Ah those Russians
“A movie made by a homeless Russian man who admits he hasn’t washed for 19 years has been admitted to the Cannes Festival first selection tour. Leonid Konovalov’s movie is called “I + People = ?” and is characterized by its creator as an “erotic and philosophical film. The homeless man’s film was sent to Cannes by Konovalov’s daughter, who the paper says lives abroad with her husband. The Festival responded with a letter saying that the film is up for selection, and inviting him to visit the participants’ press conference.” mmm erotic AND philosophical {Link}
Colour blind Communists
Anti-colourisation movement gaining steam “Russian Communists have created a movement against colorization of old black and white films, saying the colorization is inexcusable ridicule of the Soviet legacy.” {link}
The other Steve Mcqueen
Steve Mcqueen (dir: hunger) has a new work in the venice biennale. “Adrian Searle takes a first look at Steve McQueen’s new film, Giardini, at the Venice Biennale and is stunned by its ethereal melancholy” If you can bare listening to Searle talking about the film, breathing heavily and sounding like a privileged, indulgent wanker t click here {link} or for the AFR review of Hunger click {here}
Phrase of the week: Arthouse Stud Monkey
Looking for nits
From Catherine Shoards article in the guardian:
“A new species was sighted at the Cannes film festival this year. At first, everyone was foxed: who was this lovely creature scampering up the Croisette? What was its genealogy? On the final weekend, critic Leslie Felperin of Variety nailed it: what we had witnessed, she wrote, was the arrival of the “arthouse stud monkey”. Male leads who were well-groomed, sensitive, cultured and endlessly selfless in bed starred in three of the 20 films in competition. Was it any coincidence that they also happened to be the only three films directed by women?…” {read more}
ZOMBIES!
Why does the public love zombie films so much at the moment, where is cultural resonance stemming from? Let us ponder this with Anne Billson who writes a feature piece in in the guardian this week.
“This fascination with zombies may seem perplexing to the uninitiated. If vampires are the aristocrats in the world of the walking dead, zombies are the lumpen proletariat…At their most basic level, zombies represent anarchy, threatening to upset the established order. Whereas a decade or so ago this might have seemed undesirable, now we’re not so sure, because the established order hasn’t been doing us any favours lately…
Take a look at the footage of the G20 demos in London, which shows crowds of people herded, clubbed and beaten back by heavily armoured police. The establishment is treating people like the zombies in Romero’s films – as a faceless mass, less than human, a tide of contagion to be stemmed at all cost. They are no longer just reminders of our mortality. They are us. We are all zombies now.” {link}
This one’s for you Tim:
Australian Film Review 
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