Home//Empire/Summer 2022/In This Issue
Empire|Summer 2022THIS MONTHSUMMER. YES, FINALLY, it’s that time of year when a strange, yellow orb appears in the sky and all wise people scurry indoors to hide from it. Seriously, what is it up to? What does it want? This season, thankfully, there is more entertainment to keep us happy in darkened rooms than maybe ever before. The last couple of years have been fairly anaemic, movie and TV-wise, with productions delayed and cinema releases shunted back. But summer 2022 is as full-blooded as they come, with big blockbusters roaring back. Yes, Top Gun: Maverick is finally coming out. And I feel the need… the need to see it. Preferably with a tub of popcorn the size of a Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet. There’s so much coming out, in fact, that we’ve…3 min
Empire|Summer 2022No./2 Is this Cannes’ buzziest year yet?TOM TAKES TO THE CRUISETTE! Tom Cruise will be walking up the steps of the Palais des Festivals for the first time in 30 years to promote Top Gun: Maverick and receive a special tribute for his career. Remarkably, the megastar has only attended Cannes once, for a screening of Ron Howard’s Far And Away in 1992. CLAIRE DENIS RETURNS! Five films directed or co-directed by women will play in competition at the festival, the most it’s ever seen. Denis’ latest, The Stars At Noon, was set to reunite the filmmaker with Robert Pattinson, but Covid and shooting commitments meant swapping out R-Batz for Joe Alwyn. The political thriller is the fourth of Denis’ films to play at the festival. GEORGE MILLER UNLEASHES A GENIE! It’s not been 3,000 years…2 min
Empire|Summer 2022No./5 A movie maverick’s Blonde ambitionANDREW DOMINIK IS someone who doesn’t rush into directing a movie. Seven years passed between his debut, Chopper, in 2000 and the sumptuous epic The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford. Then he turned practically prolific, taking just five years to direct his next movie, 2012’s Killing Them Softly. Since then, the Australian director has worked with Nick Cave on a couple of documentaries, including this year’s This Much I Know To Be True, but he’s had his next movie up his sleeve for quite some time. “I’ve been thinking about Blonde for f*cking 14 years,” he tells Empire. “I’m trying to make a deeply heartfelt thing that means everything to me, and that is made with nothing but love for the subject matter.” That subject matter…3 min
Empire|Summer 2022No./8 The battle to save the romcomGone are the days when boy met girl, messed things up, and 90 minutes later found himself running across some city to win her back. A new investigation reported by Yahoo! Finance has confirmed as much, stating that studios are currently commissioning fewer romcoms. Even genre queen Julia Roberts recently declared during an interview that over the last 20 years, good romcom scripts simply “didn’t exist”. Why are new entries proving less bankable than romcoms past, like Four Weddings And A Funeral, which was once the second highestgrossing film of all time in the UK? Part of the reason for the genre’s floundering appears to be modern romcoms’ reluctance to incorporate the role played by technology in today’s dating landscape. “They didn’t have texting or Tinder in When Harry Met…3 min
Empire|Summer 2022No./12 BIG- SCREEN BOBSILLUSTRATIONS BOB BELCHER THE BOB’S BURGERS MOVIE This lovable fast-food proprietor gets his own feature-length adventure after 12 seasons’ worth of mishaps. Voiced by H. Jon Benjamin, Bob will face his biggest challenge yet: saving his restaurant from a sinkhole. BOB MINIONS: THE RISE OF GRU Along with his comrades Stuart and Kevin, Bob has, to date, killed a T-Rex and broken into the Tower Of London, among other capers. In the sequel to their origin story, the trio take on the 1970s as young Gru’s, well, minions. BOB FLOYD TOP GUN: MAVERICK Lewis Pullman plays a trainee pilot under Tom Cruise’s Maverick. Pullman has told Empire how his fear of heights led to him puking in the co*ckpit during shooting. Sounds like someone definitely didn’t feel the need for…1 min
Empire|Summer 2022No./13 The new masters of the murder mysteryTHE WHODUNNIT IS evolving. The success of modern adaptations of the classic mystery format, from Kenneth Branagh’s starry, glamorous remasterings of Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot novels to Rian Johnson’s Knives Out, which has a sequel due later this year, has paved the way for innovative, boundary-pushing new films and shows. This year saw Chris Miller’s series The Afterparty turn the whodunnit into a multi-genre romp. Only Murders In The Building, a New York comedy co-created by Steve Martin, sees his true-crime nut unite with two fellow self-made detectives played by Selena Gomez and Martin Short to crack a local case. Here, we speak to leading voices in the genre to break down just what makes today’s murder-mysteries tick. Alamy THE FORMAT The Afterparty went all out to shake up the…3 min
Empire|Summer 2022Crimes Of The FutureBeth Webb (News Editor): Are we excited about this film? John Nugent (Reviews Editor): Yes. When was the last time David Cronenberg did a proper horror film? Was it, like, 20 years ago? This feels like him going back to his bloody, disgusting roots, which I’m very excited about. Alex Godfrey (Features Editor): He seems to be getting referenced and exalted so much by a new generation of filmmakers like Julia Ducournau and Luca Guadagnino. It’s good when a master returns to show the kids how it’s done. Beth: Literally, because his son Brandon Cronenberg now makes films. John: Maybe he’s feeling a bit of familial jealousy. Sophie Butcher (Social Media Editor): He’s one of those directors whose surnames has become an adjective. Like “Lynchian” or “Spielbergian”. John: I think…3 min
Empire|Summer 2022No./19 The film reviving a forgotten languageTHE NATIVE TONGUE of Ireland, spoken regularly by fewer than 200,000 people, is sorely underrepresented in cinema. But according to Colm Bairéad, whose debut feature The Quiet Girl —a film about an eightyear-old named Cáit (Catherine Clinch) who spends a summer at the farm of two relatives she has never met — that’s all about to change. “If you look back at the history of our cinema, you've got a handful of Irish-language feature films that never saw the light of day,” Bairéad explains. “In the last three or four years, they’ve doubled or tripled the filmography. Alamy There’s a whole new canon.” Bairéad’s debut was the beneficiary of a scheme to fund films in the indigenous Irish language; in February, The Quiet Girl became the first Irish-language feature to…2 min
