Empire Australasia

2020 MAY HAVE been a turbulent year for movies, but the small-screen industry kept chugging along nicely and, in fact, helped fill the void for locked-down viewers. If we weren’t watching top-notch television series on our favourite TV channel or str

The Suicide Squad (Empire, December) looks very male and very white. It will be interesting to give it the once-over with the Bechdel-Wallace test and view the film through the lens of diversity. ANN, NUGENT, TAS From what we could see, the Squad

I was saddened to learn of the passing of David Prowse last November. Growing up in England in the 1970s and 80s, I have fond memories of the big fella dressed up as the superhero Green Cross Man, who was used in a children’s road safety campaign. Of

Disney were not shy about revealing new footage at their Investor’s Day presentation on December 10; it’s not every day you get four shiny new Marvel trailers in one go. The first Loki trailer gave us lots of tantalising glimpses of what Tom Hiddlest

THE FIRST TIME I met Dave was when he came on set in the full Darth Vader outfit. I’d seen Ralph McQuarrie’s concept art, but to see it fully realised was stunning. A big part of that was just Dave’s size. He was a towering figure with this magnifice

TOBY KEBBELL HAS gone from junkie to monkey during his 20-year career: after hurtling onto radars in Shane Meadows’ Dead Man’s Shoes , and later as a drug addict in Guy Ritchie’s RockNRolla , he later moved into motion capture as Koba in War For The

EVEN FOR NICOLAS CAGE, an actor hardly known for his subtlety or realism, the premise for his upcoming sci-fi actioner Jiu Jitsu is a doozy. The story goes: every six years, an alien comes to Earth, and demands that nine worthy warriors fight him. Wi

As revealed in last issue’s Empire, director Paul Verhoeven is training his provocative eye on nuns for his next project — specifically, 17th century mystic lesbian nuns. Which is not something they teach in Sunday school. This classic Powell & Pres

DAVID OYELOWO hasn’t been spending much time on terra firma lately. He’s breached the realms of fantasy and fiction in Come Away — an ode to classic children’s literature co-starring Angeline Jolie — and is shooting off to space in George Clooney’s T

MALCOLM X, SAM COOKE, Muhammad Ali and Jim Brown: the thinking-person’s choice of a party you’d want to gatecrash. This irresistible concept, of four icons meeting in a racially taut 1964 America, was first realised in Kemp Powers’ 2013 play One Nigh

Pieces Of A Woman , a story of a home birth that undergoes complications, originated as a play in Poland. On stage, the birth sequence was “45 minutes long,” says Hungarian director Kornél Mundruczó. “It was kind of like when you have a beautiful pai

Free Fire showed that Wheatley can handle a very complicated shoot-out. Now, pair The Stath up with a genetically mutated, giant Armie Hammer and Brie Larson, give The Meg a pair of pump-action shotguns (and some arms), and we’re off to the aquatic r

A real-life urban legend about serial killers drowning young men across Midwestern America — and leaving a graffiti-sprayed smiley face — inspired the film. Bret Easton Ellis knew this when writing the script, but director Tim Hunter liked the way th

The idea for Synchronic , the fourth film from filmmaker team Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, first began germinating in 2015. “Apparently, physicists are pretty well decided that time is not linear in any particular way,” Moorhead explains. “It’s

CHOOSING THE MOST comforting moment in Rob Reiner’s 1989 romcom is a bit like asking which is the warmest log on the fire. Who cares when everything around you is this cosy? This movie is all long walks in the park and excellent knitwear, and even th

IN EARLY 2018, Russian filmmaker Ilya Naishuller entered a top LA stunt facility to be confronted by two very different types of action star. “In front of me was Keanu Reeves, getting ready for John Wick 3 ,” the director tells Empire . “Then I turne

THE MEMBERS OF the Grave Diggers — the outlaw bikie gang who are the focus of 1974’s violent thriller Stone — were portrayed as rebels. But none were more rebellious than its producer, director, co-writer and star, Sandy Harbutt. The Aussie auteur —

