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| ELECTRIC SHEEP NEWSLETTER Scroll down if you wish to unsubscribe Carrying on our joyfully revisionist look at cinema, we’ve chosen as the focus of this anniversary issue a filmmaker that we’ve liked for a long time and who is just not getting the attention he deserves: supreme purveyor of cinematic weirdness Kiyoshi Kurosawa. We hope this spotlight on his work prompts our readers to go and explore an oeuvre of astonishing complexity and frightful beauty. |
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| ISSUE 12 - FEBRUARY 2008 It’s been one year since Electric Sheep came into this world, first as a webzine, then mutating into a print-web hybrid last September. We started off with the aim of celebrating dark, wondrous and magical cinematic worlds, and over the past year we’ve had Jean Painlevé’s erotic molluscs, Yasuzo Masumura’s convulsive heroines, René Laloux’s shape-shifting aliens, Monte Hellman’s melancholy anti-heroes and Alejandro Jodorowsky’s anarchic concoctions. Yep, mission accomplished, now let’s have some more. Carrying on our joyfully revisionist look at cinema, we’ve chosen as the focus of this anniversary issue a filmmaker that we’ve liked for a long time and who is just not getting the attention he deserves: supreme purveyor of cinematic weirdness Kiyoshi Kurosawa. Despite the current trend for all things Japanese and horror, Kurosawa’s films have rarely been shown in the UK and only two of them are available on DVD. Too subtle for horror fans, too creepy for art-house types, Kurosawa’s work seems to be condemned to obscurity simply for resisting categorisation. We hope this spotlight on his work prompts our readers to go and explore an oeuvre of astonishing complexity and frightful beauty. In the cinema reviews we have Nick Broomfield’s controversial Battle for Haditha, Wong Kar Wai’s disappointing My Blueberry Nights, Paul Thomas Anderson’s oil epic There Will Be Blood, Lars von Trier Office-style comedy The Boss of It All, Japanese bubble-gum oddity Kamikaze Girls as well as Bernardo Bertolucci’s still dazzling The Conformist and classic noir The Killers (coming soon). And we have a feature on the forthcoming End of the Pier Festival. In the DVD releases, we find the ramifications of Fritz Lang’s space travel movie Frau im Mond fascinating, take a look at Nagisa Oshima’s rebel teen flick Naked Youth, learn our lesson in the spooky Phantom Carriage and wonder whether to laugh or cry at Der Letzte Mann. We also indulge in psychedelic horror in Experiments in Terror 2, released by underground San Francisco label Other Cinema and talk to the label’s co-founder Noel Lawrence. In our Short Cuts section we review the risqué treats that The Smoking Cabinet offered last December while CJ Magnet gets somewhat fixated on The Bourne franchise in The Last Word. Fans of all things mysterious and magickal, Sir Francis Dashwood and the Hellfire Club pick their favourite films in the Jukebox. Don’t forget to check out our News section for up-to-date information about the most exciting film events in London and the UK. 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 DVD of Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Bright Future, courtesy of Tartan Video. To enter the competition, just spin the Film Roulette! Closing date for entries: Monday 25 February. |
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| HECTIC PEELERS FILM CLUB Free film club on Tuesday 12 February and it’s a night of movies and magic. We'll be showing The Man from Beyond (1922), the only surviving feature film starring Harry Houdini, which will be rescored live by DJ Downfall. Introducing and doing a Q&A after the film will be magician Granville Markland who will be discussing the relationship between magic and the movies with film critic Alex Fitch and performing some tricks for the audience... The night starts at 6:30pm, film at 7:30pm, admission is free. Next film club on Tuesday 11 March: it'll be a bad femme night with a screening of Yasuzo Masumura's astonishing Irezumi. |
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| ON GENERAL RELEASE FEB 1 -Battle for Haditha - Clapham Picture House and Renoir (London) + key cities from Feb 22 FEB 8 -There Will Be Blood – Vue West End + nationwide from Feb 15 FEB 15 -All the Boys Love Mandy Lane – indie teenage slasher movie – West End and Nationwide -Annie Leibovitz: Life Through a Lens – documentary about the iconic American photographer - ICA (London) + key cities FEB 22 -The Edge of Heaven – the new film by Fatih Akin, director of Head-On and Crossing the Bridge: The Sound of Istanbul – Curzon Mayfair and Soho, Ritzy, QFT Belfast, Broadway Nottingham -My Blueberry Nights – CineWorlds Fulham Rd, Shaftesbury Ave and Wandsworth (London) + nationwide FEB 29 - The Boss of It All - London and key cities |
