There tends to be a lot of controversy about which actor depicted the best Doctor Who, but what about the best Master? Limiting ourselves to the televised – and, thus, what we deem strictly the “official” – Masters, we have decided to rank actors on how they fared as the Doctor’s arch-nemesis.
10. Gordon Tipple
Sadly, Tipple’s “The Old Master” – as he is so credited – had very little influence in the 1996 Doctor Who film, his role being limited to a brief appearance in the opening sequence. That leaves him the lowest-ranking Master here.
Pratt played the Master – a deformed and grotesque version at that – in the four-part Tom Baker adventure The Deadly Assassin. However, Pratt’s struggle to emote convincingly through his over-the-top prosthetics left his performance scarcely memorable.
7. Eric Roberts
Though oft-belittled, the main villain of the Paul McGann-starring TV movie is more cool and deadpan than you might recall. Still, Roberts’ Master largely threw away this withdrawn demeanour in the final act, when he camped it up to such an extent that Who fans were distraught.
6. Derek Jacobi
You might remember Jacobi portraying the mild-mannered Professor Yana in 2007’s Utopia. This scientist was later revealed as the Master… shortly before he transformed into John Simm’s version. Jacobi is brilliantly chilling in his overly short-lived Master guise.
5. Geoffrey Beevers
Really, Beevers was playing the deformed Master debuted by Peter Pratt. However, Beevers was there for just one story – 1981’s The Keeper of Traken. Fortunately, Beevers’ endearingly trembling voice somewhat made up for his restrictive prosthetics.
4. John Simm
His appearances as the Master were sporadic, but it’s hard not to fear the Master when he becomes British Prime Minister and later appears with a beard reminiscent of the Masters played by Roger Delgado and Anthony Ainley. A bearded Master still features on much Doctor Who merchandise.
3. Anthony Ainley
Speak of the devil! He somewhat looked like one, too, with that beard. Ainley was the Master from 1981 until 1989, intimidating four different Doctors along the way. He remains the Master to have had the longest tenure on the TV series.
2. Michelle Gomez
She might have been the first female Master, but Gomez’s broke even more ground in giving the Master a surprisingly soft centre. This Master – or Missy, as she was called here – was a tragic figure who might have changed our fundamental perception of the Master forever.
With the recent cinema re-release of the newly restored THE NUN – Jacques Rivette’s French New Wave classic from 1966, initially banned in France upon release, we’ve seen a resurgence in tackling of religious issues on screen. With a constantly troubling news cycle dominating our cultural conversations, there seems to be an increased appetite for films to address our collective hunger for spiritual answers in an increasingly unstable world.
We’ve gathered a list of four upcoming or recently released films that provide a much-needed look at the issue of faith in today’s society.
THE NUN (1966)
Directed by Jacques Rivette
Banned for two years upon release for its controversial subject matter, with an exception granted for it to premiere at the 1966 Cannes Film Festival to great acclaim, Jacques Rivette’s The Nunsis a gem of the French New Wave, encapsulating the turbulent years of the Gaullist government and political instability of France in the 1960s. Adapted from the 18th-century novel by Denis Diderot,the author of The Lumieres, the film stars Anna Karina asSuzanne Simonin, a young woman removed from her family home to become a nun against her will. The character of Suzanne becomes, with Diderot, an allegorical figure of freedom of speech and revolt as relevant in the 1960s as it is today.
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FIRST REFORMED (2018)
Directed by Paul Schrader
Reverend Ernst Toller (Ethan Hawke) is a solitary parish priest at a small church in upstate New York, which is on the cusp of celebrating its 250th anniversary. Now more of a tourist attraction catering to a dwindling congregation, it has long been eclipsed by its nearby parent church, Abundant Life, with its state-of-the-art facilities.
When a pregnant parishioner (Amanda Seyfried) asks Reverend Toller to counsel her husband, a radical environmentalist, Toller is plunged into his own tormented past and finds himself questioning his own future and where redemption might lie. With the pressure on him beginning to grow, he must do everything he can to prevent everything spiralling out of control.
