Editorial
Mike Williams looks at the film posters of Philip Castle and Drew Struzan. Castle was famous for the poster for Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket (1987). Mike describes the artwork and the background of the artist who died in February at eighty-three. Castle then worked with Struzan on the poster for A Clockwork Orange (1971). Mike calls them "still images that do their own work of narration, distillation and suggestion". It was Struzan who then created posters for Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Back to the Future, Goonies, Blade Runner – the list goes on. Mike then takes a dive into some international film posters that are far less interesting than those before.
Opening Scenes
Nick Hasted tells us about concert films that use modern technology to create the best (or loudest?) sound. But this is all so familiar.
Editor's Choice
Of the six recommendations, the only one to appeal to me was "Finding Your Way: The Films of Peter Weir" being shown at BFI Southbank. I just love his The Truman Show (1998).
In Production
Filming is underway on Martin Scorsese's What Happens at Night. It's on location in the Czech Republic with some A-list stars.
News
Nothing of interest.
In Conversation
Elizabet Cabeza talks to Carla Simon about her new film Romeria. (See review later). We hear about her very personal films, including her latest. It's about her parent's family.
Interview
John Bleasdale interviews Michael Angelo Cavino and Kyle Marvin about their new film Splitsville. (See review in April's edition). It's a "demented romcom" about two married couples in the throws of, yes, splitting up. Or sort of. The writer/directors have cast themselves alongside Dakota Johnson and Adria Arjona. They go on to talk about filming their fight. I missed the film at The Rex cinema.
Festival
Copenhagen's international documentary festival. Lots of films but none of any interest.
Preview
Juliette Binoche has made a documentary called In-I in Motion about her 2008 dance with Akram Khan at The National Theatre.
The Score
David Thomson tells us about composer/musician Daniel Blumberg and his Oscar for The Brutalist as well as his new film The Testament of Ann Lee. My review of the former on 12th February 2025 said "I thought that I was going to hate the music ..... but in the end, Daniel Blumberg's score was completely right for the film." Last of all is something about his new film Pompei: Below the Clouds.
Diary
Cromarty Film Festival (a small town near Inverness!) Mark Cousins lets us into his diary. Mostly classic old movies.
Spotlight
The film Wild Foxes is a boxing drama about youth amateur boxing and a seventeen yea r old French guy. He becomes interested in the foxes in the nearby woods. Hmm.
Mean Sheets
Film posters made of textiles. One is actually for Fargo (1996) and is cross-stitched artwork. But the most interesting is that for Sightseers (2012) and gives a glimpse of the violence to come. Otherwise quite a good little film.
Reader's Letters
As usual, nothing worth a comment.
Flick Lit
Nicole Flattery on yet another piece on "Wuthering Heights". "It feels less like creative decisions than engagement-farming social media content. "Not sure what that means. "Is this a film or a product?" "Cathy and Heathcliff, in this modern iteration, look like influencers on a brand trip to northern Yorkshire." (Now that was funny, if complete rubbish). So Nicole, this is all too easy criticism, not anything we could call serious. And what is all this "BookTok" romance? Enough!
An afterthought. Maybe she's right that this adaptation is far more for the younger generation. The costumes, make-up, the passion and the music. Although there is hardly a mention for the amazing score by Charli xcx
The Long Take
Pamela Hutchinson talks about courses in film studies and how they might be under threat. She is also worried that those students are not taking it seriously, even to the extent of ignoring watching a movie. She compares it with ballet and opera as a serious contender, as "all arts are fighting for their lives".
TV Eye
Andrew Male thinks that the new four-part TV adaptation of Lord of the Flies "conveyed more effectively through images, performance and sound than character and dialogue". Male was not impressed with Jack Thorne's adaptation, but fortunately Mark Mundeu was "a great director of children".
Out of Time
Rose of Nevada is the new small film from Cornish "auteur" Mark Jenkin. (Who appears on the cover of the magazine.) But people like him think they are so special because they come from Cornwall and not England. What about the Geordies or Yorkies? I could go on. Jenkin is "rejecting Englishness, actively supporting whoever England was playing". So I totally ignored these ten miserable pages. Even the Sunday Times gave it a full page written by, yes, another Cornishman, Petroc Trelawny, who wasn't even born in the county.
Neo Tokyo Story
Roger Luckhurst tells us about Akira (1988), which is now back in cinemas. Over six pages with some glorious photos of this iconic Japanese animation. We are told it "had a cyberpunk cool" and that it "marked peak animation in booming 1980s Japan". This "70mm spectacle" used 327 colours, 97 of them different shades of red. (There seems to be a lot of blood). When I first noticed that it was on at my local Odeon, I gave it a miss. But having read this article, I might go to Cineworld at Hemel Hempstead, where it is showing on the IMAX screen. Apparently quite a complex movie, "the cityscapes are dazzling in detail. " We hear all about its background and influences. (I remember that anime sequence in Kill Bill Volume 1.)
There is a lot here about other Japanese films and their history, including a mention for the wonderful Perfect Days (2023). Also, its influences on recent body horror movies.
Future Paradise
In the March 1991 edition of Sight and Sound, Tony Rayns talked to director Otomo Katsuhiro about his designs for Akira. The story and pictures first appeared in episodes in Young Magazine in December 1982, a manga publication every fortnight until April 1986. We learn a lot about what Manga is and how popular it became.
