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NEWS
- With the eyebrow-raising working title of Soggy Bottom, Paul Thomas Anderson's new 70s-set project has quietly begun shooting in Los Angeles with Bradley Cooper, and possibly Alana Haim of the band HAIM.
- Speaking of new projects, the next feature by Hirokazu Kore-eda will be a Korean production starring Bae Doona (who previously starred in his film Air Doll) and Song Kang-ho. Entitled Broker, the film is about characters linked by a "baby box," a place where parents may anonymously drop off babies they are unable to raise.
- Berlinale has announced plans for its 2021 edition, which will be a physical festival. For the first time, performance awards will be gender neutral, replacing the awards for the Best Actor and the Best Actress with a Silver Bear for Best Leading Performance and a Silver Bear for Best Supporting Performance.
- NYFF's lineup for its new section, Currents, aims to "encompass different forms of experimentation and innovation [among] daring risk-takers." The roster includes Ephraim Asili's first feature, a pair of features from Heinz Emigholz, and a previously unfinished posthumous film by Raúl Ruiz.
RECOMMENDED VIEWING
- Xavier Dolan's Matthias & Maxime will be showing exclusively on MUBI in many countries on August 28th. The film, which follows a pair of friends challenged in the aftermath of a kiss, will be followed by a Q&A with Dolan.
- The latest short by Spanish experimental film artist Laida Lertxundi, Autoficción, is now available for viewers in the United States until August 31st. Read our interview with Lertxundi from last year here, in which she discusses her use of landscapes and non-actors, and the materiality of film.
- Prime Video has released the official trailer for Garrett Bradley's documentary Time, which will play at the New York Film Festival before its October 9 release. You can find our review of the "absolutely vivid and often deeply emotional" film here.
- A teaser for Matt Reeves's The Batman recently premiered at DC FanDome, and features shadowy new footage of Robert Pattinson as a gothic vigilante.
RECOMMENDED READING
Above: M. Night Shyamalan's The Village.
- Wesley Morris of the New York Times argues that 2004 was in fact a "good movie year" containing "a strong mix of original ideas, major directors and stars we still wanted to see." These ideas, Morris finds, largely fixated on conspiracy and suspicion, as in films like The Village and I, Robot.
- From Document Journal, scholars Tananarive Due, John Jennings, and Robin R. Means Coleman discuss centering the Black experience in horror, Black history and its trauma and pains as horror, and horror's representation of black people as monstrous or through monsters.
- On the occasion of the 4K restoration of Crash, David Cronenberg reflects on the film's controversial reputation (and earning the ire of Francis Ford Coppola), the excitement of receiving so much pushback for Crash, and the future of independent filmmaking during and after COVID.
- For the New Left Review, Simon Hammond pens a tribute to the life and legacy of the late film theorist, filmmaker, and screenwriter Peter Wollen.
RECENTLY ON THE NOTEBOOK
- The latest edition of Movie Poster of the Week features a treasure-trove of Hungarian movie posters for films such as All That Jazz, Dodes'ka-den, and The Elephant Man.
- David Perrin reflects on a new 3D short film by Wim Wenders, made in homage to Edward Hopper, which draws out the cinematic inspiration of the American painter.
- For our One Shot column, Carlos Valladares finds François Truffaut's Stolen Kisses encapsulated in a single image depicting Antoine Doinel raising his fist against his mirror reflection.
- Manu Yanez explores the "marginal utopias" of Barbet Schroeder. MUBI's ongoing retrospective, Spotlight on Barbet Schroeder, is now showing summer 2020 - spring 2021.
EXTRAS
- David Cronenberg's 4K restoration of Crash recently screened at a drive-in in Toronto. In his introduction to the film, Cronenberg calmly points out that we now live in an era of self-driving Teslas with 17-inch screen TVs installed inside.