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NEWS
- The on-demand success of Trolls: World Tour, and subsequent comments made by NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell, has led to a significant development in the friction between studios and cinemas: AMC Theatres announced it will no longer play any Universal movies. The ongoing dispute speaks to the many changes likely to take place as response to the Coronavirus pandemic.
RECOMMENDED VIEWING
- The Walker Art Center has made available more than 60 "in-depth portraits of directors, actors, writers, and producers who were celebrated in the Walker Cinema at pivotal moments in their careers." This abundant archive includes Bong Joon-ho, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Stan Brakhage, Julie Dash, and even Tom Hanks.
- Grasshopper's official trailer for Dan Sallitt's Fourteen, which stars Tallie Mehdel and Norma Kuhling as two long-time friends in New York. Read our review of the film here.
RECOMMENDED READINGS
Above: "A couple waits for the film to begin in Seoul." (Photograph: Ed Jones/AFP /Getty Images)
- Drive-in theatres have enjoyed a newfound popularity due to the implementation of social distancing policies. Over at The Guardian, a series of photographs documenting the re-emergence of "social distance cinema."
- The Seventh Art's latest translated excerpt of Luc Moullet's Politique des acteurs is on Gary Cooper, from his tall, lean build to his "sparse acting strategy" in films by Frank Borzage and King Vidor.
- The New York Times profiles Alice Wu, director of the 2005 romantic comedy, Saving Face. Wu discusses her latest feature The Half of It, a coming-of-age film based on Cyrano de Bergerac, her unconventional background as a manager at Microsoft, and the legacy and influence of her debut film on a new generation of Asian-American filmmakers.
Above: Apichatpong Weerasethakul in Eye Amsterdam.
- "After we have defeated the virus, when the cinema industry has woken up from its stupor, this new group, as moviegoers, wouldn’t want to take the same old cinema journey." In a moving letter, Apichatpong Weerasethakul imagines a future after our current situation when a new audience will emerge, in need of new movies.
- From the Harun Farocki Institute, a letter from Jim Jarmusch to Farocki regarding the expansion of his short film Stranger Than Paradise into a feature.
- "Triumph of the Will is a love letter to Hitler; State Funeral may not be a hymn to Stalin, but it depicts one. Is there a difference?" A thoroughly inquisitive review of Sergei Loznitsa's State Funeral by J. Hoberman.
RECOMMENDED LISTENING
- Experimental duo Lung Dart have released a mix of film music on NTS Radio, featuring tunes from Shoplifters, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, The Work, Fish Tank, and more.
RECENTLY ON THE NOTEBOOK
- Jeremy Carr investigates the broad nihilism in Akira Kurosawa's Ran, and the speed and simplicity of the film's production, as captured in Chris Marker's documentary A.K. Both films are showing April and May, 2020 on MUBI in the United Kingdom in the series In Front and Behind the Scenes: Kurosawa & Marker.
- For The Current Debate, Leonardo Goi provides a tentative guide to some of the best festivals, archives, and catalogs offering free films to get you through the isolation.
- Pablo Larrain's Ema celebrated its free virtual preview on MUBI in many countries on May 1, 2020, and it is now showing exclusively on MUBI in the United Kingdom, India, and other countries in May and June. In her Close-Up on the film, Savinka Petkova dives into the film's themes of grief and the politics of dance.
- "Billy Wilder's misunderstood penultimate film channels the modernism of contemporaneous European art cinema rather than old Hollywood." Adrian Martin writes on Billy Wilder's Fedora, which is now showing May 3 - June 2, 2020 in most countries in the series Perfect Failures.
EXTRAS
- From Arch Daily, a series of illustrated movie set plans from Parasite, Pain & Glory, and Jojo Rabbit by artist Boryana Ilieva.
