Issue 81

Little White Lies

Truth and Movies

Little White Lies6 min read
Judy
Directed by RUPERT GOOLD Starring RENÉE ZELLWEGER, JESSIE BUCKLEY, RUFUS SEWELL Released 4 OCTOBER Hollywood isn’t a real place. It’s a mirage. A land of make-believe that exists beyond the clouds. Movies are frivolous entertainments, but they’re als
Little White Lies12 min read
A Star IS REBORN
Film critics have a habit, and not an especially good one, of describing biographical performances as a kind of magic trick, a vanishing act. We marvel at the “transformative” process that turns one famous person, for two hours or so, into another. W
Little White Lies5 min read
THE STORY OF A SCENE In Five Steps
When he’s not making movies, Rupert Goold works as the artistic director of London’s Almeida Theatre. Here he explains how his knowledge of both stage and screen performance informed a key scene in his latest film, Judy the electrifying moment when R
Little White Lies6 min read
What Price Hollywood?
Choose one film to represent the essence of golden-age Hollywood, and George Cukor’s A Star Is Born could well be a contender. There’s the glamour of starpacked, floodlit premieres. There’s the sheer punch of Judy Garland’s own pedal-to-the-floor per
Little White Lies5 min read
Andy Loves Judy
It should come as no surprise that Andy Warhol, the great 20th-century chronicler of celebrity and consumerist iconography, grew up obsessed with Hollywood lore. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1928, he came of age in an era of spiralling commerc
Little White Lies3 min read
THE WORLD OF Judy
Please enjoy this short survey of Judy Garland’s lesser-known films works, which hopefully fleshes out the iconic persona she developed on the back of a small clutch of all-time classics. We’ve skipped The Wizard of Oz, and A Star Is Born is covered
Little White Lies4 min read
The PHOTOPLAYERS
Hollywood during the studio era had an ironclad grip on the public image of its contracted players. Rumour held that if you were a star, you called the MGM publicity head before you called the police, the hospital or your lawyer. It took a phalanx of
Little White Lies2 min read
JG Five BIOGS
The first Garland biography published after her death is also one of the trashiest. Brad Steiger wrote over 100 books on topics ranging from celebrities to UFOs. Judy Garland is not an academic attempt to unpack the star’s legacy, but rather a quicki
Little White Lies2 min read
JG Five RECORDS
A year after A Star Is Born temporarily revived her movie career, Garland released her first studio album via Capitol Records. It comprised the journey of her life thus far in song, and it includes the career-defining ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow,’ fa
Little White Lies9 min read
LINDSAY Lohan IN 9 ACTS
It takes 40 seconds for it to become apparent that, even at 10 years old, the girl is special. In her screen test, she is playing one twin – Anne, who is English – and almost-convincingly playing another – Hallie, who was raised in California – and a
Little White Lies3 min read
Threads
In the words of longtime Paramount costume designer Edith Head, “Some people need sequins. Others don’t.” As is often the case with sweeping declamations from fashionistas, the statement doesn’t hold up to close scrutiny. Is Head, who deployed sequin
Little White Lies4 min read
Sienna Miller
“I have to spend so much energy trying to make smaller roles impactful, memorable, or not cuttable,” Sienna Miller explains. And so she has. Though many might remember her as the girl who catches Daniel Craig’s eye in 2004’s Brit gangster runaround,
Little White Lies3 min read
American Woman
Directed by JAKE SCOTT Starring SIENNA MILLER CHRISTINA HENDRICKS SKY FERREIRA Released 11 OCTOBER This an intriguing and strange film, one which uses a simple narrative bait-and-switch technique to consistently confound expectation. It lures and lur
Little White Lies3 min read
Her Smell
Directed by ALEX ROSS PERRY Starring ELISABETH MOSS AGYNESS DEYN DAN STEVENS Released 9 SEPTEMBER In the past year alone the likes of A Star Is Born, Vox Lux and Wild Rose have all grappled with the subject of young female musicians who struggle with
Little White Lies3 min read
Honeyland
Directed by TAMARA KOTEVSKA, LJUBOMIR STEFANOV Starring HATIDZE MURATOVA NAZIFE MURATOVA HUSSEIN SAM Released 13 SEPTEMBER Besides the swarm of memes riffing on the 2007 DreamWorks animation Bee Movie, starring Jerry Seinfeld as a bee, our relationsh
Little White Lies3 min read
By The Grace Of God
Directed by FRANÇOIS OZON Starring MELVIL POUPAUD DENIS MÉNOCHET SWANN ARLAUD Released 25 OCTOBER François Ozon’s career has zig-zagged in so many different directions it’s impossible to anticipate what kind of movie we’re going to get each time this
