Ten things
you need
to know
about...
Birds
Of Prey
1
Margot Robbie, who played Harley
Quinn in Suicide Squad, first pitched the
idea of what she calls a “girl gang film”
to Warner Bros. in 2015, before the release
of Suicide Squad. She is a credited producer
here.2
It has the deliberately unwieldy
subtitle “... And The Fantabulous
Emancipation Of One Harley
Quinn”. Screenwriter Christina
Hodson (Bumblebee) notes that the
“emancipation” refers to her relationship
with the Joker. “She doesn’t have to be in
anyone’s shadow.”3
Based on a DC Comics series
launched in 1996, Birds Of Prey has
Harley teaming up with other heroes
Huntress and Black Canary to protect
a young girl, Cassandra Cain, who has
found a diamond belonging to the Gotham
crime boss Black Mask.4
Huntress, played by Mary Elizabeth
Winstead, is a crossbow-wielding
vigilante who has been fighting crime
in Gotham ever since her family was
murdered in front of her as a teenager.
(This happens frequently in Gotham.)5
Black Canary, played by Jurnee
Smollett-Bell, is a fearsome martial
artist who also (at least in the comics)
has the power of a sonic scream.6
Rosie Perez plays Renee Montoya,
a Gotham police detective; in
one comics storyline, she takes
on the mysterious costumed identity
of the Question.7
Cassandra Cain, played by newcomer
Ella Jay Basco, is the young girl at the
heart of this story. Deprived of speech
by her assassin parents, she learns fighting
instead — eventually becoming Batgirl.8
The villain, Black Mask, played
by Ewan McGregor, is a torture-
loving Mafia boss; the name comes
from — yes! — a skull-like mask he wears,
gruesomely forged from the ebony casket of
his dead father.9
It’s directed by Cathy Yan, her second
feature credit after 2018’s Dead Pigs,
a satirical Shanghai-set ensemble
piece. At last year’s US-China
Entertainment Summit, Yan said she was
attracted to the script’s “dark humour” and
“themes of female empowerment”.10
Robbie told Flickering Myth that
the film has a “much smaller
budget” than comic book movies
usually do. So don’t expect lots of CG
monsters; but do expect Quinn’s baseball
bat to get some use. OLLY RICHARDSBIRDS OF PREY IS IN CINEMAS FROM 6 FEBRUARY 2020SORRY, BUT...
Specialists on what the
movies get wrongAtmospheric scientist Prof David Lee on the
‘Oxygen Destroyer’ in Godzilla: King Of The Monsters
“Dissolved oxygen is, of course, vital for life in the seas.
It is actually possible to get ‘dead zones’ in the sea —
usually where sewage or nitrogen-rich effluent enters
it — which cannot support fish life. But the
idea that something could be ‘set off’ that
removed dissolved oxygen from large
areas of the globe is fanciful
in the extreme.”
that he actually lived inside the restroom.
“It was a small room — but it had six toilets,”
he joked.BETTE DAVIS BURNED DOWN
HER BUNGALOW
While watching one of her own films on
TV during a 1958 stay, All About Eve actor
Bette Davis fell asleep with a lit cigarette
and set her bungalow lodgings on fire. Her
neighbour, the Canadian actor Lou Jacobi,
spotted the smoke and saved her life, with
the entire hotel being evacuated.MADSEN’S DOGS SCARED THE STAFF
Reservoir Dogs star Michael Madsen lived in
one of the hotel’s bungalows for a few years
in the mid-’90s, alongside his pair of pet
Rottweilers. He spent his days by the pool in
the hot California sunshine wearing full biker
leathers. “That was mayhem,” he said in 2004.
“Bungalow four, man. Crazy times. The room
service guys wouldn’t come in, because the
male [dog] would always attack them.”ALAN CUMMING AND HIS LEGENDARY PIANO
One of Hollywood’s favoured spots for saucy
trysts, Brit actor Alan Cumming has spoken of
having sex on the piano in his Chateau suite
several times. “The best thing was the next
day some friends came to my room for drinks
and I looked over and there were all these
fingerprints on the piano,” he said in a 2008
interview with The Guardian. LEONIE COOPERTHE CASTLE ON SUNSETIS ON SALE NOWBatter up for the Harley Quinn-focused
Suicide Squad spin-off