Following its blowout 50th anniversary issue, Cinema Scope returns—with editor Mark Peranson sounding a little less than enthusiastic about it: “Back to business as usual, which means being crabby about Cannes and printing long articles about filmmakers nobody has heard of.” Chin up, Mark. You’re still editing one of the most important film publications around, online or off. Issue 51 features José Teodoro and Adam Nayman on David Cronenberg’s Cosmopolis, “a perverse twist on neorealism, one concerning the exact opposite end of the class spectrum,” and further reviews of films that debuted in Cannes a little over a month ago: Dennis Lim on Leos Carax’s Holy Motors, Tom Charity on Carlos Reygadas’s Post Tenebras Lux, John Semley on Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom, Robert Koehler on the Directors’ Fortnight and Mark Peranson‘s overall assessment of this year’s 65th anniversary edition.
Also in this issue: Michael Sicinski on the Jeonju Digital Project 2012, comprised of “one medium-length surrealist dreamscape ([Vimukthi] Jayasundara’s Light in the Yellow Breathing Space); one experimental ‘hanging out’ narrative framed by pure image and pure sound (Raya Martin‘s The Great Cinema Party); and one comparatively straightforward, highly politicized Chinese docudrama (Ying Liang‘s When Night Falls).” Then there’s Phil Coldiron on Laida Lertxundi, Jay Kuehner‘s interview with Julia Loktev (The Loneliest Planet), Andréa Picard‘s correspondence with Lav Diaz, Jonathan Rosenbaum‘s “Global Discoveries on DVD,” Chuck Stephens on Ernie Gehr, and Adam Nayman on Craig Zobel’s Compliance.
New York. The long commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the death of Rainer Werner Fassbinder began in May with the launch of the seven-month long series of screenings, lectures, discussions and more in Berlin, Hands on Fassbinder. A couple of weeks ago, J. Hoberman spoke about RWF’s reception in the US, and his talk, “The Single Antidote to Thoughts of Suicide,” can now be read at Moving Image Source. This weekend sees two RWF double features at 92Y Tribeca, Beware of a Holy Whore (1971) and Satan’s Brew (1976) tonight and Veronika Voss (1982) and Fox and His Friends (1975) tomorrow.
“Unlike Godard‘s characters,” writes Ricky D’Ambrose, reviewing Beware at the House Next Door, “Fassbinder’s are not necessarily surrogates for ideas, despite what might be suggested by their penchant for inexplicable activities (smashing liquor glasses, testing each other’s reflexes with hand games, etc.). There’s no Anna Karina the Saint, the Martyr, the Joan of Arc; there is, however, a certain relationship to religious experience pervading this film.” Meanwhile, Film Comment‘s Violet Lucca presents “some key moments from Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, Fox and His Friends, The Marriage of Maria Braun, In a Year of 13 Moons, and I Only Want You to Love Me where the mise en scène does as much talking as his doomed characters.”
Berlin. As Wings of Desire turns 25, Wim Wenders will be on hand for a Q&A following an anniversary screening at Kino Babylon.
And the Munich International Film Festival opens its 30th anniversary edition today. Bénédicte Prot has an overview for Cineuropa.
DVD/Blu-ray. “Both in terms of how difficult it is to see and how difficult it still is to parse, Numéro Deux [1975] stands out as one of Godard’s least accessible films,” writes Calum Marsh, reviewing the new release from Olive Films. “But it’s also one of his most essential and, in many ways, perhaps his most exciting.”
In the works. François Ozon has begun shooting his 14th feature, Jeune et jolly, reports Fabien Lemercier at Cineuropa: “He has chosen a closed-off film set and a media blackout for this film of which we only know the subject: a teenage girl’s sexuality.” Ozon’s 13th feature, Dans la maison, an adaptation of a play by Juan Mayorga, starring Fabrice Luchini, Kristin Scott-Thomas, Emmanuelle Seigner, and Denis Ménochet, is set to open in France on October 10.
For indieWIRE, Nigel M Smith asks Whoopi Goldberg about raising money for her directorial debut, a doc on legendary stand-up comedian Moms Mabley, with Kickstarter.
In other news. The 65th edition of the Festival del film Locarno (August 1 through 11), has invited an outstanding selection of filmmakers and cinephiles to server on its four juries, among them, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Roger Avary, Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, Alex Ross Perry, and Dennis Lim.
Tim Burton’s Frankenweenie (which has a new trailer, by the way,) will open this year’s Fantastic Fest, which’ll be happening in Austin from September 20 through 27.
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