Join us every week for a trip into the weird and wonderful world of trailers. Whether it’s the first teaser for the latest installment in your favourite franchise, an obscure preview for a strange indie darling, whether it’s good, bad, ugly or just plain weird – your favourite pop culture baristas are there to tell you what they think.
The Rear-View Mirror: 1900
After more than two years, we’ve finally ended up in the year 1900. Our bumpy ride is nearing its end. What will the Rear-View Mirror present us with when we look at it this week?
As you will soon see, this is a special instalment of the Rear-View Mirror. And to celebrate that big, scary, exciting number, we’ve asked several of our contributors to write about 1900. You’ll find the results below the “Read More” button, but let me already whet your appetite: coming your way are World Fairs and films with actual, honest-to-god sound, ocean pianists and historical epics, maps of Europe and Swiss musicians and actors. So, curtains up! and enjoy our trip back to 1900!
The Corona Diaries: lock ’em up – but give them a camera first!
During the weeks and months of quasi-lockdown and working from home, one of the things that I’ve very much enjoyed (and I’m aware of how privileged I am in that regard) is lunch breaks with my wife, where we sit down, have a bite and watch something short. For a while, we mainly watched the TV adaptation of Sally Rooney’s novel Normal People, as its 20-minute episodes were perfect for a quick break before we’d go back to our computers and resume work.
I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Cowboys, band boys, real boys – and one really angry girl
Join us every week for a trip into the weird and wonderful world of trailers. Whether it’s the first teaser for the latest installment in your favourite franchise, an obscure preview for a strange indie darling, whether it’s good, bad, ugly or just plain weird – your favourite pop culture baristas are there to tell you what they think.
The Rear-View Mirror: Mildred Harris (1901)
Each Friday we travel back in time, one year at a time, for a look at some of the cultural goodies that may appear closer than they really are in The Rear-View Mirror. Join us on our weekly journey into the past!
“You can’t use my name in your pictures!”, said Charlie Chaplin and charged.
At the Alexandria Hotel, on the 7th of April 1920, Louis B. Mayer stuck out his fist just in time for an irate Charlie Chaplin to barrel into it. Chaplin had ordered Mayer to take off his glasses to aim a punch: both men fell, and had to be escorted out. The reason for this kerfuffle, meanwhile, was 800 miles away, dancing the foxtrot with the Prince of Wales. The famously belligerent producer had signed one Mildred Harris Chaplin for the sum of 50.000 dollars a picture, plus a percentage, to be able to use the Chaplin name.
Continue readingThe Corona Diaries: When the pictures got big again
For some cinema lovers it seems that Christopher Nolan’s Tenet is something of a beacon in these times of pandemic, a multi-million-dollar signpost saying “Blockbuster cinema isn’t dead!” Would it have been a proper summer without big explosions, loud Hans Zimmer-adjacent BRAAAAP!s and overpriced ice cream?
I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Apples from Greece, hate from Paris, music from nomads
Join us every week for a trip into the weird and wonderful world of trailers. Whether it’s the first teaser for the latest installment in your favourite franchise, an obscure preview for a strange indie darling, whether it’s good, bad, ugly or just plain weird – your favourite pop culture baristas are there to tell you what they think.
The Rear-View Mirror: Le Voyage dans la Lune (1902)
Each Friday we travel back in time, one year at a time, for a look at some of the cultural goodies that may appear closer than they really are in The Rear-View Mirror. Join us on our weekly journey into the past!
There’s an apocryphal tale told about the very earliest days of cinema. In this anecdote, a film is shown where a large steam train puffs its way towards the camera. The audience, so the story goes, panicked and started to race out the cinema. I’ve heard this story a lot, and its always told with the angle that we should laugh at the naïve early cinema audience. A crowd, as this story implies, were so ignorant of the new technology that they genuinely thought they were about to be run down by a non-existent train. Such illiterate fools!
Continue readingThe Compleat Ingmar #16: The Passion of Anna (1969)
Okay, he’s pulled it off: I’ve finally got to a film on my Bergman odyssey that has left me entirely non-plussed: The Passion of Anna. Obviously there are elements here that I recognise and that I have an idea what to do with: we have the old Bergman staples, shame, despair, marital unhappiness, infidelity, as well as the stock characters, male cynics who only see senselessness and react with an aloofness that makes you want to slap them, women who in turn cling on to a belief in something real and pure in the face of shallow existentialism under the guise of worldly intellectualism. The faces, too, are very familiar – Max von Sydow, Liv Ullmann, Bibi Andersson, Erland Josephson – as is even the landscape, Bergman’s beloved island of Fårö.
I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: It don’t like sand. It gets everywhere.
Join us every week for a trip into the weird and wonderful world of trailers. Whether it’s the first teaser for the latest installment in your favourite franchise, an obscure preview for a strange indie darling, whether it’s good, bad, ugly or just plain weird – your favourite pop culture baristas are there to tell you what they think.
