Time Out Film Guide 2011

The nineteenth edition of the Time Out Film Guide has been published, with 350 new entries and reviews of thirty-eight films (including Uncle Boonmee) which were screened at Cannes this year. Of course, the Internet Movie DataBase contains many more entries, though Time Out is written and compiled by professional critics (and edited by John Pym). Mindful of the rise of online film criticism, this edition includes a persuasive essay defending printed reference books.

There are several appendices (a useful list of 100 film websites; a comprehensive index of directors; and a list of alternative titles, which strangely only includes European languages), and 19,000 capsule reviews. This year's new entries include: The Ghost Writer ("cold and lean"), Kick-Ass ("hyperfictional ultraviolence"), Shutter Island ("pure operatic delirium"), Bruno ("both repulsive and compelling"), Avatar ("beautifully designed" but "dire script"), The September Issue ("reveals a business in which looks can kill"), Drag Me To Hell ("gross-out fright movie"), and Ponyo ("vibrant, surreal and enchanting").

Time Out is the best of the annual film guides, and I buy it every year. (I reviewed the eighteenth edition earlier this year.) But I'll also hold on to my copy of the out-of-print Halliwell's Film Guide 2008.

The Faith Of Graffiti

The Faith Of Graffiti, with photographs of New York graffiti by Jon Naar and an essay by Norman Mailer, was originally published in 1974. The first book to celebrate and theorise the art of graffiti (also known as Watching My Name Go By), it is now available in an expanded edition with additional images.

Fanzines

Fanzines, written by Teal Triggs and published by Thames & Hudson, is a survey of self-published zines from their origins in the 1970s to contemporary e-zines. As zines are frequently radical and alternative, the book also acts as a visual historiography of alt.culture, from Punk to post-feminism.

In their form and content, zines are similar to underground press titles such as Oz, though zines target niche audiences and are often written by individuals. The cottage-industry aspect of the format is evident in both zine production and distribution: zines are typically photocopied and stapled, promoted via classified advertising (or, until 1998, listed in Factsheet Five), and sold by mail order. Whereas early zines (such as Sniffin' Glue, featured in 100 Years Of Magazine Covers) were handwritten or typed on manual typewriters, more recent titles are produced via desktop publishing or published online.

I have a personal interest in zines, having written several of them in the 1990s: a monthly Madonna fanzine (called, incredibly unimaginatively, Madonna Monthly) and a cult-film zine (Disturbed). Of course, blogging and print-on-demand now provide further opportunities for self-published personal expression, and Fanzines might therefore be a timely archive of an endangered medium.

The Essential 100

The Toronto International Film Festival has compiled The Essential 100, a list of the 100 greatest films. The list was selected partly by the Festival's organisers, and partly by an audience vote. Like Cahiers Du Cinema's list from 2008, the films are being screened in a cinema season: screenings began yesterday at the Bell Lightbox, and will continue until the end of the year.

The Essential 100 films are as follows:

1. The Passion Of Joan Of Arc
2. Citizen Kane
3. L'Avventura
4. The Godfather
5. Pickpocket
6. Seven Samurai
7. Pather Panchali
8. Casablanca
9. Man With A Movie Camera
10. Bicycle Thieves
11. Ali: Fear Eats The Soul
12. 8½
13. Battleship Potemkin
14. Rashomon
15. Tokyo Story
16. The 400 Blows
17. Ugetsu Monogatari
18. Breathless
19. L'Atalante
20. Cinema Paradiso
21. Grand Illusion
22. Lawrence Of Arabia
23. Persona
24. Gone With The Wind
25. Sunrise
26. 2001: A Space Odyssey
27. Voyage In Italy
28. Amelie
29. City Lights
30. Star Wars IV: A New Hope
31. Sherlock Jr
32. The Rules Of The Game
33. The Leopard
34. La Dolce Vita
35. Train Arriving At A Station
36. The Wizard Of Oz
37. La Jetee
38. Vertigo
39. Night & Fog
40. Pulp Fiction
41. The Searchers
42. Slumdog Millionaire
43. The Conformist
44. City Of God
45. Taxi Driver
46. Apocalypse Now
47. Salo
48. The Seventh Seal
49. A Trip To The Moon
50. Metropolis
51. The Battle Of Algiers
52. In The Mood For Love
53. Viridiana
54. Life Is Beautiful
55. The Sorrow & The Pity
56. Pan's Labyrinth
57. Mme De...
58. Blade Runner
59. Through The Olive Trees
60. Children Of Paradise
61. Bringing Up Baby
62. Singin' In the Rain
63. Johnny Guitar
64. A Clockwork Orange
65. Memories Of Underdevelopment
66. M
67. Scorpio Rising
68. Psycho
69. Dust In The Wind
70. Schindler's List
71. Nashville
72. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
73. Wavelength
74. Jules & Jim
75. Chronique d'Un Ete
76. The Lives Of Others
77. Greed
78. Some Like It Hot
79. Jaws
80. Annie Hall
81. The Birth Of A Nation
82. Chungking Express
83. La Noire De...
84. Raging Bull
85. The Maltese Falcon
86. Chinatown
87. Andrei Rublev
88. Wings Of Desire
89. Videodrome
90. Written On The Wind
91. The Third Man
92. Blue Velvet
93. The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly
94. Breaking The Waves
95. A Nos Amours
96. Cleo From Five To Seven
97. All About My Mother
98. Earth
99. Oldboy
100. Playtime

Note that Some Like It Hot is the 1959 comic masterpiece, not the obscure 1939 comedy. There is also an exhibition, called Essential Cinema, featuring images and artefacts from each of the 100 films, which opened on 12th September and will close on 23rd October.

