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NEWS
- With Jean-Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina in Pierrot le fou on the official poster for the 71st Cannes Film Festival, all signs point to Jean-Luc Godard's new film, Le livre d'image, premiering there this May.
- Isao Takahata—the master filmmaker, animator, and co-founder of Studio Ghibli—has sadly left us. Jasper Sharp has penned a thoughtful, thorough obituary for The Guardian. (Read our review of Takahata's final film, The Tale of Princess Kaguya.)
- The Czech New Wave director Juraj Herz has also died, reports Czech Journal.
- Hirokazu Kore-eda's highly productive filmmaking pace continues with a new project, and The Playlist reports that Juliette Binoche, Catherine Deneuve, and perhaps even Ethan Hawke, are aboard.
RECOMMENDED VIEWING
- Terry Gilliam's decades-in-the-making dream project, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, is finally near. Above is the raucous first trailer led by the aptly paired duo of Jonathan Pryce and Adam Driver.
- We've eagerly awaited this day: the restoration and re-release of Olivier Assayas's masterful youth film, Cold Water (1994).
- A rare and insightful look into the production process of Phantom Thread: from the costumes to the lighting, all culminating in a wondrous food fight.
- As always, Cristina Álvarez López and Adrian Martin provides a sharp cinematic analysis through the medium of the video essay: here, regarding the abstract formalizations in Jean-Pierre Melville's Le cercle rouge.
RECOMMENDED READING
- In the event of the release of his latest film, First Reformed, Paul Schrader is interviewed by collaborator Nicolas Cage on why this film might just be his "masterpiece" for Interview Magazine.
- Two fascinating pieces from Filmmaker Magazine: In one, Matt Lynch reflects on how secret torrent-sharing websites may be the closest modern equivalent of the best of old school video rental stores; in the other, Vadim Rizov catalogs with great detail the 31 films shot on 35mm released in the United States in 2017.
- Molly Ringwald, best known for her roles in John Hughes' movies The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink and Sixteen Candles, has written a reflection on her work with Hughes for the New Yorker, touching on the legacy of those films and the changing perception of gender and sexuality since then.
- Lynne Ramsay's pulp thriller You Were Never Really Here is a stark piece of genre work (read our review from Cannes). Steve Macfarlane interviews the Scottish director about shooting in New York, working with Joaquin Phoenix, and more.
- For Talkhouse, the great American filmmaker Stephen Cone champions the underestimated films of Carrol Ballard, and their complex considerations of the natural world and childhood.
- For BOMB, Corinna Copp interviews the luminary of queer and feminist avant-garde film, Barbara Hammer, regarding her movies, performances, paintings, and much more.
- Speaking of Godard's Le livre d'image, critic and programmer Andy Rector has discovered a sneak peak of the new work. Catch the first official images at Rector's blog, Kino Slang.
- For The New York Times, Fabrice Robinet considers the possible death of Making-Of Featurettes as result of the decline of physical media.
RECENTLY ON THE NOTEBOOK
- Actress Esther Garrel stopped by our office to chat about working with her father, Philippe, in Lover for a Day and with Luca Guadagnino's Call Me By Your Name. Watch our video interview.
- An exploration of the innovative editing techniques of Berlin School filmmaker Angela Schanelec (The Dreamed Path), subject of an on-going retrospective on MUBI.
- The second part of Blake Lucas's overview of director Douglas Sirk at the Universal-International studio digs into his best-known films.
- We report from Chinese director Jia Zhangke's new film festival located in Pingyao.
- Two new reviews: Of Aaron Katz's millennial noir Gemini; and Lynne Ramsay's savage Joaquin Phoenix film, You Were Never Here.
EXTRAS
- For Empire Online, Akira creator Katsuhiro Otomo provides a gorgeous new poster for Wes Anderson's Isle of Dogs.
- The handwriting of the late experimental lo-fi filmmaker George Kuchar has, unexpectedly (but thankfully!), been adapted into a free font.
- Artist and designer Jordan Bolton created these lovely revisions of Wes Anderson and Hayao Miyazaki's films as books.