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| ONE-OFF AND LIMITED SCREENINGS 6 February, 8pm – BLACKOUT SOUND CINEMA PRESENTS: KISS THE CHAOS – Cube Microplex, Bristol 'Kiss The Chaos' is an ongoing audio archive project begun in 2005 by Ali Sparror. It invites artist-volunteer-enthusiasts involved in alternative cinema spaces to reflect upon the platforms they create. Both history project and cultural essay, Kiss The Chaos investigates these communities that create and maintain their own cultural agenda outside the mainstream media and beyond the funding landscape. It raises issues surrounding alternative economies, cooperative organisation, post apocalyptic programming, DIY and radical ownership of your own public institution. This audio presentation will take place in authentic Blackout Sound Cinema conditions in the atmospheric Cube Theatre. Images and a discussion will accompany the show. More info here. Tues 19 Feb – PERIPHERAL VISION: WORDS AND PICTURES: Ed Wood - Barbican, London, 8.30pm Another collaboration between Barbican Film and the Hammett Story Agency who commission writers to create short stories based on characters on the peripheries of their favourite film narratives. For this second literary and musical take on seduction in the movies, avant-garde musician and writer Sandy Dillon reads her original short story with keyboard accompaniment, ‘Plan 10 from Inner Tijuana: What happened to Bunny Breckenridge in Mexico’ based on the milieu of Tim Burton’s 1994 film Ed Wood. + Ed Wood (15) (US 1994 Dir. Tim Burton 127 min) Wed 20 Feb - THE FLIPSIDE PRESENTS – BFI Southbank, London Terror strikes the streets of New York tonight, via two excursions into the subversive world of exploitation auteur Larry Cohen. 6.20pm: God Told Me To (aka Demon) – USA 1976 Dir Larry Cohen, With Tony Lo Bianco, Deborah Raffin, Sandy Dennis, 91min (15) A gender-bending alien re-aquaints himself with his earthly subjects – but salvation is not on the agenda! 8.30pm: Q – The Winged Serpent – USA 1982 Dir Larry Cohen, With Michael Moriarty 93min A giant flying lizard gobbles up window-cleaners and rooftop sunbathers whilst a series of ritualistic killings is investigated by David Carradine’s droll detective… Joint ticket available £12.50, concs £9.25 (Members pay £1 less) Tuesday 26 Feb – JAPANIMATION – Barbican, London, 8.30pm Yugo the Negotiator (15) (Japan 2006 Dir. Kishi & Hanai 75 min) In any hostage crisis, send for Yugo Beppu, master negotiator and man of many talents who walks the knife-edge between criminals and authority to try and bring the victims out alive. Hired by a hostage’s beautiful daughter to end the crisis, Yugo plays a dangerous game as the go-between who must bargain with powerful government forces and ruthless guerrillas in the blazing deserts of Pakistan. This suspenseful contemporary drama demonstrates that anime is not all big-eyed girls and robots. Based on the original manga by Shinji Makari and Shu Akana which has run for more than a decade, this adaptation reveals an edgy, more realistic side to anime.  Fri 29 Feb - MIDNIGHT MOVIES LAUNCH NIGHT: SOCIETY ON LEAP DAY – Curzon Soho, London Tickets £6.50 Festivities kick off at 9.30pm in the Curzon Bar so come early, grab a complimentary Vedett beer (available with every ticket purchased) and other goodies, and witness the sickness of Society (Brian Yuzna, 1989) @ 11.45PM. Shelved in America for three years Society became a VHS legend and still stings today with its mix of gross-out body horror and social satire. Bill Whitney seems to have it all: he's popular, has a mansion in Beverly Hills and a cheerleader girlfriend. But when he obtains a cassette of what sounds like his family engaged in a murderous orgy, his life will never be the same again. Special guest host: Xavier Mendik, Director of the Cult Film Archive and Founder of Cine-Excess. More details here. RECOMMENDED! |
