LWLies 66: The Mag­nif­i­cent Seven

After delv­ing into the post­mod­ern deprav­i­ty of Nico­las Wind­ing Refn’s The Neon Demon, there’s a dis­tinct­ly old-school flavour to our September/​October issue. On the cov­er is Antoine Fuqua’s star-jammed remake of The Mag­nif­i­cent Sev­en, which sees Den­zel Wash­ing­ton cor­ral a band of mer­ce­nar­ies, out­laws and sharp-shoot­ers in order to defend a small vil­lage against a gang of thieves.

It’s the first out-and-out west­ern we’ve ever put on the cov­er, and to mark the occa­sion we go deep on one of the defin­ing and most icon­ic gen­res of the 20^th cen­tu­ry. Here’s a lit­tle taster to wet your whistle…

Lone Star

Jes­si­ca Kiang explores the life and times of Den­zel Wash­ing­ton, the fame-shun­ning enig­ma and star of The Mag­nif­i­cent Seven.

The Great­est

Direc­tor Antoine Fuqua explains why fre­quent col­lab­o­ra­tor Den­zel Wash­ing­ton is the best actor of his generation.

An A to Z of Westerns

Fast-track your knowl­edge of this most Amer­i­can of movie gen­res with our go-to illus­trat­ed guide. We open on a his­tor­i­cal map inspired by the work of John Ford, and close on a hat-tip to an icon of cow­boy fiction.

Cere­al Killers

We ask the ques­tion on everyone’s lips: what if the most vil­lain­ous char­ac­ters in the his­to­ry of the west­ern genre had front­ed their own cere­al brand?

Also in this issue…

In con­ver­sa­tion

Brady Cor­bet rhap­sodis­es about work­ing with 35mm film and the mak­ing of his direc­to­r­i­al debut, The Child­hood of a Leader; Ira Sachs explains how small sto­ries can have a big impact with his fan­tas­tic new work, Lit­tle Men; genre film mae­stro Jaume Col­let-Ser­ra talks sharks, sky­lines and The Shal­lows; and Alex Cox dis­cuss­es the 30^th anniver­sary re-release of his punk odyssey, Sid and Nancy.

In review

Mia Hansen-Løve gets philo­soph­i­cal (with cats!) in Things to Come; the west­ern gets a nifty mod­ern-day refit in Hell or High Water; the late Andrzej Zulaws­ki gives us the berserko Cos­mos as a part­ing gift; Todd Solondz shows us his Wiener-Dog; Pedro Almod­ó­var returns to form with Juli­eta; John Michael McDon­agh declares War on Every­one; Mongolia’s coal mines become an entrance to hell in Behe­moth; Woody Allen invites us to take a table at Café Soci­ety; and Vig­go Mortensen flies the flag for log cab­in lib­er­al­ism as Cap­tain Fantastic.

LWLies 66 is on gen­er­al sale 10 August and will be shipped to sub­scribers lat­er this week. Order your copy today via our online shop.