Empire|Summer 2022EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE★★★★★ OUT 13 MAY / CERT TBC 132 MINS DIRECTORS Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert CAST Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, Stephanie Hsu, James Hong, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jenny Slate PLOT Evelyn (Yeoh) is trying to complete her tax audit, throw a Chinese New Year party to impress her father (Hong), navigate a possible divorce and avoid alienating daughter Joy (Hsu). She’s also the last hope of the multiverse — tasked with fighting an evil entity threatening to destroy, well, everything. AT THE EXACT moment Everything Everywhere All At Once is about to kick into overdrive, Michelle Yeoh’s Evelyn reads a vital piece of advice: “P.S. Don’t forget to breathe.” Really, it’s a missive to the audience —a necessary heads-up to, in the words of Jurassic Park’s Mr Arnold, hold onto…4 min
Empire|Summer 2022VORTEXAlamy ★★★ OUT 13 MAY CERT TBC / 140 MINS DIRECTOR Gaspar Noé CAST Dario Argento, Françoise Lebrun, Alex Lutz PLOT An elderly husband (Argento) and wife (Lebrun) face their mortality as severe illnesses threaten their quiet Parisian existence. Helped by their recovering drug-addict son (Lutz), the pair drift through their difficult final days as they succumb to fragility and failing health. VIEWERS FAMILIAR WITH the work of director Gaspar Noé, established enfant terrible and proponent of the transgressive New French Extreme style of filmmaking, may find his latest film a surprising left-turn. Ostensibly a drama about a family affected by dementia, the film explores the punishing effects of the condition and the emotional consequences of facing the mortality of a loved one. But while Vortex steers away from much…7 min
Empire|Summer 2022THE INNOCENTS★★★★ OUT 20 MAY CERT TBC / 117 MINS DIRECTOR Eskil Vogt CAST Rakel Lenora Fløttum, Ellen Dorrit Petersen, Sam Ashraf, Mina Yasmin Bremseth Asheim PLOT Nine-year-old Ida (Fløttum) moves to a suburb of Oslo with her family. There, she forges new friendships with children on her estate who seem to possess supernatural powers. But what happens when those children start using their powers for malicious ends? FILMMAKERS HAVE LONG realised that young children can provide an excellent canvas for horror. Children can be sweet and naive; they can also — as the likes of The Omen and Village Of The Damned have proved — be horrific little sh*ts. On something of a hot streak after co-writing masterfully subversive romcom The Worst Person In The World, Norwegian filmmaker Eskil…3 min
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Issue Summer 2022 - EmpireEmpire|Summer 2022TOKYO VICE★★★★ OUT 15 MAY (STARZPLAY) EPISODES VIEWED 2 OF 8 SHOWRUNNER J.T. Rogers CAST Ansel Elgort, Ken Watanabe, Rachel Keller, Rinko Kikuchi PLOT Tokyo, 1999. Recent American graduate Jake Adelstein (Elgort) gets a job as a crime reporter at a major Japanese newspaper, the paper’s first foreign-born journalist. With the aid of a veteran detective (Watanabe) and a local ‘hostess’ (Keller), he soon becomes embroiled in a seething criminal netwrok, run by the yakuza. THE STORY OF an intrepid reporter facing down the malignancy of organised crime is hardly fresh territory. Yet the concentrated power of Tokyo Vice, the new crime series starring Ansel Elgort and Ken Watanabe among a constellation of excellent supporting roles, is such that the material feels lively with intrigue, detail and dark wit. It’s…3 min
Empire|Summer 2022WHATEVER IT TAKESTHE GRAY MAN 15 JULY CINEMAS 22 JULY NETFLIX EXIT STRATEGIES ARE wonderful things. Whether you’re an internationally successful film director or the world’s greatest assassin or, like most of the people reading this, somewhere inbetween, it’s prudent to plan ahead, no matter how bountiful the situation, for an expedient exit. Take the Russo brothers. Their entire career, you could argue, has been one comprised of exit strategies at opportune times, whether it’s the way in which they both gave up nascent careers in law (Anthony) and acting (Joe) to focus on directing films; or the skilful manner in which they decamped from the failure of their Owen Wilson comedy, You, Me And Dupree, to become major players in sitcoms with work on the likes of Community; or the way…13 min
Empire|Summer 2022AGAINST THE LAWWE OWN THIS CITY 7 JUNE SKY ATLANTIC/NOW THE WIRE CASTS a long shadow. Ever since 2008, when David Simon’s epic HBO cop (and politics and education and media and the whole damn system) drama wrapped up its five-season bid for the title of Greatest Television Series Of All Time, creator Simon and George Pelecanos, his trusted writer-producerlieutenant, have spent much of their time trying to avoid that shadow. Separately, they’ve worked on shows like The Pacific, Generation Kill and Show Me A Hero. Together, they collaborated on Treme, Simon’s paean to jazz and New Orleans, and co-created The Deuce, which ran for three seasons and tackled New York and the p*rnography industry. “Everything we’ve done is different, but in a way it’s not,” Pelecanos tells Empire. “Treme and The…11 min
Empire|Summer 2022RETURN OF THE JEDIOBI-WAN KENOBI 27 MAY DISNEY+ KENOBI WAS DONE. “It’s over, Anakin!” he roared. With Obi-Wan having claimed the high ground against his former apprentice on the lava lakes of Mustafar in Revenge Of The Sith, Ewan McGregor’s time as the humble Jedi was supposed to be finished. But in Star Wars, no-one’s ever really gone. Back in 1999, a fresh-faced McGregor entered the galaxy far, far away as a young Kenobi in The Phantom Menace, continuing his story through 2002’s Attack Of The Clones, and 2005’s Revenge Of The Sith. For the actor, his stint in the prequels didn’t just elevate him to A-list status and allow him to channel the iconic Alec Guinness, who played Obi-Wan in the original trilogy — it brought him into a cinematic world…9 min
