Empire UK

STREAMING

137

ALSO STREAMING

BEASTS OF NO

NATION

Instead of returning to

True Detective director

Cary Fukunaga headed to

Ghana to shoot this civil-

war drama from his own

script. It’s Netflix’s first

original fi lm — Adam

Sandler’s The Ridiculous

Six is next (see pages 12

and 48). FROM NOW

WHIPLASH

Even if you’ve seen it

before you should be

rushing (not dragging) to

catch a second viewing

of Damien Chazelle’s

white-knuckle psycho-

thriller. If you’ve already

seen it twice or more

congratulations: we won’t

throw a chair at you.

FROM OCTOBER 16

SLOW WEST

John Maclean formerly of

The Beta Band is very

good at making groovy

tunes. This beautifully

shot Western his

directorial debut proves

he’s also good at making

fi lms. Aptly it’s a slow

burn building up to one of

the best fi nal reels of the

year. FROM OCTOBER 19

ONLY FOOLS AND

HORSES

With Dad’s Army getting

a movie will this

perennial BBC caper

follow suit? And would

Tom Hiddleston and Tom

Hardy be Rodney and Del

Boy? While you ponder

such questions revisit the

fi rst two series now on

Netfl ix. FROM NOW

BLOW

Before the arrival of

Johnny Depp’s Whitey

Bulger biopic Black

Mass revisit another

law-breaking performance

from the star. As George

Jung cocaine king of the

’70s he snorts enough

devil’s dandruff to make

Tony Montana blanch.

FROM NOW

ENTOURAGE

Vince and co.’s big-screen

debut was a bit patchy

but it’s worth catching

if only for the blizzard of

cameos from returning

guest Jessica Alba to

Liam Neeson who

steals the show with

only one line and his

middle fi nger.

FROM OCTOBER 12

RED OAKS

A sort-of answer to

Netfl ix’s Wet Hot

American Summer series

Amazon Studios’ latest

comedy is set at a country

club in the 1980s. Craig

Roberts Jennifer Grey and

Paul Reiser star; Steven

Soderbergh and David

Gordon Green produce.

FROM OCTOBER 9

Return To Oz

★★★★
OUT NOW / CERT. PG

DARK MATTERS

ASY TO FORGET

but buried below the
Disney dream factory
is a hall of nightmares.
From the moment
Snow White’s clawing
hag appeared Disney’s
repeatedly fl irted with macabre imagery
but in 1985 they really opened the
trap door. Return To Oz was such a
scandalous fl op it was thrown back
in the cellar alongside Walter Murch’s
career — the legendary editor never
directed a movie again. Back then it
looked like a phantasmagoric folly.
Now it looks like black magic.
Six months after the tornado hit
we rediscover Dorothy in such a
distorted haze that the only cure from
cuddly Aunt Em and Uncle Henry is
a sharp dose of electric-shock therapy.
Dorothy’s escape to Oz riding a chicken
coop down a sewer-brown river isn’t an
escape at all: it’s another prison. The
Emerald City resembles an abandoned
theme park. Anything alive has
been nuked into stone. Joined by

Above:Fairuza Balk’s

Dorothy with Jack

Pumpkinhead

Tik-Tok and Gump.

Below:Scarecrow.

a steampunk soldier a skeletal

pumpkin and the Gump (Google it)

Dorothy crosses the wasteland to

confront her world-destroyer: the

monolithic Nome King.

Although the mushroom cloud

is invisible Murch’s idea of O

post-apocalyptic allegory is

and again and again he turn

to children’s cinema but to

Kansas is a storm of Hamm

Nome’s stop-motion minio

from Raimi’s Book Of The D

disembodied heads of Prin

are straight out of Dr. Fran

trophy room. This all soun

ridiculously perverse but

there’s a purpose:

whereas 1939’s Oz was a Technicolor

escape; Return off ers a darker closer

refl ection of the grim rural reality that

fed Dorothy’s fantasies. Ironically for

a fable about repressed imagination

Murch’s vision is wickedly untamed

and let’s be honest utterly bonkers.

Often fi led alongside dark ’80s

fantasies Labyrinth and The Dark

Crystal this is no more a kids’ movie

than Pan’s Labyrinth sustained by

a miraculous turn from Fairuza Balk

just ten years old wearing adult eyes

in a child’s head. The fi lm’s very fi rst

line “Can’t you sleep?” now sounds

like a warning shot. If it haunted you

as a kid it’ll equally stain your dreams

as an adult. SIMON CROOK

NEW TO STREAMING