Empire Magazine Australasia

Wolf Creek Season 2: The Empire Review

4 stars

Plot

Heading deep into the Outback on a once-in-a-lifetime adventure, a group of holidays makers receive some good-old-fashioned Aussie hospitality care of Mick Taylor (John Jarratt).

Review

When we are given our first glimpse of Mick Taylor, getting a killer deal at a gun and ammo shop, the sense of dread is palpable. John Jarratt’s wise-cracking sociopath may draw an uneasy laugh with his insidious cackle and PC baiting dialogue, but the moment first blood is drawn, Wolf Creek swiftly shocks us back into bloody familiar territory.

The second season of Stan’s Wolf Creek reboot runs with a simple but perilous premise as a coach load of tourists head out on a road trip to hell. The Mick Taylor vs The Tourists set-up is a brilliant central conceit that started life as the plot that McLean wanted for his first film. The director has constantly delighted in genre hopping. The first film was an exercise in gruelling terror. The sequel played like a gory Mad Max, the first season of the show was a revenge Western and now McLean is channelling Hitchcock with this shocking thriller with guts.

It’s such a cliché but the Outback has never been so terrifying. Trapping the holidaymakers on a bus exploring Terra Australis, with the devil as a tour guide, McLean takes the claustrophobic tropes of the slasher movie and turns them on his head. There is no place to hide in these huge open spaces.

The prey, sorry passengers, include an uptight British psychologist (Matt Day), an American couple trying to save their marriage (Tess Haubrich and Charlie Clausen), a pair of Canadian geology and history students (Laura Wheelwright and Elsa Cocquerel), a bus nerd (Steven Hunter) and a German mining engineer (Julian Pulvermacher). All guided by tour bus driver Davo (Ben Oxenbould). While some of the characters do descend into cliché, they are a likeable bunch and it’s a pleasure to spend time with them. Haubrich, in particular, ably follows-up Lucy Fry’s excellent lead performance in season one as the kick-ass female of the group.

Jarratt is obviously having a ball in the role that reinvigorated his acting career. He is brilliant as Taylor and has created a rare beast in these days of faceless masked movie bad guys, a bad guy who is not only fascinating to watch, but leaves you wanting to uncover more. The first season of Stan’s original series flashed back to reveal the killer’s childhood but we know there is more to uncover behind the flannel shirt and Akubra hat.

A bloody mix of chills and thrills, the new season of Wolf Creek once again proves that Taylor’s transition from movie madman to television terror was the right choice. Bloody great!

Verdict

The second season of Wolf Creek is a hugely entertaining and thrilling ride. Being scared has never been this much fun.

Rory Meyer

Meet Debbie Evans, the world’s greatest stuntwoman who has appeared in dozens of films and TV shows over the last 40 years and, at 59, has no plans of slowing down any time soon. Empire caught up with Debbie to talk about her work in The Fate Of The Furious (she’s worked on 6 of the 8 Fast films), the time she almost came a cropper on Matrix: Reloaded and her work stunt doubling in Terminator 2 and the original Wonder Woman TV series...

EMPIRE: You started riding motorbikes when you were six – how did you even find motorbike the right size for you?!

They didn’t have them back then! I had a mini-bike with a Yamaha 80 engine in it, which was really powerful that my dad had. Then I got a Honda 55 step-through – my dad gave me a shift lever in a box for Christmas. We went out to the garage and he had bought this motorcycle and a pile of parts so we worked on it and put it together, and I was nine-years-old when it was done. It was right before all the cool little motorcycles came out.

EMPIRE: How did you get your start in the stunt game?

I was going to junior college after high school and I saw a TV show where it was supposed to be a girl on a motorcycle, but it was clearly a guy with wide shoulders and a wide neck! I went, “I could do that!”, because I was riding for Yamaha at the time, riding against guys in national competitions. One day I got a call saying, “Do you want to be in a movie?”, and it was for a Roger Corman B-movie called Death Sport. I wound up working on that and realised it was what I really wanted to do, and I pursued it. I used to do all the physical stunts too, not just the vehicle stunts.

EMPIRE: Didn’t you do a big ravine jump in Death Sport? Yes – it was 30 feet, which was big back then, especially if riding an old heavy bike. I didn’t have a speedometer, so we set up a ramp on the road and measured the distance, and we just kept doing the jump until we got it right every time. I knew what gear and what RPM sound the engine was making when I made the jump, and it went great.

EMPIRE: As for the Fast & The Furious franchise, have you done stunts in every one of the films?

I did 1, 2, 3, 6, 7 and 8. And hopefully I’ll do 9 and 10! I was hurt when 4 came out, and I was on another job when 5 was being made.

EMPIRE: Do you ever think any of the stunts sound too insane to pull off?

Well, we always find a way to do it. The stunt co-coordinator and the second unit director get presented with an idea, and then we’ll have a meeting and brainstorm how we’ll get it done, which is a lot of fun.

EMPIRE: You use little toy cars to plan stunts, right?

Yes, uh-huh. It works really well because a lot of us are very visual learners. We draw out the lanes and figure out what each of us is gonna do. Then we do a half-speed rehearsal, and then when we’re all happy, we do it.

EMPIRE: What are some of the stunts you performed in The Fate Of The Furious?

I did quite a few! I drove on the ice in Iceland in the Rally Fighter with studded tyres on the ice – that was really cool! That car had a lot of power but no emergency brakes, like rear brakes, so I would just pitch it sideways with the power. Then we went to Cleveland and I drove the red Corvette – that sounded amazing and to drive something that classic and cool was really nice. We also filmed the police car motorcade there, so I was in a police car a whole bunch and took the back end of a taxi cab off with a camera on my car, and that looked really cool. Then they had the cars coming out of the parking structure – that was all real. Nobody was in the cars, of course, but they did it all with practical effects. I was in one of the ‘zombie cars’ when they hack all the computers and control the cars. There was a bunch. I can’t wait to see what they have for us next time!

EMPIRE: You were Michelle Rodriguez’ stunt double too, right?