Little White Lies2 min read
Hotel Mumbai
Directed by ANTHONY MARAS Starring DEV PATEL ARMIE HAMMER NAZANIN BONIADI Released 27 SEPTEMBER This horrendous restaging of the Mumbai terrorist attacks doesn’t so much as take a leaf out of the Paul Greengrass playbook as rip out every page and shr
Little White Lies3 min read
La Flor
Directed by MARIANO LLINÁS Starring ELISA CARRICAJO VALERIA CORREA PILAR GAMBOA Released 13 SEPTEMBER Any conversational mention of Argentinian filmmaker Mariano Llinás’ second narrative feature on the festival circuit over the last 12 months will ha
Little White Lies3 min read
Mariano Llinás
The sprawling, 13.5-hour La Flor collects six movies – a supernatural suspense story, an espionage thriller, an experimental Jean Renoir remake – and organises them into unified cohesion through one man’s self-assured vision, enacted by a quartet of
Little White Lies3 min read
After the Wedding
Directed by BART FREUNDLICH Starring JULIANNE MOORE MICHELLE WILLIAMS BILLY CRUDUP Released 1 NOVEMBER As it twists its way through much cloying melodrama, Bart Freundlich’s After the Wedding feels more like an above-average episode of Grey’s Anatomy
Little White Lies2 min read
The Day Shall Come
Directed by CHRISTOPHER MORRIS Starring MARCHÁNT DAVIS ANNA KENDRICK DANIELLE BROOKS Released 11 OCTOBER When Chris Morris unveiled his incendiary debut feature Four Lions in 2010, the British news media were predictably split. “Fury of 7/7 relatives
Little White Lies4 min read
John Waters
John Waters hasn’t made a new feature since 2004’s A Dirty Shame, yet the cult status of his film work only grows with the passing of time, especially the early, notorious, shoe-string budget ones (Polyester, Pink Flamingos, Female Trouble) made with
Little White Lies3 min read
The Beach Bum
Directed by HARMONY KORINE Starring MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY SNOOP DOGG ISLA FISHER Released OCTOBER Where does one go as an artist after shooting a film about sociopathic geriatrics, or birthing the image of a cornrow-sporting James Franco fellating a pi
Little White Lies2 min read
The Peanut Butter Falcon
Directed by TYLER NILSON, MIKE SCHWARTZ Starring SHIA LABEOUF, DAKOTA JOHNSON, ZACK GOTTSAGEN Released 18 OCTOBER In June 2018 critic David Ehrlich coined the term “nicecore” to describe a recent spate of films that prized kindness over conflict. He
Little White Lies2 min read
Good Posture
Directed by DOLLY WELLS Starring EMILY MORTIMER, NAT WOLFF, GRACE VAN PATTEN Released 4 OCTOBER If we are to believe that all good art comes from suffering, it seems that the characters in Dolly Wells’ well-intentioned but half-baked directorial debu
Little White Lies2 min read
Phoenix
Directed by CAMILLA STRØM HENRIKSEN Starring YLVA BJØRKAAS THEDIN, MARIA BONNEVIE, SVERRIR GUDNASON Released 13 SEPTEMBER This is a film which blends kitchen sink drama with magical realism to explore the responsibilities a child must assume when neg
Little White Lies2 min read
Chained for Life
Directed by AARON SCHIMBERG Starring JESS WEIXLER, ADAM PEARSON, STEPHEN PLUNKETT Released 25 OCTOBER A lengthy Pauline Kael quote about the good looks of actors benefitting cinema precedes Aaron Schimberg’s Chained for Life. Its opening shot, of a y
Little White Lies2 min read
The Last Tree
Directed by SHOLA AMOO Starring SAM ADEWUNMI, NICHOLAS PINNOCK, GBEMISOLA IKUMELO Released 27 SEPTEMBER The concept of being uprooted – be it literally or metaphorically – lies at the heart of Shola Amoo’s The Last Tree. Femi, an 11-year-old British-
Little White Lies2 min read
For Sama
Directed by WAAD AL-KATEAB, EDWARD WATTS Starring WAAD AL-KATEAB, SAMA AL-KATEAB, HAMZA AL-KATEAB Released 13 SEPTEMBER There are some filmmakers who believe that the camera does not possess the capacity to amply capture the true horrors of war. The
Little White Lies3 min read
Waad Al-Kateab
At the end of my interview with filmmaker and activist Waad Al-Kateab, she asks me not to refer to the conflict in Syria as a civil war, as that would infer that it’s two sides fighting equally. Her must-see feature For Sama is a portrait of life at
Little White Lies2 min read
The Farewell
Directed by LULU WANG Starring AWKWAFINA TZI MA DIANA LIN Released 20 SEPTEMBER At 90 years old, my Filipino grandmother’s eyesight has gone bad. Her hearing is even worse. Though she may see her 25-year-old granddaughter in front of her, she hears m
Little White Lies2 min read
The Last Black Man in San Francisco
Directed by JOE TALBOT Starring JIMMIE FAILS JONATHAN MAJORS DANNY GLOVER Released 25 OCTOBER Based on the real life experiences of San Francisco native Jimmy Fails – who plays a version of himself in the film – Joe Talbot’s Sundance sensation, The L
Little White Lies3 min read
What You Gonna Do When the World’s on Fire?