Carpenter scored his debut film, 1974’s Dark Star, out of “necessity”, he says. A long-time fan of electronic music, he realised that with synths, he could make epic-sounding music on his own. “We needed original music, so we figured it out.” What ma

Do you have a nickname? There was one that I had, the weird one: two friends called me ‘Plugger’. It’s because I wouldn’t stop, I’d always keep going. I know they were mocking me, but I was okay with it. Do you have a signature dish? I’ve only got

OUT JANUARY 21 CERT PG / 95 MINS DIRECTOR Glendyn Ivin CAST Naomi Watts, Andrew Lincoln, Jacki Weaver, Rachel House PLOT When adventurous, athletic Sam (Watts) suffers a crippling accident in Thailand she becomes lost in depression. While husband Ca

OUT NOW (SHUDDER) CERT TBC / 104 MINS DIRECTOR Josh Ruben CAST Josh Ruben, Aya Cash, Chris Redd Two horror writers meet at a weekend retreat in the wilderness. Successful Fanny (Aya Cash from The Boys and You’re The Worst) is arrogant and dismiss

OUT NOW / CERT M / 114 MINS DIRECTOR Thomas Bezucha CAST Diane Lane, Kevin Costner, Lesley Manville Reuniting Kevin Costner and Diane Lane — Superman’s folks from Man Of Steel — Let Him Go is Taken way out West. After the loss of their son, a ret

OUT JANUARY 28 CERT MA 15+ / 105 MINS DIRECTOR Stephen Johnson CAST Simon Baker, Jacob Junior Nayinggul, Callan Mulvey, Caren Pistorius, Jack Thompson, Sean Mununggurr PLOT Outback policeman Travis (Baker) is complicit in an Indigenous massacre, alt

OUT NOW (NETFLIX) CERT M / 132 MINS DIRECTOR David Fincher CAST Gary Oldman, Amanda Seyfried, Lily Collins, Charles Dance, Tom Burke PLOT A pariah in Hollywood, alcoholic screenwriter Herman J. ‘Mank’ Mankiewicz (Oldman) takes on a job writing ‘Ame

OUT NOW CERT MA15+ / 117 MINS DIRECTOR Robert Connolly CAST Eric Bana, Genevieve O’Reilly, John Polson PLOT After a long absence, Federal Agent Aaron Falk (Bana) returns to his rural home town to attend a funeral following a tragic murder-suicide.

OUT NOW (NETFLIX) CERT TBC / 94 MINS DIRECTOR George C. Wolfe CAST Viola Davis, Chadwick Boseman, Michael Potts, Glynn Turman, Taylour Paige PLOT Chicago, 1927. While singer Ma Rainey (Davis) squares off with white management over her music at a rec

OUT NOW CERT R / 103 MINS DIRECTOR Brandon Cronenberg CAST Andrea Riseborough, Christopher Abbott, Rossif Sutherland PLOT Tasya Vos (Riseborough) is an assassin who works for a corporate entity that inserts her consciousness into the bodies of unsus

OUT TBA CERT TBC / 93 MINS DIRECTOR Harry Macqueen CAST Colin Firth, Stanley Tucci, Pippa Haywood PLOT Couple of 20 years Sam (Firth) and Tusker (Tucci), who is suffering from early onset dementia, are combining work with pleasure, travelling throug

OUT NOW (NETFLIX) CERT MA15+ / 101 MINS DIRECTOR Justin McMillan CAST Lisa Kay, Geneviève Lemon, Martin Sacks PLOT Grieving mother Hanna (Kay) travels to rural Queensland to find her missing son, believed to have been taken by a serial killer. Weird

OUT NOW CERT M / 105 MINS DIRECTOR Spike Lee PARTICIPANTS David Byrne, Chris Giarmo, Tendayi Kuumba PLOT In February 2020, David Byrne’s Broadway show American Utopia is drawing to a close. For this end-of-run filmed performance, Spike Lee captures