Yes, I’ve doubled Michelle for a lot of years. In Part 6 there was bunch of times I was chasing myself, because I’d be doubling for Michelle but also driving the car chasing her!

EMPIRE: You’ve been in a ton of iconic films, like Terminator 2: Judgement Day. What did you do in that?

I was the stunt double for Linda Hamilton. That was all physical stunts in that one. I’d test out stunts for Linda then teach her what to do when it was possible for her to do something. You know the scene where she’s doing all the pull-ups? What you don’t see is me out of frame holding her up by the legs! She was really strong and really buff, but there’s no way you can do take after take of that.

EMPIRE: Any times a stunt looked like it was going to go horribly wrong?

On Matrix: Reloaded when the agent morphs into the truck driver and takes over the truck and it tries to come over and smash the motorcycle and that almost went wrong. In rehearsals I told the truck driver to do what he was gonna do on the day, so I knew how much time I had to do everything. When we went to do it I suddenly heard the trailer brakes come on and he swerves in, so I put on the brakes as hard as I could and the back end of the trailer went right over my front wheel and smacked the wall. It was inches from my face. That day almost ended the whole thing. When I got off the motorcycle I felt physically ill because it came that close. There was also a TV ad that was re-enacting the Thelma & Louise sequence where they drive off the cliff. I was facing the cliff with my foot on the brake and they asked me to move forward a little bit. I did, and then the throttle got stuck. I just reached down and shut the car off in a flash. The girl sitting next to me said “I’m so grateful it was you because if it was anybody else I would’ve died!!!”

EMPIRE: Wonder Woman is back in a big way, and you did stunts on the original Wonder Woman TV series, right?

Yes, I did her motorcycle stunts! I was always jumping the motorcycle, doing wheelies. It was fun!

EMPIRE: You’ve been doing this for a long time now. Any plans to retire?

I still love it. I’ve tried to quit a couple of times, and I’m not as happy of a person because I’m not doing what I’m meant to do.

Twin Peaks Season 3, Parts 3 & 4: The Empire Review

★★★★

Mere days ago, having been blindsided by the surrealism of the opening two hours, we felt pretty sure the WTF levels would settle down as things fell into place, relative normality resuming. What fools we were. The beginning had nothing on what has happened since – if anything, it gave us a false sense of security. The first episodes seemed to be about sadness. These ones bring madness.

As mentioned previously, Lynch has firmly stated that he sees this season as a film in 18 parts, and the third and fourth instalments cement that notion – make no mistake, this is pure cinema. We are all watching the glass box now, transfixed, awaiting seismic events. It’s rare – unprecedented maybe – to have an entire television series shot a year before broadcast, as is the case here, but it is now clear that the last 12 months have been spent furiously turning that footage into art.

Cooper’s journey out of the Red Room was a thrill. What does one even call these places he found himself in? There was some sort of netherworld, starring a lady with no eyes, who flailed at him, accompanied by audio effects that sounded like vicious slashing, and juddering glitchy visuals that looked like 19th century film stock. Then he was in – space? Elements of Eraserhead and even The Elephant Man sprung to mind, while now standard Red Room riddles (“When you get there you will already be there”) made Cooper the star of a particularly bizarre Choose Your Own Adventure.

The most grounded moments were when characters actually acknowledged how strange things are. In episode three we were introduced to a third Coop doppelgänger, bouffant businessman Dougie, who collapsed at the same time as Evil Coop had a funny turn after crashing his car. Both of them vomited up something disgusting, possibly Black Lodge food Garmonbozia. “What the fuck was that?!” asks prostitute Jade as Dougie hits the floor. Meanwhile, now in the Red Room, Dougie himself said, “I feel funny,” sounding uncannily like one-time YouTube sensation David After Dentist. When his hand started shrinking, he said, ‘That’s weird,” a real LOL moment, of which there were many. One can only imagine the fun Lynch and Frost had cooking this stuff up.

So Cooper is back in the real world, but the real world is not back in him. Having emerged from a plug socket that looks like a tortured, screaming face (RIP Josie Packard), he’s now a lost soul, with seemingly no idea who he is, talking like he has Alzheimer’s, walking like he’s Frankenstein. Suffering him doddering about aimlessly is sad, and it’s a marker of how bizarre Twin Peaks has got now when you think he might be better off in the relative comfort of the Red Room. But it’s also hilariously wacky, and despite our best wishes for Coop to find himself again soon, we’re enjoying our time with Mr Jackpots

Meanwhile, with isolated sequences that make even less sense, like Dr Jacoby spraypainting shovels and Michael Cera cameoing as an absurd tribute to Marlon Brando in The Wild One, Lynch seems to be inserting possibly inconsequential short films into the show. Consistency of tone means nothing to him. When Bobby, now a Deputy Sheriff, sees Laura’s photo and Angelo Badalamenti’s music pipes up, his distraught reaction is so overplayed, and accompanied by Robert Forster’s unfeeling look at him, the whole bit seems to be almost mocking the nostalgia of it all. Soon after that, Cooper is reunited with his coffee, but immediately spews it out. Lynch will not give us what we think we want. He’s having a ball.

These two episodes were off the hook. One Coop doppelgänger was mad enough, but we knew it was coming, and God forbid we should get used to anything, so Lynch gives us another one. We now know that new Twin Peaks is operating on many different levels of batshit. It’s fabulously unpredictable. “Albert, I hate to admit this, but I don’t understand this situation at all,” says Lynch himself, his very own Mount Rushmore face inhabited by Gordon Cole. Good to know.

Big questions

Who is Dougie?

In the Red Room, MIKE says Dougie has been manufactured by someone for a purpose, fulfilled now that he’s in the Red Room, right? Manufactured by who? All signs lead to BOB. Maybe. Note that Dougie was wearing the Owl Cave ring, previously seen on Teresa Banks and Laura Palmer before they died.

What is Blue Rose?