Empire|Summer 2022PUNCHING THROUGHMS. MARVEL 8 JUNE DINSEY+ TWICE IT HAPPENED, in comics shops on opposite sides of the Atlantic. Two diehard comic-book nerds walked in for their regular fix and were spellbound by something they’d never thought possible. In London’s Orbital Comics, a stand-up called Bisha K. Ali, not yet a TV writer, was looking for something with an edge. She’d been introduced to comics by her mum, who read superhero titles as a young girl in Pakistan in the 1960s, but Ali preferred darker stuff: Preacher, The Sandman and the like. And then she saw a new Marvel release, and stopped dead in her tracks. Some time later, Iman Vellani, a young teenager “a little bit obsessed with Robert Downey Jr”, was hunting in her local shop in Ontario for her…12 min
Empire|Summer 2022LOVING THE ALIENAlamy THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH SUMMER PARAMOUNT+ NICOLAS ROEG’S DAVID Bowiestarring The Man Who Fell To Earth was a bold, radical piece of science-fiction when it came out in 1976, and, thanks to its unsentimental outlook and pleasing oddness, still is today. Now, it’s getting a similarly discordant series, starring Chiwetel Ejiofor as the twitchy, erratic Faraday: the latest alien from the planet Anthea to land on Earth. Teaming up with scientist Justin Falls (Naomie Harris) to save his people, he is nefariously controlled by Thomas Jerome Newton (Bill Nighy in Bowie’s former role). Ejiofor tells us how he found his inner alien… and why the character didn’t turn out to be so alien, after all. How does the series build on Walter Tevis’ novel and Nicolas Roeg…4 min
Empire|Summer 2022THE MOMENTAlamy By 2002, Viola Davis had won a Tony Award for playing Tonya in August Wilson’s play King Hedley II, but had yet to mark her mark on film. That changed with her brief but unforgettable turn in Denzel Washington’s directorial debut, Antwone Fisher. Davis plays Eva May, the titular protagonist’s estranged mother, who gave birth to Antwone in prison. A deep-in-the-third-act reunion sees Antwone (Derek Luke) finally reconnecting with the woman who gave him up, telling her all about the good man he’s become (“I speak two languages, learning a third, never done drugs or even smoked a cigarette”). Without speaking a single word, Davis’ expression remains impassive, an entire lifetime of pain and regret, sadness and guilt etched onto her face. A simple piano line creeps in to…1 min
Empire|Summer 2022Turning back timeAlamy IN SO MANY ways, Turning Red is Pixar’s first period movie. Domee Shi’s coming-of-age story about Chinese-Canadian tween Meilin Lee (Rosalie Chiang) doesn’t just take an unabashed attitude towards menstruation — it’s also specifically set in Toronto in the heady days of 2002, reflected in the film’s music, fashion, fads and more. “This story was inspired by my own life growing up, so why not set it in my hometown?” says Shi. Creating “a very specific time and place” was, she says, always the point — so she talked Empire through bringing back early ’00s Toronto, Pixar-style. THE BOYBAND Everybody loves 4*TOWN — the film’s breakout boyband inspired by *NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys, whose songs (including Empire office earworm ‘Nobody Like U’) were penned by Billie Eilish and…4 min
Empire|Summer 2022THE CULT OF KIM NEWMANIllustration: Neil Edwards. Landmark MICKEY REECE’S Agnes isn’t the exorcism movie you might expect from its first act, in which three priests — troubled, cynical veteran Father Donaghue (Ben Hall), devout apprentice Benjamin (Jake Horowitz) and excommunicated talkshow self-publicist Father Black (Chris Browning) — try to rid nun Sister Agnes (Hayley McFarland) of a possible demon. That doesn’t work out well for anyone and the film switches focus to Mary (Molly C. Quinn), a traumatised young nun who leaves the convent and finds herself in an outside world where she has to earn a living, even though she’s never learned basic skills like cashing a pay cheque and is viewed as easy prey by all manner of worldly folk. Like Reece’s unusual vampire movie Climate Of The Hunter, Agnes has…3 min
Empire|Summer 2022TALK TO USCOMMENT OF THE MONTH Alamy WELCOME TO EARTH As I flicked through a past issue, I reread your Gods Among Us feature on Will Smith. When chewing over Independence Day, one sentence stood out: “As Captain Steve Hiller, Smith owned several of the most notable scenes, none more so than the punch heard around Hollywood.” Forget Hollywood, his latest punch has been heard around the globe and possibly deep into the universe. On the upside, those aliens won’t be back in a hurry. DAMON PATTINSON, HERTFORDSHIRE Oof. Who knew we had the power of slapprediction? For not keeping his name out of your flippin’ mouth, please accept this Picturehouse membership on our behalf. Empire’s star letter wins a Picturehouse Membership, plus one for a friend! Valid for one year at…2 min
Empire|Summer 2022No./3 NEXT IN THE SERIESIF YOU LOVED... SLOW HORSES TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY (BRITBOX) Gary Oldman embodied the classy, dignified espionage operative George Smiley — the polar opposite of his sweary, farty Jackson Lamb character in Slow Horses — when he played him in Tomas Alfredson’s beautifully made 2011 film of John le Carré’s classic novel. But before that, there was this extraordinary seven-part BBC drama adaptation in 1979, with Alec Guinness in exquisitely poised, enigmatic form as Smiley, tasked with finding a Russian mole in the upper echelons of the British Secret Service. It’s slow, steady and talky — but also spellbinding. The 1982 sequel Smiley’s People is also superb. Alamy DAMNED (STARZPLAY/PRIME VIDEO) Will Smith, the writer of Slow Horses (also an accomplished stand-up, actor and novelist), specialises in wryly funny workplace…2 min
Empire|Summer 2022No./6 Daisy Edgar-Jones is fishing for a challengeDAISY EDGAR-JONES sure knows how to throw a punch. In the trailer for Where The Crawdads Sing, the feature adaptation of Delia Owens’ bestselling novel, Edgar-Jones’ character Kya strikes a young man forcefully across the face. “Oh, thank you!” she says when Empire compliments her on her left hook. Her technique, it turns out, had been perfected on Sebastian Stan in Fresh, a romantic horror about cannibalism, which was also her first major movie role. “You really just have to go for it and give them a full wallop.” Besides hand-to-hand combat, the actor had to acquire a whole new range of skills — not to mention a Southern accent — to play Kya, a resourceful young woman who has raised herself on the North Carolina marshes after being abandoned…2 min