OUT NOW / CERT MA 15+ / 98 MINS DIRECTOR Miles Joris-Peyrafitte CAST Finn Cole, Margot Robbie There’s nothing in Dreamland that you haven’t seen a million times before. A mismatched pair gradually bonding while on the run from the cops was done as

OUT FEBRUARY 11 CERT M / 95 MINS DIRECTOR Thomas Vinterberg CAST Mads Mikkelsen, Lars Ranthe There’s a delicious high concept at the heart of Druk (aka Another Round) that makes it ripe for an Adam Sandler comedy. Four middle-aged, jaded teachers

OUT NOW (BINGE) CERT TBC / 80 MINS DIRECTOR Steve McQueen CAST John Boyega, Steve Toussaint, Antonia Thomas, Tyrone Huntley PLOT In ’80s London, Leroy Logan (Boyega), a research scientist, becomes a police officer to combat racial prejudice within t

OUT NOW (DISNEY+) EPISODES VIEWED 2 OF 8 DIRECTORS Jon Favreau, Peyton Reed CAST Pedro Pascal, Timothy Olyphant PLOT Entrusted with returning his ward, The Child, to a group known as the Jedi, The Mandalorian (Pascal) starts scouring the galaxy for

OUT NOW (NETFLIX) EPISODES VIEWED 6 OF 13 SHOWRUNNERS Alex Kurtzman, Michelle Paradise CAST Sonequa Martin-Green, Doug Jones, Anthony Rapp, Mary Wiseman PLOT After the events of Season 2, Discovery is propelled 900-plus years into the future. With n

OUT NOW (SBS ON DEMAND) EPISODES VIEWED 4 OF 8 SHOWRUNNER Luca Guadagnino CAST Jack Dylan Grazer, Jordan Kristine Seamón, Chloë Sevigny, Alice Braga, Francesca Scorsese PLOT In 2016, American teenager Fraser (Grazer) moves with his mother Sarah (Sev

OUT NOW (STAN) EPISODES VIEWED 7 OF 7 SHOWRUNNERS Ethan Hawke, Mark Richard CAST Ethan Hawke, Joshua Caleb Johnson, Hubert Point-Du Jour Opening on the words, “All of this is true...most of it happened”, The Good Lord Bird is historical revisionis

OUT NOW (NETFLIX) EPISODES VIEWED 6 OF 6 DIRECTOR Max Miller CAST Mark Samual Bonanno, Broden Kelly, Zachary Ruane After a decade of wowing live audiences and YouTube followers here and overseas, the Aussie trio have landed this skit series on Net

OUT NOW (PRIME VIDEO) EPISODES VIEWED 10 OF 10 CREATOR Shawn Simmons CAST Mark McKenna, Ciara Bravo, Dean Winters PLOT Tough guy Wayne (McKenna) and his new 15-year-old girlfriend Del (Bravo) hit the road to retrieve a stolen car that was bequeathed

(THIS IS YOUR MASSIVE SPOILER WARNING! DON’T SAY WE DIDN’T WARN YOU) THIS MONTH: BORAT SUBSEQUENT MOVIEFILM ■

Nick de Semlyen: It takes some special qualities to eclipse Johnny The Monkey, Kazakhstan’s most legendary simian porn star, who sidelines as the country’s Minister Of Culture. But Tutar, played sensationally by Bulgarian newcomer Maria Bakalova, man

I HATE SUZIE, created by Billie Piper and writer Lucy Prebble, follows Piper’s Suzie Pickle, a flighty, co-dependent actress whose life gets upended when compromising photos of her and a man who is not her husband are published online by phone hacker

THE ‘M’ IN the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s official acronym is a contender, for obvious reasons. And where would Thanos have been without the ‘U’ to snap away? But actually it might just be the ‘C’. “Cinematic” is a word that conjures thoughts of sco

In the Karate Kid series, a fresh-faced LaRusso painted fences and chased flies, watched closely by his guru Mr Miyagi. Decades on, the iconic character has returned in buzzy TV series Cobra Kai, now a car salesman who’s lost his lust for life. The o