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| SEASONS & RESTROSPECTIVES Feb 3-24 – 100 YEARS OF RUSSIAN CINEMA: 1908-1925 ARCHIVE CINEMA SEASON – Curzon Mayfair, London Tickets £6.50 The year 2008 will see the centenary of Russian cinema. To present its rich history and progress ACADEMIA ROSSICA will be launching a series of screenings and events, starting with a programme of early pre- and post-Revolutionary films. The 1908-1925 Archive Cinema Season is organised by Academia Rossica in association with the Royal Academy of Arts and the From Russia exhibition, the latter sponsored by E.ON. More details here. Feb 7-March 20 – POCKET VISIONS – British Museum, London Pocket Visions are back at the British Museum. The 2008 programme continues to present a selection of fascinating documentaries, many of which take an anthropological approach to filmmaking. This month's diverse mix of films includes Flowers Don't Grow Here, an undercover investigation of Kiev's street kids, and A City Without Memory, which explores how a volcano in 1908 has left the city of Messina with little sense of its own history. To find out about the full programme of films and Q&A's, please see the Pocket Visions website. Feb 9-17 - A LIFE MORE ORDINARY: A Portrait of Contemporary Japanese People on Film - ICA, London With this season of six contemporary films, the Japan Foundation's annual touring film programme offers a glimpse of the reality of existence in contemporary Japan. Highlight: Kamikaze Girls: Momoko escapes from the boredom of her humdrum hometown by swathing herself from head to toe in doll-like 'Lolita' garb. One day she meets her opposite on the fashion scale, surly biker chick Ichigo. Ichigo takes a liking to Momoko’s gutsy nature and the two form an unlikely alliance. A frenetically comic journey into Japan’s youth subcultures, based on a graphic novel by cult manga creator Novala Takemoto. (Dir Tetsuya Nakashima, Japan 2004, 103mins). More details here. RECOMMENDED! Sundays from 17 February - 30 March, 12 NOON - Arena at Curzon Soho, London The BBC's longest running arts strand, Arena, is making a rare visit to Curzon Soho's big screen with a season of pioneering documentaries. Together with the series editor Anthony Wall (who will be introducing the season), the Curzon has made a selection of films that will give an insight into the treasures that Arena's archive holds. Works include The Life and Times of Don Luis Buñuel, The Private Life of the Ford Cortina and Weird America: Wisconsin Death Trip. More details here. Feb 21-27 – STANLEY KUBRICK - 2008: A FILM ODYSSEY – Barbican, London In celebration of the 80th anniversary of Stanley Kubrick’s birth and the 40th anniversary of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Barbican Film, in partnership with the University of the Arts, London, presents all 12 feature films by the most maverick and iconic director of our time. The season will be accompanied by an exhibition from the Kubrick Archive; expect to see Jack’s novel transcript from The Shining, original posters, production notes and images, and some of Kubrick’s hundreds of research notes, on display in Cinema 1 foyer, with thanks to the Stanley Kubrick Archive at the University of the Arts. More details here. Feb 3-10 –THE DIRECTORSPECTIVE: LUIS BUÑUEL – Barbican, London The final part of this season celebrating some of Buñuel’s classic works from the late 1960s to early 1970s. Highlight: Sunday 3 February , 4.00pm - The Phantom of Liberty (18) (France 1974 Dir. Luis Buñuel 104 min) Monica Vitti and Michel Picolli reflect on the meaning of life in a sequence of Pythonesque events moving from the nineteenth century through to contemporary Paris. Buñuel¹s penultimate film stirs many of his favourite passions from anti-clericism to the attack on bourgeois values, all couched within a comic surrealism laden with memorable images and performances. More details here. Feb 1-17 – SPAIN (UNCENSORED): PART TWO – BFI Southbank, London Quite surprisingly Spanish cinema actually flourished during General Francisco Franco’s regime (1939–75), despite the dictatorship and concomitant censorship. Provoked by the system they lived under, Spanish directors and screenwriters dramatised the people’s hopes and troubles by using humour – especially of the blacker-than-black variety – or metaphors and symbols that reached their audiences and somehow sidestepped the literal minded censors. The second part of our Spain (Un)censored season reflects the courage and intelligence of these film-makers who found an alternative means of expression during this difficult period. More than 30 years later, it’s a delight to explore an enthralling, daring, and formally innovative era of Spanish cinema – one in its way almost as transgressive as the Buñuel/ Dali era which preceded it, or the Almodóvar years which followed. Includes: Juan Bardem’s