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APOSTASY (2017)
Directed by Daniel Kokotaijo
Johovah’s Witness Ivanna (Siobhan Finneran), and her two children Alex and Luisa, are all devoted to their faith until Luisa, the eldest daughter, begins to question everything she has known. Ivanna fears of Luisa being exposed to bad influences at college such as people of no faith or even other ‘wrong’ faiths. In a religion that will shun anyone who does not believe or goes against the core beliefs of the faith, Ivanna faces a tough decision when Luisa chooses to betray God. Meanwhile, Alex is adamant that she will not go down the same route as her sister and feels responsible to upkeep her commitment to the orthodoxy.
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THE APPARITION (2018)
Directed by Xavier Giannoli
Jacques (Vincent Lindon) is a war reporter working for a large French newspaper. His reputation as an impartial and talented investigator attracts the attention of the Vatican who recruit him to take part in a committee investigating the truth behind a saintly apparition in a small French village. On arrival in the town, Jacques meets the young and sensitive Anna (Galatea Bellugi) who claims to have personally witnessed the apparition of the Virgin Mary. A profound devout, she’s gathered an impressive following in the village and is torn between her faith and the many solicitations she receives. Confronted with opposing views from clergy members and sceptics, Jacques begins to uncover the hidden motivations and pressures at work and sees his beliefs system profoundly shaken to the core.
This new short film from director Kate Cheeseman (Roadkiller, Love Somehow) follows the young character of Evie, the new girl at school, who one day suffers an attack on her walk home. It tells the story via the use of flashbacks and flash-forwards as we slowly discover the truth surrounding the assault.
The film has been making some noise on the festival circuit in recent months, picking up awards at Cannes and Galway Fleadh, among others, and it isn’t difficult to see how the film has impacted so many.
The key factor behind its success isn’t so much in the story itself, but rather the way it’s being told to the audience. In the opening minutes, the intertwining sequences and shots may appear to be somewhat jarring, but as the film continues everything begins to come together rather beautifully. The editing neatly works alongside Carol Younghusband’s script, with the film’s continuity creating a mystery that engages the viewer throughout. What appears at first to be a fairly straight-forward story actually proves fairly unpredictable.
By the end, the story’s relatively short timeline all knits together with apparent ease, and we as an audience have grown attached to this character without even realising it. We feel sympathy for Evie thanks not only to the film’s script, but also the terrific central performance from newcomer Bessie Coates. She’s given very little dialogue to work with here, so it really shows great skill at such a young age to be able to convey such emotion so convincingly. Younghusband’s screenplay is terrific, but it is Coates who makes Evie feel like a real person. Her innocence, confusion, fears and self-doubt is never in question, and it’ll be interesting to see where this performance leads her.
Michael Jibson is perhaps better known for his theatrical work, and his performance as Evie’s teacher is certainly slightly different to what we’ve seen from him before, but the Olivier Award-winning actor plays his role with conviction, as does Sian Reeves, who offers a great deal as Evie’s mother, in spite of her minimal screen time. Her concern for her daughter is exceptionally convincing, and is never melodramatic, as if often the case with stories such as these. At no point do any of these performers overplay their roles. The held-back performances only help bring the story to life.
The film’s strengths lie in its subtleties. Nothing in the film is exaggerated. Words aren’t spoken when they’re not needed, the music isn’t overbearing, and we aren’t shown anything at any point without meaning. Cheeseman and Younghusband rely on their performers to sell their story, and it proves very successful, with the film’s standout moment being its poignant final scene, in which not a single word is spoken but the audience can feel everything the filmmakers want them to feel.
Sarah Warne’s score must also be praised, for its significant role in the final film mustn’t be understated. In a film with such little dialogue, the responsibility is on the composer to bring the audience in, and Warne’s hauntingly beautiful piano does exactly that. We feel uncomfortable at points, intrigued in others, and sad throughout, and the music captures the tone consistently, with Warne never overplaying her role, much like everybody else involved.
It’s really remarkable what this film is able to achieve in its brief 10-minute run time. It tells a successful mystery, hooking the viewer right up until the credits roll, but that never detracts from the emotional significance of a story like this. We not only see how this affects Evie, but also how it changes the lives of everyone around her. The long-term impact of something like this is felt in the final minutes, and at no point does it feel like it’s preaching.