The disembodied spirit head of Garland Briggs uttered it to Cooper in space (how amazing to write these sentences as if it’s normal), and later, Albert mentions it to Gordon after meeting Evil Coop. It was previously mentioned in Fire Walk With Me, and most likely concerns supernatural happenings, probably Black Lodge related.

Who has been pressing Coop’s suit?

Seriously he’s been stuck in the Red Room for 25 years. You might theorise he’s been frozen in time in there, although he’s visibly aged, so that doesn’t quite work. What’s he been eating? Garmonbozia, right?

Alex Godfrey

Twin Peaks Season 3, Parts 1 & 2: The Empire Review

★★★★★

Well, that was emotional. These events are going to have to percolate a bit. Like… damn, what is that hot drink that percolates?

Twin Peaks itself has been percolating since 1992’s Fire Walk With Me — in our minds, in David Lynch and Mark Frost’s brains, and in pop culture at large, quietly waiting to take hold again. The feature prequel aside, when we last left the Red Room, some semblance of Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) told Agent Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) she’d see him in 25 years, then screamed like a banshee, and poor Coop became possessed, possibly, by Bob, squeezed out a load of toothpaste and headbutted a mirror. That finale, directed by Lynch, was more terrifying than a sackful of jump scares — an ending that laughed demonically in the face of closure. In the dying moments of the series, it triggered a new nightmare, leaving us hungry for a continuation we never thought we’d get. So here we are, and Lynch isn’t taking any prisoners, all but warning us: be careful what you wish for.

Everything is broken. There is so much pain here. Coop, as we found him, was still stuck in the Red Room, which now more than ever seems like Hell itself, as he was visited by some deeply troubled ghosts of the past. Away from the Black Lodge things were hardly lighter, as we visited South Dakota, New York City and Las Vegas. Yes, there was slapstick and farce, absurdist humour offsetting the violence, but what violence it was: evil Coop’s killing spree was one thing, but elsewhere, Lynch outdid himself. A ghoulish massacre was traumatic, while the aftermath of a mutilation was a world away from Laura Palmer’s beautiful corpse — this was Manson Family bad. Oh, did you think this would be a comforting nostalgia-fest? Did you think you’d get to hang out with Coop and Bobby and Audrey and feel like it was 1990 again? Did you think Lynch would give you an easy ride?

By the end, disparate strands didn’t make sense necessarily, but they came together, building to a bizarre and upsetting climax. But the beauty of Twin Peaks is that even when it doesn’t make sense at all, it feels right. “Are you Laura Palmer?” asked Coop of Laura Palmer. “I feel I know her,” she said, just as she had in the Red Room all those years ago, “but sometimes my arms bend back.”

Lynch says that regardless of the delivery system, the new Twin Peaks is very much a movie, just in 18 parts. His film career itself might have fallen by the wayside, but you get the sense that back here on the small screen, he’s doing everything he’s ever wanted.

Whereas the original show was stifled by other creative commitments, plot pressures from the network and declining ratings, Lynch and Frost have had nothing in their way this time. We are now watching Lynch unleashed, untampered with, free to do exactly as he wished, and is having the time of his life. It is beautiful to see him so unstifled, so prepared, and so in control. Lynch and Frost wrote this over three years, filmed it over six months, and it’s come to us fully-formed, slaved over to the last, no stone unturned. Did you see the sole sound design credit? Lynch. Are there subliminal frequencies on this soundtrack specifically designed to unsettle us? You wouldn’t bet against it.

Twin Peaks was always about how it feels. And as funny and as shocking as this opener was, what we are really left with is sadness, much of it stemming from time itself — past lives, present realities, age, death. Look at the damage in Laura’s eyes. Decades of pain. And here, when Coop is asked, “Is it future or is it past?”, Lynch might well be asking us what we want. What happens when we go back? What damage have we seen? What have we lost?

This is also given to us literally. Lynch could easily have made Catherine Coulson look more like The Log Lady did when we last saw her. Coulson died in September 2015, at 71, of cancer, and it’s heartbreaking to see her now, presumably near the end of her life, practically bald and with nose tubes, looking like she’s just hanging on. There is no faking anything here, and it’s confronting. “The stars turn and a time presents itself,” she says.

In The Bang Bang Bar, old friends return while a young band play. Yes, there is nostalgia at play, but positioned here, after everything we’ve just seen, it’s subverted, an affecting alchemy of love, longing and loss. Presented with the past, you reflect on both the last two hours and the last 25 years, and you want to weep. What are we supposed to do now?

Big Questions

Who’s pulling the strings?

That kid who’s been employed to watch the glass box for some billionaire. Who is it? Is it the same person we hear about in Vegas when Roger says, “You better hope you never have someone like him in your life?” Given those glass box shenanigans, the Red Room seems to have even more real-world power than we’d thought.

What the hell is that tree?

Yes, the naked electric tree that’s topped with a cross between a putty brain and Eraserhead’s baby. “He must come back in before you can go out,” it tells Coop, before it has some sort of demonic seizure and the Red Room turns into a horrific theme park version of itself. Either way we’d like more tree, please.

Did Bill Hastings kill Ruth Davenport?

He wasn’t there, he insists – but he did dream it. Yet his fingerprints were all over her room. Evil Coop certainly seems to be involved. With this new murder case to be investigated, it seems Bob is back big-time. Even if he has made Cooper look like Tommy Wiseau.

Alex Godfrey

By Ian Nathan

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

The Plot: Two counter-culture bikers set off from Los Angeles to New Orleans for Mardi Gras, meeting a cross-section of American characters en route.

Justly celebrated as the film that truly channelled that whole countercultural thing along the downward slope of the sixties, Dennis Hopper’s experimental mishmash of a road movie is flawed by its own concept. It was such a product of its time it feels vacuous and aloof, its so-called greatness exaggerated all out of proportion. So, in approaching the bumpy adventures across the heart of America, or at least its leathery Southern belt, of Captain America (the heroic looking Peter Fonda) and Wolfman (Dennis Hopper looking like he would dance with any devil given the chance) context is everything. This was 1969, the year of Woodstock, the Vietnam War, and the growing discontent in American youth.

