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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Film Mags

D Terminator XXXIII

12:44 / 13.04.04

I have one addiction.

It's not much. It's not expensive. It's Premiere.

One gets:

(1) Cleverly written, thus presented, interviews/features with big name stars.

(2) Cleverly written, thus presented, interviews/features with small name stars.

(3) Enticing photo series with big name and small name stars alike.

(4) American movie industry + big name star gossip.

(5) A much more interesting package on the whole than the other film mags, I've presented on the topic abstract.

However, one needs to be wary with film mags, as there undoubtedly always is an agenda behind any feature in any given issue. Case in point - the recent Hugh Grant feature (December Premiere 03, I think) had an interesting slant - how a star such as him copes with fame, "slander" (you know what I mean) and how his moviestar persona has progressed into being what it is today. But is it a cleverly marketing ploy, disguised as an entertaining article, or am I reading too much into it? Premiere doesn't blatantly present it's hard sells as Empire, say, which is one of the most disgusting things ever, imo.

Thoughts on film mags?

13:07 / 13.04.04

Well, most movie mags, Premiere very much included, are compromised by a need to maintain healthy working relations with the film-industry. More often than not this means tie-in features, dodgy reviews - Empire regularly gives the big blockbusters 4-5 stars - and a lot of product placement. Combine these factors with an overwhelmingly (if entirely understandable) populist slant and you're lumbered with a v.shit read.

Personally I'd recommend Sight and Sound - arty-fartist that I am. Occupying a small, niche market it doesn't suffer (to the same extent) the dependencies of other film-mags. Although its distance from the hype-machine almost certainly undermines its ability to grab big-name interviews etc.

D Terminator XXXIII

16:33 / 13.04.04

Sight & Sound definetely boast the odd, compelling interview and article/review. In one of the last issues, they had an article about female silent movie stars, which I enjoyed very much and which definitely carried a lesson learned or two with it.

However, I feel that Sight & Sound can be too highbrow about certain movies by analysing and dissecting some current movies apart, which might not - from a personal view - deserve such thorough analytical involvement. I am thinking of Dogville here, which might be a very worthy, Danish subject (Von Trier! Kidman! Caan! Bettany! Bacall! Clarkson! Etc! Chalk! Floor!) but isn't as cinematically important like Terkel I Knibe, say, which I only can hope to God that you all have a chance to see sometime {digression: Jul På Vesterbro (Christmas in Vesterbro) by the same Anders Matthesen is one of the funniest, weightiest contributions to tee vee - hush hush, I hear eMule carries it}.

Glenn Kenny, he from Premiere, and Peter Travers, he from Rolling Stone, boast more perpetually engrossing reviews, even though I might not always agree with their thoughts. Expecially because I don't agree with their thoughts. I have learned to distrust Premiere and Total Film - they're superficial ads of the next big Hollywood offering - and here Premiere diverts radically from those types of mags. It might be because I hate authorial voices, that can deduce everything to their cinematic, and otherwise, roots - I am all for forming a personal investment of the movies I choose to see, in my own idiosyncratic way.

And besides, Premiere has Libby. Which beats every other magazine to pulpy death.

19:54 / 13.04.04

I kind of like IFCRant.

D Terminator XXXIII

07:24 / 14.04.04

...which is?

11:14 / 14.04.04

Sight & Sound is the only film magazine I've read which isn't utter shit.

But having said that I don't actually buy it - I find it far too dry and worthy and generally a bit like the film equivalent of The Wire.