Jim Thompson: Mean men, hellish women, savage minds and corrupted souls
With Michael Winterbottom’s take on Jim Thompson’s The Killer inside Me out this month we explore the films based on the hardest of hard-boiled novelists, including The Grifters, After Dark, My Sweet, The Getaway and a Reel Sounds column on Série noire. In Alter Ego, writer Ryan David Jahn wonders about being Jim Thompson.
Other cinema releases include Coppola’s Tetro and faux horror documentary Resurrecting the Streetwalker. In the DVDs, we take a look at Guy Hamilton’s notorious 60s beatnik movie The Party’s Over, Jan Nemec’s Diamonds of the Night, Johnnie To’s Vengeance and Thai horror anthology Phobia. We review the Vice Guide to Mexican Narco Cinema in our Online Movies and we have a Kurosawa comic strip.
We interview the Brothers Quay about Institute Benjamenta, and we present the first Colonial Report from the Dominion of Canada, which deals with The Golden Age of American Television, as well as articles on Fassbinder’s sci-fi tale World on a Wire and two Lucio Fulci releases.
In the blog, we have a report on the Terracotta Festival and a preview of new BBC show Pulse. In the Film Jukebox, uke-wielding indiepopsters Allo’ Darlin’ pick Abba-centric movies. Read the winning review of Midnight Cowboy in our film writing competition.
PODCAST: The Polish New Wave?: Alex Fitch talks to Andrzej Żu?awski about his struggles in getting his esoteric sci-fi epic On the Silver Globe released and the travails involved in making his horror films The Third Part of the Night (1971) and Possession (1981) under the eyes of a communist regime. Alex Fitch also talks to Polish poster designer Andrzej Klimowski and his wife Danusia Schejbal about working on the fringes of Polish filmmaking in the late 1970s.