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Total Film|March 2024THE SMARTER MOVIE MAGAZINEIt feels embarrassingly appropriate to me that my first issue as editor of Total Film should feature two 80s titans like Road House and Ghostbusters, both of which were unassailable staples of my youth. I can practically quote both verbatim after wearing out my VHS tapes.So it was a massive thrill to talk to the stars of 2024's Road House about their wild new remake, which smashes together Jake Gyllenhaal's megawatt star power and Conor McGregor's chaotic intensity, and grapples with a completely new way of filming fight scenes.We're also in the edit bay for Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, and we've got in-depth features on game-changing sci-fi shows 3 Body Problem (from the creators of Game of Thrones) and Fallout (the next big video-game adap), plus a look at cult-favourite-inthe-making Abigail,…1 min
Total Film|March 2024HOT RIGHT NOWThey say the war tore a hole in the sky, the sun came down, burned everything, everyone…’ said Denzel Washington's blind drifter Eli, rather cryptically, in 2010 post-apocalyptic movie The Book of Eli. Well, now a prequel series starring John Boyega as Eli is set to answer what, exactly, happened to turn the US into a wasteland.Boyega will also be an executive producer, while the movie's directors Albert and Allen Hughes (Dead Presidents) will shepherd the show to our screens. You can expect the prequel to answer other key questions left dangling by the film: how did Eli become blind? Where did he learn his marksmanship and combat skills? And perhaps most important of all, how did Eli gain possession of the last Bible, key to humanity's salvation?News of the…2 min
Total Film|March 2024NOA'S ARCHumanity's devolution, Caesar's death, his son Cornelius continuing his legacy… it's a satisfying place to pause. Our minds can fill in the gap between the Planet of the Apes prequel saga's conclusion and where the story picks up in the original 1968 film, set 2,000-odd years in the future. And yet here comes Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, starting a likely new trilogy.Set 300-ish years after War…, it follows young ape Noa (Owen Teague), living under the rule of tyrannical leader Proximus Caesar (Kevin Durand), an evolved bonobo who has rejected Caesar's credo and is enslaving apes as he searches for lost human tech. A journey of discovery begins for Noa when the chimpanzee meets Mae (Freya Allen), a young feral human.‘All these trilogies tend to wane a…3 min
Total Film|March 2024SOUND BYTESIF IT'S sh*t, HE'LL GET SLAPPED AGAIN.’ANOTHER ROUND DIRECTOR THOMAS VINTERBERG ON CHRIS ROCK DIRECTING A US REMAKE.376THE PERCENTAGE BY WHICH ONLINE SEARCHES OF ‘WATCH OPPENHEIMER’ INCREASED WHEN NOLAN'S EPIC RECEIVED 13 OSCAR NOMINATIONS.‘PEOPLE TALK AND MOVE AROUND A LOT. I'M SHORT AND THERE'S ALWAYS A BIG PERSON IN FRONT OF ME.’MARTIN SCORSESE ON WHY HE DOESN'T SEE HIS OWN FILMS IN PUBLIC.HIGH FIVESPIKE LEE AND DENZEL WASHINGTON WILL TEAM UP FOR A FIFTH TIME TO REMAKE KUROSAWA'S CRIME THRILLER HIGH AND LOW.GOOD THINGBAD THINGRIPANIMATION DIRECTOR MARK GUSTAFSON (FANTASTIC MR. FOX, GUILLERMO DEL TORO'S PINOCCHIO) DIED OF A HEART ATTACK, AGED 64.‘I was the first kid in the UK to watch Star Wars… I hated it.’JONATHAN GLAZER WENT TO THE ONLY PRESS SCREENING WITH HIS DAD.$40mCOMBINED US CINEMA TICKET SALES…1 min
Total Film|March 2024AMERICAN NIGHTMAREGod bless America. This sentiment, repeated so liberally it is often rote, elicits genuine chills when it closes the trailer to the new film by Alex Garland (Ex-Machina, Annihilation). Uttered by Nick Offerman's tyrannical President, it comes after a series of truly disturbing images – tanks, air strikes, automatic weapons in the streets – that show an America torn apart by civil war.The near-future setting and Garland's celebrated history in the genre suggest that Civil War might be a work of science-fiction – but the British writer/director isn't so sure. Working with a $75m budget that's nose-bleed territory for both himself and production company A24, he's gone for a level of realism in his new film, and it really doesn't take much of a leap to envision today's divided America…2 min
Total Film|March 2024NEXT BIG THINGAs Carrie in Disney+ superpower comedy Extraordinary, Sofia Oxenham has the ability to channel and embody the dead. It's this shape-shifting quality that has served the RADAtrained star of Poldark, Cursed and the upcoming A Very Royal Scandal – which dramatises the Prince Andrew Newsnight interview – well as she heads into Extraordinary's second series and beyond.How much of you is in Carrie?I like to think that I'm as good a friend as Carrie is. I definitely have moments of being unsure of myself and being a bit shy, which Carrie definitely has more than me. It's the stuff that you try to hide in your own life, but then being able to explore that on screen is kind of therapeutic.Carrie can channel the dead – which characters have been…2 min
Total Film|March 2024ROYALLY SCREWEDSome television moments are forever etched into the public consciousness. The moon landing. The JFK assassination. Moonlight's Best Picture win. And, of course, Prince Andrew using Woking's Pizza Express as an alibi.Prince Andrew's car-crash interview with Emily Maitlis in November 2019 is now the subject of the Netflix film Scoop, based on the former Newsnight editor Sam McAlister's book. The always phenomenal Billie Piper plays Sam, who acts as our guide.‘We come into the story through Sam,’ says director Philip Martin. ‘She's not someone who goes to Buckingham Palace, so her dealings with the palace and Andrew's team come from the point of view of an outsider.’ This starkly contrasts with Martin's previous stint directing the first two seasons of The Crown, where ‘you're inside the castle bubble looking out…2 min
Total Film|March 2024FIGHTING FIT‘I had an incredible team around me. I recognised that if you're going to do something like this, not only is it about the aesthetic in a lot of ways, but it's also about the functionality of being able to do stunts day after day. A lot of these fights, we were shooting from 7pm to 5am.‘I had somebody waking me up in the morning before work, and we'd work out for an hour-and-a-half. And then I'd get to set, and we would have to figure out what the scene was. And I would work out in the morning depending on what was called for in the stunt, or how much energy I needed.‘It's weights. It's also fight training. It's also running. It was everything. The fight training was the…1 min
Total Film|March 2024THE BIG CHILLAfrenetic chase scene follows the iconic Ecto-1 as it speeds around the mean streets of Manhattan. A gargantuan ghost – called the Hell's Kitchen Sewer Dragon – swoops through the sky as Phoebe Spengler (Mckenna Grace) swings into action from the back door of the souped-up Cadillac. Behind the steering wheel, Paul Rudd's Gary Grooberson delivers witty one-liners to the Spengler family, who audiences first met in 2021's Ghostbusters: Afterlife. This time around, the Spenglers and Groob are hustling in the hot seat for some seriously sub-zero supernatural encounters thanks to an evil force known as the Death Chill; their rural days in Oklahoma clearly a thing of the past.Total Film has been invited into the edit bay of Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire for a sneak peek at scenes from the…11 min
Total Film|March 2024PAUL RUDDWhat excites you the most about Frozen Empire?I'm excited to see the OGs in their ghostbusting suits. Honestly, it's the biggest thrill to be in the room when they're doing their thing.How heavy is a proton pack?Heavier than you think. It's not the most comfortable thing. They started to set up these stands so that we could rest the packs easily while we were standing around with them on between takes.What do you make of the movie's newcomers?Kumail, Patton and James are hilarious. They're all smart and funny comedians – and big Ghostbusters fans. They are also really great guys, which is nice because it's fun to hang out with nice, funny people.What's James Acaster like?James is a great comedian and a real foodie, as we all know from his…1 min
Total Film|March 2024NUKE WORLD ORDERThere is a moment near the beginning of Fallout 3 – the landmark 2008 action roleplaying game from Bethesda Games Studios – that is imprinted on anyone who experienced it at the time. In it, the player-created main character opens the exit to the subterranean vault they've called home for 19 years, and steps into the blinding light of the Wasteland for the first time, a literal world of potential stretching as far as the eye can see.‘I was, right out of the gate, blown away,’ says Jonathan Nolan, the co-creator of HBO's Westworld and co-writer of The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises, The Prestige and Interstellar, alongside big brother Chris. During a conversation with Total Film in early February, Nolan is reminiscing about ‘looking for a new distraction’…11 min
