New Cinema Scope! Issue 54 features Michael Sicinski on Denis Côté‘s Vic+Flo Saw a Bear (“The title’s both a metaphor and a clue: the phrasing, like a picture book, implies that we should take a look at what’s on screen with fresh, untutored eyes”), Thom Andersen on Wang Bing’s Three Sisters, Shelly Kraicer on Wong Kar-wai‘s The Grandmaster, Phil Coldiron‘s interview with Andrew Bujalski and Adam Nayman‘s with Joseph Kahn (discussed: Detention (2011), “a movie about pop culture that doesn’t denigrate its subject matter”), Jonathan Rosenbaum‘s “Global Discoveries on DVD” column, and of course, much more.
Cargo #17 has just hit the stands in Germany, featuring an interview with Whit Stillman and pieces on this year’s Berlinale, Alain Resnais, Albert Brooks, and Michel Foucault.
We haven’t seen a new issue of Film Quarterly for a while, but a fresh “Web Exclusive” has just gone up, B. Ruby Rich‘s report on this year’s Sundance Film Festival.
For the Quietus, Rob White talks with Yorgos Lanthimos about Alps.
Crime Factory has just released LEE, “a hardboiled fiction anthology based on the life and times of Lee Marvin,” and, writing at Movie Morlocks, Kimberly Lindbergs finds it to be “a surprisingly smart, fun and downright entertaining read.”
In other news. If you’re not familiar with the ongoing standoff between filmmaker Mark Rappaport and Boston University professor Ray Carney, take a quick look at the second paragraph of this entry, posted last week, in which I attempted to sum up the situation as succinctly as possible. Today, another update. Jon Jost has gathered the evidence and argues a pretty convincing case: Carney has committed perjury.
BTW, I’m making a movie, with actors and a script and stuff.
— Ignatiy Vishnevetsky (@vishnevetsky) March 21, 2013
“William Friedkin‘s Sorcerer—a film that fell victim to shifting tastes when it opened more than three decades ago—will be remastered and released in theaters and for the first time on Blu-ray,” reports Brent Lang. “The director told TheWrap that a ‘major studio’ has gotten involved in creating a new recolored, digital print and that he hopes it will be ready in time for the Venice Film Festival this August.”
Cannes has unveiled its startling poster for this year’s 66th edition. It features Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, and you can see it in all its full-blown glory on our tumblr.
The Tribeca Film Festival (April 17 through 28) has announced the lineup for its Talks series, featuring Clint Eastwood, Whoopi Goldberg, Darren Aronofsky, Ben Stiller, Ethan Hawke, and Gloria Steinem, among others.
Los Angeles. “The oft-maligned genre of science fiction could be divided into the pre- and post-2001: A Space Odyssey eras,” writes Michael Nordine in the Weekly, “a take confirmed by LACMA’s Beyond the Infinite: Science Fiction After Kubrick series, running March 22 to April 6 in tandem with its ongoing Stanley Kubrick exhibit. In the wake of Kubrick’s film, the ideas on display in sci-fi movies became more expansive, the visuals more unabashedly ‘out there’—and a few equally well-regarded directors threw their hat in the genre ring too.” Michael focuses on Andrei Tarkovsky‘s Solaris, Saul Bass’s Phase IV, René Laloux’s Fantastic Planet, and Robert Altman’s Quintet.
UK. The Brits are spoilt for choice this weekend. For starters, there’s Carlos Reygadas’s Post Tenebras Lux. In Little White Lies, where Jonathan Crocker interviews the director, Vadim Rizov writes: “There’s more than a little grandstanding bunk in its details, but Reygadas’ anti-humanist tract successfully fleshes out its sketchily harsh cosmology.” More from Peter Bradshaw (Guardian, 3/5) and Emma Simmonds (Arts Desk). Then there’s Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Neighbouring Sounds, “wickedly clever and cleverly wicked,” according to Nigel Andrews in the Financial Times. More from Steve Rose (Guardian, 4/5). And for the Guardian‘s Peter Bradshaw, Craig Zobel’s Compliance is “a movie with as much to say about alienated corporate society and fast food consumerism as Morgan Spurlock’s SuperSize Me (2004) or Richard Linklater‘s Fast Food Nation (2006).” For John Semley, writing for Slant, “what distinguishes Zobel’s film isn’t the daring of its interrogations, but the neatness of the craft.” More from Robbie Collin (Telegraph, 2/5).
In the works. Mike White is already bouncing back from the cancellation of Enlightened. Variety‘s Dave McNary reports that he’ll be adapting The Good Luck of Right Now, the latest book by Matthew Quick, author of The Silver Linings Playbook.
Obits. “The Nigerian novelist and poet Chinua Achebe, who first made his mark with 1958 novel Things Fall Apart, has died aged 82,” reports Matilda Battersby in the Independent. “Achebe is known as the ‘father of modern African literature,’ and made his name writing about the history of Nigeria. Things Fall Apart, set amid 1890s Nigeria and the influx of Christian missionaries, is renowned the world over, has been translated into 50 languages and has sold more than 10 million copies.” In 1998, Lewis Nkosi wrote in the London Review of Books: “It is sometimes said that the vocation of a writer in Africa is to defend a culture. This, in any case, is how Achebe understands it. The privilege of taking a culture for granted is not available to modern African writers.” More from Aaron Bady in the New Inquiry.
“The documentary filmmaker Michael Grigsby, who has died aged 76, strove to convey the experiences of ordinary people, and those on the margins of society,” writes Ian Christie for the Guardian. “His subjects ranged from Inuit hunters in northern Canada and North Sea fishermen to Northern Irish farmers, Vietnamese villagers and, most recently, ageing American veterans of the Vietnam war.”
Viewing (3’54”). Maya Deren “was a devoted felinophile who, according to the late Amos Vogel, was convinced that that she herself was a reincarnated cat,” notes J. Hoberman, who’s delighted by “a hilarious tribute cum parody by Mary Gillen” of Meshes of the Afternoon (1943).
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