Latest news with #JohnMaclean
The Courier
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Courier
Tayport's John Maclean on Beta Band reunion, directing Michael Fassbender and blazing school bus seats
John Maclean is waiting on a parcel when I call him at home in South London. 'I'm having a really boring morning,' he says with a laugh. It's the kind of dry understatement you'd expect from a former Beta Band member turned BAFTA-winning filmmaker who's collaborated with Michael Fassbender, Tim Roth and Jack Lowden. But 'boring' doesn't quite suit John Maclean. Not now, and certainly not in the past. Now 52, the Tayport-raised former Madras College pupil is in a reflective mood. His second feature film, Tornado – a genre-defying samurai epic set in 18th-century Scotland – is hitting cinemas, including a run at Dundee Contemporary Arts which includes a recorded Q&A. At the same time, in a move that few fans ever expected, The Beta Band – the cult experimental outfit he co-founded in the late '90s – is reuniting for a September UK tour, including sold-out shows at Glasgow's legendary Barrowland Ballroom. A North America tour follows. Older and more relaxed, John is reconnecting with the chaos and creativity of the band's past – but this time, with less pressure and a lot more perspective. 'We just started talking about doing something enjoyable,' he says when asked how the reunion came about. 'Not having to create anything new, but just going out on tour and playing the old songs, and enjoying it. Because we're all a bit older and wiser now. 'Maybe we felt there's a lack of proper bands around these days. And we were definitely a band. So we wanted to show people just how good and interesting we were.' If the film High Fidelity made The Beta Band a cult name among record-store obsessives in 2000, it was their genre-hopping ambition and surreal visual flair that cemented their legacy. From lo-fi collage videos and kaleidoscopic soundscapes to a live presence that swung between anarchic and transcendent, The Beta Band were always playing a game of their own invention. But behind the freewheeling creativity lay a constant sense of 'stressful' pressure. 'There was pressure all the way through,' he says. 'Pressure we put on ourselves to constantly reinvent and not just rehash. Eventually, you sort of run out of ideas. So rather than creatively stall, we split the band up. But we all stayed friends.' After the band's 2004 split, John turned his energy to film. He had already been drawn to storytelling as a child, watching Stallone and Schwarzenegger movies rented from his local Tayport video shop. That passion deepened through his work at Edinburgh's Cameo Cinema and by directing The Beta Band's videos. Taking night classes even before The Beta Band split, John began making shorts and searching for anyone in the industry who'd take a meeting. Through a chance encounter with an agent, he was introduced to Michael Fassbender. 'Michael saw some of The Beta Band videos and said, 'These are interesting. I'll give you a day of my time,'' he recalls. That single day turned into Pitch Black Heist, a short film that led to another, and soon, John was making his 2015 debut feature film, the award-winning Slow West. His new film, Tornado, starring Tim Roth and Jack Lowden, builds on that success. It's a samurai story with a Scottish soul, filmed just outside Edinburgh. Music never left John entirely. After The Beta Band, he formed The Aliens with his St Andrews-raised best friend Gordon Anderson. The Beta Band co-founder and musical genius known as Lone Pigeon had to step away from the original group due to mental health struggles. Beta Band drummer Robin Jones was also in the band. 'When the Beta Band ended, I felt Gordon had missed out. I wanted to give that experience back to him – touring, recording, just being in a band,' John explains. But soon, he realised that touring life wasn't right for Gordon either. 'It just wasn't good for him, mentally or physically. While I'm glad we did it, I could see it was doing more harm than good.' The story of The Beta Band and John's creative journey is incomplete without understanding his Tayport roots. Born in December 1972, John lived in Gateside before moving to Tayport at age 10 when his father took a job at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design in Dundee. His parents, both art teachers at Bell Baxter High School in Cupar, nurtured a creative home. He remembers Cub Scouts in Auchtermuchty, swimming in Cupar and teenage years spent commuting to and from school in St Andrews on a riotous bus packed with teenage tribes. 'The things that happened on that bus!' he says, laughing. 'One driver – I think his nickname was Budgie – would get so wound up he'd take us straight to the police station. I remember someone lit the back seat on fire once and threw it out the window. That bus would make a good film!' At Madras College, John met Gordon Anderson, and the two bonded instantly. 'We were the only ones who were really into art, and into music too. We'd nip into the music room to play the piano. By sixth year, we had somehow dropped everything except art.' They both ended up at Edinburgh College of Art. While Gordon leaned into singer-songwriter influences like Neil Young, John fell in love with dance music and eclectic club culture. 'I used to go the Rhumba Club in Dundee,' he recalls. 'There was this weird hip hop scene in Tayport too, people trying to breakdance, electro cassettes going around. 'When I got to Edinburgh, we started this club that played everything – Kinks, Stone Roses, Wu-Tang Clan, house music. That mash-up spirit is really what became The Beta Band.' John never expected to join a band. But after moving to London and sharing a flat with Steve Mason – also from St Andrews – and Robin Jones, he started looping samples – birdsong, old film scores, obscure records. Those lo-fi experiments turned into The Beta Band's first EP. Now, 21 years after the band split, they're back. The upcoming tour will feature tracks from The Three EPs and other fan favourites. The band is performing with their original lineup of Steve Mason, Richard Greentree, John Maclean, and Robin Jones, who John has been working with in the film industry. He's still close to his brother, Dave Maclean of Django Django, who's now settled back in the Tayport area where their parents still live. John now lives in South London with his partner and their two children, aged four and 10. But Tayport remains close to his heart. 'We've got a little place up north, and we're back in Tayport all the time. I was at the Tayport car boot sale the other week, digging for records. Some things don't change.' Asked whether the Beta Band reunion might lead to new material, John is cautious but open. 'There's talk of doing something next year,' he says. 'But it'll be compacted, because I'll be working on film stuff too. 'After that, maybe it all goes back in the cupboard for another 25 years!'