Total Film|March 2024STRONG FEMALE CHARACTERSMONSTERS VS ALIENSSusan is a sweet girl until a meteor hits her on her wedding day, then turns her the size of a skyscraper. You're literally something on the bottom of her shoe.MY SUPER EX-GIRLFRIENDG-Girl has superpowers that make her a great mate, until she's dumped by her f*ckless boyfriend a powerful, vengeful former flame. Don't piss off a supe.WANDAVISIONWanda is a model wife to Vision, until she recalls the real reason for her creating their world. Then all hell breaks loose. Well, what is grief if not love persevering?ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT WOMANWealthy socialite grows gargantuan and goes after her philandering, murderous ex-hubby for revenge. You do you, Nancy. And in a makeshift bikini bedsheet.LET THE RIGHT ONE INPre-teen first love is cute, right? Holding hands, chatting by…1 min
Total Film|March 2024ROBOT DREAMS PGOUT 22 MARCH CINEMASDo androids really dream of electric sheep? Robot reveries turn out to be far more rich and soulful than Philip K. Dick suggested in Pablo Berger's heartwarming (and sometimes heartbreaking) Oscar-nominated animation about a lonely New York City dog and his robot buddy.Surprisingly, this vibrant, moving story about the very human need for friendship and connection has zero humans in it, because Dog is pining for a pal in a bustling, Zootropolis-style animal-packed 1980s Big Apple. His solitary life of Pong-for-one and ready meals is transformed when he literally makes a friend, laboriously constructing Robot from a TV-advertised kit.The second sizeable surprise is that this cleverly compassionate film also has no dialogue. Director Pablo Berger's lush silent-cinema take on Snow White, 2012's Blancanieves, proved he was a…3 min
Total Film|March 2024DO NOT EXPECT TOO MUCH FROM THE END OF THE WORLD 18OUT 8 MARCH CINEMASA near-three-hour dark comedy about a frazzled production assistant interviewing candidates for a workplace safety video might not sound like many cinemagoers’ idea of a good time. Throw in a cameo from controversial filmmaker Uwe Boll, nods to the repellent Andrew Tate and inserts of 1981 social-realist drama Angela Goes On, and Radu Jude's latest might seem an avant-garde provocation too far. But this restlessly inventive and scabrously funny film taps into universal and relatable truths.When she's not delivering tirades at fellow road users or making X-rated clips as Tatesatirising TikTok alter-ego Bobita, Ilinca Manolache's Angela proves that she's as smart as she is cynical – notably when she's running rings around Nina Hoss’ entertainingly aloof exec.Jude boldly flips from gritty black-and-white to colour for the tragicomic…1 min
Total Film|March 2024FOUR DAUGHTERS 12AOUT 1 MARCH CINEMASWriter/director Kaouther Ben Hania's fascinating Oscarnominated documentary relates the story of Tunisian woman Olfa Hamrouni and her four daughters, two of whom fled to Libya in 2015 to join Islamic State. Shooting in a disused Tunis hotel, Hania experiments boldly with form, using first-person testimony from Olfa and her two younger children, rehearsals with actors playing the mother and the absent older siblings, and filmed reenactments of family memories. What's revealed is a cycle of suffering in which traumatic experiences are tragically passed from generation to generation.…1 min
Total Film|March 2024RED ISLAND 12AOUT 1 MARCH CINEMASCURZON HOME CINEMAFollowing on from 2017's 120 BPM, director/co-writer Robin Campillo again draws on personal memories for this languid coming-of-age drama set on a French military base in Madagascar during the early 1970s, when the nation had its own growing pains. Sensitive eight-year-old Thomas (Charlie Vauselle) quietly observes the often-mysterious adult world around him and takes refuge in the exploits of masked superhero Fantômette. Sensually shot and making evocative use of period songs, Red Island imaginatively blends the personal and the political.…1 min
Total Film|March 2024SHOWING UP 12OUT NOW DVD, BD, DIGITALLizzy (Michelle Williams) wears a perma-frown. A sculptor in Portland, she has a show in a week's time, but life won't let her focus on the twisted figures her fingers painstakingly craft. For starters, she has no hot water – and her landlady Jo (Hong Chau), who happens to be a more successful artist with a happier disposition, keeps putting off fixing it. And then Lizzy's cat brings in a wounded pigeon that needs to be cared for…Will healing the bird prove a salve for Lizzy's sourness? Can we expect a frenzy of inspiration to ensure the show's a success? And will Lizzy's dysfunctional family – Judd Hirsch and Maryann Plunkett as her divorced parents, John Magaro as a brother with mental-health issues – support Lizzy's…1 min
Total Film|March 2024AMERICAN STAR 15OUT NOW CINEMAS, DIGITALAgeing hitman Wilson (Ian McShane) lands in the Canary Islands for one last job that starts to feel more like a retirement holiday. But then trouble arrives in the form of Adam Nagaitis’ younger assassin, and the nature of Wilson's brief is belatedly revealed. Until the inevitable violent climax, Gonzalo LópezGallego's film is a beguilingly languid mood piece, distinguishing itself via the twin landscapes of McShane's rugged features and the similarly handsome Fuerteventura scenery. There's fine support, too, from Nora Arnezeder as impetuous expat Gloria.…1 min
Total Film|March 2024HEAD COUNT 15OUT NOW DIGITALThere's a dash of Tarantino and a pinch of the Coens in this lively debut from the Burghart brothers (Ben and Jacob). A Kansas-set slice of pulp fiction, it stars Aaron Jakubenko (Tidelands) as Kat, an escaped con who, at the outset, is seen with his own revolver being held to his head by an unknown aggressor. How many bullets has the gun fired? That's part of the mystery, as Kat recalls prior events across several interlinked chapters. It's nothing new per se, but it's still a brisk 80-minute ride that boasts some ace supporting characters, intricate plotting and dialogue that occasionally fizzes.…1 min
Total Film|March 2024HIGH & LOW: JOHN GALLIANO 15OUT 8 MARCH CINEMASKevin Macdonald's (Touching the Void) nuanced documentary charts the rise, fall and comeback of British fashion designer John Galliano, who was sacked as creative director of Dior in 2011; a French court later found him guilty of antisemitic and racist rants in a public setting. Alongside illustrative film clips (The Red Shoes, Abel Gance's Napoleon) and footage of his workaholic subject's headline-grabbing shows, Macdonald interviews friends and high-profile colleagues of Galliano, as well as the man himself. Just how repentant he is remains ambiguous.…1 min
Total Film|March 2024DOGMAN 15OUT 11 MARCH BD DIGITALThe latest from writer/director Luc Besson is a curious tale of one man and his dogs. The man is Douglas (Caleb Landry Jones), who's been arrested for an initially unspecified crime. Wounded and bloody, he's dressed in a blonde wig and a pink evening dress. In the back of his van are his ‘babies’, a pack of dogs that obey his every command.In his cell, Douglas meets Evelyn (Jojo T. Gibbs), a kindly psychiatrist to whom he feels compelled to reveal his backstory. Given its depiction of a lonely soul in the city, some may compare this New Jersey fable with Besson's 1994 classic Léon. Here, Douglas only truly finds companionship with his furry friends. Their only flaw? Trusting humans, he says. Jones relishes the flamboyance…1 min
Total Film|March 2024ORION AND THE DARK PGOUT NOW NETFLIXYou wouldn't call Emma Yarlett's cosy kids’ book and arthouse fave Charlie Kaufman natural bedfellows. But DreamWorks’ charming animation finds the sweet spot, as Kaufman's script nimbly spins anxiety-ridden Orion's (Jacob Tremblay) bedtime fears into a wild, globetrotting ride with Paul Walter Hauser's wisecracking Dark. Despite its CGI good looks, the film has an indie, handmade feel. Small kids might struggle with the sudden changes of storyteller, but the smart explorations of fear and feelings are clear-cut, wrapped snugly in a rollicking adventure.…1 min
Total Film|March 2024THE ROARING TWENTIES PG1939 OUT 11 MARCH BD, 4K UHDEXTRAS Commentary, Featurettes, EssayThe Great War, the Great Depression, a love quadrangle, four musical numbers… Centred on James Cagney's rising/falling bootlegger, Raoul Walsh's decade-spanning gangster epic is stuffed to the gritty gills, but retains the lean punch the genre was famed for in the 30s. Director and star reteamed for the more-revered White Heat (1949), but at its best – Cagney trading quips with Gladys George, or barbs with Bogie – this burns just as bright.…1 min
