Cover
Here is Bong Joon Ho, the director of Mickey 17 - see below.
Editorial
Mike Williams lays into Trump, Bannon and Musk with this edition having a dystopian feel. Musk is "Rasputin-in-chief" and in the future becomes the 48th President.
Opening Scenes
Dominic Lees tells us how Artificial Intelligence is now widespread in film making. He quotes examples from The Brutalist, Here, Emilia Perez and obviously Robin Williams' Better Man. Lees asks if it should be important to disclose what has been done so we are forewarned.
Festivals
Only BFI Flare.
Editor's Choice
The London Soundtrack Festival is on from 19th to the 26th March. Howard Shore receives an award. Anne Dudley conducts the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra plus vocalists in Great Movie Songs at The Roundhouse on 25th March.
In Production
Isabelle Hupert stars as 16th century Countess Elizabeth Bathory in The Blood Countess. (There was a 2008 film Bathory: Countess of Blood that starred Anna Friel). Also Martin McDonagh's new film Wild Horse Nine has an all star cast with filming at Easter Island.
News
A piece about Amazon taking control of the Bond movies that made the news. An obituary on Gene Hackman. The writer/director Sandyha Suri talks about her new film Santosh. The BFI are to have an online archive for British videos that were just made for the internet.
Under the Influence
Four films that inspired Robert Eggers for his film Nosferatu.
Nothing interesting in Mean Sheets or Reader's Letters.
The Long Take
Pamela Hutchinson talks about a manifesto published in 1960 that contained a prescriptive set of rules for film making called Dogme 95. It sounded quite ridiculous even with it's "scathing energy". But Hutchinson wants more from "young and cynical" film makers. I shall avoid them.
Flick Lit
This is all about film critics becoming film directors. Nicole Flattery tells us about her favourite essay by Rainer Werner Fassbinder on the films of Douglas Sirk. I have no interest.
TV Eye
Andrew Male tells us about the TV programme Brian and Maggie. Based on that famous Brian Walden interview with Maggie Thatcher. He compares it with the original which he now prefers. Before discussing similar programmes.
The Berlin Bulletin
This film festival is summarised by Jonathon Romney. Glossing over the political introduction, we are on to Mickey 17 that he rates as "overblown". We then get a run down of all the films at the festival, nearly all of which will never get a main release here. But Richard Linklater's Blue Moon with Ethan Hawke as lyricist Lorenz Hart, Margaret Qualley as his art student crush and a supporting roe for Andrew Scott as Richard Rogers. One to look out for.
Death Becomes Him
Here is the interview with Bong Joon Ho with an eight page spread on his new film Mickey 17. He says that it is about a "hapless working class under achiever stumbling along under self serving autocratic leadership in funny weird circumstances. And repeatedly dying". A longish interview with the director reveals 80% was shot on Warner Bros sound stages at Leavesdon in Hertfordshire, and more at a huge stage at Cardington Studio in Bedford. The rest on locations in London. Including the now deserted Old City Hall. Finally a full page of "ideas and inspirations behind Bong's films". For example, The Host was inspired by M Night Shalaman's Signs.
Artist of the Floating World
A feature about Flow before it won best animated feature at this year's Oscars. Initially, to my dismay, it ribbed the BAFTA winner Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl of the award. However, watching the trailer and reading this and other reviews (see Mark Kermode on YouTube) I cannot wait to see it at the cinema. There is no dialogue as cat seeks safety after a flood. The director Gints Zilbalodis is from Latvia and the article includes some of his concept art for some sea creatures and other amazing stills. Lots of fairly interesting stuff about the free to use Blender software.
Nothing is a Slam Dunk Anymore
Five pages on Steven Soderbergh's new film Black Bag includes some great photos. Phillip Concannon talks to the director. I liked the bit about the polygraph sequence "when Michael Fassbender interrogates the others", clever quick fire cuts between each scene, backwards and forwards with each of them and actually it had been "written exactly how it appears". See my review.
Singing in the Ruins
A very strange movie called The End with an all star cast in a bunker at the end of the world. Six big stars in a musical directed by Joshua Oppenheimer. A review comes later.
Reviews
These include The End (see above). A run time of 148 minutes seems too long. The French film When Autumn Falls sounds interesting. I hope Mr Burton gets a general release with Toby Jones playing Richard Burton, the schoolteacher who saw promise in Richard 17 year old Richard Jenkins. Teaching him acting craft before becoming his legal guardian. Jenkins changing his surname to Burton. Also reviewed is Flow (see above) that "feels startlingly sophisticated" and Mickey 17 less so. But Bridget Jones: Mad about the Boy only gets a tiny paragraph.
DVD and Blu-Ray
Something about Douglas Sirk ??? and other equally weird releases.
Rediscovery
The 1975 film Night Moves, a crime thriller that was, perhaps too arty for it's time but now seems to have more staying power. Unfortunately at the time it soon got swallowed by Jaws.
Lost and Found
Woman in a Hat from 1984 by Stanislaw Rozewicz. About an actress in 1980's Warsaw. Released on Blu-Ray is the first feature from Guillermo del Toro called Cronos. A kind of arty horror. "Spectacular ideas and clever visuals". What else would you expect.
Wider Screen
Nothing of interest, especially Jacques Rivette's thirteen hour epic Out 1.
Books
A new series from Fordham University Press that each has a particular aspect of film making. The Prop is 176 pages that included the rope used in Hitchcock's The Rope (1948). At $70 I might give it a miss.
From the Archive
"I don't like being called a realist". So says Vittorio De Sica in an article in Sight and Sound from Spring 1950. The Italian actor who became a more famous director of films like Bicycle Thieves (1948): "the greatest film of all time2 according to Sight and Sound's poll of 1952. It's on YouTube. I only remember him as one of the Four Just Men, a tv series from 1959 to 60. I was sixteen and at home we never missed an episode.
This Month in ..... 1950
On the cover of Sight and Sound April 1950 is Gene Kelly and Vera Ellen in On The Town. There were features on The Blue Lamp and Kind Hearts and Coronets (see my review of the latter film).
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