As we anticipate that we’ll be far too dazed and fuzzy-brained to write anything coherent between now and the New Year, this will be our last issue until February 2008. But fear not, we’ve packed it with enough goodies to make it last until the next one.
In an effort to be seasonal, we’ve made excess the overriding theme of the issue. First, we gorged ourselves on RW Fassbinder’s 15-hour-plus Berlin Alexanderplatz, a fascinating chronicle of the murky, unwholesome world of 1920s Berlin: hard on the stomach and queasiness-inducing at times, but certainly worth the resultant hangover. And for a hair of the dog, there’s always the Fassbinder Volume 1 and 2 DVDs. Then, we looked at ten takes on gluttony, from the stuffing-centric Taxidermia to Oldboy‘s infamous live-octopus-devouring scene via Marco Ferreri’s 1973 gross-out consumption satire La Grande bouffe.
And that’s only for starters. The full àla carte menu includes reviews of Gus Van Sant’s Paranoid Park, Romanian Cannes winner 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, Joseph L. Mankiewicz’ classic satire on stardom All About Eve, labyrinthine Polish tale The Saragossa Manuscript, Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution, Mexican horror hit KM31 and cerebral French thriller Hotel Harabati.
In the DVD side orders we have Murnau’s delicious Tabu, London noir Night and the City, anti-porn animé Princess, Jerzy Skolimowski’s cult horror movie The Shout, double Japanese act The Duel Project, Satoshi Kon’s Paprika and Sigur Rós’ live DVD Heima.
We talked to Pamela Jahn, curator of Baader’s Angels, a season about women in German terrorism films and to Anders Morgenthaler, director of Princess. We also caught up with the organisers of the London Short Film Festival (formerly Halloween) – we are looking forward to starting the New Year feasting our eyes on their very exciting programme of shorts and live music events.
JANUARY EXTRAS: We have an interview with Anamaria Marinca, leading actress of 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, and with George Clark, curator of ‘ICO Essentials: The Secret Masterpieces of Cinema’. We have reviews of No Country for Old Men, Sweeney Todd, Beat Girl. In the DVDs we take a look at eye-popping Korean oddity Teenage Hooker Became Killing Machine and Alex de la Iglesia’s 800 Bullets. And we have a report on the very first Secret Cinema screening.
Citing Suspiria and Rosemary’s Baby among their influences and with one single, Foreo, based on Alfred Hitchcock’s Marnie, The Violets were obvious candidates for our Film Jukebox.
CJ Magnet thinks up a ground-breaking new kind of exercise class in the Last Word section and in the Review of the Year we look at the best/worst films of 2007 – post a comment to let us know what you think.
Every month we’ll give you the chance to get your cinephile hands on a film prize – all you have to do to win is spin the Film Roulette! This month we have a big bumper prize courtesy of Tartan Video comprising three DVDs – Taxidermia, Super Size Me and Oldboy – together with a copy of Get Stuffed: The Home Taxidermist’s Handbook. Five runners-up will each get a copy of the book. To enter the competition just spin the Film Roulette! Closing date for entries: Monday 17 December.
The next Hectic Peelers film club, organised jointly with Resonance FM, will be on Tuesday 4 December at the Roxy Bar and Screen, London. We’ll be showing Häxan, an outlandish Scandinavian silent film on witchcraft that was much admired by the surrealists (courtesy of Tartan Video). The night starts at 6:30pm, film at 7:30pm, admission is free. Further details here
Resonance FM have now re-launched from their new studio so check out their website for a full list of the new programmes. Check out details of forthcoming programmes and podcasts of previous shows here.
Electric Sheep exists in print too! Pick up a free copy of the magazine at selected cinemas, cafes, arts centres and universities. Details of stockists here.
The Electric Sheep Magazine team