Main Street (Calle Mayor) (1956), considered to be a masterpiece and eventually screened in Venice after near-successful attempts by censors to block its distribution; The Little Flat (El Pisito) (1958), an anti-bourgeois amusing comedy and Placido (1961), a biting and amusing critique of Catholicsm, was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film award at the Academy Awards that year. Also screening this month is The Executioner (El Verdugo) (1963), a condemnation of the death penalty which caused the Spanish government to try (unsuccessfully) to stop it being screened at the Venice Festival and later make numerous cuts. More details here. Feb 1-28 – JIA ZHANGKE – BFI Southbank, London Jia Zhangke has been described as ‘one of the world’s most important film-makers’ by The New York Times. As Still Life (2006), his most recent feature, is due to be released by the BFI¸ they present a retrospective of his work. Jia’s films are full of poetry, hard-edged social observations, drama and even fantasy. Born during the Cultural Revolution, he grew up in the years when China shifted from Stalinist communism to get-rich-quick state capitalism, and experienced at first hand two decades of enormous economic and political upheavals in Chinese urban society. Extended Run: Still Life (2006) Winner of the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, 2006, Still Life is set against the spectacular landscape of the Three Gorges region along the Yangtze River. It intertwines two stories of people searching for their missing partners: Han Sanming, a coal miner from Shanxi province, is looking for his wife who ran away from him 16 years previously, while Shen Hong, a nurse, is hoping to be reunited with the husband she hasn’t heard from for two years. Their respective quests bring them to Fengjie, a town with a 2000 year history, currently undergoing demolition and soon to disappear forever in the flooding caused by the controversial Three Gorges Dam. More details here.  Feb 1-29 - BURT LANCASTER – BFI Southbank, London Burt Lancaster was handsome, intense, charming, threatening and seductive. Notwithstanding an early career in the circus, thwarted aspirations on Broadway, and a lifelong desire to sing opera, it was only ever the big screen that could contain him and his creations both human-scaled and so much larger than life. This month the BFI celebrate his illustrious career with the first of a two-part season of his films. Highlight: The Killers (1946) There have been few actors given a more striking introduction to the screen than Burt Lancaster in the opening sequence of The Killers: the powerful yet ravaged-looking face revealed from the shadows of his narrow bed, five words spoken with the haunting resignation of accepted doom: ‘I did something very wrong…once’. The archetypal fall guy in this epochal film noir, Lancaster is the Swede, an up-and-coming palooka who follows his worst instincts to a short life of crime, prison and annihilation. It’s all about a woman, of course, this being a noir, a gangster’s scheming moll played to perfection by a stunning Ava Gardner in her breakthrough role. Produced by Mark Hellinger (The Naked City), directed by Robert Siodmark (The Spiral Staircase), The Killers is a highpoint of Hollywood art as entertainment and perhaps the ultimate film noir. More details here. RECOMMENDED! |
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| FILM CLUBS CLOSE-UP VIDEO – London, various venues – RECOMMENDED!! Monday 4 Feb, Cafe 1001, 9pm, tickets £3/£2 members: Faces (John Cassavetes, 1968) Tuesday 5 Feb, 9pm, the Flea Pit, free: Hotel du Nord, (Marcel Carné, 1938) Monday 11 Feb, Cafe 1001, 9pm: The Chess Players (Satyajit Ray, 1977) Monday 18 Feb, Cafe 1001, 9pm: M (Fritz Lang, 1931) Monday 25 Feb, Cafe 1001, 9pm: Le Feu follet (Louis Malle, 1963) More details here. Tuesday 26 February, 7PM – Club Filmosophy – Roxy Bar and Screen, London Club Filmosophy continues this month with a free screening of Julio Medem's The Red Squirrel (1993). Prior to the screening Daniel Frampton, will present a short introduction to the film and offer some ways into understanding its formal design/ thinking. After the film, the audience is invited to take part in a free flowing discussion in the Roxy Bar. Daniel Frampton is the founding editor of the salon-journal Film-Philosophy and author of Filmosophy, published by Wallflower Press. |