Empire|Summer 2022No./ 9 Soundtracking a sequel that doesn’t existWHEN IS AN April Fool not an April Fool? When, on the prankiest day of the year, filmmaker Adam Wingard drops a very real soundtrack album for a movie that hasn’t been made… yet. Turns out, it wasn’t totally a joke. Fans of his Dan Stevensstarring cult thriller The Guest have been clamouring for a sequel for years, and on 1 April the director unveiled a score for imagined follow-up The Guest II, complete with eye-sizzling artwork — and it could even lead to an actual screen sequel. The album’s creation was a way for Wingard to revisit a project that meant a lot to him. “It’s probably my favourite movie that I’ve made,” he says. “It feels like the one I was able to project the most of myself…2 min
Empire|Summer 2022No./11 Playing Batman without a BatsuitFOR MOST SUPERHERO fans growing up, playing Batman is a childhood dream that they will never get to fulfil. But with Spotify original audio series Batman Unburied, Winston Duke gets his chance, even if he never actually gets to put on the suit. “I grew up watching a lot of the Batman cartoons like the ’90s animated series and Batman Beyond, and I watched the Adam West TV show too. I’ve always been a huge fan.” Alamy Duke didn’t draw on the performances of Kevin Conroy and other Batmen of the past once he won the role, in part because his Dark Knight is a little different to what’s come before. His Bruce Wayne is a forensic pathologist who works at Gotham Hospital with his father. When the story begins,…2 min
Empire|Summer 2022No./15 How to build a criminal underworldAlamy FEW SHOWRUNNERS CAN say that their series began with a threat from the yakuza. At first, Tokyo Vice creator J.T. Rogers wrote off the elusive text messages as a case of mistaken identity, until childhood friend Jake Adelstein, a journalist working in Japan, gave him a call. “He sombrely asked, ‘Have you been getting these threats in Japanese? Because I found out a secret about one of the worst gangsters in Tokyo and now he’s threatening the people I care about.’” Rogers first asked if his friend was okay, and then told him to start from the beginning. Speaking with Empire, he breaks down how he turned that conversation into a ten-part series, with an opening episode helmed by Michael Mann. SHOW THE REAL JAPAN Adelstein gave Rogers permission…2 min
Empire|Summer 2022No./17 What is the perfect length for a movie?INTRODUCING... Daryl McCormack THE IRISH ACTOR STARS WITH EMMA THOMPSON IN THE SEXUALLY-CHARGED TWO-HANDER GOOD LUCK TO YOU, LEO GRANDE ON TEAMING UP WITH EMMA THOMPSON When I met her, I went to her house, had a walk in the park, and we spoke about how we felt about the script. We really needed to rely on each other as actors, so it was amazing to go into a project on that level with someone like Emma to really hold the work together. ON THE MOMENT HE KNEW HE WANTED TO ACT I went to see a play with my grandfather at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester called A Raisin In The Sun. There was a scene that featured this mother who’s lost hope in her son, and I…3 min
Empire|Summer 2022No./ 20 How to Wachowskify your homeAlamy LANA AND LILLY Wachowski are auctioning off items from their personal collection — including Channing Tatum’s pointy ears and moon boots from Jupiter Ascending and, er, their Empire Award from 2000 for The Matrix — to raise funds for trans youths. We’ve rifled through the best items to give your house a cyberpunk upgrade. THE MEROVINGIAN’S WEAPONS SEEN IN: THE MATRIX RELOADED Add chateau-chic to your living room with this pair of antique weapons. A perfect conversation piece (“They’ve survived six generational reboots of the Matrix”), and pretty handy if you ever have to battle a bunch of goons in a wire-fu extravaganza. NEBUCHADNEZZAR NAMEPLATE SEEN IN: THE MATRIX Nothing says, “Welcome home!” like the cold, grey metal textures of Morpheus’ ship. Put this on your kitchen wall and…1 min
Empire|Summer 2022SWAN SONGAlamy ★★★ OUT 10 JUNE / CERT TBC 105 MINS DIRECTOR Todd Stephens CAST Udo Kier, Jennifer Coolidge, Linda Evans PLOT Pat Pitsenbarger (Kier) is an elderly former hairdresser and stylist living in a nursing home, when he is lured out of retirement to style his deceased former client for her open-casket funeral. Reluctantly accepting the gig, Pat embarks on a journey, literal and spiritual, through his long and eventful life. VETERAN GERMAN CHARACTER actor Udo Kier has appeared in over 200 films, from Breaking The Waves to Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. He’s worked with everyone from Martin Scorsese to Rainer Fassbinder. He’s played everyone from the Pope to Hitler. He has the kind of familiar face that will have you reaching for your IMDb app, a true, “Oh, that…4 min
Empire|Summer 2022DASHCAM★★★★ OUT 3 JUNE CERT TBC / 77 MINS DIRECTOR Rob Savage CAST Annie Hardy, Amar Chadha-Patel, Angela Enahoro PLOT During her livestream improvised music show, provocative musician Annie Hardy (Hardy) steals a car from her friend Stretch (Chadha-Patel) and sets off on an evening of music and mayhem. But her already chaotic night takes a turn when she picks up mysterious elderly woman Angela (Enahoro) and encounters an occult plot. IF THERE’S ONE thing you need to know about DASHCAM, it’s this: yes, it is f*cking with you. Rob Savage’s second feature film — his first for Blumhouse, following the success of super-sharp lockdown Zoom-seance hit Host — is imbued with the mischievous personality of an internet troll, designed to shock, confound, enrage and entertain in equal measure.…3 min