Art That Dares

Art That Dares: Gay Jesus, Woman Christ, & More, by Kittredge Cherry, discusses artists who have been censored for their depictions of Jesus as homosexual or (less controversially) as female. Arguably the most provocative artist profiled by Cherry is Alex Donis, whose My Cathedral installation in San Francisco depicted Jesus and the Hindu god Rama kissing passionately; the painting was destroyed by protesters in 1997.

Cherry's book focuses on painting and sculpture, though gay Christs have also appeared in other artistic media: a series of photographs by Fernando Bayone (Circus Christi), two films (Matthias von Fistenberg's Passio and Ed D Louie's He), a poem by James Kirkup (The Love That Dares To Speak Its Name), a lithograph by Enrique Chagoya (The Misadventures Of The Romantic Cannibals), a play by Terrence McNally (Corpus Christi), and a magazine illustration (Johnny Correa's Resurrection, in The Insurgent); also, in Jerry Springer: The Opera, Jesus admits: "Actually, I am a bit gay".

There have been exhibitions of intentionally blasphemous art in Dublin (Blasphemous) and Moscow (Caution: Religion! and Forbidden Art). S Brent Plate's book Blasphemy discusses the history of blasphemy in art, and Steven C Dubin's excellent book Arresting Images includes a chapter on the censorship of blasphemous art.

The Fry Chronicles

The Fry Chronicles: An Autobiography, by Stephen Fry, covers Fry's life in the 1980s, including his time at Cambridge University with Hugh Laurie and his nascent comedy career. The book feels more mainstream than his previous autobiography, Moab Is My Washpot: it's less rude, and its title is as bland as Moab's was obscure.

As Fry explains in his introduction, the book explores "some of the C-words that have dominated my life", and every chapter title begins with 'c'. So, The Fry Chronicles is captivating, clever, and comical, though also a bit conventional.

Thailand's Crisis

Giles Ji Ungpakorn's new book Thailand's Crisis & The Fight For Democracy discusses Thai politics following the 2006 coup. Ji critiques the the 2007 military constitution and criticises the current climate of political censorship. His Red Siam manifesto, in which he calls for the adoption of the French tripartite motto 'liberty, equality, fraternity', is also included. It has been banned from distribution in Thailand.

Ji states plainly what others don't dare to say. He can do this because he is living in exile in the UK, after his previous book, A Coup For The Rich, was accused of lèse-majesté. (The most controversial passages from A Coup For The Rich are included in Thailand's Crisis as an appendix.) However, there is no attempt at objectivity; for example, he claims that the editing of the controversial Abhisit audio clip "did not in any way distort what Abhisit actually said", whereas even the Prime Minister's critics admit that the tape was misleading.

There is surprisingly little commentary on the PAD's 2008 seizures of Government House and Suvarnabhumi airport or the 2009 Songkran riots. (The events of May 2010 occurred too late for inclusion.) Also, the drawbacks of self-publishing are apparent: Ji's spelling ("ice burg"), punctuation ("!!"), and italicisation are unconventional and distracting. Unfortunately, much of the material is not new: parts of chapters two and three, most of chapters one and five, and almost all of chapter four have been copied from A Coup For The Rich.

Made in Heaven

In 1991, artist Jeff Koons married the porn star Ilona Staller (also known as Cicciolina), and they posed for a series of sexually explicit photographs. These formed the basis for his notorious Made in Heaven series, which caused an instant scandal when it was first exhibited in New York. Taschen published a Koons monograph in 1992, reproducing almost the entire Made in Heaven series, in both uncensored and self-censored versions. (The latter edition was apparently intended for the Japanese market, where frontal nudity is prohibited, though copies were also sold in the UK.)

Koons refers to the Made in Heaven works as paintings, which implies that they’re hand-painted. In fact, they are photographic enlargements printed onto canvas. Regardless, nine of the images will be shown next month at the Luxembourg + Co. gallery in New York. Works from the series were also included in the recent Seduced and Pop Life exhibitions in London.

Made in Heaven was almost unprecedented in its pornographic imagery. Perhaps the only equivalent was a remarkable series of four self-portraits by Man Ray, photographed in 1929. Like Koons, Man Ray photographed himself with his muse (Alice Prin, also known as Kiki de Montparnasse), creating hardcore images that leave nothing to the imagination. They were included in 1929, a slim volume of poetry by Benjamin Péret and Louis Aragon, published surreptitiously in Belgium and seized by French customs officials. The photographs—Printemps (‘spring’), Eté (‘summer’), Automne (‘autumn’), and Hiver (‘winter’)—are very rarely reproduced, though they were included in the Barbican’s Seduced exhibition.