Telegraph
12-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Tornado: this Scottish Samurai saga leaves us lost
Tornado whirls in with promising novelty on its side. When was the last time we saw an attempt at a samurai western set in 1790 Scotland? It hardly draws breath, which sounds like a good thing, but then you start to notice it's built from stunted components. Why, for instance, does the characterisation wind up being so stick-figure-ish, and the story so curtailed? It has taken a decade for writer-director John Maclean to follow up his 2015 debut Slow West, a gnarled, bruising business with Michael Fassbender as a bounty hunter in 19th-century Colorado. Maclean loves to plot an ambush and lurk in the bushes waiting for it. If these films set the tone for a durable career – which I genuinely hope they do – the game will be guessing who survives each foray of his, and trusting him to trip up our expectations. This is exactly where Tornado fumbles and leaves us lost. Our rooting interest defaults, without enough care, to the title character, played by the 22-year-old Japanese model/songwriter Kōki. She's an itinerant puppeteer, being trained by her father (Takehiro Hira) to put on ingenious jidaigeki equivalents of a Punch and Judy show, using their covered waggon as a stage. He's also instructing her in swordplay, upon which her survival in this dog-eat-dog tale is heavily contingent. We begin midway through the action, with Tornado chased across blustery braes, then seeking refuge in a stranger's mansion. A gang of brigands, headed by Tim Roth 's dogged Sugarman, are sure she knows the whereabouts of two sacks of gold, which have mysteriously vanished during one of her puppet shows. Sugarman's snake of a son, Little Sugar (Jack Lowden), knows more than he's letting on, scheming to double-cross the lot of them. The narrative switchbacks are gunning for a Tarantinoesque finesse: Roth slits a confederate's throat for no clear reason, until the flashback half an hour later explains it. The scenario has solid potential as a plunge into Treasure of the Sierra Madre-style paranoia. The way it's executed here, though, plants an awful lot of stumbling blocks. Continuity's all over the shop. Alleged storms brew out of clear blue skies. The gold migrates here, there and everywhere. If production problems didn't thwart Maclean and crew from making a proper fist of all this, the editing took its eye off the ball. The actors are left increasingly high and dry. Roth can do soul-sick fatigue alright, and Lowden scores as a treacherous lone wolf, but they barely have any other notes to play. Among their accomplices is a black, stone-cold killer named Psycho (Dennis Okwera), who – a rank cliché, this – never utters a word. Kōki's character, meanwhile, speaks inexplicable amounts of English, even to herself, and she's too unready as an actress to find a headspace that's sorely missing in the script. Meanwhile, bright red splashes of gore streak garishly across the movie. Some of Robbie Ryan's wide shots have a stark grandeur, at the very least – especially when Jed Kurzel's doomy, drum-laden score kicks in. Thanks to their efforts, we're at least fitfully absorbed until the last act – a sorely unemotive climax, despite laboured stabs in that direction. It ends with neither a whimper nor a bang, but a muffled thud. 15 cert, 91 min. In cinemas June 13
Irish Times
12-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Tornado review: A singular, if rarely easy, watch about double-crossing rogues on the rampage
Tornado Director : John Maclean Cert : None Genre : Drama Starring : Tim Roth, Jack Lowden, Takehiro Hira, Joanne Whalley, Koki Running Time : 1 hr 31 mins In Tornado the film-maker John Maclean returns to the austere storytelling that defined Slow West , his well-regarded debut, from 2015. Set in a rugged and unnamed corner of 18th-century Scotland, the film follows the taciturn young circus performer of the title and her father as they are drawn into a deadly pursuit. Despite the ambiguous period setting, the McGuffin is familiar: an opportunistic theft, a misplaced bag of swag, and double-crossing rogues on the rampage. The heroine, played by the Japanese actor and musician Koki, is a stoic teenager with a talent for swordplay and a complicated, sulky relationship with her dad, Fujin (Takehiro Hira), a warrior turned puppet master. Their life on the road, performing morality puppet plays with a touch of Punch and Judy ultraviolence, takes a dark turn when a local scallywag absconds with two bags of stolen gold during one of their shows. The theft attracts the attention of Sugarman, a grizzled, ruthless outlaw (Tim Roth at his meanest) with a small gang of thugs in tow, including his disgruntled son, Little Sugar (Jack Lowden). As Sugarman's group pursues Tornado across misty moors and abandoned villages, the muted action unfolds less as a traditional revenge plot and more as a meditation on end-of-days degeneracy. For all the genre signifiers, Maclean's confusing, fragmented structure, contemplative pillow shots and dour tone leave little room for the playful high-jinks of Kill Bill or Samurai Jack. READ MORE Which year did Marty not visit? 