What is most apparent is its flagrant deconstruction of what was considered popular cinema. The film is shapeless, a picaresque squall of bizarre encounters between the chopper riding heroes of freedom as they bounce between communes of ‘shroomed hippies, suspicious yokels, to the famous fireside encounter with a booze-riddled lawyer played by Jack Nicholson. To be fair, the film isn’t a dope session, for each woozy slab of drop-out bliss the film counters with a growing sense of dysfunction. These easy riders are looking for an answer that can’t ever be located. They harken to the call of doom.

The open depiction of drugs and drug culture drenched the film in controversy, but what irritates is not the moral dimension more than using such an alternative lifestyle as an excuse to labour the intelligent design with wafty, pointless psychedlia. The New Orleans section, where they are tripping on LSD and hook up with Toni Basil and Karen Black, is a near unwatchable wobble through the filmmakers’ genuine whacked-out adventures shot a year prior to the rest of the film. Hopper probably felt it was outrageously daring, but it drives a huge spoke into the film’s spinning wheels. Thus, while you cannot dismiss its place in history, its power is in what it represented rather than what it did.

The Top 10 Most Batshit Insane Moments In Twin Peaks

David Lynch and Mark Frost’s Twin Peaks is remembered for many things; the eclectic but loveable cast, Angelo Badalamenti’s dreamy score and Audrey Horne being, well... Audrey Horne. But mention the name of the show to most and visions of red curtained rooms, backwards talking dwarves and a killer called Bob will spin around their head. Now, on the eve of the show’s highly anticipated return, exclusively streamed in Australia on Stan, here are the top 10 most off-the-dial moments, the ones that made Twin Peaks the hottest show on television 25 years ago...

Nadine’s Wrestling Career

Nadine Hurley (Wendy Robie) was already teetering on the wrong side of insane, developing a psychotic obsession with inventing the world’s first silent drape runner, when things got complicated. After a failed suicide attempt, she awakens from a coma but regresses back to her teens, developing super human strength. As you do. The the diminutive Nadine auditions for the cheerleading team and joins the school wrestling team, leg-presses 600lbs with ease and grapples her way through the wrestling team.

Josie In The drawer

In a moment that continues to confound Twin Peaks aficionados the world over, Josie Packard (Joan Chen) dies of fright and her spirit leaves her body to be trapped in the bedside cabinet. How do we know? Using dodgy special effects they borrowed from Freddy Krueger, we see Josie’s screaming face in the wooden drawer knob, seemingly trapped for eternity in an Ikea tomb. No, we have no idea either.

Mr. Tojamuro

When Piper Laurie’s Catherine Martin is assumed dead after a conflagration at the sawmill, she goes into hiding, disguising herself as a Japanese businessman called Mr. Tojamuro to trick an incarcerated Benjamin Horne (Richard Beymer), arrested for the murder of Laura Palmer, into signing over land rights in exchange for an alibi. In a brilliantly bonkers move, Lynch asked Laurie to dress as a Japanese actor off set so no one knew her true-identity.

Cooper’s Dream

It’s the moment that Twin Peaks stopped being a regular TV show and became an extraordinary hallucinatory experience, complete with a backwards talking dwarf. Agent Cooper drifts into a deep sleep and dreams of entering The Red Room. He meets The Man From Another Place and a girl who looks remarkably like Laura Palmer. They discuss gum going out of style and arms that bend backwards. Then Laura whispers into Cooper’s ear the name of her killer. It’s a trip.

Cousin Maddie Is Killed

It happens again when Laura Palmer’s cousin Madeline, also played by Sheryl Lee, is brutally slain by Laura’s father Leland Palmer (Ray Wise). It’s even more shocking, when the realisation of what Palmer has already done to his daughter becomes clear. Albeit possessed by the evil spirit of Bob. It’s an excruciating sequence, unflinching in its brutality. Everyone wanted to know who killed Laura Palmer but they didn’t want to hear the answer.

Windom Earle’s Chess Game

When Agent Cooper’s ex-partner arrives in town he has a grudge to settle. Cooper stole Earle’s girlfriend so he killed her and now wants to see Cooper’s blood run red. His elaborate plan involves kidnapping, cross-dressing and a less-than-gentlemanly game of chess that sees a victim killed and their mouth stuffed with a pawn. Checkmate!

Ben Horne Re-Enacts The Civil War

After a string of double-crosses and bad business decisions, Benjamin Horne was already on the brink. Then, when scandalous accusations are aimed his way for the murder of his beloved Laura Palmer, he cracks and decides to dress up as a confederate general and re-enact the American Civil War complete with some supporting cast, models and pyrotechnics.

Leland Palmer’s Dance-off

Benjamin Horne is entertaining the Norwegians, buttering them up for the big deal. When a distraught Leland Palmer arrives at the party he stands in the dance floor weeping, a broken man. Horne pushes Catherine Martin onto the dance floor to accompany Laura’s father so his guests don’t ask any questions. A comic tragedy.

Agent Cooper Enters The Black Lodge

Trying to save his new love Annie (Heather Graham), Coop enters the Black Lodge through The Red Room and meets the evil dopplegangers of the dead including Laura and Leland Palmer. He sells his soul to killer Bob to save his love, ending Twin Peaks on a wickedly downbeat moment.

The Llama

Agent Cooper comes face to face with a Llama. Of course he does.

It Is Happening Again TWIN PEAKS – 22 May   Same Day as U.S. Only on Stan.

The Netflix Marvel heroes unite in the first full trailer for The Defenders.

Things open with Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter) being interrogated by Detective Misty Knight (Simone Missick) when she's visited by Matt Murdoch (Charlie Cox), who we know better as Daredevil, claiming to be her new lawyer. Luke Cage (Mike Colter), who is obviously not in jail, proclaims to Rosario Dawson's Claire Temple that he just wants to help people.

