 21 MARCH RATED PG / 107 MINS DIRECTOR Mike Mitchell CAST Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Banks, Will Arnett, Alison Brie, Nick Offerman, Tiffany Haddish, Maya Rudolph, Stephanie Beatriz PLOT The Duplo aliens have left Bricksburg a wasteland. When General Mayhem (Beatriz) and Queen Watevra Wa-Nabi (Haddish) kidnap the residents, Emmet (Pratt) and new friend Rex Dangervest (also Pratt) have to save the day. FOR A BRIEF time in 2014, you couldn’t throw a plastic brick without it landing on someone singing ‘Everything Is Awesome’, the absurdly catchy song at the centrepiece of The Lego Movie. Sugary and energetic but also witty and ironic, it whittled all of the achievements of that expectation-defying movie down to two minutes and 43 seconds of earwormy joy. Fitting, then, that The Lego Movie…2 min
Empire Australasia|March 2019EVERYBODY KNOWS★★★★ OUT NOW / RATED M / 133 MINS DIRECTOR Asghar Farhadi CAST Penélope Cruz, Javier Bardem, Ricardo Darín, Carla Campra CASTING ACTUAL ROMANTIC couples is always a gamble. In Everybody Knows it pays off: Cruz and Bardem are great together, especially as Asghar Farhadi (A Separation) twists the conceit, his leads playing former lovers, both now remarried, with all that romance firmly in the past (or is it?). When Laura (Cruz), back at home for a wedding, has her daughter kidnapped, a seemingly bottomless can of worms is opened, skeletons falling out of the closet in droves. Absorbing, confident and still, even if it ultimately doesn’t amount to too much, it’s a wonderfully played out, tense couple of hours with moments of real, grounded terror.…1 min
Empire Australasia|March 2019SOMETIMES ALWAYS NEVER★★★ OUT 14 MARCH / RATED PG / 87 MINS DIRECTOR Carl Hunter CAST Bill Nighy, Jenny Agutter, Sam Riley, Alice Lowe, Tim McInnerny A SCRABBLE-OBSESSED tailor (Bill Nighy) searches for his long-estranged son, who ran out after a heated game many years ago, not realising that his other son (Sam Riley), now grown, is still chafing at always being number two in his father’s eyes. The odd Wes Anderson-like flourish aside, first time director Carl Hunter wisely lets Frank Cottrell Boyce’s (The Railway Man, Tristram Shandy: A co*ck And Bull Story) deft script and the strong cast, which includes Jenny Agutter and Tim McInnerny, do the heavy lifting, resulting in an amiable, occasionally insightful, and very British dramedy. Nighy’s turn as the dapper and droll word wrangler is the…1 min
Empire Australasia|March 2019CROSSING THE UNCANNY VALLEYIN 2019, WHAT the layman calls “special effects” — more properly visual effects or VFX — are no longer “special”. The state of digital art has progressed to the point where we can no longer see the seams. Digital apes walk effortlessly through physical forests, while everything from cities to alien landscapes are routinely conjured for real actors to inhabit. In that, Alita: Battle Angel is no different from any other blockbuster out this year. But in Alita herself, we find something different. In her, we’re presented with a primary, digital character who boasts photorealistic human features that are entirely believable — features our subconscious accepts so readily that, bar her enlarged, manga-inspired eyes, you might never realise she was artificial at all. With such glut of digital imagery comprising…3 min
Empire Australasia|March 2019EDGAR WRIGHT’S WILD RIDETHE DREAMER Lesley Wright (mother): One week he said, “Mum, I want to be a film star.” So I said, “To be realistic, you’re going to have to think about television first.” This is a five-year-old we’re talking about. He said, “No, that’s not famous enough.” Then the Two Ronnies were filming down on the beach. We went and met Ronnie Corbett and saw Ronnie Barker directing. We came back and I said, “Do you still want to be a film star?” Edgar said, “No. I want to be the director.” Because he’d watched Ronnie Barker all day. Edgar Wright: I grew up in Swanage, and Bournemouth was our nearest town showing first-run movies. Star Wars was my first film at the cinema. Lesley Wright: It was his brother Oscar’s…19 min
Empire Australasia|March 2019Taking FlightIt started on the toilet. In January 1977, nursing a hangover one Sunday morning, Donner sat there as the phone rang, listening to the Hungarian voice down the line. Producer Alexander Salkind, whom he’d never met, told Donner he had the rights to Superman and was making an origin story and sequel back to back. Donner was only half-interested; hot off the success of his breakthrough, The Omen, he was gearing up to make Omen II. Salkind told him he’d secured Marlon Brando as Superman’s father, Jor-El, and Gene Hackman as Lex Luthor, had a script by The Godfather’s Mario Puzo, and would pay Donner $1 million. Donner’s interest increased. Someone else could deal with Damien. “It’s so hard to talk about it,” says Donner, now 88, after lunch in…12 min
