All posts by Alex Fitch

Alex Fitch used to present I'm ready for my close-up on Resonance FM and is now the main contributor to their show Strip! which is podcast as Panel Borders. Alex has been nominated for an Eagle Award for his services to mankind/comic books (delete as appropriate) and is working on both his first novel and his first graphic novel. He studied art at Goldsmiths, film in New York and clowning at the University of Life. Along with Virginie, he is one of three hosts of the Electric Sheep/Resonance FM film night - Hectic Peelers - currently held at the Roxy Bar and Screen.
Electric Sheep events, Events and Screenings

Electric Sheep Film Club: Oldboy

Still from Oldboy by Park Chan-wook
Oldboy

Date: Wednesday 1 July

Time: 8pm

Venue: Prince Charles Cinema, London

Price: £5.00/£3.50 Prince Charles members

Certificate: 18

Dir: Park Chan-wook, South Korea 2003

Prince Charles Cinema website

ticketWEDNESDAY 1 JULY, Prince Charles Cinema, 8pm : OLDBOY

In Park Chan-wook’s extraordinary visual assault, a man is kidnapped and imprisoned for 15 years without knowing why. When he is finally released from this Kafka-esque nightmare, he is hell-bent on revenge and seeks to uncover his tormentor’s identity. What follows is a twisted cat and mouse game that takes the protagonist and the audience through extremes of emotion, exploring the dark energy of vengeance. Exhilarating, horrifying, blackly humorous and heart-wrenching in equal measure, this is an unmissable masterpiece of cinematic cruelty. Oldboy was Park’s breakthrough movie in the UK, cementing his reputation as one of the most original and challenging directors currently making movies in the Far East.

Next screening: WEDNESDAY 5 AUGUST – Carnival of Souls

Read Virginie Sélavy’s interview with Park
Read Alex Fitch’s interview with Park in Wheel Me Out magazine / listen to the podcast

Electric Sheep in Print

Electric Sheep Magazine Summer 09

Substitute is the theme of the summer 09 issue of Electric Sheep, with articles on the fraught relationship between Takeshi Kitano and ‘Beat’ Takeshi, the various cinematic incarnations of Patricia Highsmith’s Ripley, interchanging identities in Joseph Losey’s films, the dangers of false impersonation in Danish neo-noir Just Another Love Story, the paradoxes of black and white twins in offbeat lost classic Suture, not to mention cross-dressing criminals, androids and body snatchers.

The magazine is no longer available and we are no longer published by Wallflower Press.

Also in this issue: interview with Marc Caro, profile of whiz-kid animator David OReilly, comic strip review of Hardware, and The Phantom Band’s favourite films!

Electric Sheep events, Events and Screenings

Electric Sheep Film Club: Audition

Still from Audition by Takashi Miike
Audition

Date: Wednesday 3 June

Time: 8pm

Venue: Prince Charles Cinema, London

Price: £5.00/£3.50 Prince Charles members

Certificate: 18

Dir: Takashi Miike, South Korea/Japan 1999

Prince Charles Cinema website

ticketWEDNESDAY 3 JUNE, Prince Charles Cinema, 8pm : AUDITION

Enfant terrible Takashi Miike’s most notorious work remains genuinely shocking. The story of a middle-aged man who, following his son’s advice, holds auditions to find a new wife is the pretext for an exploration of fantasy, desire, cruelty and obsession that is as visually beautiful as it is gruesomely disturbing.

Next screening: WEDNESDAY 1 JULY – Oldboy
Radio and Podcasts

Radio: Charlie Kaufman

kaufman,
Charlie Kaufman directs Robin Weigert in Synecdoche, New York

audio Alex Fitch talks to screenwriter Charlie Kaufman about his new film Synecdoche, New York, the challenges of directing his own script, working with Spike Jones and Michel Gondry on his previous screenplays Being John Malkovich and Human Nature and issues of post-modernism and magical realism in his work. Alex Fitch also talks to Electric Sheep editor Virginie Sélavy about Synecdoche, New York, looking at Kaufman’s depictions of the internal workings of the human mind in that film and in earlier scripts such as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.(Originally broadcast 21 May 2009 on Resonance 104.4 FM)

Podcast produced by Alex Fitch

Electric Sheep events, Events and Screenings

Electric Sheep Film Club: Bad Timing

Still from Bad Timing by Nicolas Roeg
Bad Timing

Date: Wednesday 6 May

Time: 8pm

Venue: Prince Charles Cinema, London

Price: £5.00/£3.50 Prince Charles members

Certificate: 18

Dir: Nic Roeg, UK 1980

Prince Charles Cinema website

ticketWEDNESDAY 6 MAY, Prince Charles Cinema, 8pm : BAD TIMING

Billed as ‘a terrifying love story’, this controversial, unjustly overlooked film by Nicolas Roeg is a dazzling, provocative and ferocious dissection of a couple’s disintegration, starring Theresa Russell and Art Garfunkel. Don’t miss this rare opportunity to see this stunning film by the director of Performance and Don’t look Now on the big screen!