Encyclopedia Of Early Cinema

Encyclopedia Of Early Cinema contains valuable information on the studios, directors, actors, and producers of the silent era circa 1890-1910. Its coverage of the period, from the familiar (Louis and Auguste Lumiere, Georges Melies, Thomas Edison) to the obscure (Emile Reynaud, Louis Le Prince, Thomas Armat, Max and Emil Skladanowsky), is more comprehensive than that of any other film encyclopedia. The book's editor, Richard Abel, is an authority on French silent cinema, and there are over 100 additional contributors (unfortunately not including William K Everson or Kevin Brownlow, arguably the greatest historians of silent film).

The paperback edition has been very slightly expanded, with one new entry and minor revisions. More importantly, the paperback version makes the book accessible to a general audience, being significantly cheaper than the hardback edition (which was sold primarily to academic libraries).

Spirits

TCDC's new exhibition Spirits: Creativities From Beyond explores spirits, ghosts, and other supernatural phenomena. As usual at TCDC, the installation is impeccable: flickering lights, eerie sounds, and dark corridors create a suitably spooky atmosphere. Spirits opened on 20th August; it was originally scheduled to close on 21st November, though it has now been extended until 9th January 2011.

The emphasis is on Thai ghosts, and their representation in films, comics, and commercials. Several props from Nonzee Nimibutr's Nang Nak are included. TCDC also commissioned a short documentary, That Spooky Atmosphere, featuring interviews with Nonzee and The Unseeable director Wisit Sasanatieng. (Nonzee introduced a screening of Nang Nak at the NETPAC Asian Film Festival last month, and The Unseeable will be screened at the Thai Film Archive later this month.)

A Journey

We've had the fictional version (in The Ghost Writer), and the perspectives of Alastair Campbell and Peter Mandelson, but now Tony Blair has written his memoir, A Journey, published in America with an additional subtitle: My Political Life. (Andrew Rawnsley's Servants Of The People and The End Of The Party cover the same ground more objectively.)

Blair admits that his suspicious-looking arrangement with Bernie Ecclestone was "a really stupid lapse of judgement"; that the expensive and underwhelming Millennium Dome was "in retrospect a mistake"; and that he should not have sacked Peter Mandelson once, let alone twice. Surprisingly, his biggest regret was passing the Freedom of Information Act: "I quake at the imbecility of it". (He still doesn't regret the invasion of Iraq, and there is no apology for the two misleading intelligence dossiers; he did feel "desperately sorry" after the brutal killing of Jean Charles de Menezes - but only "for the officers involved".)

Blair's account is informal (with too many exclamation marks) and surprisingly candid, with moments of comedy: Gordon Brown locked in the loo ("Withdraw from the contest or I'm leaving you in there") and John Prescott on the warpath ("Where's fookin' Menzies?"). It's also unavoidably one-sided. He is astonished, for example, that Labour leader John Smith considered appointing the Scottish Gordon Brown as deputy leader; naturally, he felt that he, rather than Brown, should be Smith's deputy, forgetting or ignoring that he is also a Scot. (Regarding the subsequent Labour leadership contest, there is no mention of the fabled Granita deal.)

A curious footnote: Blair begins the book by describing his meeting with the Queen on the day he became Prime Minister. According to his account, the Queen told him: "You are my tenth prime minister. My first was Winston [Churchill]". In The Queen, a fictionalised account of Blair and the Queen's relationship, she also uses precisely those words. The film's writer says that he invented the dialogue, and Blair says that he has never seen the film. So it's either an enormous coincidence, or the film had some extremely senior sources, or Blair is confusing fiction with fact.

Daryl Cagle

American cartoonist Daryl Cagle has been criticised by Mexican authorities after his cartoon satirising the Mexican flag was syndicated yesterday in over 800 newspapers. Cagle's cartoon was published on the front page of Reforma in Mexico, incorporated into a cartoon by Paco Calderon. Flag-desecration is illegal in Mexico; singer Paulina Rubio has been charged with the offence.

Tears Of The Black Tiger

To celebrate the tenth anniversary of Wisit Sasanatieng's Tears Of The Black Tiger, the Thai Film Archive will be screening a Wisit retrospective this month. Tears Of The Black Tiger will be screened first (on 5th September), followed by Citizen Dog (on 12th September) and The Unseeable (on 19th and 30th September).

The Archive previously screened Tears Of The Black Tiger as part of its ภาพยนตร์ศรีศาลายา season last year. Wisit's short films (not screening at the Archive) include the music video เราเป็นคนไทย, the art film Norasinghavatar, and a segment of the anthology film Sawasdee Bangkok. He also designed the posters for the Bangkok International Film Festival in 2008 and 2009.

