Rushes: First Look at Orson Welles' Final Film, New Jeff Nichols Short, "Akira" at 30

This week’s essential news, articles, sounds, videos and more from the film world.
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RECOMMENDED VIEWING

  • Finally, it’s here: Netflix’s trailer for their restoration and reconstruction of Orson Welles' final and previously unfinished The Other Side of the Wind, starring John Huston and Peter Bogdanovich.
  • A dreamy, sun-bathed trailer for Carlos Reygadas's Our Time, about a Mexican family that raises fighting bulls, and a young horse trainer who enters and disrupts their lives. The Venice-bound film is Reygadas's first since his 2012 Post Tenebras Lux.

  • Behold, the official trailer for Luca Guadagnino's Suspiria, cut with an erratic rhythm that blurs the line between violent bodily contortions and interpretive dance. The film has been acquired by MUBI to show in UK cinemas on November 16.

  • The trailer for Rialto Pictures's new 4K restoration of Jean-Pierre Melville's little-seen When You Read This Letter (1953). The film, which follows a woman who leaves a convent and crosses paths with the suspicious suitor of her younger sister, opens September 12 at New York's Film Forum.

  • To mark the release of band Lucero's new album Among the Ghosts, filmmaker Jeff Nichols has directed a short film starring Michael Shannon and Garrett Hedlund for the song "Long Way Back Home." Nichols discusses the mysterious film with Vulture's Kyle Buchanan, stating, “It became less of a cool, random project I was gonna do with my brother and Mike Shannon, and it turned into, ‘Oh no, we’re actually producing a short Jeff Nichols film.’”

  • Tamil cinema maestro Mani Ratnam is back after last year's sublime, baroque romance Kaatru Veliyidai—this time with a roaring gangster picture aptly titled Chekka Chivantha Vaanam, or Crimson Red Sky.

  • Following its successful festival run, Patrick Wang's The Grief of Others all but disappeared. Thankfully, this is about to change by way of a US theatrical release. Below is the eloquent and quietly moving trailer for this family portrait.

 

  • Documentary filmmaker Roberto Minervini continues his incisive, poetic study of the American South with What You Gonna Do When the World's On Fire?. The black-and-white film, which takes place during the summer of 2017, will premiere in competition at the Venice Film Festival.

  • Filmmaker Eric Marsh has composed a video essay exploring the stoic power of Edward James Olmos as Lieutenant Martin Castillo from the Michael Mann's landmark '80s TV show Miami Vice.

RECOMMENDED READING

  • The Stranger's film editor Charles Mudede has responded to Boots Riley's essay on Spike Lee's BlacKkKlansman, stating that the film is "about establishing a bond between two groups [Black and Jewish people] [...] [and not] just another attempt to make cops look good." In a recent interview with the Times, Spike Lee has also addressed Riley's comments, claiming "I’m never going to say all police are corrupt."
  • For Bright Lights, Notebook contributors Daniel Riccuito and David Cairns have penned a thought-provoking essay on the giallo genre's "fetishization" of murder, misogyny, and misanthropy, and compromised masculinity.
  • For the Criterion Collection's "One Scene" column, director Andrew Bujalski—whose latest Support the Girls is now in theatres—writes on the final performance scene from John Cassavetes's Opening Night: "a tightrope act without a net, but also without the rope, or the laws of gravity—only the spirits of the performers precariously balancing upon each other.

  • The Criterion Collection has released a Blu-ray edition of Susan Seidelman's 1982 debut feature Smithereens, about a young woman who joins the seedy local punk rock scene of the East Village in New York City. To commemorate its re-release, we look back to Seidelman's own words, in a reflection on the film's "wonderfully naive" production for Filmmaker Magazine.
  • On his blog Aleph Cinema, filmmaker Alex Galmard deconstructs and reconstructs Isiah Medina's short film idizwadidiz—now streaming worldwide as part of MUBI's program Canada's Next Generation—in an expansive essay, accompanied by intricate diagrams and maps of the film's "textless punctuation."
  • "It’s the work of a filmmaker constantly trying to come to terms with her past, to find a thread of continuity between the inner lives of various generations, and to explore one’s place in the world." At Reverse Shot, Josh Hamm eloquently celebrates Sofia Bohdanowicz's Maison du bonehur, which premieres on MUBI tomorrow, also as part of our Canada's Next Generation program.
  • Over at VRV Blog, Gretchen Felker-Martin takes a refreshing look at an anime classic, Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira, specifically its incisive look at boyhood, masculinity, and male toxicity.

RECOMMENDED LISTENING

  • For the Disability Visibility Project podcast, critics Kristen Lopez and Angelo Muredda discuss the challenges of being disabled film critics, the problem of accessibility at movie theatres and film festivals, and the limited inclusion of disabled film critics in the field.

RECENTLY ON NOTEBOOK

  • A review of one of the best American films of the year, Andrew Bujalski's Support the Girls.
  • Another look back at Akira as Otomo's classic turns 30 years old.
  • Andrei Tarkovsky's epic biopic Andrei Rublev has been restored and re-released, prompting a look at how artists function in society.
  • Duncan Gray's spotlight on the cynicism and romance of Preston Sturges's Sullivan's Travels and The Lady Eve. "The happy ending of a Sturges picture," Gray writes, "can be both acidly ironic and perfectly sweet without either impulse canceling the other."

EXTRAS AND RE-DISCOVERIES

  • Speaking of Akira...

 

  • Somehow this makes perfect sense: the legendary James Ivory for Helmut Lang.

  • It's impossible to not be charmed by this...

 

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RushesNewsCarlos ReygadasLuca GuadagninoJean-Pierre MelvilleJeff NicholsMani RatnamPatrick WangEdward James OlmosSpike LeeBoots RileyDario ArgentoMario BavaLucio FulciAndrew BujalskiSusan SiedelmanIsiah MedinaSofia BohdanowiczKatsuhiro OtomoVideosTrailersOrson WellesNewsletter
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