Total Film|March 2024CIRCLE OF DANGER U1951 OUT NOW DVD, BD, DIGITALEXTRAS Intro, Featurettes, GalleryOut of the Past, Cat People, I Walked with a Zombie… French director Jacques Tourneur made more famous films, but this thriller is an overlooked gem. Blending Hitchco*ckian mystery and humour with the eccentricity of a windswept Powell and Pressburger romance, Circle of Danger sees Ray Milland travel from Florida to England, Wales and Scotland to investigate the death of his younger brother. Colourful and compelling, it gleams in this 4K restoration.…1 min
Total Film|March 2024MUDBOUND 152017 OUT NOW BDEXTRAS Commentary, Documentaries, Featurettes, EssayA well-deserved Criterion release for director/co-writer Dee Rees’ powerful historical race drama. Nominated for multiple Oscars, this adap expertly weaves together several narrative threads as it follows two farming families – white landowners and Black tenants – during World War Two. Prejudice, vulnerability and bitter human truths come to light in a movie distinguished by Rees’ grounded, intimate direction. Unsurprisingly, the array of extras highlight the dedication and resourcefulness that went into the production.…1 min
Total Film|March 2024AFTER HOURS 151985 OUT 22 MARCH CINEMASIt may be one of Martin Scorsese's less-celebrated films, but this darkly comic trawl through New York's underbelly is still a beguiling work, especially in this big-screen 4K restoration. Griffin Dunne is Manhattan office drone Paul Hackett, who escapes his drudgery by pursuing Rosanna Arquette's stranger into an increasingly fraught world of subway journeys, sculptures and sleazy nightspots. An early entry in the yuppies-inperil subgenre, its rogues’ gallery (everyone from Cheech Marin to Linda Fiorentino) and off-kilter plotting make for a compellingly wild ride.…1 min
Total Film|March 2024OZ1997-2003 AVAILABLE ON DVD, PARAMOUNT+Welcome to Emerald City: an experimental cell block within Indiana's maximumsecurity Oswald State Correctional Facility (aka Oz). Overseen by idealistic architect Tim McManus (Terry Kinney), the City's ambitious overhaul of inmate management is unique in that it gives prisoners nowhere to hide; while reform is prioritised over punishment, denizens are locked away in a series of transparent ‘pods’…In creating Oz for HBO, showrunner Tom Fontana tore up the television drama rulebook. Airing two years prior to The Sopranos, it was revolutionary in humanising its monsters, trusting audiences to understand their actions without recourse to glorification. ‘I wasn't interested in writing heroes per se,’ Fontana told Yahoo TV. ‘I was planning to make interesting characters.’Viewers enter this world via lawyer Tobias Beecher (Lee Tergesen), imprisoned after killing…2 min
Total Film|March 20242 MOREIMMORTALITYOUT NOW PS5Half Mermaid's mesmerising cinematic triptych – in which you match-cut between three fictional films to uncover the mystery behind the disappearance of actress Marissa Marcel – belatedly arrives on Sony's console.With newly added controller audio and haptic feedback, it's more tactile and unsettling still, making this the definitive version of a modern masterpiece.PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE LOST CROWNOUT NOW PC, PS4/5, SWITCH, XBOX ONE/SERIES X/SUbisoft's smart, sidescrolling reinvention of this venerable series combines exhilarating acrobatics with intense, satisfying combat. Protagonist Sargon gets to command not just time but space, though the best of his powers lets him tag screenshots to the in-game map so you need never get lost in this labyrinthine world.…1 min
Total Film|March 2024CALL SHEET THIS ISSUE'S EXTRASEDITOR-AT-LARGE (ACTING NEWS EDITOR)JAMIE GRAHAM@JAMIE_GRAHAM9When discussing Civil War on Zoom, Alex Garland was a thoughtful talker. In every way. He carried his laptop with him to open his hotel door to room service rather than leave me behind.DEPUTY ONLINE ENTERTAINMENT EDITORFAY WATSON@FAYANNAWATSONI got to witness Sam Rockwell and Bryan Cranston having a lightsaber fight on the Argylle premiere red carpet. Lucasfilm, they're waiting for your call…REVIEWS EDITORMATTHEW LEYLAND@TOTALFILM_MATTLAt this year's London Film Critics’ Circle awards, best speech – or rather, best bantz – went to Anatomy of a Fall's real-life partners Justine Triet and Arthur Harari.CONTRIBUTING EDITORJANE CROWTHER@JANEVGCROWTHERLoved chatting to Kristen Stewart about Love Lies Bleeding. She told me I sounded so much like her producer on this film that she wondered if she was being pranked.DEPUTY EDITORJORDAN FARLEY@JORDANFARLEYJust as…1 min
Total Film|March 2024SATANIC PANICWhen director Arkasha Stevenson (Legion) was seven years old, her mum showed her The Exorcist, Rosemary's Baby and The Omen. Fast-forward a couple of decades and she found herself reading a screenplay that served as a prequel to the last of those aforementioned religious horror classics. And she was hooked.‘What I really liked was that the script wasn't trying to remake the Richard Donner movie,’ she says, namechecking the famous 1976 film that deals with the coming of the antichrist. ‘I don't think you can touch that movie. It was presented like a drama – horrible things happening to real people. This script, you fall in love with this one woman, as just awful things happen to her.’Set five years before the original movie, The First Omen sees novitiate nun…2 min
Total Film|March 2024DYNAMIC DUOWade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds) is celebrating his birthday with friends (hi, Peter!) from the first two films. But didn't some of them die? Nothing a time-travel device and some multiverse adventuring won't solve…Meet TVA agent Paradox, played by Succession's Matthew Macfadyen. He offers Wade the chance to be a ‘hero among heroes’. Look closely – there's a glimpse of some of the Avengers on the TVA monitors.Your little cinematic universe is about to change forever. I'm the Messiah. I… am… Marvel Jesus.’ Good to see that the Merc with a Mouth has lost none of his ability to shock.Who's that knocking at the door? Members of the Time Variance Authority (TVA), as introduced in TV series Loki. Wade looks at their stick-weapons and quips, ‘Pegging isn't new for me. But…1 min
Total Film|March 2024THE LLWORDAwards season is a strange time of year for us film nerds. All of a sudden, the ‘normies’ want to weigh in on The Globes v The Oscars and whether Sandra Hüller's acting performance in Anatomy of a Fall was more awards-worthy than her performance in The Zone of Interest, despite any sensible person knowing that she actually should have been nominated for 2016's Toni Erdmann.Hüller aside, online Oscar debates focus on ‘snubs’ v ‘pleasant surprises’ and this year's noms had more of the latter. My money is on Oppenheimer storming it, but I could not have been happier to see Jonathan Glazer, Io Capitano, Da'Vine Joy Randolph, Justine Triet, Four Daughters and The Boy and the Heron make the cut. And my heart soared when Lily Gladstone became the…3 min
Total Film|March 2024KING FOR A DAYWhen Maïwenn met Johnny Depp, there were always going to be eyebrows raised. She's the rebellious French actor-director (Polisse, Mon Roi) recently fined €400 for assaulting a French journalist. He's the Hollywood star who fell from grace after his court case with ex-wife Amber Heard. Together, they're co-starring in Jeanne Du Barry, a period drama written, produced and directed by Maïwenn, set in the court of France's King Louis XV.With Depp cast as Louis XV, Maïwenn plays Jeanne, a woman of low birth who rises to become the king's favourite, scandalising the court. ‘As soon as someone who has power falls in love with someone who has no power at that time, there's scandal there because it's balancing prejudice… believing that that person is in a relationship for different reasons…2 min
Total Film|March 2024THE GREEK ESCAPEWhen Singaporean director Anthony Chen cast British actress Cynthia Erivo (Harriet) in his new film, Drift, he sensed this was going to be a unique experience. ‘It's a project that is close to our hearts,’ says Chen (Ilo Ilo). ‘The depths of emotions that she has to reach in this film… I think it's one of the most vulnerable performances you've ever seen from her. It might be something that audiences have not seen before from Cynthia Erivo.’Adapted from the novel by Alexander Maksik, Drift tells the story of Jacqueline (Erivo), a woman who has fled Liberia and made it to a Greek island. So real did it feel, Chen didn't even know it was fiction when he first read the script. ‘There was something very authentic about the portrait…2 min