The most impressive thing of all isn’t simply that it achieves everything it intends to in such a short space of time, but that it manages to do so while at no point becoming messy. It’s truly terrifying how many mega-budget productions aren’t able to structure a cohesive story in several hours, and the reason ‘What Happened To Evie’ never suffers the same fate is thanks to a well-constructed screenplay, some minimal yet convincing performances, and some very neat editing. It’s surprising how much effort can go into something that appears at first glance to be fairly simple, but that effort is never in doubt here, and it’s precisely why the film hits all the notes that it does. It’s one that demands to be seen, made by people who we need to see more from.
In 2008, while still in my wrestling watching phase, I asked my brother to buy me a movie that I had heard of called The Wrestler. In my head, I thought I was going to see another Ready to Rumble, or something that would have me high flying off cabinets or practicing wrestling moves on my little sister after watching it. I was a fan of wrestling because I loved watching the primal body to body fighting, but I never thought about what each individual put on the line for my reactions. I knew wrestling was fake, but the real emotion and heart these men and women put into this grind was something I couldn’t even imagine. I truly don’t remember what my first reaction was to the film. Years later after I’ve grown a bigger admiration for film and Darren Aronofsky, I revisited The Wrestler to see what I could have missed the first time around. What I discovered was a story that deeply wounded me, and the wound stings every time I think about loneliness and the human desire to be loved.
At the center of the story, we have Randy “the Ram”, a washed up old man who have a spectacular wrestling career in the 1980s. The highlights of his eccentric glory days are given within the first few minutes of the film, as we hear how popular his character was and how many people loved him. That is one of the few moments throughout The Wrestler where the Ram, played by Mickey Rourke, is praised. He gets a few moments here and there from old fans, the new up and comers who look up to him. But other than that, the Ram spends most of the film getting his ass kicked. In the ring. At his low paying part time job. By his daughter or the stripper Cassidy that he’s grown close to. I remember the second time I watched The Wrestler, years after I first experienced it, I became aware of how much time we spent looking at Randy the Ram from behind. For the first couple of scenes, the camera constantly tracks behind Randy, never giving us a good look of his face. It was as if the filmmakers were communicating to the audience that the man was beneath our own gaze, broken and lost from the person he once was. There is another specific scene where Randy is asking for his boss for more hours, and his boss is standing on a ladder a couple of feet above Randy. When we get the reverse shot, we’re looking directly down to him. We’re looking at this figure that we know back in the day used to rule the world, and he is so small and puny. Darren Aronofsky put a lot of thought to blocking these scenes and understood that our pity and sympathy was going to come from how we looked at Randy, from the camera angles to the ways he lets himself and his body be abused physically and emotionally. When we reach those extreme low points in life as Randy is for the majority of the film, we feel two inches tall. Life knocks us down so far, we have nothing more to offer anyone. But for the Ram, his only saving grace was his body and wrestling. The few people in the crowds that cheered him on as he risked his health and life ironically were the very things that saved it.
As the words of Bruce Springsteen’s “The Wrestler” say as the film’s closing credits crawl though the screen, “If you’ve ever seen a one trick pony then you’ve seen me.” Springsteen wrote the song for the film after Rourke asked him to, and it’s impossible to separate the person Springsteen is singing about from Randy the Ram. It’s obvious throughout the film that Randy is not a shockingly smart person. He is not a good father. He does not have any technical skills to have a good paying job. He doesn’t have much to offer to the world. The only thing he has to give is his body and his threshold for pain. At the point of his life where The Wrestler takes place, Randy has accepted that his body is all anybody wants from him, and he’s willing to give it to them for the love they show him. It’s an agreement that wrestlers and all sorts of entertainers make when they decide their vocation in life. Specifically speaking, there is a scene where all the wrestlers are talking and planning out their respective matches. People were arranging how their movements and telling their opponents to kick their ass. They know what the crowd will go crazy for the action and the wrestlers love the idea of giving it to them. Their bodies are pure objects of entertainment, but for these folks, they would not have it any other way. When I was a young wrestling fan, my older cousin who liked to tease me told me that when wrestlers bled, it was because they would cut themselves with a blade that the referee would give them off camera. I scoffed and laughed because I believed in the drama and adrenaline of what I was watching. Plus I couldn’t believe that a person would literally put a blade to their temple for the sake of a wrestling match. But Randy the Ram is stronger than my imagination. He knows that the crowd expects blood, and he gives it to them without a second thought. Every piece of Randy the Ram is for them.