Directed by ROBERTO MINERVINI Released 18 OCTOBER In his latest non-fiction film, Italian-born director Roberto Minervini explores the socio-political make up of the American south where he has been resident for over a decade. Unlike his previous fil
Little White Lies3 min read
Non-Fiction
Directed by OLIVIER ASSAYAS Starring VINCENT MACAIGNE GUILLAUME CANET JULIETTE BINOCHE Released 18 OCTOBER Way, way back in 1996, French director Olivier Assayas made a film about the film industry called Irma Vep. It might be best described as a sin
Little White Lies4 min read
Olivier Assayas
Non-Fiction is a comic broadside aimed at the world of modern literary publishing, written and directed by the always-interesting and provocative French filmmaker Olivier Assayas. Though it may seem a little lighter than recent works like 2014’s Clou
Little White Lies3 min read
The Koker Trilogy
Directed by ABBAS KIAROSTAMI Starring BABEK AHMED POOR BUBA BAYOUR HOSSEIN REZAI Released 23 SEPT Blu-ray If the task of writing about great art is, by definition, an act of reduction, we might as well start small. Abbas Kiarostami’s first decade of
Little White Lies2 min read
They Made Me a Fugitive
Directed by ALBERTO CAVALCANTI Starring SALLY GRAY TREVOR HOWARD GRIFFITH JONES Released 23 SEPT Blu-ray The career of Brazilian-born film director Alberto Cavalcanti (who tended to be credited mononymously as “Cavalcanti”) is by and large unquantifi
Little White Lies2 min read
The Ear
Directed by KAREL KACHYNA Starring JIRINA BOHDALOVÁ RADOSLAV BRZOBOHATÝ GUSTAV OPOCENSKÝ OUT NOW Blu-ray If there’s one thing we’ve learned that the communist party really don’t care for, it’s public attacks on its, ahem, intricate style of governmen
Little White Lies2 min read
The Major And The Minor
Directed by BILLY WILDER Starring GINGER ROGERS RAY MILLAND RITA JOHNSON Released 23 SEPT Blu-ray On the word of historian Otto Friedrich, Billy Wilder got his first Hollywood gig in 1934, as a salaried writer for Columbia, on the recommendation of d
Little White Lies2 min read
A London Film Festival preview
It’s that time of the year again – as summer turns into autumn, the cinemas of London dust themselves down and roll out the red carpet to welcome some of the biggest names in film as part of the BFI London Film Festival. Now in its 63rd year, it brin
Little White Lies3 min read
A Postcard From The Locarno Film Festival
Belonging to a film community and travelling the world via festivals is a curious ticket. You both get around and stay within a bubble. Earlier this year film critics Matthew Turner and Ben Nicholson created a zine called Sojourns. The brief to the 1
Little White Lies2 min read
Hussy
Directed by MATTHEW CHAPMAN Starring HELEN MIRREN JOHN SHEA PAUL ANGELIS Released 23 SEPT Blu-ray There’s a sub genre of films that came from the late 1970s and early 1980s that doesn’t really have an overarching name, but for the purposes of this re
Little White Lies2 min read
Thank You, Darling.
Pierre Mornet (cover) is a Parisien illustrator with a poetic, sensual and dreamy style who paints mystic and graceful feminine caracters. Mixing melancholic and surrealistic elements. The author Joyce Carol Oates would talk about her art as, “Think

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