Total Film|March 2024ALL ABOUT STEVEWhat's great about Steve is, he's funny but also intellectual,’ says Morgan Neville, who has made documentaries on Bono, Johnny Cash and Keith Richards, but is best known for Won't You Be My Neighbor? (2018), the heartwarming, soul-searching study of iconic children's TV host Fred Rogers. ‘There's something about that high-culture/low-culture thing that Steve does that I love. You can be stupid and you can be really smart at the same time.’As the title suggests, STEVE! (martin) a documentary in 2 pieces divides the legendary comic and actor's life into twin sections. The first, aided by a stunning array of archive material, wads of which were previously unseen, tracks his childhood, education, love of magic, jobs at Disneyland, and the 15 years spent chiselling away at an avant‑garde routine that…2 min
Total Film|March 2024ESSEX GIRLSIt was just memories and stories. And then I just glued them together,’ says Sacha Polak, the Dutch director back with her second English-set feature, Silver Haze. The first, acclaimed 2019 drama Dirty God, starred real-life burns survivor Vicky Knight as a woman overcoming severe injuries. Such was the bond created, Polak and Knight decided to collaborate again. ‘When we were travelling [for Dirty God], we were on planes and just chilling with each other,’ explains Knight. ‘We were talking about my life experience. She told me hers. And that's how the script came about.’In Silver Haze, Knight plays Franky, a nurse emotionally (and physically) scarred from a pub fire 15 years earlier who now seeks both answers and revenge. ‘I didn't really want to make a very plot-driven film,’…2 min
Total Film|March 2024NORTHERN FRIGHTSThe screenwriting debut of actor Andrew Buchan (Broadchurch), six-part thriller Passenger casts Loki's Wunmi Mosaku as former Met officer Riya Ajunwa, whose yearning for a big case in the northern town of Chadder Vale is granted when a delivery goes missing, followed by the abduction of a teenage girl. A series of inexplicable and increasingly horrific events follow…Where did the idea for Passenger come from?Andrew Buchan: I grew up in Bolton, where people reacted to major events by squashing and dismissing them with a quip or quick-fire retort. That always interested me, and I wondered: what would be the worst thing I could put in a small northern community, something that would stretch their humour to the limit? Two huge influences are Fargo and Stranger Things, the way they juxtapose…2 min
Total Film|March 2024THE HEROI am happy. I feel very alive,’ says Sean Penn, the 63-yearold American actor-director, who is loving life right now. And well he might. A regular behind the camera (including the recent Flag Day and Ukraine doc Superpower), the two-time Oscar winner (Best Actor for Mystic River and Milk) is still very much in demand in front of it. Next up, the grim-but-stirring Black Flies as a New York paramedic, alongside Tye Sheridan…Black Flies is a tough watch. Was it miserable to make?I had that kind of misery on this. But I also had great partners in Tye and Jean-Stéphane [Sauvaire, director]. Every hour that we worked together, we never had anything but the most respect and collaboration. I felt very protective of Jean-Stéphane. I just felt the limitations financially……3 min
Total Film|March 2024FAVOURITE SWAYZEJake Gyllenhaal‘I worked with Patrick Swayze on Donnie Darko, and loved him. He's such an amazing guy. I had a wonderful time with him, and stayed in touch with him throughout the years. I am not one for lists [of favourite films]. I have made mention of Point Break as one of my favourites. I've watched that tons of times, I'd say. Dirty Dancing – I just love him in everything that he did.’Lukas Gage ‘I'd have to go with Donnie Darko, which brings it back to Jake Gyllenhaal and Patrick Swayze. I truly can quote that whole entire movie. I mean, Dirty Dancing, also, is just so good. [Road House] is a banger. Patrick Swayze is amazing. The movie is so fun.’Jessica Williams ‘Ghost, for sure. I am a…1 min
Total Film|March 2024CARRIE COONWhere's Callie at the start of the movie?Callie and Gary are co-habiting in this dilapidated firehouse. They are play-acting as parents to teenage children. Can Gary and Callie make it? What kind of parents will they be? That's what they're figuring out.How would you describe the firehouse set?I lived in Tribeca for a couple of years and I used to walk by that corner all the time, so to walk into the studio and see it built with enough space for a car to drive past… well, this business never ceases to amaze me. It was bizarre.Would it be a fun place to live?We all loved to go down the fire pole. To be honest, that's one of those actions you could charge people $10 to do.Is it a decent…1 min
Total Film|March 2024THE LONG GAMEWhen HBO's wildly popular Game of Thrones concluded in 2019, it left a fantasy-shaped hole in many people's lives. But most of all, for the show's creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss. ‘We spent 13 wonderful years in the world of that show and wouldn't trade them for anything,’ says Weiss, 52, speaking over Zoom from a rock-star looking room bedecked with electric guitars. ‘But we really wanted to do something that felt different in many, many ways.’Among other projects, they considered entering the Star Wars universe with The First Jedi, a story about how the Jedi Order came to be – until Lucasfilm nixed it. Yet sci-fi was to remain central to the show they settled on: 3 Body Problem, a hugely ambitious, nearunclassifiable genre-hopping hybrid based on the…11 min
Total Film|March 2024SUIT CASE‘The first meeting was so exciting,’ says costume designer Amy Westcott. ‘I was like, “This is great! This is great!” And then I started thinking, “Oh my God, this is petrifying!” The Power Armour was a collaboration with props, the art department, and then they made them out in LA.These phenomenal makers – Legacy – made all the pieces. We made sure that the performer wasn't going to die underneath them [in the heat].It was a lot of collaboration in getting them on, also just so that the actors and the stunt players would actually be able to work in them.And there were under-layers that you had to see, and that had to make sense for the characters.The Brotherhood was so massive and epic that it was a lot of…1 min
Total Film|March 2024JACK O'CONNELL‘I THINK I STILL DO FEEL LIKE AN OUTSIDER, TO BE HONEST’When Total Film catches up with Jack O'Connell in February, he's on an uncharacteristically chilled break. ‘I'm just in Italy, in the mountains,’ he explains. ‘Just frolicking around in the snow.’ Not exactly what you expect if you're familiar with his on-screen work, which frequently has a ferocious edge.After doing classic Brit TV staples (The Bill, Holby City), O'Connell showed early promise in the likes of This Is England and Eden Lake. Born in Derbyshire in 1990 to an Irish father and English mother, O'Connell almost pursued a career in football before he found drama, his working-class roots making him something of a rarity in the British acting scene. His big break came with Skins, E4's talent hotbed that…20 min
Total Film|March 2024SPACEMAN 15OUT NOW CINEMAS 1 MARCH NETFLIXJohan Renck's (Chernobyl) film casts Adam Sandler as ‘the loneliest man who has ever lived’. That's no wild claim: Sandler plays astronaut Jakub who, nine months into a mission to investigate a mysterious cloud by Jupiter, is the furthest from human contact that anyone has ever been.Jakub's eager to patch things up with his pregnant wife Lenka (Carey Mulligan) back on Earth; but this gorgeous existential sci-fi has more than space travel and despair on its mind. Before long, our hero forges a connection with a giant extraterrestrial spider with an abundance of emotional intelligence and a tiny human mouth, from which springs the voice of Paul Dano.Yes, it sounds like the premise for a broad comedy – and Spaceman does deliver the occasional laugh.…1 min
Total Film|March 2024THE INVENTOR PGOUT 8 MARCH CINEMASStephen Fry plays Leonardo da Vinci in this modestly engaging whistlestop(-motion) tour of the Renaissance man's life and work. Also featuring the voices of Daisy Ridley (sidekick Marguerite de Navarre), Marion Cotillard (patron Louise de Savoy) and Matt Berry (the Pope), its somewhat meagre story documents da Vinci's quest to uncover the meaning of life, the universe and everything. Written/directed by Ratatouille scripter Jim Capobianco (and co-helmed by Pierre-Luc Granjon), it's nothing groundbreaking, but its visuals (using puppetry and traditional 2D animation) and gentle humour frequently charm.…1 min