One day when I was young, my father was walking around the house with his shirt off like he often did on a hot day. He’s a welder and has been for almost forty years. In that time, this man has been through a lot of work place accidents that have left scars over his body. I remember asking him about the burns and scars, and he gave me a small anecdote for each wound. “This is when a piece of hot metal fell on my arm.” “This is from the time I stuck my hand with a rusty nail.” The man’s eyes are weak from not properly wearing a mask as he welded. I kept giving him this look of “Didn’t it hurt?”, but he just told me that it is what he has to do, for the family and to make a living because he loves us. So, it blew my mind when in the film, Randy and Cassidy, played by Marisa Tomei, have a conversation about Randy’s scars and the many times he put his body on the line for the crowd. It proved that Randy had authentic, genuine love for the crowd, but also for how they made him feel. They made him valued, loved. After a while, we start to understand why he bled and sweated so much for them. Which is why when his body, or heart, starts failing him, he has nowhere to turn to. The life he’s led for so long, all the dedication he’s has put into putting his body on the line weekend after weekend has turned on him. His heart can’t take the physical abuse anymore, he has to quit. It’s like losing a member of the Ram’s self-proclaimed family.
During one of the intimate scenes between Randy and his estranged daughter Stephanie, played by Evan Rachel Wood, she tells her father, “I guess I was a glutton for punishment.” I imagine that that’s an attribute her and her father share because Randy the Ram put his body through so much. It is all he had. Pain is inevitable, one of the harshest truths of life. But as human beings, many times we get to choose who or what we hurt for. My father used his body and labor for us. Randy the Ram, as a person who was too selfish to put his daughter ahead of himself, used his body for the glory of the crowd. He jumped off the top ropes for them. He went through tables and cut scars in his head for them. But when he could not do it any longer, he had to face life. Randy tried to make things work his daughter. He tried to find a pure, human connection with Cassidy, or Pam. But things never work out for Randy in the real world like they did in the ring. His heart is broken physically and emotionally for the hurt that he’s brought on the people who love him. And in the end, he’s alone. The way he knows that he deserves to be. As much as he wants to be forgiven for his sins even though he hasn’t earned that forgiveness, he knows that the only place he really belongs, and where people care for him, is in the ring. “The only place I get hurt is out there.” The man stuck his thumb in a meat slicer and it did not hurt as much as his daughter telling him that she never wants to see him again. Because he was so close to having it all, but he understood that it was too late.
In the final moments of the film, Randy delivers a heartfelt speech to the crowd. Displayed with his huge scar in the middle of his chest from when he had a heart attack earlier in the film, in front of all his fans and Cassidy who has come to convince to miss the fight and not put his heart at risk, Randy makes a declaration that only his fans will tell him when his time is up in the ring. Cassidy sees it for a second, the love people have for Randy. For a split second, she understands the sacrifice that Randy is making, the abuse he has put his body through. Once Randy starts getting beaten down on and thrown around the ring, she leaves, knowing that she’s lost him to the crowd. Little by little, Randy’s predicted demise comes true. His heart starts to disorient him. At one point, it stops him mid sprint and he drops like a brick onto his knees. He feels it coming but he has accepted that this is the way he wants to go. Before he goes on the top rope, he looks for Cassidy but sees that she has left. The expression on his face is of true defeat, even more than when he was getting his ass kicked a few seconds ago. “The world don’t give a shit about me.”
Finally, his moment has come. He struggles to stand on the top robe. He slowly extends his leg so that he is fully above the ring and the crowd. His body only has a few seconds left. We’re looking at him from a low angle, backlit by a spotlight on the ceiling. He is glorious. This is his element. This is where he belongs. This is where he is on top of the world. Not as when we were looking at him from behind. Not like when his boss was looking down at him, the small-time manager of a supermarket. Here, Randy is the Ram. He pauses. He takes in the crowd, silently thanking them for all those years they love him. With a final breath and dive, the Ram throws himself out of frame. The film ends on a bittersweet note.
Bitter because Randy couldn’t make it work in the real world. Sweet because he got to go out on his own terms, as the Ram.