The Third Man

To promote his political memoir The Third Man: Life At The Heart Of New Labour last month, Peter Mandelson was filmed sitting in front of a roaring fire narrating a fairy-tale version of New Labour: "Once upon a time there was a kingdom, and for many years it was ruled by two powerful kings. But the kings wouldn't have been in power without a third man. People called him 'the prince of darkness'. I don't know why!" His ironic smirk after that last line is hilariously conspiratorial and theatrical, like Mandelson himself - in contrast to Gordon Brown's cringe-making fake smile on YouTube last year (photographed in Where Power Lies).

Unlike Alastair Campbell, whose diaries were published in 2007, Mandelson spent long periods outside the heart of government. He may have been more influential than Campbell in shaping New Labour, though his two resignations (in 1998 and 2001) and his period as EU Commissioner (2004-2008) meant that he was periodically marginalised from Downing Street. Therefore, The Third Man focuses more on the (admittedly fascinating) twists and turns of Mandelson's political career than on the major policy decisions of the Labour government.

Mandelson's relationships with Tony Blair and Gordon Brown (the first and second men, with Mandelson as the Harry Lime figure) are a central preoccupation: his backing of Blair for the Labour leadership, his subsequent long-running feud with Brown, and finally his public comeback when Brown replaced Blair as Prime Minister. Most useful is his insider's account of this year's election and its aftermath, events which occurred too late for Andrew Rawnsley's otherwise comprehensive The End Of The Party.

Seeing The Unseen

As part of its 1970s season, This Could Happen To You, the Ikon gallery in Birmingham has organised a revival of the 1976 exhibition Seeing The Unseen. The exhibition features stroboscopic photographs by Harold Edgerton, including his famous image of the coronet formation produced by a drop of milk. Seeing The Unseen: Photographs & Films By Harold E Edgerton opened at The Pallasades on 21st July, and will close on 5th September.

Avatar (Special Edition)

James Cameron's Avatar, the highest-grossing film ever made, has been released in an extended 3D Special Edition featuring a few minutes of additional footage. The extra scenes include the discovery of an abandoned school, an aerial hunting sequence, an explanation for the floating mountains, a longer version of the sex scene, and the dying words of one of the main characters.

Picasso: The Mediterranean Years

Picasso: The Mediterranean Years 1945-1962, which accompanies the current Gagosian Picasso exhibition, includes 300 beautifully-reproduced plates and an essay by John Richardson. Richardson was a friend of Picasso's, and he provides a personal account of the artist's Mediterranean period. The Mediterranean Years catalogue is a major Picasso publication, and covers a period Richardson has not yet reached in his multi-volume Picasso biography.

Psychopomps

Polly Morgan's exhibition Psychopomps opened at Haunch of Venison (London) on 21st July, and will close on 25th September. Morgan creates sculptural taxidermy, principally using birds and other small animals. Her works all feel elegiac and mournful, emphasising the fragility and lifelessness of the animals, unlike traditional taxidermy specimens.

For Psychopomps, she has produced four new works: Atrial Flutter (a cardinal in an artificial human ribcage, suspended by balloons), Systemmatic Inflammation (finches and canaries above a steel cage), Blue Fever (an abstract installation featuring the wings of sixty crows), and Black Fever (similar to Blue Fever, though utilising the wings of sixty pigeons).

Picasso: The Mediterranean Years

Picasso: The Mediterranean Years 1945-1962, curated by John Richardson at the Gagosian Gallery (London), is a major exhibition of the paintings, sculptures, and ceramics Pablo Picasso produced in France after World War II. Picasso moved from Paris to Vallauris in 1945, and lived there with Francoise Gilot and their children until 1953. After their separation, he married Jacqueline Roque and lived with her in Cannes; they remained together until the artist's death in 1973.

Peace in Europe, the Mediterranean climate, the births of two children, and the influences of his young muses Francoise and Jacqueline all contributed to the vibrant, passionate nature of the works Picasso produced in this period. The exhibition includes some previously unseen family pieces, such as miniature origami figures, alongside large, familiar sculptures and portraits.

Although Picasso's most influential works (such as his Cubist masterpiece Les Demoiselles d'Avignon) were made decades earlier, he was incredibly prolific and innovative throughout his life; it's hard to imagine that he was in his 80s when he produced many of the pieces in this exhibition. The Mediterranean Years opened on 4th June and will close tomorrow.

Rude Britannia

Tate Britain's Rude Britannia exhibition catalogue, Rude Britannia: British Comic Art, edited by Tim Batchelor, Cedar Lewisohn, and Martin Myrone, reproduces a selection of the exhibits though not the material commissioned for the exhibition. The illustrations, which all have extended captions, emphasise historical satire over contemporary art. The Offensive Art covers similar material from an international perspective.

The Family & The Land

The retrospective The Family & The Land: Sally Mann includes photographs from Mann's Deep South, Faces, Immediate Family, and What Remains series. The exhibition opened at The Photographers' Gallery (London) on 18th June, and will close on 19th September.

The Deep South images, which use the antique collodian photographic process to memorialise the landscape, appear historical and even ethereal. The Faces series, close-up portraits of Mann's children resembling serene Victorian death masks, are also collodian photographs; like the Deep South landscapes, their misty atmosphere and sepia tone remove any sense of modernity.

