Sight and Sound Magazine - May 2025

 

Editorial

Mike Williams has been watching the Netflix drama Adolescence. A thirteen year old boy murders a teenage girl from his school. So he looks at other movies about killer children. From The Omen to We need to talk about Kevin. He quotes Margaret Attwood with "Men are afraid that women will laugh at them, women are afraid men will kill them". 

Opening Scenes  - The Ballad of John and Yoko

Jonathon Romney guides us through the new documentary One to One: John and Yoko from the great director Kevin MacDonald. It's on release now.

Editor's Choice

Nothing interesting.

In Production

Christopher Nolan is ploughing on with Homer's The Odyssey and the line up of stars to appear is amazing. Sounds like a huge budget. Bong Joon Ho is planning a subway set horror.

In Brief

A note that David Hayman is lined up to be a producer on the next Bond film.

In Conversation: Kurosawa Kiyoshi

His film Cloud is released this month. Will look out for it.

Festivals, Mean Sheets and Reader's Letters

Nothing of interest.

The Long Take

Pamela Hutchinson looks at Seth Rogan's The Studio that is ten episodes on Prime Video. Interesting that each episode features someone famous, although I will not be watching.

Flick Lit

Nicole Flattery tells us about  a possible remake of American Psycho, although will they ever match Christian Bale's Bateman? This takes Nicole on to more modern films where the men have "started to grow more menacing". Such as George McKay in The Beast and Do Not Expect Too Much From The End Of The World.  But Nicole's favourite angry man had to be Eddie Marsan's driving instructor in Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky. 

TV Eye

Andrew Male describes a Disney+  production called Paradise so wont be watching that. A Poirot type eight part series in an underground bunker. 

In The Mood For Love at 25: The Making of a Modern Classic

On the cover and thirteen pages for an old movie? Why? Just cheap, rehashing articles from all those years ago, using it's anniversary to fill up an edition of the magazine. It's Jessica Kiang who introduces the feature that just goes on and on.

The Late Picture Show

Karina Longworth's podcast "You Must Remember" explores the late work of fourteen directors that have a season at the BFI.

Gene Hackman: An Obituary

Alan Nayman looks at his career. I will always remember him for The French Connection and it's sequel. In also love The Conversation ("a superior surveillance thriller") that I have recorded to watch again. I cannot remember it's sequel 1998's Enemy of the State. The best film from the end of his career was 2001's The Royal Tenenbaums. 

At the movies with .... Jia Zhangke

I had never heard of this Chinese director, but we learn about his influences.

REVIEWS

One to One: John and Yoko

A documentary looking at their first eighteen months in New York.

I was not interested in Blue Road, the Edna O'Brien documentary, Nic Cage's The Surfer and Ralph Fiennes's in The Return, and so many more. From Italy comes Parthenope, based on the Greek myth and a love letter to Naples by Paolo Sorrentino. Then Black Bag that I have already reviewed.

DVD and Blu-Ray

Only to note a Blu-ray compilation of eleven of Chantal Akerman's films, Volume 1: 1967 to 1978.

Rediscovery

Also on Blu-Ray, The Eel, a Palme D'Or winner from 1997 by Imamura Shohel.

Nothing in Lost and Found or Wider Screen

Books

Hannah McGill looks at Clinical Trials, a book on David Cronenberg by Violet Lucca that "combines a warmly gossipy biographical portrait of her subject with roving, insightful analyses of his back catalogue of films". Who could resist.  Although our reviewer says "it feels a little hidebound by current taboos" as "there are only two genders". Hmm. 

Then John Bleasedale reviews Sergio Leone: By Himself written by Christopher Frayling. "An epic beautiful book".

 From the Archive

"The Method and Why" from Sight and Sound Winter 1956/7. Tony Richardson looked at actors such as James Dean, Marlon Brando before a study of Konstantin Stanislavski who created the "method" form of acting.

This month in ..... 2020

The magazine kept going through the pandemic. On the cover was La Haine and reviews included those for Promising Young Woman and Saint Maud. (See my reviews). 

ENDINGS

Mathew Taylor looks at the final "loaded exchange" from 1999's The Insider. Michael Mann's tale of a whistleblower and journalist attacking the tobacco industry. Starring Al Pacino, Christopher Plummer and Russell Crowe. Journalist Lowell Bergman (Pacino) exits the CBS building through the revolving doors. But nobody wins. One to look out for.