Total Film|March 2024THE NEW BOY TBCOUT 15 MARCH CINEMASHeavy on symbolic imagery, light on plot, writer/director Warwick Thornton's (Sweet Country) drama follows a nameless Aboriginal boy (newcomer Aswan Reid) as he's brought to an outback mission run by Cate Blanchett's troubled nun. Wilful and near-silent, he's treated with curiosity, before suspicion and fear creep in as he's revealed to possess strange – possibly divine – powers. More a loose collection of scenes than a cohesive narrative, it's still an enveloping audiovisual experience, with Thornton's gorgeous lensing almost matched by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis’ expressive score.…1 min
Total Film|March 2024LOVELY, DARK, AND DEEP 15OUT 25 MARCH DIGITALBarbarian star Georgina Campbell finds herself in another nightmare scenario in writer/director Teresa Sutherland's debut, a tricksy horror largely set in the desolate wilds of a national park. Campbell plays Lennon, a ranger whose time monitoring the park gets increasingly fractious and dreamlike. The actor is a solid presence, shouldering the bulk of the narrative peril, but she's hampered by a workmanlike script. And while the atmosphere is amped up with an unnerving score and some eerie wide shots, actual scares are few and far between.…1 min
Total Film|March 2024SHAYDA 15OUT 8 MARCH CINEMASInspired by the director's own experiences, Noora Niasari's film is a powerful look at both Iranian culture and domestic violence. Zar Amir Ebrahimi (who won Cannes’ Best Actress for Holy Spider in 2022) delivers a nuanced turn in the title role, an Iranian mother-ofone who, after leaving abusive husband Hossein (Osamah Sami), finds refuge in a shelter for women in the Australian suburbs. Aided by the kindly Joyce (Leah Purcell), Shayda tries to get her life back on track alongside her young daughter Mona (Selina Zahednia).Knife-edge tension takes hold when Hossein reappears, raising the possibility that he may yet snatch Mona and smuggle her back to Iran. Like Asghar Farhadi's A Separation (2011) before it, Niasari's script touches on Iran's byzantine divorce laws, pressing home the jeopardy…1 min
Total Film|March 2024MADAME WEB 12AOUT NOW CINEMASSony Pictures’ quest to extend their live-action Spider-verse beyond the MCU continues with this spin-off starring Dakota Johnson as clairvoyant ambulance driver Cassandra Webb, who becomes entangled with three teens (Isabela Merced, Celeste O'Connor and Sydney Sweeney) and their would-be killer (Tahar Rahim). Rather than kicking off a new universe of heroes, Madame Web feels more like a failed TV pilot, complete with sluggish action and cheap-looking costumes. Further bogged down by egregious product placement, it's a big disappointment – but we all saw it coming……1 min
Total Film|March 2024THE DELINQUENTS 12AOUT 22 MARCH CINEMASUnfolding in Buenos Aires and the bucolic Cordoban countryside, this leisurely existential fable from Argentinian writer/director Rodrigo Moreno begins in heist-movie territory. Middleaged bank clerk Moran (Daniel Elias) plans to steal $600,000 from his employers, relying on his colleague Roman (Esteban Bigliardi) to stash the money, all while he serves a three-year jail sentence. Awash with playful doublings and contrasts, Moreno's movie refuses to be boxed in by genre conventions, heading off instead on all manner of unexpected and entertaining digressions.…1 min
Total Film|March 2024EUREKA 15OUT NOW CINEMASThree apparently disparate narratives are connected by themes of colonial oppression in this singular drama by Argentinian auteur Lisandro Alonso. A gunslinger (Viggo Mortensen, star of Alonso's 2014 film Jauja) searches for his kidnapped daughter in a brutalist black-and-white western; a Native American police officer (real-life law enforcer Alaina Clifford) navigates a rough night on the job; and an indigenous community encounters a strange bird in 1970s Brazil. True edification is AWOL in a voyage through time, space and multiple genres, but the journey's an exhilarating one.…1 min
Total Film|March 2024THE PERSIAN VERSION 15OUT 22 MARCH CINEMASMaryam Kershavarz's buoyant comedy follows the trials of Leila (Layla Mohammadi), a New Yorkbased Iranian-American would-be screenwriter enduring strained relations with her immigrant family, especially mum Shireen (Niousha Noor). Kershavarz is good on cultural differences – not least the impact Leila's sexuality makes – and has a fine sense of comic timing, with Tom Byrne's British drag queen a real hoot. Mohammadi is also a compelling lead. But a long-winded third act, as family secrets come to light, hampers the film's otherwise breezy nature.PIDTUREHOUSE, BLUE FINCH, MUBI, SOVEREIGN, SONY, DOGWOOF, ALTITUDE…1 min
Total Film|March 2024MONOLITH 15OUT NOW DIGITALA hit on the festival circuit, Matt Vesely's absorbing debut will likely appeal to anyone who enjoyed such low-budget, high-concept sci-fi thrillers as Cube, The Man from Earth and Coherence.Shot almost entirely inside a remote modernist house, it's dominated by close-ups of an unnamed protagonist, the film's only on-screen character, played by Evil Dead Rise's Lily Sullivan. A disgraced journalist who failed to corroborate a big story, she's now reduced to hosting a clickbait podcast called Beyond Believable – which aptly describes the tale she's now chasing, about a handful of people receiving black bricks that induce unnerving visions. Then a package arrives on her own doorstep…A film about the power of storytelling, this hi-tech equivalent of a creepy campfire tale spreads its dread without recourse to volatile…1 min
Total Film|March 2024THE BRICKLAYER 15OUT NOW SKY CINEMA, NOWRenny Harlin's (Die Hard 2, The Long Kiss Goodnight) latest casts Aaron Eckhart as the titular action man, an ex-black ops agent turned merry builder who's forced out of retirement by friend-turned-foe Clifton Collins Jr. Along for the ride is newbie agent Nina Dobrev, who has little to do but serve as a woman in peril. The action sequences are choppy and confusing, the script is laboured and the acting verges on caricature. Still, Eckhart is a top-class gravelly hero, bruised and battered but fighting to the end, while Tim Blake Nelson adds class as his CIA boss.…1 min
Total Film|March 2024DEVIL GIRL FROM MARS PG1954 OUT NOW DVD, BD, DIGITALEXTRAS Commentary, Featurette, Stills, Art cardsShot in three weeks in order to use up some pre-paid studio time, this Brit sci-fi quickie has acquired a degree of enduring cult appeal, thanks mostly to MVP Patricia Laffan's imperious turn. The Quo Vadis actor plays Nyah, a Martian bound for London who crash lands next to a Highland inn instead. As our devil girl goes in search of male breeding stock, cheap thrills come via Nyah's powers and the half-dozen soapy subplots that bubble up among the pub-goers.…1 min
Total Film|March 2024DAZED AND CONFUSED 151993 OUT 25 MARCH 4K UHDEXTRAS Commentary, Documentary, Featurettes, Deleted scenes, BookletAs pop-culture writer Chuck Klosterman notes in one of the essays accompanying this 4K UHD reissue of Richard Linklater's evergreen third feature, ‘Dazed and Confused is not a film about how things were; Dazed and Confused is a film about how things are remembered.’ It's a movie that somehow manages to avoid the comfy trappings of self-conscious nostalgia-bait, while simultaneously making audiences nostalgic for a time and place that 99.9% of us never actually experienced.A snapshot of the last day of school in Austin, Texas, during the summer of 1976, Dazed and Confused is less a story than a series of interwoven vignettes. If the lack of both narrative drama and the obvious jokes you'd expect from a traditional…1 min
Total Film|March 2024BEVERLY HILLS COP TRILOGY 151984-94 OUT NOW 4K UHDEXTRAS Commentary, Featurettes, Deleted scenesAhead of this summer's long-gestating, Netflix-backed fourquel Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F, here's a chance to refresh your memory (in 4K, no less) of the past adventures of Eddie Murphy's renegade law enforcer.Directed by Martin Brest (Midnight Run), it's the 1984 original (★★★★) that's most worth your time. Murphy's potty-mouthed Detroit ‘tec arrives in LA on the hunt for a killer, locking horns with the by-the-book Beverly Hills PD and crooked art dealer Victor Maitland (a sublime Steven Berkoff). A cool, buoyant mix of bullets and zingers, all set to Harold Faltermeyer's era-defining synth score, it's peak Murphy. A film every bit as infectious as its star's braying laugh, BHC remains a mid-8os Hollywood high point – which probably explains why it…1 min