Empire Australasia|March 2019REIGN OF FIRENeil Marshall (Director of The Descent , Game Of Thrones episodes and the upcoming Hellboy ): In 1981 a fantasy adventure movie came out that was unlike anything we’d seen before — certainly unlike any Disney movie before it. Produced by Disney in conjunction with Paramount Pictures, Dragonslayer was written by Matthew Robbins and his long-term collaborator Hal Barwood, and brilliantly directed by Robbins. And this movie did for dragons what Jurassic Park would do for dinosaurs 12 years later: it made them seem entirely real. Nothing else has come close to depicting a world in which dragons feel like an integral part of the ecosystem, and sorcery part of the furniture. The movie pushed boundaries on many levels. It…12 min
Empire Australasia|March 2019SORRY TO BOTHER YOUOUT 27 MARCH / 112 MINS / RATED MAI5+ DIRECTOR Boots Riley CAST Lakeith Stanfield, Tessa Thompson, Armie Hammer, Danny Glover PLOT Cassius ‘Cash’ Green lives in his uncle’s garage, frustrated with his life and prospects. Getting a job as a telemarketer for shadowy company RegalView, he is exposed to dazzling individual opportunities — but at what cost? “HEY YOUNGBLOOD,” SAYS novice telemarketer Cassius’ (Stanfield) cannier colleague Langston (Danny Glover). “Use your white voice. Like being pulled over by the police.” If the African-American Cassius wants to succeed, he needs to play the system, as well as some dirty tricks. More significantly, he’s got to be someone — something — he’s not. If he even knows what he is to begin with. Sorry To Bother You is a dialled-up, adrenalised…2 min
Empire Australasia|March 2019Characters studyIT’S PERHAPS NO surprise that the man who created Freaks And Geeks on the small screen has spent plenty of time conjuring a posse of freaks and geeks on the big. Moronic superspies, kooky busters of ghosts, surprising sociopaths — Feig’s got ’em all. Here, he talks us through a few of his finest. ANNIE WALKER, BRIDESMAIDS Kristen Wiig’s flawed, directionless former cupcake store owner “The challenge with a character like this is they’re screwing up so much and doing things they shouldn’t be doing. So how do you get the audience not to go, ‘f*ck it, you’re frustrating me.’ The key was you had to see who she used to be. The most important scenes are when she’s in her bedroom looking at the pictures on the wall of…4 min
Empire Australasia|March 2019THE SEARCHERSTHE SCENE ISN’T in the screenplay. Perhaps writer Frank S. Nugent knew what his frequent collaborator, director John Ford, was going to do to elevate the ending, but on the page it simply has our (anti?)heroes trotting up to the Jorgensen ranch, with Ethan Edwards (John Wayne) balancing the long-missing Debbie (Natalie Wood) “on the pommel of his saddle, his arm supporting her, and she is asleep”. This is only a few moments — in screen time — after we’ve feared Ethan was going to kill his niece, because she has spent years living with the Comanche, the Native American tribe who kidnapped her after murdering her parents. The Searchers is an extraordinary story of family and, really, hate. And the final scene is remarkable for how it compensates somewhat…2 min
Empire Australasia|March 2019THE TOP TENSTAR WARS: EPISODE V — THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (1980) Ian: “A deserved number one, so rich and varied beyond the ‘Imperial March’ I would get married to Lando’s palace promenade theme.” SUPERMAN THE MOVIE (1978) Chris: “Brassy, confident, noble, triumphant. Yet the rest of the score is just as good. You will believe a composer can fly.” RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981) Ian: “A shout for Williams’ most hummable and malleable theme. How it is used in various forms in the truck chase is masterful.” E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL (1982) Helen: “The film music most likely to make your heart, and bike, soar. One of Williams’ most straight-up beautiful scores.” JAWS (1975) Amon: “Williams’ most simplistic theme is also his most terrifying. No other composer has wrung more suspense…1 min
Empire Australasia|March 2019GIVEAWAYSWIN! SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE ON BLU-RAY ONE OF LAST year’s pleasant surprises was discovering that not only was animated flick Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse excellent, but possibly the best Spidey film yet. Enter to win one of 10 Blu-rays of the lauded film, which is out on DVD, BD, 4K Ultra HD and digital 27 March. TO ENTER, TELL US WHAT YOUR FAVOURITE SPIDER-MAN MOVIE IS, AND WHY. WIN! WIDOWS ON BLU-RAY OR DVD STEVE MCQUEEN’S gripping heist film thriller boasts a killer cast including Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki, Cynthia Erivo, Colin Farrell and Liam Neeson. Enter to win one of five DVDs or one of five Blu-rays. Widows is out now on DVD, Blu-ray, 4K Ultra HD and digital. TO ENTER, TELL US WHAT YOUR FAVOURITE…1 min