Reservoir Cops
Quentin Tarantino's long article is about Joe Carnahan's new thriller The Rip. It stars the big mates Matt Damon and Ben Affleck as cops that takes us back to the "glory days" of the 1970s. Tarantino seems unimpressed with crime films over the last few years and keeps harping back to their heyday over fifty years ago. But he says that here is a new movie that "did grab me and held me for its entire duration". This is mostly down, he says, to the "sensational screenplay by Carnahan and Michael McGrode". What I didn't like was that he gives us a detailed explanation of the plot. But better is the comparison with other such movies from way back.
Although Quentin again warms to the script and thinks that the two leads are "sensational", he does warn us that his friends are not so impressed. I won't be able to judge, as it's only on Netflix. I do wonder sometimes about their reviews.
The Boy who fell through Earth
Jason Wood discusses an "issue" film, D is for Distance. Five pages on what seems a turgid family documentary.
At the movies with ...... Raoul Peck
Another documentary, Orwell: 2+2=5, is the subject of an interview by Nick Bradshaw. But not for me.
REVIEWS
As always, only my selection of those in this issue.
Father Mother Sister Brother
Nicolas Rapolo is impressed by Jim Jarmusch's film in three parts about "adult sibling relationships". It won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. See my review. I have noted two of his previous movies: Broken Flowers (2005) and Only Lovers Left Alive (2013).
Romaria
Sophie Satchell-Baeza says that Carla Simon's part memoir has an "etheral quality". It follows eighteen year old Marina to Vigo in Spain to find any paperwork relating to her late father's family. She needs it for her application to film school. Simon's biological parents died when she was six. Meeting her relatives for the first time brings a mixed reception. Sounds interesting.
Primavera
In the Venice of the early 1700s, Cecilia is a talented violinist in an orphanage. Sam Davies likes how the arrival of one Antonio Vivaldi as musical director makes an interesting story. "Middlebrow historical fiction".
Undertone
Roger Luckhurst reviews this extremely cheaply made film. Basically one person going mad watching an online podcast.
Diamanti
Catherine Wheatley explains how this film about dressmakers comes from a group reading a screenplay that melts from present day into the 1970's. It's a "melodrama set in a costume atellier". It sounds a lovely little film from Ferzan Ozpetek. Yes, it's all about the costumes but maybe a "self indulgent and maudlin coda".
The Bride!
Simran Hans says Maggie Gyllenhall's big film is "an act of grandiosity". He talks about the makeup, the clothes, and the hair. But he thinks the film is spoilt by "indulgent, unapologetic excess". (No, there's not enough!) The review seemed more of a mess than the movie. (See my review).
Project Hail Mary
Henry K. Miller thinks that this film is "cloying and ingratiating" as well as "distinctively millennial", and "it is Reddit". Whatever these words mean. He makes parallels with The Martian (I can see that). Well, it does have the same novelist and screenwriter. Miller was not impressed with the plot (nor was I) and "the big action sequence is busy and hard to follow". (Glad it wasn't just me). I think it should have been called "Grace and Rocky". I just hated the idea that his objection to going was steamrolled while drugged."
Fuze
After seeing the trailer, I was going to give this a miss, but the "fusion" of the unexploded bomb and a bank heist might be OK.
I didn't even read the review for Mark Jenkins's Rose of Nevada.
DVD and BLU-RAY
I wasn't interested in the three pages on The Devil's Hand.
Lost and Found
Porgy and Bess. This modern opera from 1959 has an all star cast but is STILL LOST!
Archive TV
Robert Hanks reviews a three disc black and white compilation called Daniel Farson's Guide to Britain: Volume 1. Farson's early fame as a TV reporter in the late 50's and early 60's comprises this box set. We aslo get a view about his later disreputable life style. His documentaries were broad in nature. Hanks selects one from the series People in Trouble (1958) about mixed marriages. An interview with a "mad bigot" sounds extraordinary.
The Day of the Locust (1975) is out on Blu-Ray, a John Schlesinger film that influenced many Hollywood movies to come.
Fear in the Night (1972) is out on Blu-Ray. I was going to skip this Jimmy sangster movie from Hammer Studios but became intrigued by the story. "An entertaining macabre slice of 1970's domestic gothic" according to reviewer Adam Scovell. It stars Judy Geeson with help from Ralph Bates, Peter Cushing and Joan Collins. We are told it's a "wonderful British Horror". Will watch out for it or buy a cheap DVD.
Wider Screen: Another Flick in the Wall
Sophia Satchell-Baeza has curated a season of films at the Regent Street Cinema. (It's 130th anniversary). It explores the cinematic links of ..... Pink Floyd. The season is called Yet another Movie: Pink Floyd in Film. Being shown is Antonioni's Zabriskie Point.
Books
In the BFI Film Classics Series comes A Hard Day's Night is by Samira Ahmed. A longish review bit no mention at all for screenwriter Alun Owen, a one time close neighbour in London.
From the Archive: Cafe Society
From the August 2001 Edition of Sight and Sound, Ginette Vincendean looked at Jean-Pierre Jeunet's wonderful Amelie and it's "wildly divided reception". A romantic comedy that saw at the Rex, Berkhamsted. I really liked it - see post 3rd November 2020. Audrey Tautou plays Amelie Paulain. I was not surprised that it was ahuge success in France when it first opened. Paris looked amazing. The feauture has six great stills from the film but that six page analysis seemed too much. Ginette called it "the perfect escapist product". I would watch it again.
This Month in ..... 1996
The central feature is the Coen Bros' superb movie Fargo. That month's Sight and Sound had Steve Buscemi on the cover. Other reviews included Hackers.
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