Death is evoked by Deep South and Faces, though What Remains confronts it directly, as Mann records the decomposition of corpses in a Tennessee woodland. Immediate Families, Mann's most notorious work, includes nude portraits of her children which (like images by Nan Goldin, Bill Henson, and Richard Prince) were highly controversial when they were originally exhibited.

Rude Britannia

Rude Britannia: British Comic Art is a survey of satirical, political, bawdy, and absurd humour in British art. It opened at Tate Britain (London) on 9th June, and will close on 5th September.

William Hogarth's Rake's Progress series, and the Macaroni series by Samuel Hieronymus Grimm, satirise the excesses of the upper classes, and an iconic James Gillray cartoon (The Plumb Pudding In Danger) depicts William Pitt and Napoleon literally carving up the globe. Steve Bell provides captions for George Cruikshank's panorama The Worship Of Bacchus.

Aubrey Beardsley's phallic etchings and Donald McGill's saucy postcards (complete with their files from the Director of Public Prosecutions) are included alongside several contemporary works by Sarah Lucas. David Shrigley's anthropomorphic taxidermy cat proudly proclaims its own death.

The highlights are Gerald Scarfe's terrifying image of Margaret Thatcher haunted by the souls of Argentine navy casualties and his provocative Oz parody depicting Mary Whitehouse being violated by Rupert Bear during an audience with the Pope. More Punch cartoons, Private Eye covers, and comics would have been welcome.

Baaria

Baaria, directed by Guiseppe Tornatore, is an epic drama set in a seemingly idyllic Sicilian village, in which a young boy, Peppino, grows up under Fascism and later becomes a Communist. Tornatore's broad canvas encompasses half a century of Italian politics, World War II, Peppino's marriage and five children, and an extensive collection of supporting characters.

As in Cinema Paradiso (which is invoked by numerous film posters and an extract from Cabiria), the principal ingredients are childhood innocence, picture-postcard scenery, and nostalgic reflection. Ennio Morricone's sweeping score, and a cliched ending (was it all a fantasy?) add to the sentimental atmosphere.

International Award-Winning Thai Films

A short season of award-winning Thai films will start at Paragon Cineplex in Bangkok tomorrow. A Letter To Uncle Boonmee, by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, will be screened this Thursday and Saturday. (It was previously shown at the Thai Film Archive and at last year's World Film Festival.) The International Award-Winning Thai Films season finishes on 22nd August.

Zelluloid

The exhibition catalogue Zelluloid: Cameraless Film, edited by Esther Schlicht and Max Hollein, profiles twenty directors who have made films without the use of a camera. In such films, each frame of celluloid becomes an artist's canvas, to be scratched, painted on, appliqued, or otherwise manipulated by the director. The films examined in Zelluloid, including A Colour Box (Len Lye) and Mothlight (Stan Brakhage), have previously been tangentially discussed in the broader contexts of art cinema and underground films, though Zelluloid is the first specific study of cameraless films.

Being largely abstract and experimental, these films remain on the extreme margins of cinema, though physical manipulation of celluloid occurs even in mainstream commercial filmmaking. The earliest 'colour' films, for example, were created by hand-painting black-and-white negatives; scratches on the negative were used as special effects in The War Of The Worlds; and Orson Welles famously distressed the Citizen Kane negative by rubbing it on the floor.

International Film Festival 2010

Chulalongkorn University's International Film Festival 2010 opens on Monday. This year's highlight is The White Ribbon by Michael Haneke (director of Funny Games and Cache), screening on 20th August.

The White Ribbon won the Palme d'Or at Cannes last year, and Chula screened a previous Palme d'Or winner (Four Months, Three Weeks, & Two Days) at its 2008 Festival. (Last year's Festival ran from 2008-2009; this year's Palme d'Or winner was, of course, Uncle Boonmee.) The Chula Festival runs until 3rd September, and all screenings are free.

Alfred Hitchcock PresentsThe Case Of Mr Pelham

The Case Of Mr Pelham, from the first season of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, was originally broadcast on 4th December 1955. Like Revenge and Breakdown, it was directed by Hitchcock himself. The star, Tom Ewell, is most famous as the male lead in The Seven-Year Itch.

Ewell plays Mr Pelham, a nondescript 'everyman' character, who apparently has a double who stays at his apartment and works at his office when he is not there. Pelham initially suspects that he is paranoid, or even schizophrenic, though his doppelganger's presence becomes increasingly pervasive, and the plot sometimes feels like an existential Twilight Zone episode.

Hitchcock's point seems to be that men like Pelham are so bland that they are easy to impersonate. In fact, Pelham's double is more productive, witty, and confident than Pelham himself. Doubles were also a major element of Strangers On A Train, and the themes of fraud, impersonation, and paranoia were subsequently developed in Vertigo.

Alfred Hitchcock PresentsBreakdown

Breakdown was originally broadcast on 13th November 1955, during the first season of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Like the season premiere, Revenge, it was directed by Hitchcock himself. Joseph Cotton (star of Hitchcock's Shadow Of A Doubt) plays a ruthless executive who fires a long-term employee and criticises the man for crying. His comments resonate ironically in the episode's final sequence.