1885 1955 2015 2055 What was Clint Eastwood's first film as director? The Outlaw Josey Wales Play Misty for Me Firefox Bird Who is not a sibling? Macaulay Kieran Rory Benji The actor playing the title character of which film was actually born in the US? Klute (1971) The Mask (1994) Dudley Do-Right (1999) Green Lantern (2011) What is the last Pixar film to win the best animated feature Oscar? Soul Onward Coco Inside Out Which is the odd period out? Ms Weld Dan Aykroyd in Dragnet Ms Squibb Christina Ricci in The Addams Family Who was not portrayed by Steph? Ally Lee Patrizia Breathless Which is the odd one out? Harrison Ford's other profession 2024 Palme d'Or winner Todd Haynes's notorious early short Halloween and Escape from New York Who is about to succeed, among many, many others, James Whale, Terence Fisher and Kenneth Branagh? Guillermo del Toro Ari Aster David Lowery Robert Eggers Whose daughter fought the Triffids? Alison Steadman Thora Hird Patricia Routledge Margaret Rutherford Robbie Ryan, who was also the cinematographer on The Favourite and Poor Things, leans into the script's sense of dread. Through his lens the bleak Scottish landscape becomes a grey antagonist that threatens to drown everyone in apocalyptic rain. The characters, accordingly, often appear small and helpless against the remote hills. Up close, however, the handsome costume and production design are frequently too anachronistic to engage. Even the title feels as if it belongs to a different film. Tornado will frustrate the giblets out of anyone seeking narrative momentum or emotional catharsis. But viewers willing to sit with its stark silences and oppressive atmospherics can look forward to a singular, if rarely easy, watch. In cinemas from Friday, June 13th
New York Times
29-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
‘Tornado' Review: She Wants Revenge
This crackling movie begins with what some might take for a bit of misdirection: a quotation from a poem by Arseny Tarkovsky, the father of the great filmmaker Andrei. 'I would readily pay with my life / For a safe place with constant warmth / Were it not that life's flying needle / Leads me on through the world like a thread.' Given that the movie concerns Tornado, a young swordswoman who has to make her way through a hostile British countryside after wastrels kill her father, one might wonder what Tarkovsky has to do with it. But first consider the statement rather than its origin. Tornado (Koki) has been touring with her samurai father (Takehiro Hira) through rural England, performing a charming puppet show. An initially prankish bit of business involving two sacks of stolen gold gets the duo in big trouble with a pack of thieves led by Sugarman (Tim Roth). The writer-director John Maclean, who deftly played with genre in his 2015 feature debut 'Slow West,' is similarly sure-handed here. The movie quickly establishes itself as a revenge narrative, and each bad guy goes down in a way designed to suit the viewer's justified bloodlust. In the title role, the singer-songwriter Koki is both charming and indomitable; when she announces 'I am Tornado,' you feel your internal applause sign light up. And Nathan Malone, who plays the little boy following Tornado as she eludes the bad guys, is reminiscent of the nervy star of Andrei Tarkovsky's 'Ivan's Childhood.'
Geek Tyrant
28-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Geek Tyrant
Awesome Trailer for the Martial Arts Action Film TORNADO — GeekTyrant
There's an awesome-looking martial arts action movie coming out this weekend titled Tornado , and I don't know how I missed this! This movie looks like an insanely badass revenge story. The the film, Tornado vows to seek vengeance and forge her own destiny by stealing the gang's ill-gotten gold after her father's puppet Samurai show is ambushed by a notorious gang. The story is set in the rugged landscape of 1790s Britain, 'Tornado is a young and determined Japanese woman who finds herself caught in a perilous situation when she and her father's travelling puppet Samurai show crosses paths with a gang of ruthless criminals led by Sugarman, and his ambitious son Little Sugar. 'In an attempt to create a new life for herself, Tornado seizes the opportunity to take matters into her own hands and steal the gold from their most recent heist. With her father murdered by the gang and her life in grave danger, Tornado races against time to escape a violent demise and avenge her father's death.' The movie was written and directed by John Maclean and it stars Tim Roth, Jack Lowden, Takehiro Hira and Kōki. The movie is set to hit theaters on May 30, 2025.
