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NEWS
Barbara Hammer by Mickalene Thomas for Vanity Fair
- A treasured trailblazer of the American avant-garde, lesbian artist and filmmaker Barbara Hammer, has died. In a posthumously published interview with Vanity Fair, Hammer discusses the intertwining of her personal life and political obligations that appear in her works: "I’ve never understood why experiences need be separated into categories. And, so, I don’t."
- Amid ongoing talks among both parties, the Cannes Film Festival will not be screening any Netflix films in or out of its competition this year. The decision rules out a number of titles from screening, including Martin Scorsese's The Irishman and the Safdie brothers' Uncut Gems.
- To our surprise and elation, Wong Kar-Wai has confirmed that Blossoms will be his next film, and will act as the third part to In the Mood For Love and 2046. (We can't help but wonder what happened to Days of Being Wild belonging to this story.) The new film, based on the 2013 novel by Jin Yucheng, is set in Wong's hometown of Shanghai, and takes place between the end of the Cultural Revolution and through the 1990s.
RECOMMENDED VIEWING
- Quentin Tarantino is back with his ninth film, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt, and which from this curious trailer looks like a delirious throwback to 1960s Hollywood.
- We're quite intrigued by the latest trailer for Toy Story 4. Directed by Josh Cooley (a storyboard artist for Inside Out and The Incredibles), the film transports its heroes to the madness of a carnival inhabited by creepy puppets and aggressive plush toys.
- After the success of Bruno Dumont's foray into television, P'tit Quinquin (2014), here's a look at its sequel, Coincoin and the Extra-Humans. The four-episode series revisits the now-teenaged hero as his town faces a possible alien invasion.
- A neon-lit new trailer for Bi Gan's Long Day's Journey Into Night invites viewers to enter a maze of memories and missed connections.
RECOMMEND READING
Sammo Hung at the 2019 edition of the Hong Kong International Film Festival
- The legendary Sammo Hung considers his popularization of the action-comedy genre, the "lousy" state of the Hong Kong film industry, and the dearth of new generation of local action stars.
- Justine Smith's review of Five Feet Apart, which follows two teenagers with cystic fibrosis, is an interrogation of the "morbid comfort" of romantic melodramas involving terminal prognoses: "Less about love, and more about the fetishization of youth."
- Despite receiving high praises at Cannes last year, Lukas Dhont's Girl "employs cheap moments of trauma and body horror that evince [its] extremely narrow view of transness," according to a crucial interrogation of the film by Caden Mark Gardner. Writing for Vanity Fair, K. Austin Collins echoes Gardner in pointing out that the film reduces "the narrative of trans identity one [...] to a trope of physical change."
- Once known for their exotic architecture, many Odeon Cinemas across England have been replaced by new local businesses, including supermarkets and cabaret bars. In a new photo essay, Jason Sayer and Philip Butler track down the seventeen remaining Odeon Cinemas across England and the changes made to their functions and form.
- "She’s an ineffable presence in the past half century of Hollywood, sprinkled over everything like some bitter mixture of fairy dust and cigarette ash." A reconsideration of the elusive legacy and uncompromising ways of Elaine May.
- The latest collection of capsule reviews by A.S. Hamrah includes musings on Clint Eastwood's self-forgiving performance in The Mule, the dream-like quality of James Wan's Aquaman, and the "bad vibes" of Brady Corbet's Vox Lux.
- Over at Kinoslang, Laurent Kretzschmar and Andy Rector have provided a translation of three pieces by Serge Daney on the films of Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet, whose remarkable, singular cinema will soon be the subject of a MUBI retrospective.
RECENTLY ON THE NOTEBOOK
- Upon the opening of his film Black Mother, filmmaker Khalik Allah sits with Daniel Kasman for a conversation on Allah's relationship to Jamaica, his eye and approach as a photographer, and his de-synchronization of sound and image.
- Guy Lodge reviews MUBI's latest release, David Robert Mitchell's Under the Silver Lake, a "Californoir that goes from sunbaked to simply baked with sauntering ease."
- The newly restored The Juniper Tree (starring Björk in her first feature film lead) moves with "a lulling rhythm that’s aching and languid with no sense of urgency," writes Allyson Johnson.
EXTRAS AND RE-DISCOVERIES
- Barbara Hammer provides an overview of her filmography, detailing her changing approach throughout her illustrious career.