Total Film|March 2024INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS 151978 OUT NOW BD, 4K UHDEXTRAS Commentary, Documentary, Featurettes, Art cards, Poster, BookletThe late 70s/early 80s treated cinemagoers to a run of provocative do-overs of 50s sci-fi flicks. The first, Philip Kaufman's rich and resonant Body Snatchers remake, relocates the ‘pod people’ to San Francisco, switching out the original's Cold War allegory for the isolation and paranoia of big-city living. The new 4K upgrade turns out to be a bit of a body snatcher itself, exactly replicating the 2013 Blu-ray in every way, but with improved image fidelity.…1 min
Total Film|March 2024HORRORS OF THE BLACK MUSEUM 121959 OUT NOW BDEXTRAS Commentary, Featurette, Introduction, Gallery, Art cardsShocking in its day, schlocky today, the first entry in AngloAmalgamated's ‘Sadian’ trilogy is an odd hybrid of Anglo-American conceits. Michael Gough's crime journo gets overexcited helping the police hunt ‘a brilliant maniac’ murdering women. Shocker: it's actually him, and he's got a brainwashed teen doing his killing. The result resembles a US youth-in-crisis movie made lurid in London, featuring proto-Saw death devices in the basem*nt and an amusingly OTT Gough.…1 min
Total Film|March 2024M V PADEWALE AKINNUOYEAGBAJE AS SIMON ADEBISI Emerald's City most fearsome resident, Nigerian drug lord Simon Adebisi, is also its most recognisable. Known for his love of knitted beanie hats and heroin, Adebisi takes leadership of the ‘Homeboys’ gang, taking no prisoners in his rise to power. Future Lost star AkinnuoyeAgbaje brought charisma and a cheeky sense of glee to the big man's sociopathic antics. The show's decline is often traced to S4 and Adebisi's exit, in which he was killed off to accommodate the actor's role in The Mummy Returns. Oz was never the same again……1 min
Total Film|March 2024FRESH SPINSTHE HOLDOVERSUndervalued Seattle song-man Damien Jurado provides a pitch-perfect opener for Alexander Payne's latest with the soft-spun melancholy of Silver Joy. Elsewhere, era-specific pop/rock/folk cuts sit beautifully with Mark Orton's wistful, wintery score, where rootsy stylings mix with warm woodwinds, bluesy piano and sleepy strings. Sweetly resolute closer Into the Unknown is a keeper, while the Christmas songs add succour to sorrows: Orton's It's Christmas! has just the right bittersweet seasonal spirit.AMERICAN FICTIONLike Jeffrey Wright's Monk, Laura Karpman (The Marvels) lost her father before scoring Cord Jefferson's literary satire. Begun on her dad's piano, the jazzy results – nodding to Thelonious Monk – ripple with understanding and intuition, woven into character with dexterity and feeling. Pensive and deliberately fractured themes slowly give way to warmer, catchier cues (Hi Lorraine), before…1 min
Total Film|March 2024GHOSTBUSTERSELMER BERNSTEIN AND VARIOUS SONY MUSIC CLASSICALElmer Bernstein composed beautiful music for literary classics, scored for biblical epics and issued rousing fanfares for westerns. But for some fans, he will always be the man who made music for marshmallow monsters and slimy spooks. And as he knew, there's no shame in that: in his comedy phase, Bernstein invested Ghostbusters with a sure balance of invention and energy, irreverence and respect.Not that he was alone. As was the 80s way, much of the space on the initially released Ghostbusters soundtrack went to the songs. Bernstein had his doubts about including certain songs on film, but the veteran composer couldn't question the value of Ray Parker Jr.'s irrepressible title track. Echoes of Huey Lewis and the News’ I Want a New Drug…2 min
Total Film|March 2024FANG GIRL@JAMIE_GRAHAM9Directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, who together with producer Chad Villella form the filmmaking collective Radio Silence, are pondering just how bloody their new movie is. They're no strangers to pumping plasma, having made Ready or Not, Scream and Scream VI. But vampire flick Abigail is set to turn up the hose setting as they put the ‘eww’ into crucifix.‘I mean, all of our movies are bloody, and I would say that this is definitely the most bloody,’ says Gillett, looking to his partner for confirmation. Bettinelli-Olpin grins, saying, ‘We spent a lot of time apologising to our actors on this movie! I mean, blood is in the DNA of a vampire movie. And the amount of blood work in this one is…’ Now Gillett is grinning, too. ‘It's…5 min
Total Film|March 2024JEEPERS KEEPERSHoard was never going to be seen,’ director Luna Carmoon confides to Teasers during the Venice Film Festival. ‘I was going to top myself and leave this story that I wrote, this 20-page story, at the bottom of my bed.’ Suicide is no joking matter, but Carmoon is serious. ‘I was in a strange place. One of my first feature projects just got ghosted. And if you're someone who has nothing to fall back on, these things are heartbreaking. The whole thing can take you down to rock bottom.’Thankfully, Carmoon picked herself up and turned her short story into the script for Hoard, an emotionally wrought look at an orphaned, grieving teen, Maria (newcomer Saura LightfootLeon), embroiled in a torrid affair with a charismatic but damaged older man, Michael (Joseph…2 min
Total Film|March 2024YAS QUEENThe Middle Ages has always been fertile ground for dramatic epics, but rarely since Monty Python and the Holy Grail has its comedic potential been taken for a feature-length exploration. Seize Them! director Curtis Vowell tells Teasers he was well aware of this after attempting to describe his new Dark Ages Britain-set comedy to friends. ‘I was like, “It's a medieval comedy,” and they were like, “Well, there's only like two films that have ever been made, it's not really a genre.”’At least those inspirations are toptier, with the Pythons a key touchstone for Vowell. ‘If someone wants to reference Monty Python, that means we've absolutely done our job,’ he says, adding The Princess Bride and the recent revisionist approaches of Bridgerton and The Great as other influences on the…2 min
Total Film|March 2024SHORT CUTSSUPER-DUPERJames Gunn took to Threads to confirm the rumours that House of the Dragon star Milly Alco*ck (right) will be Supergirl (‘Welcome to the DCU, Milly Alco*ck!’). It's thought she'll debut in 2025's Superman: Legacy.PREY DAYDan Trachtenberg is making a new Predator movie. His prequel, Prey, broke viewing records on streaming service Hulu (Disney+ in the UK). The new film, Badlands, is thought to be set in the future and will once more feature a female lead.FANTASTIC NEWSMarvel Studios dropped a surprise Valentine's card to introduce their cast for The Fantastic 4: Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Joseph Quinn make up the quartet, with a release confirmed for July 2025. Flame on!TOP MANChanning Tatum is teaming up with director Derek Cianfrance (Blue Valentine) for Roofman, the true story…1 min
Total Film|March 2024MOTHER SUPERIORSydney came to me and said, “Mike, I want to be covered in blood. I want to be covered in mucus.”’ Director Michael Mohan (The Voyeurs) is telling Teasers about Immaculate, his latest collaboration with newly crowned romcom queen Sydney Sweeney. ‘She can do Anyone But You and look glamorous, and I just love that she turns to me to make her weird, f*cked-up movie.’The second feature produced by Sweeney's Fifty-Fifty Films, Immaculate has been on the rising star's mind since she first auditioned for an unmade version of the film over a decade ago. After amassing considerable clout in Hollywood, and forming her own production company, Sweeney optioned the script – and knew exactly who she wanted to direct.‘The writing was so good. The scares were so original,’ Mohan…2 min
Total Film|March 2024BETWEEN TAKESWhat's the first thing you do when you get to set?If it's a morning shoot, the first thing I do is eat. A lot of people eat while they're having their hair and make-up done. I can't imagine anything worse.Do you have any on-set superstitions?No, but because I come from theatre, I was always used to being provided underwear. They don't do that on films, but I request it. I just prefer to wear different underwear to the ones I go home in [laughs].Do you sleep on set?I can sleep anywhere. In theatre, on a matinee day, I would just go into the stalls and sleep on the floor because it was the only peace and quiet I could find.What are the main differences on independent film sets like Our…3 min