Cotton's character is paralysed in a car accident, and assumed dead; although he remains conscious, he is unable to move or communicate. In a voice-over, he expresses his frustration, paranoia, and desperation. The audience is as powerless as he is, being unable to tell the other characters that he is still alive. This is a classic Hitchcock strategy - the audience knows more than the on-screen characters, thus constantly intensifying the suspense.

The car crash is filmed as a montage, with brief, sudden shots conveying violence and chaos. This is followed by a series of long, still shots of Cotton's paralysed face, just as Janet Leigh's motionless face stares at us from the bathroom floor in Psycho.

3D: Post Today, Bangkok Post, & Guru

Today, two Thai newspapers have been published with selected content in 3D. Post Today and the Bangkok Post each have a handful of 3D photographs, some of which are quite striking (particularly the larger images in Post Today). Guru, the magazine distributed with the Bangkok Post, has a 3D cover. 1950s-style 3D glasses are included with each publication.

The Bangkok Post has also printed an extra supplement, Our Pride, featuring impressive 3D images on every page, though I'm not sure how Apichatpong feels about the 3D stills from his film Uncle Boonmee!

Of course, today's 3D issues are quite gimmicky (especially Guru, with a nude woman in 3D on its cover yet no further 3D content inside), jumping on the same bandwagon as 3D films such as Avatar (and, most recently, Toy Story). But they are also (like the expanded Bangkok Post Sunday) another demonstration of the Post's commitment to additional content, in contrast to the chronic under-investment of its rival The Nation.

Where Power Lies

Where Power Lies: Prime Ministers V. The Media, by Lance Price, is an account of how successive British prime ministers have courted the media, and how their efforts were reciprocated. Price was one of Tony Blair's most senior 'spin doctors', thus his analysis is hardly objective. He presents an insider's view of Blair's PR strategies, though a more detailed account can be found in Campbell's diary The Blair Years.

Famously, The Sun declared "IT'S THE SUN WOT WON IT" on 11th April 1992 after that year's general election, implying that the newspaper had helped the Conservatives win the election. Anecdotally, it seemed that many voters simply wanted to give the Conservatives another chance, and The Sun's campaign arguably had little direct effect. Likewise, when The Sun announced its support for Labour in 1997, and swung back to the Conservatives in 2009, it was probably reflecting - rather than influencing - the attitudes of its readers.

Prime ministers take the media extremely seriously, however. Press barons from Alfred Harmsworth to Rupert Murdoch have bargained behind closed doors with prime ministers and cabinet ministers, securing policy commitments in exchange for favourable editorials. The Euro-scepticism of The Sun and the Daily Mail, for example, surely influenced Tony Blair's reluctance to push for British membership of the European single currency (though Gordon Brown's opposition was presumably a more substantial factor).

Sustained newspaper campaigns can have a cumulative effect, as when the News Of The World and other Sunday tabloids revealed the infidelities of numerous ministers in John Major's government, exposing the hypocrisy of Major's "back to basics" pledge. More recently, The Daily Telegraph's long-running revelations about MPs' expenses led to fundamental political reforms last year. Price has interviewed other Downing Street staff to provide an account of Gordon Brown's media relations; as in Andrew Rawnsley's The End Of The Party, the focus is on Brown's combative personality.

Whitespace Retro

Whitespace Gallery, at Lido in Bangkok, is currently showing a retrospective of highlights from fifteen of the gallery's previous exhibitions. The selection includes a self-portrait by Vasan Sitthiket from Chaotic Victory and two blood paintings by Pornprasert Yamazaki from Suicide Mind. The Whitespace Retro exhibition opened on 16th July and will close on 8th August.

Bad Science

Two Daily Mail headlines: "BREAST CANCER RISK TO CAREER WOMEN" (2001) and "Daily dose of housework could cut risk of breast cancer" (2009). What's the connection? Firstly, they are both blatantly anti-feminist, encouraging women to forget about the glass ceiling and be contented housewives. Also, they are both examples of scientific research either misunderstood or distorted by the media (like 'unspeak') for sensationalist or ideological reasons.

Ben Goldacre's entertaining and sceptical book Bad Science, an expanded version of his column from The Guardian, exposes scaremongering journalism (also discussed in Flat Earth News) and manipulated statistics ('lies, damned lies, and...'). A chapter on Matthias Rath (titled The Doctor Will Sue You Now) was omitted when the book was first published, though is included in the second edition.

Must-See Movies

Ward Calhoun's Must-See Movies has been updated, and now features a new subtitle: The Essential Guide To The Greatest Films Of All Time. While the new subtitle appears on the cover and spine, the old one (An Essential Guide) is retained on the inside pages.

Six very recent films (Precious, The Hurt Locker, Avatar, Milk, WALL-E, and Harry Potter & The Half-Blood Prince) have been added. Therefore, the list now consists of 305 films. The appendix (More Must-See Movies, a list of 201 extra titles) remains unchanged from the previous edition.