Next screening: WEDNESDAY 3 JUNE – Audition
Radio and Podcasts

Figures in a Landscape

Still from Helen by Desperate Optimists
Helen

I’M READY FOR MY CLOSE-UP
Alex Fitch talks to the directors of two new films that take as their starting point a character walking through a landscape and twist it into unexpected directions. Bent Hamer is the director of the gentle Norwegian comedy O’Horten, which tells the tale of a recently retired train driver who gets embroiled in a series of misadventures of the kind Victor Meldrew would be proud of – including having to wear red stilettos after losing his shoes in a locker room and ending up in a car driven by a blind man. Alex Fitch also talks to Christine Molloy, one half of the filmmaking duo Desperate Optimists, about their debut feature Helen, which concerns a young woman who helps the police with their inquiry into a girl’s disappearance and starts identifying with her.

Helen is released in selected UK cinemas on May 1
O’Horten is released in selected UK cinemas on May 8

5pm Resonance 104.4 FM (London) / streamed at www.resonancefm.com

audioListen to the podcast of Alex Fitch’s interviews with Bent Hamer and Christine Molloy.

For more info about the variety of formats you can download this podcast in / stream, please visit www.archive.org


Use iTunes?

Links:
Desperate Optimists‘ official website for info on Helen
Artificial Eye‘s official website for info about O’Horten
Listen to Alex Fitch’s interview with Joe Lawlor, the other half of Desperate Optimists about their series of short films – Civic Life

Radio and Podcasts

World cinema spring 2009

Paolo Sorrentino directs Il Divo
Paolo Sorrentino directs Il Divo

I’M READY FOR MY CLOSE-UP
In a special extra edition of I’m Ready for My Close-Up, heralding the start of spring, Alex Fitch and Jessica Fostekew look at two new critically acclaimed world cinema releases. Alex Fitch interviews director Christophe Van Rompaey and star Jurgen Delnaet of the new Belgian rom-com Moscow, Belgium (Aanrijding in Moscou), while Jess Fostekew talks to director Paolo Sorrentino about his new film Il Divo, which chronicles the life of former Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti who has been tried for murder and for ties to the Mafia.

(N.B. this is an extra edition of IRFMCU in addition to the regular 10.30pm show)

6pm 26/03/09 Resonance 104.4 FM (London) / streamed at www.resonancefm.com

audioListen to the podcast of the interviews with Christophe Van Rompaey and Jurgen Delnaet + Paolo Sorrentino + Alex Fitch reviews the Spanish science fiction thriller Timecrimes (Los cronocrí­menes) and David Warwick looks at Geoffrey Malins’s new DVD The Battle of the Somme (1916).

For more info about the variety of formats you can download this podcast in / stream, please visit www.archive.org


Use iTunes?

Links:
Listen to Alex Fitch’s interview with Toby Haggith (Imperial War Museum) and Andrew Robertshaw (National Army Museum) about the restoration of The Battle of the Somme
Listen to Jessica Fostekew’s previous appearance on IRFMCU: delivering a Sweeney Todd monologue

Electric Sheep in Print

Electric Sheep Magazine Spring 09

The spring issue of Electric Sheep focuses on Tainted Love to celebrate the release of the sweet and bloody pre-teen vampire romance Let the Right One In, with articles on incestuous cinematic siblings, Franí§ois Ozon’s tales of tortuous relationships, destructive passion in Nic Roeg’s Bad Timing, Julio Medem’s ambiguous lovers and nihilistic tenderness from Kôji Wakamatsu.

The magazine is no longer available and we are no longer published by Wallflower Press.

Also in this issue: interview with Pascal Laugier, film in Berlin from squat cinema to the Berlinale, the Polish New Wave, screen vamps, comic strip on the Watchmen film adaptation, and Ipso Facto’s top films.

Radio and Podcasts

The films of Rex Bloomstein

Rex Bloomstein filming An Independent Mind
Rex Bloomstein filming An Independent Mind

audioFirst broadcast as a special episode of Resonance FM’s film show I’m Ready for My Close-Up. Alex Fitch talks to director Rex Bloomstein about his films Traitors to Hitler (1979), KZ (2006) and An Independent Mind (2008) in advance of a screening of the former at the Imperial War Museum as part of a weekend of films and talks about the 1944 bomb plot to kill Hitler (including a screening of Valkyrie starring Tom Cruise). Bloomstein talks about documenting persecution and freedom of speech on film and notions of psychogeography in the documentary process.

For more info about this podcast and a variety of different formats you can download or stream, please visit the home of this podcast at www.archive.org


Use iTunes?

Links:
Interview with Rex following a screening of KZ at the Sundance Film Festival
Rex Bloomstein’s page on the British Documentary Website dfgdocs.com
Imperial War Museum website

Radio and Podcasts

Radio: Being Bruce Campbell

Bruce Campbell in My name is Bruce
Bruce Campbell in My name is Bruce

Alex Fitch talks to legendary B-movie actor Bruce Campbell about his new film My name is Bruce, which sees the actor directing, producing and playing a fictionalised version of himself on screen. Campbell is kidnapped by a fan and taken to the small town of Gold Lick, Oregon (pop. 333), to save the locals from an ancient Chinese demon prefaced by his own country and Western musical numbers… Campbell also talks about his career so far, his appearance in memorable films by Sam Raimi such as the Evil Dead and the Spider-Man trilogy, and his experience of dealing with fandom over the years.

5pm 20/02/09 Resonance 104.4 FM (London) / streamed at www.resonancefm.com / extended (sweary!) podcast online now at www.sci-fi-london.com/audio

Links:
Bruce Campbell’s website
More info on the My name is Bruce DVD

Watch the trailer for My Name Is Bruce: