Electric Sheep podcast: Zipangu festival and the films of Tetsuaki Matsue

In the first Electric Sheep Podcast of 2011, Alex Fitch presents a Q and A conducted by Jasper Sharp with director Tetsuaki Matsue recorded at the Zipangu festival at London University School of Oriental and African Studies, November 2010. Jasper and Tetsuaki discuss the director’s work in independent documentary cinema, focussing on his two most recent films – Annyong Yumika (2009), a documentary portrait of the adult performer Yumika Hayashi following the discovery after her death of an obscure low-budget Korean oddity in which she starred, Junko the Tokyo Housewife, and Live Tape (2009), the one guitar, one camera, one tape and one take live concert film of Kenta Maeno’s street performance that won the 2009 ‘Japanese Eyes’ Best Picture Award at Tokyo International Film Festival.

More for more information and a variety of formats you can stream / download, please visit the home of this podcast at www.archive.org

In association with

Links: Zipangu Festival website +
pages on Tetsuaki Matsue, Annyong Yumika and Live Tape
SOAS (London University School of Oriental and African Studies) website

The latest issue of Electric Sheep Magazine is now online, and is concerned with Fallen women, sour love and toxic memories …
Dreamy Belgian neo-giallo Amer leads us to ponder cinematic bitterness with articles on Mizoguchi’s Street of Shame and Michael Haneke’s anatomy of hatred.

In cinemas, we review the extravagant ballet melodrama Black Swan and you can read our interview with director Darren Aronofsky while John Carpenter perfects his B-movie recipe with The Ward .

New DVDs include beautifully packaged editions of Dario Argento’s Deep Red and Mario Bava’s A Bay of Blood, just so we can revisit the films that inspired Amer and we have a Comic Strip Review of Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Francesca Cassavetti.
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I’m ready for my close-up: Hammer and Tongs and a Town called Panic

Alex Fitch talks to film-makers Garth Jennings and Nick Goldsmith (a.k.a. Hammer and Tongs) about their promotion of the new Belgian feature length animation A Town called Panic which shows stop frame animated toys going on a wild adventure that involves mermen, mad scientists and a giant robot penguin. Alex also talks to Garth and Nick about the aesthetic of their films Son of Rambow and The Hitch-hiker’s guide to the Galaxy and how the demise of the UK Film Council is affecting their work and promotion of European films in the UK.

To download / stream this radio interview in a variety of formats, please visit www.archive.org

Links: Wikipedia pages on Hammer and Tongs and
Watch A Town called Panic shorts and movie trailer
Hammer and Tongs’ website
Listen to Alex’s previous interview with Garth Jennings about Son of Rambow

Recommended events:

Sci-Fi London Oktoberfest

Friday 15th October

Rise of the Machines at The Royal Society, London

THE ROYAL SOCIETY plays host to an unashamedly robotic evening of discussion, demonstrations and drama. Tom Hunter is joined by Tony Ballantyne, author of Twisted Metal and Prof. Dr. Kerstin Dautenhahn, Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the University of Hertfordshire.
Kerstin is a pioneering researcher in robot social learning and imitation whose research interests include Human-Robot Interaction, Social Robotics, Socially Intelligent Agents and Artificial Life. Kerstin and her colleagues will also introduce us to two KASPAR robots (Kinesics and Synchronisation in Personal Assistant Robotics).

Following the discussion: We will be treated to a rehearsed reading of extracts from Karel Capek’s 1921 play R.U.R. (ROSSUM’S UNIVERSAL ROBOTS), which is noted for introducing the term, ‘ROBOT’.
SCI-FI-LONDON has commissioned a modernisation of the work for the 10th annual festival in April 2011. This will be the first public preview of the work-in-progress.
This fabulous evening is in collaboration with the Royal Society’s 350th anniversary celebrations in 2010.

6:30PM The Royal Society, 6-9 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5AG (FREE!)

Technotise: Edit and I

Serbia’s first animated feature film – an eye-popping cyberpunk ride that’s calibrated to knock your socks off. Think GHOST IN THE SHELL meets WALTZ WITH BASHIR.

7:30PM Apollo Piccadilly Cinema, Lower Regent Street

Dougal and the Blue Cat

We are delighted to screen a newly-restored cult classic of a spin-off from the children’s television series, THE MAGIC ROUNDABOUT, but this feature is an altogether darker affair (+ FREE BEER!)

9:30PM Apollo Piccadilly Cinema, Lower Regent Street

Saturday 16th October

Robots

Saturday morning kids screening of the popular CGI cartoon.

10:30AM Apollo Piccadilly Cinema, Lower Regent Street
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Electric Sheep podcast: Masters of Horror

To coincide with the start of a month of horror film releases in the cinema and on DVD in the run up to Halloween, Alex Fitch interviews two veterans of horror cinema, Joe Dante and Tobe Hooper. Alex and Joe talk about the director’s two latest projects, Splatter, starting on the Horror Channel (Sky / Virgin / Freesat) 24/09/10 and continues over the next two Fridays, and his new 3D film currently in UK cinemas The Hole. Also, in an interview recorded at last month’s Frightfest horror festival in London, Alex talks to Tobe Hooper, following a retrospective screening of his first two films Eggshells and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre which depict the end of the summer of love and the loss of America’s innocence in the 1970s; Eggshells received its UK premiere at Frightfest and will be released on Blu-Ray / DVD towards the end of the year.

More for more information and a variety of formats you can stream / download, please visit the home of this podcast at www.archive.org

In association with

Listen to Alex’s previous interview with Joe Dante about his debut film The Movie Orgy / read a partial transcript of the interview, focussing on Splatter at www.electricsheepmagazine.com

Recommended events:

Laydeez do Comics September 2010

The monthly meeting for female comics creators, fans of female comic creators and female comic book fans (men allowed also!)…

Next Meeting: Monday 27 September, 6.30-9.30pm

VENUE: The Rag Factory

Guest Speakers:

Ellen Lindner (Whores of Mensa) / Patrice Aggs (The DFC) / Steve White (I Drink Coffee and Draw Press LTD) / Charlie Bowden from Pickled Ink Illustration Agency, to discuss a call for entries for The Pickled Award for graduate illustrator.

Recommended Read: Mome Vol 19. Summer 2010, the latest edition of Fantagraphics’ twice yearly anthology…

The Rag Factory
16-18 Heneage Street, London E1 5LJ

www.ragfactory.org.uk
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Electric Sheep podcast – Eli Roth: filming The Last Exorcism

Alex Fitch interviews producer Eli Roth and director Daniel Stamm about the new ‘mockumentary’ horror film The Last Exorcism which is in UK cinemas now and tells a tale of possession, cattle mutilation and murder in a small rural community. Daniel and Alex talk about how using a documentary style to make supernatural movies helps break the fourth wall for the audience to help draw them into events, while Eli talks about how his experience of producing his own movies Cabin Fever and Hostel differs from his more advisory role on this film.

More for more information and a variety of formats you can stream / download, please visit the home of this podcast at www.archive.org

Links: Official The Last Exorcism website
Wikipedia pages on The Last Exorcism and Eli Roth
Interview with Daniel Stamm
Read Alex Fitch’s review of The Last Exorcism at shinyshelf.com

In association with

Electric Sheep podcast: The films of Vincenzo Natali

Partially broadcast 23/07/10 as part of an episode of I’m ready for my close-up on Resonance 104.4 FM

To coincide with the release of the new Sci-Fi thriller Splice, in which scientists Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley create a dangerous half human hybrid via genetic manipulation, Alex Fitch talks to director Vincenzo Natali about the film and the other three movies he’s collaborated on with actor David Hewlett: Cypher, Nothing , the cult classic Cube and his forthcoming adaptation of William Gibson’s novel Neuromancer…

More for more information and a variety of formats you can stream / download, please visit the home of this podcast at www.archive.org

Links: Wikipedia pages on Splice, Vincenzo Natali and David Hewlett
Official Splice website
Splice trailers at apple.com

Read Alex’s reviews of Splice and Cube

Listen to Alex’s interview with David Hewlett about working with Vincenzo Natali

Electric Sheep podcast: The Polish New Wave?

On the Silver Globe, an esoteric Polish sci-fi epic directed by Andrzej Zulawski in 1977 – then lost and believed destroyed by the authorities for a decade before its cinema release – was screened at Tate Modern last year as part of a mini-season of films titled ‘Polish New Wave – The History of a Phenomenon that Never Existed’. Looking ahead to the release of this film on DVD in the UK, Alex Fitch talks to Andrzej Zulawski about his struggles in getting the film released and the travails involved in making his horror films The Third Part of the Night (1971) and Possession (1981) under the eyes of a communist regime.
Alex Fitch also talks to Polish poster designer Andrzej Klimowski and his wife Danusia Schejbal (famously depicted as the victim of an assassin’s bullet on Klimowski’s poster for Robert Altman’s Nashville) about working on the fringes of Polish filmmaking in the late 1970s and whether the films of the time could be seen as belonging to an artistic movement. (N.B./ Shorter edits of the two interviews were broadcast in an episode of I’m ready for my close-up on Resonance FM, 11/06/10)

More for more information and a variety of formats you can stream / download, please visit the home of this podcast at www.archive.org

Links: Andrzej Klimowski and / Danusia Schejbal‘s websites
Andrzej’s pages at www.polishposter.com and The Royal College of Art
Theatre design by Danusia: A Chaste Maid in Cheapside and A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Listen to Alex’s previous interviews with Andrzej
Info on Polish posters at Cinéphilia West

Info on ‘The Polish New Wave’ at Tate Modern including On the Silver Globe
Buy The Third Part of the Night from Second Run DVD