Fake Documentaries:
Political satire, media manipulation, horror trickery
issue fifty-nine We start off the year with the real truths behind fake documentaries to mark the Blu-ray release of Peter Watkins’s incendiary
Punishment Park, whose denunciation of the US government’s repression of dissent remains powerfully relevant 40 years later. We also have articles on the Joaquin Phoenix hoax
I’m Still Here, Danish political satire
AFR, the infamous BBC live ghost-hunting show simulation
Ghostwatch, Kôji Shiraishi's pseudo-documentary on supernatural phenomena
The Curse, and a comic strip on
The Blair Witch Project, plus Norwegian monster mockumentary
Troll Hunter is out on DVD. Our Reel Sounds column is on Brian Eno's soundtrack for SF hoax
Alternative 3.
At the cinema, we review Jean Vigo’s poetic gem L’atalante, Steve McQueen’s much anticipated study of sex addiction Shame, Tatsumi, an animated film on the life and work of the eponymous manga artist, and financial thriller Margin Call.
In the DVDs we look at legendary road movie Two-Lane Blacktop and we have an interview with director Monte Hellman about his latest film, Road to Nowhere.
We also review Teuvo Tulio’s flamboyant melodrama Cross of Love, and we have a feature on films in which everybody dies. In Short Cuts we preview the London Short Film Festival. Musician Barry Adamson of Magazine and the Bad Seeds fame picks his favourites in the Film Jukebox while writer Tom Benn is Blade Runner’s Roy Batty in Alter Ego.■
The End: An Electric Sheep Anthology
The End: An Electric Sheep Anthology (Strange Attractor Press) brings together Bill Morrison’s chemical ghosts, 50s bad girls, apocalyptic evangelical cinema, Spanish zombies, Japanese nihilists and David Lynch’s soundtracks of decay. 'Superb - a masterly accomplishment. Beautifully produced - and its content and vision could not be more accurate and timely.' - Peter Whitehead
Fake Documentaries: We start off the year with the real truths behind fake documentaries to mark the Blu-ray release of Peter Watkins’s incendiary Punishment Park, whose denunciation of the US government’s repression of dissent remains powerfully relevant 40 years later. We also have articles on the Joaquin Phoenix hoax I’m Still Here, Danish political satire AFR, the infamous BBC live ghost-hunting show simulation Ghostwatch, Kôji Shiraishi's pseudo-documentary on supernatural phenomena The Curse, and a comic strip on The Blair Witch Project, plus Norwegian monster mockumentary Troll Hunter is out on DVD. Our Reel Sounds column is on Brian Eno's soundtrack for SF hoax Alternative 3.
Cult Animation: Alex Fitch talks to a pair of directors of innovative short animated films: Oscar-winner (2011 co-director Short Animated Film) Shaun Tan about the adaptation of his acclaimed picture book The Lost Thing and web animator Jonti Picking about his cult animated series Weebl and Bob as well as his adverts for Cadbury’s Creme Eggs (is it that time of year already?) and Anchor Butter.
Win a Dual Format edition of Peter Watkins's incendiary Punishment Park, courtesy of Eureka.