And then we get to see him put that into action when he intervenes in an apparent mugging, preventing Danny Rand (Finn Jones) from punching out someone. Danny, not too fond of that idea, strikes out at Cage, finds him immovable and he himself suddenly on the ground. Of course his fist then goes all glowy and the side of Cage's head feels some serious pain.

It seems that bringing all four of them together is Daredevil's Stick (Scott Glenn), telling them, "The war for New York is here, so get your shit together."

Quick shot of Sigourney Weaver as Alexandra, the villainess of the piece, and we're out.

But we're really in. The Defenders begins streaming on Netflix 18 August.

By Adam Smith

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

The Plot: On a hot day in New York, three men set out to rob a bank. It's supposed to take ten minutes, but things start going wrong from the beginning when one of them bails at the last minute. Four hours later, the bank is surrounded by police, a media circus, and crowds of well wishers.

In The Dorchester Hotel in London, sometime in January 1974, Al Pacino told director Sidney Lumet and screenwriter Frank Pierson (Cool Hand Luke) that he categorically would not play the part of Sonny Wortzik in Dog Day Afternoon. It was not the news they had wanted to hear. Not only had they flown over just for this meeting, the part had been written with Pacino in mind. But he was adamant. He had just finished shooting The Godfather Part II, which had left him, in his own words, "Exhausted and infinitely depressed" and just didn't fancy taking on a role that would, given his famous dedication to The Method, have him working himself up to a state of near hysterical anxiety on a daily basis. Apologies were made, hands were shaken and Lumet dispatched the script to Dustin Hoffman. But when Pacino heard that his rival in the diminutive acting genius stakes was showing interest he did an about face and demanded another shufti. The result was not only the granddaddy of all heist-gone-wrong films, but one of his finest performances in the decade he, De Niro and the crime movie made their own.

There was something about the 70s that threw up not only consistently great movies of all kinds, but crime movies in particular — and all sub-genres were covered. There was the grand opera of The Godfather films, noirish gumshoe action with Chinatown, political chicanery with All The President's Men. In most crime genres the 70s delivered the "best of" category. And that includes the heist-gone wrong-movie. It's been a staple of crime cinema since The Asphalt Jungle in 1950 and Rififi in 1955. Recent efforts such as Reservoir Dogs and The Usual Suspects show that it remains an audience pleaser as, when well-written and directed, it grants the audience permission to enjoy criminal shenanigans, and to identify with the perpetrators, without condoning them. Then there's the natural human delight in seeing things unravel disastrously. And in terms of plans assuming the appearance of a pear it would be difficult to beat what happened at the First Brooklyn Savings Bank on August 22nd, 1972.

Lumet and Pierson's recreation of Sonny Wortzick's botched attempt to steal thousands of dollars to fund his boyfriend's sex-change operation moves deftly from farce to tragedy with things going catastrophically wrong from the start. There's the third member of the gang who bottles out within minutes of the robbery kicking off and inquires whether he can use the getaway car to go home, the sarcastic bank teller (played brilliantly by Penelope Allan, "Did you ever have a plan or what? I mean, did you just barge in on a whim?" she asks witheringly at one point) and there are hungry husbands waiting for dinner phoning the bank to ask when Sonny "thinks he'll be done by". It's a brilliantly handled crescendo into chaos with Lumet, a past master of directing claustrophobic movies (Fail Safe, Twelve Angry Men), builds the sense of oppressive heat, tension and ultimately surreal action as various pressure groups arrive outside to cheer or decry the bisexual bank robber in front of the impotent NYPD.

And here's where Dog Day becomes more than just another heist movie. It's a gripping picture of a city close to meltdown. From Lumet's dazzling opening montage in which we see scenes of a city about to boil over in more ways than one, sweltering 70s New York becomes a raucous character in the movie. 1972's cultural melee is perfectly invoked as the heist transforms into a counter-cultural jamboree with a botched bank robbery as its central piece of performance art. Only, as they say, in the 70s.

Apart from the opening titles, Lumet uses no music, adding to the realistic, documentary feel while his camera in the opening minutes of the heist hurtles round his confined set before slowly settling down as Sonny and Sal hunker down for the long haul. It's a triumph of controlled direction and fantastic editing (by Dede Allen, whose Oscar-winning scalpel work includes Bonnie And Clyde, The Hustler and, weirdly enough, The Breakfast Club).

The film is also filled with outstanding performances from Pacino, Cazale (cast at Pacino's insistence, the part was originally written for a 14 year-old boy, as Sal was in real life) and Charles Durning as the harassed police chief trying not only to prevent a bloodbath inside the bank but also to control his own trigger-happy cops. Chris Sarandon delivers an effective turn as wannabe woman Leon and the film's handling of gay issues, though it looks dated today, is remarkably advanced for the mid-70s — though Pacino balked at a kiss outside the bank and the scene was re-written as an amazingly effective telephone conversation. And while in the tradition of the heist movie, crime doesn't pay — Sonny was sent down for 20 years — signing movie waivers obviously does. In 1973 Warner Brothers paid him $7,500, the exact price of a sex-change operation. Leon is now Liz Eden, and lives in New York.

By James White

It's probably a little late to save yourself if you haven't seen M. Night Shyamalan's Split, but just in case... Spoiler Alert! At the end of this year's James McAvoy-starring multiple personality thriller, it was revealed that the movie takes place in the same universe as his comic book-riffing 2000 film Unbreakable. Now, the writer/director has announced that a film acting as a sequel to both of them, Glass, will arrive next year starring Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson, McAvoy and Split co-star Anya Taylor-Joy.

While he hasn't revealed anything about the actual story, Shyamalan addressed the fact that this will finally answer the nearly two decades' worth of questions about an Unbreakable sequel, featuring Willis' seemingly invulnerable David Dunn and Jackson's Elijah Price/Mr Glass, who at the end of Unbreakable is revealed to be his nemesis. They'll somehow interact with McAvoy's Split character, who boasted some seriously powerful abilities along with his various personalities. And then there will be Taylor-Joy's Casey Cooke, who showed off some powers of her own at the end of Split.