The Must-See Movies are as follows:

• Abbot & Costello Meet Frankenstein
  
• The African Queen
  
• Airplane!
  
• Alien
  
• All About Eve
  
• All Quiet On The Western Front
  
• All The President's Men
  
• Amadeus
  
• American Beauty
  
• American Graffiti
  
• An American In Paris
  
• Animal House
  
• Annie Hall
  
• The Apartment
  
• Apocalypse Now
  
• Apollo 13
  
• Arthur
  
• As Good As It Gets
  
• Austin Powers: International Man Of Mystery
  
• Avatar
  
• Bad Day At Black Rock
  
• The Bad News Bears
  
• Bad Santa
  
• Bambi
  
• The Bank Dick
  
• Being There
  
• The Best Years Of Our Lives
  
• The Big Chill
  
• The Big Lebowski
  
• Big Night
  
• Blazing Saddles
  
• Blue Velvet
  
• Body Heat
  
• Bonnie & Clyde
  
• The Breakfast Club
  
• Breaking Away
  
• Breathless
  
• The Bridge On The River Kwai
  
• The Bridges Of Madison County
  
• Bringing Up Baby
  
• Bull Durham
  
• Bullitt
  
• Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid
  
• Cabaret
  
• Caddyshack
  
• Casablanca
  
• Chinatown
  
• A Christmas Story
  
• Cinema Paradiso
  
• Citizen Kane
  
• A Clockwork Orange
  
• Close Encounters Of The Third Kind
  
• The Color Purple
  
• Cool Hand Luke
  
• Dances With Wolves
  
• Das Boot
  
• The Day The Earth Stood Still
  
• Days Of Heaven
  
• Dead Poets Society
  
• The Deer Hunter
  
• Defending Your Life
  
• The Departed
  
• Die Hard
  
• Diner
  
• Dirty Dancing
  
• Dirty Harry
  
• Do The Right Thing
  
• Dr Zhivago
  
• Dog Day Afternoon
  
• Double Indemnity
  
• Down By Law
  
• Dr Strangelove
  
• Dracula
  
• Duck Soup
  
• Easy Rider
  
• 8½
  
• The Endless Summer
  
• Enter The Dragon
  
• The Exorcist
  
• ET: The Extra-Terrestrial
  
• Fargo
  
• Fast Times At Ridgemont High
  
• Fatal Attraction
  
• Ferris Bueller's Day Off
  
• Field Of Dreams
  
• Fight Club
  
• A Fish Called Wanda
  
• The 40-Year-Old Virgin
  
• Forrest Gump
  
• Frankenstein
  
• The Frech Connection
  
• The Freshman
  
• From Here To Eternity
  
• Gandhi
  
• Gaslight
  
• The General
  
• Ghost
  
• Ghostbusters
  
• Gilda
  
• Gladiator
  
• Glengarry Glen Ross
  
• The Godfather
  
• The Godfather II
  
• Godzilla
  
• Goldfinger
  
• Gone With The Wind
  
• The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly
  
• Good Will Hunting
  
• GoodFellas
  
• The Graduate
  
• Grand Illusion
  
• The Grapes Of Wrath
  
• Grease
  
• The Great Escape
  
• Groundhog Day
  
• Gunga Din
  
• Halloween
  
• Harold & Maude
  
• Harry Potter & The Half-Blood Prince
  
• Harvey
  
• Heaven Can Wait
  
• High Noon
  
• Hoosiers
  
• Hope & Glory
  
• The Hurt Locker
  
• I Remember Mama
  
• In The Heat Of The Night
  
• It Happened One Night
  
• It's A Gift
  
• It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
  
• It's A Wonderful Life
  
• Jaws
  
• The Jerk
  
• Jerry Maguire
  
• Juno
  
• Jurassic Park
  
• The Karate Kid
  
• The Killing Fields
  
• King Kong
  
• Kiss Of Death
  
• Kramer Vs Kramer
  
• La Strada
  
• Lady & The Tramp
  
• The Last Picture Show
  
• Laura
  
• Lawrence Of Arabia
  
• Little Miss Sunshine
  
• Local Hero
  
• The Lord Of The Rings III: The Return Of The King
  
• Lost In America
  
• Lost In Translation
  
• The Lost Weekend
  
• M
  
• The Maltese Falcon
  
• The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
  
• The Manchurian Candidate
  
• Manhattan
  
• Mary Poppins
  
• M*A*S*H
  
• The Matrix
  
• Memento
  
• Men In Black
  
• Midnight Cowboy
  
• Midnight Run
  
• Milk
  
• Miracle On 34th Street
  
• Mississippi Burning
  
• Mr Roberts
  
• Monty Python & The Holy Grail
  
• Moonstruck
  
• Mr Smith Goes To Washington
  
• The Muppet Movie
  
• Murphy's Romance
  
• Mutiny On The Bounty
  
• My Man Godfrey
  
• The Natural
  
• Network
  
• A Night At The Opera
  
• The Night Of The Hunter
  
• Night Of The Living Dead
  
• No Country For Old Men
  
• Norma Rae
  
• North By Northwest
  
• The Odd Couple
  
• An Officer & A Gentleman
  
• Office Space
  
• Oliver!
  