Suave, swaggering, sardonic, he went from Edinburgh milkman to Hollywood titan. Over the next 14 pages, we celebrate the man with the Midas touch ■

THE SOFT BUT distinctive Scottish burr, the sharply etched features and world-weary gaze, the smooth charisma that goes hand-in-hand with sudden violence; for many of us, James Bond is Sean Connery. “The thing that is indisputable is that Sean Conner

IF I’D WRITTEN a bucket list when I first joined Empire back in 2001, one of the things I would have scrawled near the very top would have been: “Interview Sean Connery”. After all, he was one of the greats. The first Bond. A fellow Celt (even if I’

WHEN SEAN CONNERY was awarded the American Film Institute’s prestigious Life Achievement Award on June 8, 2006, Steven Spielberg sent the character has an appeal to a cross-section of people everywhere,” the former Fountainbridge milkman would shrug

GEORGE CLOONEY IS fully in control. The Midnight Sky , his seventh film as director, is precisely the kind of stirring work he thrives on: an apocalyptic drama, it’s told from the dual perspectives of a spaceship crew drifting near Jupiter, and a dyi

THE LEAGUE OF Extraordinary Gentlemen will forever be known as the film that drove Sean Connery into retirement. (It also drove its director, Stephen Norrington, to quit the film business, which is quite something.) And it’s not a good film, let’s ma

EVERY SINGLE YEAR, in late December, an argument erupts on the internet: is Die Hard a Christmas film? You’ll note, however, that nobody ever questions whether its 1990 sequel is one, because Die Hard 2 is absolutely as festive as a film with a tripl

SO JAMES BOND will not return. Sean Connery, the true original, is gone. And only now do we realise what he gave us. Shaped from the start around his cat-like moves and that steady, amused voice (with a lovely salting of Scottish), Connery wasn’t the

DIRECTOR SHANNON MURPHY on her bruising-but-beautiful Australian drama, about a teen’s final days with cancer. Babyteeth opens with an off-kilter meet cute. Moses (Toby Wallace), sporting a floral shirt, rat-tail and serious case of pinkeye, tumbles

“WE DANCE A lot, by the way,” Todd Phillips told Empire when we visited him in the edit bay in June 2019, four months before Joker was unleashed. “People should know, there’s a lot of dancing in this movie. We think Joker has music in his soul.” Nowh

IT’S BECOME A highly regarded cult horror flick overseas, but 2008’s Lake Mungo — the chilling tale of an Australian family haunted by the spirit of their teen daughter following her death by drowning — is barely known in its home country. Why is tha

TOM SAVINI HAS a tattoo on his left arm. It’s a doodle of a pair of thick-rimmed glasses, accompanied by the words “STAY SCARED”. It’s his way of keeping George A. Romero, the director who gave Savini his big break, close after Romero died in 2017. “

SKYLIN3S DIRECTOR LIAM O’DONNELL LETS LET THE RIGHT ONE IN IN FOR THE FIRST TIME I definitely have some embarrassingly great movies sitting in my queue judging me as I watch Predator again for the 100th time. That said, I felt pretty good that I’d s

OUT NOW / CERT MA 15+ / 118 MINS Since Yeon Sang-ho delivered an all-time-great zombie movie in Train To Busan, to say its sort-of sequel doesn’t quite live up to its predecessor feels a little unfair. Peninsula doesn’t have the streamlined economy

Chris: For me, Shane Black is Hollywood’s finest purveyor of pulp this side of Quentin Tarantino, and maybe even beyond Tarantino. But why are we ranking his films now? ’Cos we’ve just had Christmas, and Christmas plays a huge part in a lot of Shane

OLIVIA COOKE: “The dinner table scene between Daniel Day-Lewis and Vicky Krieps in Phantom Thread. The way Vicky gets flustered was mesmerising. You can’t bottle that as an actor. It felt so spontaneous and such a visceral reaction. It’s what you cra