Total Film|March 2024SOLDIER OF FORTUNEYears ago, Italian director Giacomo Abbruzzese met a man in a club – a soldier who was strutting his stuff on the dancefloor. ‘I was very intrigued by this,’ he says. ‘He was embodying these two different [physical] tendencies.’ It was enough to light the spark for his debut feature Disco Boy, a visually mesmerising odyssey in which Belarusian drifter Aleksei (Franz Rogowski) escapes into Poland and then France, where he joins the French Foreign Legion – on the promise of French citizenship if he lasts five years in the corps.The romantic notion of joining the Legion was something that immediately intrigued Abbruzzese.‘There is something, for sure, very poetic [about this]. It has a mystery, it's very iconic,’ he says, acknowledging that his film will automatically bear comparison to Claire…2 min
Total Film|March 2024BOUT TIMEThe name's Dalton…’ Nothing epitomised Patrick Swayze's screen cool quite like 1989's Road House, an action film very much of its decade. Sandwiched between Dirty Dancing and Ghost on Swayze's CV, it cast him as ‘cooler’ (read bouncer) Dalton, brought in to clean up a Missouri bar.Swayze, often the swoon-worthy romantic lead, was convincing as the level-headed but double-hard doorman who could take out the trash while still remembering to ‘be nice’. Despite some 80s excesses, Road House was a different kind of action film, and a different kind of hero, to what audiences in that era were seeing from the likes of Schwarzenegger and Stallone.‘DOUG CAME TO ME AND SAID, “I WANT TO DO FIGHTS IN A WAY THAT HAS NEVER BEEN DONE BEFORE”’ JAKE GYLLENHAALA thinly veiled western…17 min
Total Film|March 2024DOCTOR'S ORDERSWhat was the main appeal of Road House?The fact that it was Doug directing and the chance to work with Jake. I had a chemistry read with Jake. I've always been a fan of his work, and I've never felt nervous with anyone in the industry at all. When I jumped on that Zoom, I remember feeling my face [trembling]. It wasn't anything romantic at all, but it was a different kind of admiration.Were you a fan of UFC beforehand?The first time that I watched a fight for real, I was shooting The Suicide Squad in Atlanta, and I remember going with my friends, and ended up finding Margot [Robbie] there with her friends. We were all at this kind of restaurant bar, watching a fight. I was like, ‘OK,…1 min
Total Film|March 2024ERNIE HUDSONHow does it feel to be back?It's incredible. Everywhere I go in the world, somebody will say, ‘Who you gonna call?’ I feel very, very blessed to be part of something as special as Ghostbusters. We've now brought a younger generation into the fold and it's cool to see the new possibilities.Where's Winston at the start of Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire?Winston is fascinated by this phenomenon. What's causing it? How do we tap into it? How can we use it to our benefit? He's putting his money into lots of research.How scary is the new movie?It's scary enough. The original movie's library scene was scary. It was a little bit freaky, a little bit weird and a little bit funny. This new movie is a little bit of all those things.What's…1 min
Total Film|March 2024VIRTUAL INSANITYTRON1982The granddaddy of all VR movies, Tron sees Jeff Bridges’ software engineer Kevin Flynn sucked into a mainframe computer, where programs are living entities and the so-called Master Control Program is in charge. You can even jump on a Light Cycle for the deadliest racing game you'll ever play.THE MATRIX1999Mankind has been enslaved by machine-like sentinels, as Keanu Reeves’ Neo and millions of others are left to slumber inside the Matrix, a shared simulated reality modelled on the world as it was in 1999. It's not all bad, though: you can get a pretty good VR steak there.EXISTENZ1999Jennifer Jason Leigh's game designer enters her own VR masterpiece in David Cronenberg's prophetic look at simulation gaming. Set in a world where the game is accessed by UmbiCords that attach to bio-ports…1 min
Total Film|March 2024AMER MUSICAN CLEKristen Stewart is telling Total Film about the appeal of her new movie, Love Lies Bleeding, and her description doesn't pull any punches. ‘There was something so nice about the nightmare fantasy of, you know, throat-f*cking your evil dad with your girlfriend, and running off into the clouds,’ chuckles Stewart over Zoom from her LA home as her dog, Cole, barks up a storm. It's days after the first of two films starring the actor has bowed at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival and Stewart, back in LA to shoot the cover of Rolling Stone, is trying to describe the allure of Rose Glass’ heightened-reality crime thriller; a film that promises to make audiences blanch as much as Maud's thumb tacks in shoes. It's a tale that includes bug eating,…12 min
Total Film|March 2024FIVE STAR TURNSSKINS 2009-2013E4's teen drama was already a cult phenomenon by the time O'Connell joined the cast as part of its second generation. Yet his hard-drinking hedonist Cook added more fuel to the fire with his boundary-pushing antics (‘Let's go f*cking mental!’).STARRED UP 2013David Mackenzie's prison drama gave O'Connell another powder-keg role in volatile inmate Eric, a young offender transferred to the lock-up where his estranged dad (Ben Mendelsohn) is incarcerated. ‘I wanted to give a mature depth to him,’ says the actor.‘71 2014Having once considered a life in the army, O'Connell finally got to play soldier in Yann Demange's drama about a British squaddie abandoned in 70s Belfast. According to the director, Jack's ‘soulfulness and complexity’ made him perfect for the part.GODLESS 2017O'Connell spent weeks training with genuine cowboys for…1 min
Total Film|March 2024LISA FRANKENSTEIN 15OUT 1 MARCH CINEMASJohn Hughes’ Brat Pack movies meet Mary Shelley's Gothic classic in this comedy scripted by Diablo Cody (Juno, Jennifer's Body). Set in 1989, it centres on Lisa (Kathryn Newton), a highschooler who lives with her father (Joe Chrest), stepmother (Carla Gugino) and stepsister Taffy (Liza Soberano), yet prefers to hang out at the local cemetery, among the tombstones.Though she has a crush on the editor of the school lit magazine (Henry Eikenberry), Lisa soon finds her real love – at the graveyard – when a corpse (Riverdale's Cole Sprouse) comes back to life. He doesn't speak and cries tears that smell like vomit. Nevertheless, hiding him at home in her closet, Lisa is smitten – and becomes more so as things get increasingly macabre.Directed by Zelda Williams…1 min
Total Film|March 2024DRIVE-AWAY DOLLS 15OUT 15 MARCH CINEMASIt perhaps says something about the Coen brothers’ respective sensibilities that, when older sibling Joel went off to make 2021's The Tragedy of Macbeth in black and white with wife Frances McDormand, younger brother Ethan chose to dust off a raunchy crime romp he had written with his wife 20 years ago, and shoot it in eye-popping colour.A freewheeling road movie about two queer chums being pursued by hoods from Pennsylvania to Florida, Drive-Away Dolls is definitely not Shakespeare. But it is unmistakably a Coen(s) film, albeit one that feels more like a pastiche of their previous pictures than an innovative next chapter.There are times when ‘Throw-Away Dolls’ might arguably have been a more suitable title for this knockabout caper, in which loquacious Texan Jamie (Margaret Qualley)…2 min
Total Film|March 2024VINDICATION SWIM PGOUT 8 MARCH CINEMASFirst-time director Elliott Hasler offers a warm-hearted but sentimental take on penniless Mercedes Gleitze's (Kirsten Callaghan) 1927 battles to be the first British woman to swim the Channel. It's a plucky attempt, but pretty period locations and jaunty fake newsreels can't compensate for the film's clunky scripting, halting pace and stilted performances (only John Locke's drunken, crabby swim coach registers). There's a fascinating Chariots of Fire-style story to be made about Gleitze's tenacity against the cruel sea, posh-rival cheats and sexist court cases. But sadly, this isn't it.…1 min
Total Film|March 2024LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL TBCOUT 22 MARCH CINEMASOn Halloween 1977, as an anxious America looks on, TV host Jack Delroy (David Dastmalchian) puts on a special edition of his chat show, Night Owls. After losing his wife to cancer and slipping down the ratings, it's his chance to claw back some viewers. But his choice of guests – from an on-the-make medium (Fayssal Bazzi) to a cynical conjurer (Ian Bliss), a parapsychologist (Laura Gordon) and her possessed young patient (Ingrid Torelli) – proves unwise when things start happening on camera…Written, directed and edited by Australian brothers Cameron and Colin Cairnes (2012's 100 Bloody Acres), shot in Melbourne and featuring an excellent, largely homegrown acting cast, it's an impeccable recreation of 1970s TV. As we cut from the live feed to black-and-white behind-thescenes moments, we…1 min