By Chris Hewitt

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

The Plot: The Guardians Of The Galaxy — Peter Quill/Star-Lord (Chris Pratt), Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Drax (Dave Bautista), Rocket (Bradley Cooper) and Baby Groot (Vin Diesel) — are running for their lives from an alien race called The Sovereign, when they receive help from an unexpected source: Ego, The Living Planet, an ancient being who claims to be Peter’s long-lost father…

The first Guardians Of The Galaxy’s chief weapon was surprise. When the quirky quintet made their debut back in 2014, they represented Marvel Studios’ biggest gamble to date. Sure, it was the company that had taken an Aussie surfer, given him a magic hammer and still created another hit to add to its roster of box office behemoths, but the received wisdom was that a sci-fi film featuring a talking raccoon, a sentient tree, an ex-wrestler, a green warrior woman, and a roguish bloke best known for being the tubby guy in Parks And Recreation would be a step too far.

Well, received wisdom can go hang. Driven by the indie, often delightfully deranged sensibilities of its director, James Gunn, Guardians was a joy, combining humour and sci-fi action in a manner that out-Star Warsed most Star Wars movies, danced a jig at the global box office, and became a fixture on many ‘Best MCU films’ lists. In short, we were Groot.

But when you’ve lost the element of surprise, following that is no easy task. Happy to report, though, bar a few last-act wobbles and the odd tonal shift, Gunn has done it again, crafting a sequel that keeps the focus on the characters we fell for first time around while pumping up the volume.

After the success of the first one — and perhaps learning from the travails of Joss Whedon who, by his own admission, had to endure a fair amount of interference and second-guessing on Avengers: Age Of Ultron — Marvel has handed Gunn the keys to the kingdom. And that confidence is evident from the film’s credit sequence, which presents an action set-piece in a hilarious and highly unorthodox manner, while giving the incredibly cute Baby Groot a glorious moment in the spotlight and serving notice that 'Awesome Mix Vol. 2', the mix-tape that drives the film’s soundtrack, is going to be every bit as earwormy as 'Vol. 1'.

And, for the terrific first hour or so that seems to be the case with the movie as well. If the first film was about bringing this group of A-holes together, then convention dictates that the sequel should be about forcing them apart. But Gunn is clearly uninterested in what he should do and so this is actually a film about the group realising that, despite their huge differences, they function best as the universe’s most dysfunctional family. Yes, family — thematically this has a lot in common with Fast & Furious 8, with the F-word said so often it would overheat Dom Toretto’s carburettor. Almost everyone here has daddy, mummy, or sister issues, with Quill in particular finding himself in a weird version of My Two Dads, torn between the dependably swaggering Russell’s aptly-named Ego and Michael Rooker’s gnarly space pirate, Yondu. But the emotions this engenders are unexpected and genuine. Beneath the film’s sass — and there’s plenty of that again — there’s a real beating heart.

Vol. 2 is at its best when this motley crew are bickering and bantering amongst themselves (with Bautista’s wonderfully unfiltered Drax getting the lion’s share of the best lines again, including the T-shirt-worthy, "I have famously huge turds") and outside parties, this time including Ego, Pom Klementieff’s sweet Mantis and Gamora’s aggrieved sister, Nebula (Karen Gillan), given more to do this time around. Hanging out with them is so much fun that it’s a shame when Gunn finally makes a concession to convention and remembers that films like this typically have to have a) a plot and b) a villain.

With the introduction of both, that’s when the movie starts to falter. What was previously assured becomes a little abrasive and, at times, unappealing. Jokes that landed unerringly start to miss the target, including a running gag about a bad guy called Taserface that’s not as funny as it may have seemed on paper/on set/in the edit, while one sequence which is meant to be a moment of triumphant heroism comes across as a tasteless misstep. And the final battle, try as it might, can’t help but become a greenscreen jamboree.

Still, even when the pixels threaten to overwhelm, Gunn finds refuge in his main characters. There’s plenty to enjoy here, whether it’s the perfectly deployed Baby Groot moments, or a general strain of anarchic weirdness that runs all the way through the credits and which still feels unique to this franchise, not just within the MCU, but blockbusters in general. It’s easy to overlook the odd off note when a mix is this awesome.

By James White

Aziz Ansari added sitcom co-creator/occasional director to his various other credits with last year's successful Netflix series Master Of None. The show is back for Season 2 and the full trailer has arrived.

Choosing to just hint at rather than spell out what Dev (Ansari) might have been up to, the new trailer shows him initially in Italy, where he headed at the end of the first season, after breaking up with girlfriend Rachel (Noël Wells). From the looks of his European endeavours, Dev has had some fun, been out on several dates and spent time with friends such as Arnold (Eric Wareheim) and indulged in some culinary delight.

But he's drawn back to New York to take on challenges in his personal and family life, explore a career opportunity and figure out his relationship.

With Lena Waithe, Kelvin Yu and Ansari's own parents in the cast, Master Of None's second season arrives on Netflix on 12 May.

By Philip Thomas

The Plot: Ace Rothstein (De Niro) and Nicky Santoro (Pesci) are two mobsters who move to Las Vegas to make their fortunes. But they come into conflict with Ace falls for a pushy showgirl, Ginger (Sharon Stone) and Nicky falls into a cycle of drugs and violence.

If you like to know where you are with a director, Casino is the movie for you. Placing The Age Of Innocence and Cape Fear to one side for a moment, here we have Scorsese returning to what he knows best, and to the people he loves.

Co-written with GoodFellas screenwriter Nicholas Pileggi, and starring the usual suspects in the form of Bobby De Niro and Joe Pesci, you also have the warm reassurance of the presence of many of GoodFellas' character actors, grizzled of visage and twitchy of trigger-finger, Scorsese's mum doing a cameo, Elaine and Saul Bass producing the opening credits, and many recognisable directorial flourishes. Even better for Scorsese fans, within 15 minutes Joe Pesci is stamping on some schmuck's head in a bar, screaming obscenities as a bewildered Robert De Niro looks on with that great quizzical expression of his.