Empire|Summer 2022BERGMAN ISLAND★★★★ OUT 3 JUNE (CINEMAS), 22 JULY (MUBI) CERT TBC / 103 MINS DIRECTOR Mia Hansen-Løve CAST Vicky Krieps, Tim Roth, Mia Wasikowska, Anders Danielsen Lie PLOT American filmmaking couple Chris (Krieps) and Tony (Roth) fly to Fårö, the literal and spiritual home of Swedish directorial giant Ingmar Bergman, for a writing retreat. While Tony thrives, Chris struggles to find her mojo, especially when she finds something disturbing in her husband’s notebook. ON PAPER, BERGMAN Island could easily be mistaken for the most arthouse film ever made. A filmmaking couple arrive for a screenwriting session at the home of cinema’s doom-mongerin-chief, Ingmar Bergman, causing a crisis of confidence in their relationship. Throw in a meta film-within-a-film and, for all the world, it sounds like it can only be enjoyed…4 min
Empire|Summer 2022SHINING GIRLSAlamy ★★★★ OUT NOW (APPLE TV+) EPISODES VIEWED 8 OF 8 SHOWRUNNER Silka Luisa CAST Elisabeth Moss, Jamie Bell, Wagner Moura, Phillipa Soo PLOT Chicago, 1992. Newspaper archivist Kirby (Moss) is still traumatised from surviving a brutal attack years earlier. When a woman is murdered in similar circ*mstances, Kirby teams up with investigative journalist Dan (Moura) to track down the killer. The subject of their search is the mysterious Harper (Bell). But when reality is not always what it seems, can Kirby trust her IT’S EASY TO assume that Elisabeth Moss is at her most comfortable when she is uncomfortable. Here, you might think, is just another embattled character for her to play, another traumatised woman against the world, continuing the throughline of her hugely impressive career that starts with…3 min
Empire|Summer 2022THE MIGHTY THORSTHOR: LOVE AND THUNDER 8 JULY IN CINEMAS AFTER THREE SPIDER-MEN in No Way Home and multiple Doctor Stranges in The Multiverse Of Madness, Taika Waititi is keeping it relatively simple for his second Thor outing, with just two Gods Of Thunder running around. There’s Chris Hemsworth, of course, back for his fourth solo film, but thrown into the mix is the returning Natalie Portman as Jane Foster. Last seen in 2013’s Thor: The Dark World (sneaky Avengers: Endgame cameo aside), she has now been given given a mysterious makeover that sees her re-entering Thor’s life as The Mighty Thor, wielding his old hammer, Mjolnir, to boot. We caught up with Waititi during post-production on the film to ask him just what the heck is going on… Where are you…4 min
Empire|Summer 2022YOUNG ENTERPRISEAlamy STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS SUMMER PARAMOUNT+ IT BEGAN WITH a supporting role. Then came the catchphrase (“Hit it!”), and the character’s show-stealing popularity. Now, three years after his introduction in Star Trek: Discovery’s second season, Anson Mount’s Captain Pike returns with his own spin-off series. Based on characters first introduced in Gene Roddenberry’s original, unaired Star Trek pilot, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds could technically be considered the longest pilot-to-series pickup ever — as well as an inspired gearshift for a franchise that’s been boldly going for over half a century. Set a decade before the events of Roddenberry’s original show, Strange New Worlds follows Pike as he explores the galaxy alongside his USS Enterprise crew, including trusty Science Officer Spock (Ethan Peck), Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding), and…3 min
Empire|Summer 2022HOW TO BUILD AN ICONAlamy ELVIS 24 JUNE IN CINEMAS THE PREP On hearing Baz Luhrmann was planning an Elvis Presley biopic, Austin Butler started to research the subject as if he already had the part. Best known as Manson family member Tex Watson in Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, Butler read every Elvis book, watched every film and listened to his entire back catalogue while painting his new LA home. It was during this intense period of study that he found a personal way into the man. “His mom passed away when he was 23 and my mom passed away when I was 23. He was very close to his mom, and my mom was my best friend. I just thought it was one of the most human things I could…3 min
Empire|Summer 2022DIALLING IT UPTHE BLACK PHONE 24 JUNE IN CINEMAS Alamy “IT WAS THE hardest decision of my career to step off Doctor Strange 2. Who does that? Who willingly walks off a Marvel movie?” The maker of one of the year’s most personal and powerful horrors, that’s who. It’s a sunny Thursday morning in Los Angeles, and Scott Derrickson is discussing his latest film — and the MCU sequel he left in order to make it happen. The Black Phone is the director’s first outing since quitting Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness in January 2020. The story of an abducted teen in 1970s Colorado who communes with the dead using a mysterious telephone, it’s an adaptation of a tale by acclaimed horror author Joe Hill that “fuses my own childhood…4 min
Empire|Summer 2022ALSO SHOWINGAlamy TOP GUN: MAVERICK 25 MAY, IN CINEMAS Because he still rather acutely feels the need for speed, Tom Cruise re-enters the danger zone. May the G-force be with you. STRANGER THINGS 27 MAY, NETFLIX So potentially good they had to split it in two, Season 4 of Netflix’s golden goose promises to be darker and more monstery than ever. MINIONS 2: THE RISE OF GRU 1 JULY, IN CINEMAS This one has Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren in it! And Michelle Yeoh! And the RZA! And… Julie Andrews? Well, why not? NOPE 22 JULY, IN CINEMAS Not much is known about Jordan Peele’s third directorial feature, but after Get Out and Us, we are unfeasibly excited. It’s a Yope from us. Or something. BEAST 12 AUGUST, IN CINEMAS…1 min
Empire|Summer 2022The Bard of BelfastAlamy KENNETH BRANAGH MADE HISTORY when he received three Oscar nominations for his work on Belfast, the often heartwarming — and occasionally heartbreaking — black-and-white, semi-autobiographical tale of Buddy (Jude Hill). It’s the story of a young boy growing up in the Northern Irish capital at the tail end of the ’60s, just as tensions in the country were flaring up and on their way to turning into The Troubles. Being something of an overachiever from a very young age, Branagh had been nominated for Best Director before, for his debut, Henry V, back in 1990, but the nominations for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay were brand-new, making him the first person in the history of the Oscars to receive nominations in seven separate categories. (It also brought him…9 min