• On The Waterfront
  
• Once Upon A Time In America
  
• Once Upon A Time In The West
  
• One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
  
• Ordinary People
  
• The Out-Of-Towners
  
• The Palm Beach Story
  
• Paper Moon
  
• Patton
  
• Pee-Wee's Big Adventure
  
• The Philadelphia Story
  
• Pillow Talk
  
• The Pink Panther Strikes Again
  
• Pinocchio
  
• Planes, Trains, & Automobiles
  
• Planet Of The Apes
  
• Platoon
  
• Poltergeist
  
• The Pope Of Greenwich Village
  
• Precious
  
• Pretty Woman
  
• The Princess Bride
  
• The Producers
  
• Psycho
  
• Pulp Fiction
  
• The Queen
  
• The Quiet Man
  
• Quiz Show
  
• Raging Bull
  
• Raiders Of The Lost Ark
  
• Rain Man
  
• A Raisin In The Sun
  
• Raising Arizona
  
• Rashomon
  
• Ray
  
• Rear Window
  
• Rebecca
  
• Rebel Without A Cause
  
• Reds
  
• Repo Man
  
• Risky Business
  
• Rocky
  
• Roman Holiday
  
• Rosemary's Baby
  
• Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead
  
• The Royal Tenenbaums
  
• Saving Private Ryan
  
• Saturday Night Fever
  
• Say Anything
  
• Schindler's List
  
• The Searchers
  
• Seven
  
• Seven Samurai
  
• The Seven-Year Itch
  
• Shane
  
• The Shawshank Redemption
  
• The Shining
  
• Sideways
  
• The Silence Of The Lambs
  
• Singin' In The Rain
  
• The Sixth Sense
  
• Slap Shot
  
• Sleeper
  
• Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs
  
• A Soldier's Story
  
• Some Like It Hot
  
• Something Wild
  
• Sophie's Choice
  
• The Sound Of Music
  
• Spartacus
  
• Spirited Away
  
• Stagecoach
  
• Stalag 17
  
• Stand By Me
  
• Star Wars IV: A New Hope
  
• The Sting
  
• A Streetcar Named Desire
  
• Stripes
  
• Sullivan's Travels
  
• Sunset Boulevard
  
• Superman: The Movie
  
• Sweet Smell Of Success
  
• The Taking Of Pelham 123
  
• Taxi Driver
  
• The Ten Commandments
  
• The Terminator
  
• Terms Of Endearment
  
• The Third Man
  
• This Is Spinal Tap
  
• Titanic
  
• To Kill A Mockingbird
  
• Tootsie
  
• Toy Story
  
• Trading Places
  
• The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre
  
• 12 Angry Men
  
• 2001: A Space Odyssey
  
• The Usual Suspects
  
• The Verdict
  
• Vertigo
  
• Vision Quest
  
• The Wages Of Fear
  
• Waiting For Guffman
  
• WALL-E
  
• West Side Story
  
• When Harry Met Sally
  
• White Heat
  
• Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?
  
• The Wild Bunch
  
• Wild Strawberries
  
• Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory
  
• The Wizard Of Oz
  
• Wonder Boys
  
• Working Girl
  
• Wuthering Heights
  
• Yankee Doodle Dandy
  
• Young Frankenstein
  
• Zorba The Greek

(The list includes several remakes: Cecil B de Mille's sound version of The Ten Commandments, the James Cameron version of Titanic, the James Whale version of Frankenstein, and the John Huston version of The Maltese Falcon. Psycho, on the other hand, is the original version. Also, Some Like It Hot is the 1959 comic masterpiece, not the obscure 1939 comedy.)

Moment

Moment, at Emporium, Bangkok, is an exhibition of designer Illy cups. The collection includes six cappuccino cups and saucers designed by director Pedro Almodovar, each inspired by a different Almodovar film (Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown, Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, High Heels, The Flower Of My Secret, Bad Education, and Volver). Moment opened today and will close on 11th August.

Cabaret Balkan

DK Filmhouse in Bangkok has organised a season of rare Yugoslav films, Cabaret Balkan, which will take place over the next two months at Thammasat University. The season includes two films by Aleksandar Petrovic - Three and I Even Met Happy Gypsies - screening on 22nd August; and Zivojin Pavlovic's When I Am Dead & Gone, screening on 5th September. Petrovic and Pavlovic were (with Dusan Makavejev) the leaders of Yugoslavian cinema's Black Wave movement in the 1960s. All of the season's screenings are free.

Inception (IMAX DMR)

In the 70mm IMAX DMR version of Inception, small visual details such as DiCaprio's wedding ring and his children's clothes are easier to identify, thanks to the large screen size and enhanced image resolution. During the first viewing, the various dreams-within-dreams were overwhelming, though the second viewing provided some clarification. The film's ending remains satisfying in its ambiguity. Unlike The Dark Knight, which was partially filmed in IMAX, Inception was retrofitted; it retains its widescreen format, preserving Nolan's framing though not utilising the IMAX screen's full height.