GoodFellas Part II? Well, sort of. Scorsese insists this isn't a mob film, and you can see his point. It tells the - slightly embellished - true story of Sam "Ace" Rothstein (De Niro), a brilliant Mid-West gambler recruited by the wiseguys to run their casino in Vegas, which he proceeds to do with ruthless efficiency. It all sours when his old buddy Nicky Santoro (Pesci in fantastic psycho mode) comes to town and starts throwing his weight around at more or less the same time as Ace makes the one big reckless gamble of his life: persuading sex-bomb hustler Ginger McKenna (Stone) to marry him. This head-strong twosome just add too many maybes into the comfortable set-up, and slowly the easy money-making machine starts to malfunction. Then the baseball bats come out.

This is De Niro's finest hour certainly since GoodFellas and maybe since The King Of Comedy. Onscreen for nearly the whole three-hour running time, he is chillingly logical about his life at first, slowly descending into panic, frustration and violence as things go wrong. He plays it perfectly from start to finish, as indeed do the entire cast. Sharon Stone is a revelation, Pesci is his usual mesmerising self, and if at times the story drags - with too much voiceover and quasi-documentary - the three of them refuse to let go of your nether regions for a second.

If the violence is even more stomach churning than in GoodFellas (check out Pesci's creative use of a vice) and if Scorsese isn't making huge strides in terms of his filmmaking lexicon, this is still a powerful, disturbing and entirely fascinating examination of a specific time and place, and of the nature of the deals we do - with our employers, with our friends, with our lovers.

The first trailer for Justice League arrives on Saturday March 25, but Warner Bros. has released two teasers: one of Aquaman and one of Batman.

The Batman teaser shows more of what we’re all hoping for: a broody bearded Bruce, Bats atop a stone gargoyle, and the Batmobile flinging lead. The Aquaman vid shows a bit more of what we can expect from Jason Momoa’s undersea hero: unleashing blasts from his trident (actually a pentadent, if that’s a real word), and getting soaked from big waves.

Both teasers end with what looks like a carrier opening up to reveal Batman (Ben Affleck), Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot), Cyborg (Ray Fisher), Flash (Ezra Miller) and Aquaman (Jason Momoa) standing shoulder-to-shoulder.

Also starring are Henry Cavill as Superman (destined to rise from the grave he was put in following his battle with Doomsday in Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice), Amy Adams reprising her role of Lois Lane, Connie Nielsen as Queen Hippolyta, Amber Heard as Mera, Jeremy Irons as Alfred Pennyworth, J.K. Simmons as Commissioner Gordon and Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor.

The studio officially describes the film as follows: "Fueled by his restored faith in humanity and inspired by Superman's selfless act, Bruce Wayne enlists the help of his newfound ally, Diana Prince, to face an even greater enemy."

The DC Cinematic Universe kicked off with Man Of Steel in 2011, followed by Batman V Superman in 2016. Wonder Woman arrives this summer.

Justice League will be released on 16 November.

By Andrew Collins

★★★★★  

The plot: Los Angeles, 2019: Rick Deckard of the LPD's Blade Runner unit prowls the steel & micro-chip jungle of the 21st century for assumed humanoids known as 'replicants'. Replicants were declared illegal after a bloody mutiny on an Off-World Colony, and are to be terminated upon detection. Man's obsession with creating a being equal to himself has back-fired.

"I think some — a lot— of people enjoy it, and that's their prerogative," a grumpy Harrison Ford told the Boston Globe in 1991. "I played a detective who did no detecting. There was nothing for me to do but stand around and give some focus to Ridley's sets." Ah well, he didn't much enjoy being in Star Wars either, and some — a lot — of people enjoyed that, too. The truth is, few actors come off well in sci-fi movies if they feel that it's them versus the sets or them versus the director's imagination. As it is, Harrison Ford's apparent bemusement works perfectly within Ridley Scott's framework; his former blade runner Rick Deckard, though expert at "retiring" the almost-human androids known as replicants, spends most of the film bemused.

As he tracks down four escaped replicants (a detective doing "no detecting"?) in a darkly malevolent, incongrously rainy 2019 Los Angeles, he falls in love with femme fatale Rachel (Young), who is a replicant. And it's this tentative, enigmatic relationship that drives the film.

Blade Runner is possibly the most talked-about sci-fi movie ever made. It achieved this honour by being a failure on its original release, thus attaining the valuable sheen of a true cult (something that could never be said about Star Wars, despite the rapacity of its followers). When re-released theatrically in the form of a Director's Cut in 1992, it was reappraised by formerly sniffy critics, and more people paid to see it. The irony of this belated legitimisation is that the Director's Cut is more cryptic and ambiguous than the original, and — crucially to the sort of fan who roams the Internet — supported the popular theory that Deckard himself is a replicant.

There are actually only minor differences between the original and the Director's Cut (indeed, the tag is misleading, as it's actually a compromise between director and studio). Scott removed the explanatory voice-over and happy ending, both of which had been added after disastrous sneak previews. He also introduced a 12-second dream sequence involving a unicorn, which helps explain the significance of an origami unicorn that appears in the final sequence. Oddly, some of the extra frames of violence in the video version are now excised. While obsessive aficionados hotly debate the merits of each version (and whether Deckard is a replicant or not), the casual fan will glean enough pleasure just watching the film — any bloody version — and admiring its astonishing production values.

Scott's advertising background has, however, given him a unique sixth sense for overdoing it, hence the dusty light shafting through Venetian blinds; the pounding, backlit rain; and the kaleidoscopic colours, now the basic grammar of any filmmaker. The look of Blade Runner can be credited to production designer Lawrence G. Paull, "visual futurist" Syd Mead, art director David L. Snyder, cinematographer Jordan Cronenweth and ubiquitous FX man Douglas Trumbull. But the overall vision was Scott's: "a film set 40 years hence, made in the style of 40 years ago." (Note, by the way, how much warmer its pre-CGI effects are than those which dominate today.)