Total Film|March 2024ORIGIN 12AOUT 8 MARCH CINEMASAva DuVernay's (Selma) biographical drama delves into the creation of Isabel Wilkerson's 2020 non-fiction bestseller Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. During her voyage of discovery, Wilkerson (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor) experiences a series of devastating personal losses that give her mission greater meaning. The result is a film that works as both a broad educational tool and a tender portrait of grief. It may ultimately feel too simplistic for those who've read the book – and too scholastic in places for those who haven't – but it remains a powerful conversation-starter.…1 min
Total Film|March 2024BOB MARLEY: ONE LOVE 12AOUT NOW CINEMASBritain's Kingsley Ben-Adir was highly praised for playing Malcolm X in One Night in Miami, and made a decent Barack Obama in Showtime's The Comey Rule. Mimicry alone, alas, does not ignite the ganja in a reverential homage to the Jamaican reggae icon that is lacking his blazing charisma.Reinaldo Marcus Green's film begins in 1976 with Bob and wife Rita (Lashana Lynch) almost being slain by gunmen at their Kingston home: a nerve-jangling brush with death that marks the film's most dramatic and emotional episode. Green and his three co-writers frame this as a misfortune Bob shrugged off triumphantly by recording his landmark album Exodus. The film, in contrast, never quite manages to move on, remaining in a muted funk for much of its running time.King Richard director…1 min
Total Film|March 2024MONSTER 12AOUT 15 MARCH CINEMASSharing its name with Charlize Theron's 2003 Oscar-winner arguably doesn't do Hirokazu Kore-eda's latest many favours, prompting as it does misleading expectations that he has ventured into serial killer or even rampaging beast territory. The reality, mercifully, is rather more benign, even if it does stay teasingly elusive for much of what constitutes the Japanese director's first film on native soil since 2018's Shoplifters (after forays to France and South Korea to make 2019's The Truth and 2022's Broker, respectively).A fretful single mother (Sakura Ando) is concerned by her young son's strange behaviour, and decides to consult his school's seasoned principal (Yûko Tanaka). Satisfactory answers are less than forthcoming, though, leading her to suspect that young Minato (Soya Kurokawa) is being abused by one of his teachers…1 min
Total Film|March 2024COPA 71 PGOUT 8 MARCH CINEMASLong before football's first Women's World Cup made headlines in 1991, there was an unofficial version held in Mexico in 1971, which time – or perhaps FIFA – has forgotten. Co-directed by Rachel Ramsay and James Erskine, and produced by Serena (who also narrates) and Venus Williams, this entertaining documentary aims to right that wrong, introducing players from the tournament and the hardships they endured to be recognised in a male-dominated industry.In the UK, the FA officially banned women's football from 1921 to 1971. It was a similarly depressing story elsewhere. Mexican star Silvia Zaragoza describes being beaten and screamed at by her father for trying to join in games; Italian ace Elena Schiavo recalls, ‘The boys wouldn't let me play.’ But in the aftermath of the…1 min
Total Film|March 2024ARGYLLE 12AOUT NOW CINEMASWobbling unevenly between self-awareness and selfsatisfaction, Matthew Vaughn's espionage satire is never as fast or funny as it thinks it is. It centres on Elly (the likeable Bryce Dallas Howard), writer of a novel series about super-spy Argylle. The action cuts between the fictional Argylle (Henry Cavill) and Elly's creative pains, then blurs the line until she's swept away on a real mission by spy Aidan (Sam Rockwell). Some predictable mid-film twists add self-conscious fun, but this overwrought romp fires off half-baked ideas without the focus needed to make them stick.…1 min
Total Film|March 2024BALTIMORE 15OUT 22 MARCH CINEMASHusband-and-wife filmmakers Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor (aka Desperate Optimists) bring their customary blend of austerity and eeriness to this portrait of Rose Dugdale, a real-life English heiress and IRA member who took part in a failed bombing attempt using a helicopter and a historic art heist, both in 1974. Flicking between her colourful past and the theft itself, the directorial duo presents a compelling if fractured look at a toff turned radical who was in it for the kicks as well as politics. Imogen Poots, rarely off-screen, compels as the self-deluding, Patty Hearstlike protagonist.BLUE FINCH, ICON, NETFLIX, SKY, UNIVERSAL…1 min
Total Film|March 2024A KID FOR TWO FARTHINGS PG1955 OUT NOW DVD, BD, DIGITALEXTRAS Featurettes, Short, GalleryA small boy adopts a singlehorned goat believing it's a unicorn in this whimsical fable, set in east London's bustling Petticoat Lane market. Carol Reed's (The Third Man) first colour film doesn't have much of a story and is guilty of the same broad ethnic stereotyping we'd see in Oliver! But there are incidental pleasures to be had, a glam Diana Dors and a pre-Carry On Sid James among them. Alongside the 4K restoration is an earlier short from screenwriter Wolf Mankowitz.…1 min
Total Film|March 2024IMPOSSIBLE OBJECT 151973 OUT NOW BDEXTRAS Alternative cut, Commentary, Featurette, Video essay, Galleries, BookletAdapted from a novel by Nicholas Mosley, this atypically arty drama from John Frankenheimer (The Manchurian Candidate) stars Alan Bates as an English writer who, while living with his family in France, embarks on an affair with a younger married woman (Dominique Sanda). Little seen in the UK or US – and then usually in a re-edited international cut (also included here) – Impossible Object is no lost masterpiece, but delivers an intriguingly surreal take on the intersection of creativity and obsession.…1 min
Total Film|March 2024CITY OF GOD 182002 OUT NOW CINEMASWith its chapter headings (‘The Story of the Tender Trio’, ‘Benny's Farewell’), decades-spanning narrative and colourfully named characters (Knockout Ned, Steak and Fries), there's something almost Dickensian about Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund's saga of lives lived, lost and squandered in Rio's crime-ridden favelas. It even has a David Copperfield in observant hero Rocket (Alexandre Rodrigues), a budding photographer whose personal history gets entwined with that of hoodlum Li'l Ze (Leandro Firmino da Flora). Two decades on, this Brazilian GoodFellas still packs an adrenalised punch.…1 min
Total Film|March 2024CONTAGION 122011 OUT NOW 4K UHDEXTRAS FeaturettesAn apocalyptic scenario is treated with intelligence and restraint in Steven Soderbergh's disaster movie, whose depiction of a lethal virus unleashing a global pandemic proved eerily prescient. Celebrity status is no guarantee of survival here, as an all-star cast (Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Gwyneth Paltrow) races to contain the deadly pathogen. As gripping as it is, however, scenes of the afflicted coughing up blood before being disposed of in mass graves may feel a bit too raw for some to revisit. No new extras on this 4K UHD release.…1 min
Total Film|March 2024PATHS OF GLORY PG1957 OUT NOW BD, 4K UHDEXTRAS Commentary, Featurettes, BookletFrom the title down, Stanley Kubrick's anti-war masterpiece has a bitter sting to it. ‘The paths of glory lead but to the grave’ is the quote from the Thomas Gray poem behind Humphrey Cobb's fact-based novel, eviscerating any triumphalist hints. A controlled howl at war's futility, Kubrick's adaptation rings down the years like sniper shots across no man's land.Kirk Douglas gives a seething turn as the WW11 colonel tasked with sending soldiers on an impossible mission: to take the impregnable ‘Ant Hill’. And he remains beleaguered when, afterwards, he tries to defend three troops court-martialled on bogus charges of cowardice.The soldiers are scapegoats for their superiors’ failures. Class rage broils in the tangible contrasts between the officers’ chateau and the trenches, where…1 min
Total Film|March 2024LIKE A DRAGON: INFINITE WEALTHOUT NOW PC, PS4/5, XBOX ONE/SERIES X/SIn 2021, Sega outlined plans for a ‘super game’, to be released within five years – implying that this mooted blockbuster would deliver an interactive experience of a standard beyond its big-budget peers. That project is still to be officially unveiled – yet two years before deadline, the latest entry in the series formerly known as Yakuza effectively satisfies that brief. After the comparatively svelte The Man Who Erased His Name, this is a beast of an adventure: a January release that many players will still be chipping away at come December.The expansive story takes Like a Dragon overseas for the first time: as well as enjoying the nightlife of Yokohama, affable lead Ichiban Kasuga gets to soak up the sun in Hawaii. He's…2 min