Empire|Summer 2022MOVIE PLAYLISTTHE CRITIC AND SCALA RADIO PRESENTER CHOOSES SCORES HE’S BEEN PLAYING ON HIS WEEKLY SHOW AFTER YANG BY ASKA MATSUMIYA Regular listeners will know I’ve long been a fan of LA-based Japanese composer Aska Matsumiya, whose feature credits include Selah And The Spades, 37 Seconds and I’m Your Woman. Matsumiya’s latest project is After Yang, director Kogonada’s adaptation of Alexander Weinstein’s Blade Runner/A.I.-inflected short story about humans living with artificial intelligence. The soundtrack shifts between the glacial beauty of opener ‘In My Breath’ to the throbbing electro of ‘Welcome To Family Of 4’ and the poignant melancholia of ‘After The Rain’. In tune with the film’s subject matter, Matsumiya used AI technology to develop musical variations on her themes, as well as the track ‘Memory Bank’, contributed by Ryuichi Sakamoto.…2 min
Empire|Summer 2022THE RANKINGThe Friday The 13th franchise Illustration: Jacey with Sean S. Cunningham Chris: Despite the fact that most of these movies are absolutely terrible, I have a real affection for them. What’s your relationship with them? Anna: It’s probably the horror franchise I have the least affection for. A Nightmare On Elm Street was my gateway into horror, and Freddy remains my favourite big bad. Jason, honestly, is just a lump of flesh. I’m a fan of personality, and Jason is like horror’s himbo. I enjoy it for the kills, united by this lump of a man who enjoys sticking things through people. Mike: I like this franchise about this lump of a man sticking things through people. I discovered Friday The 13th when I was young, and I feel that’s…7 min
Empire|Summer 20226 OF THE BESTPICK OF THE MONTH PARIS, 13TH DISTRICT OUT 16 MAY / CERT 18 / 105 MINS A black-and-white love story might resemble a portrait of a bygone Paris, but Jacques Audiard’s new film couldn’t feel more modern. We follow young adults — waitress Émilie (Lucie Zhang), estate agent Camille (Makita Samba), student Nora (Noémie Merlant) and camgirl Amber (Jehnny Beth) — as their lives intersect in moments of intimacy, physical and emotional. The film offers something of a discourse on today’s fraught dating landscape, letting its characters voice their desires and concerns long before they act on them. It’s free-flowing and seductive, a featherlight romance from a filmmaker known for more punishing stories of outsiders trying to fit in. The same care for marginalised voices is there, only it’s much…3 min
Empire|Summer 2022No./1 Viola Davis prepares for battle“SOME THINGS ARE worth fighting for,” says Viola Davis’ military leader in the early footage of The Woman King screened at this year’s CinemaCon. With her sword and stacked muscles, this is not a woman you want to cross, although a whole bunch of invaders want to do just that in order to overpower the Kingdom of Dahomey, one of the most powerful states in 18th-and 19th-century Africa. A mammoth cast have assembled to join Davis in Gina Prince-Bythewood’s historical epic. John Boyega plays King Ghezo, Dahomey’s ruler, with Lashana Lynch and The Underground Railroad standouts Sheila Atim and Thuso Mbedu part of his tribe. Davis, who also serves as a producer on the film, has described the project as her “magnum opus”, and plays Nanisca, general of this all-female…1 min
Empire|Summer 2022No./4 What if Christopher Nolan made Ace Ventura 3?Alamy MICHAEL CAINE Nolan’s frequent collaborator plays Ventura Sr, a retired detective brought back into service when Jr’s capuchin monkey, Spike, becomes embroiled in an Italian money heist that culminates in a Mini Cooper getaway sequence. Nolan refers to the scene on set as “Caineception”. CHRONOLOGY JUGGLING The filmmaker’s fondness for non-linear narratives means that Ventura could be solving pet crimes in the past, present, future and/or in dreams. The filmmaker might even go back to his Memento days, with his pet detective covered in tattoos that lead him to a missing manatee. HANS ZIMMER SCORE Zimmer’s contribution would elevate the franchise — just think of Ventura being birthed by a fake rhino to those pulsating beats from The Dark Knight. A dramatic riff on ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’ could…1 min
Empire|Summer 2022No./7 The Sex Pistols show that Danny Boyle had to makeAlamy MUSIC HAS ALWAYS been integral to director Danny Boyle’s work: Trainspotting wouldn’t be Trainspotting without the echoey opening bars of Underworld’s Born Slippy; Slumdog Millionaire will forever be linked to Bollywood banger Jai Ho; ditto 28 Days Later with the sinister, slow-building guitars of John Murphy’s score. A music biopic has always felt like it might be a natural fit for Boyle, and yet only now are we getting one from him: a six-part mini-series about the Sex Pistols’ rise to punk glory, based on guitarist Steve Jones’ memoir, Lonely Boy: Tales From A Sex Pistol. “Normally I like to do projects that are going to surprise people,” Boyle tells Empire from his home in East London. “But everyone expected me to do this, and with good reason. I…3 min
Empire|Summer 2022No./10 “I’d already decided this moment would never happen”AFTER A CAREER of hugely popular secondary comedy roles in era-defining hits like Legally Blonde and Best In Show, Hollywood apparently decided that was all Jennifer Coolidge could do. More fool them, because in recent years she’s shown huge dramatic ability in Mike White’s sunbaked, satirical The White Lotus on TV, and now in Todd Stephens’ gay road movie Swan Song. The film sees Udo Kier play a former hairstylist who emerges from retirement to style a late client for her funeral; Coolidge plays his nemesis. During a break in shooting the second season of The White Lotus, she reflected on this bold new phase. Udo Kier’s character, Pat, in Swan Song finds such joy in life even when times are tough. What was it like playing off that energy?…3 min
Empire|Summer 2022No./14 A BRIEF HISTORY OF INANIMATE OBJECTS IN CINEMA1940 PINOCCHIO This Disney-created wooden puppet who dreams of becoming human is the founding father of sentient inanimate objects in the movies, so much so that two other adaptations of his journey, which was derived from a classic Italian children’s novel, are arriving this year. 1977 DEATH BED: THE BED THAT EATS This surrealist horror stars a demon-possessed bed that devours its occupants. The experimental film failed to find a distributor at the time it was made, but after its pirated release in the UK, it gained a cult following among horror fans with a taste for the absurd. 1983 CHRISTINE Stephen King is no stranger to conjuring terror from everyday stuff — let’s not forget the killer lawnmower in Maximum Overdrive. In John Carpenter’s adaptation of Christine, a vengeful…2 min