In H.G. Wells The Time Machine, Earth was divided into a clean, Aryan paradise above ground and a hellish, primitive netherworld beneath, a division that recurs constantly in movie sci-fi. In Blade Runner, the sleek and the ugly, the ancient and the modern, co-exist, just as they do in any big city today (the Ancient Egyptian grandeur of the Tyrell Corporation versus the dilapidated, leaky hulk of J.E Sebastian's building). Perhaps this is why Blade Runner's future is so compelling, and why it's still duplicated ad nauseum in rock videos and bank adverts.

James Dyer

The achievements of Viola Davis, Casey Affleck and the other honourees at the Oscars have by now been thoroughly overshadowed by that incident. Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway called Best Picture for La La Land only for an excruciating correction to Moonlight that came a good few minutes into the La La team's acceptance speeches. Awkward. But what exactly happened?

Accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, who are responsible for safeguarding both the ballots and the winners' envelopes, officially took responsibility for the snafu, issuing the following statement: "We sincerely apologize to Moonlight, La La Land, Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, and Oscar viewers for the error that was made during the award announcement for Best Picture. The presenters had mistakenly been given the wrong category envelope and when discovered, was immediately corrected. We are currently investigating how this could have happened, and deeply regret that this occurred. We appreciate the grace with which the nominees, the Academy, ABC, and Jimmy Kimmel handled the situation."

For those watching the instant replay at home, Beatty can be clearly seen doing a double take as he opens the envelope and discovers Emma Stone's name staring back at him (a close look at the footage shows 'Actress In A Leading Role' written on the front). Realising he's been handed the wrong winner, Beatty looks off-stage several times and even plays for time as he reads out the category title, clearly looking for some kind of cue from the wings. Receiving none, he shows the card to Dunaway who, not realising anything's amiss, glances down, sees the film title and immediately declares La La Land the winner.

As Beatty squirms, Team La La Land exchange tearful hugs and climb to the stage as the orchestra — taking their cue from the announcement — play them on with the film's score. At this point, someone must have been pitching the most spectacular fit in Oscar history as they watched the whole show unravel before their eyes. Clearly there was no real contingency for this as it takes a good few minutes to send someone out to correct the error, by which point emotional acceptances are in full flow. As one producer after another delivers heartfelt thanks, a stagehand brings out the correct envelope and can be seen in the background, showing it to the 'winners'.

Hats off to La La Land producer Jordan Horowitz, who stepped up and broke the news, declaring "There's a mistake. Moonlight, you guys won Best Picture. This is not a joke, come up here."

Despite the cruellest bait and switch imaginable, Horowitz and the entire La La contingent handled the the situation extremely graciously, passing their gongs over to Barry Jenkins and the Moonlight team. Beatty, who was left looking mortified, clarified that it was indeed a mix-up and that he "wasn't trying to be funny."

But how did such a calamitous faux pas come about? According to a recent interview they did with Medium, the only two people who are privy to who has won what are PWC partners Martha Ruiz and Brian Cullinan. Each carries a copy of the winning envelopes in a briefcase and hands them to presenters as they go on. "I have all 24 envelopes in my briefcase; Martha has all 24 in hers," Explains Cullinan in the interview. "We stand on opposite sides of the stage, right off-screen, for the entire evening, and we each hand the respective envelope to the presenter. It doesn’t sound very complicated, but you have to make sure you’re giving the presenter the right envelope."

Yes Brian, it would seem that last point is a rather salient one. Emma Stone reportedly still has her envelope, so it was the second copy of the Best Actress envelope that was mistakenly passed to Beatty as he walked out to bestow the night's main prize. A truly monumental cock-up. How exactly it came to be handed to Beatty is unclear, as is why it took so long to correct the error or why Beatty didn't draw attention to the issue when he realised what had happened. All these things may come out in time but there's no denying it made for one of the more eventful Oscar nights we've witnessed.

If you can bear it, you can watch the debacle again below.

by James White

Bill Paxton, a much loved actor, director and producer, a scene-stealer able to play both moral and terrible characters with a raw charm, has died. He was 61.

Born and raised in Fort Worth, Texas in 1955, Paxton frequently attended movies and other cultural events with his father and siblings from a young age. His interest in film and filmmaking started early too; studying in the UK at Richmond College he met two friends and began making Super 8 movies upon their return to Texas.

He moved to Los Angeles in 1974 to break into the industry, and got his first job as a production assistant on an industrial film for the Encyclopedia Britannica. From there, he found work as a set dresser for Roger Corman's New World Pictures on movies such as Big Bad Mama and Eat My Dust. He scored his first role, uncredited, on Jonathan Demme's Crazy Mama in 1975, and decided to focus more on acting. At 21, Paxton headed to New York to study acting with the famous Stella Adler, but though he was impressed with her methods, he dropped out after two years. Upon his return to LA, he made short film Fish Heads which debuted on Saturday Night Live, and began to land small roles while still working for Corman on movies such as Galaxy Of Terror. He impressed James Cameron when they worked together on Corman films, and scored a small part as a punk who attempts to rob Arnold Schwarzenegger' killer cyborg in The Terminator. The pair would go on to enjoy a fruitful collaboration (and deep friendship), with Paxton appearing in True Lies, Titanic and, in possibly his most memorable and quotable role, as Private Hudson in Aliens.

He enjoyed a varied career, and fans have loved his work on any number of movies including Twister, Weird Science, Near Dark, Predator 2, One False Move, Tombstone, Apollo 13, The Last Supper, A Simple Plan, Haywire, 2 Guns and Edge Of Tomorrow.

Turning his hand to more work behind the camera, Paxton directed (and appeared in) the excellent thriller Frailty, about a father driven to murder by what he claimed were visions. He also made golf drama The Greatest Game Ever Played and had been developing a new film.

On the small screen, the actor made his mark with shows such as Big Love, Hatfields & McCoys, Miami Vice, and, more recently, Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D., in which he impressed as the villainous John Garrett. He was currently working on the TV version of Training Day and will be seen in techno thriller The Circle.