In the interest of full discretion, mine was a childhood and adolescence filled with ABBA. Over the years, ABBA’s music has delighted me, made me sob, and made me dance. A shared love of their songbook has bolstered friendships; they are my trusty go-to on drunken karaoke nights. While the Swedish group is often dismissed as a guilty pleasure, I hope we’re coming to the point where liking ABBA is cool again. Their music is a pure form of ecstasy. Whatever you’re feeling, there is an ABBA song to match — but even if it’s the deepest sorrow and melancholy, Benny, Björn, Agnetha, and Anni-Frid express that in a way that makes you feel truly alive.
Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again is a joyous, fun, sincere, emotional extravaganza of a film that works so well because it understands exactly why ABBA is great. Songs like Dancing Queen, Super Trouper, and Waterloo help us escape from our mundane lives — just like Toni Collette’s Muriel in another ABBA-themed film, Muriel’s Wedding (1994). These songs also encourage us to see universal emotions like loss, joy, and love as huge, beautiful, and worthy of celebration. By indulging the fantasy of life on a beautiful, fictional Greek island, while still engaging with the reality of motherhood, female friendship, and grief, both Mamma Mia (2008) and its sequel Here We Go Again are like an ABBA song unto themselves.
While my love for Phyllida Lloyd’s original is eternal, Here We Go Again is something of an epic in comparison: it’s a better film, with a bigger scope in terms of space, time, and emotion. Director Ol Parker sprinkles countless ABBA songs-and-dances into a story spanning two timelines. We met Donna (Meryl Streep) and her daughter Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) in the original, when we were told of Donna’s escapades with three young men in her youth that resulted in a pregnancy where any one of them could be the father. In the sequel, Lily James takes on the role of Donna in 1979, and we see her brief but memorable adventures with these men first-hand. Meanwhile, in the present day, Sophie plans the grand re-opening of the hotel Donna spent decades of her life running — it’s been closed since Donna died a year previously.
Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again
This is the clearest demonstration of James’ star power we’ve yet to see: she is ABBA personified, a vibrant spirit who embraces the hedonistic instincts of her heart. James’ presence is huge and awesome enough that we believe that Donna is a woman amazing enough to change the lives of these three men in such a brief period of time — as well as the lives of all the people who celebrate her after she’s gone. She’s not at all similar to Streep’s more worn-down and subdued incarnation, but that only increases the film’s emotional wallop, as their differences mark the signs of a full life lived. This younger Donna has her whole life ahead of her: she’s introduced with a spirited rendition of When I Kissed the Teacher at her university graduation. This wild musical number immediately lets us into the gleefully silly tone of the whole film. Right now, Donna feels nothing but pure joy and possibility. At the start of a film that promises to be this much fun the whole way through, we’re right there with her.
While Here We Go Again is often as delightful and light-hearted as a summer fling, it draws a strong and lasting emotional current not through the intense and fleeting passions of romance, but through the unconditional bond between mothers and daughters, and between best friends. As Donna’s closest friends and ex-bandmates, Christine Baranski and Julie Walters sneakily steal the film. Baranski’s savage, sly charm and Walters’ warm stubbornness combine in a comedic rapport so effortless that it’s clear these women have decades of affectionate bickering in their past. Their younger counterparts, Jessica Keenan-Wynn and Alexa Davies, are just as winning. Then, of course, there’s the emotional core of these films: mother and daughter Donna and Sophie. We follow both of their stories, making the similarities between these young women clear — they make the same choices and sing the same songs. Both are big-hearted, resilient, and determined. Both are completely devoted to the other.
Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again
The musical numbers are at their most powerful when they demonstrate the uplifting power of ABBA’s music. When Dancing Queen kicks in at Sophie’s lowest point, the everything-will-be-alright-in-the-end attitude of the song is so infectious that it believably shifts the entire mood of the film from that point on, pulling every character out of their slump. James’ rendition of the title song is a highlight. Donna is heartbroken, sitting in a bar with her friends, feeling utterly deflated. She decides to sing about how she feels: “I was cheated by you and I think you know when.” It starts off acapella and downbeat, but as that infectious music plays on, Donna harnesses its unstoppable energy. Before long she turns that heartbreak into rage, and then into ecstasy. She’s back on her feet, belting out the lyrics: “Mamma mia, here I go again.” She won’t let the pain of heartbreak stop her from falling in love again, because ABBA’s music reminds her how good it is to feel, no matter how tough those feelings may be.
Cynical audiences beware. Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again will grab hold of anyone who approaches it with an open-hearted. It’s an unapologetic celebration of emotion. Plus, it has Cher!