Empire|Summer 2022No./18 Raiders of the lost archivesTALKING PICTURES TV is movie nirvana.Curated from a garden shed in the village of Chipperfield, Hertfordshire, the TV channel has become a movie-world Indiana Jones, unearthing rare cinematic antiquities and preserving missing artefacts long thought lost. Launched seven years ago, its diet of pre-’90s, mostly British film and TV yields a steady stream of compelling flicks and shows, many of which might have never seen the light of day again if it weren’t for this plucky company’s perseverance and passion. It’s a vital act of celluloid preservation. “There’s no actual remit, but a trilby and a hat always helps,” laughs managing director Sarah Cronin-Stanley about how they decide what to air. “It really excites me when you see people on social media saying, ‘This has never been on telly before,’…2 min
Empire|Summer 2022PINT OF MILKDAVID HARBOUR What is your earliest memory? I was at a Playland amusem*nt park, and I really didn’t want to go in the haunted house. But my dad really wanted me to man up and go in. I had a carrot, and I went in begrudgingly and almost immediately some ghost popped out. I threw my carrot, started crying, and came out of the ride, yelling about how I lost my carrot. I must have been three years old. When were you most starstruck? It has to have been when I was cast in the Broadway production of The Merchant Of Venice, which starred Al Pacino as Shylock. The first rehearsal, I was so, so nervous, and there was a guy next to me who was kind of mumbling and…3 min
Empire|Summer 2022ALL MY FRIENDS HATE MEAlamy ★★★★ OUT 10 JUNE / CERT 12A 94 MINS DIRECTOR Andrew Gaynord CAST Tom Stourton, Georgina Campbell, Joshua McGuire, Dustin Demri-Burns, Antonia Clarke,Charly Clive, Graham Dickson PLOT Charity worker Pete (Stourton) heads to a country house for birthday celebrations with old uni pals, but something feels off — he’s the butt of their jokes, and a stranger they bring along seems to have it in for him. Are they even his friends at all? EVER BEEN AT a party and got the feeling that nobody wants you there? Reflected on a past conversation and realised you came across as a bit of an arsehole? Looked at the people around you and wondered why you hang out with them? Then, boy, is All My Friends Hate Me the film for…3 min
Empire|Summer 2022BENEDICTIONAlamy ★★★★ OUT 20 MAY CERT 12 / 137 MINS DIRECTOR Terence Davies CAST Jack Lowden, Peter Capaldi, Jeremy Irvine, Simon Russell Beale PLOT Soldier and poet Siegfried Sassoon (Lowden) returns from the war, decorated but disillusioned. His evocative writing on the horrors of the trenches makes him the toast of 1920s London, but a cloud of sorrow and survivor’s guilt follows him, casting a pall over his glamorous, bed-hopping life. DROLL BANTER IS not a pleasure one might traditionally expect from the achingly sad films of Terence Davies. And yet Liverpool’s melancholy master of autobiography (The Long Day Closes) and adaptation (The Deep Blue Sea) has been in close touch lately with his inner Oscar Wilde, finding a fount of sparkling verbal wit in the life and work of…3 min
Empire|Summer 2022PISTOL★★★★ OUT 31 MAY (DISNEY+) / EPISODES VIEWED 2 OF 6 SHOWRUNNER Craig Pearce CAST Toby Wallace, Anson Boon, Louis Partridge, Talulah Riley, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Maisie Williams PLOT In early 1970s London, working-class teenager Steve Jones (Wallace) performs with his future Sex Pistols bandmates on stolen musical equipment in the hopes of scoring their big break. But despite moving further into the spotlight, Jones can’t shake off the trauma of his past. IT’S CLOSING IN on 30 years since Danny Boyle made his feature debut with Shallow Grave, and yet the filmmaker shows absolutely no signs of slowing down when it comes to his propulsive method of filmmaking. Within the opening minutes of Pistol, a six-part adaptation of Steve Jones’ biography, a young version of the drummer is swaying,…3 min
Empire|Summer 2022OZARK: SEASON 4 PART 2★★★★★ OUT NOW (NETFLIX) / EPISODES VIEWED 7 OF 7 SHOWRUNNER Chris Mundy CAST Jason Bateman, Laura Linney, Julia Garner PLOT Distraught at a family member’s cold-blooded murder at the hand of a Mexican drug cartel, whitetrash criminal entrepreneur Ruth Langmore (Garner) seeks revenge. Meanwhile, money-launderers Marty (Bateman) and Wendy Byrde (Linney) attempt to conclusively extricate themselves and their children from the cartel’s grasp. FEW TV FINALE shocks can top Ozark’s third season. Even hardened HBO lovers gasped when a significant character was murdered, inches from crooked accountant Marty Byrde (Jason Bateman) and his equally bent lobbyist wife Wendy (Laura Linney), soaking the pair in blood and brain matter. Subsequent episodes of Season 4’s first half barely dropped in intensity, testament to routinely believable writing and first-rate performances. A…2 min
Empire|Summer 2022GOING LOCOBULLET TRAI 29 JULY IN CINEMA BRIAN TYREE HENRY has delivered eyecatching performances in heavyweight dramas (Widows, If Beale Street Could Talk) and blockbusters (Godzilla Vs. Kong, Eternals). With Bullet Train, though, he brings the fisticuffs. “I’d always wanted to do something action-packed, with big explosions and slow-motion walks,” he tells Empire. “So when [director] David [Leitch] came to me with this part, I had to take it.” Henry plays Lemon, one half of an assassin duo (alongside Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s Tangerine) who butt heads with other likeminded killers in a bid to retrieve a briefcase on a speeding Japanese train. With so many colourful personalities on board it would have been easy to get lost in the shuffle, but Lemon’s various quirks, says Henry, help him stand out from the…2 min
