EDITORIAL
When Mike Williams starts to talk about Any Human Heart (a great book by William Boyd) I thought this might be good. But no, its all about a documentary called Eternal You "the creation of an AI afterlife". Give that a miss.
I skipped past OPENING SCENES about life on the West Bank, and there was nothing interesting in EDITOR'S CHOICE at the BFI London Film Festival.
IN PRODUCTION
Only that a new Baz Lurmann project "Jehanne d'Arc" after he abandoned his last film.
IN CONVERSATION
Two critics talk about the new film The Apprentice about Donald Trump in the 1970's and 80's. On at my local Odeon next week.
THE PICTURES
This is a superb piece about "LIFE.Hollywood", two volumes that chart Life Magazine's photographs of behind the scenes of film sets 1936-1972. If the four published here are anything to go by, they should be amazing.
I passed on the INTERVIEW with the director of the animated feature The Wild Robot, and MEAN SHEETS with posters of Godzilla posters of the 1950's.
THE LONG TAKE
My four favourite articles starts with Pamela Hutchinson talking about a new stage version of Dr. Strangelove, one of my all time favourite movies. With Steve Coogan ("dream casting") taking on the how many different roles? "It is the first time that the director's estate has allowed any of the director's films to be adapted for the stage". Just opened at the Noel Coward Theatre in London with a script by Armando Iannucci and directed by Sean Foley. Some early five star reviews. Maybe, for me, the film is just far too familiar.
THE MAGNIFICENT '74
Jessica Kiang this month selects Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. She calls it "subversive in a subtler way .... than it's notoriety might suggest". She gives us a run down of the plot before concluding that it may be "a manifesto for vegetarianism".
TV EYE
It's all about Slow Horses, although Andrew Male never tells us that it's an Apple TV show. Maybe hoping for a gratuity following his grovelling support. But what made me really angry was when he says "Mick Heron's excellent series of comic spy novels". Has he ever read one? There maybe a certain droll satirical element in the seven I have read, but comic, no! If the TV series is actually comic, then I'm glad that I don't get to watch it. Male talks about the "chaos and incompetence" of Slough House. Nobody gets into MI5 if they are incompetent. These people have made a mistake that results in their banishment, but crucially, they normally save the day.
FLICK LIT
Iris Murdoch's novel The Severed Head was made into a film in 1974. I have tried to read her books, but gave up. Nicole Flattery tells us that "the book might be "odd" but the film adaptation by Dick Clement is "sheer weirdness". Ian Holm stars which gives Nicole the opportunity to say that four years after his death, his reappearance in Alien: Romulus "was extremely distasteful". Holm appears alongside an all star cast and Nicole analyses the book and it's adaptation in some detail. A film to be "puzzled over". Or maybe not.
STEVE MCQUEEN
The big feature this month (ten pages) is about the director's new film Blitz, based on the bombing of London in 1940/41. The hero is a young black boy. Typical. I skipped through all the pages. Will I watch the film when it comes out? It will only be shown in "select UK cinemas" before "streaming globally on Apple TV". So probably not.
FAIRY TALE OF NEW YORK
A study by Beatrice Loayza of Sean Baker's new film Anora that won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. All about a lap dancer "who stumbles into marrying an Oligarch's son". How does that work? This is the director's eighth move of which I enjoyed his The Florida Project. His new film is "pleasurably chaotic" with some nice shots of Brighton Beach. I remember Mikey Madison from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. I thought it would get only a limited cinema release, but I think I saw the trailer at my local Odeon.
LIVE AND LET DIE
Any new film from Pedro Almodóvar (now 75) would be of interest to me, but this one is his very first in English. The Room Next Door stars Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore. Maria Delgado tells us that it is "an unsentimental melodrama" where most of the film is given over to these two marvellous actors talking about life. So "rooted in dialogue". She talks to the director and there are a couple of lovely stills from the movie. If it is on limited release, I might just have to break my rule and go some distance to see it.
THE VENICE FILM BULLETIN
Only notable for Almodóvar winning the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival courtesy of Isabelle Huppert's jury. The only other notable film for me was an adaptation of Jim Crace's book Harvest that our book club read and I reviewed on this blog on 24th April 2014. Kieron Corless watched all the films at the festival and he says that the standout "by a distance" was I'm Still Here about the real life disappearance of an engineer.
REVIEWS: FILMS
A rambling review of Megalopolis (maybe intentionally like the film?) This was the only one of the first nine new films reviewed that I had even heard of. Then Small Things Like These, adapted from the Claire Keegan book reviewed here on 14th July 2023. The trailer for the film seems a difficult watch. Then comes Anora and The Room Next Door (both see above). Another five follows that again I had never heard of and then The Apprentice. See In Conversation above. "A profoundly forgettable saga about the rise of Donald Trump. However it seems "remarkably inoffensive" and just a "villain origin story". A French/ Belgium film The Crime is Mine looks good, based on the 1934 play. A thriller/courtroom drama. Lastly Joker: Folie a Deux. Enough said. Nothing interesting on DVD AND BLU-RAY.
BOOKS
A new book called Box Office Poison sounds funny, all those flops. Also One Shot Hitchcock where "fifteen scholars" each explore a single frame from a Hitchcock movie. From 1927's The Lodger to Frenzy from 1972. That might be good.
FROM THE ARCHIVE
From the Summer Edition of 1968 comes an interview with French director Jean-Pierre Melville, and in particular his film Le Samurai. I would never have been interested except this is the very same film that I was going to see at The Rex Cinema last week except it failed to screen past the opening credits. But here are six pages with some lovely stills from the film. The movie describes "several parallel worlds which never overlap but merely brush against each other from time to time". Lead actor Alain Delon "is a mystery, a complete enigma". I hope the Rex shows it again once the wrinkles have been sorted. Or find a DVD.
ENDINGS
The Miracle Worker is from 1962, little known today and I'm not surprised.
No comments:
Post a Comment