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| SHORTS February 1-29 – FUTURE SHORTS PRESENTS ‘IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE’ – nationwide The Future Shorts Festival swings into the Valentine month with a collection of love-fuelled and sex-themed short films and music videos from around the world, entitled ‘In the Mood for Love’. The festival opens with 'Elephant Gun', the highly charged video for Beirut's song from rising director Alma Har'el, featuring lots of debauchery, lanterns and cartwheels. Next come two stellar films from the renowned Sam Spiegel film school in Israel, 'Tolya' and 'The Hungry Heart' both strong narratives which give an insight into life and love on the other side of the world. 'Salt Kiss' is the Brazilian short which made waves at Sundance last year. ‘Melodrama’ is the moving and highly controversial Polish film from the Lodz film school, which delicately treats the subject of incest. 'La Tartine' and 'On s'embrasse?' are two French Future Shorts favourites; the former brings love to life at the breakfast table with clever animation, while the latter deals with the loss of love, set in a humble French cafe. 'Natan' is the hilarious tragi-comic tale of Natan's first day at a new job, and a disaster waiting to happen. A special treat for Londoners, Future Shorts is also linking up with Poverty and Homelessness Action Week 2008, for a special screening of It’s A Free World + Q&A with director Ken Loach at the Prince Charles Cinema (Tues 5 Feb, 6.30pm). Future Shorts have curated two short films to precede the feature, The Nautical Education & One Word for Cinema. UK SCREENINGS OF THE FEBRUARY PROGRAMME LONDON Brixton Ritzy MON 18TH FEB, 7.30pm Greenwich Picturehouse MON 25th FEB, 7.30pm Ginglik, Shepherds Bush MON 25TH FEB, 8.30pm Favela Chic, Gt Eastern St TUES 26th FEB REGIONAL Newbury – The Corn Exchange WED 6TH FEB, 6.30PM Bristol – The Tobacco Factory MON 11TH FEB, 7.30pm Norwich – Cinema City TUES 19TH FEB, 8.20pm Exeter – Phoenix WED 20TH FEB, 6.15pm Edinburgh – The GRV THU 21st FEB, 7pm Cambridge – Arts Picturehouse FRI 22ND FEB, 11pm Oxford – Phoenix Picturehouse SAT 23RD FEB, 11.30pm Belfast – Speakeasy Bar, Queens Student Union WED 27th FEB, 8pm Manchester – The Circle Club WEDS 27TH FEB, 8pm Cardiff – Chapter Arts Centre THU 28TH FEB , 8.30pm Cornwall date & venue still tbc Watch the February trailer here. |
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| SPECIAL EVENTS BRITISH ANIMATION AWARDS: PUBLIC CHOICE – BFI Southbank, London The BAA invites you, the audience, to vote for winners in three categories, by viewing then using voting forms supplied at the screenings. Programme One: Thu 7 Feb 20:40 NFT2, Sat 16 Feb 18:10 NFT3 Programme Two: Fri 8 Feb 18:15 NFT2, Sun 17 Feb 20:50 NFT3 Programme Three: Sat 9 Feb 20:45 NFT2, Wed 13 Feb 18:30 NFT2 Programme details will be available in late January here. |
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| BOOK LAUNCHES Feb 13, 6PM – Vertigo Launch – Curzon Soho, London Tickets £5.50 Vertigo will be launching its new issue with the London Premiere (and only the 2nd screening in the UK) of John Gianvito's Profit Motive and the Whispering Wind at 6pm on Wednesday 13 February at the Curzon Soho. Profit Motive is a visual meditation on the progressive history of the United States as seen through cemeteries, plaques and historic markers, inspired by Howard Zinn's 'A People's History of the United States'. The screening will last for one hour followed by drinks and conversation at the bar. Thursday 28 February, 6.30PM – International Film Guide Launch – Curzon Soho, London First published in 1963, the International Film Guide enjoys an unrivalled reputation as the most authoritative and trusted source of information on world cinema. Now, with Turner Classic Movies acting as sponsors, Wallflower Press are relaunching this unique publication, which has entertained and informed cinephiles across the globe for more than forty years. To launch the book in the UK, they are hosting a special screening of Fatih Akin's latest feature, The Edge of Heaven. A leading talent in European cinema, Akin has been chosen as one of the guide's 'Directors of the Year'. After the screening, the book's editor, Ian Haydn Smith, and former Edinburgh Film Festival Director, Shane Danielsen, will lead a discussion about the film and recent resurgence of German cinema. A post-screening wine reception will then take place in the Curzon Soho bar. All audience members will receive a free copy of the TCM International Film Guide 2008. RECOMMENDED! More details on both events here. |  |
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