Empire|Summer 2022SCHEMING WITH DINOSAURSAlamy JURASSIC WORLD DOMINION 10 JUNE IN CINEMAS SLIPPERIER THAN A Compsognathus, more cunning than a Baryonyx, with all the ethics of a giant heap of Triceratops dung, Jurassic World Dominion villain Lewis Dodgson might just prove to be a more formidable threat than anything with claws. Introduced in a single scene in Jurassic Park — “Dodgson! Dodgson! We’ve got Dodgson here!” cackled Wayne Knight’s Dennis Nedry at a Costa Rican café, before declaring, “See, nobody cares” — the shady boss of genetics company Biosyn is returning almost three decades later, with a significantly beefed-up role. He is older, more powerful. But it’s still a terrible idea to leave your dinosaur DNA anywhere near him. “The way he bobs and weaves around people — you can tell he’s a calculator,”…2 min
Empire|Summer 2022THE NEW AGEAlamy THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RINGS OF POWER 2 SEPTEMBER PRIME VIDEO Over the last two decades, thanks to one Peter Jackson, Lord Of The Rings fans have been whisked up snow-peaked mountains and down into mines made of molten rock. We’ve visited rushing rivers, arachnid lairs and magical forests — but never the seaside. That is, ’til now. “We’re finally sailing on the oceans of Middleearth,” beams John Howe, concept artist on The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power, teasing a band of sea-faring elves who feature in the show. “They’re daunting and enterprising and are almost colonising the world. They were a lot of fun to imagine. It’s something neither Lord Of The Rings nor Hobbit movies went anywhere near.” In fact, there’s a…3 min
Empire|Summer 2022BATTLE READYAlamy HALO SUMMER PARAMOUNT+ PABLO SCHREIBER GREW up in a house with no TV and no video-game consoles. So, aside from dipping into hit sci-fi first-person-shooter Xbox series Halo while visiting friends as a teenager, he wasn’t deeply familiar with the game. Still, when he was offered the role of its alien-fanatic-battling protagonist — the genetically engineered “Spartan” super-soldier Master Chief/John-117 — for a long-gestating TV adaptation, he knew enough to know it was a big deal. Like, huge. “I understood from the beginning it was going to be a massive challenge and a controversial undertaking,” says Schreiber, who you’ll probably best recognise as either The Wire’s Nick Sobotka, or Mad Sweeney from American Gods. “Fifty million people, or however many sales there have been worldwide [more than 80 million,…3 min
Empire|Summer 2022GODS AMONG USILLUSTRATION The human lightning rod changing the face of cinema VIOLA DAVIS THE YEAR IS 1995 and Viola Davis is about to make the first big impact of her career. At Broadway’s William Kerr Theatre, the thenunknown actor is playing the grief-stricken girlfriend of Floyd ‘Schoolboy’ Barton, Keith David’s ex-con musician, in August Wilson’s 1948-set African-American drama Seven Guitars. It goes well. Variety praises the way Davis “made Vera’s forlornness and self-knowledge a potent mix”; The New Yorker calls her performance “alternately shy, sassy and saturnine”. Yet despite the acclaim — and a Tony Award nomination — Davis never felt like she delivered. “I did it for over a year and I didn’t feel like I ever got it,” she told Tom Hanks in Variety’s 2016 ‘Actors On Actors’ series.…14 min
Empire|Summer 2022THE MASTERPIECEDeath Becomes Her THE YEAR IS 1992. Goldie Hawn stands framed in the French windows of a Hollywood mega-mansion, her attitude confident and confrontational. Meryl Streep stands opposite her, holding a large shotgun. co*cking the gun, Streep drawls, “You brought this on yourself,” before proceeding to unload both barrels into Hawn’s midriff, blasting her through the air and into an elegant courtyard water-feature. Streep turns away. Ain’t no way anyone’s coming back from that. In the subsequent scene, as Streep’s character and her nebbish, alcoholic husband (a game, goofy Bruce Willis) begin to make corpse-disposal plans, the Hollywood star played by Hawn rises from her liquid grave, water pouring through a hole in her mid-section. She is triumphantly very much alive and ready for Round Two. This is both a…5 min
Empire|Summer 2022THE VIEWING GUIDEAlamy Fresh A MISOGYNISTIC SUITOR, a cannibalistic cabal, and an attempt to bite a penis off — not the kind of fare you’d usually expect to find on Disney+. But that’s exactly where Fresh, director Mimi Cave and writer Lauryn Kahn’s equally funny and horrifying cinematic answer to the question “Just how bad can this date be?”, landed earlier this year, its twists, turns and jaw-dropping reveal making it a word-of-mouth hit. Here, the pair talk us through the film’s most pivotal moments. FIRST DATE FAIL We meet Noa (Daisy Edgar-Jones) in her car, preparing herself for a first date with a guy named Chad (Brett Dier) — yes, that’s his actual name, and yes, he’s wearing a T-shirt with a scarf, for some reason. It doesn’t go well. He…5 min
Empire|Summer 2022THE STORY OF THE SHOTKing Kong IF KING KONG is billed as ‘The Eighth Wonder Of The World’, the climax of King Kong might well be the ninth. On the rampage in New York, the outsized ape, Ann Darrow (Fay Wray) in hand, seeks sanctuary on top of the Empire State Building and is strafed by four aircraft. A superb piece of action choreography achieved via a seamless mixture of different VFX disciplines (stopmotion animation, miniatures, in-camera compositing), it’s a set-piece that has become a pop culture touchstone, referenced by the diverse likes of Batman: Mask Of The Phantasm, The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Brooklyn 99. “I would marry you on top of the Empire State Building during a King Kong attack,” Jake Peralta (Andy Samberg) reassures Amy Santiago (Melissa Fumero) on their…3 min
Empire|Summer 2022CLASSIC SCENETaxi Driver Alamy Bill Hader: “A scene that kind of changed the way I look at movies is in Taxi Driver — when Robert De Niro has just taken Cybill Shepherd to the p*rno movie and it’s gone horribly wrong, and he’s on the phone with her afterwards in a hallway. And then the camera dollies off him and lines up on [another part of the] hallway and you still hear him talking. I saw that movie when I was 12, and I thought, ‘Oh, wow, the movie doesn’t want to watch this.’ I have no idea if that’s what Scorsese was going for — it probably wasn’t — but it unlocked a thing in my brain where I couldn’t look at movies the same way. After that I would…2 min
