Theme: Femmes Fatales
–Laura
–Gun Crazy
–Baby Face
–‘Suck My Dick’: The female action hero
Interview
Alex Cox
Film Reviews
–Martha Marcy May Marlene
–Rampart
–Carnage
–A Dangerous Method
DVD Review
–Repo Man
–Rolling Thunder
–Zift
Features
–Barbara Hammer: Bolex Dyke
–Bog Roll
Comic Strip Review
Falling: David Lynch’s temptresses
Reel Sounds
Phantom Lady
Alter Ego
Katy Darby
Short Cuts
Dirty Diaries
Cine Lit
British 60s cinema
Film Jukebox
The Tindersticks
Podcast
Making Film Interactive: Interviews with Alex Cox and Julian Napier
Femmes Fatales: Deadly dames and murderous man-eaters
To mark the restoration of Otto Preminger’s magnificent Laura, we celebrate femmes fatales, including Peggy Cummins’s gutsy bank robber in Gun Crazy and Barbara Stanwyck’s sassy social climber in Baby Face. We have a feature on the female action hero and a Comic Strip on David Lynch’s temptresses while Reel Sounds is enthused by a wild jazz scene in Phantom Lady and in Alter Ego Katy Darby is Bridget Gregory in The Last Seduction.
New cinema releases include the intelligent, creepy cult victim tale Martha Marcy May Marlene, the excellent James Ellroy-scripted LA crime thriller Rampart, Polanski’s ferociously funny middle-class satire Carnage, and Cronenberg’s disappointing A Dangerous Method. And we have a feature on doyenne of lesbian cinema Barbara Hammer, who is the subject of a retrospective at Tate Modern.
In the DVDs, we look back at 80s classic Repo Man and we have an interview with Alex Cox. We also review 70s Vietnam vet vigilante drama Rolling Thunder and Bulgarian neo-noir Zift, and to give context to the latter’s interest in bodily waste, we have an article on toilet scenes in the movies.
In Short Cuts, we review the screening of Swedish feminist porn shorts Dirty Diaries at the London Short Film Festival while Cine Lit peruses Auteur books on 60s British cinema. In the Film Jukebox, soulful, dreamy chamber popsters The Tindersticks pick their favourite films.
PODCAST:
Making Film Interactive: Interviews with Alex Cox and Julian Napier: In a pair of interviews about innovations in filmmaking, Alex Fitch talks to two directors who have embraced new technology: Alex Cox talks about Repo Man, computer generated backgrounds its sequel Repo Chick, interactive cinema and using CGI in the re-release of his Western Straight to Hell. Julian Napier, director of Madame Butterfly 3D, a new film of the Royal Opera House’s production of Puccini’s classic tale, explains how filming the opera using 3D cameras makes the cinema presentation a more immersive experience.
